~::Chapter Five::~

The Hanged Man was its usual filthy, noisy self. Correm, Bethany, Aveline and Varric were seated around the table in Varric's suite. A round of drinks was laid out, and Correm was currently in the lead as far as quantity consumed went. He stood and lifted his tankard into the air.

"Here's to Aveline!" he exclaimed with a grin. "For giving that bastard Jeven the what-for and for being the prettiest future guard captain that Kirkwall has ever seen. Probably. We've only been here a year. I suppose it's too early to say."

Aveline smirked and shook her head. "Really, Hawke, is that all you can think of? That's certainly not what's important. Jeven was a corrupt son of a bitch. He had to be removed from his post. I wasn't expecting for them to give me the position." She gave him a stern look. "I hardly think they chose me to replace him for my looks."

"But they could have." Correm winked at her. "You do have the cutest freckles I've ever seen."

"One more word, and I'll put you on your ass," she threatened.

"Would you care to try?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Rolling her eyes, Aveline ignored the challenge and took a drink from her mug.

Bethany had taken a few sips of the ale in front of her, but she wasn't interested in drinking the way her brother was. Hopefully he wouldn't go too far. Again. She wouldn't even be there, except for the fact that it was a celebratory event for Aveline and her impending advancement. She had worked so hard for it; she deserved the recognition. To have gotten as far as she had, being a Fereldan refugee and a woman, was both a testament to her skill, and to her devotion.

It was something that Bethany envied. She had no purpose or drive, except to avoid the templars and do her best to stay out of the Gallows. That was the most she could do now. Of course she would follow her brother along while he did those odd jobs around Kirkwall—after all, the expedition they needed to raise money for was in great part for her sake—but she'd still be afraid of attracting too much attention. There were templars everywhere.

She envied Aveline's freedom to pursue her dreams. The longer they stayed in Kirkwall, the more Bethany realized that she would not be able to live a very rewarding life. Even if they earned money and status enough to avoid the templars.

So, she envied Aveline.

"This is wonderful, Aveline," she said, smiling over at the older woman. "I'm glad to see not all of us Fereldans are getting treated like dirt."

"I'm one of the lucky ones," the red-head commented. "There are still far too many of us in those refugee camps, living in filth and crawling around Darktown." She shook her head. "It doesn't help that a lot of them become criminals just so they can get by. No one is ever going to want to hire them legitimately."

"Well, when someone's willing to stoop to any level, there's always someone willing to pay them to do it," Varric added.

"That is unfortunately true," Aveline agreed.

"So, does the great Guard Captain Aveline have any grand plans for the future?" Varric winked and took a drink. He had Bianca with him, as always, and pointed a thumb at the crossbow over his shoulder. "Bianca is quite curious. Plenty of opportunities for an up and coming city official."

"I'm not a city official, Varric," Aveline countered. "I'll be in charge of a few good men, and the Guard protects the city. That's all."

"Nonsense!" the dwarf exclaimed. "You'll have plenty of influence!"

"Unlike you, I have professional integrity. I would never stoop to take advantage of my position like that. Not for the petty reasons I know are on your mind."

"I take offense to that. Who says I don't have professional integrity? You don't have to take advantage, per se. Like I said, simple opportunities to influence—"

"No."

Correm laughed. "I think you'd better give up on this one, my good fellow. Aveline has much too noble a spirit to be swayed to your devious ways. I, however..."

"Correm, that's not helping. I can defend myself."

"You're a better man than I am, then." The warrior grinned. Too widely.

"Hey!" Bethany frowned. "That's not very nice."

Aveline smiled at her. "Don't worry. He's ignorable."

Putting a hand over his heart, Correm made a gasp and rocked back on his heels. "I am? Oh, my life as I knew it is over! How will I ever go on without the attention you lavish upon me?"

"Sit down, would you?" Aveline demanded. Bethany hoped that their friend wasn't really getting angry.

He obeyed immediately. Clasping both hands around his tankard, he hunched over it and began to sulk. "You ruin all my fun."

"I could still put you on your ass, you know, if that's what you want."

"No ma'am."

Varric clapped him on the back and raised his drink high. "To Hawke! Who gets put in his place more than any other man I know!"

The man in question merely grumbled into his drink.

Bethany was just dying to ask Aveline something, but she wasn't sure how to go about it. She bit her lip. It was only a year from the death of the woman's husband. Well, it was only a year after Carver's death as well, but...

"Aveline?" she started hesitantly.

Aveline turned to her and raised her eyebrows. "Yes? You're not going to try and get something out of me, too, are you? I am already doing everything I can to keep you from the templars' notice, but—"

"Oh, no!" Bethany waved her hands, mortified that her friend should immediately make that assumption. It was all her brother's fault that Aveline immediately thought something like that, she would swear to it. "I just wanted to ask you... What are the men like? In the Guard?"

