[Yuan listens with relative patience, for him, though his expression is going more and more set as Kratos goes on, mulish and annoyed.]

[Kratos talks about all this like something he's embracing, which-- he is, really. It makes bitter gall rise at the back of Yuan's throat, some nasty tangle of emotion he has neither the wherewithal nor the inclination to examine in depth.]

How exciting for you.

[That's outright nasty, biting and cold. Yuan makes an effort to pull that back; it doesn't go well.]

How long do you think it will be, Kratos, before I start showing my age? You'll be dead long before I find a gray hair.

[They were both in their twenties when they took up the cruxis crystals. Every half-elf's metabolism alters differently; Kratos should know this. Yuan might remain the same for centuries yet. Even Botta is over six hundred by now, and he doesn't look a day over thirty-five by human standards.]

The world's been stagnant for millennia. We did that. You're right that it needs to change, and that we need to change it. But don't talk to me about the advantages of mortality.

[Yuan turns a page over and stares at a page full of writing that he isn't really seeing, falling silent.]