His difficulty in imagining her responsible is nothing compared to her own. She still struggles, many times a day, but there are things that bind her now, things that are not so easily broken. Still, she does not suffer for it, and so she accepts his teasing with an amused smile.
“Perhaps I have,” she concedes, though there is enough mischief still lingering in her bright eyes that it seems unlikely. If it were only age that has made her boring, she should have been dull a decade ago. She’s all but forgotten her true age, and while she’s no crone, she knows that the years she has ticked off while adventuring have encompassed many generations of Beqanna. She knows Zai, and she had known his father, and his great-grandfather, and his great-great-great grandmother. Old age had happened to her a very long time ago.
“Good,” Djinni replies when he accepts, though she watches him a little more closely. She had been fairly certain he’d enjoy the prospect but does want to be sure. “I’ll get around to organizing the kingdom eventually. Perhaps you can start by teaching my son?” She’s buried the lede, she knows, but it is often still hard to form that three-letter word. Not for any reason she can fathom (she is an attentive and caring parent), but then again, she is sill processing emotions.