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She had looked so pretty there in the Pearl, standing out from the rest of the clientele like a jewel abandoned on a sandy beach. That’s where she first saw her: standing in the lobby of the Pearl, cupping a blossom in her hands and leaning close to smell its fragrance. Isabela caught a glimpse of her across the crowded room and was instantly bewitched.
What a dream girl! She looked just like a marble statue Isabela had once seen in a wealthy man’s courtyard, with her aristocratic features and her straight back and her perfect pouted lips posed in a sly sort of smirk.
A person could lose whole days looking at a girl like that.
As luck would have it, Isabela’s old friend Zevran would bring this beautiful woman over to her table a few minutes later and introduce her as Leliana the Lovely Bard From Orlais, and with a certain waggle of the eyebrows that suggested he had remembered all about her thing for redheads. Of course Zev never forgot that sort of detail, no matter how many years went by. He smirked as she looked Leliana up and down and nodded when she met his eye.
Single, available, just your type, courtesy your pal Zevran Aranai, that look promised.
Turns out he had personally convinced the bard to attend this mission, which didn't really require her at all, just so he could introduce the two of them. Good old Zevran.
Of course this favor was actually in part to cushion the blow of introducing her to the Wardens, the very earnest and boyish Alistair and the very serious Jendra. These two would occupy her with business all evening, and not the fun sort either. Information-trading, negotiations, and the promise of training for the Warden’s ragged party of mismatched mercenaries, courtesy a failed hand of cards.
Isabela would have the very distracting redhead to blame for the loss. In her leathers she had hovered over Isabela’s table, always at the right hand of the Warden, and displaying a wonderful expanse of flawless skin from her bare shoulders all the way down her sides. She hummed an unfamiliar tune under her breath with a precision that said Zevran had not exaggerated in calling her a bard. When she spoke encouraging words to the elf Warden in a sweet and lilting voice it sent shivers down the pirate’s spine.
Isabela strained to overhear these whispers, and from time to time the bard’s smiling blue eyes would meet hers, promisingly.
She would blame on this in particular the fact that the Warden caught her retrieving the Ace of Daggers from her boot and voiced her protest to the entire room. Without the Ace her plan of attack collapsed, and the Warden Jendra Tabris proceeded to soundly beat her in the decisive hand.
Isabela dropped her hand onto the table, conceding. “Balls. That’s game.”
“Tomorrow,” the Warden announced, rising from her chair immediately. No goading into a double-or-nothing bind for this one; she seemed to know all the tricks already, and knew to exit while she was ahead. “Meet us at the market at midday, and show us what you can do.”
“A deal’s a deal,” Isabela answered, gathering her cards and shrugging. All in all she wasn’t too put out. A little exercise would be good — especially if her new friend would be there.
“How about you, gorgeous? Are you up for a lesson?” she directed up at the redhead.
Leliana only raised an eyebrow and did not blush. “We shall see,” she said sweetly, with a sideways sort of expression that played at naughtyness. “That is, if you have anything to teach that I don’t already know.”
“Songbird, I know how to do things you’ve never even imagined.” Isabela caught her tiny hand in hers and brought it to her lips for a lingering kiss.
A murmur ran through the room at this, from all the Pearl regulars and her own crewmen at the bar who knew the sign of the Captain on the prowl. Zevran nudged his boyish companion with some delight. He so loved to matchmake. She would have to reward him for that, if this worked out in her favor.
Leliana seemed to take no notice of their audience, but her smile grew at the pirate’s unexpected gallantry. “I will look forward to it,” she said.
But when she appeared the next morning, it was obvious that something had changed.
Gone were the skin-tight leathers and the smile. Instead she wore hideous peach-and-pink Chantry robes, which clashed horribly with her scarlet hair, and covered every inch of her skin below the neck, right down to her fingertips.
Isabela found her sat down on the sidelines in a desultory pose, hair hanging down over her eyes, and said nothing. In her lap was a lute, which she did not play but only tuned endlessly, plucking out small sour notes. When Isabela made to approach Zevran made a harsh gesture that suggested to do so would be a mistake.
“We had a… dramatic evening,” he murmured hastily, breaking out from the cluster of adventurers he had come with. They had clearly been loitering in the square for some time waiting for Isabela to arrive - per her preference, of course.
“Chantry robes?!” she hissed at him, as though this affront to her sensibilities must be his fault.
The antivan elf shrugged helplessly. “I forgot to mention.”
Isabela rolled her eyes. “Dammit Zev. You got me all excited…”
Here she had so been looking foward to spending time with the sultry redhead, and she shows up looking like a Chantry Sister! She glanced over at the girl, still entrancing even in that ridiculous getup, bent over her own lap, her perfect ruby lips in a different sort of pout entirely.
