I do not own Dragon Age, nor any of the characters

Prologue

Have you ever stood, watching helplessly, as your entire world collapsed on itself, never to rise again? I have.

I wish I could explain with words the terrible agony and misery that follows such an event. But there are no words in Elvish, Dwarvish, Qunlat, or the tongues of Men that could accurately describe such feelings. They are beyond this world. Beyond anything we should ever have to experience.

But they still occur nonetheless.

I was only a child when the gods vanished from the world, leaving it in darkness and disarray. I do not remember the event of their disappearance, but I do remember the slow, awful aftermath. The world lost its luster, a little by little. The wards that the gods had set to protect us, their people, began to crumble. The borders of our empire shrunk as wild beasts, plagues, and infighting tore down what once was magnificent and beautiful. When peace finally came, the People were only a hollow shell of our former glory. I lost my family to the civil war and the plague, and even as a child, I could not help but feel that the worst had yet to come.

And come it did.

Throughout the millennia after, scholars and historians wrote about how the 'great and mighty' Tevinter tore down our 'weak and feeble' empire, but they never seem to mention that it was already dead. They used our frailty after centuries of disaster as an excuse to call us inferior, lesser, and to chain us to their will. Hundreds killed themselves rather than be put in shackles by the shemlen, despite the fact that we were becoming shemlen ourselves.

For centuries, I used to think that they were the lucky ones. I was one of many who were put to work mining stone from the quarries, stone that would build Minrathous and the empire that choked the last vestiges of life from my people. I threw myself into the work with a bitterness and a hatred that could not be quenched. The world around me disappeared and all that was left was the work. I did not even notice that fifty years had passed until one of the slave drivers pointed out to his superior that I had not aged in five decades. That was the end of my days in the quarry.

After experiment upon experiment and nothing being found that would explain why I was still ageless, while the rest of my people were growing old and gray, I was sold to a particularly powerful magister who kept me in his house like a goose that laid golden eggs. I went wherever he went, and he would show me off to the court and the magisterium as though I were a dragon that he had tamed to be a house pet. The truth was, I was anything but tame.

If there was any advantage to be gleaned from the centuries that I spent in chains, it was that I had learned one valuable lesson: the gods who decided our fates were long gone. My fate rested in my hands and mine alone. No god would give me the freedom I craved. I had to take it.

And so I did, with a rusted blade in one hand and a ball of lightning in the other. It was then that my life truly began.

My name is Halia Lavellan. Welcome to my story, mortals. I hope you enjoy yourselves.

A/N: Yeah, I know. Another Dragon Age story. I just can't help myself. The idea of an immortal Lavellan from Arlathan was tugging at my creativity and wouldn't let me go. So here's a little introduction to my Lavellan!

I'm still working on "Invictus." I've not given it up. I'm just struggling to make it publishable. The crazy side of me wants the chapter one way, while the more reasonable side wants it another way, so it's a bit of a fight to make it all make sense.

Anyway, I should have the actual first chapter for this story up in the next few days, but let me know what you think of this idea. I feel that it has promise. Dareth shiral~