"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."

"Hair and blood samples from other humans if you can get them, and from animals, and ideally a few living plants and animals - I want to know if they age in Valinor - can you take an Elda with you and have them try servantmaking in your world?"

"Uh, I guess I could see if they'll send somebody with me, it didn't sound like a technical impossibility. Who should I bring? What kind of plants and animals do you want or doesn't it matter just to find out if they age?"

"I'll go, if you haven't anyone in mind. It shouldn't matter, though we'll have results faster with plants that age faster."

"I'm not actually sure if plants do age in the same way. Plants might just carry on until something kills them. But I can get some houseplants and like a mouse and a rabbit and a songbird?"

"Perfect. And an infant, to get results relating to humans the fastest - it'll take longer to notice you aging - but I am guessing they won't let us take a random infant."

"...I mean, if we can go find one that the storks haven't picked up yet, nobody on my end's going to mind, but they won't let us just walk into a creche and swipe one and it sounds like the Valar are very wary of importing babies. And it could take a while to find one."

"Next visit, then. I think Nerdanel would be annoyed with me anyway; we said we were done at seven."

"Nerdanel's your," oh right he has actual information in spite of not knowing the gender of the name, having this information is weird, "wife?"

"She is! You haven't met her because she's cloistered in her own workshop, I'm sure she'll meet you at First Contact."