Her cringing away made him want to retract his hands immediately. He often forgot that some people were not as comfortable with touch as he was. Back home, his friends simply became used to it. It was his habit and even three years since his friends died had not kicked him of it. But he was surprised by her hand coming up and her fingers stroking his cheek. It sent sympathetic shivers down his spine. He forgot to take his hands off because of the surprise, and found that she did it for him instead.
With such determination, Brennan was sure that she would achieve whatever she set out to do. He just wished that he knew how to help her. All the while he was kicking himself, because he did not want to get attached. There was no way for it to end well, he had learned, when you were a mage. It was not fair, but that was the backwards way that the rest of Thedas seemed to work. He was not one to sit and wallow in misery about the unfairness of it all.
Knowing what he knew now, he was not surprised by her question. His smile turned wry, an strange twist to his face that did not belong, but he did not know how to explain it. He did not really know what a mage was to this country, only what it was to be one back home. Somehow, 'a protector of the temple of the gods' was not going to go over well. He tried to put together an explanation, passing his staff from his right to left hand and back again as he thought. "A mage is someone who was born with magic, who can use magic." That was the simplest explanation that he could think of.