A/N - This is my first attempt at a Dragon Age fanfic. Its a story idea I've had in my head for awhile and I thought I would get it down so I could work on other stuff. At least I'm writing which at this point, is all that counts. Please bear with me for the first part of this chapter might be a bit confusing. I promise you this is a Dragon Age fanfic, but I thought maybe you'd like to know the main character a bit since she's not the typical origins main characters. Don't worry though, there will be a Cousland in here eventually, just want to give a different spin on the story. Please read, enjoy and comment! 3

Unfortunately I don't own any of the characters of Dragon Age or the idea of it. If I did, well lets just say I wouldn't be writing fanfiction! LOL! Enjoy!

Serene Mourne was your typical college student. Well, if you think typical as being abandoned by your father before you're born, left in the toy aisle by your mother at three years old, in and out of foster homes until the orphanage allowed her to live on her own. So in reality, she wasn't so typical after all. As much as life tried to keep her down, she managed to pick herself back up and keep going. There had been one foster family that almost adopted her, but due to a sudden financial situation they had to give her up. After that, she refused to be fostered and worked hard around the orphanage to make things better so others might find their happiness with a new family.

Serene managed to keep her grades up through school. Due to her unfortunate upbringing, she qualified for a scholarship that fully paid for her to go to college for anything she wanted. Some weird and random corporation looking to hand out thousands to kids that were smart but couldn't find a family. Serene didn't care, as long as she got to go to school so she could make herself better than her child abandoning parents.

It was the end of her junior year in college, one more year and she would have completed her degree in English with a minor in mythology. She had just received a grant that would allow her to travel the world in hopes of discovering the story she was meant to write. Serene loved to write and had always wrote since she learned how to write. All she could feel though was pain of being abandoned by everyone she loved. She wanted to see what else there was in the world that might inspire her to write.

Serene scoffed to herself as she got into her car. A few days ago, there was a banquet where she was awarded the grant. Some random act of a random god decided that one of the happiest moments of her life should be tarnished by the sudden reappearance of her mother into her life. The woman had naturally blood red hair with chemically enhanced blonde highlights and bright green eyes. Serene knew instantly she looked like her father, for she didn't look like this woman at all.

Serene was much bigger than her mother, height wise, stood almost a good foot taller than the retched woman. She had long, thick, deep brown-red hair with a few strains of natural gold and a few colored hair extentions of purple and pink. Her hazel eyes tried to surpress the anger in her heart for the woman that begged Serene to meet her for dinner, in hopes to reconcile. She didn't want anything to do with the woman, but decided to give her one night and then she would be gone from her life.

Serene pulled out of the drive way and made her way to a restaurant downtown. She wasn't too keen of the restaurant that her mother had picked out for them to meet, would require her to drink down a dangerously curvy road that many of the teenage kids in the area liked to play chicken on. Serena hoped she was leaving early enough in the night in order to avoid them. She had spent the last of her recent paycheck on a new calligraphy pen and a few unique, leather bound journals. There was no way she could afford to get her car fixed if she happened to get into an accident.

Serene slowed down at a lose curve when she heard a car ahead, maybe a few miles away, screeching down the road. She pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping that either the kid would pass out and drive off the road, turn off the road or the intelligent thing and slow the hell down. She couldn't avoid seeing the idiot, because it was too late to turn around. She continued slowly drive down the road. Suddenly, the road went bright as headlights came around the corner quickly. Serene noticed the car coming from the opposite direction was swerving around the road. She slammed on her breaks and pounded both of her fists into the car horn in hopes of catching the idiots attention. Unfortunately, she was too late and the other car smashed into hers, causing it to fly off the road. Somehow Serene had survived the impact from the other car, but she knew she wouldn't survive the fall.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Serene fell face first into the grass. Her body felt sore and her nose felt like it was fractured. The smell of grass and dirt filled her and she frowned. She was in her car a few moments ago and she didn't recall Superman coming out of nowhere to rescue her. Serene managed to push herself up onto her knees and take a look around. She was in the middle of a vast, green field with no buildings in sight. More importantly, there was no car in sight.

"Great, heaven is just a big grass field?" Serene asked herself as she managed to stand up on her feet to get a better look around. There was nothing but green for what seemed like miles. It might not be heaven, but it sure as hell wasn't New Jersey. She started to run her hands over her body, checking for anything broken or bleeding, in case this wasn't heaven. Everything appeared to be in good condition except for a strange smell and the sound of someone walking on grass coming from behind her.

Serene turned around to find seven men, or what looked like men, coming slowly toward her though a mile away. Apparently she was down wind from them and could smell a foul stench coming from them. They were odd looking, wearing mix match armor and carrying swords and two carried bows. This had to be some sort of dream, because heaven wouldn't have people like this running around, would it?

