"Different worlds' humans could've aged differently or something. It's a good thing, anyway, if when you said 'we're fifty-three' you'd said 'we're two' I would have backed off."

"Yeah, Imliss burned the paper for a reason. Anyway, I'm not two in any of the ways that matter."

Squeeze. "I know."

"...And in Valian years I think I'm still only nine. Unless you count the time I was dead, but why would you do that."

"I do recognize the silliness of counting by Valian years now."

"Wasn't accusing you of otherwise." She kisses his temple.

"And I'm glad I didn't wait because we - ran out of time -"

"Yeah.

We have time now."

"We do. All the time we need, Milliways stops it -"

"Yeah." She snuggles closer. "This time everything'll be fine."

"You two are adorable. If your baby kills me with preciousness you're responsible for killing my Morgoth."

"We kinda didn't manage with ours."

"Oh, right, I didn't say. My magic's transmissible."

"Oh, cool, they'll be excited downstairs."

"They were. But how good you are at it is personality-dependent, and I'm very good at it, so Idaia should be too."

"Oh, cool."

"It has drawbacks, though. The magic, I mean."

"Oh?"

Odette summarizes her magic system.

"Do you know how pregnancy affects it?"

"I've never heard of being a mage doing magic adversely affecting a pregnancy."

"Okay, good."

"My parents used to be mages! They both ended up quitting but not until Mom was a few months pregnant with us."

"Why'd they quit?"

"Specialized for talent instead of resistance, had made about as much of the relevant tradeoffs as was remotely a good idea."