Afterlife

Author: USA Tiger

Disclaimer: Dragon Age is property of BioWare. The characters 'Christen' and 'Lisa' are property of myself and the other person they are based on.

Author Note: Long long long time since an update but I have been working on this on and off. It's shorter than the first chapter cause I'm doing shorter chapters now. It's also unbetaed, my best minion is unable to look it over cause of phone and internet problems. So I tried to catch what I could.

Also, I have a twitter now, you can follow me usa_tiger1983 where I post status updates, fic updates and fic rec and anything else.

Warning: Cursing mostly.

Chapter 2

Lisa's day started off much like any other day. She got up, smoked a cigarette, checked her email, and fanfics updates on her computer. Afterward she would usually get ready to start her day by opening her shop.

Lisa lived in a single two story building that had an apartment on top with a store space on the bottom. Her pride and joy was the tattoo and piercing parlor she owned and ran called Afterlife. Some days were busier than others but in general Lisa had good thing going.

Things changed today though, when she received a text message from her best friend Christen.

"Lisa heading over. Don't open the store yet, I need help with something. I'll explain when I get there."

Lisa wondered what that was about… oh well she would found out soon enough... and it was a good thing she was the owner of Afterlife, that meant she could run the store hours whenever she wanted so waiting a few more wouldn't hurt. Besides, she didn't really get any good business until the late afternoon anyway. And it gave her a bit more time to read fanfics!


"Where are the musicians?" Christen blinked and glanced over at Zevran then back at the road.

"Hmm?"

"Who is playing this strange music and singing? We are the only ones in this car thing," Zevran asked again.

"Oh, that's coming from my radio, I got a mixed CD in," Christen said as she tapped her radio on her dashboard. "The music is a recording by artists and is played over radio waves, satellite or by a CD or tape." She glanced over and laughed softly at the confused look on Zevran's face. "Sorry, I'm not really good at explaining it, but this is just a recording of a band. The CD is mostly different types of rock and some stuff from Japan and other places."

"Rock? How is a rock music?" Zevran asked fascinated.

"It's not a real rock, it's short for Rock and Roll. It's split into different sub types, classic, metal, heavy metal, death metal, grunge, so on and so on. You also got rap, jazz, country, techno, pop, the list sorta goes on really," Christen tried to explain. "Here just listen, if you hear something you don't like just tell me and I'll skip to the next song." She turned the sound up just a tiny bit and Zevran relaxed back into the seat.

He found for the most part he liked the music that Christen's CD played, only having to ask once for her to change it. The songs he liked most were 'Camel Walk' by Southern Culture on the Skids and 'Washed my balls' by Whateverdude. Christen just snorted softly and shook her head, somehow that last one didn't surprise her. (1)

Soon Christen finally slowed the car to a stop and parked next to a building. Zevran followed her lead and unbuckled then got out, making sure of the hood of the jacket was pulled over his head.

"Afterlife?" He asked as he read the neon sign above the shop's door.

"My friend's tattoo parlor," Christen explained as she led the way to a set of stairs in the back. Zevran perked up slightly, he liked tattoos and knew how to do them. Before knocking on the door Christen turned back to Zevran holding up one hand. "Just… just wait out here for a moment will ya? Don't go anywhere."

"I will be right here, mi amor," Zevran assured her with a charming smile. Christen returned his smile with a weak smile of her own then turned to knock on the door.

"Come on in, girly," Lisa's voice came from the other side of the door. Christen opened the door and went inside, finding Lisa sitting at her computer smoking. "What cha needed help with?" Christen glanced at the door for a moment then back at her friend.

"The most insane thing happened last night, or this morning, one of the two," Christen said as she waved her hand. "I mean really insane."

"What is it?" Lisa asked as she snubbed out her cigarette and leaned forward. Christen gave a frustrated sigh as she rubbed her forehead then pushed her hand through her hair.

