"What would you say of her instead?" There's an earnestness behind Myr's tone as he asks the question that goes beyond a hunger to hear legends; this is Flemeth's daughter, who knows the truth at the heart of the stories, the real being shrouded 'round in fearful whispers. What does Asha'bellanar's child think of her, he wonders, inclined as he is to think of people in kinships--of blood, of affinity, of faith. Context matters; society matters, even such thread-thin society as ancient witches among a far-flung people might keep. There's a pattern to everything--and that's the thought that brings a twitch of a smile to his face at the mention of sheep. No, Iolan Shivana had been no sheep; willful obedience was something different than herd-instinct meekness--and the shems had sensed it in the end and killed him for it. "I understand enough to know it isn't very much," he admits, smile widening to something rueful, truthful. Not quite self-deprecating. "And that not all there is to learn's kept neatly in a Circle library. But--"
There are things he goes too far on, he knows. As she said--if he believed all the Chantry taught he wouldn't be here; ergo, he must not. And he likes to think (in what he knows is the pride of his own heart) that those things he doesn't believe aren't the core of the faith, aren't what the Maker had intended His second children to cling to. The trappings of fearful men, rather than the command of the divine--but those commands, oh, how little he will budge on them. "Tevinter was built on the backs of slaves and magic that eats lives; whatever else it was or is or will be, that is a stain on the world." The elves were older, and well, so, the Imperium had trampled over them too--
"Is not all magic blood magic?" The challenge draws him up short with a noise almost like a surprised laugh; he's been scandalized, maybe, right into disbelieving humor. "If you put it that way, but so long as the blood remains safely in my veins, I don't know anyone will think of what I'm doing as blood magic. And that's how I'd keep it, so I've got the chance for a lineage myself." Idly said, without conviction; he knows it's a possibility but the thoughts of mate and family and children are dug out of them so effectively in the Circles. They're for other people, not mages; a mage is a creature set apart.
He starts at the touch--not afraid, not exactly, but wound tight enough from the careful nervy business of speaking to her that it comes as a surprise. Yet, he takes the invitation, finding the nearest chair and seating himself at her table. (Don't think so much of what sitting down with a witch might mean for the state of one's soul. At least they aren't sharing bread and salt, no binding guest-right, only talk. Interesting talk.) "Then what took you to Orlais, where so many of them congregate?"
Where she'd stand out defiantly among the masks, and what thing that is-- How much are you yourself, Myrobalan? And how much what's been made of you? Questions he's ducked aside from before because staring them in the face meant changing. But the presence of a witch changes things; the outward pecking of the raven's beak so much like the inward gnawing of his own thoughts that he can't avoid them--but embrace the discomfort, here, and give it room to run.
no subject
There are things he goes too far on, he knows. As she said--if he believed all the Chantry taught he wouldn't be here; ergo, he must not. And he likes to think (in what he knows is the pride of his own heart) that those things he doesn't believe aren't the core of the faith, aren't what the Maker had intended His second children to cling to. The trappings of fearful men, rather than the command of the divine--but those commands, oh, how little he will budge on them. "Tevinter was built on the backs of slaves and magic that eats lives; whatever else it was or is or will be, that is a stain on the world." The elves were older, and well, so, the Imperium had trampled over them too--
"Is not all magic blood magic?" The challenge draws him up short with a noise almost like a surprised laugh; he's been scandalized, maybe, right into disbelieving humor. "If you put it that way, but so long as the blood remains safely in my veins, I don't know anyone will think of what I'm doing as blood magic. And that's how I'd keep it, so I've got the chance for a lineage myself." Idly said, without conviction; he knows it's a possibility but the thoughts of mate and family and children are dug out of them so effectively in the Circles. They're for other people, not mages; a mage is a creature set apart.
He starts at the touch--not afraid, not exactly, but wound tight enough from the careful nervy business of speaking to her that it comes as a surprise. Yet, he takes the invitation, finding the nearest chair and seating himself at her table. (Don't think so much of what sitting down with a witch might mean for the state of one's soul. At least they aren't sharing bread and salt, no binding guest-right, only talk. Interesting talk.) "Then what took you to Orlais, where so many of them congregate?"
Where she'd stand out defiantly among the masks, and what thing that is-- How much are you yourself, Myrobalan? And how much what's been made of you? Questions he's ducked aside from before because staring them in the face meant changing. But the presence of a witch changes things; the outward pecking of the raven's beak so much like the inward gnawing of his own thoughts that he can't avoid them--but embrace the discomfort, here, and give it room to run.