Most rulers have advisors and staff, I'm pretty sure that idea isn't inherently terrible...

Well, that's what we are. We're just falling down a little on the job.

So I think standard procedure would have been asking me before even telling Finwë what I'd need to do the best possible job and then I could have told you that the light is making it hard to read and that the process wouldn't be risk-free and the confidentiality thing and then you could have presented all that to him without, uh, being terrified of phrasing it wrong.

Noted. We'll do that in the future, and I'm sorry for putting you in such an uncomfortable position.

It's okay.

What's standard procedure if he's not being supportive of his son in the way the kid obviously needs?

Um, there's not really a good procedure for that except 'hope he hires a competent nanny who fills in'.

I was worried about that. Ah well.

The procedures are designed to help the monarchs with governance, not with their personal lives, which is kind of short-sighted since their personal lives turn into future governance. I think it has to do with how willing most of them are to accept feedback on their parenting versus delegate parts of their work.

Well, Finwë will ideally rule us forever. I'm not worried that Fëanáro isn't being raised to be an unwise King, I'm worried that he's an unhappy child.

Yeah, it's not as institutional a problem, but apparently Finwë still doesn't very much want to accept feedback on his parenting...?

He doesn't mind hearing it, it just hurts him and doesn't seem to change things.

What sort of definition of 'doesn't mind' are you using for a thing that he doesn't like and doesn't use?

He hears you out, discusses the question, thanks you - while looking thoroughly miserable, but it's courteous misery - and then tries but not in a way that fixes things.

What things has he tried?

Giving Fëanáro more space, keeping closer to him, letting him visit his mother alone, not letting him visit her at all, talking with him, letting him be silent for months on end...

...well, those sound like vaguely reasonable experiments to try, although it must be terribly confusing to be Fëanáro when the rules suddenly change.

Bella giggles, and reads.

Lórien is not too far off at this point.

Bella skates through the last chapter (Drug And Alcohol Interactions, subtitle Unreliable For Nonhuman Subjects) and has the book skimmed by the time they get there.

Up close, the trees of Lórien are tall, straight, and very healthy-looking, growing perhaps a little closer together than such trees ordinarily would. The path beneath them is shady and dappled with shafts of silver light. The place does have a soothing air to it.

Shade! Praise be!

There are animals, too. Mostly cuddly ones. Rabbits. Fawns. Birds with nests.

Awww. Bella is on a horse so she doesn't approach anything to see if it runs away, but she watches them and awwws.