#keenminded

Ruddy eyes widen slightly before Kas glances down at her bandaged arm however, instead of alarm the little girl released a frustrated huff. This is what happens when she's sent out with agents besides Miss Astrid and Mister Eadwulf, they don't remember her bandages need to be tighter than an adult's. If they hadn't taken her bag she'd already be shuffling through it for fresh bandages to fix it herself or to at least tighten her tourniquet above the wound if it proved to difficult to do alone.

She isn't sure why these strange people haven't killed her, she was always told in training that if she was found by either side of the war they wouldn't hesitate to kill her just because she's a child. To those in the empire unaware of her service she's just a little drow girl, one with magic who will grow up to be a dangerous enemy. Then, to those in the Dynasty she is a traitor and would be treated as such.

These people are strange, all they'd done is take her things and bind her hands so loosely she wouldn't even need to break her thumbs to free herself. They're vigilant in their watch of her, at least. There is always someone monitoring her, even when she pretends to sleep. This man is nervous, he has been since he replaced the half-orc as her minder.

"If you untie me I could fix it."

Recommend romantic candidates for my muses and see their reaction!

" You — " dagger pointed at the wizard, anger flaring up in mismatched eyes. The nerve of him, to accuse her of wrong doing when he was the one who had endangered the group so many times before, when he seemed so ready to ditch them at the slightest provocation and the smallest bit of difficulty. And not only to accuse her but to do it when she had done no wrong. Or so she hoped. She had lost time again, had woken up with blood on her hands and a body at her feet. It had not been the first time that she had been robbed of more time, waking up with no memory of what she had done to end up in a new place, frequently followed by a red trail of violence. Whatever force she was being subjected to, whatever CURSE she carried — she hardly thought it any of his business. Not when she herself was still attempting to put the pieces back together after she had been robbed of clarity of her own past. And so, for the first time caught by one of their merry band of misfits after yet another sudden loss of time, memory ... she could only spit at him in anger over the fact that of all of them it had been him, the most distrustful of them all, to witness the aftermath of whatever chaos she unleashed when she closed her eyes.

"And have you done so? Left your tower?" Because the statement was metaphorical, surely. Behni still knew so little of the mage, Caleb, but every so often he had hoped to sift through the ashes that seemed to obscure the true image of the man. It was these sorts of talks, about their teachings, about their magic, that gave him that chance to.

"I always think that I have...but I find myself jolting at men in armor, or wondering how long it will take for them to track me down; that this is all some sort of test to see how long I will remain from the Circle, because I have been so good up until now..." He huffs, the grip on his tucked in knees clenching tighter as he feels a small well of ice magicks creep at the edge of his fingers. "I was good...or at least I tried to be, you know? I had hoped that...if they deemed me fit to be a fully fledged mage and I passed my harrowing, I'd be good enough to serve in the courts of Denerim...looking back, it...is a rather naive thought."

let's try again..

❝  ugh,  caaleeeb,  ❞  a  dramatic  whine  escapes  the  tiefling  as  she  flops  against  the  wizard's  back,  her  hand  lifting  toward  her  forehead  as  she  speaks  in  yet  another  whine,  ❝  i'm  booored.  ❞

The sound Mair makes it something decidedly less than judgemental. "It's Kirkwall." She says, without looking back at Caleb. She creeps a little further up the rock formation currently hiding the four of them — three mages and one rather disgruntled Fenris — trying to get a better view on whatever clusterfuck was going on below.

It was not Danarius, or his men. Not ones that bore any house sigil, anyway. But unfortunately for everyone, still Tevinter soldiers.

Mair was getting tired of running into them.

She also knew there was no way around this even if she hadn't brought Caleb and Fenris with her this afternoon.

Ah well, better than another Qunari ambush, she thinks.

So that leaves whatever was haunting Caleb, which was... itself rather vague and nebulous even after several years working together, pieced together only through the endless arguing ( they are, blessedly, not arguing right now, instead focused on the common enemy ) and what little that the other mage had been willing to speak of.

Who would have thought magic could benefit them so? Magic, that foul, unfair trick wizards kept up their sleeves to use against the unfortunate rest of the population that lacked the gifts they possessed. It was all a bunch of SHIT but sometimes one had to wade through shit to get somewhere much more comfortable. And the tower ... oh after so many nights stuck out in the cold and after being forced to watch this band of merry misfits laugh and giggle as they retreated into their little magical hideout while they were left behind, exposed to the harsh elements of Aeor ... it felt so good to be out of the snow for a bit. Even if he had been forced to BARGAIN with the wizard over their entry ticket. It was humiliating, really and he still wasn't quite sure why he hadn't simply decided to cut them down already, spare himself all the arguing and be done with it. It was becoming more and more clear they would not listen to him even if he tried to convert them to his cause.

But you're not gonna give up, are you? You don't know how ...

There was that pesky voice again — not that of the Somnovem but much more annoying, a voice that sounded so like his own but with an annoying, smug sneer at all times. Like some funhouse mirror version of himself. He had tried to ignore it, to banish it back to wherever it came from, only for it to try and guide his actions and entrench itself further in his mind. It was certainly the uninvited voice's work, so he argued, when he ended up approaching the WIZARD in his own tower to ... talk? What could they possibly have to talk about? He should return to his own group, figure out a plan to get rid of these smug assholes who had tried to lead them around in circles the past few days and end this game before it could delay Cognouza's return much longer. And yet here he was, sitting down with a man who he knew held nothing but hatred for him because he was not that ridiculous pretender. He was better, could the others not see that? Not some half hearted fragment but a person with power BEYOND their wildest dreams. He was in control of something much older than any of them. They would learn soon enough ... they had to.