Part One: Immortal
Author's Note:
This is exactly one third of Chapter Twelve. Part Two: Invictus (The Battle of Ostagar) and Part Three: Pale Battalions (RTO) will follow. I can only apologize for - yet again! - failing to get to the battle. My excuse is that I have left my job to set up my own business, and things are hectic and manic - though a hell of a lot of fun :) After some thought, I decided to publish in stages, just to let everyone know I'm still alive!
I'd like to thank the following ladies:
icey cold and Shakespira for some brilliant discussions that have shaped my views on darkspawn, the murky game of Warden politics, and how dreams can warp to obsession. analect - my fellow "Alienage" fan - for wonderful conversations on Cyrion, Elven pride, family loyalty and Shianni's emotions on being the one left behind. And for creating such a gorgeous avatar of Ril (see my profile!)
Shakespira's wonderful chapter "Dreamers" from "The Lion's Den," Aurora Cousland's yearning for family roots in icey's "Trovommi Amor" and analect's searing "A Father's Regret" are my main inspirations. "Mess of shems" was coined by Shakespira, and Persephone Chiara is responsible for the distinction between "selfish" and "self-centred" (Alistair in The Edge of the Grey Enigma).
Shianni reached the camp ahead of her cousin, joining her uncle and Soris by the large white square of the supply tent, gleaming like a squat iceberg amid the hodgepodge of wagons, lean-tos, and propped upturned carts. She turned toward a sight both familiar and strange: Rilian bounding toward her, youthfully straight in her mud-spattered armour; unconsciously graceful. Her amber eyes - so like Shianni's own - swept the camp; bright, lively. One grimy hand was pressed to her mouth, stifling muffled laughter. But the other side of the picture - so incongruous it might have been a puzzle piece from a different box - was the armoured figure beside her. Sabatons drawing brutal furrows through the earth, the clank of steel, a face like a scowling vulture. A shem nobleman: the Regent, the General, the slaver...
All at once she felt cold and out on a limb here, dropped into this alien camp. A rustle of leather - the faint smell of sage soap and wood and vitality - and Cale Mahariel was suddenly there.
"Let's get out of this mess of shems."
Shianni blushed scarlet. She had been camping with the Dalish for several days: but had shared a fire with Merril, the softly-spoken young woman who was Keeper Marethai's apprentice. Although anything to do with magic made her uneasy - as it would any right-thinking person - it was a comfort to share with someone close to her own age, who did not look down on her from a pedestal of experience. But was Merril going back too? What would it mean, to return with Cale? She hesitated, looked to where Cyrion and Soris were standing. At once her uncle came over. Shianni was relieved to see him. Once, his over-protectiveness had chafed. Now it meant safety and familiarity; a retreat from the fetter of strange, unsettling delight that she knew in Cale's company and that seemed to open such dizzying possibilities of change.
"You'll want to stay for Rilian's homecoming, lass," he said, with a rather pointed glare at Cale. Shianni blushed. Shems or no shems, how could she think of walking out on Rilian? The sight of her laughing with the slaver had seemed impossible - but, no, it was Rilian's disloyalty that was impossible: which meant that there had to be a good reason.
"Good night, Warden."
"Loghain."
Rilian turned, saw her, and something - a soft glow of embarrassment mixed with delighted welcome - moved across her face.
"And now we'll eat, and crack open a bottle!"
Rilian introduced them to the motleyest bunch of companions Shianni had ever laid eyes on. Only one was a fellow Elf - and he was just as foreign as the rest. A dark-skinned giant, a red-haired woman with a sweet voice and the kind of solicitous concern that had always set her back up: the shem do-gooders had had the same condescension. Two other women who had the same strange aura as Merrill, like a crackle of electricity. Another warrior with whom Shianni had at least three things in common: he was not a shem, he had red hair, and he was clearly enjoying his ale. It was all of a piece with her cousin's oddness: in the Alienage, she had associated with Mother Boann and Ser Otto with a familiarity that had worried Shianni. Shianni had come to know the Templar during the voyage, and trusted him as much as she could any shem knight - she was not surprised when Rilian called him over. A thin young man walked beside him: he too had that aura, only his was darker and heavier: a current under black ice, barely moving.
