Well. This was painful. Trying to come up with some way to put an OC into the story without it being super boring was more difficult than I thought it would be.
This isn't the good part, anyway. Needed some sort of setup before jumping into the good bits. Or what I think are the most interesting bits, anyway. Bleh.
First two chapters are the setup. Things after that are what was initially intended - dialogue-centric, short chapters of character interaction.
A fair warning: this is a sort of self-insert story I'm writing for shits and giggles. Shouldn't end up as a Mary-Sue, since I can fully admit that I'm practically useless, but I'll be damned if some things don't go my way.
I stood numbly and simply watched as groups of people far more useful than myself started camp fires and set up temporary shelters. Families huddled together under threadbare blankets, trying to keep their faces and hands out of the bitter, cold wind that managed to enter the small mountain pass in occasional gusts.
A blizzard had hit shortly after we had made our way out of Haven, following the directions of a seriously wounded Roderick. A young man named Cole had helped support him the entire way. I had found Roderick to be a rather unlikeable fellow, but it was fortunate he had been there to show us the forgotten path used for pilgrimages years ago or we'd all have been buried under tonnes of mountain rock and rubble in a desperate last stand against the Venatori, their leader, and its dragon. I turned to look at the path we had taken up the mountain. There was nothing but snow and darkness.
I took a moment to sink into a melancholic reflection of the direction my life had taken in the past few weeks.
It had all happened on an otherwise normal day. The weather was nice for a change, so I had decided to go for a walk in the back woods behind my house. There was still a bit of snow, so I threw on a few cold weather essentials and headed out. Then everything had to go to shit.
There was a bright flash of light, and electrical sizzling noise, and the sensation of falling forwards. There was a sharp pain on my forehead when I landed, and darkness. I woke up a few hours later in a jail cell, patched up but imprisoned. After a long and very confusing conversation with two women named Leliana and Cassandra, I had the basics of my situation figured out.
I was in a country called Ferelden, in the village of Haven. There was a conclave called for the mages and templars to have peace talks after an act of terrorism had sparked an all-out war between the two groups. The whole thing had been orchestrated by the current Divine, the leader of the Chantry. Shit went south, the conclave blew up, and they had found me along with a female elven apostate at the site of the explosion. We were the only two survivors, and thus the main two suspects.
I explained everything from my point of view, and mentioned that I basically had no fucking clue what the hell they were talking about. They seemed reluctant to believe me, but my strange clothes, words and mannerisms helped convince them that, at the very least, I would not be the best person to smuggle anything anywhere, let alone some sort of explosive device into a large gathering of mages and templars and religious people of various stations.
Solas, another elven apostate, had been quietly observing my interrogation. He figured that perhaps, when the breach was formed, the magical energy that was responsible for the tear in the veil had somehow reacher further than that, even. A parallel universe sort of deal. I had no idea if that was even possible, nor did I have a better explanation. He seemed uncertain if the act could be duplicated to somehow send me back. The news was shocking enough to shut me down emotionally for a few days. They set me up with small living quarters in the chantry, where I hid until I had come to terms with my situation.
I met the Inquisition's ambassador, an intelligent and well-spoken woman named Josephine. I ended up helping her deal with her paperwork after she saw me organizing the books on a small shelf in the chantry. Through her I met other key members of the organization - I was reintroduced to Leliana, their spy master, and Cassandra, a Seeker of Truth. They were the left and right hands of the late Divine, and the founders of the Inquisition. Cullen was an ex-templar and lead the forces. Varric told the stories. Solas was a font of information regarding the Fade and the spirits that resided within. Cole was a spirit that somehow took the form of a young man and said weird things I never really listened to. Vivienne was a powerful and ambitious mage who advised the empress of Orlais on magical matters and wore a pointy hat. The Iron Bull was a very large mercenary captain who did not like being called TIB, even though it was far more efficient. Sera was an elf, but not an elfy elf, and that was about all I understood when we spoke. Blackwall was a Grey Warden, and had a beard. And, of course, there was Ashanna Lavellan, the Herald of Andraste. An elfy elf, as Sera would put it, with long red hair and forest green eyes. She and Solas would blather all day about the Fade and the breach and rifts and all matter of magical whatever. People would look in awe as she walked past, her hand glowing with the same sinister light that hung above us in the sky, shitting demons upon the world. And they worshiped her.
I did not. It didn't much matter, as we really had no reason to interact.
