Sending Fenris and Anders along on a patrol to Amaranthine was, in retrospect, perhaps not the wisest of decisions that the Warden-Commander could have made. But he'd assigned Fenris to it, and where Fenris went, so did Anders. The journey to the city itself went without incident; Anders was even relaxed enough to talk a little with those around him, seeming almost entirely normal. He'd improved significantly in the weeks since he'd been lost in the basement, now clearly recognizing those who'd previous known him, and his unnatural dependance on Fenris was fading, though it was clear from his manner that he was happiest when the elf was still somewhere within sight, though if Fenris did need to go off to do something for a while, he was willing to stay where he was as long as one or more of his old friends remained as well.
His personality had definitely changed as a result of his experiences; they all saw it, both Fenris and those who'd known him before. He was shyer, and hesitant, where before he'd seemed almost aggressively confident and certain. There was an occasional brief flash of his previous irreverent manner, but mostly he was a quieter, rather withdrawn person, spending much of his time in quiet thought rather than in conversation or action. Fenris sometimes found himself missing the outspoken, abrasive, overstretched mage he'd known in Kirkwall; he was increasingly certain that Anders might never be that person again, having been too thoroughly broken by whatever his experiences had been. Though that was a subject they all avoided raising with him; Anders never talked about Kirkwall, or of whatever had happened to Hawke and himself after Kirkwall, and the one time Oghren had, in his cups, talked a little too close to the subject, Anders had withdrawn into himself and been silent for two days. He wouldn't – or couldn't – talk about it, and everyone was careful to respect that.
Their entry to the city went smoothly, the gate guards were clearly used to seeing regular patrols of the Grey Wardens coming and going, and Nathaniel and most of his group were well-known to them already. Fenris looked around with interest as they entered the city proper, seeing everywhere signs of the rebuilding that had gone on since the year after the Blight year, when much of the city had been damaged in a ferocious battle against a large force of darkspawn.
It seemed a reasonably nice place, and surprisingly clean, without the stench of rotting fish guts and drying seaweed that he normally associated with sea ports. Very little stenches of other description as well, it seemed, the Warden-Commander having instituted some fairly strict laws against the dumping of chamberpots in the street, among other things. Even the local market smelled clean, without the lingering stench of rotting fruit rinds and other garbage that usually hung over such places in an unsavoury miasma. Fenris found himself eyeing a display of imported fruit and salivating at the thought of buying himself a treat of fresh figs or dried dates, or perhaps an orange, all fruit he hadn't tasted since before departing Kirkwall.
The first inkling of possible trouble Fenris had was when Anders gasped and his hand closed on Fenris' left arm, fingers tightening with a bruising grip. Fenris looked sharply at him, wondering what had disturbed the mage. Anders' eyes were huge, his expression frightened, as he stared down the street in front of the group of wardens. The source of his fear was obvious as soon as Fenris looked that way; a group of templars walking along the stall-lined street toward them.
"Nathaniel," he said, sharply, even as he stopped moving. "Trouble."
Nathaniel looked around, and quickly made the same connection as Fenris had. "Damnation. All right, about face everyone, we're going the long way around today."
Getting Anders to face the other way turned out to be difficult; he was frozen and shaking, his movements uncoordinated. And he clearly didn't like having his back to the templars, craning his face around to look back over his shoulder at the templars once they did manage to get him turned around. The wardens got him into motion, Nathaniel and Sigrun tugging on his arms while Fenris crowded up behind him, the other two recruits with them closing in to either side of him, but by then the templars were close – close enough to take note of Anders' pale face and obvious fear of them, if nothing else, and the staff slung across his back was rather a giveaway as well.
The leader of the trio moved a few steps forward, one hand dropping to the hilt of his sword. "Halt!" he called out, voice reverberating within his bucket-shaped helmet. "You there – stop!"
Nathaniel let out a low curse, and swung around the group to stand between them and the templars, legs spread and hands resting on hips, chin out belligerently. "Templars have no authority over Grey Wardens," he snapped out.
"That man is a mage," the templar pointed out. "I must ask to see his travel papers."
"He's a Grey Warden; you have no authority to stop him, or us, nor do Grey Warden mages carry any travel papers," Nathaniel said obstinately.
Fenris could feel Anders' trembling getting worse, and felt the sensation in his lyrium lines that meant the mage was on the edge of casting. "No," he said quietly, wrapping his arms around the mage from behind, pinning his arms to his sides so he couldn't reach for his staff, holding him still. "No magic, Anders."
Sigrun had turned around as well now, watching the templars with a wary expression on her face. She had her good right hand resting on the head of the axe at her belt, the tip of her hook twisted into Anders' left sleeve, the hook turned sideways against his arm so that she wouldn't scratch or cut him if he moved suddenly, but still helping to hold him still. The other two wardens were splitting their attention between the templars and Anders, looking as if they weren't quite sure which was the real danger.