But, three mugs of ale later, Shianni's opinion of the gathering began to change. The jagged edges of displacement and distrust began to blur, curling inward in a dreamlike haze as soft as petals. Colours and shapes swam before her eyes: intense, brilliant as the faces around her. Alien, yes, and sometimes threatening but...beautiful, she thought, as though seeing them for the first time, how they belong to each other. Rilian, torn from the community that had held her funeral five months ago, had forged a new home, and now she drew both sides out like a fine thread, stitching them together. Haphazard, faintly uneasy - but the fabric held. The evening went smoothly, albeit strangely. If their laughter was sometimes a shade forced, it was never without warmth. They ended sitting around a fire of such spent coals that the pale glow nearly drowned in the light of myriad stars. For some while they were all quiet, caught in that splendour. The howl of the mabari - mournful, eternally pure - reached into the hearts of all and soared toward it.
Then the red-haired woman brought a lute and the music made Shianni catch her breath. The high, sweet, accented voice might have been Adaia's. She looked at her cousin, and at once understood the bond between them. Had Adaia lived, she would have trained Rilian to be a bard: her terrible death, five back-breaking years as a dockworker, and the Wardens had made a soldier of her instead. But the tender yearning was there, a muted glow upon the flushed, brilliant face. The stream of sound cascaded through its gorges; the bright spray glittered above. Rilian joined in, shyly at first, her tentative chorus seemed to cling to the melody, half-enfolding it. The bard, smiling, encouraged her; the two voices rose and fell in unison. Rilian's pure alto formed the perfect counterweight. Shianni felt the invisible bond between the two singers as they wove the story of a hero returning to his homeland after a long and dangerous quest...
...The night is dark, the wind blows chill
Across the rolling plain
And every pace and every breath
Brings me nearer home
Memories dance before me now
They whisper through my mind
The dawn will lead me onward to
The land I left behind...
The voices floated and swelled; the bard handed Rilian the lute and, after a moment of hesitation, callused hands drew notes that echoed and re-echoed, like wild voices in a glen. Her head was tilted up and a little leftward, her eyes unfocused and glittering, her lips parted in the fierce and tender smile of an act of love.
Shianni, torn between bemusement and affection, thought: "She's off."
The music climbed to a rapt crescendo. As the dramatic, headlong, passionate impromptu swept from climax to climax, the instrument could not sustain the onslaught, and was going out of tune. Rilian must have heard it, but went on as though her will could compel the strings. She is using it, Shianni thought, as she uses herself...
One snapped, and whipped around the others; there was discord, and silence. Rilian stared at it unbelievingly.
"What did you expect?" asked the bard, beestung lips quirked in a smile, "Did you think it was immortal?"
Shianni, who had expected the sheepish, faintly wistful smile Rilian gave when admonished, was startled and troubled to find her on the verge of tears.
"I thought it would at least last until I'd finished!"
"Ma cherie, do not worry. Come - give it to me."
The bard brought a new string from a lacquered box, and deftly put the instrument in order. Rilian got up and walked restlessly about.
"See - good as new!" The bard smiled gently, and Rilian returned it: with genuine affection, but something in her eyes Shianni couldn't place. She only knew it haunted her. A moment of aching loneliness, the shadow of fear and then, as suddenly, fierce determination. Rilian said:
"I doubt we'll see a night like this again. This group. These companions. What times we've had! But there are other things to come. So let's say one last good night as a band. A salute, one to another. To the love of friends for friends."
All stood. There was a salute. And embraces. Some tears. Quietly, whispering the good night Rilian suggested, they parted.
While the shems busied themselves setting up camp, Soris crowded in with Cyrion in the spacious supply tent, while Shianni shared with Rilian in a far shabbier soldier's bivouac. Her mabari guardian - so unlike Helm-Piddle back home, yet equally loyal - curled up outside. As soon as she entered the tent she wrinkled her nose. Rilian's belongings - pots, armour, a heavy bag - were strewn haphazardly, adding to the dark, cave-like appearance. Shianni looked within the bag to find a mess of items: an obsidian figurine, a beautiful rose-coloured lantern, a gauntlet, a journal, a rolled-up map, the crumbs of a sandwich and a piece of cheese. Shianni, who shared a bunk with Rilian back home, was used to this, but it never ceased to amaze her that a person with such an eye for beauty - of music and jewellery and even armour - could be such a slob. She set about making order, and by the time she had positioned the little lamp its soft glow lit the snug inside as though rose champagne had been poured over it. Rilian's eyes were bright.
