Bella blinks and says, I'm sorry, I don't speak your language yet.

I'm sorry for not guessing that, you do look different. Mahtan. How can I be of assistance?

Rumil thinks you might be able to make me tinted glasses to make it easier to operate outside in the brightness? Picture.

Fascinating. I'll certainly give it a try. Do you know anything about the materials that go into those?

The lenses are glass and the frame is some kind of metal but I don't know what the tinting is.

Glass?

Um... melted sand? Is I think how you get glass?

He looks delighted. We haven't tried that, but I certainly can! We could also use rocks that are not quite opaque, cut very thin. Come, let's get some sand and attempt it!

I've never actually watched glass being made, 'it's probably melted sand' is really all I know, she says, but she steps in anyway.

It's enough to start with, we'll try other things if melted sand doesn't achieve the desired effects. His workshop takes up almost the entire house, and there are bins filled with stones of all different kinds. He kindles a forge, starts working to heat it up, and points out everything to her and names them as he goes.

She doesn't exactly have another appointment, so she watches. It might have to be a certain color of sand or something to get clear glass; it comes in colors besides 'darkened'...

Sand is a very broad word for many different kinds of ground-down rock. I'd expect the composition matters, but I only have a few options on hand so we'll start with those. If that doesn't work I'll ask Aulë for a hint, and to explain how I should have been able to tell what would work. He shovels some sand into several different metal holders and places them into the fire.

I think the kind on beaches is at least the right general sort, that's what I was thinking of when I said sand.

Beaches are rather different from each other. Can you bring me that? He points at a tool.

She fetches it.

"I think if I get this much much hotter and pour it out so it's very thin, it'll be transparent. I also think it'll be too brittle to be useful. Clearly there's another element that helps with that. I think we'll try ten or so, if I'm right and this is too brittle, and then tell Aulë if none of those are notably better."

"Glass is pretty fragile, we don't use it for things that need to be really strong."

"How do I cut it into the shape you showed, then? Sand it down?"

"Maybe? Or pour it into a mold? I'm guessing."

"I'll try both." He flits around his workshop grabbing things.

Bella, only a little overwhelmed instead of completely so the way she has been for the past while, watches with mostly passive interest.

It looks sort of like flatbread...

He tries to accompany his conversation with thought-translations as he goes. "She was trying something that could be eaten one-handed while you worked." That's known to you, Bella?

It's not common in my country but I've heard of it in neighboring ones. You can wrap other food in it.