"Dragonslayer, awaken!"
Those were the words that shook me from what I thought had been a good night's sleep. I sat up and saw I was clasping a sword, my fingers laced around the hilt which lay on my chest, the top resting a little below my chin. The sword itself—far longer and heavier than anything I would have chosen to wield—was a heavy weight pressing me from sternum to ankles and precisely centered down the middle of me.
"Maker, where am I?" I rose up from the hard, uncomfortable surface and was overwhelmed with vertigo. Pushing the heavy sword off myself, I swung my legs around so I was seated on the side of a—What in the Void? Was I back in Orzammar where the dwarves slept on stone?
My sense of vertigo increased and I lurched to my feet, knocking the top off a ceramic jar. Doubling over the jar, I hurled the contents of my stomach into it. It was then I saw the glimmer of coins and gems, now splattered with vomit. It had never stopped me before, why should it now? I reached into the urn and pulled them out, wincing with disgust as I wiped off my spew and stuck them into a pocket.
Except there was no pocket there. The treasure fell onto the floor as I examined my armor. It was strange and foreign-looking. I'd never seen its like.
"Where am I?" I muttered aloud, my voice echoing back to me in the sepulcher-like… sepulcher.
The skeletal remains stacked in cubbies carved into earthen walls gave it away. I was in some strange mausoleum. The disorientation overwhelmed me again. Something here made it seem almost as if these dead could rise again. I stumbled to a raised platform and nearly sat in the lap of a skeleton wearing a crown.
"Argh!" I shouted, leaping away from the bones. When I had collected myself I cleared his bones away. "Well, I guess you don't need this chair any longer."
I was answered with a sigh of relief, as if the souls of a thousand trapped dead were finally freed to seek their way to the next life. The animation and almost-life of this place went out of it with that audible sigh. Now it was as still and peaceful as death.
"Dragonborn?"
That voice! It was the one that called me from my dream. Dragonborn? Who was this person or thing? Dragons. I shivered but not from the cold, dank air of the catacombs, but from the memory.
I pulled the sword from Alistair's grasp. "Be king," I said. Then I ran. I met the Archdemon, the dragon Urthemiel, the tainted old god, sword to belly. I skidded on the slate tiles at the top of the tower Drakkon, my slide lubricated by the blood of darkspawn, dwarves, elves and men. The sword cut a path along his underbelly and tainted guts spilled out behind me as I slid free of the dying dragon.
Running up his tail, I climbed his back using the sword as a piton. Finally I plunged Alistair's weapon between the dragon's eyes and then I struggled to free it. As it came loose, a brilliant light shot from the dragon, consuming me in its brilliance. It all ended with a mighty blast.
There were no other memories until now.
"Dragonborn, are you there?"
I knew they were looking for me just as I knew that the name Dragonborn was being used in much the same way Warden had been.
Someone needed rescuing and the Maker had seen fit to make me do it yet again.
~o~o~o~
Notes: I have often toyed with the notion of either the Dragonborn going to Thedas, or the Warden going to Skyrim. Here is one of those two!
Please review!
Actually, the story that really taunts me is Myrielle's "Dragonrend" set in Thedas. Read that story, it is awesome!