SHE DANCED WITH DRAGONS.
Zalea Tabris defeated the Blight, placed her lover on the throne, and decided to travel as far away from Ferelden as possible rather than take command of Amaranthine. Coming home hurts.
It has been a year since the Blight has ended, and her cousin has come home. For awhile, anyways.
Shianni goes to greet her, since Cyrion is busy with other things at the moment. He's been made hahren, in place of Valendrian, while she is Bann and deals with the human nobles. Sometimes she wishes she could switch places with him – Cyrion, with his gentle, patient temperament would be so much better at dealing with the shems than she is, but she also knows that she is ruined in the eyes of her brethren after the events of her cousin's wedding, and she won't find much respect from them. So she tries her best.
Her cousin tries her best too, Shianni reminds herself. Zalea Tabris, Hero of Ferelden and currently wandering gypsy of Thedas – by choice, if that makes it any better.
"Cousin," Shianni said warmly, opening her arms to the other elf. Zalea embraced her gracelessly, with a touch of wry laughter in her voice.
"Cousin. Where is Father? And Soris?"
The redhead bit her lower lip, an unfamiliar flash of hesitance passing over her features. "Soris...is in Highever. He's taken a shem - sorry, a human woman, as his wife...The elves here wouldn't stand for it, they raged for days before he finally up and left. We get letters, sometimes. He sounds like he's doing alright."
Zalea's brow twisted in confusion and surprise. Quiet little Soris, taking a human lover and moving up to Highever? It sounded –
Well. Then again, a lot of the things that had happened in the past few years sounded impossible. This, in comparison, was perfectly logical.
"I suppose I'll try and visit him some time," she said lightly. "I'll have to go in that direction soon anyways, the Orlesian who was assigned to Amaranthine has been wanting to meet me for awhile and it would be rude to keep him waiting any longer than I have." Her fingers, nails cracked but clean, tapped along the strap of her sidebag as she spoke while the heels of her well-worn boots made a dull noise against the earth. Zalea had found it difficult to stay still ever since she'd struck the Archdemon down – while she'd made the conscious decision to put her darkspawn hunting days on pause, at least for awhile, a part of her still felt like they would be coming after her instead.
The dreams would never be half as bad as they once had been, but it was so much more difficult to deal with them when she knew she would wake up alone.
"Cousin?" Shianni asked, noticing the odd shadow that had come over Zalea's face. She took the time to study her cousin's face - Zalea had always been a pretty thing – she and Nelaros would have been a perfect match, if only...but something had changed.
The obvious would be the scar that sliced through her ear, across one cheekbone and down to the edge of her mouth, a souvenir from one of the hundreds of battles that Zalea had engaged herself in during the Blight. Shianni knew there were worse, beneath the light tunic and armour that the rogue was currently wearing, but Zalea wore the one on her face without a shred of shame or discomfort. It made her look strong, experienced – someone with stories to tell, the kind of stories that people wanted to hear.
The subtler difference was her hair. Shianni had seen it in its short, chin-length glory before, mourned the loss of her cousin's gorgeous brunette locks, but she had been too grateful to see Zalea alive at all to mention it. Now though, the color was off – what had once been rich, earthy brown now had the slightest tint of red to it, turning it auburn. It looked pretty in the sunlight, and she thought to mention it.
Zalea paled at the compliment and raised her hand to her neatly chopped off hair, combing a few strands of it. "Thank you, Shianni. Could we go find Father now?" Fierce and headstrong as Shianni was, Zalea didn't dare admit her morbid thoughts concerning her hair color.
Sometimes the elven rogue wondered if it was a sign of the blood that she would never be able to completely wash herself of.
[A/N: I haven't decided if I want to continue this or not. I have ideas for it, but they mostly just make me sad. This fic is NOT part of the headcanon!AU that my other DA fics take place in - Zalea is the only recruited Warden in this universe and Loghain is off in Orlais, presumably raging against Weisshaupt for assigning him there. Alistair is king, married, and...happy, much to his surprise. I have some thoughts about a chapter or two concerning Alistair and the Orlesian commander who took Zalea's place for the events of Awakening...but the more I think about them, they seem to get progressively angstier and darker, so I'm setting them aside for awhile.
Marking this completed but may add to it. We'll see.]