A/N: This is my first SI fanfic. Basically, it's me around thirty years after the fifth Blight retelling how I came to be in Thedas and ended up helping Lyna Mahariel become the Hero of Fereldan. As it is basically me remembering what happened, there will be plenty of times where the story goes off track. And no, I'm not using my real name.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!


So you want to hear about how I helped the Hero of Fereldan end the fifth Blight? I don't see why not. But first, you need to know what's happened since then.

You know Alistair, right? The royal bastard turned templar turned Grey Warden turned king? Well, me and him were old buddies. If you didn't already know, he had his Calling a few months ago. His son, Duncan, is king of Fereldan now. I've known the kid since he was born, which was, what, ten years after the Blight? I'm pretty much the only family that kid's got left. I mean yeah, Lyna, the Hero of Fereldan if you didn't know, is still around, but last I heard from her, she's been having those nightmares Alistair had so her Calling is coming soon. And besides, I have no idea where she is. Between what happened in Amaranthine, hearing that her entire clan had been killed near Kirkwall, and the mage-templar war, she's become a real recluse. I suppose I shouldn't blame her. She made some pretty tough choices during the Blight and made plenty of enemies in the process.

Of course, that means I'm sharing some of those enemies, but I'm pushing fifty now so I've had plenty of time to prepare. No one's gonna get me without a fight. You can bet on it.

Anyway, I guess you should know that I wasn't always an elf. I used to be human, like you. Well, I guess not like you specifically, cause I'm didn't grow up here in Fereldan. Or anywhere in Thedas, for that matter.

Let me explain. I'm originally from a place called Florida and it might sound strange to you, but elves, dwarves, magic, darkspawn, and a lot of the things that are common place here are fantasy there. Why? Because it's in an entirely different world. Technology is much more advanced there, but the amount of ignorance and conflict is about the same, just in a different form. Stuff that usually takes days or weeks to create here, can only take a few hours there because we have machines to do the work. Imagine how much different it was for me to suddenly show up in world were technology was relatively primitive, but everything that was thought to be fantasy existed. Not to mention that I was turned into an elf. That's the part that freaked me out the most.

Anyway, I'm getting off track. I guess I should start with what happened before I showed up in the forest near the Imperial highway, south of where Lothering used to be. I'm sure you've heard that story the bards sing, about me being sent from the Maker himself to help Lyna out. Total bullshit. I wasn't brought here by the Maker, or any kind of god for that matter. The more I think about it, though, the more I think that it might have had something to do with magic, but I don't know for sure. Then again, I gave up on trying to figure it out a long time ago. I'm stuck here. Nothing I can do about it. Besides, I'm not sure I'd even want to go back anyway.

Well, I should get started. I was seventeen and I was walking along one of the roads in Florida. The sky was clear and it was nice out. There was a slight breeze and I had my sweat jacket on. It was green, the kind of green that could help you blend into a forest, with a white C-7 across the chest, which was split by the zipper. I was also wearing a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt underneath my jacket. I was walking because I had gotten into a big argument with my mom over something stupid, but I forget what it was. It got to the point where we were screaming in each other's faces. That wasn't exactly rare because a few months before that -December I think. I'm trying to remember- we had gotten into an argument about one thing and, somehow, it had gotten around to being about my grades in school. That night, I had decided that I had had enough of her shit, and that's when I started screaming back at her. The thing is, I went outside for a walk so I could vent and was out there for about an hour -I snuck out so she had no idea I had left- and when I got back in the house, she didn't even bat an eyelash. I guess she never realized that I was gone.

Damn it. Off track again. I don't want to bore you with my past with my mom. Basically, she yelled at me for pretty much everything, and I hated her for it. Hell, my dad only stuck around because of me and my little sister. He thought she was a bitch. They had been broken up for years- I guess I should have mentioned that earlier. I eventually started thinking the same thing, my sister following suit. I couldn't wait to graduate so I could get out of the house. I was a senior in high school, which meant I only had a few months to go.

Ok, back to the story. I was walking along and I had about five dollars in my pocket, so I decided to grab myself something to drink and snack on. I walked into a 7-11 and grabbed a bottle of coke and a Milky Way bar -that was my favorite thing to eat back then. I walked out of the store and continued walking down the road until I hit the highway. I stuck to the shoulder -I knew better than to walk in the middle of the road- and ate my Milky Way bar. A couple minutes later, I finished the thing and threw out the wrapper in the closest dumpster. After that, I kept walking. For some reason, the highway had been clear for too long to be a normal break in traffic, then again, it was Sunday and it was around noon, so I thought nothing of it. That's when I heard something that sounded like thunder come out of nowhere.

Now, the news said that it wasn't supposed to rain that day, but they were wrong half the time. I looked up at the sky in every direction, but I didn't see a single cloud. Not one. I looked around me and saw nothing but the trees that lined the highway. That's when I blacked out.

Before then, I had only blacked out two or three times in my whole life. Once when I crashed my quad, and twice when I had pneumonia, but I was also dehydrated so that didn't help.

When I woke up, my head was ringing. It took me a bit before I finally opened my eyes and saw that I was in the middle of a forest, near the Imperial highway, but I had no idea what it was at the time. There was a chill in the air that reminded me of when I lived in New Jersey -which was way up north from Florida. I was thirsty as hell too, so I decided to drink some of my soda, which was still in my jacket pocket.

