" - Oh, I'm from a different world we're pretty sure, there's no magic or anything and as best as people in my world can figure out it wasn't created."

"But anyways - so there's a finite amount of iron, right. You can turn it into a sword, you can melt it down and turn it into a plow, it can be ground into iron sand, it can be bound into ore or melted into magma, it can be alloyed into steel or separated back out - but it's always iron, just in different arrangements. And if you get into the really advanced, esoteric theories, physicists will say 'oh, iron didn't exist when the world came into being, it was formed in the furnaces of enormous stars from other elements, and with enough energy you could recreate that' - but there's still a finite amount of mass and energy, and no one has figured out how to create a pocket sun anyways."

"So Equivalent Exchange, or conservation of mass and energy, or that canticle - they apply more or less cleanly to iron, and pretty perfectly to the more abstract level of mass and energy."

"But what does it mean for a person to gain and lose something? What does value mean? If I create an iron spear from scattered atoms in the dirt, and then cast it away when I'm done with it - I haven't lost anything of value to me, but perhaps whoever finds that spear next will really need it, and would really value it. So more value has been gained than lost, even though the iron remains constant."

"And... What of joy?"

"Is the amount of happiness fixed? And what would that even mean, if it was?"

This is something that the Andrastians have thought a lot about, actually, and Giselle is happy to get in a discussion with Bellona on the subject. (The perspective is clearly religious and so a bit foreign to her, involving a lot of close reading of particular sections of the Chant of Light and axioms about the Maker's eternal existence and fundamental goodness.)

It's interesting to hear about! And she's also clearly not religious - she references philosophers from her own world but mostly in the same way she'd attribute a fellow scientist in a paper, delineating who each quote is from but arguing with or contradicting their points just as often as she references them for support. What she draws on most for support is science and history, and observed specifics over idealized models - which is what she treats the Chant as, often framing hypotheticals in terms of what the Chants predict about the world. (And she treats predictions oddly, too, drawing their scope beyond divination - she sees the Chanticle of Transfigurations as a form of prediction, a model for how the world works that can be challenged.)

(She works as she talks, some, or fills her increasingly long rest periods with conversation. She's in constant motion, constantly thinking, making rather large leaps of logic often after pauses to transmute this or that thing. She's already healed any urgent injuries and fixed up all the buildings, and set herself to provisioning the refugees with supplies she thinks they'll need, and to planning medical treatments of anything she couldn't handle right away. She's flagging in energy, though she doesn't like that and treats her own limits as an annoyance.)

Mother Giselle is pretty good at recognizing Bellona's limits, and will gently but firmly insist she take appropriate rest. The world is large, and most of it in as bad a shape as this little piece. It will do the others no good if Bellona burns herself out perfecting only this spot.

...Ugh yeah. 

(She also has only mostly been keeping up with eating; Mother Giselle might want to shepherd her towards wherever food more complicated than crackers is being made.)

She will do so.

Once food and drink are in front of her she basically inhales them; it's really only remembering that bodily functions exist for her that she struggles with. 

A lesser problem, as these things go. As long as she has good advisors.

At home her sister or her second in command handle that - or anyone under her command, really, her soldiers aren't nervous around state alchemists...

Hopefully she can find similar assistance in her new situation.

She has friends in the Inquisition who've been bullying her into eating and sleeping and stuff, yeah. 

Good. Then Giselle won't feel too bad about moving on to attend the rest of her flock.

She appreciates the thought. 

And off the cleric heads into the rapidly-gathering twilight.

While Bellona figures out where she'll be sleeping. 

There's tents up at the camp, still. And they should debrief about the fight today and plan their next moves.

Securing this area's going to require more than the one fight, and more than just leaving some soldiers here. 

Very much so. They'll need look into the mages' and templars' bases of operations, their leadership structure, coordinate with the locals, sweep for more rifts...

For the locals - that's the refugees here but also Redcliffe, right? 

Redcliffe itself should theoretically be in better shape, as the seat of the arl who commands the bulk of Ferelden's strategic southwestern defenses. But given the state of things here, only a little way outside his direct holdings...

He might be taking a turtle strategy... 

Understandable, if slightly irresponsible. Something they should check on, though it might not be a priority.

They can sweep in the direction - and if they can relieve any pressure on the city proper he should be able to help them keep the countryside under control better. 

A sound plan. They'll start tomorrow.

...She could use the rest, yeah.