This Ain't Kansas, Toto

Author: USA Tiger

Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age, it's property of BioWear. But the original character 'Christen' does belong to me.

Author Note: I've always found self-insert type fics to be a pretty interesting and funny read and I've always wanted to write one myself. So this is my first ever attempt at trying a fic like this, so 'Christen' is based a lot off me and how I thought I might react to some situations. And…. umm… one of the ideas that uses here is totally Asilyessam's fault! _ _ She put the idea in my head!

And Christen is a guy's name, was a bit shocked to find it on a list of boy names.

Also Asilyessam is my beta for this ficy.

Warnings: Ah… a couple of same sex couples, not your cup of tea please hit the back button. And a lot of cursing on my character's part.

Chapter 1

Christen had always had a great fondness for video games, one could almost call her an addict in fact. It had always been one of her favorite things to do, other than reading or watching movies of course, and a perfect way to pass the time during the weekends. It had been that way ever since her step-father's Nintendo and continued on from there.

As such, she was sitting on her bed playing one of her favorites on her game system, Dragon Age. Oh it wasn't her all time favorite series, that honor still belonged to the Zelda games, but it certainly was up there. And what wasn't there to like about Dragon Age? She loved a good story and loved how you could change the storyline just slightly by making different choices each play through. She loved the characters, some more than others, she loved creating her own character within the game and giving them a back story.

But, if there was one thing she didn't like about the first game, which she was currently playing, it was the amount of glitches in the game. Christen had never played a game that had so many bloody glitches in it!

"Not again," Christen groaned as her game froze up. This was the third time the game had just up and froze on her like this. Not bad considering she only had a copy of the game for a couple of months, but it was no less annoying. "Thank god I save my game already," She muttered to herself as she tried to get the game to unfreeze, pressing the PS3 button on top of the controller. When that didn't work she sighed and blew at the lock of hair hanging in front of her face, groaning softly as she pulled herself out of the comfortable position she had taken up while playing.

"Every freakin' time," She muttered as she walked over to the system, pressing on the power button to turn it off. Not true of course, she only had this happen to her twice as stated before, but Christen tended to be a complainer at times even when there was no one but herself to complain to. She tapped her fingers against her leg as she waited for the Playstation to turn off… and waited… and waited. "Tha fuck… don't tell me it completely fucked up my system… damn it." She groaned and stood up, the game was still frozen and for whatever reason the system wasn't turning off when she pressed the power button.

She sighed and looked down at the power strips under her entertainment center, she had more than one game system after all and wasn't sure right off the top of her head with power cord when to which system, except her Wii U but only because the cord was grey. Sighing Christen got down onto her hands and knees on the floor to try and figure out which cord was which, she didn't want to accidentally unplug her VCR or anything after all.

As Christen attempted to backtrack the cords to find the one that went to her Playstation 3, a crackling sound above her head caught her attention. Alarmed she quickly sat back on her heels and looked up.

"Oh shit!" She yelled her TV has sparks and little arcs of lightning coming from the screen going white. Scrambling to her feet Christen started to back away, hazel eyes widening as what looked like a large ghostly hand coming out of the TV. In her fright it never occurred to her to make a break for her bedroom door, instead backing up the short space of her room until the back of her legs hit the edge of her bed and sent her tumbling backwards onto it. The hand seems to lunge forward and grabbed at Christen who screamed loudly before everything went black.

Senior Enchanter Uldred chuckled to himself as he finished the blood magic ritual from the safety of his private quarters in the Tower of Magi. He had studied the ritual for weeks, one that would placed a Demon of the Fade into a mage's body of his choosing. He had been working for the last few months on teaching as many mages and apprentice mages as he could blood magic so they could finally break their bonds from the Templars and the Chantry.

'I will show that weak fool Irving that this is the only way to go,' Uldred thought in glee, his lips curling up into a sinister smile. He would have continued to work personally with his many 'students' in blood magics, he recently ensnared that fool Jowan who was close to Irving's student Amell and hoped to use the boy to get closer to Amell. If he could get Irving's favorite to become a blood mage… well that would crush the old man for sure. But he and the other Senior Enchanters had been informed that they would be heading to Ostagar in the morning to assist the King's army in an upcoming battle. Uldred could hardly refuse the request; he was after all one of the higher ranking members of the Circle of Magi and as far as anyone knew a champion of the light.

That left him with a problem, he could hardly teach the other mages blood magic if he was not there within the tower and he was afraid if they were left alone for too long, one of the mages might get cold feet and confess to Irving and that fool Greagior. So he needed someone to teach in his place and what better than a Fade Demon? And the perfect host had dropped into his lap that night, one of the apprentices had just gone through their Harrowing, a Elven youth who was unremarkable in every way and no one really noticed. A timid thing really, Uldred was doing the youth a favor by doing this.

