"Yes, you can just set them on fire here."

Cam grits his teeth slightly and wires off both wings at once, then the tail. They flop. Gauze appears where it needs to; when he peels it off his back is unmarked. He adds the gauze to the heap and some plasma and fuel and it all goes up.

"How convenient it must be to be an apsel."

"I like it. What should I be wearing?"

"That depends on what you want to pass yourself off as, I suppose. If we're mostly going to be interacting with non-mages, you could pretend to be one of the Tranquil by not talking much and keeping your face and voice very calm, and people wouldn't think much of you; I know less about what you'd need to do to pass for a common soldier. The robes of the Tranquil are much like mine, but not so well decorated."

"Especially without the wings, I don't have good enough balance to pass as a soldier for longer than thirty seconds. I will fall on something and it will be clear I could not have survived being handed a sword. Are you going to be around to give me cues if I pretend to be a 'Tranquil'? What is a Tranquil?"

"I will be around to give you cues. The Tranquil are... something that can be done to mages. They are cut off from the Fade, which means they don't have dreams, emotions, or magic."

"That... will be a challenge to my acting skills and also what the fuck?"

"Mages are very vulnerable to possession by demons; Tranquil are completely immune to it. I believe that was the original justification for inventing the process. But Tranquil are also very useful - they can perform certain kinds of valuable work that are hazardous to anyone with a connection to the Fade, and they are almost impossible to distract and don't really form their own goals. So even if safety dictates that some mages should be made Tranquil, the number of mages actually being made Tranquil is definitely more than that. It's a problem."

"Eugh. I'm not sure I'm a good enough actor, in any event. Nobody else I could plausibly be?"

"Not that I can think of. The advantage of pretending to be Tranquil is that most people who know anything about them find them at least a little bit creepy and won't try to talk to you much. Anyone in this camp is either a mage, a Tranquil, some kind of soldier, or with the Chantry. You can't do the right kind of magic, you've said you can't pass for a soldier, and I don't think I can explain enough religion to you in a short enough time for you to plausibly pass as a Chantry brother."

"Ugh. Tranquil it is. Downscale version of your outfit? Can it go over the jeans or do I need to toss them on the fire?"

"The robe should cover your weird trousers just fine."

Cam holds out his arms and is in a plainer, browner version of what Metella's wearing. "Cozy. Is Cam an acceptable name or should I adopt a local pseudonym?"

"Cam's not remarkable. You should be fine. Calm face, calm voice, if you don't know how to respond to something you can come over all 'I'm not sure what you mean' and no one will think twice."

Cam composes himself. "What class of emergency," he wonders smoothly, "should it take to permit me to break character if I must do so in order to deal with the emergency?"

"Yes, that's the right attitude, well done. I suggest you not budge for anything short of a sudden darkspawn attack or perhaps someone trying to kill me."

"So, if things catch fire, do not dump water on it?"

"I'm a mage. If things catch fire, I will handle it."

"Okay." Cam clasps his hands behind his back and looks around with affected disinterest.

Metella leads him to a food stockpile. At this late hour, no one is even watching it. There are sacks of flour, and stacks of preserved meat, and herbs and spices, and some mildly distressed vegetables.

Cam (tranquilly) adds to everything. His vegetables are less distressed, although he allows them some cosmetic discoloration so they won't stand out.

"Good. That should help hold us out if the darkspawn don't show up this week."

"Great. Anything else? How is the water quality in this vaguely sword-and-sorcery setting? Do you have any amputees lying around, or people with diseases not related to darkspawn, I am a fully qualified medical apsel."

"Vaguely what?"