Astonishment. You're still a child! You poor thing, you shouldn't be living alone at all! Where are your parents?

Um, they're back in my world. But I'm not a child, I'm a young adult. Different species grow differently.

Different species?

So, in my world, there's lots and lots of kinds of people, all different the way, uh - different sorts of animals are, I don't know what animals you have here - but they're all people. I'm a human, which is most common in my part of the world, but there are loads of others - She sends a series of images of nonhuman students at her school. And some of them grow at different speeds. Humans aren't even fastest, I think that's sylphs.

We are the only speaking beings we know of, in the world.

Sure. But I'm still a human and still a young adult. ...Besides, how long is a year, here, you don't have days the way I'm used to... seasons?

The Valar put them on hold until we get used to things. I think they'll add them once we're interested.

So how do you count years?

There's a schedule of festivals.

How many, um, tree cycles apart are two of the same festival?

Five hundred seventy six.

...so our years are actually shorter than yours unless the tree cycles are a lot shorter than a day. Which they might be, I can't tell without a clock or a while to see if my sleep cycle's slipping oddly...

The Trees are also energizing and might change your sleep cycle, I'm not sure. The Valar's influence affects the passage of time too. He shrugs. Anyway, Fëanáro's nine but likes insisting he's almost twelve, twelve being the age at which his father's promised him he can leave the palace outside formal occasions and visits to his mother, and if you'd arrived after you finished your education he'd be - well, I don't think it's a good environment for a child, personally.

If I'd thought he was unreasonable in wanting to have some privacy in the room where I landed I would've been more likely to tell his father about it first thing.

I'm discussing this with you because you're going to be tutoring him, and are perhaps in a position to do him some good.

I can do him some literacy. I'm not sure what else I'm in a position to help with.

I mean, no, but you said yourself that I should do as his father says... I suppose I can pointedly disobey orders and comply with requests from Fëanáro but I'm only going to be there once a week, I can't assume a role as a surrogate parent on that schedule.

And you're nineteen, I wouldn't ask you to. But if he likes you I expect he'll ask for additional days, and you may end up playing a larger role in his life than anyone else who sees what you and I regard as obvious.

Oh. Yes, I suppose if I were there all the time.

You're nearly his age. Will you be the sister he can't have, if the circumstances end up permitting it?

I can try. ...Am I just going to seem like a child to anyone who knows how old I am for the rest of my life? Or, the rest of what my life would have been if I weren't in Valinor where apparently that's not a concern? How long does it take your people to grow up?

Does it bother you? I'm sorry, I'll stop thinking that way if I can - it's just, I can't understand how much growing up one could do in nineteen years, even if - sorry. We come of age at fifty, and are considered grown at a hundred.

I'd be lucky to live to a hundred at home, and that's in shorter years. I could have been a grandmother at age fifty, if I married youngish and my kids did too.

You won't die in Valinor, he says firmly. And no one will marry you at twenty-five, there'd be something very wrong with them. But I'm sure it'll all sort itself out, don't worry. Does Fëanáro know how old you are? Speaking to him, he rather worships you.