[Maker, but there's something about the way she talks that chafes against him so very profoundly, he doesn't honestly know what to do with it. Lives are stories— bullshit, frankly. He may be drawn to the dream of mages' collective freedom, and maybe in a thousand years when mages are properly free the lives of people like him will be a story to tell mage children about the sacrifices and the suffering they used to go through, but until then?

Until the Chantry and the templars and the fathers who toss their children into the mouth of hell with no second thought, well. Lives are stories is a pretty thought for the people with the luxury of nothing better to do than have pretty, romantic thoughts about the poetry of history, or whatever.]

Your patterns kind of trite, don't you think? Greed begets greed, I mean, honestly— are these stories for children?

[He waves a hand, dismissing the cycle of people being total shits to each other all at once.]

I don't make it my business to fall in love with misery and suffering. There's nothing profound about a man who realizes no one will stop him from making other men suffer. It's not a great wondrous pattern. It's cruelty, and it's only predictable because it's easier to look away than call for action.

[So, like... stories suck actually...]

Looking at it like a story is the first step to giving up. Oh, just another tragedy! Too bad! —I'm not interested in stories.