"You make everything lovely," she said softly, admiring. It was true: Shianni had always had a gift for homemaking.
Shianni hid her shy pleasure, tutting as she was wont to do back home: "If you spent half as much energy decorating your surroundings as you spend decorating yourself, you would too."
Rilian feigned a pout as a matter of form. "I've had a lot to do," she said plaintively, echoing the familiar refrain: lifting crates is harder than washing clothes... "The Dalish have it easy - all you do is hunt and shoot arrows."
"Now see here..." Shianni held up her right hand: bleach-stained from years of work, now marked with a raw line across the middle finger. Rilian held the hand in her own larger ones: grimy, marked with a swordsman's calluses, all her fingernails bitten to the quick.
"Now we both have war scars," Rilian said softly. Shianni looked into a face made beautiful by its intentness, the rose light gilding brown silky skin with a sheen much like her armour. Scars...that pale line beneath her left cheekbone was new. Shianni reached upward; traced it with a gentle fingertip. Rilian went curiously still, as though the touch had anaesthnatized her somehow. The dancing eyes became opaque. The ripple of change was so odd and so unlike her Shianni felt it as a warning - a shudder of empathy that woke memory-shadows like cobwebs. But a moment later Rilian had thrown off the deadness. In a startling shift of mood she said brightly: "And that's not the only one I have. You should see the marks of the High Dragon. Had me up in its mouth - a mouse caught in a giant trap. But this mouse has a kick..." As she spoke she worked at undoing the straps of the red armour. Shianni joined her, far more deftly, and between them they unshelled Rilian like a lobster. Underneath, a grey tunic with some stylised creature emblazoned across the front clung to warm skin. Rilian's entire body seemed taut as the driven lute string before it snapped.
"How much sleep have you had?" Shianni chided. She had always felt much, much older than her cousin, though there were only two years between them. Rilian's tendency to daydream had made her seem young. She seemed young now, despite her strange brittleness, bright and sharp as shards of glass. During the gathering Rilian had told a tale of triumph - of escape from the docks and free return to Arl Howe's estate, of the forging of the alliance. Shianni suspected more had happened - but she could not be sure, because Rilian's reaction was so different to her own after Vaughan's attack. Red rage had carried her through it; and afterwards, grim, dour, bitter anger had sustained her. She had stuffed away her own dreams for so long that she hardly knew what dreams were made of. In the Alienage, they were dangerous.
"Oh - enough," Rilian said vaguely, "Here and there. There's a lot of army to watch. Anyway - there'll be plenty of time to sleep after the Blight." That last sentence came out a shade higher than normal, and just a little too cheerful.
Shianni rubbed her back, trying to unwork the knotted kinks of tension, kneading shoulders far broader than an Elfwoman's ought to be, a spine hard as Dragonbone and fragile as a bird's, feeling, through the tunic, the faint ridges left by Habren's whip, overlaid by the scars Rilian had boasted of.
"I should like to kill Habren, do you know that?" she said idly.
Rilian was turned away from her but Shianni felt her smile. "Oh - I thought that once. But she did me a favour: it prepared me for where I am." Her ribs and their muscle-layer had knit together; her side felt like armour. "It's funny - I was just saying the same to Loghain."
Shianni was shocked. Details of life in the Alienage - the work they did, the hardships they endured - were their own pride, not for outsiders. For Rilian to speak of it to a shem - especially that one - was...not decent.
"How can you talk to that murderous tyrant?" she blurted, "I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him!"
The vehemence of her tone caused Rilian to turn. She shrugged. "He's using me - I'm using him. So long as we both benefit, the alliance will hold." Those words were shocking enough - and then Rilian's lips moved in a hard curl. The predatory expression was nothing like her old smile; her amusement held the gleam of a knife. "When we turn on each other, we'll go through the front."
Silence weighed between them.
"What did I say?" Rilian asked sheepishly, herself again. Shianni looked into the dancing amber eyes with the wistful doubt already beginning to shadow them.
