"I'm glad I'm around. Though it'll be nice when they're all grown up and we can travel with a little less of an eye to how far they can keep up or how far we can carry them."

"Yes. And then they'll be able to decide a lot more about what they want to go off and do themselves, too."

"Yeah. 

Most fairies don't have five kids and of course because of the way fairies are no one has five kids at once."

"It's not so uncommon for humans. It is uncommon not to have a lot of other people around, though, I'm not sure what I'd have done I'd escaped alone somehow and it was just me."

Nod. "My parents were saying this last night that they wanted a couple more. I think maybe you made them feel competitive."

"Oh dear, did I? How many do they have now, just the ones I met?"

"And one more you didn't, he's been away trying to work out some weird idea of his I don't understand at all."

"Ah. Well, five's a respectable showing. - humans don't really decide how many we have, they just sort of happen to people who're having sex."

"Fairies can only have a baby if they slow, so you have to have sex and then slow down, if you want one. That bit of the Tamlin story didn't strike me as at all implausible, though. It'd work pretty much like that, if someone claimed a forest of roses."

"Huh.

"Your father did offer to slow me to give him more time to work on the whole immortality thing. I wasn't really sure how it worked, or how often fairies did it, or anything, I just told him it probably wasn't a good idea until the baby was a little older."

"I don't know very much about it. It takes magic and a full night alone staying in one place - for part of it you're slower so it's not as bad as it otherwise sounds, but it's still a long time, I think. - I'm not even sure it works for humans but I guess it must, if he offered."

"Yeah.

"It might be worth it, someday, I guess, if your father thinks there's actually any reason to believe that humans can be turned into fairies and that he stands a chance at figuring out how. Like, it wouldn't be great to be apart for however long it was, especially for you, but - forever's worth kind of a lot."

"Yeah. We gotta at least try."

Hug. "Yeah. When the kids are a little older and can do whatever you have to do to be slowed down, too. And after we've done something about the Emperor. And then we can take a shot at forever."

"I'm very happy we can do something about the emperor. I've never wanted to kill anyone before but I am very happy about killing the emperor."

Squeeze. "Yeah, I mostly don't like it when people die, but - it'll be really good, knowing he can't ever hurt anyone else ever again."

"Never ever."

Yes this is a good time for that.

Is it a good time for that, with less clothes? They are away from court, which is what he remembers of the conversation about when maybe they would try that.

......on the one hand she kind of really wants that but on the other hand she is also kind of conflicted about that still.

"Mmm?"

" - I think - not quite yet. Sorry."

"'s okay. 

Once we've got all your children and killed the emperor?"