"Oh, yes, do tell!" Correm perked up, looking like a puppy about to receive a juicy treat.

Bethany gave him an imploring look as she blushed. "Brother, please." She didn't need him ruining it when she was already embarrassed to be asking in the first place.

Aveline gave Correm an irritated look, to which he responded with a guileless smile. It wasn't a very convincing one. She rolled her eyes. "Are you asking seriously?" she asked Bethany.

Bethany nodded.

"They're most of them good men," she replied. "There are bad apples in any group, but I know who they are, and I can keep an eye on them. Just in case."

"Are there any of them in particular who are better than the others?"

"Well, there's..." Aveline trailed off and looked around. Correm, and Varric as well, were paying a little too much attention to what she was saying. "Wait a minute. You're fishing."

"No, I... I swear I'm not!" Bethany blushed harder, wishing that this were going better than it was.

"Or are you asking for yourself?" Varric asked. "Sunshine, are you thinking about romance?" He grinned.

Bethany couldn't respond. She merely hid her face in her mug and pretended to drink from it. She regretted bringing the subject up, now. At least in front of the men. But she didn't always get to see Aveline alone. Still, she didn't really think she could even remotely "find a man", as her mother had been mentioning lately, in the Guard.

"No one is good enough for my little sister. They'll have to go through me." Correm pounded his fist on his chest.

"I'm sure that can be arranged," Aveline smirked.

"Besides," Bethany murmured. "Who would want an apostate?"

"Another apostate?" Varric suggested.

"I suppose that Anders fellow isn't so bad, if you can ignore his 'special friend'," Correm speculated. Bethany thought that there were better ways of saying that Anders was halfway to being an abomination.

"That's one way to put it," Aveline commented, echoing her thoughts.

"All right, 'abomination', then. But you have to admit, he looks pretty damn good for an abomination."

Varric and Aveline laughed, although a bit awkwardly. Bethany couldn't bring herself to even manage that much. She was still remembering what had happened to Karl. Was Anders still suffering from that? She imagined that he would be. That was not the sort of thing that you got over quickly.

There was always so much death in the world.

"I'm just... Is it so wrong to want to think about the future?" she asked softly. "Sometimes I just don't feel like I've got one here. Especially with all the templars everywhere. The Blight is over. All we're really here for is Mother."

Aveline shook her head. "No, it's not wrong to think of that. That's just life."

Bethany gave her a grateful smile.

Correm, for his part, had never put much thought into such things. He lived too much in the moment for that. The future, aside from the immediate one—such as when his next meal was going to come, or which warm pair of breasts he'd next be squishing—never concerned him much. While growing up, he had certainly heard his sister talking with their mother about love and marriage and family, but he'd never really processed it. Especially since, as she'd gotten older, and the truths about her future as an apostate began to weigh more heavily on her, Bethany had quit talking about it.

Once upon a time Correm might have considered having a family of his own, but he really had no concept of romance or of parenthood. If he ever became a father, it would be purely on accident, and he would have absolutely no clue what to do about it.

Fatherhood was always a rather terrifying thought for him, when it occurred to him at all. He didn't want to subject himself to being a father. For that matter, he didn't want to subject any child to having him as a father.

"Speaking of the future," Varric began, turning to face Aveline once more. "If you aren't going to use your influence to better yourself, I have a few propositions, if you will, that I think you could help me with. Purely as an altruistic gesture, of course."

"I really can't believe you sometimes, Varric." Aveline shook her head.

Correm grinned, thinking that he knew what it was that the dwarf might be after. "You want to own this place, don't you?" He gestured around them. "I think that's a magnificent idea." He really didn't think that it would actually happen, but it was fun to speculate about.

Aveline rubbed at her temples. "No."

Snapping his fingers, Correm smirked and leaned over the table. "Or—and this is an even better idea, Varric—you could go for ownership of the Rose." He wiggled his eyebrows. He'd never visited the place for his own benefit, and he certainly felt no need to, but it was another amusing thought.

Obviously not finding that plan as amusing as Correm did, Varric gave him a skeptical look. "Hawke, what in the world would I do with ownership of that place?"

Aveline raised an eyebrow. "Yes. This I have to hear."

"Oh, I don't know, you could make some changes to the bar, maybe start selling coffee along with the booze?" He rubbed at his chin, thinking. "You could stock some of those fancy iced desserts from Orlais, perhaps? Or! Perhaps you could train the prostitutes to knit scarves! There is a distinct lack of decent scarf-knitters in this city. I don't know about any of you, but I'd like one blighted scarf that isn't going to itch."

His friends stared at him silently for a few moments, and he wondered if perhaps that had not gone a little too far over the top. Clearing his throat, he rubbed at the side of his neck. "Well. It was just a thought."

