Author's Note: The full quote for the title is 'malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium', which translates to, 'I prefer liberty with danger to slavery with peace'.

Camrion would be lying if he said that the question of Tevinter and everything related to it hadn't been burning in his mind for quite some time. Most of the People had never met a Tevinter, but the nation was their greatest bogeyman, aside perhaps from Orlais. The children were raised on stories of Tevinter atrocities and the loss of Arlathan and everything else—indoctrinated into them, really, if Camrion had anything to say about it. He was already experiencing it with Valaros, who was rapidly becoming very scared of Tevinter and humans in general after only having heard the basic history. He would work on that later.

But here they were with an actual Tevinter in their midst. It was fascinating. His brother had told Camrion repeatedly that he should be frightened of or hostile to the mage who had joined their cause at Redcliffe, but Camrion had denied him. He liked Dorian well enough, though all his elven instincts told him that he shouldn't. Tevinter, yes; human, yes; but he was a good man, so delightfully vain and self-centred, and Camrion found it impossible not to enjoy his company. Besides, so far, he had shown no signs of being the bogeyman that the People took all Tevinters to be—and, a lot of the time, all humans as well—apart from one instance of mild ignorance, wherein he had expressed the belief that Thedas' history began with Tevinter. Camrion had not held it against him, however, only gently corrected him and teasingly rolled his eyes.

Thus far, Camrion hadn't had the time to question Dorian about Tevinter; they'd all been too busy with other things. But the more time that passed by without him getting to ask, the more desperate he had become to do so. Dorian had given him brief glimpses into the Tevinter mindset and lifestyle through how he responded to certain situations, and Camrion had seen another side in the encounter with his father, but it wasn't enough. Camrion bore Dirthamen's vallaslin for a reason, after all. He needed to know more.

It was after returning from the Exalted Plains—an interesting experience, certainly, and rather tragic, considering all that had happened there, both to his people and to the humans—that Camrion finally got the time to ask. He found Dorian in the library, browsing through the books like always, and in short order, he got him to sit down and talk to him about his homeland while Camrion scribbled the answers, literally scribbled them, onto the parchment he always carried around with him. Dorian, naturally, had complained about how it felt so much like an interview, but Camrion had just laughed and told him to please answer his questions.

So far, it had been every bit as fascinating as Camrion had expected it would be, perhaps even more. He'd found himself wanting to scribble down everything, and his wrist was now thoroughly aching from how fast he had been writing. It made him feel so happy, happier than he could express, to be allowed this insight into an entirely different world, into the nation that had shaped so much of Thedas' history, elven and human alike. And yes, it was Tevinter, but Camrion's thirst for knowledge was insatiable. The more he knew about even the People's greatest enemy, the better, as far as he was concerned. There had been an excited gleam in his eye as he asked question after question, and he could tell that Dorian was more than a little bemused by his enthusiasm.

He had saved the hardest questions, those about blood magic and slavery, for the end. How Dorian responded to the former did not surprise him. It was good to hear that Dorian himself held no truck with blood magic, but it was no great shock to learn of its omnipresence in Tevinter. Truthfully, it made perfect sense. For the matter of blood magic, Camrion was still relatively unsure where he stood, and he had kept quiet about this ambivalence to keep the peace with his generally human, Andrastian subordinates. Most humans in the south did not like blood magic, he understood, and they would pounce on any who did not share this antipathy. At the same time, he could comprehend the idea that blood magic was fine when it was done with your own blood or that of a willing sacrifice—even get behind it, to some extent. But that was to be thought over later. For now, he had one more question.

"Anyone who talks about the Imperium, especially the People, mentions slavery," he said. "It's the centre of the slave trade." Camrion attempted to keep his tone light, but ultimately, he failed. The subject matter was too serious, both from a historical point of view and from that of his own experiences, none of which he had shared with anyone in the Inquisition just yet, for lightness. Something hardened in his gaze as he looked at Dorian. This was the barometer. If he didn't like what Dorian had to say, then he'd be… well, he wouldn't get angry and scream in his face like his brother would, like many of the People would, but he would certainly be disappointed.

