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"So you think she's going to have nine stages?" Earendil asked, just to be sure. "But she's been changing so much already between her stages, if she has nine that would make her quite old by the end of it, wouldn't it?"

Or perhaps the nine stages were spread over the span of a human lifetime. How would he know?

"But you said that makes her a kitsune, and that kitsunes traditionally have nine tails," Earendil said thoughtfully. "So wouldn't it make sense that she would have nine stages, if she's growing one tail at a time?"

Unless for some stages she would grow more than one at once? Though if it hadn't happened so far, he slightly doubted it wouldn't. Though he hadn't expected Lin to grow wings, either.

Earendil chuckled softly. "Not quite ready to have her grow up, are you?" he teased her. "Though I have to agree, I'm quite content to have her stay young for a long while yet."

There was a sudden jolt as the ship was released from its moorings and it began to drift down the river.

"It's just these small ones," Earendil reminded her, his arm tightening slightly around her shoulders to steady her. "Remember, the Zephyr is as steady as a house."

He smiled warmly at her. "But it does mean that once again, we're on our way," he pointed out excitedly.

"Somehow, it does," Earendil agreed. "Though I'm not sure how. I mean, when you're not here, I'm always just at the castle, no traveling at all. But it feels so natural for us to be together, too, and that's something that has been very sporadic. So maybe it's just us being together and doing things together that feels so natural."

He smiled down at her. "And after so many of years of it being that way, for both of us, when we're both in the same world, could we expect anything different?"

"Well, you know what they say," Earendil smiled warmly down at her. "When you're in love, there is no time at all but the time you spend with them."

Really for him he felt as though the time had flown. Sure, while it had been taking place it felt like a long time, but now, looking back? It felt like the blink of an eye.

Earendil chuckled softly and looked out over the water so that he wouldn't draw attention to her blush. "It's a common saying here," he smiled. "When all we have is time, it is quite a comparison. That there is nothing when you are not with the one that you love. And that the time spent waiting for them feels like nothing at all."

He looked down at Lin once more. "Seventy years I waited," he murmured softly, "and not a moment of it do I regret."

Earendil smiled. "I don't think it's a weird question at all," he told her. "In fact, it's a question I ask myself quite often. To be honest, I have no idea. I know I knew it for certain when we were on our tour of the Southland, when we met the Rovers ... I must admit, I was quite jealous when you and the boy spent so much time together."

He looked away, his face turning a bright shade of red again. "I knew I couldn't say anything, and I didn't want to admit it, but I wanted him to leave so that it would be just you and I again. I hated myself for thinking that. I knew it was wrong of me. But I couldn't help it. And then when you fledged ... I was terrified. My heart felt as if it would stop, and it wasn't until you woke again that I was able to calm myself. But I know that I had to have been been falling in love with you long before. Perhaps even before you became an adult, I don't know. I really couldn't say."