"...Can you ask a more specific question? With just that to go on it's a little hard to know where to start."

"Where do people get it to start out?"

"...That's actually a fascinating question to think about - in many senses the answer is 'from their families' but I'm sure there are details I'm not thinking of..."

"...my family isn't here."

"Well, you happen to have landed in the company of the people who are going to save the world, so if the question is where are you going to get money, the answer is that a lot of the things you might need money for can be drawn from our bank of favours without depleting it particularly. If you set yourself up in Redcliffe, Eamon will be happy to provide for you; if you visit Orzammar and tolerate the architecture well enough to make friends with Caridin, he'll do the same."

"I appreciate that but depending on how much things cost I might need an investment to be self-providing. And an art budget."

"I'll manage it one way or another. Might need to wait until after the world is saved, though. If everything goes catastrophically wrong somehow and I'm no longer alive to solve all your problems for you, ask Eamon for an escort to Orzammar and tell the gate guards that I sent you to talk to Caridin and he'll almost certainly come up with everything you need."

"All right. Thank you."

"But I will try to avoid making that necessary."

"I appreciate that."

He grins.

They continue along the road. Tev gratefully cedes the position of language tutor to Stalas, who is much better at it.

Redcliffe, when they get there, is more or less exactly what it appeared to be from farther away - although Stalas was right about the back of the chantry. That is some legitimately lovely stained glass. There are also some pleasing architectural features on the castle. Pity about the entire rest of the town.

At least it's surrounded by nice hills and a lake - there aren't many places you can stand where no direction offers a good view.

"Well, I won't die of ugly," sighs Ambela.

"And hopefully we can improve on that baseline. Do you think you'd be all right staying in the castle for a few months if I found you the room with the best available view - I'm pretty sure I know which one that is, I hate it in there, looking at the sky makes me feel like I'm falling, but I bet it's really nice for people without that problem..."

"I can manage. Why do you feel like you're falling?"

"I grew up underground. The first time I set foot under the open sky was a month ago and I have not yet fully adjusted. For the first few days I felt like I was falling all the time, because I couldn't feel the Stone above me - the sensation isn't exactly like falling but it's the closest comparison I can make - but now it's just when I look up for too long."

"That sounds very uncomfortable."

"Yeah, it is that."

"How does Stonesense work - how far does it go, do you know what you sense it with, what counts as stone -"

"If we were underground right now I could sense about as far as that hill," he says, pointing at a hilltop somewhat less than half a mile away. "It's harder aboveground, although I don't think I'm as badly affected as most dwarves. Some people say that Stonesense is hearing the song of lyrium, but I don't think that can be the whole story because most kinds of stone don't have any lyrium in them - at least not that I know of - and we can still sense them just fine. It is true that lyrium is much, much more obvious to Stonesense than anything else. It's like it's... brighter, or louder, to put it in terms of other senses. Although if I had to pick another sense that Stonesense was most like, I'd go with touch. Touch combined with the thing where you know where all the parts of your own body are without looking."

"Do you have a word for that thing? Quenya does."

"I don't think we do! I know a lot of words and I don't know of one for that!"

"Quenya calls it proprioception."

"Quenya is a very pretty language. I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise."

"Of course. We make it that way."