The air in the waiting room was stifling. Why they had a fireplace going at this time of year, Loghain had no idea. He threw down the magazine he'd been reading and picked up a newspaper. The world outside was going to hell and he was stuck in here. Wait? Which world was going to hell? Loghain sometimes got confused.

Duncan got up and headed toward the snack table. "Can I get anything for anyone while we wait?" He was always so damned nice. Just once, Loghain would like to see Duncan be the bad guy. Just once.

"I'll take a cup of Red Zinger tea, Duncan, thank you." Wynne was slowly becoming everyone's busybody old-lady relative. Loghain noticed that fewer and fewer would sit on the couch with her. All but that idiot Alistair.

"New story, all!" The pansy wordsmith handed Loghain a rather thick sheaf of paper.

"Are we ever going to modernize around here? A tablet saves trees, you know," the female Dalish elf warrior insert name here Mahariel complained.

"Not to worry, sweetie! You aren't in this one." Maniacal laughter followed as the wordsmith danced away toward the Cousland spitfire. "But! You are, my lovely Elissa!"

"Maker, I'm getting tired of that name," Elissa grumbled as they took the pages.

"At least you have a name that gets used a lot, Cousland. Show a little sympathy for those of us at the whim of the insane pansy wordsmiths for our names," the gruff male dwarf noble insert name here Aeducan growled. As the wordsmith skipped past him as well, the dwarf grabbed a pillow and stretched out on his couch in front of the fireplace. As he was dozing off, he recounted, "Dizzy Aeducan, Rocky Aeducan, H8r Aeducan, Grrrr Aeducan … Grizzzzzzz …." His snoring was akin to a buzzsaw on a granite boulder. Could he possibly be more stereotypical? Loghain thought to himself.

The dog curled up next to the dwarf and rumbled a small growl. Some of the names Loghain had seen for the dog he couldn't repeat.

Alistair snickered, "Female human rogue insert name here Cousland said, 'Maker'. Heh!" That was followed by an oof when his pages landed on his lap. "Hey! Loghain's is thicker than mine!"

The wordsmith shrugged and giggled. "What can I say? The ladies like the strong, dark, grouchy and deadly type!"

Wynne patted Alistair on the knee. "You should be nicer to female human rogue insert name here Cousland, Alistair."

"Yes, ma'am," Alistair said … like he always said when Wynne told him something.

"I see your point," for this story Elissa Cousland said to the snoring dwarf.

In short order, all the pages were distributed and the ACs (Active Characters) walked into the room with the long tables on either side of the wordsmith, who sat on a throne of gold with overstuffed down cushions and servants catering to the creature's every whim. "Now, let's start …"

Cailan jumped up! "I survive Ostagar! O … M … G!" He elbowed Anora who was always forced to sit next to him, due to some perverse need of the wordsmith to punish them all. The seating chart was one of the things set in stone by the wordsmith … literally, chiseled on small blocks of stone glued to the table at every chair.

The wordsmith smiled at Cailan and rang a little bell. "First demerit." A servant came around and hit Cailan forty times over the head with a wet noodle. "It's a long story … 12,765,422 words … and it will take a long time to complete. It took me ten years of my life just to complete the outline of it, so you will all pay attention. Now, we begin in Highever."

Rendon sighed. "Don't we always."


AN: Just a short drabble that forced me to write it. DA's poor, poor characters ... we abuse them so! :)