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Dagna mustered every ounce of her strength and tried again: she was getting this pack closed if it was the last thing she did, and she was not taking her stuffed nug out to make it happen. Packing had been harder than she thought it would be, and not just because her pack was small and everything was so weird shaped and trying to maximize the best use of the space took every ounce of brain power she had. There were so many things she hadn't realized would be hard to leave behind: old jewelry she never wore but had been her mother's, the Legion of the Dead toy her father had made for her when she was small, the stuffed nug she was not taking out of her pack.
There were other things too, of course: her family, her friends, her caste, her life in Orzammar and all the possible futures she could have there. Compared to the chance to study magic, though, everything else fell away.
Except for this nug, obviously. She gave one last heaving push and grunted as she squeezed everything into the bag and somehow, miraculously, against all odds, got it to close.
"Perfect," she said, patting the bag with satisfaction and blowing her bangs out of her eyes.
She couldn't believe it was really happening. There was a whole world out there she was going to get to explore! New plants and animals and people and places—things she could only ever read and dream about, and now they would be hers to see and touch. And the sky! Every time she thought about the sky, her stomach dropped but in a good way; she was going on the greatest adventure of her lifetime, and the scary parts were outweighed by the excitement she felt at the prospect.
She took one last look around her room with her pack slung over her shoulder and her traveling shoes on, one last look back over her shoulder when she reached the front door.
"Bye, Dad," she said as cheerfully as she could. He only grunted in response. It was okay; she knew he didn't understand, but he would. When he read her letters, he would see why she needed this, why it was the best thing for her. She would help him understand.
She made her way through the crowded streets of the city, taking the time to soak in every detail she'd taken for granted before, and then through the Hall of Heroes, where she stopped to admire every statue, and then she was there—at the gates. This was it. The moment she had to make her choice.
With a deep breath, she stepped out, and by the ancestors, it was so bright. No one had told her it would be so much brighter on the surface! She tried to shield her eyes with one hand and squinted up at the sky—oh, it was even bigger than she thought it would be—and the blazing ball of brilliant light there and—
She sneezed.
Oh great, she thought, I'm allergic to the sky. Well. There was no turning back now. She'd come this far, and the warden had gone to so much trouble to help her, and her father wouldn't take her back even if she did give up on her dreams, so the only thing to do was to keep moving. And hey, maybe the mages had a cure for sky allergies. There was only one way to find out.