It is not the crown prince Curufinwë! It is someone she's never met who says "Oh, right, they mentioned. Workshop's around and on your left, don't interrupt him."

"Don't interrupt him as in don't go in until he's not in the middle of anything or as in go in but don't demand his attention?"

"The latter, he won't even notice you."

"Alright. Thank you, um...?"

"Rátulco. You're - "

"Marillë. It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise. Good skill."

She goes around and to the left.

The Prince Curufinwë is working and ignores her.

Well, she was warned to expect that.

And a good thing, because otherwise she might have felt awkward. Since he keeps on doing it.

She has paper on her, she can work on a tricky problem that had been troubling her while she waits.

When he finishes what he's doing he turns around and says 'what are you working on?'

"Oh, it's--" and then she describes the problem. It is legitimately tricky and interesting.

"Okay. There's a book on that -" he names it - "might help." 

And goes back to his work.

"Thanks."

...Okay then. She will just. Continue to work on the thing, then.

Eventually some people bring food.

That is convenient and she will eat.

About an hour after that he looks at her and says "Oh, I've got it" and describes the answer to the problem.

This is fascinating and has several implications worth pursuing further!

Well, she can't tell him about them, he's back at work.

...She's going to see if she can find anyone to talk to to confirm that this is normal and ask what being apprenticed to him means in practical terms.

There are people around.

"Hi."

"Marillë, right? What are you working on?"

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."

"Well, I didn't assign it low weight because I thought he was a paragon of virtue who would never, I assigned it low weight because all the negative rumors I heard about him suggested that his issues were due to a lack of ability to--navigate people--not an inclination to wield the ability negatively, but while I would love to be able to say that I think most people would consider that when deciding whether or not to give him the benefit of the doubt, yes, you probably should."

"I will write up some pamphlets and tuck them away in the workshop somewhere. Thank you."

"You're welcome.

I do like him, now. But I didn't know much that wasn't--general public knowledge--at the time."

"I promise I wasn't screening for loyalty to my father."

"No? I've known him for less than a month, I'm not sure I'd describe myself as more than superficially loyal yet. I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't giving negative rumors about his lack of social graces undue weight in my opinion of him."

"That I'm glad to hear."

"And the rumors about his genius appear to be entirely accurate."

"I have the same impression!"

"You'd know better than I would."

"Would I? I live up in the city proper and am not working on anything at all sufficiently interesting."

"Well, yes, but you've known not only him but everyone else with an informed opinion multiple orders of magnitude longer than I have."

"I know everybody. I'd say 'it's my job' but that'd be nonsense, it's just fun. But I might be biased when it comes to my father."

"I accepted an apprenticeship from him based on his showing up at my door saying he liked a paper I wrote and did I want to actually learn something. I am not wholly without reason to prefer to think he's brilliant enough to justify doing that."

"Okay, fair. What were you doing before?"

"D'you want the technical detail, or...?"

"I will find it incomprehensible but nod appreciatively."

"I mean, I can summarize in non-technical detail!"

"Then I will find it comprehensible and nod appreciatively!"

She summarizes.

And is rewarded not just with nods but with some followup questions.

Which she can answer!

"Thank you! I understand why my father was fascinated."

"Thanks."

"Do let me know if you need anything, all right?"

"I will."

And the unconventional apprenticeship continues to be productive, if not any more conventional.

Eventually Marille's sister shows up to see how she's doing.

She'll find a workshop partitioned so heated debates don't distract the people working elsewhere.

They have those a lot? Cool. ...Is her sister engaging in one such that she should probably not be bothered right this minute?

Actually yeah.

Good for her. Ahyadacil can loiter around for a while until she's probably done.

It's a pretty house! There's a courtyard, there are kids dangling from the trees, there's an adult sleeping next to the fountain with his giant dog. 

Oh, wow, that dog is giant. Neat. And the guy is pretty.

...She can think of a way to make him prettier. No, she shouldn't do that.

But he's just lying there asleep and looking so cute and tempting and okay she's going to walk carefully over there and balance a vial of glittering powder on his forehead.

She offers her hand for the dog to smell.

She gets sniffed. Suspiciously.

Okay, she has no reason for a strange dog to trust her. She sits down a respectful distance away.

Huan plods over and sniffs her less suspiciously.

