Hawke was in a brighter mood the following morning, and he and Varric entered The Hanged Man five sovereigns richer following their visit to the chantry.

Anders, who was sat at a table near to the door, beckoned them over. As they joined him, Hawke noticed Fenris sitting alone at a table at the far end of the lounge, but did not acknowledge him.

"So, how did your meeting with the nutter go?" Anders asked lightly.

Hawke frowned. "Well…turns out he really is a prince, or at least he believes he is. He's bloody rich, anyway; that armour didn't come from Shady Sam's, that's for sure. Custom-made, that was."

"And we have five sovs to play with," added Varric.

"Five?" exclaimed Anders. "Blimey! Does he have any more work for us…? Hawke? Hawke?"

"Snap out of it!" Varric clapped his hands in front of Hawke's face.

"He had the most amazing blue eyes," Hawke said dreamily, and then pulled a face. "He was going a bit thin on top, though; that was a bit off-putting."

As Varric self-consciously touched his own hairline, Hawke shot him a sly glance. "Personally, I like something to grab hold of. Gives better purchase. Know what I mean, Varric?"

"Will you stop?" protested a squirming Varric, although he was glad to see Hawke so jovial; such episodes did not usually last long for the troubled young man.

"Well, you will walk around with that chest of yours on display for all to see. I'm not made of stone, you know," Hawke teased, his hand snaking towards Varric's open coat.

Varric shot up out of his chair and headed over to the bar, leaving a sniggering Hawke and Anders behind. Hawke reached into his pocket and produced the five sovereigns he'd collected from the man with the amazing blue eyes, laying them on the table.

"Varric and I talked about this on our way back, but we'll only do it if you agree."

"Oh, yes?"

"Well, as we all did quite well last night, I thought we could put all of this in the expedition kitty, but as you helped us with the Flint Company mercenaries, you're more than welcome to take your share."

"No, that's fine, Hawke; I have enough to keep me going for a while."

"You're sure? Do you need anything for the clinic?"

"Not at the moment."

"Well, let me know if you do, or if ever you run short of your own funds. The money in the kitty is for the expedition, but none of us will be any good for it if we starve to death in the meantime."

"I will, Hawke; thanks." Anders' face dropped as he looked behind Hawke and saw Varric and Fenris approaching them. "It was such a nice morning," he said drily.

Hawke glanced around and immediately turned back to face Anders, his shoulders tensing a little.

"Allow me to introduce you to my friends," announced Varric. "This is Blondie…" Anders nodded curtly and did not correct Varric. "…and this is Hawke. Gentlemen, I'd like you to meet Fenris."

Hawke turned a little and looked Fenris up and down. "And this is Varric, although he prefers to be called 'Vazzers'.

Varric tutted and glared at Hawke momentarily, and then invited Fenris to take a seat.

"I will remain standing," Fenris announced, feeling neither comfortable nor welcome.

"Of course he'll remain standing," sniped Anders. "He's too good to sit with mages, isn't he?" His eyes locked with Fenris's, and the two of them stared each other down.

"Well! Isn't this pleasant?" Varric laughed nervously and leaned against the wall, uncertain whether to stand with Fenris or sit with the mages. "Today, we're travelling to Sundermount to take back this trinket thingy to the elves…"

"Sundermount? That is where the Dalish reside," Fenris said. "I encountered some of them on my way here. They do not welcome outsiders."

"I heard that, too," replied Varric. "Perhaps they'd be a little more welcoming, with you being an elf and everything?"

"Hardly. They would see me as a city elf, no better than the shemlen they despise so."

"Can't wait," Anders said sarcastically, resting his head on his hand and pouting.

"Why should the Dalish be any different?" grumbled Hawke. "Pretty much everyone we've met on our travels has either tried to skewer us or has told us to piss off back to Ferelden."

"Hmm," Varric mumbled. "We do seem to attract a lot of trouble. This is where you come in, Elf," he said to Fenris. "We need someone who can distract the scumbags while the magic boys here do their stuff. Of course, you're free to join in and do some skewering of your own."

