Fanfic: Fate is a Cruel Mistress
Topic by request!
Title: Fate is a Cruel Mistress
Rating: M for non-explicit reference to rape; otherwise unremarkable
Words: 1087
Characters: f!Tabris (Taniva) with reference to, of course, Zevran
Summary: Early in their relationship, Taniva reflects on what possessed her to put her trust in Zevran.
Fate is a Cruel Mistress
Leliana is the only one who seems to understand. I can feel everyone else’s eyes boring holes in the back of my head, wondering why I would ever even dream of letting Zevran not only live, but come with us. Never mind that I also freed Sten, who admits to killing a whole family with children and has yet to tell us why.
I reflect on it myself, during our marches, at the times when no one is trying to engage me in conversation. I suppose that there are several reasons.
What most of them boil down to is that I chose him. Alistair was thrust on me by obligation to the Wardens and Duncan, themselves not my choices; Morrigan was imposed on me as payment for my rescue; Paisan adopted me; Leliana invited herself along in the name of the Maker, and Wynne in the name of the Circle; even Sten was an act of mercy to which all of my other companions entreated me, despite how sodding frightening and recalcitrant he is. But Zevran was laid out at my feet, helpless, and I had every right and reason to deal with him as I pleased, and no one pleading his case over my shoulder.
Choice, in itself, is seductive. Certainly to someone like me, to whom it is a rare delicacy. It was only a week after my first encounter with Vaughan that I got the most drunk I have ever been and slept with a stranger whose name I no longer remember, just because I wanted to prove to myself that my body was still mine and I could choose what I did with it. Of course, the sex was awful, and there has been little more since then, so I can’t say that what I did was wise or healthy. I can say that it was my own decision, and that makes it precious to me even if it was stupid.
Much less precious is my memory of Nelaros. I know it would sound heartless if I said it out loud, but it is true. I am sorry he died, and that it was for my sake, and yet I do not miss him. How can I miss a man I knew for only minutes? How can I mourn a marriage I never wanted? Thinking back on it, I am not sure I could even have allowed him to touch me, however polite and well-meaning he seemed in the few words we exchanged.
Perhaps I should have told Father what happened to me. Perhaps he would have waited longer to marry me off if I had. It is far too late for thoughts like that now. I wonder how Shianni will handle such issues, and as always I am angry that I do not have the option of being there for her like she was for me.
I am angry that I was born into a life where most of my decisions had been made, and that when I was wrenched loose from that, it was by a life just as strict and also attended by impossible duties, nightmares, and chronic pain. I am angry that Duncan made himself look the great, noble man for sending me a sword, even though he found it “impolitic” to intervene before several of my kin had been killed or molested, and that even the little help he did give was only because he thought I would be of use to him. I am angry that now I live constantly surrounded by that which I trust least - that I am obligated to divert all sense of trust and family into Alistair, a human noble-blooded man. That is a constant irritant even as I come to admit to myself that in and of himself, he is blameless, and that he does, in his peculiar way, have my best interests at heart.
Why then this faith in Zevran, to whom sexual innuendo is as natural as air? Because he is not human. Because despite his talk he does nothing that causes me alarm, as odd as that sounds. Because what I see in him is another elf, and another person whose choices were imposed rather than taken willingly. That makes it easy for me to believe in his sudden shift of loyalties: if I feel no loyalty to an innocent I might have married, can I fault him for feeling none to a regicide who merely promised him payment? I don’t have Alistair’s pretty illusions about these sorts of ideals.
I look at Zevran and I see myself. Almost myself, except that if he has told the truth - and there is a hardness to him that makes me think he omits rather than exaggerates - he has suffered more than I have. And yet he isn’t angry. Far from it: any little thing pleases him, and he is full of jokes. How has he managed this? How can he be neither beaten down nor angry? Even that emptiness that I thought I saw when we fought, that made me pull my blows, is gone now. Can I learn the trick from him? Could he tell me what it was if I asked?
These are my good reasons. There is also the fact that he is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. I doubt I will ever tell him that: he seems well aware of his attractiveness and rather taken with it already, and I don’t want him thinking he can use that for some kind of advantage. I don’t believe he will try to kill me again, but I think that he is in this for himself and not for us. I understand. We were not his choice. We were a practical concession, and now we are an oath made under duress. We remain so even now that I have told him he is free to go when he chooses - a decision that caused Alistair an hour-long fit.
I do not want to be a resented obligation to someone I am thinking of as beautiful. I am not to think of him as beautiful unless there is evidence that I am something other than an oath to him, that I have become a choice. I am giving him what neither of us was given. Not mere life, but an opportunity to decide who he is.
I suppose I am taking it on faith that he can do that without one of us dying.