Subject of Debate

Varric took one look at him and handed his ale flask over. Cullen drank, relishing the burn for a moment before passing the flask back. The dwarf drank some and gestured for Cullen to speak. He had no idea where to begin.

"She's reading better, now," the dwarf said to spare Cullen. "We find letters and notes all the time. Used to be she'd get one of us to read it for her but now she insists on doing it herself. I think she wants to try her hand at writing some."

His tone was fond and Cullen was pleased that their efforts were working but dread was still lodged in his chest and dripping down into his lungs. Varric offered the flask again but Cullen refused.

"So, I imagine what you have to tell me is something pretty incriminating, given that your first choice otherwise would be the Seeker or one of your kin."

Up in the mountains, weather didn't change all that much. It got worse from time to time but it was generally the same temperature and pattern as always. Midday was the worst. Cullen preferred storms to it, how bright the snow was and the false sense of heat. All around them the Inquisition was at work. It was loud, noisy as any overgrown city. And the sunlight seemed to amplify everything. Cullen knew this would be the best time to talk to Varric. Anyone could overhear them in the dead of night but in the harsh sunlight no one would bother to attempt.

"What's your stance on mages?"

Huffing a quick, bitter sigh, Varric glanced away from him. "Some of my best friends have been mages. Some of the worst, too. It's complicated."

"And your stance on how to treat them?"

"Shit. I don't know. I don't want to be the one to decide this. Keep me as far away from that as possible."

Neither said anything for a while, Cullen too busy putting his thoughts together and Varric working too hard to tare his own apart.

"I used to only see the worst in them," Cullen said at last. Varric looked up at him from drinking his flask. "Said more than a few horrible things about them."

"I know. I was there when you told Hawke that you can't treat mages like people." Cullen felt the bottom of his stomach drop out but Varric was chuckling. "We had a good laugh about that later. And Hawke for some reason still liked you. He said you were 'a bit batty but the best of us are.' Jr and Blondie and even Aveline told him to stay clear from you but he still helped with your assignments. Hawke was like that. He could stare at a man, see all of his sins and still find something good. He didn't care how you felt personally about him; he wanted to help no matter what class you were from or race. At first I thought it was because he wanted coin but then he started giving his money away right and left and I realized that was just the person he was. And it got him into a dragon's weight in trouble."

The Arishock, Anders, and the countless other problems in Kirkwall that landed on Hawke's shoulders. Cullen thought of them all, compared them to his own responsibilities and fears. He didn't know how Hawke did it. No wonder the man went into hiding.

"That Dalish girl you were friends with. She was a blood mage, wasn't she?"

"Pol isn't one, if that's what you were worried about." Varric stared at him hard, his eyes angry and desperate looking. "She's different. Daisy was obsessed with learning more about her ancestors. It didn't end well for her. Pol hardly talks about being an elf. Too focused on closing the damn sky."

Cullen nodded and waited for Varric to finish scowling. "I ask because. . . until the battle with the Knight Commander, if I found the Inquisitor I would have captured her and brought her into the Circle. She wouldn't have faired well in the Gallows."

Wild mages never did well in Circles. Pol's thirst for knowledge and liberal view of human culture aside, she wouldn't adjust well. She liked sunlight too much. And Kirkwall in those last months would have made her Tranquil before she could have the chance to prove herself a threat. The thought made Cullen ill. He would have received a request for the Right and he would have signed it, as he always did when dangerous mages were involved. Her magic was uncontrollable, it would say. She was headed to become a hedge mage, too set in her ways to be properly trained. Either her magic would reform into something dangerous or she would become an abomination. Pol would have been branded and she would be ironing sheets by the afternoon with the other Tranquil.

"Then we can be thankful you never found her."

"Indeed." He felt like he was still trying to find his footing. Cullen didn't want to have this conversation. There was nothing he wanted more than the end it but his questions and doubts were chewing their way out his throat. "Meredith's path was folly. I understand that, now. We are born of the Maker and none of his children disserve to be treated as criminals because of how he crafted them. And yet the idea of mages living without a set of checks and balances . . ." The idea terrified him. His mind sprang images from his nightmares, of innocent children consumed by the fire of a rage demon, of blood magic rituals and animated corpses. "I have witnessed the worst mages can do. I should be guarded against them. I should be scared of what the Inquisitor can do but when I search myself, all I can find is respect for her."

There. It was out.

Varric was watching him, waiting for Cullen to say something more but the Commander didn't even know what to think now.

"So. . .your problem is that you think you should be scared of Pol but you're not."

"In shot words, yes." He was having trouble looking at Varric. A foolish sort of queasiness was about him but Cullen stood straight and endured. Varric laughed.

"Listen, Cullen. I don't know what to tell you. Some of the things Hawke did scared the shit out of me. You know he exploded people? On purpose? Nice as a lamb outside of combat but once you started fighting him he would slap something he called, 'Walking Bomb' onto a person and, well, you get the picture."

"I'm familiar with the technique." It was a Spirit spell, one of the more dangerous and cruel. The first time he'd seen it used was on a templar before the man could finish smiting a rebelling mage. No one noticed till he complained of chest pains after the mage was slain. By then it was all they could do to keep their distance from him. Cullen spent the rest of the day cleaning gore off his armor. It was such a contrast from the diplomatic persona of Hawke that Cullen knew and Varric spoke of that he had a hard time reshaping the image of Hawke in his mind.

"The point is that Hawke did some things that freaked me out and I still trusted him. Same for Daisy and Blondie. I'm pretty sure all mages have a 'freak the hell out of the normal people' spell, Pol included. It doesn't mean that they're not good people. For all that Hawke did I never felt safer than when he was at my back. And Daisy, she was the sweetest thing in Thedas."

"Yes, and two out of those three mages are malificar, one responsible for war."

"Not Hawke." He said it like a man clinging to an edge. Varric drank from his flask again. "I trusted Hawke and after a while I stopped worry about what he could do. Maybe you're already there with Pol. You guys read together almost every day. And when you're not you're making important decisions for the Inquisition. It'd make sense that you feel comfortable with her. It's just taking your head a while to catch up with your body. "

He wanted to believe Varric but the man had terrible odds when it came to mages. Becoming comfortable with a mage was the concern. He should be cautious, careful with his actions and watchful of her's and yet when she was near he felt bolstered by her presence, capable of commanding the Inquisition and righting the wrongs of the world. He felt powerful but he knew that was as sure a path to ruin as Meredith's.

Cullen turned from Varric and headed back to his men at the training yard. Cassandra would have been a better choice to vent to. She had a more objective view of mages. She would have told him to keep to his knowledge because the heart always lead astray. Varric's words only left him in more tangles.

Pol was the Inquisitor, yes, but she was also a mage. Even if she was Andraste's Herald she could not go unchecked.

When he reached the training yard he found the Inquisitor and Cassandra laughing themselves into tears over some shared joke. They noticed him and waved him over. He'd never need Cassandra joyful before and he knew at once any chance of objectivity he had with her was gone.

"Cullen, Cullen you'll never guess what we just figured out," the Inquisitor said and the smile at her lips had his heart leaping into his throat. Meredith before her fall was a strong and righteous woman. Solona was brave and had a laugh like bells. Somehow Pol was both of these women and more, so much more.

Cullen knew he was doomed. It'd just taken him this long to put it all together.