Stone's Throw

[Varric]

"Carver... are your sisters smart?"

[Carver Amell]

Carver rolls his eyes. "Yeah  but they didn't bear him either. I'm not sure it works that way."

[Varric]

"Non-arcane inheritances reach back to grandparents, which means anything your sisters have in them, could be in your child just as easily as anything in you," Varric explains, knowing that this kind of detailed information is actually far, far less commonly known than he's prefer.

[Carver Amell]

Carver frowns, thinking a moment. "Unless they got it from their grandparent. Right? Or great-grand-- no, grandparent is right, isn't it?"

[Varric]

Varric nods, gesturing with his mug. "Your parents, their grandparents. Your mother... Well, Malcolm can be an ass and he's feckless, but he's also more clever than he bothers to use." He shrugs. "Besides, it's not that rare for new trails to come about, be it a gift from beyond or simply some kind of compound created by spiritual alchemy. Add your diligence and focus to Aveline's level of intelligence and maybe you get genius."

[Carver Amell]

Carver sits back, thoughtfully. "Maybe my wife is a genius and I just never noticed?"

[Varric]

"Well..." Varric takes a bite of food as he thinks a moment. "She's not a scholar or a sage, but what she's done with the guard, well, that would take a kind of genius too, don't you think? To rework rules and regulations, run the district, improve the guard's public image and still devote time to her family and Vangal, all the while fending off political bullshit?"

[Carver Amell]

"Is that... what Silas has?"

[Varric]

"Genius? Or Aveline's professional and political acumen?" 

[Carver Amell]

"I mean, does his genius feel like Aveline's genius? I don't really have any smarts to pass on."

[Varric]

"Bullshit," Varric disagrees instantly. "You're not a scholar either, sure, but you're not without your own kind of smarts. You couldn't train people like you do-- or mabari like you do-- if you were dumb. Not to the degree of excellence you consistently reach."

[Carver Amell]

He rubs the back of his head. "That's not... smarts, exactly. Something, but not smarts."

[Varric]

"It's not academic, no, but it's still intelligence of a different sort. I'd laugh in the face of anyone that calls Sage Ullis dumb, despite him being completely illiterate and incapable of maths beyond three digit addition or subtraction. The depth of his knowledge on what he focuses on-- beast lore-- is beyond anyone else I've ever met by at least two fold."

[Carver Amell]

"But I'm not good with lore. I'm good with my hands. That's not intelligence, that's... whatever it is. Strength? Skill?"

[Varric]

"Skill," Varric judges it, then adds, "which is an intelligence. Lore or maths are just another type of skill really."