A/N: Welcome to the prologue of Borrowing Trouble. This story is planned to be something of an anthology, so this is only the first book of many. With luck, this story will continue to be written and read for many, many weeks and months to come. It's an idea that struck me when I was flying back home from Miami and looking out the window. The view from an airplane is always marvelous.

The music that partly inspired this story and heavily influenced this prologue is "The Greener Grass" by Fair to Midland.

I do not own Dragon Age or any of its characters, locations or events. I only own the characters I have created.

(I'm scared)
11 hours till the electric arcs

(I'm scared)
Send scorches through the sky

(I'm scared)
Then the whole earth opens wide

I'm too anti-social for my own good, or at least, that's what everyone keeps telling me. Not that I'm some mouth breathing weirdo who's too paranoid to leave their own house, I have plenty of friends. I go out, and I do things. I just tend to...avoid other people's company if I can manage it. I don't know why. It's not that I don't like people, I just always find myself drifting off halfway through conversations, wishing in my head that they'd shut up and go away. Did I say I have plenty of friends? Well, I have a couple anyway. Enough to count. You get the point.

My name is Sarah Blake, and in danger of sounding suspiciously like the Fresh Prince, this really is the story of how my life got turned upside down.

Maybe I should start at the beginning, with the basics, like you're supposed to. My name is Sarah Blake and I'm twenty-three years old. I'm short, about average shaped, with too-long hair that's exactly the shade that comes to mind when you think of the word 'brown'. I wear glasses. I'm anti-social, but we went over that already. That stuff doesn't really matter anyway.

What does matter is...what the hell am I supposed to do?

I skipped ahead too far already, let's take a step backwards.

The clouds hanging low overhead are angry and ready to burst, which would be just my luck. Sometimes, I really think I should just break down and learn how to drive. It'd be more convenient, but the reality is that I'm just not motivated to go through the hassle when everything is within walking distance anyway. The benefit of living in a small town, I guess. The only benefit.

The streets are vacant except for the occasional person on their way home from work, their tires crunching the red and gold leaves that are already falling from the trees despite it only being late August.

The walk home from work is always a short one, but the threat of rain makes it seem impossibly long as I wait anxiously for the crack of thunder and the sound of the torrential downpours that this part of the country is famous for. Oh, Northern America, remind me why I moved here again?

Music snakes from my phone, through the headset and into my ears, drowning out my footsteps that always, without fail, shift to match the tempo of whatever I'm listening to. The music doesn't matter, the words and the notes and the lyrics are secondary. The tempos, the beat, the heart of the songs are why I listen. I live to count the beats and half rests that music is composed of.

I guess you could say I'm slightly OCD. I count things. I put my laundry away in parcels of ten, and then I have to go do something else before I start another set. It's mostly just little things like that, and I can break my rituals without freaking out or feeling sick, it's just that I do them without realizing it. I don't really remember when that started.

Thunder rumbles ominously in the distance, not so much heard as felt in the cavity of my chest and my pace quickens with my desire to stay comfortable and dry. I'd closed up shop early today in anticipation of the weather, though the drop off recently in my business may have had something to do with that as well. I own a flower shop. That's right, I'm a florist. For some reason, everyone always laughs when I tell them that. My grandmother calls it quaint. I don't get it. I like flowers. I sell flowers for a living. It seems like a win-win situation to me.

The gentle slope of my roof comes into view as I round the corner onto my block, third house on the left, the one with the ridiculous garden and even more ridiculous garden gnomes. I feel my lips curve into a smile at the sight of them, and I fish my jingly keys from my purse to let myself inside.

It's darker than normal, my large windows cut off from their usual sunshine by the thick clouds promising rain and I flick on a lamp as I pass by, dropping my purse and work bag wherever, shedding my clothes until I can stretch comfortably in my underwear and socks in the solitude of my bedroom. My cat blinks balefully at me from where he sits curled in my computer chair, meowing with reproach from beneath the shirt I toss carelessly on top of him.

"Afternoon, Tom," I grouse, swiping up a tank top and loose yoga pants from the floor and shimmying into them. Yeah, my cat's name is Tom, but it's not what you think. He's not Tom, as in Tom Cat, he's Tom, as in Tom Hanks. I've got my on-again off-again boyfriend to thank for that one.

