[There is the slightest pause.]

A mate is who you mate with. For... children? But with a lover, you are truly bonded. It is an unbreakable vow to one another that you will protect them, and they will protect you. You would die for them.

[Which— oh. Oh no, those are often the same thing for uprights, aren't they? They aren't like her kind, where there is a definite distinction between the two, particularly in smaller colonies.]