Dane sat up, then immediately laid back down as his head promptly throbbed as if he'd been hit over the head-which he remembered dazedly, he had been. At the behest of the captain of the refugee ship, he had been above deck assisting with the ship among the storm. Abruptly, as he'd secured a rope, his mind had screamed at him to duck, and the reason being had been another passenger, attempting to plunge a knife into his upper back.
With him, out of the way however, and the two of them struggling, (stupidly close to the railing, that the next part wasn't a surprise) the knife had severed a rope and sent the small dinghy spinning, directly into them, knocking the two of them overboard before dropping into the water. Dane had beat his assailant to the dinghy by a narrow margin, and thus was more situated when the other had attempted to continue the fight.
At some point, they had both fallen, Dane hitting his head, the other hitting the side, producing a loud crack, and falling overboard. He barely had time to notice the storm weakening, and the barest outline of the ship before blacking out.
"Hey the human is awake."
Through blurred vision, he saw six plus feet of grey-ish skin.
Oh, Flames, am I on a Qunari ship?
He blinked slowly to clear his vision as a second one leaned in.
No horns? Or armor. Or shirts. Well at least they're wearing pants…I must have hit my head harder than I thought.
"So, care to explain why you were in that small ship half dead?" the second inquired, peering at him.
"Someone tried to kill me and it went horribly, horribly awry." He probably had a concussion, and he was still being silly. Then, with a sudden realization, sitting up, he inquired, "Can I have my stuff back or will that get me thrown overboard?"
The second Qunari, at the doorframe reached down and tossed his pack at him, which he caught, barely. He spent several moments checking through his meager possessions, relief surging when he found the witch's amulet, even as it left him in a quandary.
Then the Qunari next to his bed poked him in the ribs.
"Huh? I mean, what?" Dane prompted distractedly.
"Well, you see, when we picked you up, the boat had a staff, or spear, in it. Plus you probably need to get somewhere so, the captain was wondering if you were a Sare- mage I mean, and if you were, would you be willing to pay for transport to the next large port town by being a healer for a month." The Qunari blurted.
"…Did you even breathe once during that? Never mind, but, to answer, yes, I can do that. But you captain should know Healing wasn't exactly my specialty. Do you two have names?" He replied.
"The poking one is Namas. I am Reas." the one behind the doorway stated.
"Alright."
The month went by surprisingly quickly, perhaps due to the fact that the Tal-Valshoth, as Dane learned they were called, were rather accident prone. Oh and pirates, but that was a minor detail. What this meant was that he had become more skilled at healing and herbalism, and that he was now in a town slightly inland, with his best chance of getting a ship to Kirkwall being a port town 3 months travel if everything went right, not counting the time he would need to spend getting money for the ship and bribes to get into Kirkwall.
The money part in mind, he had a sudden idea.
He approached a woman selling a basket of herbs, and doing his best to look the "shy traveler" part, asked her where the chantry was. She looked at him with pity, and he was grateful for the worn state of the cloths the Tal-Valshoth had given him, and told him. After he thanked her, she shoved a small bundle of the herbs into his hands before spinning on his heel and walking away. He felt a pang of guilt and headed where she told him.
Sure enough, the Chanter's board was rather covered with assignments, and as such he took the ones he could do today. After all it was still early.
Most of the requests were for potions and poultices, which meant he could easily obtain the flasks with what money he had, then after completing tasks in the town, gather the medicinal herbs from the woods. Then there was a request from an apparently elderly lady who was lonely, but willing to pay a sum for company, followed by a man who needed help finding his wife's cat. That decided, he left for the address of the elderly woman.
There he knocked on the door, and waited, and checked the address when a young and attractive woman answered the door before asking, "You put a note on the Chanter's Board asking for company?"
She smiled, lazily, "Yes, I did. You see my husband is a sailor so I hard get to talk to him. And if I spend time with any men in public, others would assume it was for unpure reasons. But as you're here with the acknowledgement of the Chanter's Board, they will not assume such things, you see?"
"I…Sure?" She had lost him after the bit about her husband being a sailor. But that might have been due to her blouse slipping.
"Would you like to come in?"
"Yes ma'm." The part of Dane's mind screaming to run away went ignored, and if he a looked behind him, he would have seen a man give a sad shake of his head.
When he finally got out of her house three hours later, he was mentally swearing, Never again, ever. The only good thing being the sheer amount of coin he'd been given by her. So, exhausted, he spent the rest of the day completing the other tasks he'd selected, turned in the medical supplies in time to receive a handout dinner, then find a nook to sleep in.
He did the same thing for the next five days. The sixth day however, he found a very different notice.
A group of slavers has been seen pursuing an injured elf, and it is believed they currently have him held up in an abandoned mine. Won't someone capable show mercy and assist one of His children?
While he was doing this sort of work for coin, the idea of letting anyone be captured by slaver when he could have prevented it sat ill at ease with him. So with a feeling of dread, he took the flyer and headed toward the mine as quickly as he could.
It had been a rather bad week, Fenris decided, pressing the cloth back against his arm in an attempt to stop the bleeding. First he had been cornered by the hunters in a rented room, which led to his injury, then there had been a rockslide, blocking the roads out of the last town. This meant traveling through the forest, then, for some reason, the gash on his arm had reopened every day, and, from the redness, he was beginning to wonder if it was infected. And now, now, he was trapped by yet more hunters in a mine shaft, as a storm began to grow outside.
