After the super embarrassing start, it wasn’t so bad. I mean, like, the food was still weird, and it was awkward sharing a bath, and she kinda walked in on me again one morning—she had clean clothes for me and thought I was sleeping.

Anyway, it was… I was getting used to it. It wasn’t like I wanted to be a fussy eater and knowing there was nothing else to eat made it easier to try new things. And even if it made me feel a bit guilty, seeing her in the bath—she was gorgeous and gorgeous, naked women make me happy, okay?

It’s also, you know, before I died, I was getting ready to live with strangers for university. That was scary. I thought about all the good stuff to distract myself, but I was scared. So, I mean, living with someone caring like Aunty, it was nice.

Think about it. You go to university, hear someone crying in the next room—how awkward’s that? But Aunty hugged me and told me it was okay to miss my family, that my parents must be so proud of me.

Doesn’t matter if you’re eight or eighteen, I think most people like hearing that.

So, yeah, I wasn’t really doing well at making her believe I was an adult, but that was okay. God did tell me this was to help me get used to the new world, so it made sense. Plenty more sexy elves in the forest… or something.

And after a week, I met my second sexy elf.

“Izzy, this is Jeda—my friend.”

I looked up, and I really had to look up. I only came up to Aunty’s chin, and it looked like Aunty only came up to Jeda’s chin. She really wasn’t lying when she said she was the smallest in her family….

Stopping my thinking, Jeda leant down to my height. “Hi there, Izzy, pleased to meet you.”

Unlike Aunty’s dark purple skin, Jeda was just purple, maybe more blue than red. Her hair was pretty short, hanging loose down to her shoulders, and it was, it wasn’t grey, but it was a really pale blue, like ice. Though her nose and ears were pointy, her chin and cheeks, well, her face looked a bit chubby.

Feeling like I was staring, I looked down, but that… she was wearing quite a loose blouse/tunic thing, and leaning forwards, and wasn’t wearing a bra. Not that there were bras, but there were these, like, half-corsets that only went around your ribs with straps over your shoulders.

But, yeah, Jeda wasn’t wearing one of those. It was kinda nice to see my chest wasn’t that small, though.

Jeda chuckled and reached over to ruffle my hair. “You are curious, aren’t you?”

Called out, I looked away and didn’t complain about her messing up my hair. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, girls your age want to know what’s normal—I’ve been there,” she said, standing up again.

I bristled at another elf deciding I was a child, but let it go. It really was pointless to argue, especially since that’s just what a child would do.

Anyway, Jeda wasn’t visiting me, so she and Aunty started talking in the kitchen area, leaving me by the fire pit. Without the Internet or books to read, watching the cooking fire was the most entertaining thing around. Sometimes, I watched the hot spring mini waterfall too—where the bath water came from.

But a fire was only something to look at, so I eavesdropped on their conversation. Not that they were whispering.

“She said she’s eighteen and an orphan,” Aunty said.

“Poor thing.” Jeda sighed loudly.

“I don’t know much about humans, but she told me she’s an adult.”

“You said she was wandering the forest alone? If she ended up like that, she probably does feel like an adult.”

Aunty chuckled. “I’m glad you’re here, you already understand her better than me.”

“You have such a big family, it’s not something you’d know,” Jeda said, softer.

Neither of them talking, I subtly glanced over and saw them hugging. A tingle of jealousy made me pout, but, after thinking for a second, a different tingle… tingled.

“Do you want to stay? She’s pretty independent and well-behaved, but I’d feel more… comfortable with someone else around.”

Jeda laughed, but it was, like, an inhale laugh. “You know I won’t just stay for a week, right?” After a couple seconds, Jeda said quietly, “Let’s not make the same mistakes over and over again.”

“Even if it’s a nice mistake?” Aunty asked.

She never spoke to me with that tone.

“Especially because it’s a nice mistake,” Jeda said.

After that, they whispered for a bit, so I stopped listening, but eventually spoke normally again.

“I know humans do grow up faster than us and don’t live as long. If she’s already masturbating, she’s probably a few years into puberty already,” Jeda said.