I had no idea where I was so I decided to try and stick to the road, which looked like a stone wall from where I was standing. Eventually, I found a ramp that let me get up to the road -I had already finished my soda by then and dropped the bottle somewhere along the way, cause I couldn't find any dumpsters-, which I was pretty grateful for, because I had started to hear wolves howling and I wanted to get out of the woods. I kept walking -maybe for a half hour or so?- before I came to a group of guys who were blocking the ramp off the road. They were all dressed in armor and had either swords, daggers, shields, or arrows strapped to their backs. I thought I had stumbled across some kind of medieval fair or something, but the thought disappeared quickly when I saw a pool of dried blood behind them.

The thing is, I could hold my own in a fist fight, but I didn't have any weapons on me. I never needed them before then. I looked at the guy closest to me, who I guessed was the leader, and he looked at me before saying, "Greetings traveler! Say, isn't it kind of dangerous for an elf like yourself to be traveling alone?"

Now, I wasn't exactly tall, but I wasn't short either. And yeah, I was skinny, but no one had ever called me an elf before. The comment was so random that I kind of ignored it. I saw the rest of the guys behind him looking at my clothes like they had never seen anything like them before. I looked at the leader and said, "Who are you?"

"Me? I'm a simple toll man." I didn't believe the guy for a second, but I decided to play along. Figured that it was the safest way to go.

"Toll man? Well, how much is the toll?"

"A simple ten silvers and you're on your way."

I had no idea what he was talking about. I mean, I had some change left over from buying my soda and Milky Way bar, but somehow I knew he didn't mean that. "I don't have any silvers," I told him, shrugging.

"Are you sure? We have rules, you know."

That's when the guy behind and to the right of him spoke up. "Right. We get to ransack your corpse then. Those are the rules." It was pretty obvious that he wasn't all that smart, the way he just blurted that out.

I didn't even bother responding. I turned around and bolted. I was fast, but I knew I couldn't outrun them for long because I had pretty much no stamina back then.

I heard an arrow zip past my head before another hit me in the side, which threw me to the ground. It happened so fast that I cursed out loud. When I looked down at it, the point was sticking out of my side, the rest of the arrow going through. I didn't even bother trying to check if I was bleeding cause I already knew I was. I got up and started running again. The pain started going away as my adrenaline kicked in, but I still felt my blood running down my side.

I still don't know how, but somehow I knew an arrow was heading for my head. I ducked and it flew by, the feathers brushing my hair. I just kept running. Eventually, I saw two women, a man, and some type of dog up ahead.

That was when I first saw Lyna, Morrigan, and Alistair. You probably heard that I was fighting off dozens of bandits when they showed up, but that's not true. One: as I said, I had no weapons. Two: there was only about a dozen guys chasing after me. And three: I was running for my life.

I didn't even bother trying to yell for help. I kept running and zipped right past them. That's when I heard the dog barking, followed by the clanging of blades hitting each other.

I kept running. I don't know how long I ran for, but after a little while, I ended up face first on the ground. When I rolled over, I saw the face of the dog right in front of me. I froze in fear. I thought that the dog was going to bite my face off. That's when he licked me and started panting.

I couldn't help but laugh. I had a dog and he was a playful guy. Always tried to lick your face and always wanted to say hi to everyone. Damn it, I miss him.

Then I heard footsteps running over to me before I heard, "Elgar'nan. Get off him." That was Lyna. She named the hound after a Dalish god after she helped cure him at Ostagar. At least, that's what she told me.

The hound did as he was told and got off me. As I tried to get up, my whole side erupted with pain from the arrow. I started feeling real weak, probably because I lost quite a bit of blood.

Before I could say anything, Lyna and Alistair propped me against a wall. Alistair broke the feathered end of the thing and pulled it the rest of the way through.

It hurt so much that I damn near passed out. Then Alistair lifted up my jacket and shirt before Lyna told Morrigan to heal me. I wasn't really paying attention to much beside the amount of blood on my side which soaked into my jeans. That's when I saw my skin pretty much stitch itself up. The bleeding stopped immediately and the only evidence that I had been hit with an arrow was all the blood that covered my side.

I checked the area where I had been hit and it was perfectly healed. My back too. The first thing I said after that was, "What the hell? How'd you do that?"

I looked to Morrigan, who gave me an incredulous look, almost like I should have known what she just did.

"What do you mean?" I heard Alistair say. I jerked my head toward him and he just looked confused.

"Huh?" was all I could say.

"What do you mean?" he repeated.

"How'd she do that?"

"Magic," was the answer I got.

That surprised the hell outta me. "No, seriously. How'd she do it?"

That was when they all looked at me like I was an alien or something. Then Morrigan summoned some lighting from her hands, the bolts jumping off her fingertips. "What the hell?" I said again, pushing myself against the wall.

"Who are you?" Lyna asked. That got my attention real quick.

"You first." I wasn't sure if I could trust them.

"I'm Lyna. That's Alistair and that's Morrigan." She gestured to both of them and my eyes followed where she was pointing. Then her hound wormed his way through them and nudged Lyna with his head. He seemed like a real smart dog. Too smart to be a regular dog.

"Oh. And this is Elgar'nan." She patted the dog's head and he panted happily before licking me again. I couldn't help but pet his head. I'm real good with dogs. "I guess he likes you," she said. I saw her smile and heard her low chuckle.

Since Lyna had introduced me to everyone, I decided that I might as well tell her my name. "I'm Jason," I told her.

"Well, Jason, I'm glad we were able to save your life back there."

"Why are you alone?" Alistair asked. "Don't you know it's dangerous for elves to travel alone?"

Now, I'm not sure why I didn't notice it before, but I glanced at Lyna and saw that her ears extended to a point. That's when I felt my own ears. They came to a point too.

"What the hell?" I said for the third time that day.