Davide, however, seemed completely at ease, and stretched to be more at eye level with her. "I'm not. I write him reports, and he eats them. Or poops on them, sometimes I bother to rewrite those." His mouth went into a line. "Neither of those options are particularly appeitizing." He said, fiddling with her chains again. "I'm just glad to be human again. I couldn't stand being so small, when I was Tuatha. That and the ears."

"That and the prick," she added, sneaking a hand under the covers and cupping him to demonstrate. "I've never considered bein' anything but what I am, but I'll admit, I've wished I weren't quite this small. You get mistaken for either a twelve-year-old or an easy mark. Both are inconvenient."

He laughed and wiggled a bit. "Your hands are cold." Davide admonished her. "Well, here I'm so big I get taken for a mark. Or people think I'm all muscle and no brain." He smiled. "They're probably right about the last one, most of the time." He kissed her forehead. "I think you're the only woman I've met who didn't want to be mistaken for someone younger."

"If anything, it's you men-turnin'-forty what get vain about yourselves," she said. "I don't know what it is about tallfolks and forty but that seems to be the age where they realise that this is about as good as they're ever going to look, this is as virile as they're ever gonner get, and they start makin' a grab for younger women, like it's an antidote--like they want to stave it off. And the queer thing is, Tuatha men are no different, except it's right around their third hundred years instead." She leaned back. "I would never want to be young again. All I remember is that nothing made any sense and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Powerless."

"I'm sorry." He replied. "Perhaps men know they're sliding to being less powerful, and women know they're becoming more so." He grinned at the ceiling. "Or something. I thought thirty was bad." He frowned. "The problem I learned with having such a young lover is that they're doing everything you've been doing for twenty years for the first time. Everything is so serious, because they've experienced so little." He sighed. "All I want to do at forty is find a pretty widow and set to raising a child. Maybe ramble about the estate, host parties. That sort of thing."

"I've tried that," she said. "Several times. It never worked out. I got bored after the first year. By the fifth year I was ready to kill meself. After that I was ready to kill meself and everyone else in my family, so it's just as well for all of us I got out of there."

He frowned and looked over at her. "Do you think I'm ill suited for it?" He asked, perplexed. "I only get the one go, and I've often wondered what it would be like, to be a father. I think I could be a good one. I don't know about being a loyal husband, but I could try."

She shrugged. "Most people who aren't forced to it are, I find. It's fun when they're little. The second ones are actually more fun that the first, because you get all the happy little cute moments but still know that the last one survived the worst thing you ever did to it and it turned out all right. You don't worry so much about every little bruise and cough."

He smiled. "I wouldn't mind raising some, even if they weren't my own. Being here... seeing everyone go a bit crazy for children, made me think about the little ones at home who don't have anyone or anything. It's too bad they can't come here." He shifted onto his stomach. "I imagine how easy it gets when you get to the sixteenth, or the twentieth." He teased, rubbing her belly.

She shrugged it off. "That's nothing. That's what-do-you-call-it. Instinct. It's no more than a vixen with her kits. She'll get her head torn off fightin' a wolf who tries to mess with 'em because she don't know any better. She doesn't love them. She just knows they belong to her."