He watched her during a small reprieve amidst the scuffle. She was almost quicker than he could follow, moving from enemy to enemy as if in a dance with her two deadly kamas flashing. In a sudden burst of smoke and haze, Sebastian lost her. He was more than familiar with the trick she used to flank an enemy during an attack, but he was still just as susceptible to the miasma as her foes. A figure took shape in the smoke, charging toward him. He nocked an arrow and kept his eyes on the approaching silhouette, but a red hue to shoulder-length hair gave him sudden doubt. Lowering the arrow a few inches, squinting at what he now wondered was a familiar-looking face, he knew he wasted precious moments, but could not risk shooting an ally.

"Hawke…?" he called, hoping in doing so he could confirm his doubts and also identify himself as a friend.

The figure lunged at him, blade in hand.

Even the space of a heartbeat is a crucial amount of time lost-his split decision hitched for just that long and he couldn't make his arm draw the string back again in time, couldn't switch to his long dagger in time. As he shifted his weight right before evading, another shape came from the side and dove into the lunging figure. The two figures rolled on the ground, struggling against one another before one-Sebastian couldn't tell which-drove a blade into the other. By this time he'd whipped out the long dagger sheathed as the small of his back, and turned the smooth handle in his hands as the victorious silhouette stood and walked over to him. With blood running along the edge of her left-hand kama ax, Maebh Hawke gave him an incredulous look in the fading miasma.

"Watch yourself, Sebastian. You might get a scratch on that handsome face of yours," she added, a grin only sharpening her features.

Sebastian willed the line of his mouth to not draw taut. It wasn't that he didn't like or enjoy her attention, just that he felt torn about it. Some days he felt that she flirted purposefully, knowing he was conflicted and would do nothing about it, just to see how far she could push. That nature was not beyond Hawke when she was in a mood. "That could have been you," he said instead, though in the cleared air, he could see the fallen enemy had blond hair instead of Hawke's red.

"What? How could you mistake any other mug for my gorgeous one?" Hawke retorted with a wink, then was off to intercept another enemy.

Sebastian paid more attention the rest of the fight, staying to the outskirts of the bulk of the action, only twice more switching to his dagger to cut through an enemy that had come too close. He picked off the last few stragglers trying to run—or crawl—to safety. He did not have much tolerance for slavers or bandits, and these were both.

Running his thumb and forefinger along the string of his bow, he rid it of any dirt, and as she leaned her head back to the sky to catch her breath now that the fighting was over, his thoughts drifted to Hawke. They were doing that far too often as of late, but he couldn't stop them, and, Andraste forgive him, but he hadn't really tried to. She walked and lingered in many of his dreams, too, the strangeness of the Fade sometimes putting her alongside his family. Ever since he had caught that first glimpse of her, years ago, when he posted his missive seeking help to find his parents' killers.

She had been with a few others at the time—Varric, Aveline, and her sister, he found out later—and had been laughing at some jape the dwarf had made. He imagined her taking special interest in his posting whenever he reflected on how he felt her eyes on him as he left; at least, he liked to imagine it happened that way. In truth, she might have been more interested in the little scene he and the Grand Cleric had caused, more than anything else. But, she had helped him, and he had told her he'd help her if she needed it, in thanks, but over time it became much more of a choice to do so, rather than an obligation for repayment.

Sebastian took his time rejoining his companions, meandering his way through their fallen enemies to pull salvageable arrows from their bodies. Hawke looted them for anything of worth—quick, familiar work for her hands, he mused. Anders turned from tending Fenris's wounds to call Hawke over and inspect her for any. The archer watched as a certain kind of tenderness came over Anders as she sat for his ministrations. A grin split Hawke's blood-spattered face as he said something to her, too quiet for Sebastian to hear. Something mean and angry twisted deep in Sebastian's gut before he could curb it and remind himself that she was not his, nor he hers. That he had chosen to try and hold himself to a vow of chastity when it was no longer required of him, and told her no.

"I'm talking one night, two people," Hawke said.

