Note: This was my submission for the Dragon Age: Asunder creative writing competition. Stories had to be 2500 words long and written from the perspective of a mage or templar. I had a lot of fun taking part and actually managed to make it into the top 20, so I thought I'd share what I came up with.

Jinx

Jacob Caldwell's story before the circle went like this: a small boy, an unintentional fireball, templar capture. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing dissimilar to the beginning of every mage's tale you've heard before.

The peculiar part came once he arrived at the circle. In the years he lived in Kirkwall's Gallows, the boy never cast one spell successfully. Put it down to nerves, the pressure of being watched every second, the rigours of life in the Circle. Whatever the problem, Jacob's magic became impotent the day they brought him there. Occasionally a promising glow would emanate from his fingertips, but nothing more ever came of it. Everyone in the circle knew it meant one thing: his future had little in store but a tranquil's brand.

That's how he got his nickname: Jinx.

It's also how he met me.

I liked him the moment I laid eyes on him. I was walking towards the library when I found Ser Delyn berating him in a corridor; something about missing strawberries. She was so furious that sweat trickled down her forehead as she shouted.

"I had better not find out you're the thief, you little blighter," she roared, storming off towards the armoury.

Jinx looked at me now that the woman's back was turned and smiled a wide, toothy grin. Maker save me, I couldn't hold the laughter in when I saw it. His gums were coated in red strawberry flesh, juice stained his gums and seeds were lodged in every nook and cranny of his teeth.

"Something funny, Morgan?" Ser Delyn snapped, drawing to a halt beside me.

I stared at my feet and shook my head. The templar moved on.

"Thanks for that, friend," Jinx said, placing a fat red strawberry in my hand. "I'm Jacob."

"Morgan," I replied, smiling nervously, closing my hand around the fruit.

From that moment we were like brothers.

Jinx was a man who knew his time was limited. Before long he would be branded, and then he would be Jinx no longer. With the inevitable looming over him, he felt it was his duty to make the best of the time he had left. For him that meant making mischief and stealing what pleasures he could.

There was nothing to lose.

Strawberries were just the beginning.

Did you ever hear the one about the entire chicken coop being set loose in the templar quarters? It really happened. It took Jinx a day to coordinate, and the templars an entire week to clean up. When Knight-Captain Cullen lined us up in the courtyard to search for suspects he had feathers in his hair and yolk down his face. Each time he turned his back, Jinx would cluck like a chicken, much to Cullen's dismay. None of us could keep a straight face, and though many knew the truth, nobody had the heart to point to the man responsible.

I was Jinx's closest confidant, the one who got to see the method behind the mischief. I distracted Ser Mettin as Jinx stole the blankets from his bed (revenge for making an apprentice girl cry). I kept watch the night he glued all of the pages together in Enchanter Loryn's Grimoire (she had it coming after what she called Jinx in the library). I burned the hinges off the door to the dormitory where the girl apprentices slept so that we could steal it (okay, that one was just for fun).

Some of the more sympathetic templars turned a blind eye to his troublemaking. Ser Thrask actually caught him the night he bribed the lyrium smugglers to bring him two great big barrels of ale from a Lowtown tavern. The templar just laughed and walked away. Must've thought Jinx deserved what fun he could find before they made him a tranquil, and he never hurt anyone.

The secret to how he managed it all was cleverness and bravado. It doesn't always take spells to make magic happen. Jinx became a hero to us apprentices, a legend in his own time, the one thing that kept the Gallows bearable as the unrest grew.

And grow it did. Knight-commander Meredith always liked to keep us on a short leash, her paranoia only worsened with age. Time rolled on and the Circle's walls closed in on us. Rules grew stricter, things got harder even for those of us who tried our best to abide by the Chantry's wishes.

It went from bad to worse after the death of the Viscount. Many tried to rebel or escape. The templars became preoccupied with the dissent, there never seemed to be time for harrowings or rites. Jinx and I both remained untried apprentices. For three whole years they seemed to forget we even existed.

