"Vir Bor'assan: the Way of the Bow
As the sapling bends, so must you.
In yielding, find resilience;
In pliancy, find strength."

- The Charge of Andruil, Goddess of the Hunt

Shianni had a splitting headache, which she guessed Jenji would too when the elf regained consciousness. Valora was being too quiet and even though Shianni was frightened it did not mean she could ignore what had to be done. If only she knew what to do...

"Maker keep us, Maker protect us, Maker keep us, Maker..."

Maker - the cause of her headache. Her name was Nola. It was just her, Jenji, Shianni herself, and another woman whose name Shianni didn't remember. She wanted to say it started with a 'D'...

"Maker protect us, Maker keep us, Maker protect us, Maker..." Nola continued, roking herself back and forth in the corner.

She had never been a particularly religious person, much like her cousin who hadn't attended chantry since she was thirteen and learned how to pick a lock well enough to make something of herself even if that something was a petty thief. Shianni could respect Andraste's teachings as much as the next person, but this...this just wasn't helping.

"Would you stop that? You're driving me insane!"

Just then Jenji began to stir from her place sprawled out on the floor. Her eyes fluttered open and she sat up slowly, supporting herself with her elbows, staring down at her bloodied wedding clothes. Well, she never did want to get married, at least not like this...I guess at least this puts it off for a little while...Shianni couldn't help her natural tendency to see the silver lining, it was a valuable perspective when you lived in an Alienage.

"Cousin, thank goodness you've come to." She tried not to speak to loudly, for both their sakes. Still, Jenji's hand clutched her head where that bastard had struck her. He was stronger than he looked, but so was she. "How do you feel?"

Jenji actually considered her response. She almost shrugged but didn't, deciding instead to ignore the question completely.

"So...that human dies." She said, forcing a smile, but Shianni could tell what she was really thinking. She was not shocked, or even surprised. She was perfectly prepared to die for her people, and if she couldn't, then she would survive by any and all means. So far, Shianni only knew about the thieving.

Valora and the other women seemed to decide now was the best time to start panicking. Despite Shianni's attempts to calm them, they would have none of it. She knew this was wrong, and everything she stood for, everything she believed in told her so, but she also knew that the most practical approach to a situation like this was to give in. There would be a lot less elven blood spilled that way, and maybe it wouldn't even be as bad as she thought...What was she saying? Of course it would be.

"It will be worse if we fight it." Shianni said, ignoring the way her lips twitched with the words. She was lying to herself as much as she was to Valora. She believed in fighting. It was fight or flight, and there was no getting out of this. That left one option: submit.

"'Vir Assan - fly straight and do not waver, Vir Bor'Assan - bend but never break, Vir Adahlen - together we are stronger than the one. We are the last of the Elvhenan, and never again shall we submit.'" The words were soft, weak yet powerful in their meaning, as if fallen from broken lips.

"What?" Shianni knew her cousin was half Dalish but she never knew...

"It will be worse if we don't!" Valora argued, as if having not heard Jenji at all.

"Will it?" Jenji was looking directly at Valora, the elf became silent. "Worse for who exactly: You? Or the Alienage? Because the way I see it, we can take our chances unarmed against likely dozens of guards twice our size and probably end up dead or, if Vaughan shows mercy on us, the same fate as if we'd spread our legs and let it happen. The difference: one of them results in a few more dead humans; and a lot more dead elves while the other allows us to get home by supper." Shianni didn't think the little elf's eyes could get any wider, but Jenji wasn't quite done yet. "Because I don't know what life is like in the Alienage in Highever, Valora, but here we do what we have to for our people, even if this is the price that must be paid."

It took Valora a moment to gather herself again. "But you just said...What about the Dalish? Never submit and-"

"-I'm not Dalish. The Dalish can keep running until there's nowhere else to go. We're stuck, we have priorities, responsibilities. We have a duty, and that includes you." The words were not meant as bitter or angry. They were spoken as a truth, and were ture enough Shianni thought.

Jenji got to her feet and walked over to one of the two doors in the small...storage room they had been left in. She soon realized her lock picks had been taken, judging by the look on her face, they'd even taken the pins from her hair, and after a minute of searching her usual hiding places she gave up and decided to try and break the lock instead.

"What are you doing?" The nameless woman asked in a meek tone, even for an elf.

"I'm not going to give our captors the advantage if I can help it." Jenji responded, not taking her eyes from her work.

"But you just said it is better if we-" Valora began.

"It is, but that doesn't mean we should waste an opportunity." She fiddled with the lock for a second more before she looked up suddenly, eyes narrowed. "Shit, they're here!" Jenji hurried back to the others before the door swung open. "Don't speak, do whatever they say, if you see an opportunity, take it, but just don't do anything stupid." She looked at Valora as she spoke.

The guards proved to be 'perfect gentlemen' all right. One of the women, Nola, the headache causing one, was dead. She'd proven herself more bold than Shianni had expected, resisting the guards, and now she was with the Maker. They dragged Shianni off, and she knew her fate was sealed. It was remarkable really how simply the conclusion came. All she could do was pray her cousin had a fighting chance. She had her mother's skill and strength and her father's wits, she'd be fine...right?

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The body wasn't even cold yet, and still she stepped over it, because there simply wasn't time to lose. Betrothed or not, what was important now was those she could save: Shianni, Valora, the girl she couldn't remember the name of. It was too late for Nola and now it was too late for Nelaros. Not that his was not a noble effort, stupid but noble. She just couldn't afford the distraction.