That was when I realised adults don’t give kids any privacy.

“So like twenty-three?”

“Yeah. And she’ll probably grow as tall as you by the end, but humans are really short. I don’t think you’ll need to buy more corsets either—your chest was bigger than that when you were twenty-three, right?”

I did the maths and twenty-three in elf was maybe like fourteen in human… and I felt small again. Very small.

Already suffering enough, I tried to ignore them, which only lasted a few minutes before they came to sit with me.

“Hey, Izzy. Your Aunty tells me you help with the washing after dinner? You’re such a good girl.”

Just like that, I went from annoyed at being treated like a child… to a puddle. Oh Sappho, she called me a good girl!

Maybe thinking I was shy, Jeda tried again. “And she says you want to help look after the vegetable garden? You’re very mature.”

That wasn’t so, like, pray-to-Sappho worthy, so I actually answered her this time. “She’s doing a lot for me, so I want to help.”

Smiling, she tried to ruffle my hair again, but I ducked out the way, pushing back her hand. “Sorry,” she said, and didn’t sound like she meant it all.

Thinking about it, since they’d come over to me, I said, “Do you want to, like, ask me something?”

Jeda looked at Aunty, then Aunty looked at me with a smile. “Jeda lives in a town nearby and travels now and then, so, if you want anything—clothes, books… toys. She comes to visit often, though, so we can always ask her another time.”

I didn’t miss her “signal”. Honestly, Jeda just annoyed me and only treated me to a flash of her boobs, so I wanted to, like, get her back a bit. Looking right at her, I said, “Can you get me a dildo? Something”—I looked at her hand—“as thick as two fingers and at least that long. And, like, ridged or ribbed or bumps. You know, some kind of texture to it.”

When I finished, Jeda nodded—not smiling now. But, before I could feel good about myself, she turned to Aunty and said, “She knows what she wants,” and her voice sounded like she was trying not to laugh.

Was there really no winning?

“Any books?” Aunty asked.

It took me a second to think, busy despairing, but I realised that, like, there probably wasn’t gonna be a bunch of smutty stories about a taboo boss x intern romance… and if there was, it would probably be man x woman and full of bullying.

“I don’t know what kind of books there are,” I said, then looked at Jeda. “Maybe one of your favourites?”

“What a charmer,” Jeda said.

…. I couldn’t even ask for a book without being childish?

Those two talked some more, but it was boring stuff. Like, Aunty wanted a special herb to smoke out the house, Jeda said where she was visiting soon—a bunch of made-up places—and they gossiped about people I didn’t know.

Jeda stayed for lunch, but left soon after.

“What did you think of Aunty’s friend? She’s nice, isn’t she?”

Looking up at Aunty, I smirked. “She’s your ex-girlfriend?”

For the first time, she actually looked surprised. But it only last a second, then she chuckled and ruffled my hair—I let her since, well, I like her. “What makes you say that?”

She didn’t deny it, so I knew I was right. “It’s okay, I like women too,” I said, nodding.

Her face sort of softened, the smile she didn’t mean melting away, and her eyes, it was like she wasn’t really looking at me, even though she was. “It’s good to listen to your heart and love who you want to love, but you shouldn’t… be so sure when you’re young. You still have a lot of people to meet and you don’t want to miss out on someone special just because….”

She couldn’t even finish, her mouth quivering when she stopped.

So I hugged her and rubbed her back. “I love women,” I said.

She hugged me back, but so gentle I barely felt her arms around me, and she whispered, “Me too.” Then she let go and, well, I wanted to keep hugging her, but I didn’t want to make it weird. Speaking normally now, she said, “I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable. I promise, I only see you as a child.”

Just like that, the beautiful moment came crashing down, and all I could do was laugh. She looked confused, but there was no point explaining, so I just said, “I know.”

A few days later, Jeda returned with gifts. Apparently, when she mentioned Aunty was taking in a human orphan, a bunch of people gave her old clothes and things. Unfortunately, the people were all elves and I wasn’t going to grow into half the stuff.

