"Not having closed meetings might be a good place to start," Alistair says, which is probably not helpful given the current circumstances, which are, you know. A closed meeting. Mostly closed. He got in.

But he's looking at Norrington like he thinks he's being humored, or made fun of, and after a moment he seems to catch on—somewhat—to the fact that that isn't the case. His suspicious squinty face softens a little.

"They don't want to hurt anyone, either, and they know what's at stake," he says, with a dismissive shrug. "That's like asking someone at the edge of a cliff to convince you they don't want it to crumble. But you—you can be good for more than imprisoning them. I love working with mages. They know I've got their backs, and they know they're not likely to hurt me and I'm there to help if their spells get out of hand. The number of darkspawn they can set on fire in one go when they really let loose, it's."

Just in case he's verging on sounding seriously thoughtful—something he tries to avoid in public, with so much of his ability to stay out of trouble resting on the fact that his face appears naturally clueless—he fakes a touched, sentimental sniffle.

"It's beautiful. Truly, it is."