"This cannot be." The voice was clearly agitated though no features could be discerned in the heavy shadows.
Taarbas shrugged. "The task was set. Hawke accomplished it." He peered into the gloom, trying to see more than a silhouette.
"And she never asked about gold?"
"The criteria were fulfilled exactly. I gave her the staff."
His answer was a low growl of discontent that quickly faded and Taarbas realised that he was alone. There was something here that made him uneasy but whatever happened now was out of his hands. He had discharged his duty and was heading back to Par Vollen on the next available ship. Except he wasn't. How could he? It would be against the Qun to walk away from this when he suspected that something was going to go badly awry. No, he would stay in Kirkwall and watch, and see what happened.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Where did you get that?"
The unexpected, growled question made Hawke jump, ale slopped over fingers to puddle on the already unpleasantly sticky tabletop. "Shit," she murmured and turned slowly, narrowing her bleary eyes to focus on a Qunari. She frowned, he looked vaguely familiar but it was nearing the end of what had turned out to be an unwisely long night.
She had left Varric, Isabela and Fenris still playing Wicked Grace when her own coin had run out resisting the temptation to borrow from the Barkeep at his exorbitant rates. Her intent had been to quietly finish her pint and wend her unsteady way home.
The Qunari glowered at her. "I asked..." he began.
Hawke held up her hand. "I heard you. What are you talking about?" she asked, bluntly.
He motioned impatiently at the stave strapped across her back. Bassrath-Kata. Five feet of beautiful red steel tapering to a gleaming bayonet; it was a staff that handled like a true extension of her being.
"It was given to me," she said, her voice bland.
Her surprise had evaporated leaving the comforting grey she had grown accustomed to. She pulled it around her like a blanket unaware that her eyes dulled.
The furrows across his brow puckered as he stared down at her, his curiously colourless eyes drilling into her face as if he was trying to see the truth inside her head.
"Who gave it you?" His voice was slow, laden with mistrust.
Hawke shifted uneasily, wondering if she was going to be forced to defend against an attack, if she could shout loudly enough for the others to hear. She glared back at him, debating whether to answer.
"Taarbas," she said at last and watched puzzlement chase the suspicion from his features as his head dipped in uncertainty. It was such a familiar gesture, her throat constricted and her breath caught as He intruded briefly into her thoughts; another one dead at her hand.
"Why?" The voice of the Qunari in front of her was gentler than His had ever been.
Hawke forced herself to focus and motioned him to sit; her neck was beginning to complain at craning to look up at him. He complied and sat stiffly, his muscled body tensed as if ready to flee.
"He tasked me with finding blades of the Qunari who had fallen," she explained.
"He tasked you? He did not look himself?" The Qunari shook his head. "What is it about you?" he murmured to himself before swiftly adding, "I do not want to know."
Hawke frowned. "Is something troubling you?" She was drunk, she knew that from the way the floor lurched and heaved if she looked at it for longer than a millisecond, but she had the feeling that this conversation would be just as confusing had she been sober.
"You, a bas, holds Bassrath-Kata. I did not think to ever see such a thing but if you did as you say and found the lost blades with no question of gain, you are worthy. That is undeniable."
Hawke studied him; he had the usual massive shouldered, snake-hipped build of the Qunari. His horns curled back, neatly fitting to the line of his skull and protruding no more than two inches over the characteristic silky-looking, white hair. His pale skin gleamed silvery in the dim light of the inn and he seemed strangely naked without the red war paint she had been used to seeing.
More than three years had passed since the attempted takeover, since she ... Hawke firmly shut down that line of thought as a spark of memory ignited.
"I remember you now. You warned us about the Tal-Vashoth on the Wounded Coast. You didn't help us," she added, a faintly accusing tone in her voice.
"You did not need my help. Your companions were armed to the teeth and you are Saarebas." The last imbued with the faint sneer that seemed a part of the word.
Hawke shook her head; she had never thought to hear that name again. "I am Hawke," she corrected as she had done the first time the scathing appellation had fallen from His lips.
The disgust for magic masked the fear. A fear that had proved well founded. Hawke took a deep breath; was it the presence of a Qunari that was causing her mind to fling these disturbing fragments of memory at her? she wondered, and made a decision.
"I am Maraas," the Qunari offered.
"Good to meet you, Maraas. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be heading home." She rose unsteadily to her feet.
"Alone? The streets are dangerous at night."
Hawke smiled briefly. "I am Saarebas."
She slipped out of the Hanged Man into a sticky Lowtown night, the promise of thunder hung heavy in the air. Hawke cut across the deserted market place towards the steps that would take her to Hightown.
"Well, what have we here?" The lazy, drawling voice came from behind her.
Hawke spun, her staff was in her hand before she gone half circle. Eight, and a couple of archers. A challenge then, a chance that she might lose, that it all might … finish, her heart leapt in anticipation. She gestured, a sharp drain of mana and Digby, her Mabari, twisted in excitement at her feet before charging towards to the thugs. Another quick blast of mana flung the men closest to her backwards in graceful arcs; they were frozen before they hit the ground. Hawke cast Rock Armour on herself and began to fight in earnest.
She had whittled the gang down to an archer and one dick with a sword when she was suddenly shoved forwards to land face down in the dust, the breath knocked from her body. She screamed in outrage as a fist wound into her hair and her head was jerked up. A knife-blade pressed threateningly against her throat.
"A mageling eh? I'll get good gold for you." A voice sneered in her ear. The leader she realised. She thought she'd killed him. And now he had her in the unfortunate position of being unable to repel him for fear of the blade held against her skin.
There was a sudden cry, abruptly silenced, from somewhere above her and she was dragged roughly to her feet by a hank of hair that her attacker found way too convenient. She stifled a yelp of pain, her eyes flicking first to her staff lying uselessly on the ground and then to Maraas, the Qunari, who had appeared out of the darkness, huge axe swinging almost casually in one enormous hand, and was walking towards them.
"No closer, or I will cut her throat." The knife waved warningly.
"She's no use to you dead." Maraas said, continuing his slow advance.
"I said stop there."
Hawke glanced down; the knife was about six inches from her throat. She closed her eyes and cast mind blast, throwing herself sideways as she did so, the knife nicked her skin, she felt the blood run as the man behind her was suddenly airborne and she screamed in pain as what felt like a large chunk of hair was ripped from her scalp.
With a roar, Maraas brought his axe down on the dazed thugs head and, just like that, the fight was over.
Hawke bent down and picked up her staff, securing it onto her back in a fluid movement. "Thanks for your help," she said, searching out his strangely colourless eyes.
"You are welcome. I warned you that the streets were dangerous." He glanced around at the bodies that littered the ground. "Though not as dangerous as you, it seems."
She grinned fiercely, adrenalin still flooding her system. "I do alright."
Blood was trickling down into the neckline of her robe, Maraas's eyes followed its progress. "How would you have escaped if I had not shown up?"
Hawke shrugged. "He couldn't hold a knife to my throat forever."
There was a peculiar rumbling from deep in the Qunari's chest and Hawke realised that he was laughing.
"Come on mage, I will walk with you."
It had begun there. From that night on the Qunari was always on hand to walk Hawke back to Hightown after a night in the Hanged Man and inevitably, friendship started to bloom.