Abruptly he heard a blood curdling scream, and a man staggered into the clearing in front of the mine, an arm raggedly torn off, bone and muscle visible, blood pouring from the wound, before collapsing.
What in the world-his thought was cut off as he felt an all too familiar, but unidentifiable sensation, as the markings began to glow, before he brought them back under control. Magic.
The noise continued, beyond the veil of trees this time, for several long moments, then the noise vanished as suddenly as it'd begun. The mage stepped into the clearing, holding a bundle of cloth against his shoulder, a trail blood staining the leather vest, before stopping several feet from the entrance of the mine.
The dark-haired man cleared his throat, calling, "You okay in there?"
After several long minutes of silence, he spoke again, removing the cloth from his shoulder, "Look, if you're wondering why I'm here, there was a flyer on the Chanter's Board, and I couldn't let someone get caught by slavers if I could help it. And if your hurt, I can help you, but you need to come out of the mine."
He held his position for several long moments, his better judgment telling him to simply kill the mage and run, while his instincts told him to let the man heal him. With a feeling that he would regret it, he stepped out into the clearing. They stared ae one another, measuring one another, and he saw the mage's eyes tracing the lyrium markings, with curiosity, before settling on the gash on his arm.
"If I put my staff on the ground, will you let me treat that? It looks infected."
He eyed the mage, and then nodded. The mage reached back and slowly reached down to place the staff on the ground. The mage walked toward him carefully, stopping in arms reach.
"I need to see your arm to heal it, you know."
Reluctantly, Fenris lifted his arm for the mage to see. He flinched when the mage gripped his wrist, however carefully (for a mage), and the brands flared in reaction to the magic in the man. The man, blinked rapidly during the flare and after to clear his vision before looking at the scabbed over gash and the area around it, before shaking his head slightly.
"This is infected; I'm going to have to reopen it to drain it. And we may want to move into that shaft after all," came the muttered statement, as the mage peered up briefly, "Looks like that storms ready to burst." The mage let go, and retrieved his staff while he waited for Fenris to lead.
"You may want to sit for this-okay, do you have a name? I don't like calling you 'you' all the time."
"Your name first mage." He snapped.
"Dane Hawke." Hawke seemed completely unphased by his tone or acknowledgement of him being a mage.
"…Fenris."
"Well, like I said Fenris, you might want to sit for this. It's going to hurt. A lot." The man-Fereldan if Fenris was reading his accent right.
"And how do I know you aren't attempting to use me for a blood ritual?" He snarled, and the man recoiled as if struck.
"What sort of sick fuck do you take me for? The Tentiver Magisters may do that, but I wouldn't touch that sort of twisted magic!" The human snapped back.
He couldn't suppress the flinch at Hawke's mention of the Magisters, evidently, as the man sighed, rubbing his forehead, with a muttered oath of, "Shit. That's what this is about isn't it? You're from Tevinter. You used to be a slave to one of those monsters."
The man sighed, continued, "Look, if that's the case, you don't really have the best basis for putting your trust in me, but you can let me prove that I'm worth that trust."
He stared a the man a long moments, then, silently, sat on the floor. The mage sat on the side of the injured arm, pulled out a knife, a canteen, a jar, and there was a brief flare of magic, and the man explained, quickly, "To sanitize it, I'm not trying to make the infection worse. And you may want to bite this," He added, handing over a wadded up scarf.
Obeying, with a degree of hesitance, he watched as the man held his arm, avoiding the tattoos this time, held the knife in other, placing the tip an inch above top of the scab. Then his eyes wrenched shut, as the blade sank in, his free hand snapping out, grabbing the man's wrist, marks glowing warningly.
The man's teeth were grit in pain at his hold, the knife half down the wound, blood and yellow pus oozing from the opened portion. He ground out, "I need to reopen the whole thing or the part that's left will re-infect the top."
He released the man's arm, looking away, digging his hand into his knee, as he felt his own flesh tear, his stomach threatening to rebel. Finally the sensation ceased, and he risked a glance at the site, staring at the oozing site as the mage held the canteen, and muttered, "Wish I had supplies to do this without magic…"
He realized what was meant when the mage tilted his hand and began pouring the hot water from the canteen over the wound, dodging the instinctive strike from the elf, and explaining, "This is to help clean it out. Poultices are good but only do so much against infection on their own."
The canteen empty, the man reach over and grabbed the jar, opening it, revealing it to be a poultice. The man applied it carefully, and then reached back, grabbing a roll of bandages, wrapping the injury, before standing and stepping back.
Fenris picked at it curiously, relieved that the constant ache was gone, and confused that a mage would be so willing to help someone, at evidently no benefit to themself. Then a bundle was pressed into his hand. He opened it, finding cheese and dried fruit and meat, and he eyed the man warily.
"I'm not leaving until that storm lets up, and I'm not leaving you alone until you eat that." The man said in a flat tone, meeting his gaze, "There's no reason for me to treat you and not make sure that you have the energy to recover properly."
While his pride was telling him that he was not pathetic enough to take handouts from a mage, his stomach pointedly reminded him his last meal had been three days ago, so he ducked his eyes and ate.
The two of them sat in an awkward silence for several hours, and finally dark set, even as the storm let up. He found himself staying awake until the mage had dozed off and then longer until he was sure that he was asleep, and not faking to lull him into letting his guard down before nodding off himself.
When he woke at dawn, he was alone.
First off, this is AU, so there will be more changes, but a lot of things will stay close or the same to cannon. I'll try to point out any more subtle changes if I think they haven't been picked up on. Please do not complain about pairings, hinted or explicit.