A lump in Sebastian's throat bobbed and his eyes flicked to either side, hoping no one else in the Chantry had heard her. He fixed his gaze back on hers, her ice blue eyes boring into his. He stammered a bit before a reluctant admittance left his mouth.

"Don't… don't think I'm not tempted, Hawke," he heard himself saying. He watched her eyes light up and felt a stirring in his groin. He shifted uncomfortably. "But, I've taken vows of celibacy in becoming a brother in the Chantry."

Just as her face had lifted, so it dulled, crestfallen.

"Oh," she said, "I see."

His heart wrenched at the memory of the look on her face, the tone of her voice. It was more complicated to him than a simple sentence could explain-the desperate need for him to maintain his devotion to Andraste, to prove to the Grand Cleric her predictions of him were untrue, to not disappoint someone he'd come to respect. The soft green glow of healing magic brought him back to the present, and he walked closer to Hawke. Evidently some of the blood had been hers.

"Are you all right?" he asked her, finally joining the group. Hawke gave him a smile that might have been wan were it not a sunlit day. All the looks she gave him since that conversation in the Chantry had a thinly veiled sadness behind them he couldn't ignore. It tugged at him, but he could not go back on his words now, even if he was having far more doubts than before. He said them to try and make up for the helplessness, the weight he felt when he learned he was the sole survivor of his family; he had to feel as if he were in control of some part of his life.

If Sebastian ever changed his mind about his vows, he needed a solid path again in life. His world had been shaken with the message of the murders, and shaken again when he started to get to know this woman who was so willing to accept him however he chose that to be, as a Brother, a Prince, or even simply as Sebastian. When he realized he would give up his vows for her. It terrified him, how quickly he felt that, and clung to whatever he could as flotsam while he tried to spot any kind of stable land he could find for his feet.

"I'm just fine, thanks to Anders here," she told him. "Mostly because I pay attention, though."

Sebastian looked to one side, the finely shaped needle her words formed hitting their mark. "Yes, well, thank you for that. For a moment, she did look remarkably like you, masked by miasma."

Maebh's eyelashes lowered, a sly smirk shaping her mouth. "Maybe you're just seeing me in the faces of all women, dear Sebastian," she said, though her voice held an edge of steel to it.

"Enough," Fenris interrupted as he joined them, cleaning the blood from his blade. "We should move on. This probably isn't the only group out here today."

Hawke nodded, all business again and got to her feet. They regularly came to the Wounded Coast to flush out bandits and slavers; ever since she had saved those children from slavers a few years back, Hawke insisted upon it. The party set out again, Maebh taking point, as usual. Sebastian briefly entertained the notion of arguing with her to let him take point, but decided to let it lie. Instead, he fell back to speak with Fenris. The elf had surprised him—initially, Sebastian worried the lyrium-tattooed warrior was merely a shallow man, filled with unrelenting rage, but a few conversations had dismissed that impression entirely. Now, the archer found himself enjoying their talks so much as to seek him out for them when they were not together accompanying Hawke.

"Have you thought more on the Canticle of Trials, and the verse within that I mentioned?" Sebastian asked the first thing not about Hawke that came to mind, matching pace with his companion.

Fenris glanced at him. "Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide," he quoted. "I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond. For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost." He paused, focusing his attention out to the distance. "I understand what you're trying to do, Sebastian, but I am not so certain I have as much faith as you."

Not offended, Sebastian shrugged. "I am only trying to broaden your knowledge of the Chant. I have found that certain verses in times of need or weakness have given me peace and strength in the past. I ask no more of you than to take what you will from what we discuss."

Fenris was quiet as he looked over at Sebastian, then his face softened. "Thank you. I will… think on it more. But, there is something I wish to speak to you of." The way he glanced to assure they were well behind Hawke and Anders piqued Sebastian's curiosity.

"Oh?"

"Hawke."

A nervousness twisted through his gut. So much for avoiding her as the subject. "What about her?"

"I have heard odd rumors involving her lately."

Hiding his immediate relief that this wouldn't turn into a conversation about affections, he shrugged. "I don't give much stock or pay particular attention to the tales Varric weaves about her."

Fenris shook his head, a note of gravity lacing into his words. "These aren't Varric's doing."

