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This is Kell again.

Since you were all helpful beyond words (I mean it, seriously. I'm not being sarcastic here) with my previous request, I have one more.

I was able to find a mage who would produce my books, and she won't charge me all of my worldly possessions for it. However, I have encountered two problems.

Problem number one,
I must tell her how many copies I want her to make. Which would be easy to answer if I could just have made as many as fits in the amount of money I have. Thing is, I don't want to spend everything only to end with a box of books sitting under my bed and gathering dust.
I was talking to one of the bookshops, and they asked me how many people I expect to buy it. I had no idea what to tell them. So what do you think?

Problem number two,
I had to take out one of the stories. The reasons behind are quite sensitive and complicated, but I decided not to publish it. Which means I now have four and am one story short of a whole book. Here are the ones that I have:

1. Two werewolves from packs divided by a generational feud try to make things work for them in spite of their families being mortal enemies.

2. A noble lady getting invited to a Fey masquerade ball and meeting a handsome lord in a rose maze who steals her heart. Only that after the ball ends, she still doesn't know who he is and how to find him. She tries nevertheless.

3. A young magical researcher of untold wisdom and beauty, who on one of her research trips gets lost in a dark forest and finds an injured being she thinks to be a minor spirit of nature. The spirit turns out to be an exiled queen of her own realm that fled from her traitorous sister, who gravely injured her.

4. A young prince turned into a frog by a jealous princess who he was supposed to marry but turned down because he did not love her. Saved by a mysterious assassin sent by his own parents, who think their son is dead and the frog-headed monster is terrorizing their country.

Any ideas what should go as the last one? I'm aiming for a consistent theme here, though I'm not sure if I'm getting it through.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Kell.

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I'm not looking down. I'm being realistic.

[He is his own worst critic. Like most geniuses are.]

The whole project started silly. I'm not really sure why I'm still doing it. Part of it is probably spite, but at some point... I kind of started liking the process. I get all those outlandish ideas that I don't really know how to translate into words. It always sounds better in my head that whatever I put on the page and...

[Kell blurts his part explanation, part excuse with furrowed brows and eyes fixed somewhere far in the distance. As if he was talking as much to himself than he does to Elrond. Then he shakes his head, realizing he's probably said too much.]

Sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you this. You just gave me an idea, and here I am being all difficult about it.

And where does reality say you are a poor artist?

[ it is a gentle prodding. ]

It is enough that you treasure the art itself. I too write. Some of it quite awful. But I continue to do so, because it gives me joy. And at times, it can prove to be of use to another.

Experience? That's just not something I do. I never did. It feels weird that now that I started, I cannot stop. And well, I've been told that it could use improvement, so it's only me saying this.

[The difference between 'could use improvement' and 'is utter rubbish' is completely lost on him. He has always been held, and as a consequence he holds himself, to the highest possible standard.]

Just like ... that?

[Elrond can find himself with a pair of mismatched eyes - one blue, one entirely flooded black, iris and white all, like a window to the void - wide open and staring at him in genuine shock. It's at times like this, that it shows how young Kell truly is. Barely over twenty.]

You can just do that? Only because you like it? But to what purpose?

[He's aware of leisure for leisure sake, half of what his brother did could be classified as exactly that. It just never applied to him. That it could is an alien concept.]

Why must it require a purpose?

[ elrond asks softly, his voice like the waves. ]

Is it not enough to exist in this world and desire to put art into it, imperfect as it may be?

Must it not?

[The idea seems alien to him. Things has ends, purposes, he had a purpose from the very start. That how he was taught. For something to be a end unto in itself, it feels... strange. Nice, but strange.]

I... I don't know. I always assumed everything has purpose. I know I had, and art - if you can even call it that - was not it.

[Kell still can't bring himself to call his writing art. He's not an artist, he just ...writes things.]

[ elrond laughs softly, silver bells ringing. ]

You are not wrong. But I would argue that the existence of art itself is a purpose. It can serve kings as much as the poorest beggar to know there is a world where art is allowed to exist.

