Mm, only by a hundred years. Give or take, [ "give or take", he says, with soft amusement in his voice. There is far more than a century dividing the two of them. Perhaps little more than half of a millennia, were he to count the days, one after another. He stopped counting, after a while. After generations of otkazat'sya families came and went before his eyes.

His thumb finds the ridge of Bellamy's knuckles, as his hand flexes, and presses there. A pinpoint of firm contact, meant to be reassuring. ]

In the context of answering "why", it is. She'll live as long as I have, though right now - she's barely older than you. She'll outlive generations, they'll resent her youth and beauty, they'll fear her. She loathes me, now, because I have seen the history of our people. And because what I... did and would do for their future.

[ He loves them. Tired and sad, and wicked all the same - his people. He feels very similarly for his brood. They're his now. They're all his. ]