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

[foxsays]

I left home at fifteen to live by myself and provide for myself, it's more or less the age a lot of us do that back home if we're not rich or noble. Maybe younger if you're apprenticed and go live by them or go to sea.

[But she was thieving and parkouring from twelve so maybe Araceli is an outlier here.]

Who has rules about drinking? Everyone drinks watered rum more than they drink water in Castileos.

[issala]

So taking care of yourself would be a good rule for when you're an adult, then?

[He sounds thoughful.]

...I had to take care of myself after I got here to Ferelden, but I still felt a lot like a kid.

...and I know, right!

[foxsays]

Knowing you can do it counts. I was ready to go so I went, but I knew I could go back if something went wrong and that makes a whole world of difference. There are a lot of things you don't see until after, no?

You are here though. You did it. I remember what you told me about that time before, it isn't surprising you felt that way.

[She's just. Trying to talk around that since it's not the business of the whole of Skyhold unless he wants it to be.]

What happens when those people start to drink as adults? A few drinks and suddenly legless?

[issala]

I don't think I was ready to go, but I had to. It took me a long time to be able to survive on my own. I can't imagine some noble or even peasant having to get by on nothing as a kid.

It didn't make me feel like an adult, either. It just made me feel lost.

...but yeah. I feel like I matter here. Maybe that's what it means to be an adult... people rely on you.

[Sigh.]

Probably. One cup of Cabot's watered-down ale and they're out.

[foxsays]

The poor where I live have to, usually they band together so they have a better chance of making it. Plenty of eyes, ears, hands, makes it easier. [A moment of fond nostalgia for the kids she raced around the docks with as a kid, as well as the little ones she tends to keep an eye out for now.

Someone better be watching out for those kiddos now.]

You're accountable for your actions. I was the only person in my building making money when I moved there that could eat and pay rent, instead of having to choose so it wasn't even a choice to help feed them. Someone looks at you and you have to do your best to push through all the other things going on for the sake of everyone else. It gets better.

[Not always easier, she won't sugarcoat it.]

Can you even smell the ale in that? Sometimes I have my suspicions. Remember that time everyone who just drinks water here went funny too - it's a good reason to drink watered down something else.

[issala]

We did that too. For a while.

[Until shit went down and he was alone.

He's quiet for a moment, and then goes with the lighter part of their conversation.]

Shit, I remember that time... that was weird. Better to drink just wine and ale and know where your hallucinations come from.