"So far I haven't used any writing at all in teaching people. Magic doesn't rely on writing or anything."

"Oh, good."

She watches the door swing shut behind him, uneasily. "There's no such thing in a private conversation in an Elven fortress, but you mistake the source of my earlier discomfort. At least slightly. There's - so, Elves live forever, and Men do not. That means Elves will be better at anyhting they care to do than Men, and while they're very genial about it they're mostly either keeping us around as charity or as foot soldiers - because the death of their own is a tragedy. But Men? Die anyway. And now you have magic, which we need and which we're grateful for, and which you get better at with practice, meaning eventually all Elves will be more capable at it than all but the greatest of Men.

We take the rules about their conduct very seriously. It's not because I'm worried you'll lose your head for an Elf, though you wouldn't be the first, it's because they rule this continent and we are something between their charges and their meat shields and we have absolutely no capacity to retaliate should someone decide he wants to stretch his religious rules.

Be careful, all right?"

"Er, yes, but--magic can also de-age people. Most mages don't prefer to keep making the personality-related tradeoffs forever, but some of us do, and we can cover other people--I think this is being handled shockingly inefficiently at home and this is why most people die of old age. If the magic tradition here starts out with good habits, I see no reason why Elves living until killed should continue to be a difference between our species. Besides, it's demonstrably possible to copy features off of them," she adds, gesturing to her eyes.

"You can - you can reverse aging? Is it a spell like diseases? That - yes, that does change the dynamic that we try to be so cautious of. Do they know that you can do that? Do the ones who think Eru intends Men to die object?"

"I've mentioned to the one who was just here that I didn't anticipate that my sister and I were going to die any time soon. I don't know if any of the others know yet. It's harder than diseases, but well within the competence of anyone who would qualify to be called a 'mage' rather than a 'hedgewitch' in the first place--hedgewitches are people who learn just enough magic to do things like cure diseases and some other minor stuff and not any more than that."

"Wow. Uh, so you're aware, many Elves think that it's the beautiful and glorious fate of Men to die and go to whatever's next, and so forth, and might be opposed to the use of magic towards that end."

"Then I suppose it's possible I should be figuring out how to teach people magic without any telepathy being involved."

"Possibly, yes. Or, you know, just let them adopt you as an honorary Elf, which they are clearly inclined to do, and then become persuaded that it really wouldn't be for the best to burden everyone with immortality."

"If anyone feels that it is correct for someone to die in less than a century, well, if they want to make that choice for themselves I suppose I can't stop them," she says, in a sing-song saccharine voice. "I am not going to let anyone convince me they have a right to make that decision for anyone else, and I am an Effort mage. What Effort magic does to you is makes you more stubborn."

She grins. "All right. In that case it is very nice to meet you, Illia Zavier."

"It's very nice to meet you too. I do like what I've seen of the Elves, so far," she adds. "I would mind if they considered me an honorary elf for its own sake much less than I minded that people back home were always going to see me as subordinate to my sister because she's going to be a Great Mage someday and I'm not. But if they try to convince me to compromise my ethics I will cease to like them as much, or at least the individual ones who do that if there's enough diversity of opinion. We were supposed to go to dinner soon, right? Do you think we have enough time for me to try to see if I can come up with a description of magic that works without telepathy?"

"Elves are careless with time. I'm sure we have enough."

"Fair enough. Alright, so before I do that I should probably explain the practical details--" and she launches into an explanation of each branch of magic and how it hurts and how it affects your mind and what makes someone a Great Mage and other logistical details that have already been covered in this thread.

She nods solemnly. "How long would you need to train to treat disease?"

"Weak ones almost immediately, the rest of the pathogenic kinds within a week if you focus on it. More complicated diseases like cancer and sickle-cell anemia are harder and might take up to a year."

"Human-sized times!" She beams. "All right, I understand how it works. How do I start practicing it?"

"Well of course they're human-sized, we're human! I know we don't die as inevitably as most people but if you think that's going to impress an impatient teenaged mage student I have some funny stories that might convince you otherwise. So, doing magic feels like...well, it's slightly different depending on what kind--which one do you want to start with?"

"I don't know. Which do you recommend? Which does healing?"

"All forms can do healing, actually, for some kinds of healing one is better than another but basic diseases aren't one of them. If you don't have a preference then let's start with Effort since it's the one I'm best at."

"All right."

"Doing Effort magic is like...trying to push something with your muscles, except without any muscles that actually exist."

She frowns. "Okay."

"How would I know if I'm doing it?"

"It hurts."

"Hmmm. Can you demonstrate?"

"How it hurts? Oh, and you need to be trying to do something in particular, random pushing isn't going to get you anywhere.