I love it when I have a conversation with a fellow fanfic author that inspires me to do something fun in the way I think this is going to end up being. So when karebear decided to respond to a "ten minute" challenge, we briefly talked about how it went, and I didn't think I'd be able to do it. Then I mentioned how I always wanted to try a drabble style challenge. And after spending about an hour on the Dragon Age Random Prompt Generator at (scattereddelusions dot com slash avs slash DAPrompts dot html), I realized I had accumulated about five pages of prompts I wanted to write stories for. That's a lot. Enter the idea to do the ten minute/drabble challenge, and I have decided to put together a collection of short scenes based solely upon the prompts generated. I've seen this idea put into practice by other authors (though I don't know if they use the prompt generator), and the stories always turn out so well! Thanks so much to Cherith and the Tumblr community for such a great little tool.

Anyhow…on with the stories…some of the prompts will be duplicates, as well as the pairings, but these are the randoms that caught my eye.

As usual…everything that follows belongs to Bioware/EA Games.

Pairing: Malcolm Hawke/Bethany Hawke
Prompt: Go camping

A Summerday Tradition

"But papa," Bethany protested. "We have to! We do this every year on Summerday. It's not fair that we have to miss out on it just because some stupid Templars have been nosing around."

"I'm sorry, my dear," Malcolm replied. "It has to be this way. They came too close to finding us out in the past few days. We'll postpone it until they leave the village."

"It's not going to be the same," the young girl protested. Spinning on her heel, she ignored her father's attempts to placate her and stomped off to the room that she shared with her sister, Marian.

It wasn't fair that she and her family were forced to live in hiding simply because she and her father were mages. It was bad enough that they had to move around quite a bit when she was younger, but after settling in Lothering, she thought that they would be able to at least live a bit more. And now the Templars were ruining even that. Her favourite time to spend with her father alone…camping in the woods nearby. She perhaps shouldn't have taken out her frustrations on her father – he was more than aware of just how imbalanced a life on the run could leave a person.

She sighed and sat unhappily on her bed. If this was an indication of how the rest of the warm season would go, she might as well just lock the door to her room at that very moment and ignore the outside world.

She had no idea how much time had passed when she heard the knock at her door.

"Bethany? When you have a moment, perhaps you could come back out here and speak to me?"

It was her father.

Of course she had a moment. Now that she had nothing to do for Summerday, she had nothing but time on her hands.

Begrudgingly, she dragged herself out into the main living area of their home. She saw her father standing in the middle of the room, standing proudly next to a construct of blankets and sheets.

The man had made a tent…in the middle of their home!

"You're right, Bethany," he admitted. "We shouldn't let the Templars force us to miss out on a tradition like this."

Without a word, she hurried to her father's side, embracing him tightly.

This might just be the best Summerday yet.