Fenris nodded once. "I will do my best."

Hawke glanced at him and sat back in his chair. "If you pull your weight and protect us, you'll get an equal share of any spoils or money we find. Anders, Varric and I look out for each other, and we expect you to do the same."

"Understood."

"Let's get going, then," said Hawke.

~o~O~o~

Predictably, the group ran into trouble as soon as they set foot outside Kirkwall. A well-organised group of bandits blocked their path and demanded money from them.

"You people never learn, do you?" sneered Hawke, readying his staff; Varric and Anders had already dropped back into defensive positions.

Fenris approached the leader of the bandits and stood in front of him, looking up at the man, who was a clear foot taller than him. "Let us pass," he demanded.

The bandits fell about laughing, and a noxious smile crept along their leader's lips as he unsheathed his sword. "Good. I like uppity knife-ears; they make great servants. My boots could do with a shine, elf, and then you'll oil my boys' leathers. Get to it!"

Varric's face lit up as Fenris's markings glowed, and he thrust his hand into the leader's chest, who immediately sank to his knees, shrieking in agony. Several expletives issued from his men as they backed away, some of them dropping their weapons to the ground.

"I said…" snarled Fenris, "…let us pass."

"Y-yes! S-sorry…please! It hurts!" wailed the bandit leader as urine pooled between his knees.

Fenris released him, his eyes flitting between the remainder of the bandits. "Would anyone else like their boots shined?"

"Let's get out of here!" cried the leader, hastily scrambling to his feet.

"Turn out your pockets, first!" commanded Hawke, much to Varric's approval.

The bandits hesitated for a moment, not wishing to relinquish their spoils, until Fenris took a step closer to them, his markings still glowing. Quickly, they began rifling through their pockets and packs, and threw several coins, trinkets and daggers to the ground.

"Now, fuck off out of here!" Hawke bellowed. "If we ever run into you again, my friend here will not be so merciful!"

Needing no further prompting, the bandits fled for the hills.

"Nice work, Elf!" Varric exclaimed as he began to collect the bandits' spoils. "What did I tell you, Hawke?"

Hawke cautiously approached Fenris, who was bent over with his hands on his knees, his breathing laboured. "Are you…all right?" he asked cautiously.

Fenris straightened up and backed away a step as Hawke neared; Hawke ceased his approach and kept his distance.

"I am," Fenris answered succinctly.

"How do you do that?" asked Hawke. "What is that you have on your skin?"

Fenris held his arms out and examined them. "It is lyrium; it was burned into my flesh by my former master."

"Lyrium?" Anders gasped. "Burned into your skin? I-I've never heard of such a thing!"

Hawke looked at Fenris with awe. "So it allows you to…pass through solid objects?"

"It does."

"Then why do you need a sword? You could just do that thing with your hand to anyone that threatened you, couldn't you?"

Fenris sighed and rested his arms at his sides. "It is…not easy. It causes me…discomfort."

"The markings are painful, then?"

Fenris shifted slightly. "Perhaps we should move on, lest the bandits are foolish enough to engage us once again."

Hawke shrugged. "All right; I was just curious. Let's pick up the rest of this stuff and get going."

The four men began to gather their booty, and Fenris wandered over to a large rock; some coins had rolled into a crevice, and he got down onto his knees to retrieve them, but could not quite reach.

"Having trouble, Elf?" asked Varric as the other three men wandered over.

"My arms are too short," Fenris complained, eliciting a chuckle from Hawke. Did the elf have a sense of humour?

"Anders, you have the longest reach; you try," suggested Hawke.

"Righty-ho," answered Anders, crossing over to where Hawke stood next to Fenris.

Fenris began to stand, placing his hands against the rock for support, and then he froze, falling back to his knees, his eyes widening and his mouth falling open. Hawke shot a confused glance at Anders, who shrugged in return.

"Fenris?" asked Hawke.