"It's near impossible to explain and for you to be believing me, better for you to see," Christen said as she had no idea how to explain what happened the night before without sounding completely insane. She walked back over to the door and motioned for Zevran come in. Lisa was surprised when Christen brought someone into her house then a grin spread across her face when she saw it was guy, she'd been hoping Christen would find herself a guy.

Lisa's eyebrows went up as the guy lifted his head and she could see under the hood he was wearing, he had golden hair, gold colored contacts and a tribal tattoo on the left side of his face.

"Anyone tell you that you look a lot like Zevran Arainai?" She asked with a grin.

"Oh really? This Zevran must be a very handsome man indeed then," The man said with deep voice with an accent that sounded close to either Spanish or Italian or a mix of the two. In fact he sounded just like Zevran from Dragon Age. Christen smirked and reached up, pulling the guy's hood down and Lisa's eyebrows shot up again, there was a pair of pointy ears sticking out of his hair. Lisa blinked then cracked a smile and laughed, giving Christen a quick glance.

"Either your man has a Zevran fetish or he is the one and only crow from Antiva!" She said as she stood up and walked over to Zevran, reaching to feel his ears. Zevran startled and nearly reached for a dagger he had hidden on him but managed to stop himself. Lisa blinked as she felt smooth warm ears that twitched under her touch.

"Personal space woman!" Christen barked. Lisa stepped back gapping a bit and turned to her friend.

"No way," She said.

"Yes way," Christen responded with a nod. "This is Zevran, the real Zevran." Lisa started to pace a bit, Zevran looking worriedly at Christen. "She's fine, give her a second to process there. Here, let me turn on the TV, you can see what else it does besides play games." Christen turned on the TV and turned it to Cartoon Network then explained to Zevran how the remote worked. Zevran sat down and watched fascinated as the cartoon characters moved around on the screen.

"Maker's hairy ballsacks," Lisa said as she glanced at Zevran again. She lit up with a grin and grabbed Christen's arm. "Can I have Cullen? Oh sweet Andraste… I will give up smoking if you can get me Cullen…"

"Lisa, I have no idea what so ever how Zevran got here," Christen said. She pulled her friend into the kitchen and explained what happen. From her game glitching weirdly with the final cut scene to the sudden storm and finding Zevran in the road outside her house to what had happen that morning. Lisa opened the fridge and got out a couple of beers, handing one to Christen who gratefully took it and popped the top. "And it's not just a Zevran, he's the Zevran from my save file. He thinks I'm my character, that I'm Christen Surana."

"Ohhh, you already got Zevran in love with you," Lisa said with a grin.

"Lisa, be serious," Christen said with a groan. "He doesn't understand that I'm not the Christen from his world, that I'm just another version."

"Alright," Lisa said. "We'll just show him my game then." The girls reentered the living room. "Hey there Zev," Lisa said as she sat down in front of the TV.

"This thing is quite entertaining," Zevran said as he pulled Christen to sit down beside him. "What is that?" he asked pointing at the bottle in Christen's hand.

"Beer," Christen said. "You can't have mine, I'll go grab you one to try," she said as she pulled herself back up.

"So you think the Freakie is your Christen?" Lisa asked as she flipped the channels to the one needed to play her X-Box 360.

"Freakie?" Zevran asked with a tilt of his head.

"It's her nickname," Lisa said as she started to fight with her system to read the game disk.

"Ah," Zevran said. "And yes, she is mi amor. I would know her anywhere."

"But she isn't the Christen from your world. She's a version of her but not the one you knew. Ah got it!" Lisa said as the X-box finally read her game disk. "She was never an Elf and never a mage."

"I wouldn't mind being the Elf part," Christen said as she came back and handed Zevran an open beer. Zevran blinked at the bottle.

"It's cold," He said.

"Beer tastes better cold," Christen said. "I think they drink it warm in places like England still but people usually drink it cold here." Zevran hummed then shrugged his shoulders and took a swig of the drink. He watched Lisa boot up a game file then leaned forward as instead of his amor and the others, as he was expecting, instead it was a completely different human woman, that bastardo Alistair, Lelianna and Shale.

