Denerim. The capital of Ferelden, laid out near the coast, the Drakon River near cutting the city in half as it finally found the sea. Brown river water was carried through the city and into the endless blue ocean. The air was tinged with salt, but the other smells were overpowering the scent of the sea. Near the gate there was the ever-present scent of wet dog that seemed to be the embodiment of Ferelden, along with the smell of many pack animals that passed through the gates on the way to the market district.

Solona looked at the huge city with wide eyes, apparently star struck by all the buildings and people and just the city life in general. Aedan had to keep a close eye on her, and more than once pulled her out from nearly being crushed by a wagon full of goods being transported either to or from the market district. He lead them through the city until the got to the wide open space of the Market District, the sky here seeming much clearer than the cramped streets that they'd shared with many a number of fellow travelers and their oxen.

Children played in the square running around through weaves of people with dogs in tow. Keran looked like he wanted to join in the fun, though he was well disciplined and stayed close to Aedan's side. Solona couldn't help but to giggle at the longing look the dog was giving the playing children. He was a lot like a silent four-legged person.

Most of the hustle and bustle was concentrated in the middle of the square where a huge cloth canopy had been erected. Underneath were goods traders of all sorts, the cries of hawkers trying to sell their wares piercing over the general mutter of the crowd every once and a while. All sorts of vendors crammed themselves in wherever there was room, and signs adorned nearly all the buildings, declaring them the shop of somebody or another. There was even a washwoman amongst the buildings, which Solona found quite odd. Didn't everyone do their own laundry?

Set aside from the hustle and noise was a building whose main spire stood out amongst the low ramshackle buildings that surrounded the market place. A stylized sun, emblem of the Chantry could peek down at you from just about anywhere in the market if one were to just look up. Though the outside was more or less the same color as everything else in the market, the building was built with more thought and purpose. It seemed a heavy monument to Andraste and the Maker, surrounded as it was by a stone wall just high enough that attempting to climb over it would likely get you flayed by the Templars before you dropped on the other side.

Chantry priests were scattered in front of and behind the wall, a couple of Templars in full armor standing in front of the Chantry building doors looking distinctly bored. "I really think that this is the last place I should be." Solona hissed so that only he could hear, distinctly aware that she was still wearing her Circle robes for all to see. Most had probably never thought to assume she was an apostate, but Templars were a different story.

They passed through the gap in the stone wall that surrounded the Chantry, a couple of women arguing about a mispronunciation of the Chant of Light loudly enough for everyone to hear it as they walked by. So far, none seemed to have an innate sense of knowing when an apostate was amongst them. Solona kept waiting for the Templars to jump at her anyway.

"Well if you keep acting suspicious, they're going to stare." Aedan replied quietly, walking straight up to a board that had been set a little ways from the door, a woman in Chantry livery standing next to it and remaining silent, watching them walk up without much interest.

Papers covered the board, along with plenty of unoccupied rusted nails where paper had obviously been there before and was torn off. Aedan looked over the papers that were there for a while, quickly scanning through before taking one of them off it's nail, nodded to the Chantry sister, then simply turned and left.

Solona waited until they were past the bickering pair of women before she dared to walk directly at Aedan's side, slightly annoyed by what she perceived to be a close call. "What was that about?"

"Chanter's Board." Aedan replied, looking at the piece of paper that he'd taken, reading it over again at a slightly slower rate than his quick scan before. "I'd heard about them from my teacher back in Highever. People post things that they need done that they're willing to pay for. Usually it's practical things, like looking for someone to repair a wagon or trading favors for goods, but sometimes there are mercenary jobs. Like this one. There are rabble-rousers on the docks, and one of the innkeepers there is tired of his complaints getting ignored by the city guard. He wants them gone, and he'll pay whoever clears the ruffians out. If we complete the task, we get paid, and then we have somewhere to sleep tonight and something besides jerky to eat."

"Oh… so… What? You go in and beat up some thugs?" Solona asked, having a sneaking suspicion that his plan included her using magic, which she wasn't entirely sure was a good idea.