Fenris gave no answer, and his breathing quickened, his armoured fingers clawing at the rock.

"What's wrong with you?" Hawke demanded, placing a hand on Fenris' shoulder.

"Noli Me Tangere!" Fenris snarled, leaping to his feet and wheeling round to face Hawke, his markings flaring and his face contorted into an expression bordering on feral.

"Hey! Just take it easy, sport!" Varric urged, running over.

Hawke quickly backed away, looking at Fenris in horror, and the elf closed his eyes, the glow of his markings waning.

"You bloody lunatic!" yelled Anders. "He was only trying to help you!"

"I-I did not mean…I am sorry…"

"Save it!" snapped Hawke, his anger fuelled by fear. "What did I say?" he asked Varric furiously. "Nice one minute, an arsehole the next! I can't bloody keep up!"

"Aveline, remember?" Varric reminded him.

"Fuck that; Aveline may be a bitch, but at least she's never tried to kill me," Hawke groused as he stalked up the hillside, closely followed by Anders.

"Now, come on, Hawke; he didn't try to…"

"You wanted him to come along so much, Varric, you keep an eye on him," ordered Hawke as he and Anders disappeared around a corner.

Varric groaned to himself and glanced over at Fenris, who stood examining his upturned palms and shaking his head. "You ok there, tiger?"

Fenris slowly looked up, unfathomable depths of hurt and fear in his eyes. "I…did not mean…I…could not help myself," he said softly, his shoulders sagging in defeat.

"Look," said Varric, taking a step nearer to the elf. "I can see you have some…stuff to work through, but just try to keep a lid on the, erm, anger problem, huh? That thing you do with your hands is great, seriously great, when dealing with bandits and the like, but when it's turned on us, it's kinda…terrifying, you know?"

"Yes, I know," replied Fenris. "I should apologise to him."

"No," Varric answered quickly. "I'll talk to him; I know how to get round Hawke. Listen; Hawke and Blondie are young and hot-headed. Hawke's quick to anger, but it doesn't last long. You just spooked him, is all. I'll sweeten him up. Just try not to make a habit of it, ok? Hawke's kind of in charge, here, and he says who works with us, and who doesn't. Stay on his good side, and you won't find a better friend, trust me. He's a little…moody, but…" Varric cleared his throat, conscious of not saying too much. "Besides, we need you, and I'm guessing you could do with some coin. We need you, and you need us."

Fenris nodded and stepped a little closer to Varric. "You are wise, and speak the truth. I will endeavour to…contain myself."

"That's the spirit!" chirped Varric. "I like you!"

"You-you do?"

"Sure! I have a feeling things will be very interesting with you around. Come on; let's have a slow walk up, give those two some time to cool off."

~o~O~o~

Anders and Hawke were deep in conversation as they reached the outskirts of the Dalish settlement. Hawke's previous anger had quickly abated, as it always did; Anders's, however, had not.

"I feel kind of bad, Anders; I think I might have hurt him when I grabbed his shoulder like that. He hinted that the markings are painful…or rather, I asked him, and he changed the subject."

"That's no excuse for him to turn on you like that!" Anders argued. "Did you see the look on his face? He wasn't in control of himself at all!"

"I think I startled him," Hawke reasoned. "He doesn't seem to like being touched…"

"Being touched by mages, you mean."

"We don't know that, Anders. Who knows what his life was like as a slave? He may have been beaten or Maker knows what. It's probably traumatised him, or something."

"Don't get feeling sorry for him, Hawke," urged Anders. "He's not right in the head. He'll be trouble, mark my words."

Hawke frowned and shook his head. "I think we should give him one more chance. You saw how he dealt with those bandits."

"Yes, and he very nearly dealt with you in the same way! And what was all that about when he was kneeling down in front of the rock? He just freaked out."

Hawke stopped walking and sighed, running his hand through his mop of curly brown hair. "I just wish I hadn't lost my temper like that."

"You had good reason to!"

