Sarion knows perfectly well that Lycaelon is not generally a party person, so she (Ansharil on her shoulder in purple furry winged creature form, tail around her neck) goes and checks on him after she has welcomed incoming contingents to her world.

"I See you. I hope the quantity of people is not too overwhelming even with this little retreat. I will leave you more thoroughly alone, if you prefer."

He smiles. "I'm all right. No one's bothered me yet. Thank you, though."

"You are welcome. I believe," she adds, "that both of your alts have appeared today. I was not sure if they would."

"I wonder where they are," he says. "I haven't seen them."

"I caught glimpses when Jane first brought them here, but there are dozens of guests and I soon lost track. I could go and find them easily enough if you would like them invited up here to meet you."

"Well, I would like to meet them..." he says consideringly.

"Hi," says Howlett, raising an eyebrow.

"I am Isibel Sarion. The local instance of your template, my co-Bonded Lycaelon, has expressed interest in meeting you."

He shrugs. "All right."

She takes that as consent to teleport him to where Lycaelon is. Pop!

Howlett looks at Lycaelon.

Lycaelon looks at Howlett.

"You're so young," he says finally, shaking his head.

"You're not that old... is this a magic thing?" he wonders.

He snorts, and explains, "Mutant. The local not-magic thing. I'm older than I look, and I'm not gonna look any older."

"...How much older than you look...?"

"Three hundred years," he says. "Give or take. I'm sure about the last hundred and seventy of them, but before that it gets patchy."

"Hi," says Luhan, raising an eyebrow. He is remarkably similar to Howlett: same apparent age, same mannerisms, roughly the same style of dress and personal grooming.

"I See you. Your alts have met, and you could join them, were you so inclined."

"Might as well," says Luhan.

Pop!

Sarion giggles a little.

So does Lycaelon.

"Perhaps you are also older than you look," Sarion ventures to say to Luhan.

"Mm? Yeah," he says, "I'm about four hundred and thirty."

"Presumably this is due to a Gift," she speculates. "I wonder if there are any older humans here. Living ones, at any rate. Older nonhumans certainly. I am not sure how old Nona is, I suppose, and Beast could be counted as a human and is roughly that old."

"You wish you had those," says Lycaelon.

Luhan throws him a startled glance, and then bursts out laughing. Howlett joins in.

Sarion laughs, too. "Improved, and you have claws. I suppose the claws are original."

"A curious form of improvement."

"Well, my bones don't break anymore, that's nice," he says. "And I can cut through steel, although there's not much call for that these days."

"I do not know what call there may have been in the past to cut steel," remarks Sarion.

"It would seem that Lycaelon is the odd one out of the three of you."

"Yeah," he says, "I know. Apparently there are a lot of template things that I missed out on because the magic of this world doesn't work that way."

"Apart from the Knight-Magery, which I suppose was as close as you could get."

"And Knight-Magery is...?" says Howlett.

"Knight-Mages are a kind of Wildmage. Wildmages are... I don't know how to explain," he says. "But Knight-Mages in particular have... an unshakeable will, which I haven't yet had cause to demonstrate, and an affinity with the arts of war. And they're supposed to be bad at doing most magic, but I'm not."

"Thilanushinyel has three kinds of mage. Wildmages receive a set of three Books which contain spells, which they can perform at the cost of some personal energy and services done for the Wild Magic - the cost may be split among several parties, however. By contrast, High Mages pay only an energy cost and require more complicated materials and setup. Elfmages like myself have no such inconveniences, but cannot operate at all without dragons; elves who do not have dragons are only capable of 'small magics'."

Lycaelon nods along with this explanation.

"I think I like Gifts better," says Luhan.

"I do not imagine I could convince Tab to trade circumstances with me, there is that."

(The fluffy purple creature apparently sleeping on Isibel's shoulder curls his long fluffy tail around her neck and nuzzles her jaw with his small fluffy head.)

(She pets him.)

(He loves her ever so.)

"I can explain, if you would like, but it is not a particularly cheering story."

She shrugs. "In your position I would prefer to be told, but if you are indifferent I would as soon refrain."

Howlett and Luhan also shrug, in near-unison.

"You seem even more similar than most alts, even though I would not have categorized your worlds as being unusually alike."

"I wonder why."

"Couldn't tell you," says Luhan.