Modern semi-AU setting.

I would like to provide a few warnings. I have never written anything before, let alone posted anything. This, essentially, an experiment. Yes, world events information is based loosely off of Shadow Run. *sunglasses* deal with it. Also,I have NO clue where this is going. I am pretty much going chapter by chapter and enjoying the ride. lol. Though, I intend to follow the game progression in my own setting. You will be just as surprised as I. Please, by all means, comment, make suggestions, critique. I bow my head to the more experienced.

Intended update schedule is biweekly. I have far too much arting to do in addition. Lol

Dragon Age II
Mature, Sexual content and Language
M/M, M/F, hell, assume eventual F/F. Why not?

KIRKWALL PORT

ONE

Dragon 9:01 was quite the year. The previous statement was also quite the understatement. The final days of the Blessed Age were the harbingers of change. New Year's Eve Blessed 8:99, the world laughed at the prospect of apocalypse. The clock rolled over to midnight. Lovers new and old embraced with arms, lips, tongues, and legs. Fluted glasses clinked together then were upended in a synchronized dance. The entirety of Thedas celebrated in drunken, debauched revery. The chantry was laughed at again; an assumed poor attempt at distraction from their recent legal allegations. Andraste was still a dated bitch whose legitimacy had long ago been questioned. The world had laughed. Apocalypse dodged, the sun would rise again.

Aristide Amell huffed irritably. What ever happened to his sweet little Leandra? When had she become rebellious? He glanced over to her. She was understandably angry as well. She was supposed to be at the De Launcet for a chaperoned party. She was a very young teen and had been given a bit more slack. Aristide tightened his grip on the sun cracked steering wheel. She was not where she was supposed to be.

He drove over at half past midnight to take his little girl home. After waiting outside for twenty minutes, he began to fret in earnest. With a stomach twisting in unnatural knots, he plunged out of the old Ford pickup and slammed the door. He walked across the small street and approached the de Lancet home. Sighing back his nerves, he rang the doorbell once. There was no answer. He rung the bell again, pausing only a brief moment before ringing again. He bit his lip, tapped his food, checked his watch, anything to help him expend the adrenaline that rapidly built up.

The porch light flicked on seconds before the heavy white door cracked open. "Ari" The voice greeted before closing to allow the chain to be dropped off and re-opend fully. The light brown haired man stood in the doorway, his etiquette quickly struck away by simple familiarity. "Bonne année! To what do we owe your visit?"

Aristide paused, his head turning slightly in confusion, he continued slowly, "I'm just here to pick up Leandra."

"Leandra? No, no, no!" The gentleman laughed. "Do you not remember, you told her to get a ride home from one of her friends. I recall her mentioning that you didn't want her out quite so late." The man's hand gripped the edge of the door tightly as he glanced upwards, recalling what has been told to him.

Leandra's father's back straightened, "I instructed her to remain here where I would pick her up." Unconsciously, he rotated his metal banded watch around his wrist.

The man paused, taking a deep intake of breath. Taken aback, the de Lancet replied, "Oh, oh my. I'm sorry, she had told me that she was to-"

"Yes, I gathered that." Aristide interrupted. He dropped his head down quickly, clearing his throat. "Sorry, do you know who took her?

De Lancet gave a small smile, accepting the apology. "The Hawke boy took her. Malcolm Hawke, I believe."

Amell grunted and cracked his hand closed as he quickly turned. Half-way down the small red brick path, he heard his friend's voice call out, "Please, Ari, call me when you find her. Please."

Aristide turned to regard his friend and gave a short nod.

He kissed her shoulder tenderly. His lips dabbing at her skin as he worked his way up her neck, his black hair trailing along, tickling her. His lips smiled as he neared her jaw line and he felt her hands slide down his back. He hummed appreciatively and her legs move a bit farther apart, welcoming his denim clad hips. He huffed a hot breath of a laugh as his hands slid down and fumbled with her jeans button.

Leandra took a short, heated breath. Her eyes losing focus briefly. This was happening to her. All those days looking over to the handsome boy over her shoulder, all the days sending shy glances, all the days of trusting friendship were leading them to this. The morning of the first day of the Dragon Age, she will allow Malcolm to touch her as no ones else has before. Her heart raced with anticipation; her mind giddy with excitement.

Malcolm unfastened her pants button and smiled triumphantly. He slid his hand down the front of the pink lace before him as his other reached to the end table next to the plush sofa. He pressed his rapidly drying lips against Leandra's glittered lower lip and tapped the table with his fingertips, glancing up briefly as he groped for the small, foil wrapped package. Grinning, his brown eyes shined as his fingers closed around the wrapped prophylactic. He glanced down to her face once again, smiling wide. He gave a low laugh and slipped the small package on the flat of her belly, tucking a corner securely under her panties.