"No…I never used to be like this. I just fly off the handle at any little thing these days. It's since we left Lothering…since…"

Anders slapped Hawke's back and let his hand rest there. "I know."

"Halt, shemlen, and state your business!" Six Dalish elves seemed to appear from nowhere and surrounded the two mages, who immediately halted.

"Erm, we're here to see your leader, or master, or whatever you call him," said Anders, nervously glancing around at the elves, four of whom had their bows trained on him and Hawke.

"Keeper," Hawke corrected him. "We'd like to see your Keeper, please."

"And what business does the likes of you have with the Keeper?"

Hawke's nostrils flared as sudden irritation sprang up inside him. "An ill-mannered Dalish elf. How very novel!" he spat, folding his arms. "Never you mind what we want him for; just go and fetch him."

"We will not fetch her, shemlen, until you explain your presence here!"

Hawke closed his eyes, sick to the back teeth of being attacked and talked down to since his arrival in Kirkwall just over a year earlier, sick of not being back in Lothering, and sick of everything not being the way it used to be.

"Forget it," he said flatly, turning to leave. "I'll go and sell this amulet at the market; I should have done that in the first place, and saved myself a journey."

"Wait!" a female Dalish called to him, and then turned to face one of her companions. "Perhaps this is the one the Keeper spoke of."

"Halt, Shemlen!" her male companion commanded.

"I'm not a fucking horse, you know!" barked Hawke as he turned around, still rattled by the incident with Fenris. "I went to a lot of trouble to bring this amulet to you, because I promised someone I would. I was raised properly and I keep my promises. I asked you nicely if I could see your Keeper, and you look down your nose at me and keep telling me to halt? Who do you think you are?"

"Hawke…" Anders touched his arm. Hawke rubbed his eyes and grunted.

"You will forgive us if we are less than welcoming," said the male elf, "but your kind has given us plenty of reasons to be wary."

"So that's my fault, is it?" demanded Hawke. "Now, do you want this amulet, or not?"

"The Keeper will want to see you," answered the elf. "Come with me."

Hawke scowled and shook his head at Anders, who mirrored the gesture as they entered the camp. "A dwarf and an elf will also be arriving shortly," Hawke told the Dalish. "If they receive the same reception as we did, I'll stomp on this bloody thing."

"Go to the entrance," the male elf instructed one of his kin. "And bring the dwarf and the elf to the Keeper as soon as they arrive."

~o~O~o~

Having received a much more favourable reception than Hawke or Anders had, Varric and Fenris met up with the two mages at the foot of Sundermount. Fenris hung back a little, feeling ashamed of his earlier actions, but Hawke no longer appeared hostile toward him; rather, his ire was directed toward the Dalish.

"Well, it seems that merely bringing the amulet back wasn't enough," Hawke wearily told them. "We've got to go up the mountain – yes, up it –find one of the clan, do some kind of weird ritual and then we have to take the clan member with us."

"Take them with us?" asked Varric. "Why? Is that part of the ritual, too?"

"No, apparently they want to leave, and we're to deliver them safely to the alienage in Lowtown. And do we get any money for this? Not a sausage. The only currency these people seem to deal in is scorn, disdain and rudeness. The sooner we get this done, and get out of here, the better."

"Do we have to do this at all, Hawke?" Varric asked. "It seems an awful lot of trouble with no reward."

"Yes, I have to do it," Hawke replied with a sigh. "The witch did save us, after all…"

"The witch?" Fenris interjected.

"…As I was saying, the witchsaved my family and I promised to see this through for her. I've never broken a promise in my life; my father drummed that into me when I was very young."

Fenris, remembering Varric's advice, decided against any further comments concerning witches. "Your father sounds an honourable man."

"He was."

"Oh…I see. In that case, you have my condolences."

Hawke's brows knitted together as he glanced at Fenris, utterly confounded by the elf's unpredictable behaviour. He gave a brief nod, and then turned to the others.

"You don't have to come with me; we're not going to make any money out of this, after all. If you all want to get back and do other things, I won't blame you."