Amazingly the youth had passed their Harrowing and was now vulnerable to Uldred's spell and to the Fade Demon, weakened by the test. Uldred was not foolish enough to try this while the Elf was still trapped within the Fade by the Harrowing, Greagior would know instantly and kill the youth before the Demon could do anything. But by waiting until after the youth passed their test and left on their bed to recover from the test, it gave Uldred the window he needed. By now the Pride Demon he had contacted should have devoured the Elf's soul and taken over their body, taking over teaching the Mages blood magic until he returned to the Tower. And since the youth was such a wallflower and not many people paid attention to them, no one would notice the Elf's actions as long as the demon inside was careful.

Chuckling to himself, Uldred started to clean up his work space, only a fool would leave evidence behind for the Templars to find after all. So sure in his success he never noticed that the ritual circle he created to power his spell had one tiny mistake on it, one line completely out of place. But the one line was more than enough to completely change the spell. Uldred never noticed the mistake as he quickly clean the circle away.

First thing Christen noticed as she woke back up was that her head was killing her, it felt like a hammer was repeatedly smashing against her forehead and she couldn't help the small grunt of pain that escaped.

"Oh! You're finally awake," A male voice said to the side of her. "I was starting to worry, are you ok?"

"I have got a headache from hell," Christen said as she rubbed her forehead. She wasn't sure but there was something…off… about her voice just now.

"Hell? Never mind, here this should help," the person beside her said as something was pressed into her hand. Christen cracked open an eye, looking at what turned out to be a small vial full of shimmering liquid in her hand… and her hand looked a little larger yet slimmer than she remembered.

"Tha fuck is this?" She asked. "Look, can I just have an aspirin or something like that?"

"I-it's a potion for you headache," The person beside said in a confused tone. "Christen, are you alright? You're acting strange." It occurred to Christen that something really weird was going on, she didn't know who the fuck was talking to her and what the hell did they mean by 'potion'? Sitting up and turning to her left, she startled a bit when she got a good look at the person knelt beside her bed.

"Who the fuck are you?" She asked. It was a guy, who looked like he was in his late teens to early 20's. He had soft looking shoulder length black hair and warm brown eyes that was looking at her in confusion and worry. But the real kicker was his ears, peeking out between the black locks of hair was a pair of long ears that came to a sharp point.

"What… Christen, it's me Gabe," The Elf said. "Are you alright? You're acting really strange. Did something happen to you during your Harrowing?"

"How do you know my name?" Christen asked with a raised eyebrow then laughed. "Oh I get it, this is a prank, someone put you up to this. Don't know who off the top of my head, this some part of some reality TV show? And cool ears dude, they almost… look… real?" As she spoke Christen reached up to touch Gabe's ears, but instead of feeling rough, cold latex under her fingers the skin was smooth and warm. Blinking she parted Gabe's hair so she could look at his ear, running a finger along the elongated lobe and couldn't find where the fake ear ended and the real ear started. "Holy fuck! Are those real?!"

"Of course they are real," Gabe said worry in his voice as he pulled away from Christen's touch. "Just like your ears are real."

"What? Really?" Christen blinked then reached up to her ears, eyes wide as her fingers trailed up her ears which was much longer than before and came to a point. "Ho-ly shit…. I'm a freakin Elf!"

"I'm really starting to worry about you," Gabe said. "Maybe you should see the healers, something must have happen during your Harrowing…"

"I can't believe I'm an Elf, this has got to be a dream," Christen said in a giddy tone. "Hmm? Harrowing?"

"That's it, you're seeing the healer," Gabe said as he stood up and pulled Christen up after him.

"Hey!" Christen yelped as she was pulled off the bed, tripping over her own feet and into the other Elf. "Oooff!"

"Careful there," Gabe said as he helped Christen to stand up straight.

"Ow… that really hurt my head," Christen grumbled as her head swam with pain, hissing as she pressed a hand to her forehead.

"Drink the potion then, it'll take care that headache," Gabe said in amusement. Christen frowned, her forehead furrowing as she turned back to the bed were she dropped the potion vial.

"Well this is a weird ass dream, can't be any harm in drinking it," She said as she leaned over to grab the vial, one hand braced on the bed. She frowned again as she realized she didn't feel a familiar weight on her chest. Quickly standing back up, Christen felt her chest in a panic. "Where the fuck are my tits!?"

"Umm… Christen you never had…. 'tits'…." Gabe said in hurried embarrassed whispered, his face flushed. He could feel a couple of Templars watching them and could even hear their faint laughter as they watched Christen freak out. Christen reached down and felt between her legs… or his legs she guess she should say cause she had the plumbing of a guy not a girl.

