Diclaimer: I do not own any of the Dragon Age Origins characters, no matter how much I wish I did. T^T

A/N: Okay out of the fucking blue this obsession came up. I've played the Dragon Age series a thousand times over and have always loved the companion Sten from the first one. It's always been sort of platonic though. But then I kinda saw him naked-ish and was like whoa. Anyway, I was sitting on my couch playing the game and he called the Warden "Kadan". I always assumed the things he called you meant something along the lines of "leader" or "boss" or "friend" or something. No. Kadan is the cutest fucking term of endearment that I have ever heard coming from someone like him. The term Kadan roughly means "where the heart lies" or "one I care about". Holy shit you would not believe the amazing fangirl squeal that came from me when I discovered this. I almost had an aneurysm.

Anyway, I decided that I would write a Sten/ Warden fanfic the moment I accepted him as a love interest in the game. I try as hard as I can to follow my "no describing the main character for games where you can customize them" rule, but I couldn't do it in this one. I really couldn't, sorry. This is really just a chronicle of what happens between them in the first game in the form of short drabbles.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it~~~

~Love, Ara

Chapter 1

The Qunari watched the Warden with a growing sense of frustration. She appeared to be a woman and he did not understand this. There she sat next to the other Baas, cleaning the caked on dirt and blood off of her silverite chainmail. She looked just as feral on the battlefield as any other warrior, yet she was distinctly female. The elf's body was very definitely female, her body's curves were in the right places to form a soft hourglass shape. The young woman smiled brilliantly at a jest that the Bas Saarebas made at the Templar's expense, and the smile infuriated him. She was inherently attractive, everything about her seemed to fit the human idea of beauty, and yet she squandered it away underneath chainmail armor.

He watched her cross her legs, her bare feet digging themselves into the grass. It wasn't often that they were all seated around the fire and the Warden seemed to enjoy it. When she fixed her linen top she drew all of the attention from the men in the group and he lost it. He stalked away to think on her position as a Warden. She was a female, yet she fought. It made no sense.

The Qunari held his hands behind his back and closed his eyes, breathing deeply, retreating into his core. It wasn't until he heard her breathing that he turned around. The elf was looking up at him in a mixture of confusion. He never really understood why she tried so hard to get him to partake in the group's recreation. Rather than ask him anything, the elf remained quiet, waiting for him to speak first. "I do not understand," he stated, folding his arms across his chest, "You appear to be a woman."

"Are you flirting with me, Sten?," the Warden asked.

Sten's curiosity was piqued when the Warden's face flushed as she said that. What did that word mean? Flirting? Why would it cause the woman to blush like that when she said this? And why did he find the face she make so attractive when her flushed face look up at him, her wide blue eyes shining. "I do not understand this word "flirting" speak the common tongue," he muttered, ignoring the strange urge to touch her. "You are a woman, so it stands to reason that you cannot be a Grey Warden."

The blush faded slightly, but it was still there. "I don't follow, Sten," the girl looked slightly amused as she said this, her hand lightly resting on the hilt of her silverite long sword. It said something to her nature that she was never unarmed. He'd studied her. She never disarmed herself when she walked into camp, and she always slept with at least three blades close to her bed. It was that way in Seheron as well.

"Women are artisans, shopkeepers, and priests. They cannot be warriors," he reasoned, watching the look in her eyes flip over to a more thoughtful one.

She smiled, "That is not a universal truth, Sten."

"Why do they wish to be men? I do not understand!"

"They do not wish to be men. They wish to be women that fight."

"Do they wish to live on the moon as well? That's as attainable."

"I'm a woman and I'm fighting," the Warden smiled, surprisingly nonchalant for someone who'd just had their gender questioned.

"Only one of those is certain," he said, crossing his arms.

It was silent between them for a moment, the Warden looking slightly confused. The only sounds were coming from the group around the fire and the crackling of the fire itself. As if there'd never been a pause, the Warden laughed. Softly at first, then louder. She bent over and pressed her hand against her leg to keep her up. He watched as she shook her head, a look of pure mirth on her lovely face. He had… not just thought that. She touched his arm and patted gently, still chuckling. Then she looked up and their eyes met. There was a look in those beautiful blue orbs that he'd never seen before and her face flushed again. Her full lips parted slightly, short breaths coming out. He wasn't sure how, but they suddenly seemed impossibly closer.

"L-," there was a loud crash coming from the campfire, interrupting Sten. Alistair had tripped and fallen on the Bas Saarebas and she had thrown him off of her with her magic. When the two looked back at each other, the air between them had settled. "What-," he tried to ask but she just smiled and shook her head.

"Come now, Sten, Bartrand says that he found a bakery with all sorts of cookies! He brought quite a few back for all of us. The cinnamon chip ones are divine," she took hold of his shirt sleeve and gently tugged him back to the fire.

Sten glanced at the Warden when they took their seats. She seemed intent on forgetting what had just happened. No one seemed to notice it, but her hands were moving a bit erratically and she kept pushing her glistening white hair behind her pointed ears. There were a few piercings in the shaped cartilage, a thin chain connecting each of them. He lifted his hand a few inches off of his lap to touch her face, but dropped it back down unceremoniously. Beautiful though she was, it would only lead him away from the path of aqun.

A/N: *claps hands together* So, that was item one. I'm not quite sure that I'm happy with it, but I hope I will be by the time I'm done with it all. I'm getting all my translations from wiki/Qunlat. I know that I shouldn't believe everything that I read on the internet, but I know that quite a few of them are correct or at least they are very accurate rough translations. My OTP makes me stupid sometimes.

Oh! I found the single most amazing picture here art/dragon-age-warden-and-sten-romance-345255194. You have to check his crap out, I'm so happy I found him.

Anyway, that's it for this chapter. I know, long A/N but I swear I'll talk less in the next ones since I really don't have to say much of anything. I hope you liked it, leave a review!

Love

~Ara ;o