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Eliyah sucks his lips inward as his reflection turns in the mirror, the fabric of the dress falling around his form following the movement.
Maker, why today?
It’s as if fate itself is conspiring to fuck him over.
He’d just needed two more days.
Two more days, and he’d be on his way to the woods, backpack slung over his shoulder, eyes scanning the treeline for any sign of movements. Silhouettes between the trees, quick as a deer and just as quiet-footed.
But no. Dear, damnable fate had other plans for him.
Typical.
Two hands clasp down on his shoulders, and Shianni’s grin beams back at him through the mirror’s reflection.
„Look at you! Who’d have thought you could clean up so nicely?“ She gives his shoulders a slight shake. „You really should wear dresses more often, Lia.“
The smile he gives her is a wound, aching from the strain.
„Maybe you should be getting married instead. – Want my groom?“
Shianni laughs, her hands giving his shoulders one more squeeze before she lets go and steps out of the mirror’s reflection. Leaving him staring at this other version of him. A beautiful bride to be. Oh what a lucky creature she is.
It lasts barely longer than a heartbeat, but for just a moment, he wishes he could be her. Could step into the mirror and become her. Eyes sparkling and heart racing with excitement for her life finally beginning. She’s to become a woman today, the happiest day of her life.
Maker, for that heartbeat he wishes he could grasp a piece of her joy, her excitement. Wishes he could swallow it down, let it dissipate the nausea churning in his stomach, unravel the knot so tightly wound in his throat.
But the moment passes, followed by another, and all he is left with is anger, pain. Frustration. Helplessness. A body trembling from rage caged by a pretty, white dress.
He turns away.
Shianni watches him, one hand on her hip, the other on the doorhandle, ready to throw open the door and feed him to the wolves.
„Well, ready?“ she asks.
No.
„Yes.“ He answers.
Soris looks just as miserable as he feels.
But when he sees Shianni and Eliyah step outside the ramshackle hut, the smile is genuine, albeit tinged with pain. And he pushes himself off the wooden beam he has been leaning against as he had waited on them.
„El-“ Soris’ tongue tumbles and his eyes widen for a split second, „Lia! There you are. You look…“
Shianni bumps her brother’s shoulder with a wink.
„Radiant? Gorgeous? Ready to make her future groom swoon? Yes I agree.“
Soris’ and his glances meet, and Eliyah can see his own pain reflected in his cousin’s eyes.
„Right… well.... Ready to become adults?“
Eliyah’s heart clenches.
So this is what it all comes down to, isn’t it? This… him, it’s nothing more than a childish game, then? A little girl playing pretend. Making her father chuckle when she hacked off her hair and stepped into her cousin’s trousers. Making his lips tighten and his gaze tense whenever he hears Soris call the name of a son his daughter pretends to be. But what use would reprimanding her have? She’d become an adult soon. Let her have her childish make-belief for the brief time she had to enjoy it.
„Is running off to find the Dalish still an option?“ Eliyah asks. Trying to strain a smile. Trying to force away the tears itching in his eyes with bared teeth, maybe.
Soris doesn’t laugh, and the smile he gives him aches.
„Little too late, I’m afraid.“
„Don’t you two start again with that nonsense.“ Shianni’s fist connect’s with her brother’s arm as she twists a smile. „C’mon guys, you’re getting married today! Not herded to an execution!“
The comparison feels apt as Soris and him shuffle after her, exchanging heavy glances. Heavy with the secrets shared only between them.
The secret of the boy having to play pretend being a girl. And the secret of the boy whose eartips blush crimson when another boy smiles at him. Both secrets held reverently in the cups of their hands and shared in many hushed talks on summer night’s roofs.
Not for the first time today Eliyah wonders how many future nights they will spend up there now. Grasping each other’s hands tightly, their sorrows and frustrations staining each other’s shirts. Childlike hopes and ridiculous plans stuck and rotting in their hearts and turning them rancid and poisoned with time.
Nelaros is beautiful.
He’s taller than most of the other’s in the small retinue awaiting them. Hair sunlight kissed and his smile thin but tinged with anticipation that has the flavor of excitement.
In another world, Eliyah could have fallen for him.
In another world he would have stepped into his orbit wearing trousers and a shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His chest bound tight to smooth out unwanted curves and sharpen his frame’s edges. And his smile would have been genuine as he told him his name.
But in this world, he is the trap springing shut and sealing his fate. In this world he turns and his lips part to address Eliyah with a name that doesn’t belong to him.
„You must be Lialla.“ he says and coated with this name, his smile feels more like a knife glinting in the sun. „Soris already told me so much about you.“
„I hope at least some of it was good.“ It takes Eliyah so much strength to keep his smile kind and his words untangled from spite.
Nelaros is not to blame. He doesn’t know. Doesn’t yet understand he has been sold a lie. That the minutes tick down, cruelly and fast, until the spell is broken and he will see the mirage for what it really is. Until both their lives wind down into a path of misery and mutual spite, bound together by a vow and the expectations of a community so small and ever shrinking.
A voice tugs at his attention, tinged with promises of hurt and cruelty.
„Well, what do we have here?“
The nobleman’s arrival is almost like a release valve for him. At last, there is a target to spit the venom and ichor at that has been bubbling deep within Eliyah’s chest since the early morning, always so close to nearly spilling past his lips. And when he snarls at the human, all teeth and flared nostrils, fingers itching to ball into fists, there is a recognition in the man’s eyes, a dark curl in his lips. An understanding. You too are an animal trapped in a cage, ready to rend flesh and tear tendons. Just to hear the screams. To finally hear the screams. Well, let me twist the key in the lock, let’s see what happens.
