"Perhaps you are also older than you look," Sarion ventures to say to Luhan.
"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."
"Heh," says Howlett. "How's your skeleton?"
"...Nothing special, why?"
"Mine's been... improved," says Howlett. "Back in the twentieth century. And I've got these." He makes a fist with his right hand, and three long metal claws erupt from between his knuckles, clicking audibly into place. He displays them to Luhan and Lycaelon, demonstrates that his wrist still bends, and then retracts them to a presumable housing in his forearm.
"I don't have those," says Luhan.
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."
Luhan is still laughing.
"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.
"I know the feeling," says Luhan.
"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."
"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'."
"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.)