Work Text:
“I don’t mind, Kitten. You’ve seen my room.”
The former pirate Captain was seated at Merrill’s dirty table, who was busy trying to create some semblance of order in her cluttered house. The elf had been in Isabela’s room—many times, in fact—but compared to hers, Merrill thought her place was a complete disaster. Books and papers were placed haphazardly on every surface, including parts of the floor. Things that were of particular interest were instead tacked to the walls, so she could at least find something in the chaos. She hurriedly tried to pile a handful of papers on the shelves, dropping more things in the process.
“I really don’t mind…”
“Sorry. I really did try to clean it the other day, but I got distracted, and, well…”
“It happens,” Isabela says. “Please sit down? All this running around is making me fidgety.”
“Oh! Sorry. Right.”
“You don’t have to apologize so often!”
“S-” Merrill caught herself and ran her hands through her hair, sitting down beside Isabela and fiddling with her hands. “Okay.”
Satisfied, Isabela leaned onto a small, empty spot on the table, flashing Merrill a friendly smile. She always had a smirk on her face. It looked like she was up to something, going through everything with a calculated calm. But when Isabela smiled at her, it didn’t feel like there was some sort of big secret she was hiding, or that she thought she had the upper hand in some way.
“Can I get you something to drink? Or eat?”
“I’m alright, sweetness,” Isabela said. “You’re always so nervous when I come over. Do I make you nervous?”
“No…”
It wasn’t the complete truth. Isabela made her the least nervous out of everyone all said. But something inside Merrill made her want to be impressive to Isabela, to feel like she had something of interest to say like the pirate queen always did. There were no grand tales of duels or adventures to tell, no funny coincidences she could joke about. She was just so different from her. Compared to Isabela, Merrill felt so plain and boring.
“No?”
“No! Not in a bad way. You’re just so...nice to me. You’re not even that nice to Hawke!”
Isabela laughed. “And why shouldn’t I be nice to you?”
“I don’t know. Everyone acts like I’ll turn into an abomination at any moment. I know what I’m doing.” Merrill’s lips tightened.
“Don’t worry about what everyone says. You know who you are and that’s the only thing that matters.”
Merrill’s hands balled into fists. “I don’t care about them. It’s that...I wish they weren’t so mean about it.”
“People lash out at what they don’t understand.”
“It’d be nice if they didn’t.”
“It’d be a whole different world, sweet thing,” Isabela said, crossing her legs with a wistful sigh. Something caught her attention off in the corner of the room—or maybe it was whatever thought that entered her mind. She hummed a tune to herself, a jaunty beat that Merrill could only assume was a sea-song of sorts. A shanty, if she remembered right.
It was comforting in a way she couldn’t place. Isabela’s voice was pleasant, speaking or humming, even yelling. Then again, everything about Isabela made her feel comfortable. Merrill didn’t know the reason why: she only felt happy to be around her, to have someone she trusted and didn’t look down on her like so many others.
Maybe that’s why she said what she did. Merrill’s brain couldn’t stop her mouth in time, the sentence out in the open before she realized what she’d done.
“Can I kiss you?”
Isabela was caught by surprise, a slow, gentle smile on her lips. Leaning back, she looked at Merrill attentively, eyes shining like copper in the lantern light.
“You want to kiss me?”
It wasn’t the reaction Merrill expected. She wasn’t entirely sure what she expected when she thought about it. Her mouth felt dry. “Only if it’s okay, of course. I was just curious and-”
“Shh,” she said, shuffling closer to Merrill and putting a hand on the small of her back. Merrill jolted at the touch, suddenly nervous. But if there was anyone she wanted to do this with, it was Isabela. “I’d like that.”
Gently, cautiously, she wrapped her arms around Isabela’s shoulders, pressing her forehead against hers and gathering much needed courage for what was to come.
“I haven’t done this before. I mean, I’ve kissed people, but not like…”
“Like how I’d do it?” Isabela laughed, not condescending, only reassuring and light. “Don’t worry about it, sweet thing. Just do whatever’s natural.”
With a gulp, Merrill leaned forward and pressed her lips against Isabela, holding her breath and expecting to wake up from a dream where she was bold enough to actually do such a thing. When Isabela kissed her deeper, not taking the lead, but with guidance, Merrill knew she wasn’t sleeping. Merrill opened her lips and Isabela responded in kind, letting her tongue slip in and matching Merrill’s hesitant, eager pace. She tasted like whiskey, Merrill thought, tightening her hold around Isabela and kissing her again, slow and deliberate. She pulled back and slid her hands to Isabela’s chest, looking at her sheepishly.
“That was nice,” Merrill said, trying to stop the hammering in her chest.
