Humans frequently misunderstand aelvar age, usually by attempting to divide our years by some convenient number. We do not mature at a constant rate. It defies logic.
An aelv of ten years resembles a human child of perhaps five; at forty, one appears nearer ten. Around sixty-five, when we generally begin to be regarded as adolescents, we resemble human children of eleven or twelve. At one hundred, most appear approximately fifteen, and only at one hundred and twenty-five do we reach adulthood, physically resembling a human of roughly eighteen years.
Thereafter, the comparison becomes considerably less useful. Aelvar continue to age, certainly, but centuries pass before the changes humans associate with mere decades become apparent.
I have occasionally wondered whether humans mature extraordinarily quickly, or whether we are simply very slow.
I suspect the answer depends entirely upon whom one asks.

— from the research notes of Zyr’Magi Tes’Lothen “the Blade”, high-aelv scholar, mage, and swordsman
