...what, indefinitely? Okay. Thanks!

The static gets less intense. Slightly.

And Kib goes and asks Maitimo first.

"A perfectly calibrated clock," he says, "some examples of currencies for people to get excited over how exotic they are, possibly other exotic things you can give as quite valuable gifts here in Tirion, if you wanted to visit the city you've dreamed about would that be a separate trip?"

"Yeah, it would, it'd take a few days to get there."

"Nothing else comes to mind."

"Going to ask Fëanáro, too, bet he has ideas."

"He definitely will. Ah, your'e supposed to use the titles and fathernames when talking about us, though not when talking to us - I don't care and my father doesn't care, but someone will, and a lot of people won't know who you're talking about,.."

"Oh. Okay. Why?"

"Just custom. No one outside my -" he smiles wearily "-family refers to me as Maitimo, or my father as Fëanáro."

"Okay, so in the third person you're Nelyafinwë and he's - remind me -"

"The High Prince Curufinwë, sometimes people say Finwë Curufinwë which means the same thing."

"Is sprinkling titles everywhere also customary?"

"With my father it's needed to disambiguate because my brother's also named Curufinwë. With me, people usually use 'Prince' if the context in which I was acting or being referred to or being complained about is my formal one - 'Prince Nelyafinwë's tax policy is unreasonable, Nelyafinwë's handwriting is pretty enough for Akibel.'"

Snort. "Why is your brother also named Curufinwë? Seems confusing."

"I'm not likely to have children but if I do I will name them more sensibly."

"Huh, my first impulse is to ask if there's some reason, look at me, assuming having them is default at least around here."

"As you commented the day you arrived, the commitment and process are not for everyone. A good principle is not to have children unless you want them very badly. And are married to someone who also wants them and who you are suited to. And here I am, unmarried and not in any desperate desire for them, though who knows what the ages will bring."

"...It hadn't actually dawned on me that married couples would probably tend to co-parent. Guess that makes sense."

"They are the mother and father of the child, so yes. There's often other family members helping."

"Yeah, it just wasn't naturally obvious that you wouldn't marry one person and then have kids with somebody else who was more interested in having kids than your spouse or whatever."

"Agreement on kids is generally considered an important romantic criterion, around here."

"I guess it would be. There's couples where only one of them wants to deal with apprentices, it can be a source of tension."

He nods. "Anyway I am sorry to have distracted you; I bet my father does have suggestions for things from your world."