I have a thing that will teleport me between here and the palace courtyard so Fëanáro can get reading lessons. When he's in a better mood, anyway.

Oh, is he in a bad one? I'm so sorry, you know, he's just very precocious, I'm sure he adores you. She says all of this robotically, as if it's a line she's said a thousand times before. The giggle in the middle seems insincere, too. That's good, though.

He didn't like that I said he could borrow a book and then needed it back. I imagine he'll recover. ...You don't have to pretend things at me. It's probably a bad idea.

For Fëanáro it's the only way I know to relate to conversations about him. I can't know what to feel but I can at least pick out an answer.

I wonder why him in particular. Or are there other subjects that are like that?

Because I don't have good memories with him to compare to and work from. Everything else I can at least remember a little bit what it felt like to me before.

You didn't know me before, either, Bella points out.

I had clever friends who were figuring out how to be happy in Valinor and how to believe they were safe.

Nod. You did generate new emotions about stories from my world...

Yeah. But I can't even do that for my own child. Isn't that horrible?

I'm wishing it were informative, but I'm not sure what it means.

That's pretty obvious. I'm a bad mother.

I meant diagnostically. Being a bad mother does not make people sleep all day. If you don't mind somewhat freer-form mindreading than I've been doing, I could just look around and see if I can find anything; it will probably take an hour or two though.

I don't know if I'm comfortable. Maybe eventually.

Okay, no rush. When you pick out things to say about Fëanáro how do you do that?

Have a lot of friends who had kids, sort of tried to say the most appropriate things.

He's spoilt and stubborn and he thinks everyone hates him. He is bright, but it's his only good quality. If he were a friend's child I'd feel badly for her.

Did generating those comments feel different?

It was much easier. But what horrid, hateful things to say!

I'm pretty sure you'll be able to build back up whatever self-censorship you want after we have the root problem fixed. I'm not going to be fazed, and I'm not going to tell anyone.

I'm not worried for my reputation, I'm worried that my son deserves love and I can't do it.

I think it will be easier for you to develop a healthy relationship with him once your mind's straightened out and the only way I know to do that involves figuring out every related single thing in there, whether it's pretty or not, and making sure it can work together the way it's supposed to.

All right.

So it was easier to come up with things to say about him when you pretended he wasn't your son. Um, this may not have happened here but in my world if someone loses their parents they can be adopted, and their adoptive parents are regarded as their "real" parents, but this doesn't change the history where someone else used to hold that title; what happens if you pretend you adopted him?