"Did your dog just throw a knife?" Hawke laughed, incredulous at the sight of this young boy charging in to his rescue like he was some sort of damsel. "Now there's a trick I need to teach Warden when I get home!"
Nothing put Hawke in good spirits quite like a fight. He greatly enjoyed battle, unlike some other mages who wanted nothing to do with fighting and combat. Hawke gathered fire in the palm of his hand until he had a large fireball. The next beast that charged him open mouthed got it straight down its throat. The beast burned from the inside and yet was still not dead. Undead? Dead again? Hawke would contemplate the details of how the language worked later.
"I told you, serah, I've fought all my life. This is familiar as breathing." He swept the jeweled end of his staff down and when it connected with the ground a wave of fire went racing out towards the dog attacking his ally. The staff did not drain his mana like the spells did. Hawke used it more and more the longer he was here. Right now, he still had his deep well of mana to draw on for truly spectacular spells if need be.
He put himself back to back with Ken, one part of his mind aware of the boy's movements and how he was fighting and the other part focused on their attackers. He had not fought with Ken before but fighting with his various allies in Kirkwall gave him enough practice to adapt to most styles. Hopefully, they could protect each other.
"We have to kill these things and return back to Emma," he said and whipped a stream of fire from his staff towards the circling dogs. "With dogs like these in Kirkwall you go for the throat. I say we adopt the same strategy here. Cut their blighted throats open and their heads off otherwise they'll keep coming until you're dead."
Surely fighting mabari was similar to this. Poor beasts, generated by this world to be utter horrors where their only purpose was to kill and be killed. Truly tragic they never got to be good dogs. "Gutting them also works back home. Nice work with that spear, by the way."
Hawke would try to chat during a fight. He was used to trading witty banter with Varric or Fenris or getting yelled at by Aveline, whoever he happened to bring with him that day.