Isabela shook her head, annoyed. If she wasn’t interested in her, she could have just said so!
She brushed past Zevran, muttering, and approached the group in the market square.
With a small flourish, Isabela shucked her overshirt and tossed it aside, facing the party in only a corset and trousers. “Let’s get this started, then. Who’s first?”
Isabela preferred to fight as unencumbered as possible, with nothing extraneous that could catch or inhibit her movement. The guards at her elbows and wrists would catch any blows that came close enough to strike. The corset supported her ample chest, keeping it firmly in place throughout any acrobatic maneuvers she would perform, as well as covertly armoring her belly. And of course it proved usefully distracting.
The men in the party boggled, particularly the dwarf, whose jaw actually dropped. The dark-haired mage rolled her eyes, and the white-haired one crossed her arms, and Leliana… seemed not to notice. Didn’t even look up from her instrument.
Balls.
At least someone appreciated the view. The boy Warden, who stepped up first, certainly seemed unable to tear his eyes from her lack of attire. His pale face rapidly flushed red.
“This hardly seems fair,” he shouted to the Warden, near the row of empty market stalls that served as the sidelines. “She’s not even wearing any armor!”
Isabela put a hand to her hip, and winked at him. “I’m wearing more than you think, sweet thing. Just give it your best shot. I bet I won’t even need to draw my knives to take you down.”
The young warden flipped his helmet down, drawing his sword. “Your funeral,” he muttered, holding his sword out before him. Still, he did not swing with his full weight, and she dodged it easily, swinging around the heavily-armored fighter and kicking him in the back, sending him pinwheeling away.
With a hand to the ground, Alistair regained his balance and whirled around, forcing a laugh. “Good! Good. I was just testing you there. Good show!”
Isabela grinned and drew out her blades, seemingly from thin air. Ten inches of polished white steel, multiple runes inscribed on their handles. She hefted them casually, more as an extension of her arm than a weapon to wield. “Let’s see a real attack then,” she purred, hoping to see him blush again.
The Warden gripped his sword firmly and gave a more serious charge, this time leading with his shield. Isabela tumbled easily under it and struck upwards against his shield hand, then jammed a blade into his thigh with the other hand.
Alistair shrieked and dropped his shield, his left hand gone numb from the blow. Backing away, he wiffed his sword protectively in the air between them. “Blight take you, that hurts! She actually stabbed me!”
“I’m sorry, were we not fighting for real?” Isabela stood and brushed herself off, her blades hidden away once again. “You’ve got a healing mage, don’t you? Go see her, you’re done.”
Already Wynne was stepping up, seeing the need for her skills. Alistair ignored her hand on his arm, however, and pulled off his helmet to better show his outrage. “I thought you were supposed to teach something here! I haven’t learned anything yet!”
“Sure you have.” She patted his other arm. “Never give anything less than 100%, blondie. No matter who your opponent is.” A quick wink and she was done with him, turning to the rest of the group. “Who’s next.”
“Me!” the dwarf volunteered eagerly. He went down even faster, though he kept coming back for more. Isabela jammed knives into his arm and his side, and he kept waving Wynne off.
“Not yet, not yet. I just wanna nother look at that rack!” Oghren sputtered, through a mouthful of blood.
A quick smash to the face took him down for good. She didn’t bother with an assessment; unconsciousness seemed lesson enough. Wynne had to drag him off the field for healing, with Jendra’s help. As they hoisted him under his arms and pulled — the dwarf was shockingly heavy despite his short stature, due partly to the armor and mostly to his enormous beer belly — Isabela snuck a look at her redheaded songbird.
The bard could be heard humming to herself quietly as she watched, still twisting the pegs on her instrument. But she was watching now, glancing up regularly. Good.
Meanwhile, Sten offered himself eagerly for the lesson, having observed her dispatching his fellow warriors so quickly. “I look forward to a true contest,” he told her stiffly, without once glancing at her cleavage. “Battle well.”
She beat him, but it took time. The huge qunari was undistractable, and all her feints proved worthless. Her speed did the job in the end, running circles around him until he slowly tired and his blows lost their full weight and power. She pounced on the top of him after one of his crashing blows with the iron warhammer, and he could not straighten up fast enough to keep her from pulling off his helmet and clubbing him in the head with the handle of her blade. He went down like an avalanche, sending Isabela rolling some distance away.
“Fighting a duel is differentfrom fighting a battle,” she announced, coming back to stand over the prostrate qunari as Wynne healed his concussion. “There are no distractions, no reinforcements. It isn’t the same as stepping in between a darkspawn and his next meal, or stopping a soldier from marching from point A to point B. It’s one-on-one. Nothing else but you and your opponent, and their only goal is to strike you dead.”