Oh, cool. She holds still and lets him do that.

After a minute he seems to get bored and slouch off back to his sleeping person.

Okay, that's fair.

She watches the small children hanging from the tree and waits for her sister to be available (or for sleeping person to wake up and dump glitter all over himself).

The latter happens first! He stands up and blinks and is very very glittery and looks around in confusion and then says to the dog, sounding intensely betrayed, "you could have warned me."

(She makes a token effort to conceal her laughter. It's not really very effective at all.)

He notices her. He glitters at her. "You could also avenge me," he says pointedly to Huan.

"And where is he supposed to get glitter to do that with?"

"Dunno, where'd you get it?"

"Yes, because I'm totally going to give people the secrets to avenging themselves upon me."

"Are you imagining me that easily deterred from vengeance?"

"No, but I don't have to make it easy for you. I am a high-quality vengeance-receiver and I demand effort from those who would avail themselves of my services."

"It seems unwise to suggest that I put more effort into my revenge when you have no idea what form I intend it to take."

"Just remember that the vicious cycle of revenge is an escalatory one and I'll have to top it if you come up with something really good."

"I am sure you'll try."

"I don't recommend underestimating me."

"Wasn't planning on it."

"Wise of you."

"And, sorry, you are -"

"Ahyadacil. Marillë's sister, come to check up on her."

"Might not wanna interrupt her."

"Yes, that would be why I'm out here."

"Ah, okay. You been waiting a while?"

"A little while, yeah."

"Long enough to acquire the glitter, or do you just carry that around waiting for opportunities?"

"I already had it for unrelated reasons."

"What unrelated glitter reasons are there?"

"It was for a friend and the rest is extremely none of your business."

"You kind of dumped your business on my head."

"None of my business either," she says faux-primly.

"Now I'm super tempted to guess though."

She glances at the children to see if they're looking in this direction.

"They're statues. My mom's brilliant, isn't she?"

"...Wow. Yeah."

"So, no sneaky listening ears."

She makes a dumping motion over her head and then a combing motion.

I'm still missing something.

...Combing it into her hair? It's a sex thing.

That is a new sex thing. I have not heard of it. Will your friend be terribly disappointed that you have stolen their sex thing and dumped it on the head of a sleeping prince of the Noldor.

I'm not sure my friend didn't make it up. Anyway, I can get more.

Okay. I suppose it's a way to pass the time. 

He shakes the glitter out of his hair.

Sex or dumping glitter on people?

Both, I suppose. The latter has more interesting potential to annoy my cousins, that's something.

Yeah, I don't recommend using sex to annoy people unless you're interested in a lot of collateral damage.

Might've done that thing but I wasn't trying to annoy the person I was having sex with, does that count?

Trying to annoy someone by having sex with them is a different thing with potential for less collateral damage. And I assumed you weren't going to try that with your cousins.

I did in fact hit on one of my cousins at one point but we were both much younger.

Okay, I was not expecting that. I guess you're only half-cousins, so that's not terrible. Which one?

Don't think I know you well enough to say.

...Okay.

(Accompanying the word is the context: she doesn't know what he means by that and she wants to, it itches at her, but he presumably has a good reason that knowing the meaning would reveal and it isn't actually any of her business so she can shelve the question and the curiosity somewhere in the back of her head and not make it his problem until it goes away.)

They're guys. I don't know if you're an idiot yet.

Oh. Well, she can't swear she's not any kind of idiot, but she is very much not that kind of idiot.

I kissed a girl when I was forty-seven to see if it appealed at all. It didn't, she offers.

Congratulations on not being an idiot. 

It's not actually very hard. I don't even know what's wrong with most people.

Me neither, though I can't pretend I think about it all the time.

Yeah, they don't deserve my mental energy. I mean. I have to have some allowances for tolerating idiots or I'd have no friends besides my sister at all, but, no, when they're being idiots I have better things to do.

I just pretty much make do without friends except my family and Huan.

I have only one sibling and no magic dog.

You poor thing. I highly recommend the magic dog. Important ingredient.

This one seems very happy where he is. Let me know if you find any others.

Huan might be one of a kind. How's your sister doing here, do you know?

Haven't checked in with her in person yet but she's doing fine.

Good.

She was simultaneously flattered and weirded out by your dad's offer.