But the moment shatters, just as the glass of the bottle as it connects with the young man’s head.
The smile slips over Eliyah’s lip entirely unbidden, but not unwelcomed as he stares down at the prone body before him. Splayed out, face down in the dirt, waste and misery trampled into solid earth. Oh, how he hoped that this would hurt.
The smile only sharpens when one of the nobleman’s companions marches up to him, words spitted through bared teeth.
„Are you bloody insane? This is Lord Vaughan Kendells, the son of the Arl of Demerin!“
Behind him, Eliyah watches as Shianni’s eyes widen and her hands press against her mouth. But his heart is a hammer in his ears, shaping a blade with every sparking blow, spurning on his feet and his mouth. And his smile lays itself across the young noble’s throat like a knife as he looks up to him.
„Well, just imagine what we’ll do to you, then,“ he all but hisses and he revels in the way the man stares. Wants to lean in further as he takes a step back, words stumbling over his tongue.
I dare you. Twist the key. Open the cage.
„This will end badly for you, knife-ears.“
They carry the unconscious lordling between them, tails between their legs, and behind them the small group of elves huddle together, voices barely rising above murmurs, the mood tasting of fear and trepidation. But Eliyah watches the humans, still feeling the rhythmic fall of the hammer in his ears.
Strike. Strike. Strike.
A blade not unlike a key. Taking form with every blow.
Strike. Strike. Strike.
Another human, wearing strange armor of blue and silver, a griffon standing tall on his chest and a smile colored by mirth and curiousity. His golden earring glinting like Eliyah’s sharpening smile.
Strike. Strike. Strike.
Hungry hands grabbing at his family. His friends.
Hungry eyes glaring down at him as fingers twist his chin upwards and lips curl into a wicked smile.
„Oh we are going to have so much fun,“ they drawl.
Strike.
And then everything goes dark.
There are flashes in the denseness of the void.
A touch, a smile. A laugh like wind-chimes, light and dancing in the breeze. Dark locks bouncing past a shoulder. And his mother’s eyes like stars in the emptiness as her hand cups his cheek.
And a lock clicks open as it falls to the ground and the door swings open.
Oh, there are screams. Songs of blood and viscera, strung from the dying bodies left in his wake. Their notes written down in stark crimson on the beautiful wedding dress hanging from his frame, fraying at the edges and straining under the dance of his blades, conducting the melody.
The final note echoes into stillness when Vaughan Kendell, son of the Arl of Denerim slumps to his knees before him, bloodied fingers clawing into his dress as his life seeps out of him through the maw gaping open in his throat.
And Eliyah flicks the nobleman’s blood from his blade and for the first time this day, the breath he takes doesn’t weigh heavy in his lungs and feels light enough to have the edge of a laugh.
He barely registers the bodies closing in on them, barely hears Soris panicked words fluttering in the air, barely flinches as the shackles are placed on his wrists. When the guards yank him to walk, he tries, but his feet falter beneath him, folding in on themselves and once more his consciousness is plucked away from him.
When Eliyah crawls back into wakefulness it is in following the soft words of a voice calling to him.
The world tastes of copper and mildew as his eyes flutter open and he wets his lips with his tongue. His senses still stumble, grasping for sensations as guidance, to drag him back. Muted echoes of voices, bouncing in cramped spaces. Moss-covered stone scraping against his back and legs. A dark face swimming before him, taking on more details with every painful blink until recognition worms its way into his waking mind.
The Grey Warden.
His hand is on his shoulder a steady, heavy presence.
„Can you hear me, son?“
At that, Eliyah’s eyes find his. It seems to be enough of an answer for the older man, his smile soft and his hand tightening on his shoulder.
„We don’t have much time. I have invoked the Right of Conscription, but I’m afraid powerful people still want your head. It’s best we are underway as soon as possible, do you understand?“
„What…“ he shakes his head, squinting his eyes shut, trying to claw himself through the spiderwebs clinging to his thoughts, sticky and thick. „Where… where is Soris? Shianni?“
„They are on their way to Highever, together with Soris’ new wife. They are safe.“ Another squeeze of his hand, heavy on his shoulder. „Valendrian and I managed to keep the heat off of them, but thought it wisest to get them out of the city for a time.“
A shadow of pain passes over the man’s face as Eliyah once more looks to him, and his lips tighten.
„What about me?“ His voice is a plea, clinging to fraying hope. Sounding so thin and weak to his own ears. More akin to that little girl who first gripped the dagger’s handle and looked to her mother with uncertainty than the man who carved his revenge into the stones of the Arl’s estate.
„You are to be a Grey Warden, or you are to be hanged.“
His own chuckle mocks him as it jumps as an echo from corner to corner.
„I think I’d prefer to be a Grey Warden, then,“ he says.
„I agree.“
And the man stands. The design of the griffon etched into his chestplate catching the gleam of the sun angled just right to touch the lonely cell. His gloved hand reaches out to him, and he smiles. And Eliyah takes it. Grasp tight, maybe even desperate.
„Welcome to the Grey Wardens, Eliyah Tabris,“ Duncan says as their hands clasp together, and he pulls the young man to his feet, still unsteady, still unsure. Torn dress hanging heavy on his frame, caked in with blood now the color of rust. And the only threads still pulled taught between him and this life he leaves behind his mother’s boots and a golden ring slipped onto his finger.
But despite it all, there is a smile. Small and hesitating, but with the first fragile shoots of hope. For new beginnings. For a life he had wished for, pleaded for, hand squeezing his cousin’s as they stared up into the night’s sky. When he first released the tight grasp on this still so new him hidden far away only for him to know and it first slipped past his lips and into reality.
Eliyah.