They rounded a sharp corner, pausing in speech to make sure their conversation would not be overheard, then continued.

"I'm not surprised others have started rumors about her, as well. She has made quite the name for herself here, after all," Sebastian said as they continued beyond the choke point. "Why come and tell me about these things? Why make sure Hawke is not close enough to hear?"

"You're not listening to me, Sebastian," Fenris growled instead, garnering a sharp look for his efforts. "These rumors are not in any way pleasant."

Quick as the words reached him, a heavy stone of worry dropped into his stomach. Their steps drew closer, voices dropped to even more hushed tones.

"There is talk that she doesn't exactly free the slaves she saves, but rather keeps them for her own uses. That she's taken to demanding payment from those of the poor whom she helps, and takes them as slaves themselves when they cannot."

Sebastian's brow furrowed in lines. "She does take pay for jobs, but that is not unheard of. But to demand payment or take those who can't as slaves? We all know none of that is true," Sebastian protested.

"Yes, we all do. I thought most of the people in this city knew, too, but now there is talk otherwise. And it gets worse." He stopped short as the two in front of them halted, looking back.

"What're you two hens clucking about amongst yourselves?" Maebh asked, coming back to them. She shook her head before they could answer. "Doesn't really matter. We've got a couple bandits up ahead; they don't know we're here yet, so I'm hoping to get the drop on them and pick a few of them off before we crash their little get-together." She gave Sebastian a grin. "That's where you come in."

"You know I can get them all as easily as one-two-three," Anders complained, but it was clear she had already made her decision.

"I want someone who can kill with one shot," she explained, that fire he had become familiar to seeing lighting up her eyes and igniting her voice. "You can wound all of them at once, but I want as many of them dead before they know what to do."

Even if what Fenris had told him about the people in Kirkwall beginning to doubt Hawke, anyone who knew her personally in the slightest wouldn't be able to believe it of her. Not in the least, Sebastian thought as she told them her plan.

"I think you can see them from just over that outcropping there," she pointed as she spoke, "and I know they'll scatter like nugs once the first falls dead, but I have faith you can get more than that." She flashed him a toothy grin, and he couldn't help but return it. The Grand Cleric may not believe death was the answer to anything, but death comes to everyone, and those dealing in slavery deserved to meet the Maker and his judgment for their decisions.

"My pleasure, Hawke."

Crouching low and nimble even in partial armor, Sebastian made his way to a niche he spotted in the rocky outcropping Hawke indicated and peered at the clearing below. It was a good vantage point, he conceded. She might have been a close-range fighter herself, but Hawke certainly had a good eye for lookouts.

Silent as a shadow, he drew his bow from his back and nocked an arrow, his fingers running up the shaft to the fletching like an old lover—fletching he had put on himself. Royalty he might have been, but he had learned well that if you could do it yourself, you should. One of the many things his grandfather had taught him that had been reaffirmed and solidified by his time in the Chantry. He drew the ash arrow next to his cheek as he aimed at the furthest bandit. Breathe out, he thought.

The arrow buried itself in the woman's throat, and she gurgled blood as she fell. The rest of the bandits scrambled from their seats, shouting and trying to find cover. He loosed two more arrows in rapid succession before any had found a safely hidden spot from his eyes, and they buried deep in their marks. A fourth man went down with an arrow in his back—through a lung, Sebastian wagered—as the remaining bandits found sufficient cover. Then Hawke and Fenris poured in from beneath his outcropping, her favorite kama axes whirling in her hands, and the long steel of his two-hander reaching out before him for blood.

Anders flushed those remaining from behind their rocks with fire raining from the sky, and the bandits ran out screaming onto steel and death. Out of the pot and into the fire, Sebastian mused. Movement caught the edge of his vision, and he turned to see one of the bandits scrambling in the opposite direction of his friends.

"Tsk," Sebastian said aloud to himself, "abandoning your companions are you?" He drew the fletching back along his cheekbone. The shaft sung through the air after he let out his breath, and felled the deserter just before he vanished behind a pair of rocks.