Hold a moment, Camrion thought. He is a mage of the highest class in Tevinter. He would have grown up with slaves. If he does not know, then you cannot hold it entirely against him. Be patient with him. That much was true, but the man had been in the south, hadn't he? Hopefully, his time outside of Tevinter would have given him room to question what he had grown up with, just as he did so much else about his homeland.

Hopefully.

"Ah," Dorian said, rather awkwardly. "That is true."

There was a momentary pause. "And?" Camrion pressed. "Did you have slaves?"

"Not personally," Dorian said, "but my family does and treats them well. Honestly, I never thought much about it until I came south. Back home, it's… how it is? Slaves are everywhere. You don't question it. I'm not even sure many slaves do."

Camrion scribbled snatches of the words down, then thought them over. Once again, this answer hardly came as a surprise to him. Indeed, just like with the blood magic, it made sense. Slavery was the system that Tevinter was built on, and they all seemed to be part of it, the slaves and the masters alike. Why would they question it? The comparison was awkward in many ways, and Camrion wanted to kick himself for it, but it reminded him to a certain extent of how many of the People never questioned the vallaslin or the old stories; they just accepted them without thinking. Seeing someone who actually tried to think critically about them was, well, rare. It was why he liked Solas so much.

Still, slavery and old stories were two very different things. One was a great evil, the other formed a vital part of what remained of his people's culture. Thus, Camrion saw no problem with forcing the matter a little. "That's it?" he asked, in the same conversational, gently querying tone as before. "You don't question it?"

Dorian looked mildly annoyed, and it was that expression that told Camrion he was not going to like what he was about to hear. He blew out a short breath and braced himself as Dorian said, "In the south you have alienages, slums both human and elven. The desperate have no way out." That much was true, Camrion would admit that. He had seen Denerim's alienage in the Blight, and what a miserable place it had been, but the sad truth was that if the city elves tried to leave, the humans would drive them back in—if they didn't just kill them. His experiences there were why the typical Dalish attitude towards the city elves irked him so. The city elves were as true descendants of Arlathan as the Dalish were, and they did not ask for or deserve human subjugation just because they did not live as the Dalish did. Frankly, in his view, the lack of unity among the city and Dalish elves was not helping their situations any.

"Back home," Dorian continued, and Camrion continued to scribble, "a poor man can sell himself. As a slave, he could have a position of respect, comfort, and could even support a family. Some slaves are treated poorly, it's true, but do you honestly think inescapable poverty is better?"

Camrion's hand froze over the parchment, and for a long time, he remained quite still as he attempted to process what he had just heard. Finally, he shook his head and continued writing. When he was done, he sat back and looked at Dorian, his face expressionless. Already, he could imagine his brother screaming in rage—and not without cause, to put it politely. But it was near-impossible to rouse Camrion to even anger, much less fury, with words alone. He was annoyed, oh yes, but his patience remained. This naïveté was to be expected, he reminded himself. Shall you scream at him for his ignorance, offensive though it is? He won't listen if you do. Politely explaining yourself will go a much longer way than getting in his face will.

"At least they're free," he said. "They don't have slavery forced on them." His tone was still mild, but there was a hint of strain there as Camrion struggled to disguise his irritation.

Dorian, on the other hand, looked still more aggravated. "You think people choose to be poor and oppressed? I doubt it," he said, and Camrion's mouth twitched as he considered the irony of a high-born mage from Tevinter trying to tell an elf who had lived in both a clan and an alienage about the nature of oppression. It was so perversely amusing that he couldn't even bring himself to feel insulted. "I don't know what it's like to be a slave, true. I never thought about it until I saw how different it was here. But I suspect you don't know, either, nor should you believe that every tale of Tevinter excess is the norm."

Camrion snickered. He couldn't help himself. He brought his hand up to his mouth and bit into the skin of his finger to keep from bursting into laughter, but he did not attempt to mask his chuckling. Dorian rose an eyebrow. "What in the world is so funny about this?" he asked disbelievingly.