"Well, hopefully I'll have a little magical back up, but yes, that's the general idea." The look he shot her was tinged with a sort of recklessness the she distinctly didn't like the looks of. "But no fireballs. We don't want the Templars getting their dander up if they know that a rogue mage is wandering the city. We need to find wherever it is that they're keeping your blood vial, and I need to know how to get into the Arl's estate without Howe stopping me first."

That was true. Unfortunately, she couldn't argue with the logic, because she realized that they needed money and they needed information. She'd just have to play it low, and hopefully learning how to use her staff as a combat weapon would prove useful in keeping people from asking too many questions about how exactly it was people curled up on the floor and acted like they were dying. "This sounds like a really terrible idea… but I don't see how it's avoidable."

"My thoughts exactly." Aedan attempted to lead them through the first bridge he saw, leading out of the back of the market and across the river, but they were stopped by a small crowd mostly comprised of elves and a very large barred gate. There was a sentry in front of the blocked entrance, and he was turning away people every time they tried to get close. Of the words that the guard kept repeating, Aedan could only make out "purge" and "closed", so assumed that whatever was going on beyond the gates wasn't going to be ending very soon.

Another bridge a few streets over got them across the river and nearer the docks. Here you could smell the sea far stronger than in the heart of the city, but you could also smell the fish that came out of it just as well. The closer they got to the docks, the worse it got. The masts of hundreds of ships littered the horizon like a massive floating forest, and everywhere around and above them screaming gulls rode the currents of air that blew off the sea over the city. The ocean stretched out before them, stretching over the entirety of the horizon.

Solona took a long hard look at the ocean as they walked. Lake Calenhad had been huge as well, but on clear days from the higher floors you could always see the opposite shore and the Frostback Mountains beyond. However, no matter how hard she stared, no land mass suddenly loomed out of the blue sky beyond the dip of the horizon. She was drawn out of her state of awe when she finally noticed that Aedan had been talking to her, though the longer she didn't react to what he was saying, the more sarcastic he'd become.

"…and they say that the spirit of a one-legged man haunts this stretch of dock at night, pulling up the skirts of ladies as they pass." He was saying in a rather animated way with hand gestures and everything, drawing a few looks from passerby's as the big warrior lectured his much smaller companion.

"That can't be true." Solona replied quickly, her cheeks coloring at realizing that she'd completely spaced out while he was probably saying something important.

Aedan rolled his eyes and sighed. "Any more of this and I might let you get run over by the next ox cart that rolls by. Try and pay a little attention at least, huh?"

"Sorry." She mumbled, not so much because she was actually sorry so much as she was embarrassed that she had to be lectured like a rank apprentice by Aedan. "I've never been in a city like this, or have ever seen the ocean. Or if I have, it was before I could remember, like when I may have been a baby or something."

"Tell you what." Aedan was distracted, looking up and down the dock for the sign that would tell them exactly where it was that they were supposed to be looking for these supposed thugs. "When we're done sacking drunk men and you've got your Templar problem under control, you can space out to your heart's content."

An aggravated sigh escaped her, and she had the sudden inclination to whack him with her staff. "You're quite impossible, you know? I promise not to be spacing out anymore."

"Good, and we've settled that just in time. We're here." He stopped directly in front of a ratty looking building that bore a sign declaring that it was "The Foaming Fishwife". Over the entrance was a carving of a mermaid, the top half being a very plump redheaded woman and the bottom half looked like it belonged to a carp. She was holding a mug that was overflowing with bubbles, and in better days had probably been painted. The wood was more stained than actually colored at this point, the combination of sun, salt and wind having damaged the wood until it was bleached grey and white in the late noon sun. The windows had been broken, probably in a bar room brawl when either a chair or a person had been thrown out them. Glass and blood covered the ground in the front from fights, though it appeared that someone had put a sack over the open windows to keep out the breeze from the sea. The place was in a sad state of disrepair, but then again, so was everywhere else on the sea front.

Solona couldn't help but to wrinkle her nose at the thought of having to go in there for any length of time. "I've got to hand it to them. How they keep customers here at all is a feat in and of itself."

Aedan chuckled, apparently agreeing with her. "Never thought I'd be in this part of town either." The inside was lit with some candles shuttered in lamps hanging from awkward places along the walls and smelled of fish and old cabbage. There was some other pungent smell harder to define, but permeated the place entirely. This long before night fell there weren't many in the way of customers just yet, only a few die-hard patrons who probably more lived here than they visited. A portly man stood behind the bar in the back of the room doing something that looked mildly important, looking up once at the people who entered as a means of greeting.

