"Feathers, no!" Bethany cried out, but it was already too late. The young mabari was already on edge after several earlier wolf attacks, and was crossing the distance to the strangers with long, bounding leaps.

"Maker's breath, Woofles, hasn't you taught the pup anything?" Varric said as he readied his crossbow. He didn't fire though, just kept it pointed at the armored stranger.

The young dog leapt at the wolf, which evaded the attack with dangerously fluid grace. Sharp teeth flashed, and Bethany cried out again, raising her staff to the skies to protect the mabari.

The air shivered, then flashed brightly blue, the blue of lightning bolts and frozen ice. A blue that hurt to even think about, and which left them half blinded as Bethany collapsed backwards with a cry as her powers were overwhelmed and turned against her.

"Templar," Hawke growled, tearing free of Zevran's hand. Woofles was one step ahead of him, heading off to help the outmatched pup.

The stranger had drawn his sword now, holding it point down in a strange stance the rogue had never seen before. Something was off, something was wrong, but his sister had been hurt and that bastard was responsible. Besides, he had no magic to drain, and even heavy armor such as this was not proof to his daggers. Everything had joints.

Except that he kept missing. It was an unfamiliar feeling, always one step behind, the hits he had been sure would land simply scraped over armor and tore through the thick cloak. It was like fighting shadows. Was he that slowed by the added weight around his feet? He wasn't as fast as he would like, but he was still a lot faster than the man he fought. He just kept missing, and what didn't miss, the armor dealt with. Still, it wasn't like he was new at this game. He had dueled the Arishok and walked away… well, crawled away, but the important thing was that he had lived. And if this man had protections that made him mistime his blows, then he just had to try harder. It wasn't like the stranger had managed to hurt him so far, they kept circling in an awkward dance of glancing blows.

And then he spotted the opening. Just a small mistake of footing on the armored man's part, but he went for it without hesitation. A quick roll brought him past the slender sword to stab at the unprotected back and everything flashed blue again. Paler blue, Lyrium blue, ghostly blue, and he felt his dagger hit flesh but draw no blood. The man had ghosted as the blade struck home, ethereal and see-through in a way he had only seen once before. Fenris. But this was not the elf, this was a man, and as Hawke jumped back he felt his foot hit a patch of ice, and when did he slip on things? He didn't slip on things.

Except that he did. He hit the ground hard, hearing Feathers yelp in pain as the wolf had turned into a swarm of bees and surrounded the dogs. Wolves didn't do that, this was wrong, and he could swear there was magic involved, but with Bethany down they had no defense. He had been prepared for a Templar, not this… whatever it was. He kept trying to stand, but the ground kept spinning, and a foot kicked out and sent his Antivan dagger flying from his hand. It landed in the snow, and Hawke could almost swear he heard it hissing.

"That's enough!" Zevran's voice rang out, and miraculously the stranger stepped back, fading back to solidity onto the snowy slope. "I mean, that it's silly for us to fight when we're on the same side, yes?"

"Zevran, is that you?" the stranger asked in surprise. The bees coalesced back, not into a wolf, but into a rather massive bear, looking like it would look forward to take the elf's head off in one swipe.

"Ah, yes, it is me," the assassin started, looking nervously at the approaching bear. "And no matter how enticing it is watching you two fight it out, we only just put our Hawke together again. He is not really at his best."

Hawke wondered to himself whenever he had become Zevran's Hawke, but the important thing was that the disorientation faded as if it had never been. Definitely magic, nothing physical could fade that quickly. He'd gotten far too used to rely on Anders dispelling these things, most of the time eh never even noticed something was wrong before it was gone.

"I don't care if I'm at my blighted best. That templar bastard hurt Bethany," he growled, looking back to where his sister lay slumped in Varric's arms.

"She will be fine," the stranger said, sheathing is sword before pulling off the templar helmet. "I'm not a templar, I'm a mage."

The man didn't look much like any mage that Hawke had met; he looked at home in sword and armor. Everything from the weathered face with its hooked nose that looked like it had been broken more than once; to the dark hair chopped short to be worn inside a helmet spoke of a man used to a life in battle. Still, there was something slightly familiar about him, like a ghost of something he couldn't quite place. It was enough to make him call off the growling dogs, which slunk back to protect Bethany.

"He's not lying," Zevran assured, perhaps sensing Hawke's disbelief. "Hawke, meet Jamail Amell, former Commander of the Grey and otherwise known as the Hero of Ferelden. Jamail, meet Ian Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall."

"Amell?" Hawke said, remembering what his mother had told him. That her cousin was the mother of the Hero of Ferelden, though he, like her other children had been scattered across Thedas when they showed signs of magic and were taken to the circle. Maybe that was the slightly familiar feeling that haunted the other man, a ghost of his mother's family. "My mother was an Amell. A cousin of yours if she didn't get it wrong."

"I'm sorry," the other man said, looking a bit uncomfortable. "I don't really remember much about my family. The circle didn't exactly encourage contact."