Most people regarded me with suspicion, which was fair enough. Solas and Varric were curious about where I was from, and I answered their questions as best I could without having to get into fractal explanations. You know, explaining that you spend your time playing video games on your computer requires explaining video games, which requires explaining coding, which requires explaining how computers work, which requires explaining blah blah so on and so forth. I had neither the patience nor the in-depth knowledge required for that, so answers were kept as simple as possible. Easier said than done, however.
"So, Princess," Varric started, looking up at me as he spoke from where he was sitting by a small fire, warming his hands. "What's it like where you're from?"
"Princes?" I wrinkled my nose.
He gave me a crooked, shit-eating grin. "Yeah! You know how you walk around with that haughty glare and look down your nose at everyone while you sit inside, delicately sipping your tea?" I glared at him as he did a terrible impression.
"That's just my face, Varric. We call it 'resting bitch face' back home. It's a thing." I sighed and glanced over at the tavern. "But I do like sitting around and delicately sipping tea while the plebs scurry about and do whatever it is they do to keep this place running."
Varric shook his head and chuckled. "You sound almost as bad as an Orlesian noble."
"That was hurtful, Varric. You take that back."
"In any case," he prodded at the fire a bit with a blackened, pointy stick. "You still haven't answered my question."
"Fuck, why not just ask me what the meaning of life is." I crossed my arms and frowned. "Let's just focus on the biggest differences. There's no Fade, so we don't have demons or spirits like you guys do."
"So nobody there dreams?"
"What?" I shot him a confused glance. "People dream just fine. Dreaming is just your subconscious mind working through shit going on in your life. Sometimes it's all metaphorical and confusing, with faceless people and weird talking bananas or whatever the fuck. Sometimes it's more like 'hey, let's solve this math problem you were staring at for half an hour before you went to bed'. Most of the time you don't remember what you were dreaming about anyway, so..." I trailed off and shrugged. "Whatever. We also don't have magic, so no mages. And there's only humans. Oh! And no blight! Unless you count humans as the blight where I'm from. That seems accurate."
"Wait wait wait...no dwarves, elves, qunari, mages, spirits, demons, or darkspawn?"
I nodded. "Right. None of those things. Sounds pretty boring when you put it like that, eh?"
He stared into the fire, his brows knit together in thought. "Well...shit. This place must seem really strange to you."
"Fuck yeah it does. But, you know...you adapt." I offered him a weak smile. "Not much else you can do, other than going insane. But I know enough to know that I don't know enough about alternate dimensions or parallel universes to rule that out, so that helps. Except for the part where I don't know if I'll ever manage to get back." I could feel tears prickling at the back of my eyes as I thought about my family and friends back home. "Do they think I'm dead? Did I just disappear into thin air, without a trace? I hope someone else saw something that they could tell my family, but..." I put my hands over my face as I fought to contain my emotions. The last thing I needed to do was burst into a sobbing fit in the middle of our makeshift camp. Especially when there were others there going dealing with the deaths of family and friends after Corypheus' attack. "That's the worst part of this, Varric. I can handle the culture shock, the technological disparity, the war. Hell, I can handle the weird green thing in the sky shitting demons everywhere. But the thought that my family is suffering and has no idea where I am or what happened...it eats me up inside. It fucking haunts me. And there's absolutely nothing I can do about it."
Varric rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, obviously at a loss. "Shit...I'm sorry, Princess. I don't know what to say."
"There isn't anything you can say." I kicked at a chunk of ice on the ground and let out a heavy sigh. "I'll deal with it. Somehow."
He gave me a comforting pat on the shoulder. "If you ever need someone to just talk to, or to talk your ear off instead, I'm here."
We were both distracted by a commotion behind us. Cassandra was supporting Ashanna as they walked toward the camp. The elven woman was in dire shape- she was probably on the brink of hypothermia and most likely had other wounds from the battle that needed tending to. Cullen was barking orders to the soldiers, while Leliana quietly spoke to her people, who then ran off with obvious purpose. The Herald was placed on a cot and tended to. People around us began calling out exultations to the Maker and Andraste for the return of their divine saviour.
"By Andraste's heaving bosom..." Varric breathed, looking impressed. "She made it through. She survived."
"So it would seem." I responded flatly, too drained for a properly emotional response. "I need to sleep now." Without waiting for a response, I wandered off to find a spot to claim as my own. Mother Giselle directed me to a small cot at the far end of the large tent she was in. There were a few wounded soldiers and the Herald being tended to. I wandered past them, paying them no attention, until I came to the empty cot. I laid down, covered myself with the thin blanket that had been folded and set at the foot of the bed, and fell asleep to the sounds of the three advisors and Cassandra arguing with each other over what to do next.
It was the first night I hadn't cried myself to sleep.
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