Aveline shook her head and sighed. "For the life of me, Correm, I really don't know why I follow you around so much. Even if I do feel obligated to help you on all your errands."

Correm smiled, thankful that he hadn't sent her into a conniption with his ridiculous ideas. "I'm just that handsome. I have a sort of aura." Before she could say anything, he quickly said, "And no, it's not my smell."

Chuckling, Varric snapped his fingers. "I was just going to say that."

"Good thing I caught it in time, then." Correm turned to his sister. She didn't look like she was drinking any more of her ale. In fact, he didn't think she'd been drinking much of it at all. "Bethany, do you mind?" He reached out to grab her mug and pull it to him.

"Ah-!" Bethany blinked and looked up at him. She shook her head. "No."

"You really need something to do that's going to keep you out of trouble," Aveline said, watching him. "Now that your obligations to Athenril are finally over. Which I'm quite relieved about, actually. I don't like that sort of business."

He raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about? I have plenty to do. In the morning, we're going to talk to that templar about the elf boy, and I'd like to go up Sundermount to find some of the things that that fellow at the Gallows wants. That should keep me busy all day."

"Don't forget that man in Hightown whose dog you agreed to help find," Varric added.

Correm groaned and rubbed at his face. He had hoped, actually, that the others would forget about that, because he'd regretted offering to help find the dog the moment the words had left his lips. "Don't remind me. No, really, please, don't remind me. I bet that dog fell into the sewers chasing after a blowing leaf."

"I know you're raising money for the expedition, but I also know you." Aveline swished her mug around. "You'll still find a way to fill every remotely idle moment with trouble."

Correm knocked back the rest of what had formerly been his sister's drink. There was more than he thought at first, and he choked a little. "Exactly!" he said, after clearing his airway. "That's the best part about having all debts paid. It means we're free to accrue more of them."

At the very least, being finally free was invigorating enough in itself. He was joking about debts and obligations, but he really didn't want to be indebted to anyone else ever again. He much preferred it when people owed him favors or money. Although, no one ever had, and if they ever did, he really wouldn't know what to do about it if they decided they weren't going to pay him back. Doing favors simply for being nice wasn't exactly one of those things that he wanted to make a habit out of.

However, he was beginning to get the feeling that life in Kirkwall might be all about "favors". It was all social politics, and he wasn't fond of that concept at all. It meant that he'd have to actually get involved. He'd spent his whole life avoiding getting involved, not just because he simply didn't want to, but also because of the nature of his family.

He'd barely been free of obligation to Athenril and he'd already done somebody a "favor". Granted, he had done it in exchange for the maps to the Deep Roads, but slaughtering a bunch of templars hadn't really been on his docket for the day when he'd gotten up that morning.

If he was being honest with himself, he'd admit that, all things considered, he probably would have helped Anders anyway. The thought of Bethany being taken by the templars was so upsetting to him that he would sympathize with anyone in that sort of situation.

But he wasn't honest with himself. He didn't think about it. Being drunk helped with that.

"But our debts are not all paid," Bethany said, drawing his attention back out of his thoughts. She was frowning at him, and the disapproval in her gaze was so clear that even he, tipsy as he was, couldn't miss it.

"Oh, come on, what are you talking about? We can work for ourselves now, and if we wanted to we could refuse to do something if we don't want to do it."

"Don't forget the amulet," she said.

Correm raised an eyebrow. "What—" Then it dawned on him. The amulet. That bloody thing that the Witch of the Wilds—what was her name?—had given them to transport to Kirkwall in exchange for transporting them to Gwaren. She'd very likely saved all of their lives in the process. Not to mention, it had been quite the thrill to be so close to such an interesting person.

His sister shifted uncomfortably in her seat and rubbed her cheek. "We've got to take the amulet to the Dalish up the mountain."

"I'm not sure if that's such a good idea," Aveline said.

"Aren't you all for paying off old debts?" Correm raised an eyebrow at her.

She sighed. "Well, yes, but there are other things to consider. She was the Witch of the Wilds. I think you should count your blessings and be thankful that you got this far."

Varric said, "Dragons are great in stories, Hawke, but I'm not sure that I'd want to come face-to-face with one."

"We made a promise, Brother." Bethany frowned around at the table. "It's the right thing to do," she said. "Besides that, though, there could be consequences if we don't do it. What if the Dalish know we're coming?"

"I find it highly unlikely that they do," Aveline said.

Bethany flushed. "I don't know any Dalish, so I don't know. But it is possible, isn't it?"

Correm sucked at the lip of his mug and considered for a moment. "Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but personally I'd rather get the matter over with and move on with my life. We're done with Athenril, now let's be done with the bloody amulet." He cleared his throat and gave them a sheepish look. "If I can remember where I left it."