Life during puberty was hard in a Chantry-run establishment.
As I grew older, I desperately wished that I could talk to the Arl, that I hadn't shoved him away so thoroughly. At least he would understand the strange restlessness in my limbs and mind, and the bashful glances at giggling young women. He would understand just how frightening they had become, how utterly confusing. How my eyes suddenly found their forms intriguing and my dreams were plagued with ruminations on what the differences between girls and boys really were – other than the scariness factor, of course.
I also wished I weren't so bloody long-limbed; Templar training was hard enough without my arms and legs suddenly shooting out in all directions like branches on a tree blown about in the wind. I went from being an average fighter to being amazingly bad; the grizzled Templar who showed us how to use our wooden swords and shields shook his head every time I outgrew yet another set of practice armor. He seemed otherwise unfazed by my clumsiness, however, which was a relief.
Plenty of the other boys were going through the same thing, but that didn't mean that I was free from their mockery; I was still stuck between the social strata and any opportunity for insults was a well-used opportunity.
Because of that strange, indeterminable social status of mine, I never kissed a girl at that age, I never experimented. I felt awkward and unwanted; truly, I missed Redcliffe. I didn't have a father or a mother, but Arl Eamon was a wise man who would've been able to explain these budding feelings to me as the men and women around me who had taken vows could not.