Very Important Disclaimer: This is a fanfiction. I do not own Dragon Age.

A sequel to Sunshine

Ch. 1: Out of the Fire

They say you're supposed to begin a story at the beginning, but, truthfully, I don't know where this one begins. Maybe it starts hundreds of years ago, or only thirty or ten. It's hard to tell with prejudice. So, I'm going to start with the part where I became involved. It's probably best not to speak for others, anyway, and besides this is all really just to set the record straight. The truth as I see it. My reasoning. I could start out with my childhood, but that would be incredibly dull, so I think I'll stick with just the past ten years. That's when everything started to get interesting, after all. During the Blight.

The best place to start, I suppose, would be when my family left Lothering. Mother stayed there far too long, really. Waiting for my idio- sorry, beloved, brother, and myself to get back from Ostegar. She really ought to have taken Bethany and evacuated as soon as she heard about the rout, but no, she had to send Bethany off with our crazy Grey Warden second cousin. Because that would be safer somehow. You've probably heard enough about all the things they got up to together to realize that it really wasn't. At all. Anyway, I'm rambling. Back to the main narrative.

You're probably wondering what I, an apostate mage, was thinking, being in Ostegar in the first place, considering that there were a bunch of Templars there. It's simple. I wanted to kill darkspawn. Nobody really noticed anything, anyway. I pretended to just be an ordinary swordsperson. It worked, though my estimation of the average level of intelligence among people in general and Templars in particular was not exactly raised. Too much prejudice for it to occur to anyone that a mage could be capable of using ordinary weaponry. Anyway, after Carver and I got back to Lothering just ahead of the darkspawn, due mainly to the use of lots of stabbing and explosions, we immediately went home, grabbed Mother, and got out of there.

We didn't run into trouble until the next day, when the horde caught up to us and we found ourselves running from darkspawn. Eventually, I was able to pick off the entire group following us with fireballs flung over my shoulder, giving the three of us a brief respite to literally catch our breath.

"We've lost all of it," said Mother sadly. "Everything your father and I built together, gone."

I looked at her. "Except, you know, your children," I said dryly. "Not that our home wasn't important and didn't mean a lot to you, but at least we're still alive."

"Not to interrupt, or anything," said Carver, looking around nervously, "but where can we even go?"

"We can go to Kirkwall," said Mother proudly.

Carver and I stared at her like she was insane. "Kirkwall, as in the Kirkwall that's swarming with Templars?" I asked. "Mother, we need to have a talk about the tactical decisions you have been making lately. First sending Bethany off with Cousin Olivia and now this?"

"It's not ideal," she admitted, "but at least we've got family there. Noble family. And an estate." She sounded determined.

I sighed. "It's better than nothing, I suppose."

"Er, Mother? Dora?" said Carver. "Shouldn't we be moving on, now?"

"Good point." We started back off down the road.

Only a few minutes and about a dozen darkspawn later, we rounded a bend in the road to see a man in Templar armor and a redheaded woman fighting a group of darkspawn. Or rather, a woman fighting a group of darkspawn and apparently defending an injured man.

The woman neatly beheaded three of the darkspawn before one of them managed to knock aside the man's shield and corner him against a rock. Yelling, the woman leapt on top of the darkspawn, tackling it to the ground, and punched the stunned monster a couple times in the face before grabbing her fallen sword from the ground. "You will not have him!" She snarled, lifting the darkspawn in one hand and shoving her sword down with the other and viciously decapitating the creature before jumping to her feet, grabbing the fallen shield with one arm and using the other to hold him upright. "They will not have you," she said to him, "Not while I breathe."

It took at least five seconds for me to process all of this before I remembered to help finish off the darkspawn attacking the… incredibly amazing woman and her man damsel in distress. Ooh, mansel. As soon as the fight was over, the woman turned to the collapsed mansel and slapped a quick bandage over his wounded shoulder while he continued to struggle to stand. "Stop squirming, Wesley!" she finally snapped. "You're only making it worse!" Even his name made him sound like a mansel.

He managed to stand up and immediately glared at me, stepping slightly in front of the woman. "Apostate, stay back," he said in a tone that was probably meant to be threatening but turned out to sound slightly woozy instead. The woman did not look amused at his behavior.

"Brilliant," I muttered.

"The darkspawn are clear in their intent, but a mage is always unknown," the Templar continued, sounding increasingly woozier as he went on. "The Order dictates…" he swayed on his feet, trying to continue. "The Order dictates…"

I looked at him with what I am sure was a particularly unimpressed expression. "Do you have a concussion?"

"Dear, they saved our lives," the woman said, "I'm sure the Maker would understand our teaming up with them."

"Of course," he said, still looking dazed.

"I am Aveline Valin," the woman introduced, "and this is my husband, Ser Wesley. We can get back to hating each other later," she said, pointedly looking at the Templar…Wesley. "Right now, the darkspawn are a bigger problem."

"No arguments there," I said. "Can your husband keep up? How badly is he injured?"

"I'll manage," said the Templar stiffly as he glared at me suspiciously. He looked about to collapse.

"We move together for now," said Aveline. "We're cut off on the north. Wesley and I barely escaped."

"Then we're trapped!" exclaimed Carver. "The only thing to the south is the wilds. We can't get out that way."

I rolled my eyes. "We can at least try. It's not like we have any other options. We're going south."

The five of us moved south for a couple miles without running into much resistance. It was not until we reached a flat circular outcropping in in the hillside that something went wrong. Specifically, the ground began shaking. "That can't be good," I commented, trying to keep my balance. A second later I was proved right as an ogre- the largest, strongest type of darkspawn in existence- appeared across from us and lowered its horned head to charge.