"Oh shit," she… err he? Said in a whisper. "I'm a fucking dude. This has got to be the weirdest dream I ever had…. I think I know what Ranma feels like now." She, for now she was just going to keep thinking of herself as a she cause it was too weird to do so otherwise, was comparing herself to the fiction character from one of her favorite animes Ranma 1/2, where the main character changed into a girl when splashed with cold water.

Christen's mind was starting to freak out just a tiny bit, here she was in the body of a guy Elf who just so happen to have the same name as her. Gabe, at least she thought that was what the Elf said his name was, was going on about healers, had given her a potion for her headache and had mentioned the Harrowing. Casting a quick look around Christen saw she was in a room with a large amount of bunks beds that looked a lot like the apprentice dorms from the Tower of Magi in Dragon Age Origins. Other people in the room were wearing those stupid looking mage robes, a quick glance at herself showed she was wearing them too and so was Gabe, and a man along the wall looked like a Templar. All in all, it appeared she was in the Tower of Magi which was impossible!

Groaning again, all this just made her headache worse, Christen glanced down at the vial still in her hand and sighed.

'Well nothing for it, my headache is killing me and I don't think I'm going to get a ibuprofen any time soon,' She thought as she popped the cork out of the top and drank it the same way she would a whiskey or vodka in a shot glass. The potion was thick and worst than any cough syrup she had the displeasure of tasting. "Oh my god that shit tastes horrible," Christen said, making a fake gagging sound and sticking her tongue out.

"But your head feels better doesn't it?" Gabe asked. Christen had to admit that yes the headache was quickly going away, didn't make the potion taste any less horrible.

"Still tastes nasty," Christen said sitting back on the bed and cradling her head between her hands. "Man this is the weirdest thing that has ever happen to me."

"I still think you should see the healers," Gabe said in worry, he had never seen his friend act like this ever in his life. He didn't think there was a demon in his friend's body, if a demon had entered his friend during his Harrowing then the Knight-commander Greagoir would have had Christen killed already and he didn't think the man would have missed something like that. Plus if it was a demon, wouldn't it have started attacking people already?

Christen's head snapped up, she didn't know if the healers here in this place would be able to tale if she was their Christen or not but she didn't want to chance it, just in case this wasn't a weird ass dream she was having.

"Nooo nonono," She said waving her hands. "Look I know I'm acting really really weird right now, just let me gather my thoughts and I'll explain. I don't need to see any healers!" Gabe frowned then slowly nodded, something strange was going on with his friend, but he would give the other Elf a chance to explain.

'Maybe not a demon but the Harrowing has to have done something to his mind,' Gabe thought. "Well if you're sure… then you are to go see Irving then."

"Why?" Christen asked with a raised eyebrow.

"So he can welcome you into the Circle of Magi," Gabe said as if that should be common knowledge. "You know he does that with all the new Circle Mages." No Christen didn't know that, she knew that in the game he spoke to either Amell or Surana, depending on which character you played, after they passed their test but she always figured that was because those two characters was his favorite students plus a ploy for them to meet Duncan.

"Oh… ok then," She said as she stood. "I guess I'll go see him then."

"Come on, I'll walk up there with you," Gabe offered. Christen was a bit grateful for that, she wasn't sure if this tower was just like in the game or not and didn't want to get lost.

Christen was glad that Gabe was there to guide her through the tower because she only had a vague idea where she was going right now. Kinloch Hold, or the Tower of Magi as she was use to calling it, more or less was laid out just like in the game but it was a lot bigger. The library they just passed through was larger and had more shelves and books in it than she remembered from the game. The next floor had more rooms to it, made to hold from 1 person to 3 people inside. And there were a couple of more stairwells that had not been in the game that lead to more floors than had been in the game that contained even more rooms, something she remembered reading about in the first Dragon Age book, and Gabe even pointed out where the Healing rooms were just in case Christen changed her mind and wanted to go see them she guessed.

And the people, there were more mages, both human and Elf, Templars and Chantry people here than had been in the game. Which made perfect sense really when you stopped to think about it; Christen had always had a theory that the places and people you saw in the games was nothing but a small fraction of what was really there.

And how everything looked… it was… a bit surreal if Christen was honest. It didn't look realistic, not in the way she would see the world back home, but it didn't look like a cartoon either. If she had to try to put words to what everything looked like she would have to say it looked a lot like really good 3D computer animation, like in what they used in the movies instead of the games. Not bad to look at the least but there was look to everything that reminded Christen that this wasn't home at all, not the real world as it were. But beyond that everything seem to function the same like it would in the real world. She could smell the scents in the air, and not all of it was pleasant let her tell you. Could hear the sounds from all around her, and Elven earring was a lot better than humans she found.

