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"You see, sweetness, when a man and a woman love each other very much—"
“Isabela.”
The oldest girl—Brynn, she was called—giggled behind her hands, turning slightly red. The boy—far too young to be called anything, in Isabela’s opinion—gurgled happily in reaction. Isabela tickled his stomach, prompting a squeal, and waited with a patient smile for Aveline to call the whole thing off.
To her consternation, though, Aveline just resettled her shield and picked up her sword. “We’ll be back in a few hours,” she told Isabela. “Try not to foment rebellion.”
"Aveline," Isabela protested. "I don’t—"
"You’ll be fine. I’m sorry, but I have to go." She gathered Brynn carefully to her armor and kissed her forehead. "Be good for Auntie Isabela, all right?"
The gurgling baby got a kiss, too, and then Aveline was out the door, and both of them were looking at her.
Balls, Isabela thought, narrowing her eyes right back at them. She wasn’t good for this. It had been an age since she’d cared for a child. Hawke would be better, but clever her, she’d skipped off as soon as they’d docked, and Isabela couldn’t fault her for going.
"So," she said warily. "What would you like to do, then?"
"Mama made zucchini," Brynn muttered, eyes downcast. "I hate zucchini.”
"Do you, now?" Slowly, Isabela started to grin. "Well, we’ll just have to get something else then, won’t we?"
Brynn’s brown eyes widened. “But we’ll get into trouble!” she whispered.
"Well, we’d better not tell her, then," Isabela replied. The sling that Aveline used to cart the littlest one around was draped over the back of a nearby chair; she picked it up and worked out how to settle the baby in it.
"Could we get a pie?" Brynn asked hopefully.
"A pie sounds delicious," Isabela agreed. The best pie vendor she knew was in Lowtown, but she didn’t dare take the kidlets there; the riot Aveline had left to deal with was in Lowtown. There was a decent one in Hightown, though, and he wasn’t far away.
*
They sat on some conveniently stacked crates while dusk fell on the market, eating their pie. No one looked twice at Isabela and her hangers-on; it was a rare day that she and Hawke came within a hundred leagues of Kirkwall, and they both relied upon their disguises to keep them safe when they did.
"I wish you would visit more often, Auntie Isabela," Brynn said drowsily, licking the crumbs and gravy off her fingers.
"What do you call this, then?"
Isabela glanced up from her slice of pie to see Hawke standing over them, fists propped on her hips. Brynn squealed, suddenly wide awake, and hopped down off her crate to charge at Hawke. Hawke let herself be knocked back by the child’s attack, laughing the whole time.
"Auntie Marian!" the girl cried, beaming up at her.
"How are you, Brynnie?" Hawke asked, smoothing back the girl’s ginger hair.
"Auntie Isabela bought us a pie!" Brynn exclaimed.
"Did she," Hawke said, raising an eyebrow at Isabela.
"The girl didn’t want zucchini," Isabela defended. "Who am I to refuse?"
Hawke rolled her eyes and smiled down at Brynn. “Little girls should be home in bed,” she reminded, “so that their mothers don’t worry about them.”
Brynn pouted.
"I know," Hawke sighed. "I’m just not the fun aunt, am I? Come on, I’ll race you."
She bounded off. Brynn scrambled after her, giggling again. Isabela left the pie tin, resettled the sleeping baby in his sling, and followed.
She didn’t wonder where Hawke had been. Besides Aveline, there was only one person left in this city for her to visit, and whenever they docked, she always went to him first.
*
When Aveline and Donnic returned home—later than expected, and reeking of smoke—they found their children in bed and no sign of uneaten zucchini. (Hawke had cleverly fed it to her mabari, who’d always been likely to eat almost anything.) Isabela kicked out the chair across from her and smiled sweetly up at Aveline.
"We’ll deal you in," she offered.
Aveline sighed. “I hope you brought whiskey.” She and Donnic dropped into their seats; a little puff of dirt rose from their clothing.
"Rough night?" Hawke asked sympathetically.
"They always are," Donnic said, wiping a streak of soot from his face.
"It goes in waves," Aveline replied, making a face at her cards. "All is well for a month or two, and then there’s a food shortage, or the templars get overambitious, and then—well. You remember how it is."
Isabela was quick enough to see the flash of pain, the lingering guilt, cross Hawke’s lined features. “We could stay,” she offered quietly.
She said that, every time.
"No," Aveline replied, giving Hawke a tired smile.
The answer was always the same. They would be out the door by dawn—maybe midday, if they stayed up too late drinking. They would set sail for somewhere far away, and Kirkwall would grow small in Hawke’s eyes while she stood at the stern. She would even brave the crow’s nest to keep the broken Gallows in sight for just a little longer, arms wrapped through the wooden slats, blue eyes unblinking.
"Drink," Isabela ordered, pouring out the whiskey and pushing it at Aveline.
She coughed at the first sip and, tension broken, they all laughed, laying down cards until the sun brightened the eastern sky.