“Platitudes,” Sten grouched, waving off the hovering mage from the spectacular bruise on his forehead. “Give me something useful.”
Isabela gestured at his weapon, which stuck straight up out of the dirt. “Heavy hammers are excellent for mowing through a crowd, where they don’t have room to maneuver out of the way. For a duel it’s worse than useless; you’re too slow. At least get a slightly smaller one. Something that swings faster.”
The qunari grunted, finding her assessment acceptable. He could see the sense in it, even if he would have little reason to use it. A Sten fought battles; he did not duel. Single combat was not a soldierly approach. Still, knowledge could always be useful in ways not immediately apparent, according to the will of the Qun.
The mages would fare no better against Isabela. Even the hedge mage went down faster than anticipated. She had clearly expected to wipe out the duelist with waves of flame and ice, but before she could get off a single spell Isabela had broken in fast with her whirling knives. A wall of fire was no good in a wizard’s own face, as Isabela well knew.
Morrigan did have a few tricks up her sleeve. In her defense she transformed into the biggest bear Isabela had ever seen. “Whoa!” she shouted, diving out of the way of its enormous claws and backing off. “Holy shit! That’s a great trick,” she enthused, the first bit of praise she had yet doled out today.
Now the duelist kept her distance, evading the bear’s powerful blows and reaching into all her sheathes and pockets for spare knives, of which she had a surprising number. She threw every weapon she had at her from twenty paces, until finally the bear bucked and crumpled into a shuddering and bleeding woman again, and Wynne had to pour healing magic into her while the Warden drew out Isabela’s razors from her leg.
“You mages have to keep people at a distance, or your spells are no good,” Isabela said, panting, as she approached. “And that bear trick is pretty nice in close quarters, but it’s useless from far away, and you can’t dodge a thing. You’d be better off carrying a blade to back up your spells, or some kind of ranged weapon for when you transform. Could a bear shoot a crossbow, I wonder? Have you tried that?”
Morrigan replied with a stream of foul curses, and Isabela only laughed and turned to the sidelines again, feeling the bard’s blue eyes watching her closely. “Is it your turn yet, Red?” she called.
Leliana demurred. “How about Zevran first?”
“Ah, no….” Zevran passed, not stirring from his perch on a fencepost. “I have fought Isabela before, on several occasions. I have nothing more to learn.”
Isabela laughed heartily. “He means he can’t beat me.”
He shrugged. “It’s true. That was the lesson I had to learn the hard way - Isabela always wins.”
He smiled still, but with something rueful in that smile. Something unspoken passed between the two of them in that moment, a small burst of heat smothered by an invisible chill.
Wynne refused her as well. “I’m too old for this sort of shenanigans, and I won’t be able to take care of this lot if you stab me to death.”
Isabela relented, but not without a bit of flirting. “All right, I’ll let you off this time. But I’ll bet you could teach me a thing or two, if they weren’t here.”
Wynne only chuckled and waved her off, though with a bit of a twinkle in her eye.
The Warden stepped up to fight next, and this became a protracted duel, between fighters of similar strategy. As serious and focused in battle as in conversation, Jendra’s attacks relied on an equal balance of quickness and stealth, and Isabela had a difficult time outmaneuvering her. In the end she resorted to fighting dirty, tossing a handful of pepper dust into her face and tackling her while she sputtered and sneezed.
They rolled over and over in the dirt, Isabela landing on top of course, with her blade pressed to the Warden’s throat.
“Are there no rules in dueling?” Jendra hissed through clenched teeth, still trying not to sneeze.
“Not all of your opponents will be honorable,” Isabela tells her.
It is perhaps a reach, lesson-wise, but the Warden seems satisfied. She accepts the hand up and stands beside her, the only contestant not to require healing at the end of her duel.
“We will continue the practice in camp,” she announces to the group, her statement carrying the force of law. “Clearly we all have much to learn from each other.” Then, rubbing her red face, she stumbled off the field, looking for water.
Well, it was now or never, the pirate told herself. Time to see how her luck would hold today.
She walked over to the redheaded bard, still bent over her lute. “All right, Songbird. It’s your turn. You’re the last duelist today.”
“If you don’t mind,” Leliana spoke up mellifluously, “I should like to finish the song I have been working on first. Would you like to hear it?”
Before anyone could refuse, the bard’s deft fingers were plucking out a tune. A jaunty sort of affair, energetic, but with a harsh edge that seemed uncharacteristic. Not a Ferelden sort of tune, without the strummy chords they preferred, but a lightly finger-picked melody.
Come to think of it, it also didn’t sound like any Orlesian song that Isabela had ever heard. It was difficult to see, with her fine red hair hanging into her face, but was that a smirk?