When she touched something, she could really feel it under her finger tips. And when she pinched her arm she could really feel the pain.

'This has either got to be the most lucid dream I have ever had or this isn't a dream,' Christen thought to herself. And that brought problems all of its own. And questions, many many questions. Like how did she even get here? How did she end up in the body of an Elven guy? And how the fuck was she going to get back home? All these questions, and many more, were put into the back of her mind as they reached Irving's office. Gabe knocked on the door and Irving's voice, which sounded just like it did from the game, sounded on the other side.

"You may come in," Gabe opened the door and motioned for Christen to enter.

"I'll wait out here for you," He whispered as the other Elf passed him. Christen just gave him the barest nod as she entered the office looking around curious. It was a lot more cluttered than she remembered it in the game, books and what looked magical artifacts were everywhere in the room. On the top of the tables, on the shelves of the book cases and even on the floor. Christen wasn't sure what it reminded her more of; Dumbledore's office in the Harry Potter movies or Merlin's house in the Sword in the Stone then thought it might be a mix of both. Just for a second she looked around for Fawkes the phoenix or Archimedes the owl, silently laughing to herself.

"Welcome my child," Irving said with a warm welcoming smile as he stood from his desk and walked around it to greet Christen. "Congratulations my boy for passing your Harrowing and allow me to welcome you to the Circle of Magi."

"Thank you sir," Christen said just barely keeping herself from telling Irving she wasn't a 'boy' since to Irving and everyone else she was a boy being a guy's body. "I'm happy to have passed."

"Yes, I'm sure you will be a great asset to the circle my child," Irving said with another smile and turned to his desk picking up the items on top. "Here are your circle mage robes, your circle Magi ring and your official magi foci staff." Christen took the robes and hooked the staff into the crook of her arm, slipping the ring over her thumb to keep it from falling to the floor.

"Thanks," She said. 'Why the hell do robes always look like dresses?' She wondered to herself.

"You will also be pleased to hear that you have the rest of the day to yourself to rest and move into your new rooms," Irving continued. "I have arranged for you to share a room with your friend Gabe Surana."

"T-thank you sir," Christen managed to get out over her shock. 'That Gabe guy is Surana!?' She couldn't believe it, of all the people she first ended up talking to, it was one of the two mage origin characters! Though she was sure Surana's default name wasn't 'Gabe' but didn't know what it was either as she always renamed the characters. She only remembered what the male origin Dalish's name was off the top of her head.

"I will not take up any more of your time, enjoy the rest of your day my child and welcome again to the Circle," Irving said as he guided the shell-shocked Christen out of his office. As he closed the door he thought Christen was acting a little strange but then again he didn't know the young Elven boy that well as he wasn't one of his regular students.

"Christen," Gabe said with a smile as his friend stepped out of the office. "Is everything alright?"

"Huh? Oh yeah sure," Christen said. "Irving said I had the day off, also said I'm sharing a room with you."

"He accepted my request?" Gabe asked with a grin. "I wasn't sure if he would but I'm glad he's allowing us to share a room. Come, let's go get your things and take them up to our room then."

"Yeah sure, lead the way bub," Christen said. Gabe wondered at the 'bub' thing but didn't say anything as he led the way back downstairs.

It didn't take long at all to gather Christen's stuff, the other Christen that was and how weird was it that this other Elf has the same name as her, as they hadn't wanted to wait on the Tranquiled servants to get the Elf's things. Christen wondered if the Elf Christen spelt his name the same was as her, it wasn't a common spelling after all as most people preferred to spell it with a 'K' as oppose with a 'Ch'. Anyway, the other Christen didn't have much in the way of belongings. It was sad really how few things the Elf had, a couple of books, a little hand carved statue that sorta looked like a crude Elf, what looked like a strip of cloth. The clothing in the foot locker stayed as it was apprentice robes and Gabe assured Christen that the wardrobe in their room would have all the Circle Mage robes she would need.

The room Gabe led her to wasn't too bad, it was bloody cold as hell but it was alright looking she guessed. There were no windows to look outside, Gabe looked at Christen strangely when she pointed this out and said only the First Enchanter and the Senior Enchanters had windows in their rooms. The room had a full size bed on either side of the room with a short wall between the two beds and a couple of large book cases back to back in front of the wall to separate the room at least somewhat. Both sides of the room had a wardrobe and a vanity table. Behind the wall between the beds was a small bathroom area with a low stone tub and a wooden bucket that served as a toilet. Christen figured Gabe got the nice room with the good tub because he was Irving's favorite as she remembered the other mages' rooms had a small metal wash tube that sat in their 'room' area and not hidden behind a wall like the guest room Duncan would be given in the game.