He did a classic double take then, apparently having expected someone else to walk in through the door who looked a little more like his normal patrons. He watched with beady eyes as the two wove through the maze of mismatched tables to get to him, placing big meaty hands on the bar top. "How can I help yeh?" The bartender asked in a surly voice, squinting first at Aedan but let his gaze linger on Solona for a little longer than was perhaps necessary.

"I picked up your flier you left on the Chanter's board." Aedan replied, showing the man the piece of paper that he'd tore off and taken with him.

The man examined the paper for a few seconds, looked at Solona again, then gave a gruff sigh that meant nothing good. "Ya know I won't be payin' ya if yeh don't complete the job."

"I'm aware that's how these things work." Aedan replied calmly.

"Well, I hope the girlie ain't gonna be helping you. Don't look like much use in a fight. She the one that cleans your armor after you've got it all bloody, eh?" He snorted to himself, apparently tickled at his own summary of the situation that had been presented to him. "You boy look like yeh belong as a palace statue in yer fancy getup. Go back home. I don't want yer noble father givin' me what-for when you get yer arse trounced."

She felt her face turn red with anger and embarrassment at being cast off as simply a shield cleaner, felt energy start to gather in her hands. "I'll show you who-!"

"Oi!" Aedan's hand shot out, closing over Solona's closed fist that she had raised, and immediately she felt the power dim a little, back in her own mind again. "Save the violence for the thugs, not the guy who's paying us to take them out."

Again the bartender snorted, though looked impressed with the small woman's gall to raise a fist against him. "Whatever. Just don't go cryin' when yer teeth get knocked out. Them men I was talkin' about come 'round near sunset and start making trouble the minuet they get in the door. I ain't the only one they come after, 'neither. I figure they got their own set of spirits holed up at home and get dumb drunk afore they get to the docks, 'cuz I wouldn't be the one sellin' 'em anything, and I don't know nobody else who'd do it either. They're pests, an' the guard's too busy takin' care of them rowdy elves and lickin' boots to pay attention to my problems. Toss 'em in the ocean, beat their faces in, whatever, I don't care, so long as they never come back. Rough 'em up, kill 'em even. Doubt the guard'll care. Got their faces wedged so far up a noble's ass that I doubt they'd notice a few riff raff going missing."

"Thank you for the advice." Aedan replied, nodded at the man and turned Solona by the shoulders, ushering her toward the door. "Remember what I said about not throwing around fireballs…?" He asked in a low mutter.

"Yeah, and he thought that I was your personal slave. Sorry if I got a little touchy." Solona grumbled, no hint of a real apology in her voice at all. "And I wasn't going to set him on fire. I was going to make him feel like his knees had turned to jelly so he'd fall over. It would have served him right."

"You can do that?" Aedan asked, sounding a little bit bewildered. They were back out on the open streets again, and Aedan let go of his mage charge, heading back the way that they'd come to the market.

"Of course I can." She replied quickly in a tone of voice that said she expected him to know as much. "It works best when your opponent isn't expecting an attack, or if they're physically weak, though. I haven't actually be able to put it to use in battle but-"

"Well work on that. It sounds like it'll be extremely useful in a scrape." He'd gone thoughtful on her, disappearing slightly into his own world when he considered the possibilities that such a skill would provide in the thick of things. "Especially if we're going to try and keep your talents under wraps. Anything that doesn't make a flash but has an effect."

Solona sighed, mentally saying goodbye to any work she had done trying to learn the elemental schools of magic. "Looks like Entropy is my new best friend…"

-0-0-0-

The afternoon rolled by quickly, most of their time being spent in the Marketplace while Aedan attempted to haggle his way into getting a less flashy set of armor that didn't obviously come from somewhere noble. He succeeded, though was sure that he got way less for the armor set than it was probably worth, though managed to get Solona a cape in the process that wasn't marked with the insignia of the Templars.

