"It's not her fault," he says to Bella's clothes so the words come out squished. "I'm not very likable."

"I like you a whole lot," she murmurs, swiveling back and forth in a sort of rocking motion.

"You used to think I could hurt you."

"Yes, but I was mistaken."

"Would you hate me if you hadn't been mistaken?"

"No. It wouldn't have been your fault. I'd be nervous about hanging out with you until I thought I could trust you not to use your scary powers, but I'm talking to Maiar without freaking out, now, so."

He nods. "That's very brave of you."

"Thank you."

"Let's go label everything in the city."

"That's a lot of things!" she says. "We can start, though." Rúmil, want to come 'label everything in the city'?

Rúmil would love to come label everything in the city. But there's a complication; he's with the King and when he asks leave, the King decides he'd also like to help label everything in the city.

...Bella attempts to gauge Fëanáro's reaction to this.

"Okay," he says nervously.

Squeeze.

And Finwë joins them at the front doors of the palace, and tells Fëanáro how proud of him he is every ten seconds, and everyone falls respectfully silent about them, and King's Square is labelled by a Fëanáro with shaking fingers.

I'm worried I'm going to mess up, or that it's not interesting enough.

I'll be really surprised if you write a letter wrong.

I didn't even think of that, he says miserably.

Oh. Sorry. I don't know what you meant then.

Just - saying something funny or hurting someone's feelings or not being entertaining enough.

Are you not supposed to say funny things?

If I'm being funny on purpose that's fine. If I think I'm serious and everyone thinks I'm funny, that hurts.

Oh. And why do you have to be entertaining?