Yeah, it's not, like, surprising that he's so much better than her.

"You been down south?"

"Once. Only to the city, though."

"What for?"

"Marille had been corresponding with someone there and wanted to meet them for something. I didn't have anything better to do so I tagged along."

"What'd you think?"

"It was way better than Tirion!"

"It really is, I wish I could get my family to move."

"Unfortunately Tirion continues to have a higher concentration of smart people, even if it's worse In every other way."

"Wouldn't continue having that if my family moved."

"True. Wouldn't solve your oldest brother's attachment, though."

"True. He'd try taking everyone along with him and that'd rather defeat the point."

"The poor Southerners don't deserve that."

"They really don't. It'd mess up everything."

"Alas. We'll just have to find some other solution."

"I mean, I have it basically solved, I just don't visit much. They live."

"Yeah."

"You manage there."

"Yeah. People being terrible mostly doesn't get--intrusive--on a regular basis, and Marille would be miserable if she had to leave--learning things is really, really valuable to her--and I'd be miserable if I had to leave her in the long term. So I manage."

"What'd you be doing if more of her work was portable?"

"Probably move south and see if I can actually find something I want to spend enough time on to get really good at instead of just okay."

"Makes sense."

"Dunno which part would be nicer. Tirion wouldn't be so bad if only I were good at something."

"Yeah, I felt that way a lot when I was younger."

"I'm glad you found something. Even if it's not a very Tirion-helpful thing."