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...sometimes, yes.

[She was never meant for a simple life. That's clear now, and she's more or less accepted it. But still, every now and then she wonders.]

As sad as it is, it's hard for me to imagine it. But maybe it's a subjective thing. Sure, only worrying about your crop yield before the onset of winter might seem minor to us, but to the farmer who relies on it, it's as consuming as any of our own worries.

No, it's true, it's perspective. We grew some things when I was young to keep us fed and in Kirkwall I was glad at first not to have to think about it, but after a time it was hard not to yearn for a days work in the field instead of yet another invitation to some noblewoman's estate as a very thinly veiled excuse for her to puff her bosoms at me. Thank Andraste I'm a tall man.

[He snorts.]

But even back then, we still had to worry about keeping our magic hidden, especially with Bethany just coming into it. I didn't miss the hiding ever.

I can't imagine what it's like to have to live your life essentially on the run and hiding, always having to look over your shoulder. During the Blight, until the Landsmeet happened and Loghain was dealt with, I had to do that in fear of his assassins and lackeys catching up to us. [A snort.] We got lucky with Zevran, but I knew it wouldn't happen again. Anyway, I did that for nearly a year. It was awful, so to have to live like that your whole life...

Why do you think Anders and I fought so hard in Kirkwall and after?

[He lets out a breath.]

I want to say it wasn't all bad. I suppose it wasn't all. We had life like anyone else, moments of peace, even months at a time, but it was always inevitable with three mages in the family that we'd have to move. Sometimes I think it was hardest on Mother and Carver. Mother rarely complained where we could hear, but Carver... Maker's teeth he could go on. More than once we came to blows. I don't want anyone to have to live like that.

[He smiles a little.]

Neither does Leliana, Maker bless her reign as Divine. It puts me at ease knowing it does get better. Not immediately, I'm sure, but with mages free it could be we could build out own communities away from prejudice.

I always understood. As much as I am capable, anyway. Not being a mage myself, there's only so much I can truly understand. Wynne always valued the Circles for the institutions that they were, whereas Morrigan derided them and considered them prisons. Conflicting points of views, but I learned a lot from both.

[What the Circles were, what they meant, differed for each mage in them, and that's where the problem was. No two Circles were the same, and thus the experience of a Circle mage varied. Where some flourished and loved it, others suffered.]

Leli's going to have a fight on her hands with that, as will all the mages. Change won't come easily, or without a fight. As much as it pains me, I don't know how readily Ferelden will accept those changes. After what happened in Redcliffe, and the war ravaging parts of the Bannorn, the Fereldan people aren't entirely fond of mages or templars at the moment, or last I heard.

A pity, considering Kinloch is as much a prison as the rest of them, no matter what Wynne said. Anders told me of what happened to him there and that's enough for me to want to tear them all down, let alone the abuses in the Gallows and the Orlesian Circles.

[He's sure he doesn't have to tell Riona of Anders' solitary confinement, of his many escape attempts, and of what happened with Karl Thekla. Anders has likely told her at least some of it, and some is enough to drive his point home.]

I'll grant you that it's the best place for a magical education, however. Or really the only place outside Tevinter.

[He sighs and leans back.]

You know, Hermione told me a bit about her world and their magical communities. Whole villages of free mages, with their own schools to send their children to and they come back every summer. It sounds fantastic, but I don't know if Thedas could ever get there.

To her it wasn't. It was a refuge, a home for an orphaned girl who had nothing and no one. [It doesn't erase Anders's experience, though, and she's quick to say:] I'm not belittling what Anders endured. He shouldn't have had to. The Circles need to change, that much is clear.

But people are afraid of magic, and what it can do. That fear won't go away overnight. What Anders did and the war that broke out a few years later solidified that fear for many. [It's a catch-22: the mages had to fight for their freedom, but the outbreak of the war and the horrors magic can bring got brought to the forefront of the public's mind.]

Thedas might. The Circles didn't happen overnight, and they won't change that quickly either. We have to take it one step at a time.

Oh I know, I'm not saying it'll happen quickly, but that's why the mage communities sound like a wonderful solution to me. They'd the separate and able to protect themselves, but still able to help with every day things and prove mages aren't to be feared. I think their service to the Inquisition will go a long way, too. They helped of their own free will, after all.

But you know there would be people who'd be vocally against it, as I'm assuming these communities would be without templars. They'd argue that there's no one supervising the mages or watching for blood magic, and so on. [Maker she can already hear the Bannorn lords harping on about it, and given what happened in Redcliffe, Teagan would be backing them, too.] It's such a fraught issue.

There's no one supervising the Templars now either. And even when they were... well, look at Kirkwall.

[He huffs out an irritated breath.]

Templars can't be trusted to police mages any more than non-mages think that mages can police ourselves. There has to be a voice in the middle, that's what Leliana should do as Divine.

[She sighs tiredly.]

I'm aware. The templars committed grave injustices and crimes against the mages, both in and outside of Kirkwall. Change is needed. But as a queen, I need to think of my people and the nobles and what they'll think. Between what happened in Redcliffe during the Blight, Kinloch Hold falling, and the mage-templar war that resulted in fighting and destruction in the Bannorn, many of my people are skeptical of mages, to put it lightly.

[This is why she hates this debate. It could go around and around for hours with no resolution.]

I'd like to see the mages be a part of society. I want things to change. But people are afraid. They've been spoonfed all the stories about apostates and abominations for so long. It is going to be extremely hard to convince them to trust mages, and there's going to be considerable backlash. Perhaps even violence.

I'm not saying you don't, or even that you're wrong about people, what I'm saying is it's worth it to try even knowing all that. People being afraid can't be an excuse to let a system that oppresses a huge number of people just for the way they were born anymore. I understand that we can cause a great deal of trouble, to put it mildly, if we make poor choices, but the system as it stands literally pushes mages into those poor choices because they have no over recourse.

I've heard the same arguments you have, over and over and around again. I've seen the sheer destruction that blood magic can visit on both the unsuspecting and the prepared, but it can't be the wall to hide behind any longer. It's "extremely hard" but it's not something that isn't worth trying anyway.

selvin-9 system mingle

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