"...Please try not to kill him?"

Sloane growls low in his throat, and I can feel it vibrate through me from where he's still holding me with one hand, "No promises, my dear." He doesn't take his eyes off of Zevran when he continues, "I think he hit Alistair with that tree."

"I'm okay," Alistair comments a little muffled from behind his helm. "Plate armor and all, but I think it's about time we showed these bandits why they don't cross paths with Grey Wardens!"

"They're assassins," I mutter, but Sloane talks over me to agree with Alistair,

"I couldn't agree more, my friend." Sloane moves to stand and withdraws his other dagger from his belt in a smooth, effortless movement. He raises that hand with the blade pointing towards the sky and yells a battle-cry on the top of his lungs, "For the Grey Wardens!" And it resounds with a shing of weapons collectively unsheathing from scabbards.

I hear a thunk, thunk, thunk and start to see three arrows buried in the dirt by Sloane's booted feet - which are next to my head. I scramble backwards on all fours in adrenaline-spiked fear while the two Grey Wardens of our group run off into the thick of the battle. I fumble with the scabbard on my sword to withdraw the green-blade, and another arrow flies past in the corner of my vision. I watch in some sort of stunned, sick slow-motion while the arrow slices a ruddy, and deep, path through the thinner leather on the inside of my knee to lodge into the earth between my legs with a soft twang of the wooden shaft. A familiar burning sensation ignites my nerves with the wake of the pain brought on by the wound, and then my skin lights up like black-light paint at a rave. The red webs of blood magic encroach on my vision while I make to stand, and I finally free my blade from my belt with the weight laying satisfyingly in my hand.

I vaguely realize that I'm loosing all conscious thought beneath the consuming pounding of base rage echoing through my eardrums and thrumming in my skin. Too soon I feel the painful reverberation of metal-on-metal when my blade meets another, and then I focus momentarily on the white-washed face of a man I'm looking up at with my blade buried deep into the soft, vulnerable skin on the underside of his chin with his dark red blood spilling like a spigot down my hand and studded leather gauntlet. Then I completely succumb to the blood magic inlaid in my flesh, and it's as freeing as it is horrifying. Everything I experience comes in flashes of sensation that make little sense at the time.

I hear a deafening scream and smell the pungent scent of burning flesh and charred hair.

I see a wolf and a dog shredding apart a woman's neck in fine, red ribbons and her broken wooden bow laying useless in one limp hand.

I hear a thunderous roar and see a white-haired man crushing another against a tree and cracking the trunk in the process.

I feel the cold void of an area cleansed of magic and hear the startled gasp of a person's last breath breezing past on the wind.

I watch a darkly fletched arrow whizzing past and the glint of steel off of a person's helm before they crumble to the ground without a sound.

I cause the rapid decay of a person's disbelieving expression hardened in their skin until they are little more than ash beneath my thickly gloved fingertips, and I feel the repulsive sensation of revitalization tickling in the base of my spine and spurring me on.

I get bashed into the side by a man with a huge wooden shield, and I feel the dark power of the blood magic sputter and momentarily stop feeding the madness that's overwhelmed me. The man has the audacity to laugh cruelly while I struggle to stand again, but then he's set upon by Morrigan in wolf-form and Randall growling ferociously and following at her heels. The assassin's humorless laughs turn into terrified screams within the same breath.

Tears spring hot to my eyes in sight of this violence, and I turn about and stand to see Sloane and... Zevran locked in some sort of deadly sparring match. Sloane has a red line of blood slashed across his cheek, and he is holding his off-hand a little too close to his body in visible discomfort. Zevran has blood trickling down one arm to splatter against the ground in fat drops, and his expression has changed from arrogant to one fuming in murderous intent. There's a flurry of moment while the two rogues engage each other - Sloane avoids a blow aimed for his neck with a slight backwards bend and a quick sidestep, and then Zevran narrowly misses the Warden's retaliation with the press of their forearms against each other and a low kick aimed at Sloane's leading ankle. The ginger haired elf curses under his breath, and moves the dagger in his main-hand about while he adjusts his stance and bashes the pommel against the blond's temple with a controlled crack of metal on bone. Zevran stumbles two steps before falling to the ground unconscious. Sloane quickly kicks the blades out from Zevran's hands with more force than necessary, and looks about like a lion seeking its next prey.

The sounds of battle are dwindling to silence when Sloane's eyes finally meet mine. His gaze clears of the glassiness of pain and adrenaline for a heartbeat, before he nods lowly at me. He's bent to remove Zevran's belt and secure the assassin's own hands with it, as I walk towards him with heavy feet and breaths while I recover from the sensations crawling throughout my body and the disturbing, self-hating thoughts vying to crush my spirit.

Sloane must recognize the troubling expression on my face, because his own scrunches and he tentatively reassures me in a voice labored with exertion, "These men are murderers."

"I know," I reply automatically without much feeling.

"Why did you wish for me to spare him?" He asks me while he nods once in Zevran's direction.

"He joins us," I sheathe my sword at my hip shakily and try not to pay too much attention to the gore on it. "He'll help us with the Blight, and he can be a friend."

"You'd think I'd allow an assassin to join our lot? One who tried to murder us?" Sloane hisses with such unrestrained fury that it makes me gasp at him with widened eyes in shock.

"J-just," I stutter, "let... let him explain when he wakes up, okay?" I wring my hands together, "I... think you might like him even, if- if you gave him a chance." I look towards Zevran and flick my gaze along his strangely familiar prone form, "He's not a bad guy. For an assassin," I amend.

A/N: You guys aren't used to these frequent updates, are you? lol! And the poll for Sloane's LI is still up - there's not a definitive wining couple yet. I'm sure you'll all find out once there is though. :D