He blinks a few times. Okay that he can see. (Rosy having a Koala moment in her life, that is. Especially at the age of 6, though it wouldn't shock him presently either.) "Okay, that makes sense. I guess I can... try and see that? I mean, try to think of your mom in a koala costume, that is." Nope, still not succeeding. 

"I might also still be scared of them, um, not wanting you to date me, though." And then the potentially magical consequences of that that he was unaware of up until a few days ago! 

"I want you to date me, therefore my mom wants you to date me. Grandma Vicky might potentially have an opinion but also she knows better than to try to get me to care about any opinions she may have."

Possibly it is better to get this over with.

"...are you sure that your parents are not going to kill me, or turn me into a newt or wipe my memories or do anything bad to me just because I'm dating you?" 

"Absolutely sure. That's not—you don't do that. Well, my family doesn't do that. Maybe there's families that do, but in mine... you're someone I care about, so they won't hurt you without consulting me, because that's—because you don't do that."

He still is scared, but. 

"Okay. Maybe I should go meet your family. If that's. Okay." (It feels like a terrible plan but at least he can't be out for too much longer so things can't go too wrong, right?)

"That is definitely okay. Let's get to the edge of the park and I'll get my skates on and lead you home?"

"Sounds good to me!" Well, it's still scary. But it's probably good. 

She disentangles herself from the picnic bench and helps pack up the math, and then she has to reconfigure once they're off the grass, and then into the woods they go! Well. Toward the woods. In the direction of the woods.

He follows behind on his bike. The woods seem extra scary at the moment, despite the fact that it's Spring so it's still light out, and they're keeping to the roads so he has nothing to worry about. (Why is he so scared right now? I mean, because of all the things that could go wrong that he's scared of, but besides that.) 

Rosy navigates the woods with the cheerful fearlessness of someone who grew up there. And she does, in fact, keep to the roads.

Well, good. Her confidence is definitely helping. If she's not worried about anything (despite having magic and thus probably able to defend herself) he probably shouldn't be worried either (hey, she can defend him too, probably). 

"...this is probably not the best time to ask," he says, "but what's up with the woods? Everyone knows not to go in after dark, but... I assume there's reasons for that that most people aren't privy to?" 

"They're... a little spooky. Um. It mostly doesn't affect me because I'm a Blake and they belong to the Blakes—like, not legally, not all of them legally anyway, but mystically speaking, the lake belongs to the Strands and the woods belong to the Blakes. My mother usually adds 'and the Favreaus are just fucking around' but you shouldn't repeat that part. And, uh, the woods... know that they belong to the Blakes. So they're a little weird a lot of the time, and after dark they're even weirder, it's easier to get lost than it should be and sometimes you see things normal people shouldn't see, and every once in a while somebody comes in with hostile intent or doesn't understand the woods telling them to back off, and then bad things happen. We do try to keep on top of it, though, Mom added a bunch more wards to the schedule last time a hiker died and we're hoping it'll actually be the last time this time."

"So wait, the woods are... smart? Or they act with some sort of intelligence, at least? How does that... work?" Also, yup, don't go into the woods after dark, got it.

"Sssssort of? 'Act with some sort of intelligence' is closer than 'smart'. Just... don't expect it to be a human intelligence. It's... loyal to my family, and we have a good relationship with it, but it's pretty hard to communicate with if you don't know what you're doing and honestly still pretty hard even if you do."

"Oh, I don't plan on it" he does not "but I'm still curious is all. I want to know it works, how exactly a forest can act with intelligence, but possibly the answer is 'magic'. Or at least too complicated to get into now?" He has no idea how magic works at all, yet, for that matter. Possibly he should ask at some point. 

"It has to do with the Blakes being part fae. If you have people with that kind of... available connection... living somewhere for a long time, the connection develops. Places with actual fae living in them get much, much weirder, but there's hardly any of those left because they kept running afoul of the Veil Laws and getting shut down."

...he is still concerned about what will happen if he violates the veil laws, but he's not about to ask now. (Shut down is a very non-descriptive way to put it, though, and this does not make him any less concerned.) 

"Available connection to what? To... being fae? Being magical at all?" 

"...no, available connection like... the Strands are descended from merfolk and selkies and stuff like that, so they have an available connection to the lake because it's the kind of place that's for them and they're the kind of people who have connections to places. The Blakes have an available connection to the woods because they're the kind of place that's for us."

...huh. 

"So depending on what kind of magical creature you are, different kinds of... places? Biomes? Can form a connection with you? Huh." He thinks for a moment. "Are there magical creatures that like, cities are for? I'm not sure what that would be, goblins maybe? Or something I've never heard of?"

"Fae are more flexible than merfolk, and sometimes people get connections to weird things because of some bloodwarped quirk or other, and not everybody is the kind of people who have connections to places, but yes, you have the general idea. I don't know offhand if there are any city-people. My guess is no because—for a place to be a city, it has to be... full of lots and lots of people? So anyone who might've developed a connection to it would just get drowned out in the noise. That's just my guess, though. Someone somewhere might've done it."

"Someone somewhere might have done it? Done which, connected to a city, or created a kind of magical creature that can? Where do magical creatures come from, anyways?" 

"I don't think anyone's going around inventing new magical creatures but I could be wrong, my mom might know more. I meant connected to a city. Magical creatures come from... uh... existing? I don't understand the question."

"Maybe it's a better question to ask where magic comes from. There's a whole bunch of magical creatures that can apparently, um, have children with humans" he blushes a little at this but thankfully Rosy is leading him along. "So where do they come from? How did they come to be? Are they evolutionary offshoots, maybe?" 

"I don't know!" she says, cheerfully. "I'm not sure anyone does. There are a lot fewer eyes on the question of where unicorns came from than there are on the question of mundane biology. Likewise with where magic came from and mundane physics. I could speculate wildly but that's all it would be."

"Huh! I guess I just assumed you would know. But I guess there's a lot fewer people who can do science to it, like you said." Well, that's unfortunate. Possibly this means that there's a lot people can do with magic that hasn't been figured out yet, if there hasn't been a lot of science happening... also there's no way John is going to figure out some clever trick just because he comes from a science background, and revolutionize the magical world. (Even if that's the plot of a number of fantasy stories that he definitely hasn't daydreamed about.) The, um, magical kids go to school just like he does, and if anyone is going to do something like that, it's probably going to be Rosy, honestly. 

(His brain takes a moment to gush happily about how she's smart and in love with him. Even if he doesn't deserve it.)