"My Maker above, look what we're here? Bunch of lovelies, stumbled right upon us," says one, well-armed, grinning man. 

There are a great deal more behind him.

Tabs steps out firmly in front of the mages, one hand on her sword.

Her heart in her throat. 

Anya does not freak out because this is not the time and steps forward to calling attention to herself. She doesn't go beyond Tabs' though.

"Didn't really stumble. We were just making our way through the area to meet up with Hawke. Do you know him?"

From the blank looks, they don't. They've not been here long. 

"Darling, we just here settin' up roots. Trying to choke a few weeds, you understand? Nothin' you need to concern yourself with."

"Depends on the weeds, mate," Tabs says, letting her voice take on the affected accent of her mother's.

The man spreads his arms wide, with a grin to match. "Oh! I see we've been outplayed! By a hallafucker no less."

Tabs bristles, already furious at the name, but looks to Merrill to gage her reaction properly.

Merrill pulls out a small dagger, makes a careful cut on her inner elbow, and immediately makes half the group fall to the ground, screaming. 

Reaction justified. 

Tabs unsheathes her sword. 

-- and Anya instantly calls upon her magic, works it into a haste spell and channels it to Tabs.

What the fuck. She didn't know she could do that.

The world slows around Tabs, and she moves easily aside as one of them swings a sword at her neck. 

It's also just as easy to decapitate him. And his friend behind him. And stab that one, take off her arm, swing at his neck-

Why is this so easy?

Merrill holds them in place with either vines or blood magic, looking very clinical about it. 

Soon, sickeningly soon, the mercenaries are down.

The moment afterwards is silent. Fear and adrenaline and anger floating away. She just kind of... stares at the bodies. She feels numb.

"Is this just your life?" She asks Merrill.

"The life of any non Orlesian or Fereldan mage non human. They have a lot of gages for what can pass."

She gestures at the dead mercenaries. "These, at least, don't care what you are. Usually."

"That doesn't make me feel better. Sadly."

"Oh! Oh, I forgot. You've probably never been outside the Circle. I'm sorry! This is the norm for apostates."

"I hate that for us. We should take over the world and fix that."

"You wanna add taking the Templars down to our list?" Tabs says, her voice hard.

"Just add the whole Chantry, really. We'll throw it out. It's no good anyway."

Tabs closes her eyes, hands shaking. 

She's still standing amidst the bodies she struck down.

Anya walks over to her and pulls her away slowly. "They were racist and going to murder us and -- I don't know if it was a right thing, but I'm sure it was the only thing we could do. Right probably doesn't play into it. Here." In this world.

"Right. Yeah. They don't matter." Tabs' voice is a little too hard, but not enough that it seems like she's about to flip out. 

Hopefully. 

"Anyway, we were suppose to see about Anya testing out skills, this place okay?" Tabs asks, gesturing across the corpse-strewn field. 

"Oh! Oh, well, we could go a little further along, away from the...er-"

Merrill shuffles her feet awkwardly.

"Oh! Oh, of course, you'd feel awkward being around the people you killed, makes sense." 

Tabs is rambling, gesturing wildly with her sword.