"The likes of Anders are but one reason why people might say the same of mages. Simply making example of it does not make it inherently wrong." As Adelaide spoke it, wariness is not without basis. And yet there is something more severe in how Herian speaks it, a brutal kind of certainty: "Spirit healers are not the peril. Of all of us you have the most noble purpose. It is shameful what he has inflicted upon your work."

Tension edges up her back, her spine stiffening vertebrae by vertebrae, and it would be noticeable in her posture if she did not already carry herself so upright, shoulders back and everything about her seeming less flesh and more marble, or some other more roughly hewn stone. She was no noble, to be considered a fine statue. She was the severity of cliffs that watched over ships and stern, unforgiving coral and rocks lurking beneath the water, that the unworthy and unwatching might be cast upon her.

"Mind and avoid. Those are not the actions of a knight. A knight does not willingly blind themselves." She says it very evenly, flatly, even as her heart hammers harder in her chest and her lungs feel raw for having been denied air, and she part wishes that she may double over for the wrenching in her gut. She feels many things acutely, but forces herself to stand as a knight must. Ever ready and attentive.