The set was not very different from his original set, just heavier and with more chain than leather with bolts in it. The dwarf he got it from claimed it to be a direct ship from Orzammar, but neither Aedan or Solona really believed it, chalking it up to eagerness to sell to fools on the merchant's part. Whatever the case, the merchant wasn't pleased to part with it for so little, but Aedan proved to be quite convincing.

He kept his shield and his sword though, unable to give up the mementos of his past that apparently meant far more to him than trying to be inconspicuous. He did get a bit of tough leather that was used to stretch over wooden shields and paint with the insignia of the various Banns and attached it to his shield. It covered the double laurel branches that marked the shield as one from the Cousland house neatly enough, lending him a bit more anonymity.

When they returned to the docks things were in full swing as they day shift ended. Fishers had hauled in their catch for the day and were rewarding themselves with a drink. Music poured into the streets from any one of a dozen bands of bards that frequented the places here, earning their keep by playing for drunken fishermen.

"Keep on the look out for an especially mean looking band of drunks." Aedan said in a low warning voice, the two walking the length of the dock, looking for trouble.

Solona watched the goings on of the nightlife here, impressed that people seemed to be having such fun in such a depressing looking place. "You'd think that it would be extremely obvious, wouldn't you? But they're all drunk fools it looks like to me."

"I suppose we just drop in whenever we hear a fight?" It was simpler than that even, as it turned out. As the two were making the rounds again and a large group of men who were laughing far too loud came staggering up the docks, talking amongst themselves in a way that revealed their drunkenness. There were ten of them all told, a few looking armed and one still in full guard uniform, which suddenly had everything make even more sense than before.

Any stray people that came their way were either knocked to the ground or else pushed amongst them and harried, the group of drunks yelling and pulling and punching, getting more violent the further down the street they walked.

"I suppose this is the part where we step in and tell them to stop being nasty stinking blight pigs, right?" Solona asked dryly, her staff already in hand as she prepared to beat somebody with it.

"Aye, that's the general idea." Aedan walked right up to the group with Solona close in tow, the two pausing some distance before the mob. "Turn around if you're looking to cause trouble. We'll have none of your foolishness tonight." His voice carried through the street, and it gave the drunks some pause. Silently, Solona wondered if that confidence was an inherited trait, in which case she could see why the Couslands had maintained respect throughout Ferelden for so long. He certainly sounded impressive.

"Oi! Who you think y'are?" One of them came forward, the man in the guard uniform. He was probably the leader here. "I'm the guard, 'an I says that we can go where we want."

"Fine guarding that you're doing here." Solona called out bitterly, narrowing her eyes at the stumbling man. They had gotten closer now, and the guard was standing only a few feet from Aedan, the others hanging a bit farther back. "I was under the impression that your nose would be distinctly more brown than it is. Seems we've been mislead."

The jibe went over most of their heads for a moment, then the guard apparently caught on and went red in the face. "You harpy bitch-!"

"You've once chance." Aedan interrupted quickly, stemming the flow of insults that was sure to come if he didn't intervene. He looked relaxed enough standing there with his shield on his back and sword sheathed away, arms crossed loosely over his chest. But Solona knew that he was ready for action. She could see the tightness in his jaw. He was angry. "Get out of here and don't come back, or I'll make sure that you don't come back."

"Oi, wot's this? Tryin' to intimidate a guard, are you?" He tried to sound brave, he really did, but there was a quiver in his voice that gave him away slightly. "I'll have you strung up by your thumbs I will."

"And we'll take yer harpy fer ourselves!" One called, his speech distinctly slurring. There was a general laugh of approval, and suddenly all eyes were on Solona.

The guard, bolstered by his men's attitude grinned. "How 'bout you step outta the way 'an my boys won't mess you up, eh? We'll take the harpy as a sign of yer repentance. How 'bout that fer a deal?" There was more laughter, and two of the men lurched forward to grab Solona.

She was having none of that. Her staff whipped out and cracked one in the ribs, and she rammed the butt of it into the other's abdomen. Both collapsed. "If you know what's good for you, you'll keep your filthy hands off of me." Perhaps it was the light of the moon and the nearest open window, or else an illusion, but she appeared to glow for the briefest of seconds, her face a slightly disgusted scowl.