Our group scattered, everyone leaping to the side to avoid the charging behemoth and all of us landing face first in the dry red dirt. Thwarted, the ogre turned around, looking sluggishly between myself, Aveline, and Carver on one side and Mother and Wesley on the other. I could practically see the wheels turning in its head. It began to turn toward Mother and Wesley.

"Hey, ugly!" I shouted, scrambling the rest of the way to my feet and charging up a fireball in my hands. "Take this!" I threw the fireball at the back of the ogre's head, causing it to turn around, roaring. Before the ogre could gain up any momentum, I threw a blast of elemental magic at it, freezing it solid in a sheet of ice. Carver and Aveline seemed to realize what I was trying to do, as they ran around behind the ogre and jabbed their swords at the back of its ankles, trying to cripple it.

The ice was cracking already, so I threw another fireball at the ogre's head. This one knocked it backwards and Carver and Aveline quickly jumped out of the way as the ogre crashed to the ground, coming back in immediately afterward to each stab it through one eye.

The ogre thrashed around on the ground, obviously dead. We didn't have any time to celebrate, however, as darkspawn immediately began pouring up from all of the possible access points to the outcropping. Carver, Aveline, and I looked at each other and made a defensive half circle around Mother and Wesley, who had backed up against the rock wall of the hillside.

"There's no end to them!" moaned Carver despairingly.

"What do you think the odds are of them running out of darkspawn if we kill enough of them?" I asked in a falsely cheerful tone.

"Um, zero?"

"Yeah, we're dead," I agreed with Carver. "So…"

I never got a chance to finish my sentence, which was probably a good thing considering that I still don't know what I would have said, because there suddenly came a deafeningly loud, deep roar from above us. We all looked upward.

A gigantic, rusty-maroon dragon launched itself from the hillside above us and swept low over the darkspawn surrounding us, incinerating them with its breath and picking them up and tossing in the air like toys. We honestly had no response to that, especially when the dragon transformed itself into a distinguished-looking older woman dressed in rusty maroon robes and armor with white hair somehow arranged to look exactly like the dragon's horns in a gravity-defying feat.

The woman dropped the last of the dead darkspawn which she was still holding to the ground with a thump and began walking toward us. "Well, Well. What have we here?" Everyone stared at her for a moment before Wesley collapsed against a rock. Aveline rushed over to him, and the rest of us started to join her but were distracted as the old woman continues to speak. "It used to be we never got visitors to the wilds but now it appears that they arrive in hordes."

I couldn't help smiling slightly at the play on words, despite the situation. "Nice trick."

The woman began to turn. "If you're trying to get away from the darkspawn," she said, not facing us, "you should know you are heading in the wrong direction."

"So you're just going to leave us here?" asked Carver incredulously.

"And why not?" She tuned back around to face us. "I really just wanted to see the people who were capable of killing an ogre. Now I know and you're safe…for the moment. Is that not enough?"

"Well, you could always show me how to turn into a dragon. Must be pretty useful." Also really, really cool.

The woman laughed. "I suppose it is. Where do you plan to go? The darkspawn are everywhere, or at least they will be."

"We're going to Kirkwall," offered Carver. "In the Free Marches."

"That's a pretty long trip just to get away from the darkspawn."

"And where would you suggest we go? I hear the deep roads are vacant now," I said snarkily.

The woman laughed again. "Oh, you I like! Hurtled into the chaos you fight…and the world will shake before you." I shivered. That wasn't ominous at all. The woman turned away again and stood with her head on her fist, looking into the distance. "Is it fate or chance? I can never decide." She said, seemingly to herself, before turning back to us again and speaking as though she had just made some decision. "It appears fortune smiles on us both today. I may be able to help you yet."

I felt rather surprised. Also incredibly confused by her enigmatic monologue. "Anything would be appreciated. Thank you."

"Should we even trust her?" asked Carver. "We don't even know what she is!"

"I do," said Aveline from where she was bending over Wesley. "The Witch of the Wilds."

"Some call me that," admitted the woman. "Also Flemeth, Asha'bellanar, an 'old hag who talks too much'…" she laughed. "Does it actually matter? I will get your group past the horde in exchange for a simple favor. All you would need to do is deliver something to place not far out of your way."

I looked around at the others. "Well, we could always use more firepower. We don't have much choice, anyway."

"We never do," answered the Witch. "There is a clan of Dalish elves near the city of Kirkwall." She stepped forward and handed me a small metal amulet. "Deliver this to their Keeper, Marethari and do what she tells you to with it. And one more thing," she said grimly, turning to look at Wesley, who was lying on the ground, grayish and coughing.

"No! Leave him alone!" said Aveline.

"What has been done to your man is within his blood already."

"You're lying."

"No," coughed Wesley dramatically. "She's right. I can feel the corruption inside of me."

"The darkspawn taint. Can't we do anything?" I asked.

"The only cure I know of it to become a Grey Warden, "replied the Witch.

"And they all died at Ostegar," said Aveline despairingly.

"Not all of them, but you would never find the surviving ones in time," the Witch told her before I could say anything to that.

Aveline went and knelt beside her husband. "Listen to me," he said. "The corruption is a slow death…"

"You can't ask me this. I won't do it."

"Please…" Aveline turned to me, her face covered in an expression of abject pain. Why was she looking at me? She'd just met me.

"He's your husband, Aveline," I said softly. "It's your choice."

Slowly, she nodded. "Be strong, my love," whispered Wesley. Aveline picked up his knife and drove it through his heart.

She stood, and the Witch came up behind her. "Without an end, there can be no peace. It gets no easier. Your struggles have only just begun." Well, that wasn't ominous at all.