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

[issala]

I turned eighteen the other day.

[byblow]

Then congratulations. You're an adult. Get married soon, before all the good rich ones are taken.

[issala]

They don't have to be rich!

[byblow]

Well, no, but it never hurts. When I was your age I had seven rich wives, and look at me now.

[el_tybs]

What are their names?

[byblow]

Were. I had seven wives.

[ A quick pause to mourn his seven lost wives and to wonder why Samouel is so fond of trying to poke holes in lies that are clearly not meant to be believed in the first place.

Then he takes a breath and rattles off, ] Glenna, Mysie, Aileen, Jennet, Senga, Leleas, and Beitris.

[el_tybs]

[Just because you decided to say you had seven wives, Alistair. Even Iskandar didn't have that many.]

I'm sorry for you loss. Did they all get along with each other?

[byblow]

They never met. I spent a different day of the week with each of them.

[el_tybs]

Who was which day?

[byblow]

I gave them to you in order. Glenna was Sunday and then--so on.

[onlyhymns]

...Alistair, those were the Chantry sisters at the abbey. You couldn't have been married to them.

[What's that, up in the sky? It's the joke, sailing freely over Cade's head.]

[byblow]

[ In a grit-teethed challenging tone that says, at least to anyone who can understand tones, Cade you are totally throwing off my groove: ]

Couldn't I have been? Don't you think?

[el_tybs]

You married Chantry sisters?

[onlyhymns]

....no...? What?

[unbrokenoath]

If we can marry Chantry sisters, I have a list of like...at least ten that I gotta make honest women out of.

...At least I'll have more than Alistair.

[el_tybs]

They have to say 'yes' first.

[byblow]

Yes. I did. Seven rich ones.

[el_tybs]

I didn't realize Chantry sisters were rich.

[byblow]

What did you think they did with all those tithes?

[el_tybs]

I assumed it was to buy Templars those fancy dresses.

[byblow]

No, no, it's definitely to support their shared eighteen-year-old husbands.

[el_tybs]

So how many husbands did each of them have?

[byblow]

Seven. Of course.

[ And a sigh. ]

Your investigation—investigatory—investigwhatever skills, they're admirable, but I'm fairly sure the fact that I was an unmarried virgin at eighteen is actually a matter of public record. I think you could walk into a literal library and read it in a literal book. That might be faster than quizzing me on the details of a joke.

[el_tybs]

I don't think we have that one in ours, we should probably fix that.

But this is so much more fun. That and seeing just how far the joke goes. It's a remarkable trait to being able to go that far.