Her neck craned down looking to the object that was placed onto her lower stomach. Her blush deepened red as her eyes widened. "Oh shit," she giggled out nervously.

Malcolm drew himself up from his place between her thighs and grasped the bottom of his t-shit, drawing it up and over his head.

He stopped mid action, his hands hidden in the red fabric, his chest partially exposed as a loud slamming rapped on the front door. His brown eyes shot open wide as he threw the end of his shirt down and leaped over the top of the sofa. He sharply gestured to Leandra to keep calm flipped flipped on a nearby lamp then slowly unlocked the worn, brassy dead bolt.

He took a deep breath and turned to doorknob. After a second breath, and a moment to contrive a semi-plausible story, he threw open the door. The sight that greeted him cause his mouth to go dry. A very furious Mister Amell glowered down at him.

Malcolm panicked, his careful planning of a few seconds prematurely fraying. "She, Lea... left home... I mean, de Lawn," his tongue flapped around, apparently also terrorized at the sight. Amell's eyes narrowed. His arms slowly crossing his chest of his sweat soaked dress shirt.

Malcolm Hawke did not bother questioning if he was going to die; only how painfully.

"Try your story again, boy." Aristide growled out as he loomed overhead.

Malcolm audibly gulped and ran the back of his wrist across his forehead, tangling the loose black hair. "She got tired and came home with me for a bit. We tried to call you, but she was really tired and fell asleep bef...," he paused. His story officially unraveled a second time. Amell glared at him again with renewed distrust.

"So, I assume you are not the one who is calling her nightly?

Leandra shot up out from behind the sofa, reaching down to the floor to gather her person effects. Stumbling over a pillow, she righted herself in front of the open door that was presently filled by her very incensed father.

"She was just over for a little bit. She was tired so she took a nap on the s-"

A small sound boomed. The little packed slipped out of it's tucked away location and dropped to the floor between Leandra's white flip-flop clad feet.

The little purple package sat between her inward pointed feet, innocently resting on the carpet. The little, unopened package that had three sets of horrified eyes on it.

Leandra slowly drew her light eyes up to meet her father's. His face hard, he moved to the side and sharply pointed to his truck. Dropping her head in resignation, her dark hair falling over her face, she dejectedly began to plod forward. Doom and bile threatening to rise.

Aristide watched her move forward, noting that as she crossed the threshold, the fingers of two young near-lovers brushed. Not this day.

She sat with her back forced into the corner of the bench seat and the door. Carefully guarding herself from any potential verbal confrontation. Tears she did not intend to fall slid down regardless. He really could not blame her. He was fully aware that she had been spending time with the boy. Malcolm was a nice enough boy, from what the recently moved in family had been able to reveal. Aristide had just sincerely hoped she would have put more thought to waiting. Perhaps now, she will. He truly did not want to lose his little girl. Hopefully Gamlin will not pick up his elder sister's recent habits.

He glanced over to his daughter that so desperately tried to let her wings unfurl. "Hun, Im glad you two at least thought of protection. Good on you both," he sighed deeply. She turned her head and sniffed loudly, regarding the strange statement her father uttered. He grasped the wheel tightly to make a turn as she slowly nodded once.

They drove along the empty night street in silence. Him forcing himself to focus on the road, her staring out the window with her forehead pressed against the glass, head lulling along with the lurching of the truck.

Reaching over, Aristide flicked on the radio, catching Leandra's attention enough to glance over. He pressed a couple buttons before settling on his news talk station of choice. The radio hosts laughed and joked about New Year's resolutions and how they intend to break them. One host laugh by stating that she is already breaking her resolution by making a resolution to not make one. After a pause the radio erupted with laughter asking about the logistics and potential paradoxes.

"Okay, okay, here we go boys," the female host started, a smile could be heard on her voice. "All right, we have the first baby born this year! I swear, the women must time these things!" She laughed, jokingly.

"I hear it's actually very competitive," one of the male hosts added.

An different male host laughed, "Okay, how do they go about these things. Does a circle of women get together and decide that they are all going to conceive at the same time? Okay girls, whoever shoots out the little bugger first on Dragon Age 01 gets a chocolate Häagen-Dazs," the host quipped in a sing-song parody of a female voice.

Aristide groaned at the inappropriate timing of the conversation. Rub it is that his daughter almost- never mind. She is a smart girl. The girl in question broke a small laugh as she listened.

