One Good Thing
Alistair
Honestly, no-one ever tells him anything. Quite why they'd put him in charge of the new recruits - sometimes he can't even put the right boot on the right foot. It may have been first thing in the morning, when he was still half-asleep, and really hung over after that drinking contest, but still... if that's the case, how is he meant to keep three people alive? Well, alive until they go and take part in a ritual that might kill them anyway, but...
The mage obviously knows of his... upbringing. It's probably apparent anyway from the way he greets a couple of the templars at the camp - he knows them - or the way his hand strays to his sword at the sight of magic, ready for a fight. He sighs - he really needs to get out of the old templar habits. They're obviously not putting anyone at ease.
The Revered Mother guilted him into this errand, and, as he sees the mage's reaction, he realises she chose him because of the whole "nearly-templar" thing. He brings out his old friend flippancy as the mage's temper flares. "What, should I have asked her to write a note?"
As the mage stamps off after a terrible joke about naming his children, he thinks he hears a muffled laugh. This is confirmed by the mage stopping halfway down the slope and sneering to someone, "Oh, I've heard all about you. Here to make trouble for the Wardens, are you?"
The third recruit walks up to him, and he has to stop himself staring. Trouble? The other mage's attitude is... almost understandable. Her hair looks like she's been sleeping in a haystack - he'd know that look all too well - and she's wearing bloodstained - very bloodstained - mage's robes. She has a dagger, but is definitely a mage - every bone, every magical sense, in his body is confirming it. He's been in the Chantry far too long.
Exactly who is this woman?
An easily-embarrassed, dagger-wielding mage who seems to want to ask each and every question about the Joining - which, of course, he can't breathe a word to her about - Grey Wardens, Ostagar and mabari that pops into her mind, he discovers, much to his misfortune. Also known as Morgana.
Grey Wardens he can explain about - he knows the mythology back-to-front - but how do you explain what a mabari is? "You've never seen mabari before?" he asks her, frowning. "Not even on the way here?"
She shakes her head, fair hair nearly hitting him in the face. "There was the whole 'locked in a tower for years' thing, and then... well, I must have missed them."
After explaining mabari, he has to explain who and what he is. The moment he mentions the Chantry upbringing, something changes in her demeanour - her shoulders tense, and something shuts down behind her eyes that he can't quite name. The glimmer of... not warmth, exactly, but the look of mutual understanding - consideration? - and slight embarrassment from their earlier conversation is gone. Something cold, almost metallic, is there behind the blue. She exhales. "I... I see," she says, slowly, carefully, almost as if she doesn't trust herself with the words. "You were a mage hunter?" There is an edge to her voice that wasn't there before. The abashed, open girl of before is gone completely now.
He swallows, realising what is implied by her choice of words, and tries to make her understand that he never actually completed his initiation and has therefore never actually properly hunted a mage, but he can't help feeling that something has... gone, somehow. Her tone and pace are brisk, always polite but never friendly or curious, after that.
Of course, what he doesn't know is that the moment he revealed his training, her mind flashed back to her forced entry into the Tower and its Circle - to years of mistreatment as a second-class citizen. Every right denied, every templar standing just that bit too close, sword in hand, whenever she made a move to cast a spell, every day Anders spent in a stone cell with no-one but a cat for company... in that moment, he was dismissed as just another templar.