"Nothing," Camrion said cheerfully. "Nothing bar your own gullibility. Dorian, have you considered that it's a bit, shall we say, classless for a high-born Tevinter to tell an elf that slavery is a better alternative to poverty, to try to teach them about the nature of oppression? A bit tacky, maybe? Even a bit offensive? Especially considering the history there? You Tevinters did destroy Arlathan and subjugate the People—now you would tell us what subjugation is like? And say that we shouldn't believe all the stories of Tevinter excess?"

Dorian paused, furrowing his brow. In the silence, Camrion watched his expression closely, and he bit his lip to hide his smile when Dorian's eyes suddenly widened. "Ah," he said, still more awkwardly than before, and Camrion grinned.

"Depressing as it is, our legacy is kind of built on slavery," he reminded him. "I'll concede that abuse of the powerless—elven and dwarven and human alike—is hardly limited to Tevinter, but we elves have a special… history with it, remember. As I understand it, the vast majority of Tevinter elves are slaves, and vice-versa?"

"Yes, that's true," Dorian said, almost mumbled. He couldn't quite meet Camrion's gaze.

"I suspected as much," Camrion told him, leaning across the table. "Having said that, from an objective point of view, I do understand what you mean. I've seen how the city elves are treated; it's ghastly. In many respects, they're not a lot better than slaves—or better off. All right, true. But think about this, Dorian. And look at me, please." Dorian looked up at him, wariness in his eyes.

"Consider this. As a slave, you're your master's property. You can be treated well or poorly, or as a craftsman treats his tools: in a utilitarian fashion. But you're still property, a thing. What your master wants, you must do. You mustn't question them. If they want you to do something repugnant, you must do it or else be punished. If they want you to be something you're not, you must be it or else be punished. You're not supposed to have free will or independent thought—just like under the Qunari. Didn't you criticise the Qunari for that when we were at the Storm Coast?"

Dorian nodded slowly, while Camrion took a deep breath. He didn't like what he was about to say, but it was the only way that he could drive the point home. "Then slavery's no better. Forgive me for saying this, Dorian, but even if a slave doesn't question slavery, if their master forces them to be someone they're not, or takes away the family they can support or the comfort and respect they can earn, then they spend their entire life… screaming on the inside. And because they are things and entirely at their masters' mercy, and because their masters have the right to do with them as they please with no limitations, they can't just run. Well, they can, but it's not that easy. They can't just coast out without being pursued. You understand?"

Dorian stared at him for a long moment as his words sank in, then abruptly looked both outraged and positively affronted. No surprise, considering that Camrion had just, however obliquely, used the incident with his father to make a point. "Now wait just a bloody second—" he began, then stopped. His hand froze in mid-air, and the anger slid off his face to be replaced by shock and sudden realisation. "… Oh."

"There you go," Camrion said with perverse geniality and good humour. "For what it's worth, I apologise for using that against you. But I had to make you understand."

Dorian shook his head and ran his hand over his face. "I never thought about it like that before," he admitted. "Even after spending all this time in the south. You'd think I'd question it like I do so many other things about Tevinter, but no, here we are."

Camrion chuckled again and said, "Nobody's perfect. We all have blind spots. Truly, I should probably be insulted and upset right now—my brother certainly would be—but while I don't like what you said, I understand why you said it. You in Tevinter are all part of that system, or so it seems. Thus, I can't blame you for not questioning something that's so omnipresent. I can and will blame you for not thinking about what I said, however. But when you said that I have no experience as a slave… that's not completely true."

Truly, it was wonderful and even oddly amusing to see the range of expressions that were crossing Dorian's face over the course of this conversation. Now he went from looking more than a little embarrassed to utterly horrified. "You were?" he gasped, his eyes bulging with shock. Abruptly, he looked Camrion up and down, perhaps searching for more scars other than those on his face.

"Not quite, don't worry," Camrion corrected him. "I was almost sold into slavery, yes, but I was freed at the last minute."

Dorian looked up at him again. "A raid on the clan?" he asked. "Even I have heard of such things happening."