Oh?

He just showed up at our door! He said he liked her paper did she actually want to learn things! This is weird!

How're you supposed to do it?

Less, mm, spontaneously than that?

Sounds boring.

It seems to work.

For goals that do not include 'don't be boring'.

Maybe it doesn't bore them.

Then they're boring.

People don't need literally every single thing in their life to not be boring in order for them to not be boring overall.

I mean, yeah, but we live in Valinor, most things in their life will be boring by default.

I see your point.

Do you really? I'm kind of being a jerk. To everybody.

I mean, it's not like most people would care whether you personally find them boring.

This is true. It is a wholly mutual distaste.

Good thing you've got a magic dog to substitute for literally the entire rest of society.

And my family. They're pretty great.

I'll take your word for it until I can ask my sister.

Is she boring?

No.

Then she'll like them fine.

I have only your word for that! You seem lovely but I've only known you a few minutes!

Sure, but I'm right.

Lots of people think they're right about things. Most of them are idiots.

True. I'm still right.

I suspect you are! But I will still take my sister's word over yours if it comes down to it.

Yeah, fair.

I endeavor to be fair in all things.

Except glittering people, that one was on me.

It was a terribly unfair glittering. 

I couldn't resist! You were sleeping right there, dead to the world and terribly pretty. How could I pass up a chance to make you even prettier?

I couldn't say. That your sister?

"Marille!"

Pounce. Hug.

Hug. "Hi! It's good to see you."

"Yeah, same. How've the royals been treating you?"

"They're lovely. Not particularly usual, in any way, but that's no downside, really."

She lets go of her sister and turns to the prince. "You are vindicated," she says, mock-seriously.

"Count me not at all surprised." He shakes his glittery head dramatically.

"What's with the sparkle? Ahya, did you--"

"I'm not sorry."

"She's going to be sorry, though."

"Ahya, did you declare war on him?"

"Kinda yeah."

"Oh boy."

"It's okay, I intend to keep the destruction of property to a minimum. It will be a very civil war."

"...Okay."

"Are you skeptical of my ability to minimize property damage or of the wisdom of any course of action where minimizing property damage is relevant?"

"Definitely at least one of those things."

"I don't have to be wise, you know, that's the other side of the family."

"If you're unwise in relation to my sister then it suddenly becomes much more my job to clean up after."

"Oh, are you the sensible one?"

"Given that I haven't dumped glitter on anyone in the last Year I'm going to have to go with yes."

"It wasn't clear to me she makes a habit of it!"

"Well, she doesn't, but there you are, sparkling like crushed mica."

"Maybe it was Huan."

Huan snorts.

"She admitted it."

"She might be protecting Huan. The web of intrigue grows thicker."

"It's so cute how you assume my sister is capable of lying to me."

"No, no, I am assuming you're colluding in deceiving me."

"Oh, well, at that point it's your problem."

"A problem? I think my looks are much improved."

"I agree or I wouldn't have done it."

"Carefully phrased to avoid saying you did do it!"

"I did it. With my opposable thumbs, which Huan doesn't have."

"So perhaps both of you are covering for some third assailant."

"Maybe the statues did it."

"That would explain why you're lying for them - moving statues would be terrifying."

"No, no, I'm lying for the statues because they're adorable. If it was just that they were scary I'd be enlisting your help in fighting them."

"You wouldn't want to shield me from the horror?"

"Then how would you defend yourself?"

"I would be glittered again and again!"

"I concede this sounds like a positive outcome."

"Should I suspect you've been conniving with the statues all along?"

"This is the first time I've ever been here."

"Huh. Well, I'll let you reunite with your sister. Hey, Marillë." And he walks off trailing glitter.

She grins as he watches him go. Then she turns to her sister and the two of them catch up.

It isn't long after Ahyadacil leaves that Marille goes to see Maitimo.

"Hi! How're you doing?"

"Mostly well. 

My sister came to see me at your father's house yesterday and met Tyelcormo."

"They didn't have some kind of stupid fight?"

"She dumped glitter on him and he swore revenge. I think they were flirting."

"And you want a read on whether my brother is likely to break her heart?"

"I want a read on how likely this is to end with them running off to get married in the woods."

"I'm sure he'd be tempted, but I think he'd take - family - more seriously than that."