Then the bard’s eyes closed, and she began to sway with her playing, lost in her own rhythm.
Leliana tilted her head back and sang, the words bursting from her in a sudden swell:
Estás a pensar em mim, promete, jura
This was not an Orlesian song, Isabela realized. It was Rivaini!
Se sentes como eu o vento a soluçar
As verdades mais certas mais impuras
Que as nossas bocas têm p’ra contar
How could she have forgotten? She knew this tune. A Fado, much like she would hear anywhere in Llomerryn, dining or drinking. With an odd Orlesian accent that could not quite land on the “R”s, but with all of the feeling, the saudade, complimented by her lovely, rich tone.
Se sentes este fogo que te queima
Se sentes o meu corpo em tempestade
Luta por mim amor, arrisca, teima
(If you feel this fire burning you, if you feel the storm, fight for me my love. )
Diz que sentes como eu, promete, jura
(Say that you feel like me, promise, swear)
It was not happy music, the Fado. It was the music of longing, of regret.
Isabela suddenly knew, even as the song encased her in a grip of nostalgia, what exactly had changed since yesterday. Leliana had had her heart broken. Or perhaps rebroken. But right here, right now. This wound was fresh and bleeding.
Even now she could see tears shining in her eyes, behind fluttering eyelashes, tears that did not fall but burst out of her throat in song.
Diz que sentes como eu, promete, jura
When at last her voice fell silent, and her careful fingers plucked the final notes, Isabela stood mesmerized.
“That was beautiful,” she began to say, when the blow hit.
Isabela rocked backwards, right off her feet, propelled by a small explosion in her chest. She landed flat on her back, the breath knocked out of her. She could see suddenly - it was hard to miss - the object newly blooming from her chest. A metal bolt. Piercing the skin and into her ribcage, pointing out at the air, and, in a careful arc over her body and past her feet, easily traceable back to the tiny, concealable crossbow now in Leliana’s hands.
When she opened her eyes again, the mage Wynne was bent over her collarbone and working the muscle and bone carefully back together again. A row of curious faces lingered behind her work, watching.
“Did I lose?!” she heard herself say.
The Warden helped her sit, chuckling. “It looks like you did.”
“I haven’t lost in ages…” Isabela spoke into the tumult of onlookers, still looking for the duelist who had knocked her down. “You really caught me out, there, Songbird. I should have seen that coming a mile away…”
But there was no sign of Leliana anywhere, for as soon as she had felled the Duelist, the bard had left the field.
She couldn’t get it out of her mind afterwards.
Not the loss. Isabela could be philosophical about that sort of thing, as only someone so rarely bested could be.
The song. She couldn’t stop thinking about it; the song, and those sad eyes.
It raced around and around in her head as she looked over her ship and checked the cargo.
Promete, jura.
Isabela didn’t go for promises herself, but she knew that kind of longing. It was the kind of desire anyone in a den of thieves comes to know, a wistful sort of hope for something you could count on, some solid ground to plant yourself in.
You get used to it, the crew of reprobates, supposed mates who would cut your throat for a sovereign. You know it, they know you know it. But still you slap each other on the back, roar lusty jokes, and you wait for it to go bad. You pretend.
Like those tiny delicate fingers dancing over the strings, concealing the crossbow that she must have loaded long before Isabela got there.
Isabela sighed, and flopped down on the bed in her cabin.
It had been ages since anybody had bowled her over like this — literally — and she wanted to get the full story. What happened the night before, to cause that transformation?
She got the details out of Zevran over drinks that evening, back at the Pearl. She got him alone eventually, luring him away from the courtesans for a few minutes at her table. He professed reluctance to gossip and went on to tell the whole story anyway, once she agreed to purchase him a new bottle of Antivan brandy. Something about an old lover, a flight from Orlais, and hiding in a Chantry in some godsforsaken Fereldan backwater.
“A sad tale of love and betrayal,” he put it with his usual flare. “The love, as it so often goes, was one-sided. Our Leliana’s. The other side tried to have her assassinated right under our noses.”
“I assume she couldn’t afford Crows, since you’re all still here.”
“They were Orlesians, so nearly as bad. Tenacious, anyway, and vicious too. Caused us a good bit of trouble. The Warden, she tracked down this woman right here in Denerim. We paid her a surprise visit last night, the Warden and Leliana and I. I fear the lovely lady was hoping for closure, to make peace - perhaps even reconciliation? But Miss Marjolane proved… intractable. We had to kill her.”
“Ah.” Isabela slumped over and rested her chin on her arms. That was certainly a mood-killer.
Zevran shrugged extravagantly. “It was the sensible thing. To let her go would have been pure madness, she would have kept right on trying to kill her.”
