"Yeah, it's not as straightforward as 'we can make the demand go away', not at all. Might even go up, because everyone can afford mages. Mages wouldn't start out in debt to the temple-guild, though - the idea that you can be in debt for meals you ate as a child -"

"It's mostly not about the food, more the attendants and the education and the personal discretion uses of magic."

"Could you turn all those down and not be in debt?"

"If you don't want to make that trade you don't interview with the mages when they come by the orphanage in the first place."

"When you are four."

"Five. But yeah."

"Ending scarcity might mean fewer orphaned children."

"Yeah, they might have to make it sound more appealing at that point instead of comparing with 'get kicked out of the orphanage when you're ten and go work in the mines or something'."

"And assuming you daevafy, children won't be parentless in the first place." Shiver.

...Nod.

"...am I missing something?"

"I can't remember a single thing about my birth parents and have no idea if they were any good."

"That's. Going to be a hard thing about dealing with human worlds."

"Elves are never bad parents?"

"Elves never have children by accident, and never want for any resources with which to raise the children, and sometimes they still manage to be bad parents but - not as bad, and not very often, very rarely bad enough that the solution isn't just to give them extra help and teach them better..."

Nod. "My adoptive parents are great. I'm not just saying that for magical reasons, my siblings think so too."

Can't greenmages make people think so? he doesn't ask. "It's good that they like it so much and are so good at it, I'm sure there'll always be need."

"...they're very retired, if they do more magic they will stop breathing in their sleep."

"I didn't -" Sigh. Giggle. "Greenmages might actually be okay as daeva, they wouldn't need to breathe or eat or sleep or anything."

"They might lose more stuff that would be inconvenient if they just kept going."

"And also if any of them were not well-intentioned they would be extraordinarily dangerous. Might have to ask them if they're okay with agreeing not to do any more magic."

"What if they changed their minds?"

"We could have them summoned under a binding that wouldn't let them. We'd really have to, because otherwise they could get their summoners to snap a binding - not to mention tampering with people in the daeva realms -"

Nod. "I think they're usually not that attached to their magic."

"I really don't like giving people a choice between dying and losing their magic but mind control is hard to counter or be prepared for or handle if it's happened."