“It was! You’ll be a pro in no time.”
“I don’t think it was what you’re used to.”
“I’m used to a lot of things. It’s nice to get soft kisses, sometimes.”
“Does Hawke give good kisses?”
Isabela smiled. “She does. But don’t worry about that right now. This is your time.”
Sighing the rest of her nervousness out, Merrill dug her head into Isabela’s shoulder, happy when Isabela reached up to play with her hair. Isabela smelled like her room at the Hanged Man—incense, spices, and even a tinge of sweat that was surprisingly not unpleasant.
“I hope you don’t think that…” Merrill trailed off.
“Think what, Kitten?”
“That I like you. I mean! I like you, a lot actually, but not...oh dear.”
“No, sweetness. Trust me, I know a thing or two about doing things with no strings attached. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
Merrill pulled back and took Isabela’s hand into hers. “Thank you, Isabela.”
Isabela thumbed over the scars on Merrill’s fingers, careful not to linger too long on places that were still scabbing over. She liked when Isabela did that, instead of tearing her eyes away with a judgemental glare.
“Of course. Any time.” Her hands traveled higher, ghosting over the deeper scars on her forearm.
“Does it hurt when you do it?”
Merrill shifted. No one had ever asked that before. “Sort of? I’m okay. I’m used to it.”
“I’ve always wondered...what does it feel like? Blood magic?”
Another question no one asked her. Merrill thought it over. It was never something she had to put into words.
“It’s like...that lightheaded feeling when you’re hurt, except you know it’s okay. It’s draining...tiring. Like a piece of me goes missing into something else.”
Isabela nodded slowly. “The eluvian takes a lot out of you.”
“Sometimes.”
Her heart leapt when Isabela kissed her wrist, a gentleness she wouldn’t have thought she had until tonight.
“Don’t bleed yourself dry, Kitten.”
The words stung in a way she couldn’t explain. “Um, it doesn’t really work like that.”
“I was speaking metaphorically. Mostly.” Isabela frowned. “I don’t understand a lick of magic. But I know how easy it is to get sucked into something—or in your case, something sucking it out of you.”
Merrill thought Isabela was making a lewd joke and giggled, stopping abruptly when she realized there wasn’t a hint of amusement on Isabela’s face.
“This is important. There’s so much I can learn from it.” She pulled her arm back and played with her fingers, suddenly self conscious of Isabela’s touch. “We lost so much—so much that we don’t even know what we lost. If I can find even a little bit…”
“It’s hard to lose things that matter to you. It’s even harder when people don’t understand how much it means.”
“Oh! Like your ship?”
Isabela tensed. “Right.”
“I’m sorry. It must have been hard. All your friends…”
Isabela tried to chuckle, but it came off as tense and short. “Remember how I said not to apologize so much?”
Merrill nodded. She hit a sore spot. “I’ll try.”
Isabela ran her palms over the spines of the stacked books in front of her. “You know what the hardest thing to learn about being a raider was?”
“What?”
“Sometimes, you want to put more of that shiny loot in your bag during a heist you’ve spent ages planning. You think you can do it before the guards arrive, when the alarms are sounding and you can hear them coming. But the next thing you know…” she waved her hand, as if trying to get rid of the air in front of her.
“Sometimes...you need to know when it’s all gone to shit. That you need to bail and haul your ass out. Leave while you still have pride to lose.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Merrill said, slightly irked.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I know you do. You’d know it better than anyone. But even the best of us get in too deep to realize when it’s gone bad.” Her sudden laugh was sharp, crawling into Merrill’s teeth. “I’m the Queen of the Eastern Seas. Even I got beaten.”
Merrill softened, not realizing she had tensed, any residual annoyance leaving her, “I’ll remember.”
Putting her fingers under Merrill’s chin, Isabela tilted her head up and leaned close, close enough that Merrill knew she was waiting for permission. Merrill closed the gap between them, a chaste kiss that made her feel light. When Isabela brushed her shoulder and sat back to look at her, Merrill thought maybe they weren’t so different after all.
“Now that I’ve brought the mood down,” Isabela said, standing up and putting a hand on her hip, “how about I help you tidy up a bit?”
Merrill looked around her house, the mess depressing now, a testament to failed ideas and scattered research that lead to nowhere. With help, maybe it’d all finally look right. Not everything in her life had to be so confusing, and especially not her home.
“That would be lovely. Thank you.”
“Any time, sweetness.”
Isabela already held an armful of books ready to be sorted, laying them out cleanly and looking at Merrill with that same friendly smile that would never get old. She was always so nice, Merrill thought again for the second time that night, sitting beside her and letting their work begin.