Chapter Text
Adal Helmi had long since drained her first celebratory cup of wine, flavoured with herbs. She could see her face at the bottom of the beaten copper goblet. She stuck out her tongue between her lips and saw her reflection pulling a concave skewed face back up at her. It was ill-mannered for this kind of event; but no one was paying her any attention, not even the maids.
Adal’s kinswoman Jaylia was the centre of attention, dressed up in imported surfacer silks, with precious jewels strewn and studded across every inch. Tonight was the celebration of Jaylia’s marriage - not her actual marriage, just the promise of it. Rumour had it that the Shaperate would record it as the shrewdest deal of the last twelve regnal years, because Jaylia was not only promised to Trian, Prince of Orzammar, but she’d only have to marry if he actually took the throne. Jaylia’d get a King for a husband or nothing; and if someone else stole the throne out from under Trian’s grasp, well, Jaylia would get her widows’ rights anyway.
From the sour look on Jaylia’s face, she was hardly happy about the gamble that would likely leave her stranded in her childhood bedroom for the foreseeable future.
Adal doubted she’d even been consulted. And it was poignant that her to-be-groom was not in attendance. Smirking once again into her empty wine goblet, Adal cast her eye over the sea of familiar faces. She’d be sod itself, if the whole Helmi house hadn’t crowded into the large dining room, for a look upon their good fortune.
Since the alliance was agreed, but not yet binding, the wine had been allowed to run out. And Adal wondered if any of her family would notice if she snuck away? She could have the Proving Grounds all to herself, for a few precious hours, before the loitering Warriors arrived to jeer and whistle.
The empty seat beside her was filled suddenly, in a flash of patina teal, and a warm hand clawed gently at Adal’s shoulder. Then a faintly familiar woman’s voice announced, “when I was little I always wanted a sister.”
“I’ve got plenty, take one of mine.” Adal replied, leaning a little into the touch as she stood intent on making her escape. Adal froze, half risen out of her seat, as she found the woman next to her was no other than the princess of Orzammar. She sat back with a clunk in her chair. Adal licked her lower lip and added, “Highness.”
They had no need to introduce themselves as they’d known of each other since before they could walk. Even crossed blades once or twice in a Proving, but Adal wasn’t sure they had ever been close enough to call friends.
Marta Aeducan smiled a lazy smile that squeezed her wine flushed cheeks. Her hair had been stitched into elaborate towering braids that crisscrossed around her head and across her forehead, giving her rounded face the approximation of a crown. As she moved her large earrings, beaten triangular sheets of brass, caught the light. It made her plump lips look sweeter. She raised an eyebrow, pieced with a golden stud, “I think that’s the point of this party.”
Adal could do little but hum in agreement.
“I’m bored, are you bored?” Marta asked, hiding the question behind her hand and letting her breath tickle Adal’s ear. Then before she had an answer to her first question, she pulled around on her seat so they were facing each other. “What do you think the sky looks like?”
Adal’s heart was pounding in her ears, worse than during any bout in the Proving Grounds. She cast her eyes around once more to see who was listening in, “Highness, you can’t ask that.”
“Oh,” Marta Aeducan’s smile slipped, and the corner of her pretty mouth twisted down. “Right. Forget I said anything then.” She splayed her hand out flat against the table, stretched her fingers out until she couldn’t flex them anymore, then made a fist and knocked it twice gently against the table. She scraped out her dining chair and in a flat voice, “let me guess, you must be so happy for Jaylia.”
Adal wasn’t happy, neither for Jaylia, nor to see Marta retreating away from the conversation. So she whispered, “my cousin is a surfacer.” Then she flushed hard enough that it felt like her cheeks had been slapped. It wasn’t something to admit in polite company, nor was it the sort of thing to say to the Princess of Orzammar. “She wrote me in a letter that when it gets dark Topside, you can see the ceiling is just made of lapis lazuli, she says the stars are just flecks of pyrite and everyone else is just too stupid to realise.”
Marta’s eyes grew wide, big and brown and bottomless. “I knew it. I knew the ‘topside,’ had to have a top.” She rocked forward in her chair and planted a dry kiss on Adal’s cheek. “You are a revelation, you know? What else did your cousin tell you?”
Adal guilt was assuaged by seeing the delight on Marta’s face, and she cupped a hand to her cheek where Marta Aeducan had kissed her. “She says there are rivers deeper than cities that take weeks to cross and they have bowls big as buildings to carry people across.”
“Ha! We have rivers.” Marta Aeducan scoffed. “And bowls.” She sat back in the dining chair as though it was a throne and surveyed the hall as though it was her Kingdom. A few of the Helmi aunts had taken notice of the conversation, but despite or perhaps in spite of the audience, Aeducan once again leant across to Adal and confided. “I heard they have moss that grows on stalks as big as the statues of the Paragons.”
Laughing, Adal shook her head, then brushed her fringe back into place and muttered, “you’re teasing me.”
“I am not.” Aeducan told her fiercely.
“But you don’t really want to-?” go up there. Adal couldn’t even finish the question, and her voice trailed to a whisper. She plucked up her empty goblet again, feeling the stretch of the metal between her fingertips. The solidity was soothing, and made her feel like a part of bedrock and reminded her that she was a part of the Stone.
“Of course not, I love Orzammar, I don’t want to leave.” Marta Aeducan snapped, and she put her head heavily in her cupped hand. “Last I checked, curiosity wasn’t a crime.” Then she glanced over the top of Adal’s wine goblet and called a maid with a jug over to fill up their cups effectively stopping all talk of the surface world before Adal could respond.