Author's Note: This is an OC-centric Dragon Age fanfic, meaning that while there may be cameos of Canon characters, the focus of this story will be about two OCs just trying to survive all the crazy stuff that happens shortly before, and during the events of Inquisition.

One

Bethany's POV

Bethany yawned and stretched and sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes sleepily. Long, wavy hair the color of honey flowed down her back, and she ran her fingers through it for a moment before getting up and grabbing the comb off of her bedside table. She took her time getting every tangle out of her hair, and then took the next few minutes to expertly twist it into the braid she'd been using since she was seven. It was practical and not meant for beauty, but just to keep the hair out of her face and out of her way. Light green eyes inspected her work as she turned her head side to side in front of the mirror for a moment, then she nodded and got dressed for the day.

Her outfit was a simple robe and a pair of comfortable sandals she could slip into and out of easily. It's not as though she was going anywhere. She was a Circle Mage. She'd first come here when she was six, and now she was twenty, and had just recently passed her Harrowing without a problem. She barely remembered her family, and didn't honestly think of them very often. She'd been so young when the Circle had taken her that she didn't have many memories of them to begin with. She remembered that her mother always smelled of roses and her father had a kind smile, but when she tried to remember anything beyond that, their faces slipped away, like trying to catch fog in your hands.

Besides, she had friends here. There was Giana, the sassy one who always wanted to put makeup on all of them. And Alexus, who was much like her, wanting to find a good book and read for hours. Bethany didn't know any defensive spells, besides the basic ability to let out bursts of Magic from her staff. She was a Healer. She didn't know how to set things on fire or shoot lightning out of her fingers. She knew how to mend broken bones, erase scars, cool fevers, stop bad dreams. And she could do all of that with or without her Magic. She was very interested in herbalism.

Being twenty meant that she had long since "graduated" from regular lessons, and was allowed to roam the Circle at her leisure. Well, sort of. No Mage ever had permission to go everywhere, but she didn't mind. Most days she stayed in the library, reading book after book. She wasn't even a quarter of the way through all the books there, not that she read all of them. Some of them were incredibly dull. But some of them were fascinating, especially the fictions. She spent a lot of time reading things about plants, or Healing Magic, but her favorites were the novels. The stories that depicted fake people doing things that never really happened. And there was one other reason she loved spending so much of her time in the library.

She had first noticed the boy with the dark hair and the sea-foam eyes when she was seventeen and still went to regular lessons. Templars were not required to wear their helmets at all times, apparently. He'd smiled at her as she'd passed by, and the smile had caught her attention. Because it had been focused on her, and it wasn't vague, the way people smiled when they were faking it. Bethany had never been mistreated by Templars. Not once. She had always enjoyed the feeling of protection they gave her. She never spoke to them and they never spoke to her, but that was how it had always been. She had never questioned that silent guardianship. She'd just… accepted it and welcomed it. As scary and sad as it would be if she became possessed and they had to kill her, she'd rather die to protect the lives of other people than to live and potentially wreak havoc on the entire Circle. She knew that not every Circle Mage felt as she did – in fact a great many of them did not, and they had every right to believe whatever they wanted to.

Generally, she was a traditionalist when it came to matters relating to the Circle, or the Chantry, or Templars. Still, she could not help but… let her eyes wander when he walked by. And he seemed to walk by an awful lot. Especially when she went down to the library. He was there quite often, standing against a back wall. In fact, he didn't really move from his spot against the far wall, so perhaps it would be better to say that she walked by him a lot. Sometimes he was easy to spot, when he did not have his helmet on. She would glance in his direction and get butterflies in her stomach when he would give her one of those soft smiles, and his eyes would crinkle around the edges, which is how she knew it was a real smile. And even if he had his helmet on, he would quietly clear his throat as she would pass him, right on cue, so that she would always know it was him.

Her days were simple and happy. Every morning she would get up and have breakfast, talk to her friends, wander the halls for a time, and then she would retire to the library until lunch. After lunch she would sometimes take a nap, but then she would return to the library again until dinner. Dinner would mark the end of her day, and afterwards she would go to sleep. There was little in the Circle to allow her to deviate from this routine. Sometimes Giana would drag her back to their quarters and play dress-up for a while. But most of the time her days were spent pouring over book after book. Alexus would often follow her down to the library, and this way they kept each other silent company. Whether Alexus knew of Bethany's secret crush on one of the Templars or not, she never said anything about it, and for that, Bethany was grateful.