"I do not understand," Zevran said as he leaned forward to get a closer look at the screen. "Where is mi amor?"

"This is my character I made," Lisa said. "You can make the character in the game look how you want, with what available in the game anyway."

"I just happen to make a character base off myself this time around, usually I make up completely new characters," Christen added in.

"Here, let me start a new game," Lisa said. She quit her current file and started a new one, Zevran watching as the two women made a whole new character. This one male with brown hair that happen to be a Dalish Elf.

"…. I do not remember anyone like that," Zevran said softly.

"He's made up. Well maybe in a different a version of your world he exists," Christen said. "But here he's just a character we made up. Like the character from my game, I made her up and based her looks after mine. She was real in your world, I'm not saying she wasn't but here I'm the only Christen and sadly I've never been an Elf."

"You wish you were an Elf?" Zevran asked amused.

"I love Elves, I would want to be an Elf…. Or a werewolf," Christen said.

"Werewolf?" Zevran asked startled. "Those monstrous cursed beings?"

"…. I've got to introduce you to horror films," Christen said with a sigh while Lisa laughed. "Werewolves are fantasy here like Elves. Maybe anyway. So there are different versions and I'm fascinated with them and dragons."

"So you understand Zevran? About your Christen?" Lisa asked as she turned to look at the Elf.

"Mi Amor died and was reborn here," Zevran said making Christen groan softly.

"Not… quite what I meant," Lisa said with a huff of air. She shrugged at Christen, she tired.

"Ok, let's change the subject," Christen said as she leaned forward. "What are we going to do with him?"

"Whelp," Lisa said as she got off the floor and walked back to her kitchen, grabbing another beer from the fridge. "He can't get a job without papers."

"And he can't get papers," Christen said then sighed deeply through her nose.

"Papers?" Zevran asked confused.

"Official paperwork that say you exist," Christen explained. "With your name, when you were born, where you were born, your parents, stuff like that."

"So… why can't I get these 'papers'?" Zevran asked. Christen shook her head while Lisa lit up a fresh cigarette.

"If the government learned about ya they would snatch you up in a heartbeat," She said after taking a drag off her cigarette. "If they got their claws in ya, well that would be bad."

"Very bad," Christen agreed as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back. "We could try that Deep Web place, you can get false papers that way. But I haven't got a damn clue how to get to that part of the internet." Lisa wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

"Too risky," She said then lit up. "He can work for me. I could pay him in cash, no paperwork needed. He can make a living that way."

"You own a tattoo place yes?" Zevran asked, he quite enjoyed learning how to tattoo people while he was in the Crows.

"Yeah," Lisa said and patted Zevran on the shoulder. "You should be happy Zev, I don't take on apprentices easy. I will teach you how to use modern tattoo equipment."

"Better than him just sitting around my house all day when I'm at work," Christen agreed then looked at Zevran. "You don't seem the type to be happy doing that, no offence."

"No offence taken, mi bella," Zevran said with a purring tone.

"What about his looks?" Lisa asked. "Not everyone plays Dragon Age but those who do are going to notice that he looks like his game character. And his ears of course, those kinda stand out."

"Got that one figured out already," Christen said with a smirk. "Cosmetic surgery. It'll explain his looks and his ears. There are lots of people who use surgery to look like characters and fantasy creatures, all he's got to say is that he's a really big fan of the 'character' and spent the money to look like 'Zevran' and to get his ears reconstructed into Elf ears. He can also just say he got his named changed to Zevran."

"And if people ask, we can just say he's from Italy or Spain," Lisa said as she sat down at her computer.

"Or Brazil, I can see him being from Brazil," Christen said. "Say he's half and half, one Brazilian parent, one Italian?"

"Maybe, his accent can carry one or the other," Lisa agreed. "Ohh how about-" Zevran tuned the girls out, only listening with half an ear as he turned back to the 'TV' and the game. His amor and her friend had a better idea on what to do than him in this case. Curious Zevran leaned forward and pressed on the stick thing on the controller watching as the made-up Dalish moved forward on the screen.

