Ellis does not rebut this assessment. They would argue, and he does not want to argue more than they already have. The truce between them seems fragile to him. They have miles to go, and more beyond that, more work to be done together. So Ellis does not say I am not going to die, with quiet weariness. Instead, he tips the bowl in his hands, lifts it to his mouth to drain the broth before he straightens where he sits.
It delays his answer. This does not mean Ellis is stalling. He is gathering his thoughts. All the vocabulary around magic is foreign to him, what he has is what he knows in his body, the way such unbridled power raises the hairs on the back of his neck.
"I'm not a mage," is repetition, unnecessary. Richard knows what he is. "But sometimes you can feel it, when a mage is casting spells that are...big."
One hand makes a shape in the air, silently expansive. Ellis is thinking of the kinds of spells reserved for the Deep Roads, that light up the dark and kill dozens and dozens of darkspawn. Force magic that crunches and ice that freezes and fire that consumes everything in its path, all the kinds of spells that exhaust the person casting them.
"Or a barrier. I could feel those too. They had a taste to them, like metal at the back of your mouth."
Maybe Richard knows this. He has been in Thedas. He has traveled with mages.
"When they draw on blood, what you feel is different. It's closer," a beat, Ellis' jaw working around the description. "Like standing next to a fire instead of watching a storm move out at sea."
And here, something material: "Not always their blood. Not always a small amount. Someone else can bleed for them, so they can work the magic. Not how it is when they cast the usual way."
spews out huge tag forgive me.
Ellis does not rebut this assessment. They would argue, and he does not want to argue more than they already have. The truce between them seems fragile to him. They have miles to go, and more beyond that, more work to be done together. So Ellis does not say I am not going to die, with quiet weariness. Instead, he tips the bowl in his hands, lifts it to his mouth to drain the broth before he straightens where he sits.
It delays his answer. This does not mean Ellis is stalling. He is gathering his thoughts. All the vocabulary around magic is foreign to him, what he has is what he knows in his body, the way such unbridled power raises the hairs on the back of his neck.
"I'm not a mage," is repetition, unnecessary. Richard knows what he is. "But sometimes you can feel it, when a mage is casting spells that are...big."
One hand makes a shape in the air, silently expansive. Ellis is thinking of the kinds of spells reserved for the Deep Roads, that light up the dark and kill dozens and dozens of darkspawn. Force magic that crunches and ice that freezes and fire that consumes everything in its path, all the kinds of spells that exhaust the person casting them.
"Or a barrier. I could feel those too. They had a taste to them, like metal at the back of your mouth."
Maybe Richard knows this. He has been in Thedas. He has traveled with mages.
"When they draw on blood, what you feel is different. It's closer," a beat, Ellis' jaw working around the description. "Like standing next to a fire instead of watching a storm move out at sea."
And here, something material: "Not always their blood. Not always a small amount. Someone else can bleed for them, so they can work the magic. Not how it is when they cast the usual way."