Jinx stopped letting me sneak around with him at night. It wasn't safe, not for someone with hope of actually passing their harrowing. By then our people couldn't sneeze without becoming the subject of templar scrutiny. Anything that got me noticed could have gotten me killed.

It stung to be left behind after the years of camaraderie. Each night he would sneak out of the bunk beside mine and be gone for hours. I would lay awake, alone, wondering where my friend was.

"I like to explore," he told me. "There are old passages in the lower depths where even the templars don't venture. I go there to clear my head."

I wondered if there was more to it than that. Was he digging a tunnel to Kirkwall? Having secret liaisons with a girl somewhere? Spying on templars? Whatever the reason, it hurt not to know.

Each morning as dawn's light began to shine through the bars on our window he would creep back to his bed and sleep until it was time for our lessons.

Until that fateful dawn.

"Morning," I whispered as footsteps crept towards his bunk.

"Good morning, Morgan," the voice that answered back gave me such a fright that I almost tumbled out of bed. It belonged to the Knight-Commander. To Meredith. Calmly she walked over and perched herself on Jinx's mattress.

The room seemed to turn to ice, I was sure my breath was starting to cloud before my eyes. I shivered in silence and stared at the ceiling, eyes wide like a startled rabbit.

She said nothing. Only waited.

When the door drew open again and Jinx crept inside I half expected him to faint from shock, but if anything he seemed to be expecting her.

"Knight-Commander," his voice was respectful, but casual too, as if he hadn't just been caught breaking the rules.

I was so scared I didn't know whether to vomit or cry. I clung to my blankets so tightly that my hands turned white.

Meredith simply stood up, touched Jinx on the shoulder and said this: "You have three days, Jacob Caldwell. Then you are to undergo the rite of tranquillity."

"The Angel of Death card. Game's up, Jinx."

Wicked Grace in the dormitories after lights out was one of the few rules we were still willing to break. We were experts at hiding our cards inside our pillowcases if any templars came nosing.

"I've got nothing," Adriel conceded, flipping his hand over to show an odd mixture of angels and serpents.

"Four knights,"Jinx declared. A winning hand.

I whistled as Jinx gathered his prizes together atop his pillow. Outside the circle it wouldn't be much to whistle at; a few coppers, one silver, a shiny pebble and a stale piece of cake.

"You could buy us all some apples with that," I pointed to the coins, "when the boat comes in tomorrow with the food shipment." I was trying to keep him positive. The following morning would be his last, after all.

"With the crackdowns? He won't get near the docks," Adriel scoffed.

"I've been saving my money for something else, actually. I've got enough now," said Jinx.

"One last prank before they brand you, is it?" Adriel asked carelessly.

It was quiet to begin with but now there was absolute silence. In the dim light from the lone candle we'd lit I tried to make out Jinx's expression. I could only imagine how hopeless it felt to be waiting for that ritual.

"Something like that," he eventually whispered, and then he blew out the candle.

"What's wrong, Morgan?" he asked me the next morning. The time had flown. I was still in bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing it could be any day but that one.

"You're still here."

"Charming," he laughed.

I sat up and sighed. "You're Jinx, our hero. You're capable of anything. Why haven't you escaped?" I was so angry at the unfairness of it all.

The smile fell from his face. "There are templars at the door," he pointed out. It was true, we'd been watched closely since Meredith's visit.

"Doesn't mean you shouldn't try."

"I was trying, but it's too late. They're watching me too closely now, there's no distraction big enough for me to slip by them unnoticed." He exhaled, sighing out all hope.

So he had given up. It was all over.

"I…" I began. There was so much to say. How I thought of him as family, how his friendship meant the world to me, how the Circle would be unbearable without him. But it all got clogged together in my throat so that nothing came out at all.

Jinx embraced me. Neither of us said a word.

"Please don't," I begged quietly as Ser Delyn appeared in the doorway of our room to tell us it was time.

"You know this is necessary, Morgan," she replied.

"Can I stay with him?" I asked.

Delyn's eyes softened. For the first time in all the years I'd known her she actually looked human. "You can walk him to the room, but you must wait outside."

It was better than I'd hoped for.