“You’re an assassin, darling,” she spoke up glumly, though not without affection..”Your solution to everything is to kill somebody.”
“It is generally effective, you must admit.” Zevran tipped the last of his drink down his throat, and thumped it down loudly. “Anyway. As you may have gathered, the timing is not exactly ideal for a seduction.”
She straightened up and signaled for more drinks. “Don’t count me out yet. I’m excellent at mending broken hearts. I just need an angle.”
He caught her arm. With an uncommonly serious expression, Zevran admonished her: “Leliana is not one of your usual conquests, your barmaids and your mercenaries. And she’s no choir girl, even in those robes. She’s something in between those things, and that makes her dangerous.”
Isabela showed her teeth. “Don’t worry Zev, I’ll show her a good time.”
“That might just be enough. But it might not. After all this Betrayed By Her Spy Lover business, the next person who plays with her heart might end up paying a high price.”
“High risks yield high rewards,” Isabela scoffed, echoing his own long-ago advice. “And fortune favors the brave. A wise man taught me that once.” She toasted him and took several burning swallows of rum, draining her own glass and slapping it down to sit beside his.
Zevran was more helpful than that in the end. After all, it was not difficult to convince him that all anyone needed was a warm brandy and a good shag to have them right as rain. “If you must know, she does enjoy the finer things. Looks a bit drab after a few years in Ferelden, but trust me, Leliana is Orlesian through and through. She has an eye for beauty - which is why I thought she might appreciate you, my dear - and if you get her going on about lace and shoes and that sort of thing, you’ve got a good hour of exciting conversation ahead of you. A gift may be just the thing, if you play it right.”
Isabela tilted back her chair and thought. “A gift? I’ve got something that might do …”
“I’m certain you do, somewhere in that treasure trove of yours…” Zevran stood, and took his leave with a funny half-kidding little bow. “Just the same, I’d watch out for crossbows, if I were you.”
Leliana finally emerged from the Eamon estate near sunset, most likely headed to the Chantry for vespers. Still wearing that damned Chantry robe, blast it all.
“There you are,” she called jauntily, and approached.
“Oh!” Surprised, Leliana gave her a genuine smile. “You look much better than when I saw you last,” she said, looking a bit guilty.
“That’s why I’m here. Oh don’t worry, I’m not mad. I’m impressed actually.” Isabela doffed her Captain’s hat, and made a fancy salute. “I haven’t been beaten like that in years. You know they call me the finest duelist in Llomerryn?”
“I’m sure you are. That’s why I had to distract you. A bit unfair, maybe, but I had no wish to be stabbed in the back.” There was something a little cheeky about that reply, but it was hard to make out exactly, behind her mysterious smile.
“So I’ve come to deliver your prize for beating me. Or actually, to deliver you to it, if you don’t mind.”
“Actually, I was—”
The Captain interrupted her before she could protest. “We’re shipping out tomorrow, so I’m afraid it will have to be now. Unless you don’t want to tour a real pirate ship?”
She looked torn. Obviously interested, but… Leliana looked out over the rooftops to the spire of the Chantry in the sky, and back to the Captain, still holding her hat in hand respectfully. “Oh… why not. All right. I will come with you.”
The Siren’s Call was clearly the largest Galleon in port, even with the sails struck. As the sun set over the sea, only a few crewmen were visible on deck - the rest would return from their shore leave on the morrow. Isabela took the bard’s hand and lead her down the gangplank onto the ship.
“It’s a fine, fine ship,” Leliana breathed, looking all around. “I’ve been on larger, but none so…” she searched for the proper word, looking around at its sleek form, its powerful mainsail, and the fineness of its workmanship.
“Lethal,” Isabela supplied. “This ship has sunk over a hundred boats. I think. I’m pretty sure. I’ve lost count, anyway, but it’s at least that. Come on, we’ll go below decks.”
Still leading her by hand (such a tiny, soft hand!) they went down the stairs past the mess and the Captain’s Quarters, and Isabela picked up a lantern from the wall and handed it to her companion.
“You’ll need this,” she said, and kept leading her down.
Leliana held it out before her. Her face had come alive since the first moment she stepped aboard. Excited, she took in every detail, pointing out details of carving in the moulding where the table and chairs fixed to the floor. She kept pausing to look at new things and exclaim to herself with delight.
Isabela walked ahead, striding confidently into darkness, for of course she knew every nook and cranny of the ship by heart. In the bowels of the ship, below the gun deck, past the hold where the men slept, past the small arms and the larder and the cargo, she pressed a key into a hole in the wall and swung open a heavy door that lead to the Treasure Room.
