him

active, more like a fourteen-year-old than an adult female. But then he told himself he was stupid; she wasn't just older than he was, she was older than the trees.
They had started off with swimming, naked as he'd been warned and he had been a tad . . . apprehensive. But the swimming had changed to washing and then mutual washing and things had proceeded from there. And the proceeding had been quite an education for all its brevity. He still didn't know why she had chosen him, but he realized that he was the one luckiest guy in the world.
That caused him to flash for a moment on all the reasons he shouldn't be the luckiest man in the world and he swallowed hard. For a moment he was caught in an emotional vice between fear that she would no longer care for him if she knew both his internal struggles and of his cowardice and shame that he should be here, with her, after both.
She had brought along a fur blanket, a patchwork quilt of many small skins, and she now lowered herself gracefully onto it in a cross-legged seat then started pulling the tangles out of her hair with a twig. Looking off into the woods.
She was within easy arm's reach so despite his qualms he carefully ran one finger up her thigh.
"The wonder of young humans," she said with a smile, looking downward. "Give them five minutes and they're ready to go again!"
"Is that why you picked me?" he asked. He hadn't wanted to ask but it had been nagging at him.
"Only in part," she replied, rubbing his hand in welcome. "You seemed to be . . . wise for your age. That is important. I'm old, Herzer. Many of my kind think that I'm . . . perverse to take human lovers. Even if you live through the wars that will come, I will see you age and mature, as I have watched Talbot age and mature. And then some day you will die, as I have seen countless lovers age and die. But you live your lives, fully in the now in a way that elves do not. And that I love. But in time I will take other lovers, as you will take other lovers. And you seemed wise enough to understand that, as other humans might not."
"I'm not wise," Herzer said bitterly. The compliment had just made his internal turmoil more vigorous and he felt as if bile from self-loathing was going to rise in his throat.
"I said 'for your age,' " she replied, touching