It was amazing, Hawke thought to himself, how mentioning the circle could get some mages to just shrivel up a little bit. Not as bad as Anders this time, but it still made his gut hurt just a little. If they hadn't kept things secret, that could have been Bethany making the same face. Bethany…

Without a word he turned and ran back to his sister, who was just coming to in Varric's arms. "Bethany?"

"She is fine, Hawke," the dwarf assured.

"That is an overstatement," Bethany whispered, a hand covering her eyes. "I feel like the morning after Isabela taught me and Merrill body shots."

"She did what?" Hawke exclaimed. "Why did I never hear of this?"

"Because you would react just like this, Hawke." The dwarf patted his arm a little, then frowned. "Why is Charming making faces at that bear?"

Hawke turned, and indeed the elven assassin was having a rather animated conversation with the threatening bear. Apologizing from the look of things. The bear did not seem to approve.

"I assure you, my dear," Zevran said with what looked like slightly nervous gestures. Hawke had thought nothing could rattle the assassin. "Those days are long since over. I have conceded my defeat and moved on."

The bear reared up on its hind legs, placing a massive paw on the elf's narrow shoulder, baring its teeth in a threatening rumble.

"Please, love," Amell said with a pained sigh, "I really wish you wouldn't threaten to eat him every time he shows up."

"I second that," Hawke said, giving the bear an incredulous look. "For all we know, he's probably poisonous." Love? There were apparently things about his cousin of sorts he really didn't want to know.

"I think it would be more correct to say I am an acquired taste, yes?" Zevran said, giving Hawke a look filled with more meaning than the rogue would have liked.

The bear roared once, the sound enough to make both mabari and the elf jump backwards. Then its shape shifted, melting into a thin, dark haired woman far too underdressed for the weather.

"As wily as ever I see," the woman said coldly. "One day you will try your silver tongue on someone that will rip it out."

"I have tried it on you, my dear, and I am still in one piece." The elf bowed humbly.

"I sense a story that needs telling," Varric interrupted. "Why not do it the civilized way, around a campfire with our weapons sheathed?"

"It is getting dark," Hawke agreed with a look at his cousin. Well, second cousin, but relatives were relatives. He had few enough of them as it were.

"And getting cold," Amell agreed with a look at the woman's scantily clad form.

"Do not worry on my behalf," she said with a haughty look. "The Korcari Wilds gets far colder than this in the deep of winter. Cold does not bother me."

"Well it bothers me," Varric said, rubbing his hands together. "And we still have half a deer since yesterday, so, dinner anybody?"

…

Darkness fell over the mountain, the fire painting heated gold over the people that circled it. Bethany looked like she was nursing a headache, leaning back against two very protective mabari, still quite uneasy about their guests. She had been exchanging pointed glances with Amell since they made camp, but had kept her silence apart from a few polite replies to his apologies. Varric had taken charge of cooking the meal, the dwarf looking every bit as if he would explode from curiosity. Hawke supposed he was biding his time, waiting for the story to unfold. As were they all. The only one that didn't seem to care was Zevran. The elf was happily chatting away about old acquaintances with Amell, seemingly oblivious to the poisonous glares of the bear turned woman, who turned out to be an apostate called Morrigan. The Morrigan in fact, if Hawke remembered Varric's stories correctly. The Morrigan that was the daughter of the Flemeth, the Witch of the Wild, and a powerful witch in her own right The Morrigan that abandoned the Hero of Ferelden on the eve of battle and disappeared into the night. The Morrigan that the man had found it impossible to forget, and had abandoned his post as Commander of the Grey to chase, eventually fading into legend.

It felt odd to just sit there, talking about how best to cook a mountain deer. You weren't supposed to exchange cooking tips with legends, second cousins or not. Was that how people felt when they met him, Hawke wondered to himself. Had they expected some grand warrior like the blighted statue they had erected in Kirkwall, only to be disappointed when they found out that the champion was only a lanky, jumped-up smuggler with a foul mouth? Amell hardly looked imposing where he sat, but what he had done in battle… Hawke hadn't even known mages could do that. Or wear armor. His father had always told him it interfered with drawing power from the fade, but this man had cast spells in full templar plate. Speaking of which…

"Why pretend to be a templar?" he asked, rubbing his ankles where the manacles had chafed them raw.

"It seemed the safest way to travel these days," Amell said, in is soft, slightly hesitant tone. Hardly the voice of a grand hero. "Nobody will bother a templar with a dog; even mages would rather skirt our path than try to slay us. And if they did…"

"You'd do what you did to me," Bethany said quite sharply. "I've never seen anybody do that before."

"To be fair, Sunshine," Varric added, "I haven't seen any mage do what he did period. That bluish, glowing bit was something I thought only our broody elf was capable of."

"It is a talent mostly forgotten these days," Amell explained, serious as always. "I had an interesting conversation with an ancient elven spirit once, he taught me how to do this. I had no idea knowledge of this discipline still existed with the elvhen of today. I am glad to hear not all things are forgotten."

"Oh that is rich," Varric said with a laugh. "Imagine the look on the elf's face if he knew he was being accused of being a mage."

"He'd probably sprain something trying to look even more disapproving than usual," Hawke agreed. "He's not a mage," he explained to Amell. "Something was done to him by a Tevinter magister. He's covered in Lyrium tattoos and that makes him able to do something that looks eerily similar to what you are doing."

