(closed) don't you put me on the backburner

[swordproof]

WHO: Six and Adalia
WHAT: Revelations™, Relations™, etc
WHEN: After the Deep Roads expedition!
WHERE: Adalia's rooms
NOTES: N/A

Sometimes, the obvious is in front of you and there is nothing you can do but attempt to accept it.

Six had arrived in Thedas and met Adalia incredibly soon, but she had denied any chance that this girl might be the sister that her step-mother had taken away so many years before. How long had it been, now? She had been barely five when Adalia had been stolen from them - a good thing, in the end - so it was close to seventeen years. Could seventeen years have gone by with no sign of her younger sibling only for the two of them to meet here, in the middle of a world away from her own?

It seems too coincidental to be true, but there are more and more signs that were making Six... Curious. Questioning. Uncertain. There were similarities, there was no denying that, and it had been pointed out once or twice, but she had never dared to believe it. The truth was that Six had abandoned her family when she had left Halyon and their village, so to find a connection here, in the middle of nowhere when she had spent the last seven years making her own path and finding her own future... It was difficult to accept and more difficult to face head on.

It is a good thing she had always been encouraged to be brave.

She makes her way to Adalia's room, hesitating outside the door. Her sword is strapped to her back, her pack with her, with the hilt wrapped in the cloak as it always is. She feels safer with it at her side, and she lifts her head to breathe, in and then out, before she knocks on the door.

Whatever happens, at least she has investigated. She has done her part and Six thinks that will be enough. She is just tired.

Comments

[thunderproof]

Well that sure opens up a whole bundle of questions. When Adalia had imagined her family, it hadn't been something that any potential sibling would want to run away from, but... Life isn't kind. She'd known that intellectually in Candlekeep, had even deluded herself into believing that she was living it, but the truth has always been that her circumstances may not have been her ideal, but they were far better than she was likely to have gotten if she'd grown up with her family. A vast library to explore, guaranteed food and shelter and clothing, intelligent if not kind company... Adalia's life was one of privilege, whether she realized it at the time or not, and though it is a saddening surprise that her sister's wasn't, it perhaps shouldn't be.

It's nothing to ask about now. Not unless Six wants to explain. Adalia holds herself exceptionally still, just taking in her words — she wants it too, she wants them to be sisters, she wants to be Adalia's family — and then she laughs, breathless and exhilarated, and throws her arms around Six's shoulders in the tightest hug she can manage.

"I've missed you so much, sister. I didn't know who it was I was missing but I missed you."

After a long, long few moments just spent with her arms wrapped tightly around Six, Adalia pulls back and grins beatifically at her.

"Tell me about your life, what did I miss? I want to know everything."

[swordproof]

The embrace is a surprise but, perhaps, it shouldn't be. Perhaps Six ought to expect these things from Adalia now, and for the two of them to so easily accept this... He hopes that it's true. She hopes that she hasn't made a mistake, that someone else from their world won't arrive and rip it from them, that she can claim Adalia as her own blood and not have that family lost to her as well. Is it such a foolish thing, to hope that one living person in her family is worth loving and protecting? The gentle, childish part of Six thinks not.

It takes her a moment or two, but she leans into the embrace, her hand brushing over Adalia's hair with a gentleness that seems inconsistent with her stature and her strength.

It's not an exciting story to tell, as far as Six is concerned, but she tells Adalia as much as she's able. She tells her about training with the soldiers at home between jobs, their idle laughter and her she grew fond of them, as much as she dared. She told her about fleeing at fifteen, though not what she ran from, and working with mercenaries, soldiers, anyone who would take her for a few weeks or more. Six tells her about finding someone to train her as a Paladin, about how one day Sarenrae came to her and offered her an Oath and she took it.

She avoids her father. She avoids Aidan. She avoids death. It's easier that way.

When the stories come to an end she realises that she doesn't have the strength to move, not really, and she reaches, gingerly and unsure, to bring Adalia into her arms again, holding her gently. This, she thinks, quiet to herself, is something she could get used to. Something she could grow to like. Grow to love, perhaps, even if the thought scares her. Something good and worthwhile for the first time in months.