And she knew Soris must be thinking she was the most insensitive woman in all of Thedas right now. He took one last look at the elf's body and hurried to keep up the pace with Jenji. Nelaros had been his friend, the only other person in the world willing to risk their life to save a few elven women. And now he was dead. Soris was wondering why it hadn't been him. Maybe they'd even got to talking, maybe even talked about her...Oh Maker, she didn't want to think about that.

She took the ring, Soris hadn't noticed of course but she did. Maybe it did hold some sick sentimental value, or maybe it was just a thief's natural attraction to shiny objects she wasn't sure. But she took it and slid it into the pocket of the leather armor she'd taken from the armory.

One by one, they dared to stand in her way, and one by one, they fell.

It was nothing like a play; blood was everywhere. She'd fought guards before but never like this. Innards spilled from their slashed armor so they looked like some kind of twisted half-human half-machine. The estate echoed with cries of pain which brought more guards, and she thought she might even have heard the muffled scream of a woman...

This was just the hunt: the trophy was Vaughan's head.

And he had the nerve to try and cut her a deal: forty, shiny, sovereigns in exchange for her silence. But if he thought she would accept perhaps it wasn't wise to leave Shianni to lay broken on the floor. Her lip was bleeding and there were tears running down her cheeks. Markings on her throat, all in various stages of turning black or blue or purple, but mostly black, and all the same width apart, just barely the size of a fingerprint.

She'd tried to fight. An odd jolt of pride and fear twisted itself into a knot in Jenji's stomach at the realization; Shianni had probably saved the other women from the same fate by doing so.

Vaughan and his pet nobles hit the ground with a cracking of bones, torn skin, and a gush of blood. There were arrows lodged in his abdomen, a rather nasty looking wound to the back of his head, and a deep cut the length of his throat. Not to mention the blade buried in his spine…

…All right, so maybe the last two wounds had occurred after he was already dead, accidents happen...

Jenji was proud.

She searched the room for those infamous forty sovereigns promised before, and found nothing. Bastard...

Jenji tore a piece of silk from one of the dead noble's shirts and dabbed the blood from Shianni's face.

"Abelas..." she whispered, certain that she must have a concussion since she was suddenly remembering the words to her mother's old songs.

"Don't...don't leave me...Please..." This wasn't Shianni, it wasn't her Shianni anyway. "There's so much blood, Jen. I...I don't want...to look at it anymore."

"I know, Shianni. And I'm not going anywhere. Never again." She attempted a smile.

"Please...just...take me home...I want to go home!" Her eyes widened suddenly. "You...You did kill them all...didn't you?"

This time she did smile. "Like dogs, Shianni. I swear to you, I did what had to be done."

"Good." She shut her eyes tight and more tears escaped them. "Good." She repeated with a shaking breath and then a ghost of a smile. "You always do."

Soris and the other women entered the room. The women looked horrified, Valora especially. There was no look of 'I told you so' in her eyes, only pure terror. They were both picturing themselves in Shianni's place, and Jenji was wishing herself there.

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Jenji had never been more thrilled to leave a noble's estate. Most people in her line of work would give their right hand just to get inside. The irony did not escape her.

She was plagued with indecision.

When the guards entered the gates and demanded answers, she took the blame, accepting the prospect of her long awaited death. There was a reason Alienages only had one hahren after all.

When the Grey Warden Duncan stepped in however, she was half expecting he'd run her through himself or his face would morph into Vaughan's and he would finish what the bastard had started, or if not that, then it would turn into one of those dreams where she's suddenly naked in front of the entire Alienage or something.

But it didn't.

On one hand, she knew that her mother would have been proud to see her daughter become a Warden. And, as she'd told Valendrian, there was a whole big world out there. A world full of shiny things and sights the likes of which she'd never dreamed of. Even if she was going to fight in some shem war she didn't fully understand, it was a factor.

She didn't want to leave her home, when it came right down to it, and she found it hard to believe Duncan had actually spared her based on her skill or honor because everything she had ever been taught told her humans simply didn't do things like that.

But then there was the realization that she'd have to leave her family. Soris would be fine, he had Valora and she supposed she couldn't really judge someone solely based on how they handled a crisis on their first day in a new and frightening place, engaged to a man they barely knew. Father would survive too. he wasn't pleased with her being Conscripted but he wasn't the sort to be quick to anger, she knew worry was at the root of it: worry that he would lose his only daughter just as he had lost his wife. It was the same worry that had kept him up at night while she braved the streets of Denerim.

The Alienage would make it as well, somehow. She didn't think much or Vaughan's threats to torch the place. After all he hadn't been prepared to keep his word about the money. Not to mention he hadn't crashed her wedding to have a 'party' either as he had promised. He wasn't the honest type.

Of all the people she knew would make it, Shianni...Well. Jenji just wasn't sure.

She knew she had to see her before she left the Alienage for what would likely be the last time, even if she wasn't sure she could face it: it was her duty.

It was time to leave before she could even get supper on the table. She was going to miss Denerim; her family, nice shiny silvers, the food - what little of it there was; this was her whole life. She knew enough about what people would expect of her and what she could expect of them, she wasn't stupid, and she'd learned enough of the harsh lessons of life that she began to think there wasn't anything else.

But now she had to bury those thoughts with the dead.

"Are you ready?" Duncan asked as they approached the gates of Denerim.

"I…" She opened her eyes. "Yeah, I'm ready."