a life unkind
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Summary: Shianni and her wayward cousin, but mostly Shianni, as Bell Tabris is hopeless and doomed to be just like her mother. – Multichapter Origin Fic.-
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Her cousin was stupid and blustery and absolutely terrified of Nelaros, and judging from the slightly seasick expression of frozen politeness on his handsome face, Nelaros couldn't be feeling any better about it himself.
This is stupid, Shianni thought savagely. Cyrion isn't thinking, he's just trying to get Bell settled up with a big belly before her throat gets cut, like her mother.
That's why, she thought more coolly, looking at Bell's feet, he gave her the boots.
Bell's face was a hiccupping mixture of fear and earnestness, and Shianni realized with cold, bleak comprehension that her cousin did not want to get married, and that she was fundamentally not cut out to be a very good wife (at least in the sense of actually staying home once in a while), but she also knew that Bell had made up her mind that if she absolutely had to, then she was going to try her damndest anyway.
Shianni had seen Bell's damndest.
Bell had given her damndest on more than one, very memorable occasion, not the least of which being her swordplay, but Bell's damndest usually ended up with a great deal of property damage and hurt feelings. Not that she really ever intended to, it was just that Bell was…. Enthusiastic.
And not terribly bright.
"So. Um," said Soris, finally, awkwardly trying to sail into somewhat friendlier waters than the ones his own stiff-faced fiancée was currently occupying. "I heard you two had a celebration last night. How'd it go?"
Shianni fought the urge to rub her temples.
Forgetting herself, Bell beamed. "Oh, you should've been there- we got Alarith to dig us up some of that, oh Maker what was it… lichen ale, I think? Un," she paused, blinking hugely, "-believable."
"That good?" said Soris, bemused, and utterly failing to register the look of affronted disbelief on his fiancée's face.
Bell shook her head, with the slow and horrified stare of one who has seen the face of the Beyond. "No." she said. "No, I would not say that." Then, quickly. "But Maker's tits, the money I won off'a Daven for finishing off the barrel- ow Shianni quit, I was just telling the man what we did-"
Nelaros was blinking rapidly by this point, as if to will himself into forgetting the new, fascinating discovery that his bride-to-be thought that exotic foreign ales were merely new and exciting opportunities for illegal gambling, but Shianni was past caring. She hauled her cousin by the elbow until they were just out of earshot and leaned in very, very closely.
"Stop it," she hissed. "Stop talking about drinking and betting and blighted swords for once, and start paying attention to the fact that Nelaros is going to wet himself if you don't start acting. Suitable."
The last word came out with more force than she intended, and Bell flinched under it. Her eyes were wide and hurt and confused, and, Shianni realized, too blighted young for what was expected of her.
She caught the small details. The hastily pulled back hair, the wide open face and the long, arched nose that came straight from her mother. Muddy grey eyes and skinny, nailbitten hands that were never going to be good for anything except swinging that sword around like a lunatic.
She was too young, and too in love with the long-dead memory of a mother who drank and fought more than she'd ever had the right to.
Inwardly she raged against Cyrion for ever thinking that Bell was going to be good for anything other than the same blighted fate that snatched Adaia away from him, and for trying to get her married for Maker's sake.
An elf who couldn't bear to keep its head down was a dead elf. That was all. Herding Bell into matrimony with a good, solid, suitable boy was only going to hasten the process- because once Bell started feeling trapped, she started acting stupid.
And worst of all, Bell was going to try. She was going to try to make this blighted marriage work and be terribly confused when it didn't, and she'd keep on being confused until it all fell down around her ears and Nelaros either started drinking heavily to compensate, or slit his wrists in the bathtub.
Bell's face was going blotchy red, the sort of thing Shianni had only ever seen when her cousin was about to do something highly regrettable. She was just about to take her cousin by the shoulders and shake her when-
"Grab a wench each, lads!"
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Author's Note: Yeah. Um. My PC ended up being simultaneously the most retardedly adorable elf babe ever. I don't question it. I merely state fact.
To be continued!
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