The Captain held the door for her. “Only I have a key to this room. Take a good look, you’ll never see the like of it again.”
Leliana gasped, and stepped inside.
Very few people would ever lay their eyes on a real pirate treasure room. Deep in the heart of the galleon, carefully concealed in the dark of the ship, was all the coin and plunder the Siren’s Call had taken in the last 16 months. Gold bars were stacked all along the walls, shining dully in the light of Leliana’s lantern. Textiles, spices, ceremonial weapons and ornate vases, valuables of every kind and variety, all hidden here in teetering piles of incalculable value.
“Mon dieu! This is amazing!” The redhead turned this way and that, as though she could not decide what to look at first.
Isabela leaned against the door frame, a satisfied smile on her face. “This is my little stash,” she explained. “Most of the merchandise we acquire is sold, and at a good price too. All the crew get a cut of that. Some of this I’ll let go of at the next port, let the boys take it. But some things, the best things, I keep for myself.”
With some excitement the bard swung her lantern from one corner to the next, intent on seeing everything. What had looked initially like random piles of goods revealed a fairly meticulous, if obscure, organizational scheme. Leliana let out a small, girlish squeal as she came upon a crate of porcelain dolls, Orlesian, wearing the latest court designs in miniature.
Delighted, she held up a doll the size of her forearm in a fine ruffled dress and exclaimed, “Oh, how pretty! I had a doll just like these as a girl. Just one, but I would find all the dresses I could for her, and change them with the seasons…”
Leliana’s smile was the most delightful thing Isabela had seen in quite awhile.
The bard laid down the doll carefully and moved on to the dresses, stored in a trunk. Real dresses, ready to wear. She set down the lantern and held one against her. “I don’t even recognize this style! I’m afraid I’ve fallen completely out of date. Look at this neckline. Oh, I don’t think I could carry this off at all…”
“I think you could,” Isabela encouraged, tilting her head to one side and picturing the fit. “The color would suit you. And it’s yours if you want it.”
She looked up to her suddenly, her eyes widening. “Excuse me?”
“Pick one thing. Anything you want. I said you would get a reward, right?” The pirate stretched her arms out fully on either side, indicating the whole chamber. “You get one choice. A pretty dress or a fine vase? Jewels? A glass slipper? Anything you desire. Say it, and it’s yours.”
The bard’s ruby lips pressed together again, in that cute little moue that indicated displeasure, and she returned the dress to the chest. “Why?”
“Because you bested me. Nobody’s done that in, well, quite a long time. And because you are very beautiful, and you looked very sad, and I wanted to see you smiling again.”
The smallest shake of her head, and she was back to smoothing her palm against smooth silk scarves, hefting the lantern as she traveled through the room. “And what do you want in return?”
“In return, nothing. In general,” she admitted, her voice lowering into her famous purr, “I would like very much to run my fingers through your pretty red hair. But I will settle for tying that scarf into it, if that’s what you want.”
She smiled, but it was a bitter smile, and she moved along. “You want me to desire again. Or perhaps to buy me.”
“Not to buy. Never to buy.” Isabela moved in for the pièce de résistance, a small box inconspicuously concealed on a dusty shelf. “This stuff isn’t exactly mine, anyway. So just consider it… sharing.”
She tugged at the box’s lid, carefully prying it up without shaking around its delicate contents.
Then it popped up, and Leliana looked up from the barrel of silver coins she had been running her fingers through.
“Pretty girls should have pretty things,” Isabeal said, and held out the box in front of her.
The box was full of jewels.
Jewels of every color of the rainbow: red, green, deepest black, clear as glass. Some were in rings or fittings, and some simply sat loose in the box, cleaned and polished by a careful, loving hand.
The bard could not resist coming closer to look; never had she seen such riches, even in the Orlesian nobility, who had taught the world about luxury. This box was priceless, its jewels rare and gorgeous and huge, some of them big as a robin’s egg.
The Captain chuckled at the look of awe on her face. “Do you like them? Pick one.”
Leliana’s face fell. “Oh… I couldn’t.”
“Of course you can. Here,” Isabela reached into the box and plucked a blue sapphire in a gold fitting, drawing a long chain out after it. “It matches your eyes, Songbird. Try it on.”
“I couldn’t… I can’t.” Leliana backed away, stepping out of the treasure room, into the gloom of the ship.
Isabela carefully replaced the box and followed. She found Leliana stopped there, leaning against the dull wood of the walls, her brow furrowed.
You know, I left behind a life much like this one,” she said, shaking her head. “In Orlais.”
On top of what Zevran had told her, Isabela tried to remember everything she knew about Orlesian politics. Casually, she leaned against the opposite wall, unconsciously mirroring the other woman’s pose, and revealed what she knew.