"Excuse me, do you know where we are? I'm kinda lost and…" Serene stopped as the largest one in the group carrying a large broadsword let out a beastly battle cry and charged her. Serene swallowed hard and decided this was definitely not heaven. The large smelly man held his sword over his head, aiming to slice her in half, but she managed to duck out of the way. He swung it again toward her body and she managed to roll back away from him. Once more he tried to plunge his sword into her, but she moved slightly to the side as his sword plunged into the grass. She kicked the man in the stomach, causing him to fall back away from his sword. Serene drew the broadsword from the ground, swung it around her head, decapitating the man.

Serene stood up and took a defense stance with the broadsword blade across her body. At that moment she fondly remembered the only person who left her not of their will. Her second foster mother, Barbara. The woman was in her fifties and decided to be a foster parent in order to find herself a young companion. Barb ran a sword exhibition and had Serene take lessons on how to use all of the weapons. Barb was also the woman that opened Serene to the world of writing and mythology. Sadly, Barbara had suddenly died of colon cancer just as the adoption was finalized, returning Serene back to the orphanage, though she was still allowed to continue her weapon training lessons with the exhibition.

"Thank you, sweet Barb." Serene whispered as she readied herself as the remaining six men started to charge her. All of them now armed with swords and daggers, charged her at once. If she didn't have such a strong stomach, the combined stench of them all would have killed her. Serene managed to deflect a sword from her right and duck another from her left. She then managed to swing her broad sword around her head and decapitate another man, leaving five. One started to charge her, but she managed to side step it and it killed another. She drew the sword from the last dead guy and plunged it into the recent attacker. That left her with three.

She decided to continue using the lighter sword over the broadsword, giving her a bit more flexibility to make an attack of her own. She charged the one on her right and managed to disarm it in the process and killing it. As she turned to start her attack on another one, it got the advantage on her and plunged it's dagger into her right side. Serene managed to withdraw the offense blade from her side and threw it at her new attacker. The attacker fell to the ground as the dagger hit him right between the eyes.

Serene stumbled slightly as she tried to focus on the last remaining smelly man. Her head was starting to get a bit foggy, whether from the over exertion or the lack of blood in her body. The man gave her one look and started to run away. Serena shook her head. There was no way she was just going to let someone get away with attacking her. She went to pick up a dagger on one of the dead bodies to throw, when she collapsed onto the body. Little did she realize at that moment that the blood of the body beneath her was mingling in with hers.

Serene didn't know how long she had actually passed out, but she came around to the sound of metal clashing and then a body hitting the ground. She pushed herself up off the body to see what was a man, compared to what she thought the things attacking her were, pulling his sword out of the body of the last thing and placing a shield on his back. The man turned to look in her direction and started towards her.

"Hey there, are you alright?" The man called as he started towards her. Serene couldn't really make much out of him other than the silver color of his armor, covered in blood. Everything else about him was blurry. As he got a bit closer, Serene could feel the earth around her shaking. The man didn't look that heavy to cause the ground to shake.

"Look out!" Serene managed to cry as a huge beast, almost three times their size, came charging towards them. Her rescuer, for lack of a better word, turned toward the beast and drew his sword and shield. He let out a battle cry and charged into the beast with his shield. The beast stumbled back at the impact and the man slashed his sword across the beast, cutting its chest open. The beast cried out in pain and swung its arm out, knocking the man down. The beast moved quickly before the man could recover and held it's heavy arms over its head in order to smash the man's body. The man looked up in horror, knowing he would not be able to move away in time only to see Serene ramming a broadsword into the beast's chest and pushing it onto its back.

Serene managed to hold onto the sword as the beast fell down. She withdrew the sword from it's chest and lodged into down it's throat. She stayed there for a moment to make sure the beast was actually dead and then let out a sigh of relief.

"And here I thought I was coming to your rescue." The man said as he held out his hand to help her down from the beast's chest. Serene stared at his hand for some reason, her reactions slow most likely due to the lack of blood.

"Well, you did help if it makes you feel any better." Serene said. The man noticed she was swaying a bit.

"My name is Alistair." Alistair introduced himself, still holding out his hand. Serene was having a hard time keeping her eyes open but managed to find his hand and shook it.

"I'm Serene. Now if you don't mind, I think I'm going to pass out now." Serene said as she passed out. Luckily for her, Alistair caught her before she could hurt anything else. Alistair noticed she had a wound on her side and walked over to a clean patch of grass to tend to her wound. He cut off the remains of the flimsy shirt she was wearing and blushed furiously at the odd looking breast band she was wearing.

"By the Maker, I'm glad no one is around to see this." Alistair mumbled under his breath as he nervously cleaned her wound and wrapped it with a clean bandage in his pack. He pulled out his spare shirt and carefully pulled it on her. Just because he saw her in her small clothes doesn't mean anyone else had to. Besides, it was necessary in order to clean her wounds.

Alistair sheathed his sword and put his pack in place before carefully scooping Serene into his arms. He would bring her back to the warden camp at Ostagar to have a mage better tend to her wounds. Plus, maybe she would make a good recruit for the wardens as well. She had managed to take out five genlocks, one hurlock and assisted him on taking down an ogre. Surely Duncan would agree that she had the potential and they were in need of more wardens. Alistair made his way back to the main road and on his way back to Ostagar.