Hello!

I am totally obsessed with the Dragon Age universe now, and it made me want to write a story of my head!canon characters. I'm not sure if it will be interesting to anyone besides me, but I would be glad to hear everyone's opinion on my writing. I'm not sure whether it will be a long multi-chaptered story or a collection of short fics connected by the same characters and the setting, but I'm definitely planning to write more than this page.

While English is not my first language, I hope my texts are easy to read and not filled with grammar mistakes. Feel free to point at them though.

Thanks for your time!

'They were tha-a-at huge! And perfectly round. And looked hot. Not that I dared to touch them, of course...' Anders's face looked way too happy when he was talking to Bethany.

'You're kidding!' the girl giggled.

'My dear lady, I kid you not. Don't forget who she is!' he tried to keep a straight face, but his eyes were smiling.

'What are you two talking about?'

Hawke and Varric have just returned from patrolling the nearby caverns and managed to catch the final part of the mages' conversation, which sounded like something Marian would prefer her sister was not involved into.

'Ah, you're back. Come here, the supper... dinner... whatever... food is ready,' Bethany gave Hawke an innocent smile.

'Anders?' Marian crossed her arms on her chest.

'Fireballs,' he shrugged. 'Created by your own cousin, no less.'

'I see,' Hawke still looked at him with suspicion.

'What?'

'You're sitting too close to my sister!'

That mage was dangerous, Hawke knew it. He was an apostate, a runaway Gray Warden and an abomination on top of that. Of course, he would never agree with the last statement because he believed that the creature that possessed him was a "spirit", not a "demon", but Hawke had seen what he was capable of when he was in rage. The only reason why she kept him close was his undeniable talent in healing. Bethany was learning from him, and Hawke hoped that one day they would be able to get him out of their lives. Until then she watched him closely, just as Fenris suggested. The elf was smarter than he looked.

'So, you knew our cousin,' Marian tried to sound more interested in her relative than she actually was.

'Yes. In fact, we are... were friends. We knew each other since our time in the Circle, and then she asked me to become a Grey Warden and join her in Amaranthine,' Anders smiled.

'Asked you? Just like that?'

'Alright, it was a bit more complicated. I happened to be at the Vigil's Keep when the darkspawns attacked it...'

'Happened to be?'

'I was there with a group of templars who escorted me back to the Circle after another failed attempt to escape. Happy now?'

Hawke nodded. One should know their enemy, and she knew almost nothing about Anders. The Deep Roads were, in her opinion, the best place to talk about the Grey Wardens business.

'Monsters helped me to get rid of the templars, but they wanted to take my life as well, which I could not allow. So, I killed as many of them as possible and was preparing to run away when the Warden-Commander entered the scene. She saw my performance and asked me to help her to clean the Keep from those nasty creatures. Who am I to say "No" to a beautiful girl?'

'She is beautiful?' Bethany asked.

'Yes, she is. Actually, you two have a lot in common with her. You've got her face, and your sister has her "colouring". I mean, she also has this unusual combination of dark eyes and white hair. I thought it had something to do with the misuse of the magic, but she said it was a family trait, and now I see she was right.'

'More like a family curse,' Marian sighed. 'Till the time you learn how to protect yourself.'

'What happened next, Blondie?' Varric interfered.

'Next we fought together until there was no darkspawns left. And when I was going to get back to my usual business, which is running, templars appeared, along with the king, no less. Commander could not allow them to take a fellow mage, but the only way to deal with that was to invoke the Right of Conscription.'

'What is it?'

'The right to recruit anyone to the Order, no matter who they are. Once it was announced, templars lost their power over me. But in return I had actually to join the Wardens.'

'I see...' Marian muttered. 'You became a Warden to hide from templars. That's selfish.'

'Don't say such things. I sincerely wanted to help.'

'Whatever...' Marian took out her sword and started to sharpen it.

'So, what about Cassandra?' Bethany shook her head and gave Anders a sheepish smile.

'Beautiful. Smart. Deadly. In any order. The strongest mage I ever met.' Anders grinned. 'With huge fireballs.'