The thug that she'd cracked in the side scrambled to his feet, holding his ribs while the other rolled around on the ground in pain, clutching at his chest and sputtering for breath. "Damn bitch! Let's mess 'er up!"

"We don't let nobody boss us!" One of the drunks called, and then suddenly weapons were out of their sheathes and the ones without weapons were rushing forward with their fists.

Aedan had his shield and sword out in seconds and immediately lashed out with it, striking the guard in the nose and breaking it upon impact with a wet crunch. The man fell over backwards, dropping his sword and flailing around in pain as blood dribbled down his face in a gush. He caught a sword on his shield and shoved at the wielder, pushing the man backwards directly into one of the others who tripped and fell awkwardly, crying out in pain as he did so. Someone tried to punch him in the back and got a pommel to the head for his efforts, dropping instantly like a sack of potatoes.

The man that she'd jabbed in the chest got to his feet just as the charge began, and was knocked right back down on his back with one of the drunks tripping over him as he went down. Solona didn't have time to laugh at it however, since three of the thugs suddenly were much closer than what she was comfortable with. She lashed out with her staff, swinging it with a wide arc and released a mental blast as she did so, the three falling over on their backs as if they'd suddenly been struck in the head when in reality her staff didn't make contact with a single one of them. Being unscathed didn't last for long however. She brought the head of her staff straight down at one man with all of her strength, and his breath whooshed out explosively. The other two having seen what their fate would be got to their feet and ran off into the night.

A man came at her with a sword and she immediately summoned her magic to make him weak, and the man tottered dangerously as the spell hit him, looking confused and slightly panicked. He nearly planted his face on the ground before a mass of muscle and teeth seemed to come out of nowhere, tackling him to the ground. Keran scratched the drunk up good, the man crying out in pain as the dog tore at his chest and face, and when the dog seemed satisfied with the destruction he'd caused, the man got up and ran for it.

The Mabari war hound wasn't done, leaping to his master's defense when it looked like Aedan was being overwhelmed. The unarmed drunks had either been knocked unconscious or fled by now, but the guard captain and two others with swords were attacking relentlessly. Keran grabbed one by the ankles and dragged him down to the ground screaming, and another one was quickly felled when he suddenly found himself with an inexplicable weakness in the legs and a shield to the face.

However, that left him open, and the guard was quick to take up on the momentary weakness in Aedan's defenses. His sword slipped past and grazed the chain that encased Aedan's torso, making a horrid screeching noise as it went and eliciting a grunt of pain from the warrior.

In a brief second, the guard gathered himself and went for a backswing which probably would have lopped off Aedan's nose if not his entire head, but suddenly went cross eyed and very nearly fell over himself, giving Aedan enough leeway to take a step back and bash the pommel of his sword into the man's head. He collapsed in a heap and remained unmoving on the ground.

Aedan turned the man over with his foot, heaving for breath with sweat dotting his forehead, obviously tired from taking on so many at once, drunk or not. "I suppose that little life saver at the end was your doing?" He called over his shoulder, seeing that the man appeared to have been killed by the blunt blow to the head.

Solona nodded and walked forward. "Disorient." She supplied quietly, looking down at the bodies that had accumulated around them during the fight, her face pale. There was another who wasn't breathing, though the others appeared to be still alive, if unconscious. "What do we do with them?"

"Dump the dead ones in the ocean, throw the others in the alley." He replied coolly, wiping blood off of his sword before sheathing it, though didn't try to get the small amount of blood spatter off his chest armor or shield. "First assignment completed. Do you feel like a mercenary yet? I do."

And he didn't seem happy about it.

A/N: Aedan forgets to choose the (Pursuasion) option when he gets pissed. Unfortunately, his Strength stat isn't high enough to send a group of drunk guards running just yet. Maybe in a couple of levels.

But in other news, I'm super stoked to finally be in Denerim. Seeing as neither Aedan or Solona are Wardens, they don't have to travel around all of Ferelden to do their quests and save the world. So, get used to Denerim, because we're going to be here for a while. I'll try not to make any of you lament a re-use of literary maps and have awful flashbacks to playing DA2. Props to my beta/editor for helping me come up with the Foaming Fishwife. Making up cool original inn names is surprisingly challenging.