Thunder shakes my windows and I nearly jump out of my socks, clutching my chest as though it would slow the hammering of my surprised heart. Inside my cozy little house, I've forgotten about the storm that is now raging full force outside. Peeking out the window, it looks like I've made it inside just in time. My poor flowers, I hadn't gotten the chance to cover them. Hopefully, by the time the storm blows itself out, they won't be too battered or drowned. They've already had such a rough start from our unusually long winter.

Lightning spears the sky and chasing after it is another peal of thunder that rattles my windows in their panes. From beneath my shirt, Tom peeps his acknowledgement of the storm and goes back to sleep, his orange flicking tail the only part of him that's visible.

I shut off the bedroom light, leaving the crotchety Tom to his afternoon nap and pad my way into the kitchen. I don't bother turning on any lights, the dull glow of the ever constant light above my stove is more than enough to illuminate me on my quest. Cabinets rattle, silverware jangles in drawers and the suction of my refrigerator door punctuates my daily ritual of afternoon cereal and nearly frozen milk. Bowl in hand, I amble out to my living room and draw the curtains open all the way before settling down on my couch. With my legs tucked snugly beneath me, I watch the storm unfold.

It's raging furiously, and I'm a little bit surprised. We get bad storms, but nothing like this, not that I've seen since I moved here. The sky has gone from slate grey to charcoal black and the clouds are boiling. Rain pelts everything in bullet fast sheets and I wonder just what happened to make the sky so pissed off. Lightning is arcing everywhere, and I'm glad that I made it inside when I did, it looks dangerous. Flashing purple and blue bolts strike the ground just out of sight, their jagged appearances lighting up the sky brilliantly before allowing it fade back into the dark.

Something about this storm is seriously freaking me out, and I can't put my finger on what it is or why. It just leaves me feeling uncomfortable. The air is charged and ionized, that same feeling you get when you're scared to touch a doorknob or a shopping cart because you know it's gonna zap you with static electricity. There's this heavy feeling in my stomach that I can't shake and the back of neck prickles like someone is watching me, but that's not possible. I live alone (except for Tom) and Jack gave me his key back days ago.

I chalk it up to nerves, anxiety over my recent once-again broken off relationship and take a contemplative bite of my crunchy cereal. I realize that I'm chewing in time with the pace of my thoughts and concentrate specifically on not doing it, which doesn't work because then I start chewing to the pace of my stop it mantra. Lightning flashes again and I feel the hair on my arm stand on end. Ridiculously, all I can think of is the crew from that silly ghost show. "Dude, check out the hair on my arm, there's totally a presence around here..."and I immediately feel dumb for making that connection. It's just the charge in the air from the lightning that's making me feel weird; changes in barometric pressure can make you feel creeped out. It's just a northern storm.

My spoon is halfway to my mouth, heaping full of delicious cereal when I feel it. The ground shakes just a little bit, like it does when the trains are running by except there are no trains running today and the shaking isn't stopping. It's getting worse, knocking the cereal from my spoon and the milk from my bowl, sloshing it over the ceramic side and onto the polished wood of my living room table. From my bedroom, I hear Tom's grumpy noise of protest, and I can hear my own noise of confusion ringing in my ears. This part of the country doesn't get earthquakes, but we do get tornadoes, and that's the first thought on my mind. My poor little garden, no way will it survive a cyclone.

The shaking is getting stronger and now there's this noise like a train is barreling down, heading straight for my house and I panic when I realize that I don't have a basement and it's too late for me to leave the house and go find shelter. My mind clicks rapid fire through all of the safety drills I learned in school as a kid and I remember that the bathtub, for some reason, is the safest place in the house if you're going to sit out a tornado.

My bowl of cereal is forgotten, along with the growing puddle of cold milk that will no doubt leave a stain on my table, and I tear through the house back to my bedroom and scoop up my freaked out cat. My feet threaten to slide out from beneath me when my socks offer no traction on the hardwood surface and I book it as fast as I can anyway. I turn the corner into my bathroom and with a flying leap, I land unceremoniously and ungraciously in the bathtub, hoping that I'm remembering things right and I'm not about to die right next to my toilet.

There's a tearing noise, accompanied by this awful suction sound and I'm absolutely sure that the roof of my house is about to disappear when it suddenly stops and my ears pop painfully with the abrupt change in air pressure. I've heard stories about the eye of the storm, how it's quietest there while the storm is raging all around and I'm sure that's what's happening now. Not to mention I've seen enough scary movies to know that the bitches that go check on everything immediately after the noise stops are always the ones that die. No way am I dying in this monster movie, bucko.

