DISCLAIMER: Dragon Age: Origins is owned by Bioware, I do not own anything. Any characters that you see are a result of the brilliant people who created Bioware. I do not make any money off of this story. I simply enjoy writing for pleasure.

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Ostagar was huge.

It unsettled her being surrounded by so much open space. She was accustomed to the safety of the Tower Walls and for some reason this made her feel excited.

Things had changed.

She halfheartedly listened to Duncan's request to find the other Grey Warden.

Old men were forever making requests of her.

All her life was spent doing what she was told and still it ended in chaos. What was the damned point?

The King seemed like a fool.

He reminded her of Jowan. All bright eyes and hopefulness.

She sincerely hoped that she was wrong, otherwise this battle could kill them all.

Suri bought a piece of roasted lamb on a spit from some nearby camp followers and wandered the length of the camp.

She ignored most people who tried to talk to her.

She saw Wynne from the Circle Tower lurked by the Tranquil Mages. They must be the Mages that Irving sent to the battle.

She moved through the camp with a sense of freedom she had never experienced before.

This 'death sentence' was actually pretty amazing.

She wondered what the Joining could really do to her.

Kill her?

At this point she wasn't sure that wouldn't be a blessing. Her dreams were the only thing that seemed to give her comfort anymore.

A release into the Fade where she could be with Cullen and magic no longer was a curse.

Yeah right.

Suri jerked her head up at the sound of arguing. She saw a Circle Mage argued with a knight of some kind. Grand Cleric..blah blah... She recognized the Mage. He was an insufferable little twit.

Just her luck.

Suri turned around to walk away when the knight in question addressed her.

"You know one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together."

Suri turned on her heel to face the knight. She smirked slightly at his glib tone. He was attractive, well built and he had big brown puppy dog eyes.

He looked vaguely familiar.

Which was impossible.

He smiled brightly and she noticed it made him more approachable. He reminded her of Cullen. How predictable.

She was seeing Cullen everywhere.

She was possessed.

"You are a very strange man," she replied in an effort to discourage him from a conversation with her. She turned to leave.

"A lot of women tell me that," replied the knight doggedly. He began to speak about being a Grey Warden. He said he hoped she wasn't a mage.

"I am indeed a mage," she replied with a bit of frown.

He explained he was a former Templar.

She cursed under her breath. Alistair blinked in surprise.

She hissed out a low breath and interrupted his rambling. "Why don't you stop thinking about me as a woman."

Alistair looked taken back but he nodded. He explained that he would accompany her in preparation of the Joining.

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After going into the Wilds, she managed to make it back in one piece only to have the other two recruits die during the initiation.

No wonder the Grey Wardens are so elite, they loose sixty -seven percent of their initiates, if this was any indication.

Then she went to a meeting with the King who seemed even more of a fool then before.

Lighting a bloody torch? Really?

If anything, at least Alistair agreed with her there.

She felt detached for the rest of the day all the way up until she managed to get herself shot full of arrows.

Her last thought was of Cullen and she wondered what he was doing, while she bleed copious amounts onto the stone floor at the top of the Tower of Ishal.

She felt regret that she couldn't have held him one last time before she died.

And then she felt nothing at all when blackness overtook her.

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Cullen heard later that she had died at Ostagar.

Cullen felt numb.

He frequently spent hours reliving those brief moments from that night so long ago.

However, Suri was gone for good.

She had been left for dead, her corpse rotting in the open fields of some battle she had no business being a part of. Cullen dreamed of her often but never again would he feel the touch of her lips or smell the scent of her skin.

Cullen requested a leave of absence and mourned her. Even Greagoir could not begrudge him that.

Cullen saw the Knight-Commander's face when he had informed him, and it had been bleak. Cullen even suspected the old man would mourn her in his own way despite how betrayed he had felt over the Jowan incident.

Cullen believed that secretly he was glad she had been conscripted. Now, it didn't even matter.

They had sent her to her death all the same.

He felt hollow and empty inside.

He was filled with a yearning, a hunger that never eased and he prayed daily for some demon to show itself and take him from this place in the name of a glorious death that he had trained his whole stupid life for.

For Cullen, it felt as though time had ceased and nothing would ever be normal again.