"I've never been inside a tavern before," Merrill commented as she entered The Hanged Man, trailing slightly behind her new acquaintances. The elf of the dales didn't know if she should refer to them as 'acquaintances' or 'friends.' Was it too early to call Hawke and the others friends? Would she seem strange to the others if she were to ask them, she wondered. Probably she told herself after a moment. And you're rambling. Merrill laughed softly; even inside her own head she rambled.

This shemlen city of Kirkwall was so strange a place, so busy and chaotic. There were so many people! People everywhere! All of them hurrying from one place to another, barely pausing to greet passers-by, if they were greeted at all. "They seem terribly rude, don't they?" she observed as people pushed by one another. "Oh, I don't mean to imply you're rude!" she hastened to add.

"Don't worry about it, Daisy," the dwarf smilingly answered. Varric, his name was. Already Merrill quite liked him; he seemed fond of telling stories and she found his relaxed manner calming. "Everybody's like that in Kirkwall," he added.

Passing through the imposing city gates for the first time, the huge tortured-looking statues looming over her had almost unnerved her. Was it too late to leave and return to her clan? No, she had decided. She couldn't go back, the Keeper was too unreasonable. Just inside the gates, Merrill had stopped dead and simply looked around at the walls so high they seemed to claw at the sky.

Though her clan had passed by shem cities before, they rarely ventured too close to one or remained in one place for too long. Great were the injustices the shems had heaped on her people. Merrill wondered how many more of the people had come to places such as this Kirkwall. And how many had made it out alive. Perhaps seeing the distress in her face, Varric had pulled away from Hawke and the others to speak with her. "You have that same look on your face I see on dwarves the first time they set foot on the surface. Like they think they're about to fall into the sky."

Merrill shook herself. "That seems like an odd thing to worry about. I'm more worried about all of these walls. What if they fall on somebody?"

Varric laughed though it was without malice. "Kirkwall's stood for generations, Daisy. You don't have to worry about that."

Resuming her wide-eyed walk through the streets, Merrill had replied, "What should I worry about?"

Varric shook his head ruefully. "Only everything else."

The Hanged Man seemed to embody Kirkwall and its people: the tavern was loud with overlapping, often shouted conversations between patrons. Did nobody speak in a calm and quiet manner? Or was this simply the way people were in a tavern? "Is it always like this?" Merrill enquired of the shemlen woman named Isabela.

"You'll have to speak up if you want to make yourself heard, Kitten," the woman answered, voice cutting through the surrounding conversations.

Merrill made no reply; her finely attuned sense of smell fought to identify the invisible miasma inside the room. She sniffed. "What is that smell?"

Isabela turned to her with a smile. "That, Kitten, is the overlapping smell of cheap ale, old sweat and the faint odour of desperate men down on their luck." She sighed to herself. "There's nothing else like it." Isabela tilted her head as a loud moan of pleasure came from the area behind the bar. Her smile broadened. "And that is the sound of some lucky soul having terribly delicious things done to them."

Merrill wrinkled her nose. "Delicious?" she asked doubtfully, "Is the food here that good?"

The Rivani woman fell laughing against the bar between a pair of off-duty guardsmen. Ignoring the leers of the half-besotted guards, Isabela pushed herself upright, still chuckling. "Oh Hawke!" she called. The warrior turned to her, eyebrows raised. "This one's a keeper," she said, nodding to Merrill. "I like her already."

The dalish elf smiled tentatively, aware she'd said something amusing but unsure what. Then it dawned on her as a man left the area behind the bar, rearranging his clothing. "You weren't talking about the food were you, Isabela?" she guessed.

"No, but I'm sure something was swallowed," Isabela replied and winked at Merrill.

"Isabela!" Bethany gasped, face turning red.

"What?" the buccaneer asked, wide eyed and seemingly innocent.

At a nearby table, Aveline frowned at Hawke. "I don't know what you see in her." After a moment she added, "Aside from the obvious."

"Give her a chance, Aveline," Hawke quietly responded as the woman in question arrived at the table with Merrill. The women were a study in stark contrasts: where Merrill was fine-boned and slender, Isabela was taller and...the one descriptor Hawke's mind kept returning to was buxom. Isabela was buxom and seemed to enjoy flaunting it.