'What a marvelous device,' he thought in delight. The buttons were a bit confusing and it looked different from the one Christen had used that morning, but he amused himself by playing with it and learning how it worked.

"Having fun?" Christen asked a little later leaning against him and watching his progress. Zevran let a grin loose as her warm body pressed against his.

"Yes, these game things are quite entertaining. It is interesting to see my world in this light. But I am curious as to why there are different wardens," Zevran said.

"Well BioWare, that's who makes the Dragon Age games, set it up so you can make your own character and use one of 6 different backgrounds for 7 different characters. The mage characters Amell and Surana have the same background except one's human and the other Elf. Kinda found that annoying to tell the truth but I just make up my own expanded back stories for my characters. The character you saw on Lisa's other save file was Cousland I think, I mean the character had swords on their back so I'm thinking Cousland. The other games have different character backgrounds and story lines."

"So what are these?" Zevran asked.

"Well you know about the two different mages, the Cousland noble and you saw the Dalish. The other two are dwarves, one noble and one castless, and the last is a City Elf," Christen explained since Zevran was going to have to learn all this anyway. "And you get to choose their abilities and class. There are limits of course unless you are playing the computer version with mods. Dwarves can't be mages, if you're a mage character you have to start at the tower of Magi and if you're a non-mage human you have to be a noble. That's one thing I like about games like Skyrim better, you can make up your back story and choose how to fight."

"Skyrim?" Zevran asked.

"Different game from a different series. I'll show you some time," Christen said waving off the question. Lisa came over with a note pad and a pen that she had gone looking for.

"Ok, I think we came up with a pretty basic history for Zevran here, we left it open so Zev could fill in gaps," she looked up at Zevran and pointed her pen at him. "But you'll have to keep up with whatever you tell people so we don't get caught in a lie."

"It's gonna be a lot of work, I mean we're gonna have to teach him a lot about our world," Christen said. "You might be cool with what you've seen so far but it's gonna be a culture shock sooner or later." Zevran didn't know about that, he found this new world fascinating.

"So what now?" Lisa asked as she took her controller and shut down the game.

"I guess I should take him to Walmart and get him some stuff of his own," Christen said looking Zevran over. "He can't wear my stuff."

"He seems to wear what he's got pretty well. And really, a Tri-force shirt?" Lisa asked with a giggle. Christen shrugged with a smirking grin.

"I couldn't help it, which those pointy ears he already looks like a Hylian," she said then snorted. "A uni-sex t-shirt and a pair of men's jogging pants, yeah no he needs his own stuff."

"What is this 'Walmart'?" Zevran asked curious. "And a 'Hylian'?"

"Walmart is this super common store chain, sells all sorts of stuff kinda like a giant market place but kinda not," Christen said. "And I'll explain the other thing later on." Zevran remembered the wonderful markets and bazaars in Antiva, one of the things he had missed about his home.

"Well I am game," he said with a grin.

"Okay, let's get this over with. Might as well pick up some groceries as well," Christen said as she stood up from the couch with a grunt.

"Let me grab my bag and shit," Lisa said.

"You coming?" Christen asked with a raised eyebrow, Zevran standing up from the couch as well. He thought the couch really was quiet comfy.

"Beauty of owning your own business, you can set your own hours," Lisa said with a grin. "And I won't be busy until much later anyway so I got time to kill. I don't wanna miss Zev's reactions to our world."

"Gods you're easily amused," Christen said with a laugh.

"Yeppers!" Lisa agreed, getting her things then following them out of her above-store living space.


Zevran looked around with great interest as Christen navigated the thing she called a 'parking lot' filled to the brim with dozens upon dozens of the car things. The ride over had been short, going through the small city that had been filled with buildings like Zevran had never seen before. It was loud, bright, hectic… he loved it to pieces.

"This place nothing compared to a major city," Christen said when Zevran made a comment about it. "Even Memphis is way busier and just more than this place. I can only imagine what someplace like New York City would be like for you."