'Ugh, I am so not looking forward to using that thing,' Christen thought to herself as she stared at the bucket and suddenly really missed plumbing. The bucket looked clean at least at the moment and hoped it wasn't them that had to clean the things. She kinda figured one of the Tranquil mages in the tower might end up doing it, it's not like they would complain about the job being cut off from their feelings like they were.

Currently Christen was standing in front of the vanity table looking into the mirror as she tried to gather her thoughts. She was still half convinced this was all just a really weird dream.

'Wow… me and this Elf guy share more than just a name… well looks wise anyway,' Christen still couldn't get over the fact she was in a guys body. And they really did share a lot of looks, they had the same dark brown hair, his was longer than how she wore her's brushing against his shoulders while she usually kept her's cut really short. The same green hazel eyes, same skin tone. The face wasn't completely the same, her's had always been on the round side while this other Christen had more of an angler face. But she thought that might be an Elven thing. And let's not forget the whole age thing, this boy looked like he was in his late teens. One thing she was happy about, she didn't look like the Elves from the second Dragon Age game.

'Ok, so let's just say this isn't a dream,´ Christen thought to herself. 'That somehow all of this is real. That I'm really in the world of Dragon Age, how the fuck did I get here and how the hell do I get back? I mean, how is this even possible? Sure, there are boat loads of self insert fics out there, and there are cartoons and movies about stuff like this but none of it is real. And what do I do with myself here? I don't want to be stuck in this tower for god knows how long, not if I want to get the hell out. The best bet is Duncan and the Grey Wardens but I don't know for sure if Duncan will come here to the tower, if he hadn't already. Not that I want to be a Warden, cause I sure as hell don't want to drink Darkspawn blood. Ok, first things first, try to figure out just when I am on the timeline.'

"Hey Gabe, question," Christen said as she turned around to look at the other Elf, sitting on the edge of the vanity table and crossing her arms over her chest. Her very, very flat chest… this was going to take getting use to…

"Yes?" Gabe asked as he looked up from the book he was reading. Or trying to read anyway, his friend was acting so strangely and it had him worried. It was like he didn't know anything, at least not the small details.

"Did anything major happen lately?" Christen asked.

"Such as?" Gabe asked back.

"I don't know, anything that comes to mind," the other Elf said. Gabe sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Well… I did hear this morning while I was waiting for you to wake up many of the Senior Enchanters have left the tower," Gabe said. "Something about going to help King Cailan's army but I don't know much more than that."

"The army huh? Hmmm… well that gives me a bit better idea…" Christen said to herself, leaning her head back to look at the tall ceiling. Gabe huffed and stood up, tossing his book onto his bed and went to stand in front of Christen.

"Christen, will you please explain what is going on? You have been acting very strange since you woke up," Gabe said. Christen sighed softly and looked Gabe in the eye, really she owned it to the Elf to tell him what the hell was going on, or try to tell him anyway. She was going to need help with all this.

"Okay look, yer gonna want to sit down for this cause I'm gonna said sounds really really impossible," She said at last. Gabe gave her a searching look and slowly sat down on the edge of his bed again.

"Alright… so tell me then, try to make me understand," He said. Christen sighed and started to pace a bit, trying to figure out just what to tell the teen. One thing was for sure, telling Gabe that this whole world was a video game series was out of the question. It would be difficult to explain what a video game was for one, still maybe she could still spin it to where she didn't mention the games themselves.

"Okay, let me start by saying I really have no idea how this happened nor did I want it to happen," Christen said as she came to a stop in front of the other mage. "I am not your friend Christen."

"What do you mean? Are you a spirit?" Gabe asked.

"No no, I'm not a spirit," Christen said with a quick shake of her head. "And I'm not a demon either before you ask. Look I'm… well… let's just say I'm from a really far off place. I'm human, or at least my world's version of a human which isn't really that much different from this world's humans. Yeah in body I'm your Elfy friend but my spirit? Soul? Mind? However you wanna look at it, I'm not him. Somehow I got put into his body."

"Uh-huh… then where is the real Christen then?" Gabe asked a little skeptical as the whole story sounded a little far-fetched.

"I have no clue dude," Christen said with a shrug of her shoulders. "Maybe he's in my body… which is terrifying to think about. The point is, I'm stuck in your friend's body somehow with no clue how I got here and no clue how the hell to fix it."

"This sounds a little unbelievable," Gabe said.

