Kaitlyn could hardly mask the distain she felt for this other woman. Clearly she did not know as much about the Rite of Tranquility as she claimed. For one, it wasn’t easily accomplished. It took the permission of both the Knight-Commander and the First Enchanter. While it was used historically for punishment or control, that wasn’t the case for her friend Wendell. Wendell had passed the Harrowing, but had delved too deep and too quickly into the arcane. One day he showed up in her rooms, begging for help. Eventually he volunteered to undergo the rite, although if he hadn’t agreed, she doubted he would have been given a choice. Wendell had been her closest friend and it hurt every day to see him chained this way, although she did her best to hide it. But for the Keeper to call him an abomination angered Kaitlyn to such a degree that she was quickly losing any patience she’d been pretending to possess. Wendell was Tranquil so that he could never become an abomination. 

“You will allow…” her voice caught as she stumbled over the correct words, “this mage to be escorted to the Circle because that is the agreement. The Dalish are allowed to roam freely throughout Thedas so long as you do not interfere with the law. You will allow me to take her-“ Kaitlyn felt a pressure on her arm. Wendell stepped closer to her.

“You should stop.”

“No. I will not stop,” She was right. The Templers were right. These elves were in the wrong. And they needed to be told so. “You will allow me to take her because if we do not arrive at the nearest Circle within a week, the Templars will hunt her down as an apostate. They [u]will[/u] find her eventually. It would be different if she were actually your child,” Kaitlyn said point an accusatory hand at the other woman, “And while you might have raised her as one, and while you might have loved her is one, the fact is that she is not. She is not an elf, she is a human. Dwarves cannot do magic. Dark spawn cannot use enchantments. Human mages go to the Circle. That is the way of the Maker.”

“I am not here to be a threat, or to be disrespectful,” Wendell began his words slow and haunting, “I am here because I choose to accompany Lady Kaitlyn. When I no longer choose to follow her, I no longer will. As a Tranquil, I have the ability to live out a peaceful and useful existence. It was my choice. There are few choices for human mages who do not learn to properly control the Fade.”