"Actually, no," Camrion said. "Let's see. You know I was in Ferelden during the Blight and that I hid out with the clan of Keeper Zathrian for a large part of it. Well, as if nearly getting turned into a werewolf wasn't enough, after that mess was over, I left the clan and headed for Denerim. I thought I might hide out among the city elves until the Blight was over. A difficult business, to be sure, since I was essentially an apostate and the alienage was sealed when I arrived. I had to sneak in, which took some effort, and the city elves weren't all that friendly to me, me being Dalish and they strapped for resources and the recent victims of a terrible purge. But I remained nonetheless. I'd just made myself comfortable, and the city elves were just starting to warm up to me when the slavers came."

"Into Ferelden?" Dorian frowned. "I thought the Fereldans valued their freedom. Especially after being occupied by Orlais."

"They do. Whether they value elven freedom as much as human freedom is an argument for another day. But this was on the authorisation of Loghain, who was regent at the time. As I learnt later, he… needed money to fund his war." Camrion's lip curled with distaste.

Dorian spluttered. "You mean to tell me that the man who dedicated his life to freeing Ferelden from Orlais and keeping it free sold people into slavery for money?" he asked, and he had never sounded so incredulous as far as Camrion could remember.

Camrion nodded. "Indeed, he did," he said. "And I must say that I have never seen a more blatant, glorious display of hypocrisy before or since. He let the slavers in, and they took advantage of a plague that was going through to create a fake quarantine. Those who entered were never seen again. I managed to evade them for a while, but not forever. My magic attracted their notice, so while I never entered the quarantine of my own volition, they sent people after me, and eventually, they captured me and bundled me into a cage with a few dozen others—men, women, and children alike. The children were scared and couldn't stop crying. I'll leave you to imagine what that sounded like. I could barely breathe or move because there were so many of us stuffed in there. And the best part? The slavers were Tevinter."

Once again, Dorian cringed. "So if things hadn't changed… you could have been a slave. Beneath my notice. Beneath everyone's notice."

"Yes, exactly," Camrion said. "You could have wandered by one day and seen me, and never known. But it was a horrifying experience, in more ways than one. I was only fifteen, away from my clan and my brother, and they had no idea what was happening because they were back in the Free Marches. And we were being subjugated by Tevinters, by humans, again, and the humans outside didn't even notice." He took a deep breath and paused, shuddering at the memories. Camrion had long since made his peace with what had happened, but the horror still afflicted him some days, the more so because it was the same sort of horror that millions of elves before him must have felt—an ancestral horror.

"Well, thankfully, the Hero of Ferelden showed up a few days later and put an end to things, freeing those who had yet to be shipped off and slaughtering the slavers. Loghain was executed in the Landsmeet, and when the horde came to Denerim, I stood with the other city elves and defended the alienage alongside them. It was all very exciting, and they became much friendlier to me after that. Then, as soon as I could after the Blight was over, I took a ship back to the Free Marches and found the clan. Some humans helped me back on my way, which was… Well, part of me wanted to hate humans after what happened in the alienage, but while what those people did didn't make up for what happened, it did restore my faith in humans, convince me that there was more good than bad in them. Regardless, that's my very long story and the reason why you really shouldn't have said what you did," he finished, giving Dorian a warm smile. Dorian seemed to be slightly nonplussed by the incongruity of his expression with what he had just told him, but he made no comment on it.

Instead, he said, "Kaffas. That must have been awful. I know this probably doesn't mean much, but I am sorry. For what happened—for what I said. I should have suspected something." The sympathy and regret in his voice seemed genuine enough, and Camrion's smile widened.

"It's all right," he said. "As I said, we all have blind spots. Say, do you know anything of Shartan?"

"Not much," Dorian admitted. "Surprisingly, they don't like to talk about him back home."

Camrion chuckled. "Surprisingly. Well, wait here. There's a book that he wrote somewhere here in the library that I think you should read," he said. Before Dorian could say another word, Camrion rose from the table and headed over to the shelves to search for the book in question.