That morning, she wandered down to the library after breakfast, shivering a little. Autumn had come to Thedas, and that meant the beginning of cold days and night in the Circle. She hummed a little as she walked through the door, glancing around for the boy with the kind smile. This time, he was right next to the door, and she nearly missed him as she walked past, expecting him to be farther into the room. But he cleared his throat softly as he always did, and she turned to smile at him. He was not wearing his helmet today. And he did something he'd never done before in all the years she had silently known him: He spoke. It was not unheard of for Templars and Mages to speak. It was not forbidden, though neither was it encouraged. It was an understanding that generally, Templars and Mages were to remain at "arm's length" from one another. Templars could not hesitate if they needed to kill an abomination, so it was generally frowned upon for them to make friends with Mages. However, being courteous, speaking with one another, was usually fine.

Still. The boy with the blue-green eyes had never once said a word to her, so hearing him speak was very strange. Especially when all he said was, "My Lady."

She stopped moving, stood right in front of him. She turned. "What?" She said it in confusion, eyebrows drawn together, and searched his face.

"My Lady," he repeated. "May I… May I know your name?"

He was entirely proper, and she wasn't sure how she felt about it. No. Actually, she loved it. He was like a knight from one of her stories, good and proper like a gentleman. Soft-spoken. "My name is Bethany," she said, in a voice lightly accented. It sounded vaguely Orlesian, and when she heard herself speak she often wished she remembered who her parents had been. It was an odd accent for a Fereldan to have, though she supposed that wasn't true for those in the Circle. There were all types here, elves and humans living together, who had originally come from anywhere and everywhere.

"Bethany," he repeated, voice warm. He sounded pleased. "I am Phillip."

"Phillip," she said, though with her accent, it sounded like Philippe.

They stood quietly for a moment together, seeming to study one another in curiosity. Phillip cleared his throat after a few seconds. "Enjoy your stay in the library, My Lady Bethany."

"Mm," she replied, and then realized that this might come across as rude. "Thank you, Phillip," she amended, accent playing with his name. And then she wandered off and pulled a book from one of the shelves, seemingly at random.

Phillip's POV

Phillip Bartrand had no idea what it was about the girl with the honey-colored hair that he liked so much. He supposed he had chosen her at random, perhaps catching the way her hair glowed in the candlelight one day and deciding to watch her for a while. That's what Templars did, after all. They watched Mages. It was… quite a boring affair, every day the same. Looking back on it, he realized how delightfully interesting his training had been compared to the tedium that was now his life. Still, he had chosen this life, and he would happily go along with the tedium if that was what it took to be a Templar. In truth, he would have much preferred to be a knight, though when he thought about it, he realized the only main difference between a Templar and a knight was that one ingested lyrium and the other did not.

Lyrium… Phillip knew as much as the next Templar what happened when Templars had been a part of the Order for thirty, forty years. The mineral that Mages used in their spells and rituals, the one Templars consumed in order to fuel their own Magic-dampening powers, eventually killed you. 'Lyrium-addled,' they called it. It would take your mind before it took your body. You would lose your memories first. Then, when you had lost your usefulness to the Order, they would retire you, and send you rations of lyrium until your death, so that you did not suffer withdrawals. Phillip did not spend too much time contemplating his fate. If he did, he might have gone crazy long ago. Instead, he focused on the good aspects of Templarhood: Having the chance to protect people from abominations, learning the Chant of Light, having steady work. Plus, being a Templar had upped his status a bit. Now his mother, whose main income was whatever he earned, could live in comfort. And then there was her.

The girl with the golden hair, whom he had first noticed as she had passed him on her way into a classroom three years ago. She'd caught his eye, probably accidentally, but she'd smiled at him instead of looking hastily away. And he'd smiled back. And, oddly enough, that small interaction had sparked a whole lot more smiling. Now he smiled at her every chance he got. He didn't know why, but he loved those few moments a day with her. He had begun to patrol the library once he had passed it and found her there reading on more than one occasion. Now he spent much of his waking hours there, waiting for her arrival. He had been glad when he'd found out she had passed her Harrowing without incident. He had been glad he hadn't had to be there for it.

