#i pull from history with ros so his experience in kinloch very much matches that of a residential school program for indigenous peoples

[stolenmagi]

it’s sinday, homies, and if you think lust is ros’s sin of choice you’d be wrong. it’s not even greed. surprisingly, not pride either. (though his harrowing featured a pride demon, still no.)

it’s envy.

it’s found in the way he gazes upon the vallaslin of other dalish, the fact he lost the title of keeper in exchange for a shem’s life. he doesn’t want that life anymore, necessarily. he knows if he ever were to return, he’d never become a keeper. he has no illusions of that. he wishes he could have had that choice for his life, and resents those who did.

it’s found when he’s behind the closed, barred windows of the circle tower. shems came here by choice. they gave him no such thing, they stripped away his culture, they stripped away who he was and left him half of what he could have been. they considered him stupid when he disobeyed. but there were others who had it easier. far easier. he envies the innocence that allowed them that path.

it’s found in the way he looks at wardens who enjoy their work. why do they feel joy in the life he’s had forced down his throat? why do they get to say who lives or dies, when they’re on death’s door? why did they bring him, of all people, back from the brink of death, when he wished for death in that moment? even in the scenario where the hero of ferelden befriends him, there are some things he can’t forgive easily. 

it’s found when he learns of the studies allowed in tevinter. there’s nothing he can do to get to that place, not in the current condition he’s in (what with the calling; he’s no idiot, even if he left he’d still be trapped) but they are allowed so much freedom. he wants it. he covets it. but he can’t have it, even if he tried for it. he is, after all, also an elf. 

this man is an envious little bastard, and it drives him. it demands his attention, and drowns out most everything else.