A/N First of all Alice does have a mabari, I just forgot to mention him and he'll show up the next time she does, which will be in the prologue part 3, as the mages just took too long. Second anyone who read my synopsis before a posted this chapter, ignore the line about how Alice doesn't know Elisa's secret, I realized that it was kinda stupid for Elisa's beloved twin sister who's followed her around since the day they were born to not know her secret, she knows.

Stepping over the bodies of the Templars, Elisa tossed the sword she had picked up aside and yanked Blood out of the tree that it pinned the last living Templar to, pointing the blade at his throat "how many of you are out here?" she demanded "how did you know that I would be passing through this way?"

"Not… searching for you" the Templar gasped out "looking for three maleficar… destroyed their phylacteries… helped… initiate… closing net… we'll have them and… you…" with that last word the Templar fell over, dead from the last of his injuries.

"You know" drawled a young man, clad in splintmail and armed with a sword and shield "it's days like these that make me glad I'm not a Templar anymore." He leaned against a tree in a form that looked like he was relaxing but Elisa recognized as a very misleading battle stance, the second she tried anything that looked even remotely hostile he would have his sword out and the battle would be on.

"Oh?" She asked, adopting a similar stance herself, albeit that favored access to the dead Templar's sword then Blood, curious to see if she could fool him. "And why is that?"

"We'll if I was still a Templar I'd be obligated to attack you to avenge my fallen comrades, even though I'm not sure that the poor sods didn't just see the end of that neat little weapon you've got there and jumped the gun. Now that I'm a gray warden I can express my appreciation of your skills and offer you a position in the wardens."

Elisa grinned "Actually I was on my way to Ostagar to join up with you lot."

"You were? You were going to travel all the way to Ostagar by your lonesome self to become a gray warden?"

"Yea"

"Are you all right?"

"I may be a little crazy" Elisa's grin twisted a little "I think the jury's out on that one."

"Well, I'll have to run you by Duncan when we get to Ostagar but other than that welcome aboard. All I ask is that if you do decide that you are crazy make sure it's the 'ohh pretty colours' kind and not 'Princess Stabbitty, stab, kill, kill'"

Elisa held out her hand "Deal."

The man took it "My name's Alistair by the way and you are?"

"Elisa, so we headed straight to Ostagar?"

"Well I was originally sent here to get more mages to join the army at Ostagar and maybe recruit one into the gray wardens, the first parts a bust, there's no way they're letting any mages out of the tower for a while. But a two of the mages they're hunting out here aren't maleficar, one was about to get the brand for the horrific crime of being born with a unique ability and the other's only guilty of helping her friends and running when she had the chance. So I thought that I'd go in, recruit them and leave before anyone realizes that only the Warden-Commander can invoke the right of conscription, you in?"

"Sounds like fun."

oOo

The day before…

Solona Amell tried to quench the butterflies in her stomach as the Templars lead her up the stairs to the Harrowing chamber, relax, she told herself you're one of Irving's best students, Jason passed his Harrowing and he's half the mage you are, you'll be fine. She tried to focus on what spells and effective combinations she knew with limited success, her mind bouncing between how to cast a winter's grasp spell and Templar swords. Her thoughts were interrupted by Irving gently nudging her and telling her to touch the bowl of lyrium in the middle of the room, she did so and was engulfed by a flash of bright light before everything went black.

"Solona, I hate to say this but you cannot pass your Harrowing passed out in the middle of the floor" a voice lightly admonished nearby.

Solona opened her eyes to see an alien landscape; the sky above her was constantly shifting and changing colours, far off islands floated in the sky, shifting from mountains to deserts before vanishing entirely. The ground she lay on was at least solid, if the colours kept making subtle changes that she could barely fathom, much less describe. On her right was a statue of a grotesque creature that appeared human save for the tentacles it had in the place of arms and the mutated head. On her left, grinning and holding a small stick was… her best friend, Neira Surana.

"Neira, where are we and what the hell are you doing here?" Solona groaned as she picked herself off the floor. "This is my Harrowing; you're not allowed to be here."