"That's precisely how it goes," The female hostess continued. "Okay, one second, let me finish this. They apparently take time zone into consideration, too. This is kind of exciting! Whoever had a child closest to 0:00:01 Dragon Age wins!"

"Aww! A cute little thing, " the female host cooed.

Thus, the first child of the Dragon Age was born; the first widely known member of the 'elvhan'. At first the child's distinctive features were overlooked as anomalous and unique. The baby boy had excessively smooth skin; women lamented with fond jealousy. His face held the most unique features, a long, straight nose that sloped directly from his little brow, a long, graceful neck, defined, sharp lips, and large, shining eyes. The child was praised, lauded as a potential model in his future years. Over the next few months, children were being born with these unusual features, regardless of particular ethnic background. The elvhan children maintained their parent's skin pigmentation and eye color, but the hair was always feather light and completely straight. The elvhan were the offspring of otherwise, completely normal families. The parents were in no way remarkable. Shared features across the world that transcended ethnic heritage soon became a point of worry. A strange global set of defects only recently making itself known.

As time would march on, the elf children would become strange people, quickly removed from normal society. In many countries, they were deeply shunned and cast away as defects. They were commonly thought of as being mentally inferior to those of a standard human birth. In the country of Tevinter, the racism escalated to astounding proportions. Segregation, beatings and forced labor for the discarded children became common. Eventually, all Tevinter elvhan children were rounded up and placed in concentration camps. This lasted for a few years until it became known that many were fleeing to the island of Seheron and some, further out to the shaded forests. As the first elvhan child grew into manhood, the secondary, discomforting beauty the children developed. With that realization of beauty, and the perceived inferiority, it soon reached a new height of hatred. Newly discovered children were separated from their families immediately and sold for a high price. Some of these elf children grew into craftsmen, some reaching nothing more than slaves, other, fell as low as body slaves. Thoughts on elvhan inferiority, and general xenophobia spread slowly, like a sickness, across all of Thedas.

Other children were born as well, children that were of a stockier frame. These children tended to go undetected for much of their childhood. They only becoming detected later on in life, when they began to mature and fill in a semblance of their adult features, they would become known as dwarfs. Different from the previous incarnation of the term, these children grew into adults a few heads shorter than a normal human, with larger, more bold features. Children who could not understand what a 'dream' was. Many could still pass as humans with little worry for the sigma that was rapidly forming.

Then, horror struck. Unexplainable events. Fire with no direct cause. Hypothermia on a warm day. Sudden vertigo and disorientation across entire groups of people. Odd hieroglyphics appearing on the ground that no one could safely cross. Strange shifting and pulling of air and spirit. The world was going to madness. The only ones who stood any chance was the old order of the Knights Templar. Men and women with specialized training and an odd ability to dispel the mysterious events. A order of men and women of which were rumored to employ harsh tactics to root out the central cause. The cause being people cursed with strange and dangerous abilities. People they called mages.

Leandra's room phone rang loudly deep into the night. Her heart raced as she was rapidly pulled from her dream. She blearily groped at her night stand, tugging the fuzzy lamp's chain on and slamming her down on the pink corded phone. "H-Hello?" She stammered out, rubbing her eyes.

"Lea... Leandra?" The voice sounded so small, quavering.

"Malcolm?" She dropped her hand from her face, "Are you okay? Did something happen?"

"I-I donno," he sobbed quietly into the receiver. "Mom and dad, something, something happened," he hiccuped.

Leandra jumped up to her knees and pressed into the phone. "What happened?" Worry and fright welled into her as she pressed.

"A fire started. I donno how," Malcolm broke down, sobs muffled by the receiver pressing into his hair. "I-I think I did it."

"How is that even possible, you would know. Wouldn't you?" Leandra whispered harshly into the phone. she has heard of people sleep walking and ended up in odd places doing odd things, but her boyfriend was not prone to such actions. If he was, he had said nothing to her of it.

"Leandra, I had a dream. there was this great beast. It looked like a boss in some RPG. It wanted to give me something," Malcolm sniffed loudly into the phone.

"What?"

"In the dream, it said that it knew how I could convince your dad to let us be together. I got really mad at it. I yelled at it," he sobbed out a broken laugh. "I yelled at it that nothing worth having should be given. I got really mad in the dream, everything got hot and orange and fuzzy. Then, I shot fire out of my hands!" The last sentence was in a strangled rasp.

Leandra softly whispered words of encouragement, not entirely knowing what to make of the developing situation.

