"Honestly 'mining explosives' and 'combustion engines' to cannons isn't that big a jump, and neither is cannons to guns, and all those happened pretty quickly on their own after the printing press in our world..."

"Maybe if we start them out with good, solid practices for when and how to use them? But unscrupulous people might ignore those anyways..."

"Also we want to go home, right? Which makes - if we're all their oversight, if we decide to enforce not being assholes just by being the most powerful around so no one argues - I don't think we want to be in that position forever, and when we leave stuff might collapse."

"Yeah." Sigh. "Just kind of a hard problem."

"And I don't think I'd trust... Finding a few reasonable people to give all the power to?"

"No, that seems like it would not end well."

"Even if people start out reasonable, they won't stay that way..."

"Yeah. I dunno, Lion."

She sighs. "I like problems I can solve with science more..."

"You and me both."

"The king will probably want to get details from us at some point. I can try talking to him then."

"He's more reasonable than some of the Councillors," she says, shrugging. "...Man, I wish we had sensei here..."

"Yeah, that'd solve a lot of problems."

"We could make her do all the work!"

"I'm sure she'd appreciate that."

She laughs. "She'd probably assign us more homework..."

"Three laps around the mountain and two books on the ethical philosophy of war."

"I feel like ethical philosophy is only fun when you can literally fight the philosophers."

"You think a lot of things are fun when they involve fighting."

"This is probably because fighting's fun!"

Hug.

"Love you, Lion."

Hug! "Love you too, El. Best sister."

So there's a few tweaks to the latest array she'd like Bellona's opinion on...

Bellona: has so many opinions! And really enjoys working with her sister like this...

And, soon enough, King Thorin would like to have a working dinner with them.

Of course. He is the king, after all.

They're there at a reasonable time!

"Thank you for coming to talk to me," he says, once the pleasantries of A Meal are over (dwarven culture being very down on discussing serious business during a meal, or even sans a meal). "I'd like to discuss the matter of war technologies with you two..."