"And I imagine if one has an elemental of the relevant type on hand already one can simply ask for a ride."

"Assuming they have the energy to spare, sure."

"Well, if they don't then presumably you can't tap them for it, either."

"Yes, although it's possible to tap several at once."

"Oh, I see. Can you similarly tap other human mages?"

"Not that I know of. The field is still pretty new, there might be a way."

"Do you know what the difference is?"

"No, sorry."

Nod. "It doesn't seem as though you've had very long to investigate."

"Well, I've had my whole life, personally, but yeah, the magical community is younger than farmers or sailors or whatever."

"That's not--quite what I meant."

"Hm?"

"I have had my life settled roughly as I wish it for the past few hundred years; aside from maintenance tasks like finding new blood donors when the old ones choose to leave or keeping up with modern technology I have had few practical concerns to distract me from pursuit of theory. You have been alive less than two decades and presumably have had more urgent concerns than pure thaumaturgy."

"Oh. Yes."

"I was assuming on the less than two decades part," he amends.

"Yes."

Nod.

"Mages - well, people who've had the right magic done - live a bit longer than regular humans but not hundreds of years."

Nod. "You could have been in your twenties."

"Nope, just shy of eighteen."

Nod.

"Penumbra's older but she doesn't know how old."

"Why doesn't she?"

"Elementals appear in the wilderness fluent in every language spoken on the planet at the time but they don't really keep calendars by default."

"That seems inconvenient for them in some ways and very convenient in others."