Shianni shook her head. "Not what was said, but who said it. My cousin, my loyal dreamer, would never play such games. And - I know you're doing it for us, but you enjoy this murderous alliance! It doesn't make sense."
"I..." Rilian said plaintively, then stopped. "I have to play politics. The shems are like the elephant in the room - they're no point pretending they don't exist. We have to dance with them somehow. Look what we've gained! No more overlords - our own Bann. And Loghain's a sparring partner: he keeps me on my toes. Also," her voice softened and muted, "I have to see the funny side - if I'm to feel and not go mad."
Shianni put her arm around the broad, suddenly frail shoulders and squeezed. Rilian made a strange sound, half-way between a sneeze and a hiccup, eyes ablaze with gratitude. Absently, she noted that the material was very fine - fine as the shem garments that festooned her home like alien blooms, hung out to dry. A jagged tear criss-crossed the shoulders, recently mended by an expert hand. Not Rilian's, then - her cousin's ineptness as a seamstress was exceeded only by her efforts at cooking. Shianni traced the stitching.
Rilian flinched.
A shard of ice pierced Shianni's chest. Two things had made her own attack bearable: that no-one but Rilian knew, and that her cousin had escaped.
"What did they do to you?" The words were pebbles dropped onto glass: hard, cold and shattering.
Slowly, Rilian's head drooped. She closed her eyes tight; tears sparkled at the corners. "Arl Howe hurt me - some kind of Blood Magic. I thought I was dying. But he never...never..."
"Not your body," Shianni said softly, understanding. She took her cousin's hands. "After Vaughan's attack, everyone blamed Soris. Elva said: "Oh, if you hadn't interfered," and Teris even said: "If you were going to make such a fuss, you could at least have saved Nola." But he couldn't have saved her - no-one could. They certainly hadn't. All his fault, it was - but how could he help it? Men like Vaughan and Howe are the same as sickness: they take any victim they can find; they cause pain because that's what they do. Think of what happened as sickness, or a wound: something not your fault at all. It has to be accepted, and you have to adjust, but it needn't stop you walking - even dancing, though you may limp a little from time to time. I survived, you will - that's how we all live."
"It's not right," Rilian said, in a voice Shianni remembered from years past, "We can't change what happened - but we can make a better world than this. No other Alienage girl will suffer the same - or if they do, someone who cares will seek justice."
"Foolish dreams," Shianni said with a fond smile.
Rilian's lips quirked. "Don't you remember your words to me, after mother died?"
… Shianni and her cousin stood in the heart of their community, by the steps to the meeting platform. The houses here were some of the best in the Alienage: small, but neat and clean - a far cry from the crumbling shacks of Dock Street where Shianni's family had lived. Wildflowers made brave splashes in windowsills - proof that, like Elves, weeds could survive anywhere. The hanging sign outside Alarith's store was a bold, defiant statement - the goods he sold rivaled Denerim market. The cobbled streets were well-swept, and during the day the sun shone through the branches of the Vhenadahl, spreading intricate shadows like latticework. The warm summer evening was muggy with mingled smells of wood, chimney-smoke, the acridness of the middens around which half-starved cats prowled, and the ale that soaked the platform: generations had stained the worn wood like varnish.
"Mother and father are away tonight," Rilian confided, amber eyes dancing with glee behind red bangs. Her shower of hair fell past her shoulders, elaborately braided in an intricate design unknown among their community - something Adaia had learned in Orlais. Two jewelled combs glittered on top - these had fallen off the back of a wagon, according to Adaia, and her cousin was naïve enough to take the words literally. Too tall - and too clumsy - for the traditional dresses, Rilian wore trousers and her mother's boots, but made up for them with her top: an explosion of beads and embroidery across a chest as flat as a board. On the back, she had painted a stylized cat's face. Two jade discs were the eyes. Though Shianni herself preferred traditional dresses, she secretly delighted in her cousin's swagger and vitality.