"I woke up. My entire room was in flames. I had to get out through the window. By the time the firefighters came," his voice trailed off, wracked once again with sobs broken with a mournful cry.

"Where are you?" Leandra barked sternly into the phone.

"I'm at the 7-11, on Geary. I'm on a pay phone." his voice softened and trailed as if looking around for a street name around him.

"Okay, Mal, you stay there. I'll meet up with you soon." She whispered a small comfort and a goodbye. Slamming the phone, she tore through her room, dumping everything in her backpack onto the floor. She threw the bag, open wide, into her bed and pulled the dresser drawer completely from the dresser. "FUCK!" She screeched loudly as the contents of the drawer flew out onto the floor. Grabbing hands fulls of clothing, she throws them at the gaping backpack. Some undergarments, from the top drawer. She throws open the middle drawer and grabs a handful of shirts. Throwing the final dresser drawer to the floor, she picks up a couple changes of jeans and forces all the fabric into the bag, zipper straining at the seams.

She flails about the small room momentarily, desperately attempting to gather her thoughts through the multitude of racing tasks she must perform before leaving. She turns quickly, throwing her hand out and slamming her knuckles into the corner of her nightstand. She shrieks in pain, tears welling up in her steel blue eyes as she shoved her hand tightly between her thighs. Arching her back down, she squeaks a small sob. She raises her head, mentally guarding herself.

Aristide shoved open her door, his anger near peaking. "What are you doi-" His voice caught in this throat. "Leandra?" He stared wide eyed as she threw her flip flops back on and hefted her now filled backpack in a wide arch and over her shoulder. She eyed her father silently as she dipped underneath his arm and bolted for the living room.

Her breath coming in ragged pants, heart racing, she ripped open the china cabinet and slammed her hand through the opening of a large pitcher, extricating a sizable wad of money.

Aristide tore down the hallway, legs finally following his bidding. No, no, no! he mentally screamed. I'm not losing my little girl! He pitched himself forward, feebly reaching to grasp at her backpack. She unwittingly dodges out of the way and jogs to the door.

"LEANDRA AMELL!" Her father screams into the cold night.

"Sorry, daddy, Malcolm needs me," she whispers out, before turning and running out the door.

Aristide pulled his coat from the wall, tearing the small hook out with his. Paying no heed, he jammed his hands into the coat pocket and held up his truck keys. Locating the correct one with quivering hands, he thrust it into the truck door's keyhole, scarring the paint. He threw a look over his shoulder, attempting to keep track of his daughter.

Leandra ignored the world around her, the only goal she held onto clarifying her environment into a single path. She rounded off the main streets and wove between the homes and through small alleyways.

He bit back a gasp as he hefted himself into the large vehicle and jammed the keys in, aggressively turning the engine. Throwing his arm across the seat, he looked blindly out as he smoked out of the driveway, tired shrieking in protest as he sharply angled into a turn. He drove to where he guess she would exit from the labyrinthine paths behind the homes. She was not there. He drove around another potential direction, only to end no better for it. After a half hour, he pulled his truck along side of the road and slammed his forehead into his hands that still grasped the top of the steering wheel and sobbed.

Leandra rounded the corner to see the bright lights of the convenience store. Malcolm, clad only in his nightclothes and a oversized black hoodie, we waited, shivering. Her breath caught as a visible puff as she sighed in relief. Holding her backpack tight against her body, she trotted over to the boy.

Malcolm heard her slapping footsteps approaching, causing him to quickly raise his head. He sighed heavily and ran to meet her in the parking lot. Reaching out, he clutched his hands around her arms and pulled her close, nuzzling into the crook of her neck.

Leandra closed her wet eyes tight as she held her young love. She breathed in deeply, taking in the smell of cold sweat and smoke.

"Leandra," he whispered into her dark hair, "I..."

She pulled at his shoulders, pulling him away just enough to be able to look into his reddened eyes. "What is it?"

"I know what happened. I heard some stuff over the news while I waited." He lowered his head slowly, "I think, I accidentally killed my parents."

Leandra shook him lightly, "Don't say that! It's stupid and impossible! How when you were asleep?" She demanded.

The cashier in the store took notice of the two teens in the middle of his parking lot at 5 in the morning. with all else silent, their conversation was easy to eavesdrop upon. He held the couple in his gaze as he reached for the phone, looking away only long enough to finger in the phone number mentioned on the news. The phone rang twice before he was greeted by a stern, but weary male voice groaning out, "Kirkwall Circle of Magi, how may I help you?"

"Lea," he whispered harshly, holding her tight, "I'm a mage..."