The age-old question

[issala]

FORM: Sending Crystal
SENDER: Kas
RECIPIENT: Everyone
WHAT: More questions
WHEN: Today
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: Tiny teen qunari muses about not being tiny any more.

So at what age are you really an adult? I mean, not maturely but like... to other people. You say you 'come of age' and stuff like that but exactly what age is that in Ferelden? Here you can't join the army if you're under seventeen, which is fair. Does that mean you're an adult after seventeen?

I heard some rifter saying you can't drink unless you're eighteen or twenty-one or whatever. Rivain doesn't have a rule like that. I had wine when I was a kid, so I don't see the point of restricting it.

...but, like... at what age are you an adult? How old do you gotta be to marry someone without it being weird?

[Pause.]

Not that I'm marrying anyone!

Comments

[limier]

I would have been wed at seventeen. Where I'm from, it’s a common enough age for contracts.

However, I suspect that it is always somewhat weird. Such is the nature of lifelong, binding oaths.

[issala]

I more mean... weird like marrying off kids. I mean, where's that line?

[limier]

Well. I was engaged at fifteen — the years between were intended to such purpose.

Personally? Youth is defined by its opportunity. It is the responsibility of we aged to allow the young to make their own mistakes, to hold those doors open until they've the fortitude and will to choose which they shut.

It is a peculiar tipping point that we've all defined, isn't it? May I ask what brought the question?

[issala]

Mm, I guess. It seems kinda different for different people, too. Like nobles and normal people.

...I guess I was just curious? I mean, I heard the rifter, and then I'm pretty sure I turned eighteen the other day.

[limier]

I've heard stories of nobles promised from early childhood, to only meet two decades later. Likely exaggeration, but can you imagine? Knowing such a thing, your entire life.

Eighteen is not an unimpressive number, in these times. Do you feel like an adult?

[issala]

It would be really weird. I mean, what if you don't even like them?

...and I don't know. Sometimes.

[limier]

An affair or an assassination, if you believe rumour.

Feelings are seldom a legal matter. Perhaps you might be both an adult, and young as it suits. Unless you intend to shirk responsibility, there is little harm in an occasional childishness.

[issala]

That's gross. Ugh, what a stupid idea.

I think I understand what you mean, though. Maybe I'm an adult. Just... inexperienced.

[limier]

Indeed. But intrigue is Orlais' finest export. What should we be without it? Practically Ferelden.

[ it's a joke. she's joking. yall calm ur mabari ]

Inexperience is a fine thing. It means you may make anything of yourself yet.

[issala]

[He snorts at that, amused. Kas could definitely get along with someone who made both Ferelden and Orlaisian jokes.]

Well... I am making more of me now than I ever was before. Maybe that's what it takes.

[limier]

That's all that anyone can ask. That you try, and do not stop trying. But you are with the Inquisition, you know this already.

Happy birthday — ah, I'm afraid I did not catch your name.

[issala]

Uh... I'm Kas. Just Kas.

Thank you.

[limier]

You're welcome, Just Kas.

[ What's the point in talking to teenagers if you can't make a shitty joke? ]

[issala]

[This is a long-suffering groan.]