Hawke thought he understood why – the majority of people who'd tried to kill them in recent times were men. Men whose attention invariably wandered away from the business of defending themselves in favour of sneaking a glance or three at Isabela's womanly curves. Isabela's womanly curves were usually the second last thing men saw in such situations. The last being the flash of steel as she sunk a dagger into their vitals.

Hawke rose from his seat to pull out chairs for both Merrill and Isabela. Not that the latter needed anybody to pull out a chair for her or open a door but Mother had been firm in ensuring her sons behaved with proper decorum around women. "Thank you, Hawke," Merrill replied as she sat. Now what should she do? Perhaps order a drink? Would a shemlen-run establishment even let her buy a drink? The dalish elf rubbed her forehead. "Creators, this is difficult."

"What's wrong?" Bethany asked, concerned. Merrill seemed awfully sweet and naive but some of the elven magic she'd used on Sundermount looked to Bethany awfully like blood magic. Bethany wasn't sure it was safe to continue associating with her. Sweet and naive or not, if the templars even suspected the use of forbidden magic, especially forbidden apostate magic, Bethany was certain they wouldn't hesitate to kill the elf and any other mages with her. Just to be safe.

Merrill looked around the others at the table – Hawke and his sister, Varric, Isabela and the woman clad in plate-mail. Even seated in the tavern, Aveline looked alert for any trouble, keeping her longsword close at hand. Varric too noted Aveline's stiff posture. "Don't you ever relax?" he asked.

Aveline looked at him briefly. "I am relaxed."

"Yes," Isabela put in, "She even sleeps in her armour. It's why she hasn't had sex in so long."

"Shut up, whore," Aveline shot back.

Hoping to avoid a bloodbath at his table, Hawke cleared his throat. "Ladies," he said, "Not in front of our new friend." Isabela shrugged and gestured to a passing barmaid. After the woman had taken their order, Hawke nodded to Merrill, "Is something wrong?"

Feeling pinned and helpless beneath the eyes of so many people, Merrill shifted nervously on her seat. "It's all right," Hawke said softly. "It's safe here."

"Yes," Isabela nodded as the barmaid returned with a tray of ales. "Safe. Until one of the local drunks decides it's his turn to get lucky and puts his hand between your legs."

"Bela..." Bethany sighed. Though she enjoyed the other woman's company, some of Isabela's raunchier tales made Bethany squirm. Isabela raised her hands in mock surrender and drank a slug of her ale.

Merrill took a deep breath of the ale-smelling air and forged on, "I've never been around so many shems – I mean humans before. I don't know how I'm supposed to act or what I'm supposed to do!" She gasped as new thought struck her. "Where am I going to live?"

"In Kirkwall, most elves reside in the alienage,' Aveline supplied.

The term alienage didn't inspire a great deal of confidence in Merrill. "Oh," she answered. "I see."

Isabela shook her head and muttered beneath her breath, "Not yet you don't, Kitten."

"Don't worry," Hawke replied, his voice oddly soothing. He took Merrill's hand and briefly squeezed it. "We won't abandon you."

"That's right, Daisy," Varric put in. "Think of us as a whole new family. And think of this," Varric waved a hand, indicating their surroundings, "As a big adventure."

Æ

"Is it true that you just kept escaping the Circle in Ferelden?" Bethany asked Anders. The mages were part of what was now becoming a weekly ritual among Hawke's companions – a coming together at The Hanged Man to catch up with one another and trade news and interesting gossip.

The former Grey Warden nodded, eyeing the elf over the rim of his tankard. The elf looked back at him, unblinking and seemingly emotionless. Anders knew some of Fenris' history with the Tevinters – he was the escaped slave of a magister. Said magister apparently quite keen to recover his lost property.

Anders understood on some level Fenris' dislike bordering on blind hatred of magic and mages but did he have to keep looking at him like that? Yes, sometimes Anders' outrage against the templars overwhelmed him and Justice wrested control, often with horrendous and bloody results. Anders knew what it felt like to be constantly watched and hunted; did Fenris truly believe he was the only one whose life wasn't a stroll through a field of pretty flowers and kittens?

