This is a companion piece for All the Faces in Her Wake, my daeran centric fic that focuses on his relationsihp with his mother. It's not in the actual fic yet (ch3) but I've posted snippets and another short piece that reveal that in my canon, Silaena was actually as rebellious, if not more so, than Daeran in her youth--she explicitly ran away from home as a young adult for a period of about four years, before returning home and taking up the mantle of Countess Arendae. This fic details her arrival home, what she does in between her homecoming and her marriage to Count Arendae, and why specifically she came back.
I love it a lot but there's a possible chance that I won't post it because it features a very headcanony headcanon about Silaena and Daeran that I'm nearly positive is refuted in game--that Silaena conceived Daeran with someone else and returned home and got quick married to an old friend to legitimize him. But I still love it because I do what I want lol
"I'm pregnant," she said flatly, the words silencing her father's bluster. His face turned the color of puce, and then bone-white.
"How--who--"
"I have no idea," she cut through his spluttering. She is lying, of course--the man's name had been Kael, he of the sharp tongue and foxlike smile. They had spent months together when he had come to Mendev searching for opportunities to expand his business, free-fallen into the closest thing to love Silaena had ever experienced. When the diseased air of the Worldwound became too much, he had packed his things to go back southeast and offered to take Silaena with him.
She'd refused; Mendev was blighted land riddled with cults and demons and foul air, but it was her air, and her people, and her land. Even when she ran away she had never gone far, and had come to the realization that she never would when she closed the door on their relationship. He'd left before she'd found out the gift he'd left her, and now he will never know, so she does not wonder how he'd react if he found out. What mattered was here, the present, and how she planned to take care of the growing life inside of her.
"Nevis and I have already agreed that this will be a chaste marriage; my child will be claimed as his, and since the marriage will be legal before the child draws breath it will be legal heir. You give me the title and the estate, and you can keep all the other homes and riches and make everyone miserable in Nerosyan if you like, and you never speak to me again--and I will take the responsibilities of Countess Arendae, and pass them to my son."
