Inaaya takes Mordred to the living room.

(They'd rented an apartment, rather than a hotel room; it was more secure and far from the most expensive thing they'd spend money on.)

"Hello," Louise says. "You two have fun?" She's half paying attention, half reading a book in Old English.

Okay. Okay. Louise he knows how to interact with, this is fine. "Hi! And yes."

"That's good. Has Joan handled the murder threats?"

"I handled the murder threats."

"Our little girl is growing up."

It is probably some kind of bad sign that Mordred thinks this is endearing. Zoe would make so many faces about it.

"I am sure Inaaya has it handled," Louise says casually, "but do consider that I speak multiple dead languages and, while I am not confirming or denying anything, Inaaya may very well not be the only person in this house who can kill you with her mind."

"Do consider the wisdom of irritating an antiquarian in this sort of environment."

"I will take that under advisement," he says extremely solemnly.

"Ah, well," Louise says. "Onto more interesting matters. James, there was actually something I was intending to show you."

"Oh?"

"You are interested in constructed languages, as I recall?"

Oh good back to the objectively easiest and best kind of interaction to have. "Yes! Yes I am."

"I was looking through my notes from my dissertation advisor and I found some things that may be of interest to you."

"Let me see if I can find them."

She puts her book aside and goes into another room.

"Oh, she likes you."

Very genuine smile. (Maybe a little nervous but that's probably a reasonable way to feel even if he were in fact a cultist??)

Louise returns with papers! "My dissertation advisor was John Tolkien. He had a great interest in constructed languages, and I have copies of some of his notes."

"The same John Tolkien who wrote A Middle English Vocabulary and translated Gawain and the Green Knight or a different one --"

"Yes! He tutored me in classics. At the time they did not really have enough professors for the girls' colleges, you know."

"Cool."

He is so incredibly sincere about thinking this is the coolest thing he has ever heard. what he would not give to be in the world where he could just be louise's friend think about that LATER and NOT NOW

"A very interesting man. He was trying to write a mythology for England in his spare time. Lots of gnomes. It interested me as well, which is why I have the notes."

The notes are inspired most centrally by Finnish and very concerned with the aesthetics of the language he's making; it is apparently very important to John Tolkien that his language be beautiful.

Inaaya is going to look over Mordred's shoulder.

She does not find constructed languages especially interesting, except insofar as all knowledge is interesting, but his fascination is very good.

Is this a chance to talk about the Best Thing with Inaaya, it seems like it might be, Mordred's experience is mostly with auxlangs rather than conlangs but that means there's a bunch of interesting differences from the constructed languages he's seen before -- particularly the emphasis on beauty rather than ease of use, it makes sense because this is both imitating a natural language and not for a practical purpose but it's still really cool --

It IS a chance to talk about the best thing with Inaaya!

It is really unbearably attractive when Mordred is fascinated about the differences between conlangs and auxlangs and the specific design of this language.

Louise occasionally contributes to the conversation things she remembers from what Tolkien said about his work that didn't make it into her notes.

"You should write him," she says eventually. "I think he has developed his languages more fully in the past, gosh, more than a decade."