"How do you think I feel? Part of me is sure this is a freakin' dream," Christen said with a groan as she sat down beside Gabe on the bed then laid back on it.

"For the sake of argument, let's say you are telling the truth," Gabe said. "Just who are you then? Besides a human from another world that is."

"Well my name is Christen, if you haven't guessed that already. My world is called Earth and it's in a galaxy far far away from here. To put it bluntly, I'm a 30 year old human woman stuck in the body of a teenage Elven boy. Do you have any idea how weird this is?" Christen asked as she sat up.

"That would explain why you freaked out this morning," Gabe said. The story was very strange, and part of him didn't want to believe it. A human woman, from another world, in the body of his friend? Was he supposed to really believe that? Yet, Christen seemed convinced it was true and really he had nothing else to go on at the moment. "Why did you ask me if anything happen this morning?"

"Alright look I kinda… know things that are going to happen very soon," Christen said. "Not concrete things but I got a really good idea. All those mages left cause your king's army is fighting Darkspawn to the south near the Korcari Wilds. Let me tell ya, you got a full on Blight on your hands."

"A Blight? As in Darkspawn attacking, Archdemon appearing Blight?" Gabe asked his mouth wide open. "Wait, if you're not from this world how do you even know all this?"

"Well your world is lore in my world, not everything but a lot of the important stuff ya know?" Christen said. "But there are a lot of different ways your world's history can play out. I only know the really basic stuff and have some idea of what can happen though that doesn't mean it will. But I asked so I can get an idea of when I am in your world."

"So do you?" Gabe asked.

"A bit yeah. Hey, off topic sorta, but is there somebody who's last name is Amell here?" Christen asked.

"Well yes, Nash Amell. He's still an apprentice, he hasn't gone through his Harrowing yet. You do know what a Harrowing is right?" Gabe asked.

"Yeah yeah, touch lyurim, go into the Fade, see if you can fight off a demon," Christen said. "He'll be going through his Harrowing pretty soon. So maybe if we're lucky… hmmm…" If this Nash Amell guy hadn't gone through the Harrowing yet, then there was still a chance Duncan could come to the tower, at least she hoped so.

"What are you thinking?" Gabe asked.

"Ways we can maybe leave this tower, nothing concrete yet of course," Christen said then sighed and laid back again, rubbing her face with both hands. "Man, this is so fucked up."

"Leave the tower?" Gabe asked as he turned to look down at Christen.

"Well yeah, you don't want to stay here do you?" Christen asked her hands pressing against her forehead as she looked up at the other Elf. "I gotta find out how this whole thing happen and how to reverse it. And I also don't want to stick around this hell hole cause I might do something really stupid to those Templars." No Gabe didn't want to stay at the tower, very few Mages did. While he had an easier time living here than most Mages did, he never caused any trouble for the Templars so in turn they never had reason to bother him, it didn't mean he wanted to live the rest of his life in this manner. His friend Christen too had also had a quiet life in the tower, he was so shy and quiet that most people forgot he was even there.

"Can you not just approach Irving and the other elder mages for help?" Gabe asked.

"And tell them what? What I told you?" Christen asked. "Somehow I don't think they would take it as easily as you did. If they can somehow tell I am a different person in this body they may call me a demon and just kill me which means your friend dies. I kinda like the whole 'living' thing and I'm sure you don't want your friend's body to die before I can somehow put both of us back where we belong." Gabe admitted to himself that Christen might have a point.

"Alright fine, maybe you have a point," He said with a sigh. "I don't have any more of a clue to what is going on than you." Christen's lip quirked slightly into a smile.

"You don't really believe me do you?" She asked. Gabe sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Part of me does yet a large part of me thinks…. Well I don't know what to think," He said. "You're different right now, I can see that much. You seem to believe what you told me and I don't sense anything evil about you, if you were a demon in that body I would think you would have attacked people by now."

"Alright, understandable. If my best friend told me all that I might ask her what the hell she was smoking too," Christen said as she sat up. "Just keep an open mind ne?"

"Alright," Gabe said. "So what do we do now?"

"Err… Your Christen is a mage right? So I think you're gonna have to teach me to use magic cause I have no idea how to," Christen said.

"You've forgotten how to use your magic?" Gabe asked in surprise.

"Hey, I can't use magic in my world," Christen pointed out. "So I don't have a clue how any of it works." Gabe sighed and nodded then started to give Christen a brief lesson in how to access her mana and how to use spells.

Magic spells were both harder yet at the same time easier to learn than Christen thought they would be. Most of them were tied to emotions, she had used the healing spell by being calm. Not an easy state for her to be in even on her best day as her mind had a habit of running in circles and she tended to get worked up over things at times.