"Good, because out of everyone I've ever met those two have far and away the least regard for what's socially acceptable."

"That can lend advantages. New perspectives."

"Sure. Ahyadacil is the person I love most in all of Arda. I'm just...concerned...when she essentially declares a flirtatious vengeance war on Tyelcormo."

"Understandably. Would it be a bad choice for her if they ran off and got married?"

"Probably not."

"I will keep that in mind."

"Okay.

I hope things don't escalate too badly."

"That seem likely?"

"Sort of depends on how the vengeance thing goes."

"I can attempt to talk him down if you're terribly worried."

"I don't know as much about his as hers."

"What's she likely to do?"

"Take everything in his room and glue it to the ceiling in the exact same position it was relative to everything else before she got there?"

"Should be an entertaining few months but nothing I'd be inclined to intervene in."

"Alright then."

"Do you need anything?"

"Mostly I just wanted to warn you about potential sibling-related instability."

"Thank you. I shall expect absurdity from Tyelcormo."

"Yeah.

It hadn't even occurred to me to ask before you brought it up but do you think it's likely he'll break her heart?"

"Definitely not on purpose."

"All I can ask, I suppose."

"Should he be worried?"

"Not as long as he's upfront about his feelings, which I'm guessing won't be a problem."

"That it won't."

"So that's fine. Of course, I'm plausibly extrapolating way beyond what I have any right to be confident in..."

"He does in fact flirt with people pretty readily. You know your sister better than I but I am not surprised they get along."

"Yeah. Well, we'll see what happens."

"We will! How are you doing?"

"Very well. Should I take a moment to figure out how to summarize it in non-technical detail?"

"Sure!"

She does this! She is very enthusiastic about her summary. There is excited gesticulation.

He is an attentive audience.

He's good at that. She appreciates it.

Eventually she leaves, trying not to worry too much about their siblings.

All of her clothes go missing one day and turn up with stunningly pretty hot pink lace frills added, three days later, on the clothesline.

...Nice.

She wears the newly-lacy clothes around, and a few days after that his shirts start disappearing and turning up in places Huan's likely to find them embroidered elaborately in multicolored designs with sparkly thread.

This seems like a strict improvement! He plants a bunch of really vibrant fast-growing flower seeds in cobblestone-looking squares of dirt and replaces the ones on her walkway so one day she comes outside to a flower path instead of a stone one.

She picks her way carefully through the flowers and replaces nearly every object in his room with one exactly like it except its chromatic opposite.

She has to have inside help. He corners Marillë.

"Hi?"

"How's your sister been getting into the house unseen?"

"How's she been what?"

He gestures with a magnificently embroidered sleeve.

"I have no idea. Maybe it was the statues."

"Of course it was the statues. I'm trying to figure out who helped them. Who sided with the statues against their own people."

"I wish you the best of luck."

"Couple things from my room I'd like back."

"I'll let her know. What things?"

He lists them.

"Okay, I'll let her know. She doesn't want to actually hurt you."

"She hasn't. I just wanna know who's her inside agent."

"It's not me and I don't know who it is."

"Okay."

"I understand why you would think so, but honestly I'm not yet sure enough this won't end in tears to be willing to get involved. Good skill finding the culprit."

"Thanks." And he goes off to corner his brothers.

And Marille goes off to tell her sister to give his stuff back.

NIce of her! He believes her about not being involved but he can't figure out who was.

Excellent.

The next day every item on the list he gave Marille is back in his room with a brightly-colored ribbon attached to each one.

He considers various methods of laying a trap for the intruder and settles for moving out of the house without telling anyone where he's going. 

And finding her glitter source and covering her whole floor in several inches of it.

She sweeps up the glitter carefully and considers her next move. Without as easy access to his environs she's at a marked disadvantage.

She acquires materials and tries to find him.

That's going to take some doing. He rode with Oromë for nearly a hundred Years.

He has to resurface some time. Presumably. She can wait.

Oh, sure, he'll stroll into the city every few days and pick up miscellaneous things and play with his kid brothers. But then he'll leave, and she can't follow him.

Can she enlist the aid of his kid brothers and/or her secret insider to lead him into a trap on one of these incursions?

Probably. What's the plan?

Overpowering floral scent. And glitter. And bright pigments.

"Sure. This is ridiculous, though."

