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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Of course the Grey Wardens got involved.
Leave it to her cousin to be taken in at the brink of disaster by a band of legendary warriors who'd just so happened to stop by an elven alienage looking for recruits. Of course.
It was like something out of a blighted bedtime story.
She fought back tears regardless. There was Bell, looking so tall, so proud with the Commander of the Grey. They'd rustled up clean clothes for her. Alarith had found some battered leathers for her- a shield even. She'd gone right back to looking gawky and ridiculous, but the set in her shoulders now was different. Less like a slender elf girl pretending at swords, and more like an uncertain young warrior faced with odds she didn't fully understand.
She looked more now like her mother than ever.
Bell hugged Shianni awkwardly with one arm, muttering under her breath, "Don't cry. Oh, Maker, Shianni, don't cry. I'm all right. Uncle Valendrian's gonna hide you in his basement for a few weeks. 'Larith snuck some dirty books down there a while back so you won't get bored-"
Shianni only refrained from grinding the heel of her palm in her eyes by virtue of the fact that it would probably pop a couple of stitches.
When she pulled back, Bell regarded her worriedly, all stricken brown eyes and bright, shining worry sharp enough to cut Shianni to the core.
She was about to break, she knew that. She withstood the act itself. She withstood the long, stumbling flight back to Cyrion's house, blood trickling down her chest and between her legs and sticking, tackily, to the flagstones beneath her feet. She withstood the other women's shocked, faintly repulsed stares, the murmured comforts as they inspected the worst of the damage. As they saw what had happened to her.
She wasn't sure if she could take this.
"Don't go." she blurted out, not caring how foolish it sounded. "It's too dangerous. The Grey Wardens-"
"I have a better chance surviving with the Wardens than I do in here," Bell said, a grim smile pulling at her lips. Her face sobered, and her voice grew gruff. "Shianni, you're going to be fine."
Shianni stiffened. Of course she was. She was fine. How dare Bell insinuate otherwise when she was about to go off and be a Grey Warden when everyone knew Grey Wardens always died at the ends of all those stupid stories and Bell was an idiot for thinking that this was going to solve anything.
She tried to say what she meant, tried to get the words out, when Bell, stupid, earnest, well-meaning Bell misinterpreted her silence entirely and said, cautiously, "Shianni, if you want me to, I won't go."
Just like that.
It jolted her to a halt. The pain faded away, the tiredness, the fear, all of it, confronted with this one terrible choice.
Of course she would say that.
She would, too. Just like Bell would marry Nelaros to keep her father happy, just like she'd try to keep his house and manage his finances and bear…. bear his children, she would. And she'd fail, because she was her mother's daughter down to the bone and there were no peaceful days for her, no happy domesticity, there was just the sword in her hands a bloodstained wedding dress to remind her that there were no happy endings. The Grey Wardens would keep her safe from the Arl's vengeance, it would give her purpose, honor, and battles to fight.
Adaia would have wanted it. Would have joined, too, if not for Cyrion. If they would have her.
Shianni stepped back. Wiped her eyes briskly with the back of her hand. Ignored the pain that resulted. She could sense the rising tide of exhaustion that hovered around the corners of her eyesight, waiting to engulf her at a moment's notice. "No," she said firmly. "No, you need to go."
"I love you." she added, hastily. "I do. Stay safe."
Bell gave her a foolish, lopsided grin. Tears glinted at the corners of her eyes, but she kept smiling. "You know me." she murmured, brushing off her concern without making too much of it.
Shianni did. That was the problem.
And then her tall, ungainly cousin bumped an awkward kiss on her swollen, tear streaked cheek and went out the door to find her destiny, only this time it was Adaia, idly ruffling Shianni's hair with wine on her breath as she belted the sword to her hip and went out into the night one last time.
The other girls went to the window to watch her go. Shianni didn't.
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She saw Bell once more.
In Denerim, as the alienage burned. Her cousin moved with purpose, with grim intent, a shining black sword in one hand and a shining shield in the other. She looked older, bigger, and as tired as Shianni had ever seen her.
There was no time to talk. The darkspawn were breaking through the hasty barricades erected by the still plague-stricken elves. Bell caught her eye once only, and flashed her a delighted grin, before a blackness fell across her face and she launched herself at a charging line of darkspawn.
Bell had a full company of knights under her command. Shems, battalions of them, obeying her cousin's orders. If she hadn't been too busy trying to organize the score of elves armed with longbows on top of the surrounding buildings, she would have gawked.
In the confusion and panic that followed, Shianni was unable to catch Bell before she'd already moved on to Fort Drakon.
In the morning, what everyone already knew about every single story with a Grey Warden in it was confirmed.
Bell remained her mother's daughter.
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Author's Notes: Okay, that's it. It's been a blast writing about my dumbass, doomed Tabris for this long, and I'm shocked and amazed that she's gotten such a good reception. Thank you so much for all of your reviews- I'm a tiny, tiny part of this fandom, but it's incredible that so many of you have enjoyed my stories. Thank you so much. I am completely floored.
Hopefully I'll have something Brosca-related up here soon, so stay tuned!