AN: A shout out to my beta reader A Markov. Thank you for your help! Check out his work, it's amazing.

A Wonderful World

Disclaimer:I do not own the Dragon Age franchise, only my OCs and any other plot modifications and world modifications that I make.

Prologue

That's the world. Everything you build, it tears down. Everything you've got, it takes. And it's gone forever. The only choices you get are to lie down and die or keep going. He kept going. That's as close to beating the world as anyone gets. – Varric Tethras, Dragon Age: Inquisition

I should start this by saying, I really should have known better. There's no such thing as coincidence; it's an illusion, a fabrication we create because we just want to move on with our lives as if nothing happened. For the longest time, I clung desperately to that illusion, to the belief that being reincarnated into a world I'd once known as a game was nothing more than a coincidence.

It sounds so foolish, now that I think about it. I was so foolish. My only defense is this: the power of denial can never be underestimated.

Yes, it's a poor defense. Especially for me. Especially after what I've done.

So here it is. A compendium of my life's memories, jumbled together in the hope that someone, anyone, finds it in themselves to understand.

The beginning is perhaps the hardest part.

I don't remember a lot of details about the first time I died. There was fear, certainly. Desperation, on some level and regret. I remember a little girl, not mine… perhaps a niece, or a neighbour…running after a ball. There was the smell of burning rubber and the sound of screeching tires. I was reaching, not knowing if I would get there in time. Reaching, it seemed like forever. Reaching… She tumbled away and then…

DL-8882

The paint was missing from the middle part of the 'D." I remember that quite clearly and… feeling dumb. I didn't even know her. Why would I jump in front of a car for her?

There was no memory after that, only vague sensations and pain. There was a time when I was something new, something familiar, and something completely different. I doubt I was meant to remember anything of that time; there was always so much new racing through my mind that I could hardly remember one need to the next, but I didn't forget what I already knew. I was a creature driven by pure instinct and need. I would express myself with nonsensical melodic cries that would always bring relief to the needs that drove me, be it in the form of touch or food.

My first memory of this world was when I was still an instinctual creature. I was hungry and I'd learned that crying a certain way resulted in food. A giant figure approached me and lifted me up.

The eyes were a sharp clear grey that reminded me of icebergs. Something in my mind triggered; it felt like a switch going off, like having an epiphany. I reached out, fascinated with my first clear thought.

A sudden scream permeated the room and I fell headfirst.

A primal instinct acted up, the stimulus evoking a strange response. The floor became soft, but an intense exhaustion took over my body.

Why was there screaming? Where was I?

Who was I?

My mind shattered.