It's silly, she thinks, to mourn a man she never knew. A man she could have known – will never get to know.
She shouldn't mourn him because she never loved him. Never cared enough to love him. Never wanted to love him.
But he gave his life to save her.
They weren't even married yet and he so willingly, eagerly, thrust himself into danger to save her – her womanhood. Part of her feels that that was all there was to it; saving herself for their new wedding day. She knows better.
She knows because of what Soris told her. She knows because of what her heart is telling her; he was a good man. A good man who had the incredibly bad luck of her father picking him to be her husband.
She never wanted to be married. She never wanted any of this; had her father listened to her pleas, perhaps the man who was supposed to be her husband would not be dead. Perhaps he would have found a better match and have his good wife and his pretty babies and be somewhere safer than in the ground.
She finds it silly that she mourns him; that she allows herself to mourn a man who was, but was not, her husband. It was a life so close to being hers. A life where she wonders and ponders on the possibilities when she's not too busy cutting down darkspawn and saving the world from impending doom.
She wonders if he would have accepted her, but knows in her heart that he would have because that was who he was. If he was such a man to risk his life for a woman he never truly knew, then he was a man who would have accepted her as she is; rough around her edges and beautiful with her dagger.
Even had he lived, she still thinks that it would have been in vain. The life he would have wanted would not have been the life she could have given. She knows it in her heart, and hates herself for it.
She can now never give her father the grandchildren that he wants. Can never live the life that he had wanted for her. Can never be the woman who sits idly by and watches this world that she has always wanted to see and touch and feel fall apart before her very eyes.
She knows in her heart that regardless of whether or not her husband-to-be died, she would still be here. She would still be who she is, and even if he accepted it, it would not be what he wanted of her, but he was a good man who would die for her or beg to be at her side so he could protect her.
But she didn't need protection. She has never needed protection.
With skills honed by her mother, she has never needed it. Not then, not now. Not from the harsh realities of the world. Not from men wanting to use her.
She had needed help, still needs help, but she has never needed to be protected. She resents that he died because he felt that way; because he never knew her strengths and her weaknesses and her father never told him the truth because he was ashamed of her not being the daughter he wished her to be. Wishes her to be.
And regardless of could have beens and possibilities, nothing changes what she knows. Nothing changes what she's lived and nothing changes that he's dead.
And she finds it silly still, that she mourns him.