#or the canon story of the year ellana turned 16 and her whole life changed forever when an illness wiped out half her clan

[buttsonthebeach]

can you please, please elaborate on the AT AU? I am highly intrigued.

I SURE CAN! Thank you for asking! I never got past the stage of researching the real life Appalachian Trail, some general worldbuilding, and writing the first few paragraphs. Some snippets of worldbuilding include: -First chapter is called Trailhead, chapters in between were going to be different named for different mile markers and major stopping points on the route (Skyhold, etc), last chapter is called Trespasser because DUH (I was terribly pleased with myself when I realized how well that worked)

- Ellana is essentially in the forestry service/fish and game/national parks service - I hadn't settled on an exact job title or done my full research on it yet. This is my favorite career path for her in modern AUs though. She 100%, 10/10 could never work in an office.

- She is hiking the trail after her parents' death in an accident. It was something she'd always wanted to do with them. (She has a better/stronger relationship with her parents in this AU, partially because she is much older when they die.)

- Different DA:I characters' reasons for hiking the trail were, according to my notes:

Varric is looking for material for a new book

Bull is using this as an opportunity to gather intel

They meet up with Vivienne at the halfway point, there to have an elegant party to meet up with the high rollers, but she does hike with them for a while

Blackwall is on a journey of atonement, they discover. He is planting trees for the people he killed.

Cullen just got out of the military and is also trying to find/make peace with himself

Cole is the supposed spirit that haunts the trail (some people call him a demon, others credit him with saving their lives. He used to kill hikers who were trapped as a parallel to the White Spire)

Sera… ended up there just because??

Cassandra is looking for answers after the death of Divine Justinia and for what her new purpose is. So is Leliana. Josephine has been dragged along and is making the best of it. Divine Justinia herself loved to hike the trail, which has its origins as a pilgrim’s path (except Solas totally snarks that it’s an older, Elvhen tradition)

Dorian is hiding out from his parents after their huge fight. He figures this is the last place they would look for him. He also wants to honor Felix, who recently died, because they had talked about doing this together.

Divine Justinia died at Haven after being called there on some urgent business about an artifact. The artifact was stolen and it is unclear who was behind her death. There was a massive manhunt and talk of a new Inquisition but nothing came of it. This was a year ago. The artifact is Solas’s orb, and he is actually on the trail looking for it because his plan is the same as usual because he is the worst.

- The orb was going to end up being not on the trail, but in the national park/nature reserve/whatever where Ellana worked, and she was going to get called in to deal with a trespasser who would of course be Solas. I had no idea where it was going after that!

...so yeah, the idea was essentially a looser version of DA:I's plot where everyone is hiking together and Corypheus/the Anchor aren't really involved. That was as far as I got!