"That's why I can't get Marille to help."

"And that doesn't inspire you to back down?"

"No, why would it?"

"What'd'you need?"

She explains her ambush plan.

"You know, he's not going to get mad at you, he might actually get mad at me."

"Marille did mention he wanted to know who I had helping me, he thought it was her at first."

"And she's too sensible."

"She is. Anyway, this was never intended to get anyone actually hurt, if you think it'll damage your relationship..."

"It'll probably be fine, I'm just wondering what your endgame is, here."

"That is a very good question."

"Had you not thought about it."

"It's fun! I dunno, it was--I dumped glitter on him, he swore revenge, I said I'd top whatever he did--things just sort of. Happened."

"I'm sure! But - are you just going to keep it up forever? Until something goes wrong?"

"...I don't want something to go wrong because of this. Until one of us does something the other can't top without something going wrong, I guess I thought..."

"Seems like a tiny bit of a hard target to hit just right -"

"Yeah. I dunno, I should think about it."

"I am happy to help you with the ambush but I kind of want to know what the bigger plan is here."

"And the answer to that is 'there kind of isn't one yet' and if you want to put this off until there is I'm fine with that."

"Is one going to appear?"

"It's starting to sound like I ought to figure one out."

"Well, lemme know if you need help."

She goes home and thinks about it.

She starts hanging around her sister's vicinity more often and the next time Tyelcormo shows up she catches him in a non-ambush fashion.

"Hey."

"Hey.

So--this thing we're doing? I like it a lot. It's fun. But, like, it is escalating--that's part of the point--and there's only so much it can do that before someone gets hurt. Speaking of which, sorry for stealing your stuff. That--could very easily have crossed a line, even if it didn't. And I was asking for my informant's help setting up my next revenge and they asked me what the endgame was and I realized I didn't know."

"S'fine, I'm not that attached to my stuff. I didn't have an endgame either."

"We should--probably figure something out, I hate to interject sense into fun but I don't really want to vindicate Marille's worries..."

"What's she worried about?"

"That we'll escalate too far and someone will get hurt by accident."

"Doesn't seem super likely."

"True, but--there's only so much farther we can escalate."

"True."

"And I like you and I would kind of like to interact with you in a less--oppositional--manner than this."

"We can call it a draw."

"Okay. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the stuff I was going to ambush you with."

"And, like, what we're doing instead."

"Yeah. I know you spend a decent fraction of your time running around the countryside with your magic dog hunting things..."

"I do."

"Sounds fun, but maybe not something I want to make a default what with my twin attached to Tirion."

"We could kidnap her?"

"Tempting, but that might fall under 'actual harm'."

"Well, I'll see you when I'm in town, anyway. I do stop by sometimes."

"Yeah. And, you know, I can come along sometimes. Just not all the time."

"You'd want to?"

"I haven't tried it! If I hate it I can just, you know, not do it again, and I like you, and getting away from--well, almost everyone in Tirion who isn't related to one of us, it seems like sometimes--sounds nice."

"Definitely the best part."

"Most people in Tirion are pretty okay over, like, the short term, but. We live here! Because family."

"I don't know why my dad didn't pack up Years ago. Nelyo, maybe."

"Seems plausible. Also I think the linguistics guild might be hard to convince to move?"

"The people he likes would follow him."

"It could just be Maitimo. I don't really know your dad that well, mostly I have secondhand reports from Marille."

"What's she think of him?"

"He deserves his reputation for genius and has poor social skills so you can assume that if he says something hurtful it was probably not intended that way."

"He doesn't have poor social skills it's that most people suck."

"Fair."

"He's fine around people who don't."

"Marille hasn't had any trouble, so I have no evidence against that."

"Good."

"Marille's not a terrible person, she's just--more in the habit of communicating with them on their level?"

"Wasn't accusing her of being one, she seems okay. But I sort of default to expecting bad news."

"Fair enough."

"Why d'you want to travel?"

"Because I like you and I like trying new things and the intersection seems obvious?"

"Okay. Did you have a 'where' in mind?"

"Not really."

"I've been thinking of going down south again, it's pretty there."

"They have dinosaurs there, right? I don't think I've actually seen those."

"Really? What have you been doing with your life, dinosaurs are excellent. I adopted one when I was twenty."