Tom is shaking in my arms, giving me that pitiful yowl he's perfected on trips to the vet and I shake him a tiny bit just to hush him. He rewards me with the scolding feel of his claws in my arm and I lean my head on the cool edge of my tub, hoping that the worst is over. I'm over thinking everything, picturing the damage I know will be done to my garden, my fence, and probably my roof.

The feeling in my stomach is heavier than before as I contemplate how much it might cost for all the repairs. My shop isn't exactly making me a millionaire, and I'm wondering if maybe I can convince Jack to fix it.

Seconds turn into minutes while it stays silent, and with Tom's claws digging into my skin I decide I have no choice but to crawl out of the bathtub and go see for myself.

My feet are dragging and I know it, I'm so bad at confronting things. I get weird and nervous just checking my bank statement online. I'm definitely a glass half empty kind of girl. Expect the worst, because that's usually what you end up with anyway.

I'm surprised when I leave the bathroom, because there's no damage that I can see. Looking out my windows, it looks like my porch chairs got blown over but that's it. It doesn't make any sense, I heard and felt the tornado, there should be damage, should be some sign of the storm but there isn't. The only indication that anything even happened is the still-dark sky and the claw marks that are lightly bleeding on my forearm.

My breath fogs up the glass window of my back door as I press my face against it, peering into my yard and surveying for some kind of evidence that I'm not going crazy, but what I see in no way convinces me. It can't be right. I'm seeing things because I've suddenly and inexplicably lost my mind.

There's a man lying face down in the middle of my vegetable patch, near my back fence which looks like it's been damaged by something heavy, and that's not even the impossible part.

My back door swings open and I walk barefoot across my porch to lean against the railing. The bottom of my socks are instantly soaked but that drops pretty far down to the bottom of my list when I get a really good look at the stranger who's crushing my peas.

He's wearing armor, like a knight or something from the dark ages, but it's scratched and bent and even from here I can tell parts have been torn away and it's kind of bloody. I wonder if he designed it like that on purpose, like maybe he's a performer or something. That seems the most likely scenario. How many drunk or stoned actors wind up passed out in other people's yards? I can think of at least two off of the top of my head. I consider myself lucky that he didn't climb in my bedroom window.

Still, he's unconscious, and he's crushing my peas so I clearly can't leave him where he's at. I could call the police, but I decide against it - at least for right now. I can always call them if it turns out he's some kind of nutso rapist.

I hop down the three steps that lead from my porch to my thirsty grass that's soaking up the water from the rain and creep cautiously over to where he's sprawled out. It takes me a while, I swear I'm only moving an inch a minute but my heart is hammering in my chest and I'm nervous.

There's a sword lying a few feet from him in the grass, and I don't see it until I'm passing it, because I'm not paying attention to anything but this guy and I'm trying to think of what I'm even going to do when I reach him and suddenly I'm there next to him. I'm kneeling, pushing and struggling to turn him on his side so I can roll him onto his back and it's stupid how heavy he is. I have to brace my feet in the slick grass and push from my hips to even get him to move, and since he's dead weight I have to keep pushing or he'll roll right back onto his face.

He rolls, finally, and I wince. This close, I can see the brutal tears in his armor and he's bleeding which doesn't make any sense since he's bleeding in places he shouldn't be from such a short fall over my fence. His face is bruised, his lip split and his expression is screwed up horribly from whatever nightmare he's obviously having and I can't help but feel sorry for him, crushed peas and all. He just looks so...nice. He's cute, and I have to take a moment to laugh at myself for thinking such a stupid thing when he's so messed up.

"Alright, Sir Lancelot," I murmur, poking and prodding at the bends and breaks in his armor, carefully avoiding any spots that might get blood on me because I still don't know this guy, and you never know what diseases people might have. Still, I can't just leave him out here. The storm looks like it's gathering strength for a second go around and I might be a crummy person but I'd be really crummy person if I just left him out in the rain to get battered by whatever lawn ornaments the wind decides to throw around.

There's no way I'll be able to lift him, and so I settle for trying to wake him up instead. As carefully as I can, I go for shaking his shoulders first, which turns out to be a bust because he's so heavy I can barely do that. This is one built dude. His shoulders are broad and he's at least six feet and some change, which sucks for me if I can't get him to wake up. I can just picture my snoopy neighbors spying at me over the fence, watching me drag an unconscious and obviously beaten man into my house by his feet. That would go over well with the neighborhood watch.

