"Of course. But sometimes you don't?"

"Yeah."

"Any idea what's different when you do?"

"Mm?"

"In situations where you do notice in advance that you are liable to lose your temper, what tips you off and why isn't it present in cases where you are caught off guard and instead actually lose it?"

...He shakes his head. "I'm not sure."

"Hm. It seems like it would be useful to know."

"Yeah."

"Were you assuming he'd eventually realize he wasn't getting anywhere and leave you alone?"

"Mm... I wasn't quite... thinking about it like that? I told him to shape up or fuck off, he apologized, I figured that was the end of it, it wasn't, I repeated myself, he apologized again, I can't remember how many times we went around on that but it wasn't much more than a handful, and then I found him waiting for me when I got back from flying, and, well, that was the last time."

Nod.

Sigh.

"It must be difficult to find that some things you want are intractably incompatible."

"Yes. Though I'm not sure it's even that, it's—I've spent five thousand years finding out what I wanted and then arranging to get it, and I thought I had it all more or less worked out, if not perfectly, and then... I'm suddenly so much more aware of what I'm missing, and I can't do anything about it because the last five thousand years of my life are getting in the way."

"And on top of that you object to all the straightforward options to make it less intrusive."

"...?"

"Moving. Lying. I'm assuming there's also some problem with becoming less inherently frightening and then waiting a while."

"I'm not sure becoming less inherently frightening is even an achievable aim, and I absolutely don't have the patience to try it and wait several centuries to see if it works."

"It didn't surprise me very much to find that an inherently mortal species was impatient but you're not an inherently mortal example."

"I'm much more patient than I used to be, but I'm still human. A hundred years is much too long to intentionally deprive myself of one of my favourite things without even knowing if it's going to be any use or not."

"Mm."

"It's kind of hard to tell what you're thinking sometimes."

"Amongst ourselves Elves have to specifically designate which thoughts are private or they're readable to people who are nearby enough. I'm considered very cagey."

He laughs. "Does that mean you can read everyone's thoughts, or does it only work between Elves?"

"Only between Elves and orcs. It's a chip thing. I would have warned you otherwise!"