The mage placed his tankard down and turned his attention instead to Bethany. Hawke's sister wasn't yet out of her teens yet Anders thought she possessed a greater understanding of the inherent risks involved with the use of magic than many Circle mages and indeed, the templars.
That she had managed to harness her abilities without interference or formal instruction from the Chantry, Circle or thrice-damned templars impressed him all the more. Yet the templars would see her locked away in the Gallows until she forgot the feel of sunlight on her skin just because the Maker had touched her with magic.

Magic must serve mankind and never rule over him. Andraste has a lot to answer for, Anders thought bitterly. "Yes, that's right," he answered the younger woman. "Those silly templars, I suppose they kept forgetting to make sure the Tower doors were locked at night."

"You make light of escaping the templars yet the Circle exists to protect you as much as the rest of us," Fenris pronounced.

Anders snorted derisively, "You truly believe that, don't you? We have more in common than you'd like to admit, I think. We've both run from people wanting to control us."

Fenris shook his head. "That's completely different. In Tevinter, the magisters are the ruling elite and everybody else exists only to serve their whims."

"Can we not fight about this?" Bethany interjected. She'd seen what Anders was capable of when the spirit within him came to the fore and was desperate to avert a calamity.

"Fine by me," Fenris replied, resuming his silent vigil.

"Anyway," Anders resumed with forced levity, "I was such a delightful scamp in those days that the First Enchanter persuaded Greagoir I was harmless."

"And yet here you are, opposing the templars. Would your First Enchanter still believe you are harmless?" Fenris wondered aloud.

Anders rose to his feet, reaching for his staff even as Fenris rose, hand moving to the hilt of his blade. On the edge of panic, Bethany shot to her feet so fast, her chair overturned with a clatter, drawing the attention of the other patrons. Bethany inserted herself between elf and man, pleading. "Please, don't do this!"

Almost immediately Hawke was by her side, eyes narrowed with suppressed anger. "Is there some problem here?" he asked, voice deceptively casual. He looked each member of the tense tableau in the eye for a long moment.

"No!" Bethany exclaimed, aware now of the lull in conversation as everyone else in the room observed the exchange. She was faintly aware of the clinking of coins as somebody wagered on the outcome. Swallowing hard, she cast a beseeching look at both Anders and Fenris, silently appealing for calm. "Anders was just telling me about his time in the Ferelden Circle!" She relaxed slightly as Anders nodded.

Hawke glanced sidelong at Fenris, "And?"

"And I was just leaving," the Tevinter fugitive replied stiffly. "Hawke," he nodded and left.

Bethany sagged in relief, bracing herself on the table. From a table behind her a man muttered, "Damn it! If that mage had tossed a spell in the knife-ear's face, I'd be rich!" With the lyrium-fueled bar brawl over before it could even begin, the tavern's patrons returned to their drinking.

"Anders, what in the name of blessed Andraste was that?" Hawke demanded, righting the fallen chair. He turned to his sister. "Bethany? Are you all right?"

The younger woman nodded. After a moment's consideration, she added, "I think I need a stiff drink."

"That's my girl!" Isabela said brightly from the bar, "We'll make tavern wench out of you, yet!"

"Anders?" Hawke prodded, pushing the other man back into his seat before seating himself in Bethany's chair, his sister having joined the others at the bar.

Anders sighed. "I know I shouldn't have let him get to me but Maker that elf gets under my skin. He hates the Tevinters? I hate the Tevinters! They taint every magic user with suspicion and fear. The slavery doesn't help, either."

Hawke nodded. "I understand but if you start blowing up every time somebody looks at you crosswise, you'll only fuel their fears and give the templars even more reason to clamp down on the mages." Hawke leaned in towards the other man, staring hard at him. "Understand one thing, Anders: I'll not tolerate any risk to Bethany."

Anders nodded and looked past Hawke to the bar where Varric spun yet another tale. "No shit, Rivaini, it really happened!" the dwarf insisted much to the delight of both Isabela and Bethany. The younger woman caught Anders' gaze and smiled. To Hawke, Anders replied, "I understand, Hawke. I find your devotion to ensuring Bethany's safety admirable." Anders offered a wry smile, "Admirable and scarier than an ogre, quite frankly."

Hawke relaxed back into his chair. "So," he began after a moment, "Tell me about this cat of yours..."

Author's Note: Probably should have mentioned this from the outset; this is going to be more a collection of unrelated chapters rather than having a story arc. Story arc? What's that? :)