Nathaniel was still arguing with the templars. "Look, if you have an issue with a Grey Warden mage, you take it through channels, which means getting your Knight-Commander to contact our Warden-Commander about it. Right now you're interfering with my Grey Warden mage, and I need you to back off."
The last words were almost shouted, occasioning a sudden silence and a lot of staring from others on the street. And a cowed silence from the templars as well, clearly not used to having someone speak back to them so authoritatively.
"What's going on here?" another voice suddenly asked. Fenris glanced over his shoulder and saw that a fourth templar had appeared from somewhere. A Knight-Captain, considerably higher rank than the other three, who hastily drew themselves upright and tapped fists to breastplates in salute.
"Ahhh, Warden Howe... I see you've met our latest recruits. Not giving you any trouble, I hope?" he asked. Fenris had to bite his lip to keep from smiling; not that the situation was in any way amusing, but the man's tone of voice made it so clear that he was sure his templars were causing trouble, and that he was annoyed by it.
"A little. Call off your dogs, Ser Bryant," Nathaniel growled.
A few sharp orders and the three templars marched off the way they'd come. "Sorry about that, Nate. You know what recruits can be like – more enthusiasm than sensibility. I see you have a few new recruits of your own," Ser Bryant said quietly, glancing curiosity at both Anders and Fenris and largely ignoring the other two recruits.
"Thanks, Bry... I'll have to introduce you another time," Nathaniel said, giving the still visibly upset Anders a pointed look.
"I can see you have your hands full. See you at the Crown and Lion later?"
"Sure. Thanks," Nathaniel said. Ser Bryant lifted a hand and left.
Anders was still tense, and visibly upset, too shaken to even speak. "This way," Nathaniel said, and led the group of them down a crooked side-street, one that dead-ended in a narrow, darkened alley, overhung by the surrounding buildings and well out of sight of anyone.
"Get him calmed down," Nate told Fenris, then turned away to quietly praise the other pair of recruits for standing their ground.
Fenris got Anders seated on a crate and crouched down beside him. It surprised him how angry he felt about the templar's interference, how protective he felt about Anders. Had the templars persisted, had they not been called off, he knew he would have been willing to kill them rather then letting them do anything to the mage -rather an about-face from what his feelings would have been back in Kirkwall, where it would only have been his certainty that Hawke would wish the mage protected that would have led him to take any action. But now... it infuriated him to see Anders reduced to shaken silence again after all his recent good progress.
He cautiously put his hand on Anders' arm, squeezing it gently. Anders turned his head a little to look at him; at least he was not blanked out again, Fenris was relieved to see. He had no idea what to say, what he might ask, that might not worsen the situation further. So he just crouched there, hand on Anders' arm, watching the mage and waiting. After a few minutes Anders suddenly drew a deep shuddering breath, then released it. His posture went from unnaturally tense to almost relaxed, head and shoulders dropping slightly, eyes half-closed.
"Anders?" Fenris said softly, sure the worst of the crisis was over.
Anders lifted his head slightly, meeting the elf's eyes again. "Fenris," he said, equally quietly.
Fenris sighed, feeling himself relax slightly too. "Ready to go on?" he asked.
Anders nodded, and the two rose to their feet. Nathaniel turned to them, running an evaluating eye over Anders. Anders looked around, looking at all of them, each in turn. "Thank you," he said, voice a little hoarse.
Nathaniel smiled, and reached out to clap his hand to Anders' shoulder. "You're a Grey Warden," he said. "And we always protect our own. The oath is more than just pretty-sounding words. It doesn't matter if we've argued in the past, or even that you stopped wearing the blue and grey for a while; you can never stop being a Grey Warden, and we will always be your brothers and sisters. You're ours."
That brought a slight – a very slight – smile to Anders' lips. He nodded, then the group of them moved out again, continuing on to the Grey Warden barracks.
It was not the end of the incident, of course; Fenris woke that night, some time before dawn, unsure at first of what had disturbed him until he heard a quiet snuffling sound from the other bed. Anders, crying and trying not to disturb him with the sound.
He lay where he was for a while, unsure of what to do, briefly tempted to pretend he'd heard nothing and go back to sleep. He'd cried himself to sleep often enough over the years, when life and his hard-won freedom-that-was-not-freedom got to be too much for him. But he couldn't stop thinking of how often he'd wished that there was someone there with him who understood, someone to offer him even the meagerest shred of comfort. Finally he sighed, rolled over and rose to his feet, and took the few steps that separated their beds. Anders froze, falling silent, as Fenris sat down on the edge of his bed. He lay down, on top of the covers, rolling over against Anders' back, and draped an arm over him.
"You're safe," Fenris whispered. "I'm here."