"I know," she nodded, her tone rather grim. Her uncle could not help his reasons - he would be working overnight at the palace. The King was holding a Landsmeet just before the voyage: Arl Bryland had lent the services of his finest cook. But why Adaia had to perform at the banquet was beyond her. Rilian's parents had argued over it all day. Shianni was firmly in agreement with her Uncle: everyone knew the King's tastes; this could only end in scandal. Did Adaia miss the life of an Orlesian bard so much she had to recreate it here? Cyrion had put his foot down over Adaia's including Rilian in her "adventures" in Denerim; Rilian had never stolen in her life and if Shianni had her way she never would. But why could her uncle not see that his own plans were almost as worrying? He wanted her to continue his family tradition of service: but putting a girl with Rilian's voice in the same circles as the shem King and his son was asking for trouble. Shianni could not bear to see her end up like Missa - mother to a human child - or Janeel, who wore shem dresses and was spat on in the street. Shianni's mother - a good decent woman - had constantly warned her that what she called "high notions" was a form of moral decay. A soup ladle wielded like a war club had made it clear that an Elven woman should be invisible to their overlords. Shianni's scalp tingled in remembrance of throbbing knots the size of walnuts. They saved her from sin. It was the favourite adage of their community: notice brings trouble. The tall tree catches the forester's eye…
Her cousin placed one slender, long-fingered hand with tender reverence upon the gnarled bark of the Vhenadahl, it's ancient, encompassing width dwarfing them both. "So," she said mischievously, "Shall we sleep up here tonight? It's one of the secret wishes I'd believed forever unattainable, and now it's tumbled into my lap like a gift from the Maker. It's really such good luck as to be uncanny."
"I don't think that's a good idea," Shianni said - but Rilian had already started shinnying up, looking rather like a multi-coloured daddy-longlegs climbing a drainpipe. Shianni sighed and - against her better judgment - followed. They reached a nest of branches as broad as they were - and Rilian exclaimed in delight:
"You can see the whole town from up here!"
They sank down onto the sheltering branches with sighs of contentment. The ancient bark and young leaves yielded an indescribably alluring aroma. Looking up, they could see nothing but a great sky of faint rose, pricked with early stars. Birds swooped darkly against the paling western gold. Below, the entire Alienage was spread like an intricate patchwork, bordered by its encircling wall. The darkening bulk of Arl Urien's estate squatted like a toad; beyond, Fort Drakon jutted like a black warning.
They talked for a while in whispers, of their secrets and dreams and fears, of matchmaking and their own future marriages. Rilian, it appeared, was slightly pessimistic regarding her chances.
"The boys like me as a mate, but I don't believe anyone will ever really fall in love with me."
It was on the tip of Shianni's tongue to point out that Rilian had a father who would pay a large dowry; she and Soris would have to make do with whomever the Elder decided. Then she looked at her cousin's wistful face and caught back the words.
"Nonsense. Nine out of ten men will fall in love with you."
"But it'll be the tenth I want," persisted Rilian gloomily.
Shianni rolled her eyes. There was no use wasting perfectly good reassurances on a cousin like this.
Rilian wriggled about, rolling over to lie on her front.
"Will you stop that," Shianni implored, "You're like an eel! You might push me off the branch."
Rilian giggled. "I keep thinking about Lady Habren, tomorrow. Do you think she'll be like the ladies in Mother Boann's book?"
Shianni snorted. "You read too much - it rots commonsense." This was another of the "notions" her mother had warned against: If shopkeepers feel the need to do numbers and make letters, that's their business. For the rest of us, the Elder knows all we need to know. That shem should never have set up her school here. It ruins kids for work, and leads to arrogance. An arrogant Elf is a dead Elf…
Rilian swatted her.
"Just remember what I taught you and you'll be fine."
"Be polite and courteous at all times?"
"No. Head down; trap shut."
And then they talked of almost everything else in the world. Finally Shianni closed her eyes.
"Why must we sleep?" Rilian murmured drowsily, "The Elder says our ancestors never did. We should be able to do without."
"The Elder also says our ancestors used to be immortal. But we aren't - and we do. Get some rest."…
...The river of time flowed onward - Shianni's memory skipped forward...
...She found her cousin by old Timon's smelly lean-to, hunched protectively over a mug of sour ale. Rilian had filled out - in none of the right places. Her chest and stomach were flat as iron sheets; her shoulders were broad, her weight all-muscle. Short, rough-cut hair hung in stringy clumps. Work-worn boots, trousers with a weave so hard the dockworkers called them iron-butts and a sweat-stained shirt completed the picture.
