Cyrion waited at the gate, dressed in the best finery the alienage had to offer. His father stood strong and proud on one side of him, his mother radiant and loving on the other side. The nervousness gnawed at his insides still, but it was overshadowed by a warm glow as he stood between his parents and waited for his bride.

Too late and too soon she arrived.

So much for a plain wife. She was strikingly, violently, fatally beautiful. Already appreciative heads were turning and shooting envious glares at Cyrion, who trembled in his suddenly all-too-rustic velvet.

She looked around with a motion hawklike in its smooth quickness and fixed her stare on Cyrion. Her eyes were like flint: hard and grey, but liable to spark.

"I suppose you're my husband-to-be," and she walked toward him with bold, wide strides unbefitting of the traditional white wedding smock she wore. By her side trailed an inferior male shadow of her, sporting the same rust red hair and grey eyes but minus her fire and flint. A relative, Cyrion presumed. He rather wished his bride-to-be had the same agreeable expression as this relative.

"Adaia." She gave him a curt, almost martial nod and extended a hand. "Tabris, I presume?"

"Cyrion," and she squeezed his proferred hand once, as if testing him. He had the unpleasant feeling he failed the test.

"Let's just get this over with." Adaia cleared her throat and crossed her arms. Cyrion couldn't help but notice the white lines of scars crisscrossing over the traverses of lean muscle. "I'm going to come clean right up front. I'm not what you're looking for in a wife. I was only sent here because the elves back in Amaranthine couldn't stand me anymore."

"Oh," Cyrion's head spun. "Er, if you don't mind me asking, why would you think that?"

"I crippled a nobleman for trying to rape the hahren's daughter," and for the first time, Adaia grinned. It was a terrible sight, all the more so for how achingly destructively beautiful it was. This was no delicate flower, no spring butterfly. This was a wolf in the hunt, dancing steel and whirling flame, white lightning in a violent sky.

Frankly, Cyrion was terrified.

He didn't want this strange and violent, this heartstoppingly and fiercely beautiful Adaia. There was no room in his world of warm hearths and snug beds for this hurricane of a woman. Already her sheer presence dwarfed his carefully constructed dreams.

"Listen, Cyrion," and she placed a calloused but somehow still exquisite hand on his shoulder, forcing him to look straight into those flint eyes. "I'll be honest. I'm sure you're a decent enough fellow, but I have no desire to get married. You see, I bring trouble. I don't have the silver to return your dowry, but I won't force you into a marriage that can only end badly."

"Adaia!" The male relative tugged at her elbow. "You can't say that! I promised the hahren I'd make sure you get married. Look at all the work these good folk have done for the wedding!"

Something flashed in Adaia's hand, and shocked gasps rang through the alienage square. She held a dagger, finely crafted and enchanted with lightning. No alienage elf should have possessed such a thing.

"By the Maker, cousin, my parents didn't give me this dagger just because it looked pretty!" She snarled now, and if Cyrion thought her eyes hard before, she had seemed positively coquettish in comparison to her fury now. Even Valendrian, who was always so calm and composed there was talk of him becoming hahren someday, took a hasty step back. The unfortunate cousin visibly cowered in terror. "I won't marry a man just because a doddering old fool wanted to get rid of me! I am a free spirit, not some sniveling elven slave!"

Cyrion stared, transfixed, at this insane woman standing coiled in the square, and he did not doubt for a moment that she would not hesitate to use that fine dagger. For a brief wild moment he wondered if this was what it felt like to be in love.

"What if the man wanted to marry you?"

His words produced even more shock among the onlookers than had the drawing of the dagger. Adaia whirled to face him, eyebrows raised from under rust red bangs.

To Cyrion's relief, her dagger was back in its scabbard when she spoke.

"Why would you ever want to do that?" And there was a real question in her voice.

Because you are unknown, he wanted to say. Because you are wild and beautiful and free. Because you have eyes like flint and you are like lightning on the plains in a summer night. You make me want to break free of this false world, this tiny alienage, and look to the sky.

Instead he stupidly said, "Fifty silver is hard to come by."

"Cyrion!" hissed his father under his breath, as his mother's eyes shone with unshed tears and her face threatened to crumple. Cyrion stood shocked by his own inept stupidity, wondering why Adaia didn't draw her dagger and run him through right then and there.

She laughed then, low and easy, and the sound sent warm shivers running through his limbs. "Truer words were never spoken. Well, you are serious?"

He nodded, still not sure if the movement was of his own volition or if he had been possessed by one of the demons the Chantry constantly harped about. Whatever madness had seized him had already picked up far too much momentum to be stopped now. He could only allow himself to be swept up in its path.

"Cousin, you should thank Cyrion. Looks like I won't have to gut you today after all."

"Thank you, Cyrion," said the cousin, sounding genuinely thankful. "Maker be with you."

Cyrion questioned his own sanity yet again. He wondered if this was going to become a habit.

"What are you waiting for, Tabris? Get your fifty silvers' worth. To the altar!" Adaia looped an arm around his and pulled him to where the bemused Chantry sister stood ready.

The marriage blessings were made and the vows were sworn. Cyrion Tabris was now a married man.