He understood that nothing could come of whatever feelings he had for the girl. First of all, they didn't even know each other. A few smiles per day meant… very little in the grand scheme of things. And the much bigger reason was that she was a Mage, and he a Templar. One of the very first things that had been drilled into his mind when he had begun his training was that any sort of close relationship between a Mage and a Templar resulted in immediate punishment and corrective action. Mages were his charges. He watched them, he protected others from them, and them from themselves and each other. They were not to be friends, and they were definitely not to be lovers. All this he knew, and so he remained silent and respectful, standing far away from her, but smiling at her when she would look up. There was no harm in smiling. What sort of honorable man could call himself a Templar, a knight, if he did not even smile at a lady when she looked at him?

And yet, he could not keep his curiosity in check indefinitely. He never shirked his duties – not once. True, he spent a lot of time in the library, but he did patrol other areas. He attended Harrowings, and, when necessary, he slayed any Mage turned abomination. He always felt sick afterwards, no matter how often he reminded himself that abominations were no longer people, and that there was nothing else he could do for the once-Mage except to end their suffering with a quick death. He was never unkind to any Mage. In fact, it was not just the girl with the golden hair to whom he smiled. He smiled at anyone who looked his way, fellow Templar or Mage alike. Only, the golden-haired girl was the only Mage who looked up at him consistently.

And so he remained humbly curious. What did she think about all day while she read? Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of the titles on the covers of the books. The Botanical Compendium, by Ines Arancia, was one she read quite often. And there were many books by someone named Varric Tethras which she seemed to simply fall into. She would read for hours, and then look up and seem dazed by how much time had passed. Then she would look around, scanning the back walls of the room, which he had, over time, come to realize meant she was looking for him. When he was helmetless, this was easy. She would catch his eye in but a moment, and they would share a smile, and then she would slide all the books back into their right places, and go off on her own for a few hours. When he was wearing a helmet and she tried to find him amidst the other Templars in the room, he would wait for her eyes to fall upon him, and then immediately make an informal bow – a simple lowering of the head. He would quickly lift it again and search for the smile in the eye-slit of his helmet. And so the days went on.

The day she stepped into the library, eyes roaming the far walls for him, the day he spoke to her, was the beginning of the end. He didn't know it at the time, but some part of him could feel the growing mistrust in the eyes of the Mages who actually looked at him. Everyone had heard, one way or the other, of the explosion at Kirkwall's Chantry. And soon afterwards, news spread of unrest between Templars and Mages. Perhaps this growing feeling in his gut – one that told him danger was coming – is what provoked him to speak to her.

He cleared his throat just as she was about to pass him, still looking farther into the library for him. She stopped and turned and smiled at him as she always did, eyes light and cheery. He wondered why the news of the unrest did not upset her – or didn't seem to. Perhaps she didn't know? Or maybe, like him, she was not for the idea of starting a war when it was unnecessary. "My Lady," he said, without thinking. He immediately blinked a great many times, surprised at himself. He had often wondered what he might say if he ever had the chance to speak to her, and he had never imagined it to happen like this – suddenly, and without any prompting.

She stared at him, mouth open a little, eyebrows drawn together. She looked cute like that, a look of earnest confusion on her face. Then she said, "What?" She asked it in a way that suggested she had not heard him.

"My Lady," he repeated, not wanting to seem rude, since she was asking a question. "May I…" Here he paused. He had no idea what he may. Clearly he wanted to say something, though his brain wasn't telling him what. He realized after a moment that he just wanted to talk to her. He wanted to say anything and everything. He just wanted her to know that he wasn't silent because he disliked the idea of speaking to her. Finally, he made up his mind about what he wanted to ask. "May I know your name?"

"My name is Bethany," she said, and her voice was lilting, sprinkled with some non-Fereldan accent or other.

He smiled and repeated her name. It was a nice name. Common, but pretty. Of course, his name was also common. Oh, his name! "I am Phillip," he quickly interjected, lest he seem rude. He gave one of his short head-bows.

"Philippe," she said, twirling his name into something far less common this side of Thedas. He decided he adored her accent. He smiled at her for a few seconds, enjoying this small moment. Then he realized it would probably be best that they separate from one another, so he wished her well, and watched as she wandered away to her books. He wondered if this would be the only time they ever spoke.