"We're in the fade of course" Neira replied "I was playing with Jorran's dreams again when I felt you wake up, since it was 2 in the morning I was a bit curious as to where you'd gone until Jorran's dream showed me that you were taking your Harrowing" She shrugged, then grinned "I imagine that he'll get in trouble for not being there. After that it was simply a matter of waiting until you entered the fade again."

Solona wondered yet again what exactly Jorran had done to Neira that caused her to use her unique abilities to manipulate the fade to torture Jorran with nightmares almost every night, the poor man hadn't gotten a good night's sleep since Neira had started on him, almost 2 months ago. She shook her head and returned to the matter at hand "You're not allowed to interfere with my Harrowing" she reminded Neira.

"Technically the parameters of the test state that you must enter the fade and resist a demon using only what you find within the fade" She spread her arms, stick still in one hand "I consider myself well and truly found"

"I don't want you to help"

Neira frowned "Why the hell not?"

"I want to prove to myself that I can do this" Solona explained "I'm second only to you among the apprentices and I'm better than most of the junior mages and I need to do this alone."

Neira shrugged again "Have it your way than, I'll just watch from the sidelines" she flashed an amused, predatory grin "besides it'll be fun to watch you tear a couple of demons in half, you'll be done in no time"

Neira vanished, the fade rippling briefly where she had been. Solona walked down the path to explore the island she had found herself on, nervousness forgotten, the demons didn't stand a chance.

oOo

Present

Solona ran through the forest alongside Neira, cursing Jowan and his idiocy, if he hadn't started practicing blood magic, then they probably wouldn't have branded Neira's abilities as blood magic and they sure as hell wouldn't have branded her maleficar for helping the two of them, thank the maker Neira had managed to switch out her phylactery with a fake, though she probably didn't want to know how. However Neira had managed it, they had been able to destroy Jowan and Neira's phylacteries and escape, but not before being confronted by the Templars and watching Jowan use blood magic on them, hence the running for their lives. Spotting a glint of metal armour up ahead, Solona pulled Neira to the left only to see more Templars coming from that direction, behind her a third group of Templars in addition to the ones that had been chasing them closed in. They were trapped.

"Okay, I'm sure you mages are eager to get on with your escaping and you Templars are eager to get on with your holy smiting but if you could all wait a moment to see how these lovely ladies feel about the rite of conscription and then I'll be on my way" Called out the grey warden that had been talking to Irving earlier that day as he strode into the Templars midst, followed by an armoured women about their age who carried something that looked suspiciously like a mage's staff with a long blade at the end.

"You can't be serious" yelled Knight-Commander Cullen "These are two maleficar guilty of blood magic-"

"You know full well that neither of these girls are blood mages, otherwise much fewer of you, if any at all would still be standing considering the conventional power that these two have displayed time and time again. And so I ask again, what do you ladies think of the right of conscription?"

Neira and Solona looked at each other, than looked at the Templars surrounding them. Neira spoke up "Right now it's the best thing since sliced bread"

"Well than I hereby conscript the both of you into the grey wardens; let's be off before the nice Templars decide to try their luck anyhow" Alistair replied before walking off into the forest "This here is Elisa by the way" indication the armored women that had been following him as well "She's a new recruit just like you two"

Neira looked Elisa over "Well aren't you interesting" she murmured.

"I could say the same about you" Elisa replied, Neira grinned

"Just a quick question ser, if you don't mind me asking" Solona inquired, remembering something that she had heard from an older mage in the tower.

"Depends on the question but go ahead"

"I though the grey wardens only ever had one mage at a time, why did you recruit the both of us?"

"Well technically only the warden commander is allowed to invoke the right of conscription so let's get out of here before the nice Templars remember either of those facts shall we?"

A/N I promise that the next prologue will be the last and then we'll start at Ostagar. Also, yes Neira is a dreamer and that will play apart later on and secondly, the exchange between Neira and Elisa was flirting to some extent but it was also remark on how these two unique individuals noticed things in each other that were hidden away from normal eyes.

Again Please R&R