Title: A Life Never Lived
Author: Anchan
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Ishtar, Ishtar/Darres
Notes: Before I'm lynched, about why Seiliez is a girl: a) it's Ishtar's dream, b) Ishtar does treat him like a sister and c) it's a dream. There's always one nutcase element in a dream. (Also, Seiliez as Ishtar's brother didn't work nearly as well and I wanted the Seiliez/Laphiji.) As for Ishtar's parents, she never knew her own and I think Sonia and Keld would work well as mother and father figures (Sonia and Ishtar seemed quite close in the Zi Alda arc).
She's the daughter of a well-off merchant. She's got two sisters, because a family just wouldn't be a family without Falan and Seiliez needs a nicer mother than the one he's got. Vord's her big brother, because every girl needs a champion and Laphiji's a magic student who keeps hanging around. He's viewed with suspicion until one time Seiliez goes out to chase him off and when she comes back in their mother Sonia teases her for hours on end. There's a young soldier courting Falan and this is where Ishtar rolls her eyes because her sisters all attract the intensely devoted guys who never ever say a word and it makes getting to know future in-laws much harder than it should be.
She's happy. Who wouldn't be? And then one day Falan's beloved brings a friend to dinner. Ishtar's covered in stray hairs, but he doesn't seem to mind, he even pets Duzie and little and is given time to pull his hand away before he can bite him, so even Duzie likes him a little bit. This is the golden seal of approval in the family, there's been many a suitor chased away on the basis of Duzell's animosity.
They're talking suddenly and she likes his smile, likes his seriousness. There's an earnestness to him that makes her grin and when someone murmurs something about them that's perfectly audible, his blush makes her heart skip a beat.
She drags him outside after dinner under the pretence of seeing to his horse and kisses him there, in the darkness behind the stables. He draws back initially, surprised, but then he kisses her back and it's like a dream…
Because it is, in fact, a dream. Ishtar wakes silently, tears dried and sticky on her cheeks.