"That's really interesting," Quen said, because it was. She appreciated hearing other peoples' reasons for why they did what they did. For the most part, it seemed that people always ended up doing what they were best suited to. "I wanted to be a mage because Darius is a mage. But I didn't want to be a white mage because he's always been so good at it, and I didn't want to have to compete with him and be compared with him." That hadn't entirely worked. The instructors she'd had as a scholar had seen her as Darius's little sister, and some of them couldn't seem to understand why things didn't come as easy to her as they had to him.
"It sounds kind of silly when I say it out loud," she continued, smiling a bit. "People always told me I had a lot of power, and I wanted to find a way I could use that to good advantage. Being an offensive mage seemed to be the best way to go for that. And the other part of it is—well, when something's going on, I want to be out there in the middle of it. It seems like that's a trait that a lot of other black mages have, too." When she'd heard other people talk of it, they didn't always put such a flattering spin on it. They tended to use words like "stupid" and "dangerous." Then again, those were words she was well-acquainted with herself, particularly lately.