Talking Thinking Believing

Eight a.m., and I have not slept. It is June, calm; the crickets’ drone hasn’t yet started. There are twelve missed calls on my phone and days of unanswered mail stacked up in a shoebox by my desk. I’m 48 hours into my second playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, completely trashed on energy drinks, and feeling a calm I haven’t felt in months. I am playing a human rogue Grey Warden named Azerael, after Az’rael, the Islamic Angel of Death. I’d given her the darkest, most weathered skin I could, an uneven haircut with bangs, and Afghan-green eyes. She’s a hipster Pocahontas, and a visual anomaly in the world of Ferelden.

At the moment, she stands with her friends—the knight Alistair; Morrigan, daughter of the Witch of the Wilds; and my bard, Leliana. They and I, over the course of two years in-game battling the Blight, have spoken to hundreds of characters. Each conversation has subtly or radically changed the course of this journey to bring us here, finishing a final quest line before the game’s ending throes.