As for my “toy”, she gave me a small box with a cushion inside, which made it seem more like a piece of expensive jewellery than what it actually was: a glass dildo. Well, it did look pretty, and there were nubs all over it, and it was slightly curved.

She probably had experience with ordering them.

“It’s perfect, thanks.”

Smirking, she put two fingers over it. “I made her measure.”

That got a snort out of me.

Otherwise, she also brought me a book. A smutty book about the forbidden relationship between a middle-aged human widow and her elf maid. On the very first page when you opened it, it even said: “WITH SAPPHO’S BLESSING.”

I looked up from the book, Jeda looked at me with a smirk, I smirked back. At least her gaydar was working.

After that, everything kinda fell into place. I helped Aunty as much as I could, but I wasn’t cut out for actual gardening—it was more like a mini-farm. And she didn’t trust me with chopping up ingredients for a while, but eventually let me… not that I was any good at first. Took a lot of practice.

That didn’t really feel like enough, especially if I wanted to keep asking Jeda for books, and I definitely couldn’t ask for more clothes. I mean, wearing oversized elf clothes made me feel like a child.

I regretted failing science so badly. Never mind how to make a motor or electricity, I didn’t even know how a steam engine worked. I was going to university for sociology… and, to be honest, I still don’t know what that is, but my favourite teacher at St Helen’s told me it suited me.

Anyway, there was, like, no special skill I could use to make money. But I ended up talking to Jeda about it—since I didn’t care if she saw me like a child—and she asked me if I wanted a sewing kit so I could make the clothes fit better.

“I can’t sew,” I told her.

She smiled and tried to ruffle my hair, but I dodged and grabbed her arm in a hug, frowning at her. “No one can sew, everyone learns to sew.”

I hated admitting Jeda was right, so I never did, but she gave me a sewing kit the next time she visited. Aunty actually got a bit jealous, asking Jeda when I asked for that, annoyed that Jeda didn’t answer, then tried asking me why I didn’t tell her.

“You’re not my mummy,” I told her.

Maybe that upset her, I don’t know, but she stopped asking about the sewing kit.

Well, I slowly learned to sew. At first, I just altered my clothes—big tunics make good dresses if you pull in the waist. But there were clothes I still couldn’t really wear, so Jeda got me, like, clothes scissors, and I started making my own patchwork stuff.

Eventually, Jeda asked me if I wanted to make clothes to sell. I tried to tell her I wasn’t good enough, but she told me that, well, elves were bigger, so it was hard for them to sew as neat as me. Aunty said something about child labour, but she didn’t stop Jeda from dropping off cloth whenever she visited.

It was nice. I could sew in my room, in front of the fire, in the garden—it took an hour to find the needle when I dropped it one day, but I didn’t make that mistake again. And Jeda even found an embroidery book, so I did that a bit too.

I could have lived a very happy life like that. I really, really could have. But, even after Aunty learned that humans really were adults at eighteen, she couldn’t change how she treated me.

So, after a year, Jeda brought a set of cutlery. It wasn’t super fancy, but it was pretty and made of metal that wouldn’t rust. She gave it to me, and I gave it to Aunty.

“What’s this for?” Aunty said, confused but smiling.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, the words I carefully prepared stuck. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

“Izzy?”

I reached out and squeezed her hands. “I hope you’ll keep these, and think of me whenever you eat. But you can sell them if you want. I understand if… my feelings are just a burden.”

She looked at me, smile gone, then looked at Jeda. “What’s going on?”

I didn’t want to cry, but the tears were there and I couldn’t stop them. “Jeda’s taking me to the capital.”

Her face—this time, I knew I hurt her. Whispering, she asked, “Why?”

And I knew that “why” was, like, twenty different questions. But all I could do was smile. “I need to grow up,” I whispered back.

Aunty almost broke, blinking away the tears, lips trembling. Eventually, she pulled me into a hug, squeezing me so hard it hurt, but I didn’t complain. I deserved at least that much.

“My sister lives there—Jeda knows her,” Aunty mumbled.

“I know.”

“And you can come back whenever you want.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

So the best year of my life—lives?—came to an end.