"Yes, I know lyrium is good for other things. I've spent my entire life in the Circles since the minute I came of age." He can't quite curb his instinct to lash out there--he may be a hothead of no rank or renown, he knows, but he's not an idiot. And perhaps this seems an odd, insignificant part of Malcolm's musings to latch onto, but it sticks with him nonetheless.
"But how easy will it be for us to come by if we don't even have what little's left of the Order's name and power anymore? I don't know who's negotiating for it here, but I doubt they'd thank us for making their job harder if the traders were to smell blood in the water." Whatever admiration Simon holds for the Seekers, whatever mingled envy and awe had made him until recently think better of them than most, it comes from their freedom from those chains he can't escape. He respects and detests them for it at the same time, knows with aching certainty that he could never have attained that level of discipline and simultaneously feels all the more compelled to push back against the absoluteness of their authority.
But even if his path to the idea is roundabout and very different, Simon finds himself more or less in agreement with what Malcolm suggests--and in complete concordance with everything he fears. Authority and identity are all they have left, for what little that is still worth.
"I can't help but be afraid that if we were to disband...even if we meant it to be temporary, we wouldn't have the chance to go back," he says. "Either the reformed Chantry wouldn't have us, or...something else would go wrong, and we'd just be on our own for good. For now, it might well be better for us all to be absorbed into the Inquisition, it really might, but--if we can't take it back someday--"
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"But how easy will it be for us to come by if we don't even have what little's left of the Order's name and power anymore? I don't know who's negotiating for it here, but I doubt they'd thank us for making their job harder if the traders were to smell blood in the water." Whatever admiration Simon holds for the Seekers, whatever mingled envy and awe had made him until recently think better of them than most, it comes from their freedom from those chains he can't escape. He respects and detests them for it at the same time, knows with aching certainty that he could never have attained that level of discipline and simultaneously feels all the more compelled to push back against the absoluteness of their authority.
But even if his path to the idea is roundabout and very different, Simon finds himself more or less in agreement with what Malcolm suggests--and in complete concordance with everything he fears. Authority and identity are all they have left, for what little that is still worth.
"I can't help but be afraid that if we were to disband...even if we meant it to be temporary, we wouldn't have the chance to go back," he says. "Either the reformed Chantry wouldn't have us, or...something else would go wrong, and we'd just be on our own for good. For now, it might well be better for us all to be absorbed into the Inquisition, it really might, but--if we can't take it back someday--"