A Southern Californian in King Cailan’s Court

"A Southern Californian in King Cailan's Court" is a mission written by Aster Corbett, covering a Dragon Age: Origins badfic of the same title. It is "mission six" of the spin-off, although mission five was never published. It is the origin of the Suvian color high pink.

Ostensibly a solo Intelligence investigation by Agent Aster Corbett, she was later joined by original character Bendrick, a Grey Warden from the badfic, as well as her usual partner, Agent Lore. They ended up breaking Intel protocol and assassinated "Lucy-Elissa," as they called the story's Mary Sue main character.

Badfic Summary
Lucy Woodridge was originally an old lady computer programmer in the Real World. However, because of the intervention of Flemeth, a canonically powerful witch, she was pulled from her world and put into the body of the smoking hot bombshell Elissa Cousland, in Thedas. Cousland was put into Lucy's body and was run over by a truck. Flemeth's motivation supposedly was that she had met Elissa Cousland, a stand-in for the player character of Dragon Age: Origins, and didn't think she'd do a good job of it. So she pulled a random old lady with no people skills to save the world instead. This motivation is questionable.

Lucy-Elissa wasn't too mad, because she was put into the body of what had to be the sexiest woman on earth, and became a Grey Warden. In the fic, this somehow meant that she was super libidinous all the time, and that she couldn't get pregnant. This was supposed to be sexually liberating, but then she went on to solve nearly every problem with the fact that she could sleep with anyone she wants. She proceeded to sleep her way across Ferelden, charming everybody from Bendrick, an OC meant to be a tragic dead lover, all the way to the contemporary Archdemon who "wanted her to be his bride, like Andraste was the bride of The Maker." Along the way, she skipped over "that boring stuff" like actually exploring and reacting to being in a fantasy world, and instead jumped from dialogue instance to dialogue instance, as well as to uncanonical scenes where she mocked and condescended to her traveling companions. Her traveling companions, for some reason, didn't mind.

Context
Agent Aster received this assignment as part of a probationary period, on orders from the Department of Internal Affairs. The "misdemeanor" being punished is unknown, and may have been covered by the unpublished mission "The Hidden Secret." She was instructed to observe the fic for 72 hours in-universe, and provided with standard equipment bearing tracking devices to allow the DIA to monitor her behavior. This included an unusual "MK-47" model of CAD that speaks like a certain Old Republic droid. No portal generator was provided, leaving Aster to follow the fic's action on foot; she was also transported to and from the story via a helicopter cloaked heavily with Somebody Else's Problem fields. Lore was unable to leave with her, due to attending a meeting of the Quadruped Support Group at the time of pick-up.

Overview
Aster entered alone, wearing leather armor from a Drizzt do'Urden replacement she had bartered for in HQ. Aster pulled Bendrick, the OC lust object, aside to rescue him from the upcoming Battle of Ostagar, and told him about the PPC. When Lore's meeting ended, he joined them disguised as a mabari war hound. He stole a vaguely magical mirror from Lucy-Elissa, but otherwise avoided interfering in Aster's punitive mission. The Suvian corruption eventually led the action to a twisted version of the Fade, which the mission narration refers to as "the Fake."

Major Charges

 * "Trans-dimensional hopping"
 * "crunching and stretching time"
 * "making canon characters act unrealistically"
 * "being unrealistically qualified to make military decisions"/"having impossible fighting skills"
 * "claiming that being a Grey Warden somehow increases your libido"
 * "being unreasonably attractive to every single male you have ever come in contact with"
 * "inventing 'High Pink'"
 * "being a Mary Sue"
 * "turning King Cailan into a water main"

Aftermath
At some point, Lore killed the character replacement of Flemeth off-page, and rescued the real one from a plothole. Aster accidentally broke the magic mirror when using it to move from the Fade to the Fake. Lucy-Elissa was smothered with her own clothing by Bendrick, which gave him enough time to finish her off with a Lightning spell.

Bendrick was covered in Lucy-Elissa's blood while assassinating her. When canon snapped back, it erased his history of being a Grey Warden, but his glitter exposure left Bendrick able to sense Suvians, in the same way that Wardens can sense Darkspawn. He also contracted Hyperlustin Disorder. He remained in Headquarters as a new recruit.

As punishment for performing an assassination during an Intel mission, Aster received a Howler in the mail from DIA Officer Goodfeel, which screamed the opening text of legolas by laura at her. She was also assigned to supervise Agent Ray Chell on the latter's first mission in the Department of Mary Sues. For his involvement, Lore had to clean the Cafeteria's grease traps.

Trivia

 * While Aster dreamed in the Fade, demons impersonated her original family, who had never appeared in published form before; her father had never even been written on-page before! This dream was set on Halloween, the same day this mission was published.
 * Aster's helicopter transport was provided by Pam Ritchie and Cliffy, DML's agents, whose stories he had to delete due to professional real life conflicts. "A Southern Californian in King Cailan's Court" is now their only on-page appearance in PPC canon.

Links
This mission is published across five Google Documents, with links at the bottom of each page to navigate between the previous and following pages.
 * "Start"
 * "Day One"
 * "Day Two"
 * "Day Three"
 * "Another Day"