Fire spells had been the easiest for her to learn and it was all thanks to Nash Amell. Christen wasn't sure what to expect when she met the other mage origin character, other than being related to Hawke from the second game and that the character may have siblings somewhere according to what she remember reading on a wiki page once, there wasn't really much to know beforehand. Meeting the boy though made Christen think Nash Amell was one of the biggest pricks she had ever met!

It all started a couple of days after she had arrived in the other Christen's body. She had used the rest of the first day to get use to everything around her and for Gabe to start teaching her magic. The next day had been wondering around to get to know the tower. Again, it wasn't too much different from the game, just bigger and with more people in it. Circle mages Christen found were left to their own devices instead of being in lessons. Most of them studied other branches of magic or anything else that caught their fancy.

The next day had started out much the same. Christen saw Lily, Jowan's girlfriend from the game though she had yet to see Jowan, and somebody she thought might be Finn from the Witch Hunt game. She had yet to see Anders and tried to remember if he was locked up at this time or not from his last escape attempt. And had yet to see Cullen but then again maybe she had and he had been wearing a helmet at the time.

"Oh my god, is this what you do every day?" Christen asked in a low bored voice as Gabe looked at the books on the shelf next to them. "I mean I like to read and everything but fuck this is boring." Gabe chuckled softly and turned away from the books.

"It can be," He agreed. "But both of us are too new to the circle to be sent out to help people, Irving will want us to wait a few years."

"With Templar watch-dogs of course," Christen said with a roll of her eyes.

"Yes, escorted by a Templar," Gabe agreed. "Only the Senior Enchanters are trusted enough to be out on their own."

"Man this place is fucked up," Christen said with a sigh as she turned to look at the books. She was trying to find something interesting to look at, her and Gabe had hit a road block on the whole magic thing, other than a weak healing spell she hadn't been able to cast anything else. It was depressing to say the least. She hoped that maybe there was a book about dragons she could find to distract herself with, she liked dragons as much as she liked Elves and Werewolves.

"I'm telling you Jowan, I think I'm going to go through my Harrowing soon," A voice said from the other side of the bookcase. Christen felt her ears twitch and turned slightly toward the sound, finding the sensation to be very strange feeling and reminded her of an animal's ear turn.

"How can you even be sure?" A second asked, one she recognized as Jowan's voice from the game.

"Irving is pushing me to learn as many spells as possible and to study the Fade," the first voice said, Christen suspected that this was Amell since he was with Jowan. The voices were getting closer and she turned to get her first glance at Nash Amell.

He was handsome she supposed, with short golden blond hair and blue eyes. He possessed a narrow face and a crooked cocky smile. Honestly she didn't think much on his looks seeing as how he was too young for her, she still thought herself as in her 30's even though the body she was in was only in its late teens. Amell stopped in surprise at seeing herself and Gabe on the other side of the bookshelf, Jowan nearly running into his back, then smirked.

"Well if it isn't the rabbits," Amell said in a superior tone. Christen blinked and raised her eyebrows.

"Excuse me?" She asked.

"You heard me Knife-ear," Amell said in 'I am better than you' tone. Christen's eyes narrowed and she felt a jolt of anger go through her, stepping forward and up to Amell. She didn't let the fact she was shorter by nearly a head bother her, a lot of people she had know back home were taller than her.

"Ya wanna repeat that?" She asked in a low dark tone. Both Gabe and Jowan watched with wide eyes, Gabe's mouth open slightly in shock, he had never seen his friend act like this.

"What, Knife-ear?" Amell asked with a sneer. "It's what you are, always second rate to humans. I swear, I don't know why they even let you lot be in the same part of the tower as us." Christen growled and grabbed Amell by his robes and yanked him down to her level.

"Look buddy, if you don't want to have your ass kicked I suggest keeping your racist comments to yourself," She said then shoved him back. Amell stumbled backwards and nearly lost his footing. Christen ran a hand through her hair and gave him a smirk of his own. "Oh, and these two 'rabbits' are full on circle mages while you're still just a little apprentice so I think you should remember than we're a little better than you at that."

Amell glared down at the little Elf that had dared to talk back to him and opened his mouth to say something until Jowan grabbed his arm.

"Maybe we should just leave," Jowan said as he pulled on his friends arm. Nash Amell huffed and straightened out his robes and turned to leave.

"Blighted Knife-ear," he said over his shoulder then yelped and ran as a ball of fire was thrown his way, Jowan sighing and following after him.

"Fuck!" Christen yelped in surprise, waving her hands in shock. Her anger at being called Knife-ear again had pissed her off and made her magic flare into a bolt of fire that she had flung Amell's way. "Holy shit that's hot!" Gabe quickly ran over and smothered the small fire she started before anyone else noticed.

