He flips the wagon back over and starts reloading its contents; they're very heavy, and he lifts them effortlessly. "....yes?"

"If I were a King I might worry that if too many people wandered around my palace they'd scuff things or break them or wear them down."

"Well, if it's crowded, probably you'd want to come back at a different time, but I don't think it usually is."

Mhalir is, again, kind of amazed by Carissa's ability to pick the arguments and examples that will land best with this incredibly bizarre people.

<I think we should show up there> he tells her. <They are not exactly likely to hurt us, are they, given...everything we know about this species...> 

It seems possible, even plausible, that the makers of this species didn't want its rulers to be like this even if they wanted its merchants and road-layers like this. If there's no magic on the scanners I'm willing to chance it, she thinks at him. 

"I guess lots of people wouldn't need to go personally with their queries, since they could direct them to the King's secretaries the normal way."

"Yes, I think people mostly go personally when they want to see the building, or if they have a gift or expect to receive one or something."

<...You could ask about gift-giving practices here> Mhalir suggests. <I - cannot tell if the implication is that sometimes the King will give gifts to random Elves or something.> 

He's now kind of impatient to move on, but probably Carissa can manage to learn more from this particular local. 

They are probably almost done with the wagon repair at which point they'll be walking in the right direction. "Well, I hope it's not presumptuous, to go without a gift for the King, but I haven't got anything nice enough."

"I would say it's more presumptuous to give a gift to the King, if you aren't entirely sure it's nice enough!" He finishes putting his things on his wagon, thinking that it's rude of her not to have offered to help, and starts towards the city. 

"I've never met a King and haven't the faintest idea how to not be rude to one!"

"Well, I haven't either, but I think the main thing is that there are lots of people who want to talk to him, so you've just got to be mindful of that, and only talk to them about, say, the most important thing that's come up in a thousand years, and then that'll keep his workload manageable."

"You'd think some people would be bad at guessing and make a nuisance of themselves."

"Well, I don't know that that doesn't happen with anyone but I think across the whole population we must have about the right amount of caution or probably he'd say something about it."

"I hear sometimes the orcs change their King, if they're not satisfied or if he loses a dispute with someone else who wants to be King."

He makes a face. "Well, orcs are ...kind of terrible? One shouldn't generalize, but. I think it'd make them both worse at governance and harder to govern, which is not a healthy combination."

"Whereas elves are...good at governance and easy to govern, so we've never been disappointed in a King."

"You could say people were disappointed with Elu, right, after a fashion."

"Right, of course. But those were very unusual circumstances."

"If Círdan wandered off for a thousand years we'd probably have replaced him before he got back, just as a practical matter. Especially if anything had come up in the meantime."

"Was ...Elu... gone a thousand years?"

Mindspeech-motion - "No, no, it was just a couple of centuries, but things were eventful back then, right, so it hurt more, losing him right then. I think if Círdan were gone a couple of centuries that'd be fine."

"It'd probably be all right, but if something eventful did happen, that'd be awfully difficult!"

"Probably someone else would have to handle it and then they'd be the King in a manner of speaking. Or, some people think we should all vote every century for who we want to have as King."

"Do they. Seems rude to the King."

"Well, they'd all vote for him. Just, as a symbolic measure, right, an expression of how power is located in the people. That's how some Dwarves do it. They're debating it to the city, if you wanted to go and listen."