After climbing back down from the outcropping, Sebastian wound a path to Hawke and the others, pausing here and there to pluck his arrows out of the corpses they had created. All three of his companions were gathered around the bandit that had tried to flee at the last minute, so he went to join their small circle, curious.

"Sebastian," Hawke said when he took a place beside her. "Maybe you can make sense of this." She handed him a torn and crumpled piece of parchment. Sebastian flattened it as best he could, but was startled to find a long dead script scrawled on it. He stared them for several echoing heartbeats, silent; he didn't think he could have gotten a word out even if he tried, fear and anger tightened his throat so. The others' eyes on him was almost a tangible feeling to Sebastian, expecting him to know at least something about it. He was a prince, after all. A prince and a brother in the Chantry, surely Sebastian was the one best versed in all manner of languages and letters. But all he could see were the whorls and spirals of his ancestor's ancient language on a paper that could not have been outside of Starkhaven for decades, at least.

Abruptly, he lowered the parchment and turned over the bandit who had carried it with the heel of his boot, so Sebastian could see his face. The others stepped back and asked a small flurry of questions, none of which he answered. Sebastian stared at the dead man as if burning his face into memory; the bandit had dark auburn hair not unlike his own, only shorter and unkempt from the fight. His skin was a shade lighter than Sebastian's, and his chestnut eyes started up into nothing.

"Do you know him?" Hawke's voice cut through his haze like fire. Sebastian shook his head. He still couldn't take his eyes from the dead man. How had this man—how had anyone, for that matter—come across this writing? And why, in the name of the Maker, did he carry it?

Hawke's voice came to him again, and he felt her hand on his. At her touch, he dragged his eyes from the corpse to her.

"Sebastian," She repeated, and he was suddenly aware he was still glowering. "Are you all right?"

"Perhaps we should leave this place," Fenris said. Slowly, he and Anders registered to Sebastian's mind again, and his sense of perception widened beyond the bandit. Beyond the letters.

"I'm fine," he finally said, angry at himself more than anything. This parchment could simply represent a breach in his family's vaults… or it could mean something far more terrifying. He swiftly dismissed the latter notion. It was only a tale. A breach was more than enough of a danger presented than stopping to wonder over tales long since told. Worry and a little bit of fear etched a line across Hawke's features. He had rarely seen fear on her face, and it made the grip around his stomach all the tighter. Did she know what this parchment meant after all? No-he realized she was worried over the way he was acting. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and forced composure back into his breathing; he did not want to make her worry.

"No, you're not," Maebh said softly, still holding his hand. She inclined her head to it, and he was startled to see he clutched the parchment so tightly it had crumpled worse than before. He looked at the other two, and even Anders seemed worried. As he relaxed his hand, Maebh moved to take the paper from him, but he drew it back, shaking his head.

"I'd like to hang on to this," he said. "I think… I think I can make sense of it, given time." It wasn't completely a lie. He could make sense of it, because he already knew what it said-what didn't make sense was its presence here at all. They didn't need to know that right now, though; he had to figure it out first before he revealed anything, if at all.

Fenris narrowed his eyes at Sebastian. "Are you sure you want to keep such a thing?"

He nodded, choosing to not elaborate on his reaction. "I am sure." Andraste give him strength; he would need it for this, if his worst fears proved true. Names of families, noblemen and women, ran through his head as he wondered which one it had been, wondered if they had anything to do with the murders. Was it only one person? On family, perhaps? Or was it a coalition? Were his parents murdered, the casualties of a coup, or something else entirely? If that were the case, what were the rumors he heard of his cousin Goran now on the throne...? None of it made sense.

Hawke finally let go of his hand, as though she had forgotten she held it. A light blush crept up her neck that would have secretly pleased Sebastian under normal circumstances, but a low rumble off the shore saved them both from any embarrassment. They looked out to sea at the blackening sky, and Hawke spoke first.

"Looks like a big storm is coming," she said, turning back to the trail and beckoning them to follow. "We should go before it catches up with us."

"Yes," Sebastian murmured as he tucked the now-folded parchment into a belt pouch, taking up rear guard—even lagging behind Fenris, who gave him another worried look. "A storm is coming."