"You're turning into a drunk," Shianni said briskly, "It's been what - a year? - and all you do is work and drink."
"And eat," Rilian said sullenly, "Don't forget that - father tells me all the time."
"And eat. You don't read - you don't sing - you don't dream."
"You didn't like it that much when I did. Dreams are dangerous - you said it yourself. And you were right. Mother died for hers. And you're a fine one to talk about drinking..."
"You know what I mean. Drink for celebration, yes - with all of us, a lot of singing and dancing - but not this way."
Shianni could not so easily dismiss the rest of Rilian's words. It was true she had feared for her cousin - but now she asked herself if she could live with less than the person that she knew and loved. Rilian was a dreamer - whatever diminished that diminished her soul. Better to worry about a life that could be snatched away than watch it whither and whine itself to misery.
"Dreams are dangerous," she said quietly - not at all sure she was doing right by encouraging Rilian in a notion she did not share herself, "But - if anyone can change things, it would be you."
"I used to think so." Rilian's eyes were haunted - guilt as well as grief shadowed her face, turned her old before her time. Her sacking had been her own fault, no getting around it - and if the chain of consequences had been unfair, nothing ever had been. The Maker was said to care about fairness - but He was far away, nothing to do with the Alienage.
"You can't change the past - but you can make a better world than this."
After a moment, Rilian stirred. She seemed a little unworldly, like a person just waking after long illness. Something flared in her amber eyes like kindling caught with the spark. As if afraid to hope, she said slowly,
"I don't have much time to dream, now. Only - it doesn't take a genius to lift crates." She stopped - a sudden thought lifted the corners of her mouth in the first smile Shianni had seen in a long time. "I can dream while I work!"...
..."So you see," Rilian said softly, "You gave me back my dream. I still have it. I always will. It's not important to achieve all your dreams - it's important to have them, and never let them go. Even an Alienage cat passes its life half out of time. We don't have to put our soul into what we do - just as well, otherwise who would have any soul left! All those years I saw myself defending our people - fighting men like the guards in the square. Nelaros was a dreamer too - he fought for me." Her breath hitched - her voice broke, but she continued, "Would you like to know my secret about the Wardens?"
Half-afraid, Shianni nodded without speaking. Her eyes darted about, before she looked determinedly at Rilian. She still had the feeling Rilian wasn't telling the whole truth when she said:
"Only Wardens have the power to slay the Archdemon. I can't tell you how - it's our knowledge. But because Loghain knows that, I have power - I lead these armies. The Orlesians tried to blackmail him by insisting chevaliers accompany their Wardens. My price is lower - I'll demand justice for our people. You see, no-one can predict the course a dream will take."
The closed, lambent fierceness made Shianni nervous. She'd seen that look on Rilian's face before - she'd had it when charging impossible odds to save her. Shianni reckoned that kind of willpower took something off a person's life each time. The changes in Rilian went deeper than gallows humour and a willingness to play politics: something had settled in her – her mobile, expressive face held a curious stillness; a granite certainty. Rilian couldn't see the eagle glare of her own eyes: in her own mind, she remained Ril Tabris of the Alienage, Cyrion's little girl – the dream unchanged.
A sigh ghosted through Shianni. She had long resigned herself to the fact that Rilian would never be safe. At least her words had done no harm.
Or had they?
Cale Mahariel had told her that Elves had fought during King Maric's rebellion - and gained nothing. How long, she wondered, does it take for a failed dream to wizen into bitter brooding about what might have been?
Rilian rose to her knees and crawled over to the backpack. She rummaged through it, and brought out a thick, leather-bound journal etched with golden filigree. The design was of stylised roots and branches delicate as lace. Rose light glittered upon gold with eerie luminescence; the play of light and shadows called to mind a burning tree. Rilian traced thick, mellow parchment with quiet reverence. Shianni craned her head, and saw an intricate map, with arrows, notes and symbols denoting the battle plan.
"It's late," she said gently, "And you'll be no good to anyone if you're too tired to think clearly tomorrow."
"I can't settle my mind. What Loghain doesn't know about strategy isn't worth knowing but - I keep worrying there's something he's missed. Denerim's soldiers, the Templars and the Dalish...their lives are in our hands." A sudden thought struck her and she jerked her head up - looked right into Shianni's eyes:
"I want you to join the supply train tomorrow."
