[A thousand? He can't even comprehend a thousand— Maker, he can barely contemplate two centuries, never mind ten of them. It's so baffling as to defy understanding, for how can anyone stand it? How can anyone not lose their minds over the course of a thousand years? How does that even work with other species (and do they, too, have an expanded lifespan?). It's—
Maker, he's gawking at Astarion, he realizes.]
What about them?
[It's blunter than he means it to be, and he waves a hand, dismissing his tone.]
The gods are dead, Astarion, if ever they existed at all. Personally, I doubt it. I have no connection to them, and as for magic . . . why would that afford me a longer lifespan? It does not for humans.
[But it must for elves in his world. Fenris stands, not thinking of his loose braid— not thinking of anything, really, save that the shock mirrored in them both drives him to action, no matter how pointless.]
Besides: I do not have a connection to magic. My sister did, once, and I am mage-blooded, but . . . I have no magic beyond the lyrium embedded within me, and that doesn't expand my lifespan.
[Mm, debatable, but it's not as if Fenris knows that just yet.]
Does it . . . do the mage elves in your world have a longer lifespan? Or all they all mages?
[Maker, he doesn't understand. It seems impossible that they, each and every one of them, should be blessed by magic, but what other explanation is there? Your connection to magic, the elven gods, Astarion says, as if it was a given thing. As if, though he has never seen Fenris perform a spell, he has assumed he must be able to.]
no subject
Maker, he's gawking at Astarion, he realizes.]
What about them?
[It's blunter than he means it to be, and he waves a hand, dismissing his tone.]
The gods are dead, Astarion, if ever they existed at all. Personally, I doubt it. I have no connection to them, and as for magic . . . why would that afford me a longer lifespan? It does not for humans.
[But it must for elves in his world. Fenris stands, not thinking of his loose braid— not thinking of anything, really, save that the shock mirrored in them both drives him to action, no matter how pointless.]
Besides: I do not have a connection to magic. My sister did, once, and I am mage-blooded, but . . . I have no magic beyond the lyrium embedded within me, and that doesn't expand my lifespan.
[Mm, debatable, but it's not as if Fenris knows that just yet.]
Does it . . . do the mage elves in your world have a longer lifespan? Or all they all mages?
[Maker, he doesn't understand. It seems impossible that they, each and every one of them, should be blessed by magic, but what other explanation is there? Your connection to magic, the elven gods, Astarion says, as if it was a given thing. As if, though he has never seen Fenris perform a spell, he has assumed he must be able to.]