It was a library of some size, but it didn't take him long to find it. Conveniently enough, a book about the Dissonant Verses of the Chant of Light was located on the same shelf, and so Camrion took that one, too. He returned to Dorian and handed the books to him.

"A Slave's Life," he said. "Shartan's work. Ancient, but it should give you a good idea of what slavery's really like. And somewhere in here is the Canticle of Shartan, which was struck from the Chant after the fall of the Dales. I'll leave you to contemplate the irony of that when Shartan was one of Andraste's closest friends and compatriots." He gave up on it a long time ago, but there was once a time where he covered innumerable sheets of parchment in his fruitless attempts to work out why such a thing happened, and the question still dogged him at times.

"Yes, funny how that works, isn't it?" Dorian remarked dryly. "They sing your praises so long as it benefits them, then pull the rug out, take it all away, and render themselves the biggest hypocrites on the face of Thedas when it no longer does."

Camrion let out a snort. "Basically."

"Isn't it strange, then, to be their new figurehead? What if the same happens to you?"

He shrugged. "It is strange, but I've always made room for the Maker and Andraste as well as the Creators, and I don't quite share in many of the People's hatred of the Chantry. It's done terrible things, yes, but I see the good it does, too, and it should be allowed a chance at redemption. As for whatever might happen to me in the future—I'll worry about that later."

"Fair enough," Dorian said. He looked down at the books in his hands, and there was genuine interest in his face, which Camrion was pleased to see. "Well, I'll give these both a read, and I'll tell you what I think when I'm done."

"Please do," Camrion said. "I wouldn't mind talking about this further with you." Any chance to educate someone and change their mind, he would take.

He began to turn to go, but as he did, something occurred to him, and he stopped. "One more thing," he added, without looking at Dorian. "I've long since made my peace with what happened in Denerim, but I'd be lying if I said that I haven't had nightmares about Valaros being taken. Being a parent does that to you. You want what's your best for your children—you do." He could see the expression that had started to form on Dorian's face when he said that, and he wanted to emphasise the point. Not all fathers were Halward Pavus, after all. "And me, personally, I'd rather Valaros be poor and free than a possession in a position of comfort. That's what's best. And if you tell me that I don't love him—" Here, only here, did a note of warning, a threat of wrath, come into Camrion's voice. Calm by nature he was, but Valaros was an exception to everything.

"I wouldn't dare," Dorian said, very seriously. "I know you love him. And I think I know what you mean."

Camrion nodded firmly. "Good. I'm glad you understand."

"How do you remain so calm about it?" Dorian asked after a brief pause. "All your history with it, your own and your people's, and yet you discuss it with scarcely a hint of anger."

Once again, Camrion shrugged. He turned to look back at Dorian. "It's just been my experience that politely explaining myself and taking the time to educate people works much better than screaming in their face and calling them a shemlen. Others might disagree, but if it works for me, as it has, who are they to judge? And I have better things to expend my energy on. Hate and anger I find… exhausting."

"If only we could all be so level-headed," Dorian said.

Camrion smiled slightly. "If only. Maybe one day. But thank you, Dorian. This was interesting, in more ways than one. It was good to learn more about your homeland."

"Even despite the slavery?" Dorian raised an eyebrow.

"Even despite that," Camrion said with another snicker. "You may have noticed that I love to learn."

"Quite. And you learnt something from me; I learnt something from you," Dorian said. "That seems like a fruitful experience all around."

Camrion grinned and nodded vigorously, the excited gleam from before returning to his eyes. "Exactly. And I managed to change your mind on a thing or two. We should do this again sometime." Dorian's answering smile was more cautious than usual but nevertheless indicated that he liked that idea, and Camrion's grin remained as he finally said his goodbyes and left his side to go seek out Valaros and his brother.

Another educated human, he thought. Excellent. Keep this up, and if they're all as willing to learn as Dorian is, and this may do something. He knew that he wouldn't have such luck with everyone, but it was worth a try. If this way he made a better world for Valaros, all elves, and all people in general, who could complain?

But, for now, he had a son to see to, and a prayer of thanks to make to the Creators for their being free.