She describes it.

"Huh, interesting -" he has suggestions on something to read, something to test, something to ask his father -

She writes down reminders to herself as applicable. "Thank you. Is it--usually like this?"

"People work on their own stuff and occasionally look over your shoulder and have ideas? Yeah. If you need something explained to you you can just ask, but if what you're already working on is valuable no one's going to expect you to put it on pause to have a structured education. If he thinks you're wasting your time he'll point you at a better use of it, but if you're already doing something interesting then there's not much to teach."

"Oh. Okay. I wasn't particularly expecting conventional but given that he showed up at my door, said he liked my paper and asked me if I wanted to actually learn something I wasn't really expecting this kind of unconventional. Thank you for clarifying."

"You'll learn lots of things, don't worry."

"I was less worried than confused but thank you for the reassurance."

Nod. He turns back to his work.

Yeah, that's apparently how things work here. It's not exactly optimized for her learning style but real life is rarely optimized for any one person and it's better than what she was doing before the crown prince showed up at her door. She follows suit.

There are, occasionally, twelve-hour long debates on various topics people are working on; they're just not very scheduled.

These are actually really interesting! Marille's really starting to warm up to this system.

If she knows where to look there is usually one of those going on!

Cool. She learns where to look. She doesn't always use the knowledge, but it's nice to have when she wants it.

Family dinners are a particularly reliable source of them. Sometimes the princes who don't spend all their time working or debating even join them.

Marille loses her residual nervousness-around-royalty. It helps that everyone's so--themselves, in their own different ways.

And it's a delightful variety of ways. About the only thing the whole royal house has in common is that all of them are unusual.

It's a good thing to have in common!

They mostly don't seem to recognize it.

Huh. Well, when you grow up around other weird people.

Yep. 

She's there for a week before she sees the oldest.

"Marillë! You all right? I've been trying to talk them into at least making welcome pamphlets."

"I've been managing."

(It should be weird that someone she doesn't really know is addressing her so familiarly even once you get over the royalty thing but he makes it work, somehow.)

"It was confusing, at first, but your brother Curufinwe explained things to my satisfaction and I've been doing fine since."

"When I suggested that they said I should make the welcome pamphlets but I wouldn't even know what to put on them. 'No, he doesn't hate you, and if he hasn't interrupted you it's because he thinks you're doing something interesting'?"

"I asked him if the ignoring was normal and if so what being his apprentice would look like and he said yes and described it. I don't think 'hates me in particular' crossed my mind at all--'thought it would be amusing to play a cruel prank by offering me the apprenticeship in the first place' did but I never assigned the possibility much weight."

"I should warn him that's a possible failure mode."