Chapter Text
Merrill was laughing. Isabela loved when she laughed. It was late afternoon, and they were in Isabela’s room, talking. Isabela didn’t keep much in her room: a bed, a side table, a few trinkets and knick-knacks on a pair of small shelves. There wasn't even a table and chair for eating at, so Merrill sat on the floor with the lunch she had brought, and Isabela ate hers on her bed. They talked while they ate, Isabela relating some raunchy tale, or else smiling quietly while Merrill gabbled on and on about something that went over Isabela’s head. It didn’t matter. She just liked listening to Merrill talk.
It was a nice scene. All of Kirkwall stripped away, no one in the world but Isabela and Merrill. It couldn’t last.
With hardly a rap of knuckles on the door, Cuva Hawke entered the room. She had her usual default expression of disgust in place, but it warped to surprise, and then a cruel humor, when she saw Merrill on the floor.
“Merrill? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? How are you these days?”
Merrill self-consciously smoothed the skirt of her tunic. “Well enough.”
“Oh, I’m so relieved to hear it.” She was standing with her hands behind her back, a soldier’s stance, a reflexive holdover from her time in the army. That military attitude had its perks in bed, Isabela thought, but it didn’t make her much fun. And it was no good for Merrill at all. “Been keeping Isabela out of trouble? Or maybe it should be the other way around.” She let out a curt huff of laughter at that. “Not likely.”
“We’ve just been here,” Merrill said, “just having lunch and talking.”
“Talking?” Hawke said, even more amused. “Alone in Isabela’s room and you’re just talking? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Well maybe all it takes is someone who actually has something nice or interesting to say.”
Isabela forced a laugh, kept it casual, but a gleam of anger still appeared in Hawke’s eyes.
Isabela didn’t like this, this collision of worlds. Hawke so rarely asked Merrill to come along when she was running around and cleaning up Kirkwall. Isabela wasn’t sure they’d even seen each other since they went to Sundermount, three months ago. That was for the best, as far as Isabela was concerned. She liked them both a great deal. When she was with Hawke, she felt like she— And Merrill made her feel like— She liked them. But they hated each other.
“Unless we’ve finally found the line Isabela won’t cross?” Hawke suggested. “Maybe she just doesn’t like the taste of elf—”
“No,” Isabela said languidly, “that’s not it.” She stretched out on her bed, twisting her wrists and cracking her knuckles. Hawke was sufficiently distracted, but Merrill’s eyes were fixed on Hawke’s face, rage blooming on her cheeks. “Merrill’s standards are much too high for the likes of me to slip through. Not like you, Hawke. You seem to rather enjoy finding your lays the gutter. People like me have more in common with you.”
Hawke let out a short, sharp laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’ve only got my attention because of what a disaster you are. Like watching cart roll down a hill into a wall.”
“Is that so?” Isabela said, unfazed, unsurprised. “You aren’t attempting to save me, like your Sebastian always tries to do?”
Hawke’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “Don't say his name. It sounds obscene coming out of your whore mouth.”
“Don’t you dare speak to Isabela like that!” Merrill said, rising from the floor, her hands balled into fists. Isabela stared at her, stunned that so typical a conversation with Hawke would send her into a rage. And Isabela had been doing such a good job defusing the situation.
Hawke rounded on her, mouth in a snarl, returning her barely-calmed rampage to its original target. “I’ll speak to her however I like! Who the fuck’s going to stop me? A scrawny little shit like you? Or are you going to use blood magic and make me shut up?”
“You’re nothing but a bully!” Merrill shrieked. “You don’t care about anyone, you only care about yourself and what you want. You’re a cruel, selfish—”
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” Hawke snapped.
Merrill crossed her arms over her chest. “I was here first. Maybe you’re the one who should go.”
“Isabela, get your pet out of here.”
“How dare you, what makes you think you have the right—”
“Now, Isabela.”
Isabela sprang off the bed, stomping her boots to the floor. She brushed past both of them and out of the room. As she rounded the corner of the hallway, she spotted Varric peeking out of his suite. Ever-familiar shame washed over her, but as usual, she pushed it away.
“What’s going on, Rivaini?” He had that soft voice going, the one you’d never hear in the barroom, the one that made Isabela feel the only person in the world who mattered. She pushed that feeling away, too.
The shouting was definitely audible from down the hall, and it definitely hadn’t stopped. Varric glanced away from her and toward the room, so Isabela found it easy to look away from him, too. “Not any of my business, now. I’ve left the room.” She passed the point of stopping and headed down the stairs.
“The hell you leave behind in there?” he muttered, before he realized she wasn’t staying. He called after “Hey, you alright?”, but she just kept walking. Of course she was alright. As long as she could keep walking, Isabela as always alright.