Anders shrugged. "Well, we're here now, and I'm not needed at the clinic until later."

"And I'm not leaving the two of you running unchecked around the Free Marches," added Varric. "Come on."

"How about you, Fenris?" asked Hawke, hearing a huff from Anders.

"I will accompany you, if you wish."

"All right," answered Hawke, who was already making his way up the mountain path.

Anders watched him go, and then, checking that Fenris wasn't standing too close, he sidled closer to Varric. "Hawke's pretty wound up," he said in a quiet aside.

"Yeah, I noticed. I'll talk to him, Blondie, as soon as we get a quiet moment."

Anders nodded. "Thanks. Is he…all right? I mean, I know I haven't known him for long, but, well, he's been good to me, and he seems all over the place."

"We haven't had a heart-to-heart or anything like that, but his tongue loosens up when he's had a few. From what I can gather, he's lost his pa and his brother, and, as he's now the head of his family, it really bites him that all he can provide for his mother and sister is a fleapit in Lowtown that doesn't even belong to him. He told me his family were well-respected back home; here, though, they're nothing."

"Hmm. Yes, I understand what it's like to leave your old life behind. Kirkwall was a bit of a shock to me, as well."

"You've never mentioned your old life, Blondie," Varric said with a curious look in his eyes.

"Neither have you."

"Touché, Blondie," he chuckled, and looked behind him. "You coming, Elf?" he called; Fenris had fallen back, not wishing to intrude on a clearly private conversation.

Anders, irritated that he hadn't had the chance to express his concerns about the elf to Varric, walked ahead and caught up to Hawke.

Not far up the trail, Anders and Hawke ran into the Dalish elf that the Keeper had mentioned. By the time Varric and Fenris had caught them up, the two mages, intrigued to discover that the elf was also a mage, were enjoying a friendly chat with her.

"Oh! These are the friends you mentioned?" asked the elf, who had introduced herself as Merrill.

"Yes; this is Varric, and…Fenris," Hawke said in introduction, gesturing to the two men.

Varric swept an arm around his waist and bowed, while Fenris, having spotted her staff, folded his arms and stared at her. "Alius magus," he muttered under his breath.

"Some of us here do speak Arcanum, you know," Anders bit out.

"Well I don't," Merrill sang with an innocent smile. "What does it mean?"

"Never mind," replied Anders caustically. "Nothing intelligent, anyway."

"Well, I don't speak Arcanum, either, but I think I got the gist," Hawke commented with a stern look at Fenris. "If you're going to make sour comments, Fenris, at least have the balls to make them in the common tongue."

Fenris arched one of his eyebrows, but made no reply.

"Nice to see a fellow elf around here," Merrill said to Fenris. "Which clan are you from, then?"

"I am from no clan," Fenris answered shortly.

"B-but…your tattoos…"

"These are not tattoos!" raged Fenris as Varric clapped a hand over his eyes and groaned. "Did your tattoos hurt when they were applied?"

"Yes! They bloody well stung! Made my eyes water, they did!"

"They stung, did they? Did the sting cause you to pass out for three days, awakening only to find you had no memory of your former life? Did they do that?"

"Of course not!" Merrill laughed with a delicate wave of her hand. "Don't be daft!"

Fenris' mouth fell open, and his eyebrow shot up even higher; Anders burst out laughing. Varric shot an amused glance at Hawke, who was studying Fenris carefully, his eyes narrowed slightly.

"Shall we get going, then?" suggested Merrill in a breezy tone. "It's not wise to make Asha'Bellanar wait, you know."

"Who is Asha'Bellanar?" asked Fenris, his tone suspicious.

"A witch," Anders replied, holding Fenris' gaze for a moment, before he turned and joined Hawke and Merrill. Hawke paused for a moment, his eyes still on Fenris; he then caught up to the other mages, with Fenris following not far behind.

Varric took the rear, and shook his head as he watched the other four. "Yes, it's going to be very interesting around here," he said softly to himself, and shook his head again.