"You gotta take him to Beale Street one day," Lisa said from the back seat. "Ooo, maybe see what upcoming concerts are gonna be at Mud Island."

"Let's just get Zevran settled into his life now before we start throwing things like that at him," Christen said as she finally pulled into a parking spot. She looked at Zevran with a serious look on her face. "Now remember, if anyone asks about your ears or anything, it's just cosmetic surgery you got done. Otherwise ignore any looks cause people are going to stare either way or just completely ignore you in turn."

"Si, do not worry, mi amore," Zevran said. "Everything will be alright."

"Gods I hope so," Christen said with a sigh wondering if taking Zevran to Walmart on his very first full day of being an Earthling was a mistake. All three got out of the car and walked up toward the entrance to the mega store, Zevran's golden eyes darting about as he watched other people in the parking lot. It was loud, hot, muggy, and that strange scent in the air was worse here with so many of the 'cars'. He loved the chaos in all of it.

At the doors he jumped back slightly as they opened on their own.

"Are you sure there is no magic here?" he asked in a low tone.

"It's just a set of automatic doors, Zev," Christen said. "See that thing right there above the doors? It senses when something large is coming toward it and it sends a signal to the motors on the doors to slid open. Hey Lisa, grab a buggy." Zevran looked around, the building was lit up brightly with those strange light things like at Christen's home and he could see windows on the ceiling letting natural light in. He took in the rows upon rows of shelves filled to the brim with things that he had no idea what they were or what they could be used for. He saw all sorts of people walking around some pushing metal carts like the one Lisa had or were riding some strange device that had a smaller version of the cart on the front.

"We should start with clothes," Lisa said as she pushed the cart toward the men's section.

"Yeah, we can get the foods afterward," Christen agreed. "Ugh wait, let's go to the Subway in the back first, I'm starving. We haven't eaten yet."

"It's your show boss," Lisa agreed.

"So Zev, are you picky about what you eat?" Christen asked.

"No, there is very little I will not eat," Zevran said. "Sometimes you cannot accord to be picky. But I do love a good fish chowder."

"This is just a Subway, I don't think they serve any chowders," Christen said. "But they do got tuna and seafood for sandwiches." Zevran shrugged his shoulders.

"I will eat whatever you pick for me, mi amore," he said.

"They got the toppings laid out so you can chose what you want on your sandwich," Lisa said. They walked down past the aisles of food in the grocery section, a few things he saw on the shelves the thought he might know what they were but many he had no clue. At the very back of the store they walked into the small restaurant area, standing in front of the counter. The girl who came to serve them looked stared at Zevran for a few seconds then turned to Christen who ordered them three sandwiches.

"Here, this is a Coke, is a very popular drink here," Christen said as she fixed Zevran's drink and handed the cup to him then sipped on her Dr Pepper. Zevran followed suit then jumped at the strange taste.

"That… is different," he said as he took another drink. "But good, very good."

"It's gonna be fun introducing you to the different drinks we have," Christen laughed as they sat down at the table furthest away from the counter once they had their sandwiches. Zevran delighted in the tuna sandwich that was ordered for him then stole a bite of Christen's BLT who gave him an evil look and held her food away while Lisa laughed.

"I wouldn't do that, she gets a bit defensive about her food," Lisa warned him. "She might bite."

"Kinky," Zevran purred but remembered how his Christen had been the same way though it was because the Templars would take food from the mages as punishment, at least that's how she explained it.

"Just ask and I'll tear you off a piece, don't steal my noms," Christen said with a roll of her eyes while Lisa laughed again.

"I promise, mi amore, not to do so again," Zevran said then grinned and leaned closer. "But more on the biting thing." Lisa nearly choked on her food laughing while Christen sighed and shook her head, but had a small smile on her lips.


(1) Whateverdude is a real band that's local to Memphis, around where I'm from, and 'Washed my balls' is one of their most popular songs. Just look up their band name and the song if you're curious, it's a really funny song.