"What was that about?" He asked.

"What? He's a fucking prick, I wasn't going to just stand there and let him insult me," Christen said as she looked at her hands. "Unless you mean the fire ball, then I don't know but that was fucking cool as hell. Wonder if I can do it again?" Gabe shook his head in amusement.

"I think that is the first time that any Elf has ever stood up to Nash like that," He said.

"What, haven't you ever done it?" Christen asked as she looked up from her hands, she had been trying to get the fire to come back again. Gabe shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"I never really let it bother me, I know Nash's feelings toward Elves, he's is the same as most humans," he said. "It's the same all over. How are Elves treated on your world?"

"Well, depending on who you ask, they don't exist. I mean they are considered a fantasy race, so are dwarves and dragons. I think they do believe in Elves in Iceland, or Greenland I'm not sure on that, but they are little tiny people, not like you know," Christen waved a hand at her body. "But for most folk they aren't real, just the subject of books, comics, games, stuff like that. People who are racist like that ass-hat usually focus on stuff like skin color, religion, where people are from, stuff like that. So the way he talks doesn't bother you?"

"I learned to ignore him, he and I were both Irving's students when I was an apprentice," Gabe said. "I can't change the way people think so I don't try."

"What about his friend then? Jowan?" Christen asked.

"Jowan? I've gotten along pretty well with Jowan, I don't think he's ever been bothered by anyone being an Elf or not," Gabe said. "We're friends, though somewhat distant, he mostly spends his time with Nash."

"Huh… well help me figure out how to make that fire come back," Christen said, there was no point in thinking on it now. She wasn't going to let Amell walk all over here because he couldn't learn to keep his trap shut.

That night Christen yawned as she wondered the halls of the tower after hours. She found she couldn't go to sleep so had left to try and clear her head. Usually she would get on the computer or play a video game or watch a movie to try and relax but she didn't have any of those things now.

It had taken some practice but she was able to call the fire back to herself with ease now. The first couple of times she had nearly burned her hands but now she could hold a fire ball in her hands without it hurting her. It was a strange feeling to have the flames dance around her hand, the heat surrounding her without hurting. Gabe had said some mages worked best with one or two different elements, her's seemed to be fire. She didn't think that was too surprising, she loved fire related stuff, use to burn items as a kid and loved fire spells or fire type monsters in games. With the practice with conjuring the fire helped her use her mana better as well and could use the healing spell a bit better as well. She still had a hard time thinking of terms of the game spells, wanting to call out the spells from Final Fantasy instead.

The tower looked very different at night, most of the torches were put out, leaving the hallways and rooms to be covered in shadows. It didn't bother her at the least, she found she could see pretty well in the dark and remembered that Elves and Dwarves had some sort of night vision, or at least they saw way better than humans when it was dark. She remembered that Elves eyes were suppose to glow like a cat's eyes at night if light hit them. The human in Elven body thought it was pretty cool in fact, and it made sneaking around the tower so much easier. She wasn't sure if Circle Mages were allowed to be up wondering the halls at night time or not.

She saw very little of the Templars, one had been patrolling one of the hall ways but it had been easy to track his or her movement as they had been carrying a lantern so they could see. Another Christen had came across was slumped slightly against the wall, their head nodding up and down as they fought sleep until finally they lost the battle and the head hung down toward their chest. She had to keep from snorting in laughter and shook her head as she snuck past the guard.

'Great guards you got there Greagoir,' She thought to herself as she slipped into the library, looking around. She didn't see any Templar guards in the room, either they didn't think any Mage would come in here in the middle of the night or had gone to find someplace to take a nap. Either way, the room was empty.

Christen looked around the room, there were some windows at the top of the room that let in natural light and the light from the moon cast shadows all around the room. It was… a little eerie looking and she shivered slightly as she softly closed the door behind her.

'I wonder if this place is haunted. With the way mages are treated here, I wouldn't be surprised if one or two ghost hung around….' Christen thought as she slowly walked around. Her ears twitched as she thought she heard the sound of a turning page and soft muttering. Curious, Christen followed the sound to a far corner of the library but didn't see any one there. About to write off the sounds as her imagination or sounds of a ghost and turning to walk away, a glint of light caught her attention behind a bookcase. Blinking, she crept closer and peeked through a gap in the shelves.

There, on the other side of the shelves, sat Jowan on the floor with a couple of books open in front of him, a candle his own light source, and had a knife in his hand about to cut his wrist.

"Whoa dude! Don't cut your wrist you idgit," Christen yelped as she squeezed through the gap and grabbed the startled Jowan's hand before he could cut himself.