[Give it to the elves to offer a fresh perspective to one self-absorbed, barely over twenty kid raised in affluence. Also to have most beautiful laughter he's ever heard. Kell has to shake the awe before he's able to respond.]

I ... never thought about it this way.

[And be the person who wants him to write his story. No pressure.

Kell doesn't get to think about it too often, but Wilhelm's roommate always seemed rather out of the word to him. Not in a way they all are. None of the Summoned belongs here. It's different with Elrond. Like there was so much more about him that you cannot see when you look at him.

And he's offering Kell a chance to write something beautiful, without expectation for it to be perfect. Only that it exists, in the service of others. Unqualified as he feels for the task, Kell would feel awful saying no to this.]

Would you tell me more about your story? I don't want to invent something out of thin air completely.

[ elrond smiles, soft as summer rain. it washes away all the sorrows. he thinks his father would do. what his lineage would do, withered at the branch as they were, with elrond the last living shoot. ]

It is a story all elves know. Of a seafaring man named Eärendil. He had lived a life of hardship, chased away from his ancestral home of Gondolin. The day and age he lived was parched, forever trying to chase back the dark. Finally, Eärendil committed himself to the seas. To sail the length and breadth of the seas to secure aid.

[Kell nods. He doesn't interrupt and doesn't ask for clarification at first. It seems obvious to him this Eärendil must have been a prince, and there must have been strife in his homeland if he was chased away, and that family problems where not the only trouble the prince had. There's a sense of bigger danger. The dark Elrond speaks of. To Kell it feels eerily familiar. How is it that there's always some darkness looming over otherwise perfectly fine lands? While not exactly the fall of Black London, the situation does strike a chord.
Kell waits with his questions until the elf has finished.]

Why was he chased away from his home? Was he expecting to find someone in particular across the sea that could help him?

[Other kingdoms perhaps? Sympathetic to his cause.]

[ elrond sighs, the whisper of the wind. ]

No kingdom was stable. All that was good and golden crumbled quickly from the finger of the dark. And the servants of the dark could not abide the line of Eärendil surviving.

[ nor could his kinsmen, sadly. though elrond is well treated and well regarded, beren and luthien upheld in song and deed, he is still a peredhel. like his father and his father's father. a line mixed with the race of men. ]

And he had hoped to find the Valar, beings of great power who kept their distance from the war of Middle-Earth.

[This. Right here.

The words flow like a silver river, evoking images, feeling, sights. The sorrow of the fall. The pain of witnessing good things crushed under the fist of malice.

Kell stares, listening in silence. The tales Elrond weaves is barely few sentences long, and yet somehow it already manages to get through the hope and desperation of the events that transpired. Kell feels his heart sink. What chance does he have competing against such mastery? Thing is, it's not even on his mind right now. Right now, Kell needs to know if the man succeeded. He really hopes he did.]

Did he find them?

[ elrond can't help but smile. ]

He did. After much travel, he steps onto the shores of Valinor. However, this island had barred its entrances to all those who hail from Middle-Earth and they were wroth. They would have flung him away if not for his impassioned plea for the people. Through his stout heart and his sacrifice to forgo his own life, his future and the golden shores of his people, the Valar listened.

And thus, they took to their ships to banish the shadow.

[Relief, genuine relief, and hope. Hope that even in the darkest hour there's a way out as long as people in it do not give into despair, but are willing to make sacrifices.
This what the story leaves him with. Kell lets out a sigh, realising in hindsight that he must have been holding his breath waiting for the conclusion.]

I have no idea if I'm ever able to get near the way how you just told it, but I can promise you my absolute best attempt... and leave to you to decide how well I have done this.

I'm no expert on stories, or people, but I think I can see it would be told often.

[It's unusual of him to just let go of expectations of excellence. To let go of anything. Belief in his abilities the most. Too just entrust the judgement to someone else. But it is no ordinary story, so no wonder the reaction it causes is quite extraordinary.]

[ his smile is like a crescent above the sky. ]

I think it is enough that a story is told by anyone. Regardless of their expertise level.

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wrap here? they surely will meet again

sounds good!