“Not so different from piracy; the Grand Game. About as many throats cut.”
“Quite true.” Leliana didn’t seem surprised that she knew; perhaps she had expected Zevran to blab. As well she should, of course.
“So you got tired of it?” Isabela prompted, hoping for more detail.
“Not exactly.” Leliana contemplated the lantern. “I like to say that I did. In truth I had to leave, when Marjolane — the head of my order, tried to have me killed.”
Isabela pushed further. “Lover’s quarrel?”
Leliana’s blue eyes flickered up to her face. “More or less. A misunderstanding. I ran to Ferelden — My mother was Fereldan — but I knew Marjolane would look there. I thought she would never look for me in a Chantry.” She giggled, suddenly girlish. “And she didn’t, you know. It was only when I left that she found me again.”
“But having to pose as a Chantry Sister…” Isabela shuddered. “I’d rather face the assassins, personally.”
“Oh, it wasn’t so bad. It was refreshing, in a way, not having to lie all of the time. Everything was very simple and honest. Ulterior motives, hidden pasts, the currency of information - all there in the Chantry too, of course, but child’s play in comparison.”
“You weren’t bored?”
“Change is always interesting. After so long in the Grand Game, I thought I’d try out doing the right thing for awhile,” she said. “See how it feels.”
Isabala tried to hide her frown. “And yet, here you are…?”
“I had a vision. Or at least… I thought I did.” A shadow of doubt passed across her face. “The longer and the farther away I get from Lothering, the less I am sure. But I believed that the Maker himself told me to find the Warden and help her dispel the Blight, and so here I am.”
“Very noble of you.”
“But I have heard nothing more from Him since. I have tried to hold Him in my mind, and bring his Chant with us along the way. Oh, go ahead, don’t believe me, it’s all right. Noone else has, either.” The Orlesian laughed, and Isabela kicked at the floor and pretended she had not been caught out. “I do not care if a single soul believes it, even though it would be nice to be believed in, this once. After Marjolane… I wonder if perhaps I have been inadequate for the Maker’s purpose. Maybe she was right, and I am nothing more than a killer and a high-priced courtesan, and all of this piety is only kidding myself.”
“Well…” Isabela tried to think of something comforting to say. She cared very little for the Chantry and its self-righteous ways. As far as she was concerned, their sole mission was to make the world as boring as possible. “I don’t think the bards are so bad, personally. It sounds like great fun. Outsmarting rich idiots, manipulating politicians, seducing their idiot sons… and what’s so bad about a killer or a courtesan, anyway? I’d rather be either of those than a nobleman’s wife, and unlike a politician, they are at least honest about what they do.”
“It was great fun,” Leliana admitted. “Until you become the target. Surround yourself with liars all the time, and eventually you will be decieved.
“You’ve learned it now, though - the secret to not getting hurt. Just don’t believe anyone. Then you won’t be fooled.”
“But so sad! To never believe in anyone ever again? Ever? To never have true friendship again? To never believe in love? I would not want to live that way.”
Isabela was amazed. “You are too romantic, Songbird. If you want my advice, learn from your mistakes and be stronger, and never make yourself vulnerable again. It’s served me well, in my time.”
Leliana frowned. “You remind me of her. That’s the trouble. Marjolane always said such cynical things too. It made her sound so smart and worldly, and made you feel special for being the one to hear them.” She sighed, clearly remembering the happy times. “I thought I could be the exception, you see. That I was the one person who could trust her, and who she could trust. Perhaps that was foolish, but I know no other way to love someone.”
Her vivacious expressions were so bewitching, Isabela could not help staring. “No, it’s… it’s sweet, really.”
Ridiculously appealing, too. She could see now what Zevran was talking about. The girl was too steely to be an innocent maiden, too headstrong to be a proper wife, and too sentimental to be an effective assassin. With her beauty on top of those qualities, she was going to ruin people. The lanternlight flicking over her hair made it shine like fire, and Isabela would leap over actual fire to touch those lips just once, the way she looked there now.
No, people would ruin themselves for her. She was a born life-ruiner.
The lovely maden, maybe feeling her assessment, jutted her chin and refused her.
“So you see I cannot accept your gift, as generous as it is. Your treasures are stolen, and that is against the Maker’s law. I have renounced that life, even though I am not in the Chantry now. I carry the Maker with me, and I must do what is right.”
There it was.
“So you’re too good for my gifts,” she said stiffly. “Fine. Fine.”
Leliana hastened to explain. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right.” Isabela locked the door to her treasure room, refusing to look at her. “I’ll take you back up, and you can be on your way.”