Shianni didn't blink - she had known this was coming. Calmly, she said: "I've made my own plans. I'm joining the Dalish archers."
The brightly unpredictable face turned mulish. "I won't let you take that risk."
Stuffing away the urge to shake her cousin, Shianni snorted instead. "Let me? You can't keep me from taking it!" She held her breath, waiting for Rilian to try the silver tongue that so annoyed Elva, and her cousin did not disappoint:
"Shianni, be reasonable. You've only just started training with the Dalish - you have no experience."
"And how much experience did you have at Ostagar?"
Pricked by this undeniable truth, the pomposity deflated. Almost petulantly, Rilian muttered: "Have you thought what it'll do to me if you're killed?"
Shianni bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. Rilian had been the centre of her parents' world, and she had never quite grown out of the tendency to think of herself as a special case. It was alright for her to make the ultimate sacrifice, and let others pick up the pieces! She was the least selfish person Shianni knew, but could be childishly self-centred.
"I know we agreed we'd live free or die free - but fighting slavers is not the same as fighting darkspawn..." The stubbornness darkened to haunted memory that moved across her face like lengthening shadows. Her pupils were so wide and dark her eyes appeared almost black, ringed by just the faintest coronas of amber. Fear spilled from them like a void overflowing. "I've already seen you lying at my feet in a pool of blood. I don't think I can stand seeing that again."
The naked plea squashed Shianni's exasperation, but she hardened her own mettle in the fires of memory:
"I lost that blood - and could not strike even one good blow to stop it. I know I cannot stand that - I will not be that helpless again." Harshly, like metal grinding on stone, she drew out words she had never shared with anyone: "After you left, I'd lie awake and feel the walls closing in on me. I'd think of you - in the wide open world - and wonder if you finally felt compensated for not being the one the boys danced with. In the still hours, there was no-one to see the pettiness, the meanness of spirit, the poison. And during the day, there were the whispers, the sidelong glances that turned away when faced, the coward streets where people bolted doors and looked the other way. I'm not like you, Rilian. I can't dream inside walls and try to reshape them. I knew if I stayed I'd become another Elva. Here, I can breathe. And - maybe - for the first time I can dream." She chuckled softly, reached work-worn fingers to brush away Rilian's tears, "Mother told me stories of the past were no more than high notions, best forgotten. But the Dalish treasure them. Maybe I'll even learn to read - me, Shianni Tabris of Dock Street!"
Rilian was smiling softly, face suffused with tears. "I can see it - a shining path all fierce and beautiful. Not for my strong cousin the murky world of Wardens and shem politics."
Shianni smiled too. "I don't understand all the changes I see - I do understand the important things are unchanged."
Rilian flushed with pleasure; her lips quirked in quicksilver laughter. "Ditto," she answered - an old joke between them, a literary affectation she had explained meant: likewise.
Then Shianni grew drowsy and fell asleep - but Rilian did not want to sleep just yet. Her mind raced - an array of light and colour, thought and music and ideas. Behind them lay the stalking beat of memory: Howe's face, or Urthemiel's, like dark comets across her sleeping sky. She had managed only eight hours sleep in four days; it was as if an electrical force were keeping her eyes open. There was a continuous pain behind her upper eyelids; her temples throbbed. Freed from the anchoring shell of the Dragonscale, her body felt oddly weightless, adrift upon strange tides. Softly, so as not to disturb her cousin, she crawled forward, squirmed through the tent flap and found herself under a great black plate of sky, stars embedded like diamond chips. Ravenous was curled in sleep; she settled beside him, arms folded across her raised knees. Her head lolled.
...The door burst open...
Rilian snapped awake, goose-bumps the size of forts prickling her skin. She fixed her gaze upon the scarlet dots of campfires, studding the ground like dying stars. Waking dreams blossomed and faded: the flames detonated sparks like Dworkin's grenade; her hand had dark, flickering wings - a small reptilian creature with a serrated spine. Urthemiel's song flowed like cool silver water, encoffined by the oily filth of taint. Darkness congealed around her, thick and viscous, threaded with the rumble of a thousand snores and murmurs; pierced at random by the wails of children and yelps of dogs. The shuffling, hovering life was bordered by the sickle blade of river, bright as liquid starlight: an encircling wall...