"Fascinating," Amell said, eyes lighting up in interest. "I wonder if…"

"Don't even think about it, Glowy," Varric warned. "You will understand if you meet him. He doesn't take kindly to either mages or questions about his tattoos."

"But you have a point," Hawke said, scratching at the manacles. "If what you're doing is similar to what Fenris does, do you think you can get these off without taking my feet with them?" He had seen the elf reach through armor and pluck a beating heart from a man's chest after all.

"Most likely," Amell said after a glance at the chains. "If you trust me enough to hold very still."

Hawke pondered that for a moment, eyes seeking out Zevran. The elf had been listening to them talk, and just nodded faintly in affirmation. Trust. It surprised Hawke a little that he cared for Zevran's view in this.

"At this point I'm desperate enough to strip down and dance around naked in the moonlight if I thought it'd somehow get them off." He scratched the itching flesh again, grimacing a little.

"Now that is an idea that deserves further consideration, yes?" Zevran smiled widely, while Morrigan gave him a cold look.

"'Tis a wonder that you've survived this long without changing your ways," she said, voice as sharp as frostbite.

"What can I say, my dear, I have a talent for survival." Zevran sketched a humble bow.

"And here I thought it was simply a talent for sleeping with the right people?" She gave Hawke a pointed look.

"I am taken," Hawke quickly filled in before things went out of hand again. "And can we get these off now? Please?"

In the end, it was not as hard as he would have imagined. Just utterly nerve-wracking. He had to sit there, bare feet and exposed manacles, while Amell did his glowy bit and brought the thin sword clean through the metal. The cuts where the blade had scraped skin were healed easily enough, and before he knew it, they were back around the fire, his feet free at last. Magic. It never amazed him what it could do. Amazed and scared. He'd never admit the latter to Anders, but it was the truth. Sure, his blades could kill as sure as any fireball, but… He sighed and pulled out his daggers to sharpen them while Varric pumped Amell for information about what had really happened with the Archdemon. The Bassrath-Kata was a dagger easy enough to care for with its straight edge, but the Antivan blade was something else entirely. The jagged edges required constant upkeep and…

"'Tis here!" Morrigan snapped, lightning crackling around her curved hand as she stared at the dagger in Hawke's hands. "I was not mistaken."

"I never said you were, darling," Amell was as soft spoken as ever, but he had tensed as well the moment the dagger had been removed from its sheath.

"What?" Hawke asked incredulously. "I'm not about to stab anybody. I promise. And never before dinner."

"It's true," Varric added, but the dwarf had dropped the meat and reached for Bianca. "Hawke might be a little testy at times, but even he can't resist my cooking."

"Fools, I am surrounded by them." Morrigan's frown deepened as she pointed to the dagger. "Can you truly be blind to what he holds?"

"A fine example of Antivan steelwork?" Zevran suggested. "I gifted him the blade myself in exchange for services rendered."

"And not the kind of services certain filthy minds can imagine," Hawke added before anybody else could. "But he's right. It's a dagger. It stabs people. What of it?"

"The rune inscribed upon it," Amell said, holding out his hand. "That is not regular Lyrium."

Hawke gingerly placed his dagger in the outstretched hand, and the primeval rune lit up, brightly crimson under the mage's touch.

"Maker's breath, Hawke, please tell me that you didn't do this," Varric said with a groan at the familiar red glow. "I thought you talked me out of keeping the blighted thing so you could get rid of it."

"I planned to do that," Hawke said, ears coloring a little. "I gave it to Sandal to dispose of, and a few days later he gave me this. I thought it was safe."

"So did Meredith." Varric scratched his unfamiliar beard.

"I think you had better tell us the whole story," Amell interrupted, still running calloused fingers over the dagger. "We are here for a reason, and it sounds as if that rune is part of it."

"Well, Glowy," Varric started, "if it is a story you want, then I have one to curl your hair. It all started with my brother Bartrand…"

…

"… and there you have it," Varric said, finishing his tale.

"Fascinating," Amell said, and kept running his fingers over the dagger, something which made Hawke downright uneasy. "I never imagined that something like that could be found in the deep roads."

"What can't be found there," Hawke muttered, because in his experience every time they headed underground there was something going wrong. "So, what do you figure it is? A demon? Lyrium gone bad like cheese left too long on the shelf?"

"'Tis no demon," Morrigan said, watching the dagger carefully. "This is something else. Something far older. Far more dangerous. What happened to the rest of this corruption?"

"I have no idea," Hawke confessed. "We had to leave Kirkwall in a hurry; the Templars weren't going to stand around in shock forever. I hope they buried the blighted blade, and the remains of Meredith with it."

"I very much doubt so," Amell said, holding up the dagger. "Something has awoken, and this small piece here is not what worried the spirits. We had been tracking the disturbance south when this thing here lured us off track."

"Well, good luck with that," Hawke said, realizing with no small amount of bitterness that this meant that he would have to give up one of his favorite daggers. "For once, this has nothing to do with us."

For once.