A life unkind
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Summary: Shianni and her wayward cousin, but mostly Shianni, as Bell Tabris is hopeless and doomed to be just like her mother. – Multichapter Origin Fic.-
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The Bann had a reputation for ruining horses.
Shianni had a friend who knew an elf who worked in the stables. Apparently he'd seen the Bann's handiwork on more than one occasion. The mounts he went through came back windbroken, lame, or so badly scored by the Orlesian spurs the Bann preferred that they took infection and died.
Failing that, he drove them mad.
The stories all ended the same way. The Bann came into possession of a new horse. He then proceeded to cripple it or break its mind. If this failed to render the animal completely unable to accommodate another rider in its lifetime, he always found a way to discover some other, fatal flaw, and then he had it destroyed.
However, there had been times when the Bann found a horse that took him longer than usual to completely break. An Antivan warmblood, perhaps, or one of the massive Orlesian Perches. All would be going smoothly, the horses would give every indication of submissive terror and do absolutely everything he demanded of them, right up until the point when the beasts usually snapped and pounded three grooms into wet paste just trying to get at Bann Vaughan.
The Bann liked these horses, the stable elf had reportedly said. He still had them destroyed, but only after he had broken the animal so completely that there could be no going back. He would ride no other horse until he was satisfied.
At which point, he was known to have let the broken, mutilated beast loose in a paddock with its guts hanging out from its lacerated sides, and then let loose the Mabari.
.The process was known to take months. During this time, no other horses were ridden into the ground. It was a reprieve, of sorts. The Bann became so occupied in rubbing out every trace of defiance that he simply lost interest in any other pastime.
When a lull appeared, when the Bann and his friends seemed to be losing interest and started to send idle glances over to door that led to where the other women were being held, Shianni seized her opportunity.
She sucked in her breath, breathing hard through a too-tight nose that felt broken or worse. Then spat. Calculatingly.
The Bann's enthusiasm was suddenly revived.
He broke her other cheekbone.
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