A/N - This story is a bit of conceit really and mostly grew up out of the insults I was shouting at the game. Well, that and the stuff that the Alistair and Zevran who live in my head were shouting too. The first chapter is rather short but they will get longer as I get into the story proper.

It's not particularly good literature but it got into my head and set up home there so I figured I might as well share it with you all. I always liked stories where modern day kids got thrown into a fantasy world and had to learn to survive (yes, I was addicted to Dungeons and Dragons as a kid). I know it's not a particularly original concept but I'm having a lot of fun writing it and that's what really counts right?

The title is a Within Temptation song - the lyrics are so accurate to the game it's scary and the song itself is so grand and epic that it's hard to believe it has no connection to Dragon Age at all. I'd already got the major plot details of the story down before I heard the song but it has become Ceri's anthem in my head and I feel reflects the doubt and anguish that the Grey Wardens must feel about their duty.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age or any of the characters (although I wouldn't mind borrowing Alistair for a week every summer). However Ceri and her world are mine (except for Southend High Street - I think the council owns that!)

Chapter 1 – Blackout

"Mum, I'm home!" Ceri Cousland cast a furtive look around the hall as she pushed the front door shut behind her. "Mum? Are you there?"

Not trusting the silent house Ceri checked each room in turn: kitchen, bathroom, her mum's room, sitting room and finally her own room. She even peered out of the back door to make sure her mum wasn't in the garden. Ceri retreated into her bedroom and shut the door, flicking the lock just to be on the safe side. Finally she unzipped her heavy coat and extracted the small package she'd hidden in the inside pocket. With shaking hands she stripped off the cellophane wrapper and ran her fingers over the embossed cardboard cover, which showed a huge blood-drenched sword surmounted by the legend: Dragon Age: Origins.

Mum is going to kill me when she finds out, Ceri thought, feeling a little guilty. The concept that her mum might never find out didn't occur to her – her mum always found out.

In this case, it was only a matter of time before Ceri's mum found out she'd bunked off her AS-Level mocks to spend three hours queuing up to get a copy of Dragon Age on the day it was released. To make it even worse she had blown all her spare money on the special edition rather than getting the normal version. The wait had been agonising. It was only a week to go before Christmas and with the presence of a rogue weather front coming down from the Arctic Southend High Street was six inches deep in snow. Well most of it was – there were paths trampled through the snow leading to the popular shops, paths that were now slick with ice. Ceri had waited patiently, her thick woolly hat pulled low on her ears, while matching gloves tried their best to keep her hands warm. There had been a sense of camaraderie in the queue – everyone was there for the same reason, after all. In fact, the only reason Ceri was there was because she'd seen the most fantastic trailer for the game on TV. There was something about it that had called to her, which was strange in itself because she didn't usually buy games based on adverts. She researched them online, checked out the story, read strategy guides to find out how difficult it was likely to be, before she ever even considered parting with her hard earned money.

To be honest, it was more her mum finding out how much money she'd spent than finding out she'd skipped her mocks. After all she had told her form tutor she was sick, and everyone got sick from time to time. It had been so easy it was embarrassing. She'd sounded really ill on the phone, even to her own ears and her tutor had told her to go back to bed and to come back when she felt better. Told her not to worry, that she could take her mocks when she came back. Ceri had bundled herself up and set off for Southend on the next bus; she was canny enough to pick the big town in the opposite direction to college. She wasn't going to get caught out that way. But the money, that was the problem. Ceri was supposed to be saving her money for Uni; she'd already been told she wouldn't qualify for a grant or a bursary and she needed to raise the money to pay for her tuition, although she would still be living at home and her mum was willing to support her as long as she kept up her weekend job at the bowling alley. She'd blown so much money on the game, she really didn't want her mum to find out until she'd had a chance to get the enjoyment out of it.

Ceri turned on the PS3 and fiddled around with the TV, trying to get it to pick up the signal. Wretched thing was on its last legs and really didn't like being plugged into an ultra modern piece of technology. It had to be coaxed to put up a picture and even the slightest breath on the screen would result in a snow-storm to frustrate the most laid back soul. Watching the introduction sequence of the game, Ceri tried to take in what was going on and understand the background of what she was supposed to be doing. Then came the character selection. Ceri was astounded by the depth of detail she could adjust and after twenty minutes of fiddling and tweaking she came up with a female character that looked rather like her.

Too tall, of course, she thought, but what can you do?

Stupid game had the elves being shorter than humans – what sort of ridiculous notion was that? Maybe she should have made her character an elf, so she would be the right height in relation to the other characters, but then she really wanted to play as a human noble. She'd overheard a couple of girls in the queue saying that if you played as a human you could get to be king or queen. That was worth a character that was far too tall, wasn't it? She began to play, exploring the halls and alleys of Castle Cousland as the younger child of the Teyrn of Highever. She'd been surprised when the generation screen for the human noble character had entered her name automatically but she assumed it had taken it from her online profile info, because there it was on the screen large as life: Ceridwen Cousland. Of course no one ever called her Ceridwen, well no one except her mum and only then when she was in trouble. She shook off the sense of foreboding that crept over her as she played – something was going to happen any minute she thought as she watched the Teyrn and his wife bidding their son farewell as he left to take their soldiers off to war. She battled through the same alleys she'd explored earlier, fighting against the soldiers of a treacherous friend of the Teyrn who had betrayed them and slaughtered family and guests alike. She had tears standing in her eyes as they found the Teyrn, wounded and dying, as Teyrna Eleanor chose to remain behind with him as the Grey Warden Duncan helped their daughter to escape.

She hit the control to save the game and the room went black. For one awful moment Ceri actually thought she'd gone blind. Then she laughed at the thought – it was just a power cut, nothing sinister at all. The power had been going on and off for days as the heavy snow played havoc with the electricity sub-station at the end of the road. She realised with a start that it had gotten dark while she'd been playing and her amusement faded as the thought occurred that she hadn't saved the game once in all the time she'd been playing. That made her set the controller down with a sullen pout and throw herself down on her bed to sulk. All that work, down the drain – she knew there must be a way to skip through conversations but she hadn't managed to find it yet and she wasn't looking forward to sitting through the archivist's lecturing again. Without heating the room grew cold quickly and Ceri began to shiver. She crawled under the duvet without bothering to get undressed and settled down to sleep. As she began to drift off, Ceri could have sworn that she could hear the sounds of people talking outside her window, the voices accompanied by faint clinking of metal.

Probably someone come to work on the sub-station, she thought, turning her face deeper into the pillow. She was asleep long before she could remember that her bedroom faced onto the garden and there was no way she'd be able to hear anything from the road.