If nothing else, it might explain at least in part the rigidness of his own tireless patterns. The discipline, the certainty— the stubborn authority that most often rises to the surface at the only the most inopportune of moments. Perhaps it’s best that she opts not to ask about the matter of invasion, however.

He does nothing to react to how she briefly drops those laces, though surely it doesn’t go without notice.

“Only in former station.” It’s deflective, really; the truth is, in essence, yes. But he isn’t so coarse as to say so, either. “Such things hold no weight here.”

“I am as I ever was, Daughter of Denerim.”

The very same man she’d thrown a rock at, in fact.