They were both quiet down the passage to the next level, but on the gundecks the bard spoke up again. “I am sorry, Captain. These last few days have been difficult for me, and I am somewhat at a loss for what to do with myself when all this is over. Can I return to the Chantry after all this? Am I still a bard? Am I a priestess? Am I both, neither?”
Isabela did not slow, bounding down a row of cannon, but she did reply over her shoulder. “Never had that problem. The sea was all the calling I’ve ever had, and all that would take me, frankly. Fortunately I’m very, very good at it.”
“I was good at being a bard, too. But I was never happy. I can see that now.”
“Good for you,” Isabela scoffed, a little meanly. “I suppose Andraste will make you happier than your Marjolane did.”
“Maybe I just wanted to find somebody who wasn’t going to lie to me,” she murmured.
The Captain stopped, suddenly, and Leliana almost crashed into her. She hopped up onto one of the cannon, her feet resting at the touch hole. Isabela looked down at Leliana still holding the lantern out, and drew from her pocket the sapphire necklace she had offered her earlier.
“As a bard, I’ll bet you had a lot of pretty things,” she said thoughfully, holding the necklace up to the light. “Pretty shoes, pretty dresses - fancy jewelry. I’ll bet you miss it.”
“Empty baubles,” Leliana said quietly. “Meaningless, when it is all based on lies. I would rather have the truth now.”
“What could be truer than this?” Isabela shook the necklace in the air. “This has a value no matter who’s holding it. Your politics can tear down nations and build them again, but this remains, no matter what. Currency. Property. That’s security, more than any truth. Andrastian, Qunari, dwarf, anyplace, any language. Jewels always mean the same thing. That is truth. ”
“Posessions can be lost.” Leliana hugged herself, wrapping her Chantry robes tighter. “I’ve fled for my life more than once, and lost everything. If it can be left behind or lost, it has no value to me.”
“Listen,” Isabela said, a bit surprised at herself for pushing this point. “I was a good girl once. Really, I was. I did what I was told. If I wanted something, I asked nicely. And what did I get for it? Nothing.”
She tossed the unwanted necklace onto the floor, and Leliana stepped back in surprise. “If I wanted anything pretty of my own, I had to earn it. I had to do all the things that anyone wanted me to. That’s better than stealing, right? Paying for it? Oh, I paid. I paid and paid and paid, until I decided I wasn’t going to pay anymore. What I want now, I take. Whether it’s money or property or.. meaningless baubles.”
Leliana grimaced at that.
“I’ll take stealing over that sort of transaction any day. And if it’s something I want, it isn’t meaningless. Not to me. I like pretty things, stones that shine and fine leather boots and silk scarves and whatever else catches my eye. If it makes me happy to look at, then I deserve to have it, and I will take it. Truth is, if I want to have anything, I have to take it. Nobody else is going to give it to me.”
Isabela rubbed at the back of her neck, suddenly tired. She hated to get worked up like this. And she hated the way Leliana was looking at her now, all serious and big-eyed and sorry.
“Look: the necklace is yours. It looks good on you, and I want you to have it. If not, just leave it. It’s meaningless, right? Who cares what happens to it. Some sailor will find it and give it to his sweetheart.”
She hopped down from her perch, her expression a mask, and replaced her captain’s hat.
“If you do decide you want to give up on this whole good-girl game, I’ll be docked right here until the morning. Just come see me if you change your mind. After that I’m sailing away from here, somewhere without Darkspawn, where a girl can make a living. Good luck with that whole Blight business and try not to get killed, will you?”
She strode away resolutely through the darkness of the gun deck, leaving Leliana alone in a halo of light.
The Captain went to her bed with a bottle and book, and tried not to think about her failed seduction attempt.
Rejection was another thing Isabela could be philosophical about. She’d been successful often enough not to be too upset by the ones who turned her down. There were literally hundreds of ports with literally thousands of pretty faces, and many of them perfectly thrilled to take her up on anything she offered them.
If only they didn’t sometimes want so much more.
Why can’t people be simpler? A warm bed and her treasures - this was what she had to give. Why couldn’t that be love, too? If Isabela did not traffic in promises and declarations, she was no less feeling for it.
Perhaps this was not enough for Chantry girl like Leliana.
But, her loss, right? There were thousands more girls like her out there. Thousands.
Probably not Orlesian redheads wielding a lute and a crossbow, and wearing Chantry robes, though.
Pity, Isabela thought, much more sorry than she wanted to admit, and opened the bottle.
Only a few hours later, Isabela heard a knock at the door to her quarters.
She wore only a slip of a dress, a whisper of silk against her tiny, solid frame. Around her neck, sitting comfortably against her bare skin, was the blue sapphire necklace.
“I am so awfully tired of doing the right thing,” Leliana said when she opened the door.
Isabela grinned. “Good girl.”