She shows him images of some of them. They age slower than humans but closer to humans than elves, and they have ear shapes that are somewhere in between the two, and they generally have elven slit pupils but in their mothers' eye colors.

Awwwww.

Magdala Istanáro is going to be the cutest kid ever. 

Not necessarily! I mean, I'm not assuming she'll be an only child forever.

Seven might be a bit much. But I can't imagine being an only child not being desperately lonely. 

I wouldn't have liked to do without Illia, she agrees.

I want to say, like, four or five, but I'm not the one stuck having them, so I suppose it's your call, dear.

I think the primary concern for most women is that childbirth hurts.

I love you.

"What are you talking about?"

"We're probably going to end up having like five kids."

"Only five over forever?"

"Usually Elves stop having kids in time to start doting over their grandkids, and then great-grandkids."

"I guess that makes sense," she allows. "What if none of them want to have kids though?"

"Then maybe the frustrated would-be grandparents have some more children of their own. My family's unusual in almost all being unmarried; most Elves marry."

"I think most people marry in general," she asserts.

"I don't know too many kinds of people, and it seems like there's less incentive for humans, but I'll take your word for it."

"It's considered pretty default. What are the elven incentives?"

Can't sleep together otherwise. I feel like I mentioned that at some point, dear. 

I must have been distracted from the usual inability to engage in one particular act by what you can do with your tongue.

Most people get married too young to get good. 

Also, humans don't automatically get married from doing that, but if they're not at least a hedgewitch they can get pregnant, and a lot of cultures have hella stigma on bearing children out of wedlock.

I guess I should feel lucky Estolad didn't. Though then maybe the women would have tracked down the fathers, who'd have happily married them...

Stigma on extramarital childbearing also never gets rid of all of it, but yeah.

Figured that from how well our society does at cutting down homosexuality. 

The difference is that getting pregnant without wanting to is a bad thing.