"Eleven what?"

"Oh. Uh - eleven years. A year for us is three hundred and sixty-five days."

"How mature is that for you? For that matter how old are you now?"

"It's old enough to be reasonably intelligent but without any sort of life experience to speak of, and before puberty. Not anywhere close to an adult. I'm eighteen, which is basically 'now officially an adult,' but still kind of - new to the world of adults."

"... Huh, really? How do you measure time here?"

"Well, not very carefully, since it's always daytime and usually autumn in this region, but I'm still young enough to have an approximate idea. I think I'm something like - this is a guess, I could be off by half or more - twelve?"

"Right. Leaflets are a spontaneous kind. Why would you freak out...?"

"Because mortal twelve year olds are not really - prepared in any sort of fashion to be in a relationship with an eighteen year old."

"...Prepared?"

"Um. Haven't been through puberty, have zero life experience in comparison to an eighteen year old's adulthood, don't have full developed brains yet, that sort of thing?"

"But I mean, what's to prepare me for, are you dangerous or something?"

"What? No? I mean, I guess some male eighteen year olds could be, the ones that would go after a mortal who was twelve, but - no? I'm pretty harmless?"

"I think I'm missing something. I don't really - hang out with breeding kinds enough to know how they work, let alone mortals."

"Oh, um. A - mortal twelve year old is sort of vulnerable physically, mentally, and emotionally. So it's not that the adults are dangerous, it's that kids are vulnerable."

"... Yeah, basically. Not quite in the same way, but - same vein."

"So since I'm the one who's something like twelve and you're the one who's the vassal does it cancel out?" she wonders.

Thaaat makes him - squirm a little, and not in a good way. "Um. Iiiii am not going to think of you as a - mortal twelve year old. I mean, twelve years of adult experience from a standard baseline is far different from twelve years of childhood where you have to learn how to do literally everything." Pause. "I think?"

"Maybe? You seem to have strong feelings about this. I could easily be wrong, remember, there's no night and I haven't kept careful time, I could be twenty or six or something, I don't know. It doesn't matter very much to me. If I'd met you having started two days ago nothing would be different except that I wouldn't have had any books or house furnishings yet."

He peers at her, carefully. "... Okay. I'll - accept that pronouncement. Since you know more about fairies than I do."

"Yes." Snuggle.

He returns the snuggles a bit more tentatively than before, but - still, they're snuggles all the same.

"Your world must be so strange. Compared to here, anyway."