Oren Adaar was cautiously elated. To be completely honest, this was only because he was told to be. The cautious part, that was.
They were on their way to the Maker-be-damned Temple of Sacred Ashes - was he not meant to stare at the vast spectrum of people travelling alongside them - mage, templar, dwarves, elves - and not marvel? Granted, their duty and paid job was to protect Lady Ames from all harm on the journey - whether it be a cabal of Antivan Crows, or rogue golems, but come on, he was qunari. He had almost three feet on nearly everyone in a hundred leagues of them, which did turn a lot of heads. But, then there was his race's senses - nigh unparalleled. He could detect, and distinguish the different scents of all the races of Thedas within a hundred paces. Well, he hadn't tested that theory to veritable certainty, but he had had...encounters, in the past where such was needed. Then there was his magic, ready at a moment's notice.
Besides, at the moment, he was guarding the baggage train. The short straw, of course. Harra Shokrakar had smirked at him and patted him on the shoulder, motioning with a thumb to the back - the rest of the Valo-Kas chuckling and celebrating their good fortune. The fact of the matter was that his mercenary company was 3/4ths pure qunari, while the other Tal-Viddathari were imposing members of their own race, so this caravan of people they'd linked up with - really any average brute or cutpurse was going to look the other way for easy prey. So, sending him to the back was a lonely sentence, that made him think too much. Too much about home. Or, rather, his former home. And all the nug shite that had precluded him joining the Valo-Kas.
What mother and father sanely considered a mercenary group to be adequate in the rearing of a child in their stead? Was this an idea of their coming-of-age joke? It seemed not, as he'd been stuck with these slightly-insane buffoons for five years now, every letter sent home rebuffed, or no reply at all. But then again, he'd come to mildly love these people. He called them buffoons because they called him the "little quny", and around and around the jokes ensued. But they were all said in a slightly thick-skin version of love, and he knew it, even though it took several times in the fighting pit to get his strength across, especially with the Tal-Viddathari ones who thought they could grab ahold of his horns and use them to swing around as if they were trapeze artists from a circus. He had not liked that.
There had been several times that he'd almost lost his temper and resorted to magic to get his point across, but Shokrakar had shut that down quick. "There will be no usage of your powers until you can defend yourself as any being could without it," she had said, but he only half-believed her. He couldn't remember half of what happened that fateful day, but he knew he'd caused something awful with it, and that was the true motive behind being sent off.
Magic was feared, to an extreme extent, and the fact that his family had lived peacefully in hills outside Kirkwall said something, considering who they were. So much bad blood, but they had circumvented that through grueling work, that was suddenly undone by his actions.
He still had dreams in the Fade that tried to piece back together what had happened, but from what he knew of that ethereal realm was that it played almost exclusively off the imagination. Thus, it was unreliable. He almost slammed his pale fist against the side of one of the food carts in frustration, feeling the need to go off the path for just a second to set a bush on fire with a spell to expend his pent-up feelings. It still held him back. Everyone knew it.
"History is behind all of us, Oren. What molds you now is your choice," was Harra's reply during one of their meditations, designed to get him NOT to resort to his powers unreasonably. There was a reason behind that, of course. She knew what his parents knew, and she refused to say further, instead trying to shape him into a tempered form of his current self.
"The people around us, Oren, they will not deign to trust us without hefty reason, and will seek to blame us without cause. We must be all careful to walk this fine line," she had murmured around one of their campfires one night. She spoke of those not of the Qun, of course, but their merry band held no favor in the courts of Qunandar, either. The perfect definition of a roaming band of mercs. But, this Temple they were heading to, full of all races, seeking to parlay and establish a better future - this appealed to him. The fact that this was their biggest job yet, guarding a noble lady from Starkhaven, would speak volumes to those in attendance, showing they were worthy of trust.
At least, that's how he saw it. Others were more skeptical that anything would change, seeing that the current system had been around for nearly a millenia. What could stand against that? But, for Oren, his entire life was ahead of him. So much could occur. So much could be altered. And a symbol of that change was just up the mountain. If only he could grasp onto some of that restraint Harra spoke of. An intelligent tribe of giants would probably stumble across their path first before he hit her lofty goal. At least that would be a good fight. He readied his greatsword just in case.