We walked together in silence. When we arrived at the room Ser Delyn pulled me to a halt. Jinx stared at his boots as he was ushered away from me.

I stood outside, twitching nervously. There was nothing to do but stare out the window and wait. I tried to distract myself with the view of Kirkwall. Boats bobbing in the harbour, smoke billowing out of the lowtown foundries, the chantry's spires protruding from the top of hightown.

Poor Jinx.

The rite of tranquillity was a secret, no mage knew beforehand what it entailed. I was braced for howls of terror and screams of pain.

I wasn't braced for the sight of magic erupting from the chantry.

I saw a red beam shooting through its ceiling, up into the sky, expanding, glowing brighter. The walls fractured, the bricks crumbled and ripped apart, drawn up into the sky with the magic. High in the air black clouds swirled together with red light. And then with one terrible roar it burst over the city, raining fire and debris down over everything.

My jaw hung agape. I had never imagined magic to be capable of such destruction. I stared on in horror and wondered even then if I was witnessing our doom.

The horizon was scarred now. The chantry gone entirely. Black smoke drifted down over Kirkwall like a dense fog. Houses were ablaze. Even from there I could hear the screams.

The Templars saw it too. They flooded out of the room, nearly trampling me as they rushed towards the courtyard, fleeing in search of their commander. In their wake, the door to Jinx was left ajar.

It took me several minutes to muster the courage to step inside.

"Hello, Morgan," he said, his voice deadpan. Was he tranquil, or just in shock? He was cradling the brand in his hands. The sun symbol at its tip glowed red, ready for marring skin. He stared down at it unblinkingly.

"Jinx," I replied.

He looked up at me.

His forehead was unblemished, the soul still present in his eyes. The ritual hadn't happened yet. He was still Jinx. Shaken, but still him. I smiled wider than a dwarf in a diamond mine.

"There's a rebel out there I owe my life to," he said, looking out at the destruction that had befallen the city.

A single word had reached the Gallows, and that word was annulment. We ran, dodging panicked mages and grief-stricken templars, through chaos, confusion, corridors and staircases. Jinx was leading me down to the depths of the gallows. Through the dankness, through the darkness, towards his secret place.

Eventually we came to a dead end. Rubble was piled high where an old tunnel had collapsed and to my eyes it looked impassable. But Jinx knew a way. He took me by the arm and led me though a crevice around the edge of the collapse. On the other side of the debris the tunnel headed downwards, and in that moment I saw everything my friend had been hiding from me.

The tunnel led downward to water. There was light flooding in, and squinting into it I could see the Waking Sea.

"It's flooded most of the time," Jinx explained, "you can only see out at low tide."

The usually submerged tunnel wasn't the only thing waiting for us there. I learned then that the random pranks we'd committed over the years hadn't been so random after all. Empty ale barrels, bits of chicken coop, the stolen door, Ser Mettin's blankets.

Jacob Caldwell had kept souvenirs from every single act of mischief I'd ever helped him commit. And with them he had built himself a raft.

"Come with me," he said, hopping aboard. The mischief in his eyes reminded me of when we'd first met. Freedom beckoned. The light at the end of the cavern was almost blinding, and through it the outside world looked enormous.

"I can't," I answered ruefully, "I belong in the circle."

"I don't think there's going to be a circle after today," Jinx warned.

"I'm not like you," I said, "you're a legend. You're clever, and brave. More than a match for any demon, bandit or templar. I'm not strong. I couldn't survive out there."

I expected him to be angry, but Jinx just laughed. "You're joking aren't you? Morgan, I couldn't have done any of this without you. You've always been by my side, and unlike me you actually had a future to risk. You're the brave one."

I blinked. I'd never thought about it that way before.

"Break one last rule with me?" he pleaded.

So I did.

Kirkwall burned behind us as the tide carried us off towards the wounded coast. Jinx steered and I clung desperately to the mast. We bobbed along the water as our world shrunk from view.

War came to the Gallows that day, but we were already long gone. Jinx had saved my life, and our adventures were only just beginning.

We didn't look back.