just when you think you've seen it all - closed

[lionheartedman]

WHO: Cullen, Leliana, Josie, and Cassandra
WHAT: meeting of the advisors
WHEN: now-ish? /waves hands all wibbly about time
WHERE: War Room

Cullen's afternoon has gotten away from him somewhat, but he's sure he'll be forgiven. Each of them knows what being in this position demands, and how incredibly impossible it makes it to have any sort of real plan for your day, or even for your life. Still, he's not expecting the wildly different facial expressions and the troubling amount of concern he can practically feel hit him in the face when he opens the door to the War Room. "All right. What's this little problem?" More importantly… "Why was little underlined twice? If this is about the nug infestation, I anticipate a rather... unpleasant argument."

Comments

[lionheartedman]

"We are not going to send him away. We are not going to scramble for someone else to take him just to be rid of him." It's not often that Cullen speaks in absolutes, but he is very strong on this point. "He is not an asset and he is not a burden. He is a child. Where do you propose we send him to make him safe? Who do you propose we give him to?" There are, as always, several stacks of papers on the table - completed mission reports, requests for aid, warnings of horrors sweeping across what feels like the entirety of Thedas. Cullen picks them up, and then tosses them forcefully back onto the table in a way that causes them to fan out. "People are dying every day and there's nothing we can do about it, because we can't be everywhere at once. I can live with that. But if we send a child out into this, and he dies?" He points to the mess he's just made. "Then we killed him. I can't live with that. He stays until we find something that's safer than what we can provide. And if we can't? Then he just stays."

Children are a hot button issue with him right now. Obviously he can't make a decision for the Inquisition as a whole, and he knows that, but if anyone wants to fight him on this point, it will be just that - a fight. The world is messed up in ways Cullen isn't sure it will ever recover from. The people in it are, for the most part, not much better. No more children paying for the stupid decisions of the adults around them if he can help it. Most of the time, he can't. This time? Maybe.