AN: This is the result of three seperate people's playthrough of the game. Watching mine, and my roommate's games allowed me to see the differences between each event much closer together than if I had just played three different characters. It was cool to see how usually we all came to different results. This got me thinking of how those three characters would interact with each other, with such different origins. And so this AU was born.

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Chapter 1: "I was born to be an example of misfortune."

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The first camp they made after emerging from the Korcari Wilds was in the abandoned windmill just north of Lothering, still insight of the village. Brokk had managed to pick the lock on the rotting door, not that it had presented him with much of a challenge. The main room was in a shabby state of disrepair, but then again, that was the current state of the rest of the village.

Brokk had wanted to pry up some of the wooden floor boards to make a fire but the idea was voted down because no one wanted to draw any more attention to their group than there was already. It was mostly his own fault, Brokk conceded, because if it weren't for his almost unconscious nature to cut the purse strings of anyone who walked too close by, maybe they could have slipped through the town unnoticed. But as it were, with the small village inundated with the tide of refugees from the south, everyone was already on edge and more paranoid to blame the newest group of travelers when they realize their coin purse is considerably lighter than it had been moments ago. And he wasn't exactly eager to point out to his companions that the villager's glares and accusations had a ring of truth to them.

Not that he was the only one to blame, though most was definitely his own doing. The sight of two mages, one who clearly fit the image of a witch, and both arriving from the depths of the Wilds, did nothing to endear their group to the town. While Morrigan fulfilled every one of these simple townsfolk's childhood nightmare of a dreaded Witch of the Wild, Rayne, with his smaller stature and sheltered naivety hardly seemed to present himself as a threat. And to be honest, Brokk still has his reservations about the elf's merit to the battlefield. The boy hadn't shirked his responsibility at Ostagar, fightingly alongside the other Wardens up the tower, but nevertheless, Brokk would be watching his own back first before he let the mage cover him.

Brokk had volunteered for the first watch of the night. He wasn't eager to return the nightmare that his sleep has been of late. But of course that was to be expected with the darkspawn taint that now ran through his blood. That first night he had slept without the aid of herbal medicines that had helped him heal after the battle at Ostagar, his mind had been assaulted with the buzzing of the darkspawn hive mind. No intelligible words could be made out, but the intensity of that buzzing had left his mind feeling weak and distracted when he awoke the next morning.

Alistair had explained that, in time, some Grey Wardens manage to understand that buzzing, but that would be years down the road. Looking at the blond knight now, across the room, one couldn't even tell that his mind was troubled by nightmares. But then again, he had more time to adjust to the corruption that now darkened his blood. Not to far off from Alistair, Rayne, tossed and turned in his own bedroll, his own mind grappling with the words of the darkspawn.

Rayne and Brokk had undergone the Joining together, along with the other human, Merrick. The three of them, and Alistair were the only four Grey Wardens left in Ferelden. And now they were charged with the task of saving all of Thedas. Brokk had to snort in disgust at the mere notion that the four of them could achieve something like that when they could barely make it to Lothering. Flemeth, Morrigan's mother, seemed to think that the treaties made years ago would give them an army with enough of a chance to save the world, but Brokk was more practical. No one would listen to them, Grey Wardens or not. They had a bastard Templar, a castless dwarf, an elven mage, and woman who wouldn't speak of her past. Whatever Duncan had envisioned for his Grey Warden's battle against the Archdemon, it wasn't this pathetic ragtag group.

Speaking of Merrick, Brokk noticed the woman was awake and sitting near the one window in the room. As much as Brokk distrusted the young mage, he was equally unsure about the woman. She had arrived several days after Brokk, also recruited by Duncan, still covered in dried blood and smelling of smoke. He eyes held the hardness that was common to see in the women's eyes of Dust Town but this woman was no castless, if humans had such a class. When she did speak, her words were cultured and intelligent, her clothes were finely made once shown brightly. Rayne had quietly asked Duncan where this woman had come from, and was only told from "the lands up north."

The most that she, herself, had revealed, was when Alistair had asked about her name. Brokk still remembered the strange distant look in her eyes when she explained, "My father fought along side King Maric, in the war with Orlais. I was named for the King."

Brokk pulled himself up from his spot on the hard floor and moved to Merrickís side. "If I would have known you were going to stay up, I've taken a later watch."

"As if you could sleep any better than I could, dwarf." She didn't pull her gaze from the window. "And if you steal anything from me, I am chopping your hand off with my axe,"

"As if you manage to swing that behemoth piece of shit before I could shank you with my knife, human." he adopted the same tone as her.

Her sudden, sharp peal of laughter caught him off guard. "Then let us both be glad that we are on the same side, Master Dwarf."

Settling himself on the floor to her side, he grumbled, "I ain't no Master of anything, save perhaps a tankard or something of the likes."

"What about of the stew? That was your concoction we had for dinner, was it not? Surely as I am not dead yet of either poison or indigestion, it couldn't have come from Morrigan or Alistair's hand."

"What can I say, put some real food in front of me, and this dwarf can work some of his own brand of magic." That is the one thing that he has enjoyed since his recruitment, was the steady flow of decent food.

"Yes, the culinary magic is about the only magic that I can understand." Her eyes darted to where Rayne slumbered.

"What is there to understand?" Brokk grumbled.

Merrick propped her head upon her hand and looked back out the window, "It is just strange to me, that's all, I have never seen a mage before I went to Ostagar, apostate or not." she spared a quick look back down to Brokk, "Nor had I seen a dwarf either."

"They must have kept you behind some very high walls up there in the north."

Merrickís mouth thinned into a hard line, "Yes. I suppose,"

"You keep things pretty close to the chest, don't you?" Brokk kept his gaze focused away from the woman, incase she felt backed into a corner by his questioning.

"I just don't see why I should share my life's story with you all." she stonewalled. "I thought that once we became Wardens, we forswore our last names and pasts."

Brokk nodded, "But you can't deny that our pasts made up who we are now. What it taught us gave us the skills that allowed us to become Grey Wardens."

Merrick was silent, still staring out the window. Brokk noticed that the window was facing north. After a moment of silence, she stood and looked down at Brokk, "My mother taught me how to fight," And without saying anything else, she made her way quietly back to her own bedroll.

Looking back at the moon in the window, Brokk realized it was time to wake Alistair for his turn at watch.