Since shaking his shoulders doesn't work, I move on to patting his face, which earns me a groan but nothing more and so I move on to a different technique. "C'mon, Sir Lancelot, wake up or you're gonna get tossed around more than Dorothy." I pinch his cheeks and thump his forehead, feeling a little guilty since he's so wrecked, but he does start to come around.

I lean back immediately, resting my weight on the balls of my feet and watch like a hawk as a pair of hazel eyes blink open blearily. He doesn't see me right away, but when he does, he sits up and immediately starts scrambling around for his sword. "Woah!" he cries out, his eyes wide with distrust. "Demon!" His voice is rich and low, a rumbling baritone in an English accent so delicious it would curl my toes if he wasn't currently trying to find his sword so he could chop off my head. "Where are they? Where are my friends?"

Demon? I have no idea what he's talking about, but he's obviously confused. "Hey!" I cry out reproachfully, rising to my feet as he rises to his, sword firmly in hand. I was right, he's six and some change, and boy is it ever a lot of change. He's towering over me, but I'm too angry all of a sudden to be intimidated. I was trying to help him for crying out loud. "You hang on a minute," I snap, marching forward and poking him hard in the chest, which accomplishes nothing but bending my finger since he's so padded in armor. "You do not get to be all high and mighty with me, Sir Lancelot, nooooo way. You're in my back yard, you broke my fence and you are still crushing my peas."

My arms fold across my chest and I realize I'm shivering a little bit, but I can't tell if it's from the cold or from the sheer nerve of this guy. He might be cute, but he's pissing me off. I glare pointedly down at my poor peas and he at least has the decency to look sheepish about the fact that he's ruined part of my vegetable patch. My eyes are narrowed and my hip is cocked out to one side in what my mom calls my battle stance, and if the blush creeping up his neck is any indication, it's working. An awkward moment of quiet passes between us and then his eyes are narrowing right back at me distrustfully. He looks more silly than anything else, the way he's squinting one eye at me like I'm going to turn him into a toad or something. "Who are you?" he drawls out suspiciously. "And where are my friends?"

A drop of rain splatters on my bare shoulder and I flick it off. "I'm going inside," I announce, not happy with how wet my socks and the hem of my yoga pants are. "If you want to, you can come in and dry off. Just don't kill me or rape me or something dumb like that."

He sputters, gaping at me like a fish which might be a good thing considering he's about to get drowned if the clouds are any indication. I can hear the rain coming and I book it the rest of the way inside without checking to see if he's following me til I'm on my porch.

"If you get wet," I call out to him, rolling up the legs of my pants so that my ankles don't feel so gross, "will you rust like the tin man?"

His expression of deepening confusion makes me chuckle and I retreat backwards into the beckoning warmth of my house while the clouds finally unleash themselves for round two. Within seconds, his honey blonde hair is plastered to his face and he's still not moving. Of course he would be an idiot, that's just the way my luck runs. I watch him for a while, nose and hands pressed against the glass of a window. I expect him to do something, but he doesn't and now I just feel bad for being mean. The rain isn't letting up and I'm not so much of a bitch that I'll just let him freeze. He looks so lost, and for some reason he looks sad, which gets under my skin. I've never been good at dealing with people being upset. The way his shoulders are slumped makes me sigh. My patio door slides open and I slip back into the unforgiving weather, this time equipped with an umbrella and a fluffy towel.

"Here." I offer him the towel, straining on my toes to get the umbrella over his head as well as my own. He's so tall that I can only just barely manage it. "Come inside, already. I'm sure I can help you find your friends. You can use my phone to call them."

He doesn't understand, I can tell by the flicker in his eyes and the crease in his brow but he takes the towel and dries his face. "Come inside," I order again, uncomfortable with his confusion. I'm really hoping that he didn't give himself a concussion falling over my fence. "C'mon. The weather is only going to get worse and I would really prefer if you didn't keel over in my back yard. I'm sure we're already giving my neighbors something to talk about."

I turn and the umbrella turns with me, but this time at least he follows me with a defeated huff of breath. He takes the umbrella without a word, which my cramping arm is thankful for, and holds it over both of us until we're safely on my patio where I take it back and shake it out. The umbrella is leaning against my patio table and I beckon for him to follow me inside. "My phone is in the kitchen, Sir Lancelot. Dry off and you can use it to call your friends to come pick you up."

"Alistair," he grumbles at me, his heavy plated boots leaving puddles on my hard wood floors when he follows me inside. I turn in time to see him frowning down at me, that crease still furrowing his brow. "My name is Alistair."