“     HEY  AMELIA?   CAN  I  GET  YOUR  OPINION  ON  SOMETHING?     “     he  doesn’t  look  up  from  the  file  in  his  hands,  to  caught  up  in  the  writing.     there  is  sense  in  what  has  been  written  down,  though  not  everything  is  understood  yet.     and  that  is  where  amelia  is  supposed  to  help  daniel  out.     “     this  is  rather  fascinating.     ”

Daniel has been Cassandra’s apprentice for the better part of five years – a relatively short time compared to other apprenticeships, and just about the minimum number of years required before full initiation.

While he was not her first apprentice, he’s the first to hail from a small Fereldan town in the riverlands of the Bannorn. Initially content with training to become a Templar, Daniel joined the Seeker ranks after Cassandra requested he be offered an apprenticeship. Her Order drew on Templar resources to bolster their ranks in a skirmish, and this is where Cassandra witnessed and evaluated his skills to file that request. 

Cassandra is as efficient a tutor as she is a warrior. While some classified assignments required a certain level of confidentiality from the Divine’s Right Hand, her approach to mentoring is to take her apprentice along on assignments and missions, let them observe and learn from her, and let them approach her with questions they have.  She believes that intrinsic motivation is the mortar with which to build the foundation of a suitable Seeker candidate; if she notices that an apprentice is lacking in that regard, she will (and has, in the past) dismissed them from her side. Daniel was not such a case.

He had a habit of questioning everything, which made her grit her teeth more than once; in some debates, she considered calling him out for insubordination – and never did, in the end, because a good night’s sleep calmed heated spirits enough to make her realise his determination could prove an asset at some point. Stubbornness and curiosity were, in fact, his two determining traits. He bludgeoned her with questions about her homeland, her childhood, her initiation into Seeker ranks – the latter in preparation of his own initiation, particularly. Cassandra noticed him becoming more and more skittish in the months leading up to it, but thought nothing of it.

Only a few weeks before Daniel’s initiation, Cassandra is faced with a choice that will cast vast ripples into the months that follow: Is she to remain obedient to the Order, or is she to raise the Inquisition from the ashes of Justinia’s deathbed? He was among the first she confided in after having come to a decision, but when she reached out to him he reclined to join her. Why? He chose security over risk, and even if Cassandra would have wished for his company, she could not fault him for his decision. 

As much as she would have liked to stay in touch after breaking ties with her Order, Cassandra simply did not have the time to catch up for personal reasons. While she continues to foster contacts in the Order (who also contribute to the pool of information that Leliana’s network are nurturing), Daniel was not part of them: To do so would have meant taking risks equal to abandoning the Order, and would not have been feasible for the future he planned. Through her contacts, Cassandra caught glimpses of his further development under a new temporary mentor, and his eventual initiation into the Order.