She was fighting next to a templar. No problem. Hawke lifted her staff (walking stick, her inner voice reminded insistently) sideways and swung it, two-handed, with as much strength as she could muster. It connected with the abomination's head with a satisfying thonk. She grunted, her hands tingling from the impact of wood against bone and stumbled backwards a couple of steps. The whole thing would have been far more impressive if the abomination had noticed. To be fair, it's attention was mostly focused on Fenris, who was in the process of slicing it into little bits with a gleeful, almost maniacal grin plastered to his usually dour features. She'd only met him a week ago, but she already had nightmares about the elf greeting her one morning with a look of sheer, childlike joy. He only really looked happy when hacking mages to death, and that would be the day he had finally decided to end her.
Okay. So she was fighting next to a templar, who would probably only lock her up for the rest of her natural life, and an elf who may or may not get an erection from watching her expire in a pool of her own blood. Hawke had been in worse places. This was positively cheerful compared to the blight. Her eyes slid up and caught on Anders, visible on the other side of the battle. He was staring back at her with blue eyes. Blue eyes that were normally a warm golden amber. That was not a good sign. She waved her arms silently at him, making desperate faces. She could see his shoulders hitch up, then drop again as he sighed (long suffering, she was sure) at her and lifted his own stave to smack it, half-heartedly, at the back of a rage demon.
A brilliant, white hot flash of light assaulted her eyes and she reeled, ducking instinctively as the heat and wrongness swept over her. She was fighting next to a templar who had now started smiting things. She wasn't even the target and she could feel her knees threatening to buckle and her head suddenly thick and slow. Right. This was not a problem. Everything was FINE. Hawke shook off the side effects of the man's spell (anti-spell, her inner voice mumbled, as if she needed the reminder) and shifted forward again, sliding back into place next to the templar, allies and countrymen, fighting side by side against all the bad things the world could throw at him. Everything was going swimmingly. A shield appeared as if by magic (no, no magic, no magic here, magic bad - the monologue in her head prattled on endlessly) in front of her face and took a blow that was meant for her. A heartbeat later and the templar stepped in front of her, pressing her back with his elbow against her ribs.
Hawke let out her breath and shook her head again, quickly. Get it together, Red. She side stepped and lifted her staff up over her head and back, going for an overhand swing at the demon from the safety of behind the great wall of steel and steely templar. The shaft caught and was yanked out of her hands. She spun around, finding herself face to face with a shade that had come up behind her. Hawke was fighting next to a templar, and a shade was now holding her staff in one taloned hand as it screeched at her, mouth stretched wide over rows of needle sharp teeth. Okay, maybe a slight problem. On instinct, Hawke leaned back, lifting one leg and kicking out viciously. Her heel connected solidly against the shade, but it didn't budge, it's free hand grabbing at her ankle and yanking her forwards.
Desperately, she twisted, lifting her grounded leg and jerking wildly at the hand that held her. She fell to the dirt on her back and grunted, choking as all the breath left her lungs. The shade slid forward, not moving so much as flickering, it's great clawed hand reaching for her. Hawke couldn't breathe, couldn't move. She was going to die, here, felled by a minor shade after surviving the blight, itself. She didn't have a choice. She lifted a hand, a blast of ice catching the shade and freezing it to the ground just out of reach. Hawke went still, staring at the shade in horror. There was nothing at all subtle about ice. Even if it were subtle, templars knew magic, they knew when it was being cast. The knight captain would know. A tiny, plaintive moan escaped her lips as she scrambled backwards, away from the shade.
Maybe she could just kill the templar. The thought bubbled up, then burst almost immediately. She wasn't entirely clear on Templar hierarchy, but she had the feeling Knight Captain was slightly above the rank of no one notices is missing.
She barely made it two awkward, fumbling crab walks backwards when Fenris leaped over her, tattoos blazing blue white against his dusky skin, the great two handed sword raised overhead, point down. He landed on top of the shade, his blade burying itself through the demon's chest. He'd barely gained his feet when he yanked the sword out and spun, cutting through the air not a foot from Hawke's face before slicing into ephemeral flesh. The staff clattered to the ground and rolled to one side, followed almost immediately by the top half of the creature, now severed from it's bottom half. The torso of the beast hit the ground and dissolved into a black, sticky mist that creeped malevolently over the ground before dissipating in the slight morning breeze. Her staff stayed mercifully real.
The elf turned to look down at her, two sets of green eyes - his forest, hers emerald - stared at each other. He owed her. He owed her, and he wasn't smiling at her. Hawke dared to hope. Fenris seemed to consider her for a second before he turned, lifting a foot to kick the now empty sheath of ice off the side of the short cliff and out of view. Relief flooded Hawke, bringing her breath back. Without evidence, in the middle of battle, any one of those demons could have been the cause of magic being cast, and Fenris had just hidden the damning clue that would point to her, thank the Maker.
A hand appeared and she followed it up to the shoulder and stared. The templar was a dirty blond bordering on strawberry, with a strong jaw covered in scruff and hard eyes. Reasonably handsome, if terrifying, his smile at least, held a hint of gentleness that played around the edges, "Serah," he said as she took his hand and he hauled her up from the ground easily, "I thank you for your..." he looked around before finishing, tactfully, "Help." He didn't think she was a mage, just incompetent. She could deal with incompetent. She put on her best brilliant smile and took a breath before pausing... Knight Captain... Knight Captain... What had the apprentice called him? Kennith? Kaidan?
"Knight Captain Cullen, I presume?" Varric to the rescue, as usual. She turned to look at the dwarf, her smile settling into a more natural one. She let him handle the introductions, he enjoyed talking to strangers. Her staff bounced against her chest and she grabbed it, looking up to see Fenris still staring at her with a vaguely pained expression. If she were going to pretend to be a fighter, the least she could do was keep her weapon, his expression seemed to say. She offered the elf an awkward smile which prompted a disgusted huff of air before he went back to ignoring her. Not for the first time, and likely not the last, Hawke wondered what the hell she was doing, taking jobs to rescue templars. Oh, right. Gold. She was doing this for gold.