... Then Shianni grew drowsy and fell asleep - but Rilian did not want to sleep just yet, entranced by the newness and wonder of their night under the stars. She was tired - but with her tiredness showed itself in a certain exaltation of feeling and imagination. She wanted to lie awake for the pleasure of it and think over a thousand things. The stillness seemed to amplify her very thoughts, and the vast, inky bowl of sky became a playground for them. The crescent moon glowed like a softly-muted pearl. Did an old witch ride past on a broomstick? No, it was only a spring leaf upon the tip of a branch. A faintly-golden star hung low in the sky, right overhead. Rilian gazed at it, enthralled, and recalled an old dream of hers in which the marbles her mother brought her were really jewelled stars, somehow huge and tiny at the same time. She spun a dream life, lived within that shining golden star.
Then came drifts of dark clouds, visible only as ripples across the sky, the sudden absence of stars. Rilian saw them as an advancing host. She saw herself standing against them, doing something impossibly brave. She made a ballad on it - with herself as the heroine, of course - the lines singing themselves through her consciousness without effort. She was defending her people - fighting against many faceless enemies in a blaze of light.
Rilian wriggled about - careful not to bump into Shianni, asleep in the nest of branches beside her - to look down upon those she was protecting. The encircling wall - so dark in daylight - seemed to reflect the moonlight like a blade of silver. The teeming houses nestled within, all stark, uneven angles like an array of dominoes, each individual square leaning on its neighbours for support. Nights in the Alienage were never silent: there was always the wail of babies, the murmur of voices, the yowl of fighting cats; it comforted and centered her. A quieter, deeper emotion flowed behind the dream of glory: she felt the anchor of her history, the tangled network of unbreakable loyalty, dug deep as the roots of the Vhenadahl. Above were its branches, proud as banners or bright sails, with moon and stars held between. She formed the link between her parents and her own dream-children. She was vast as an ocean above patchwork houses and winding streets, had watched the raising of that wall, had shared in all the lives and loves of those within. She felt as if she would live always…always…always…
Rilian came back to flames that danced like autumn leaves. A gout of sparks lifted into the dark like stained glass in motion. Rilian thought of forge-fires, of Nelaros describing the smith's furnace, of how the light lured the mindless moths from darkness, inhaled them into consuming heat. She saw herself: a single, hissing spark.
Why must we die? Our ancestors never did. We should be able to do without...
Ravenous whimpered in sleep, making little snuffling noises as though chasing a fleet stag - or running from the flickering shadows that lurked at the edges of a Warden's mind. She murmured wordless comfort, slipped an arm around him, curled against muscles like giant walnuts beneath a warm, bristly carpet. She fell asleep nestled against the dog's side...
...She was mounted upon her black horse. The Dragonscale was cold as ice around her body, yet it was all that held her upright. A dying sun flickered like a failing candle in a bitter wind. She was facing a wall of black oil a mile high. Waves formed serrated edges that reared like towering wings. Life crawled sluggishly within: writhing, decaying, spawning; she had the inchoate sense that the millions stretched back across time as well as distance - back to the very founding of the Wardens.
She realised she was not alone. She was riding beside Alistair on her left and Loghain on her right. And there was a fourth figure, obscure as her own shadow. She gazed at him with distant revulsion, cold and sickened by the sense of kinship. The wave sped towards her, swift as a shark, its inky depths black as open jaws. She did not flinch; did not flee, though she knew it would annihilate her when it crashed. She raised her sword high: a silver blade etched with bright runes. Against the engulfing dark, it glowed like the first rose of dawn. She realised - in a moment of soaring rapture - I am not afraid... It was better than music or maps or swordcraft - it was immortality.
She thought of Zathrien - of the price he had paid to live forever - of the golems, trapped in shells of stone. She thought of the Alienage overlords: of a life spent in crippling fear. She could never forget how painful it was to be that helpless, how impotent hatred corroded the soul like acid.
Each moment free from fear makes an Elf immortal...
Overhead the stars blazed like a scattering of sparks - but sparks that would not die, that would never go out.