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Hawke walks into the Hanged Man, its sights and sounds far, far too familiar to her. She turns her head to the counter presently occupied by one unsavory Rivaini pirate, the same counter Isabela had been drinking at when the two had met, all those years before. Sometimes, she swears she can still see the blood and the knocked out teeth on the floor. Must be imagining things.
“If you continue staring at me like that, people might start getting ideas...naughty ideas, even,” Isabela says.
Hawke chuckles, “Can't a woman look at another woman's posterior without people immediately leaping to conclusions?”
Conclusions and posteriors aside, Isabela motions towards the empty spot besides her. “If I'm going to get drunk, I should at least do so with a friend.”
She rolls her eyes. “Is that what we are now, friends?”
“Oh, we'll deal with that later, just shut up and drink,” Isabela says. She hands her over a mug of...well, whatever's in there, it's definitely a liquid.
Hawke inspects the swill currently washing around in her mug. It reeks of the Hanged Man, the drunken slurs, the bruised noses, the stale vomit. It must be at least five days old, if not ten.
She takes a sip.
She pukes.
Ten days old it is.
Isabela laughs. “Lightweight!”
Her laugh is hearty, unrestrained. Her skin is rough and riddled with scars, each telling its own story... most of them about gigantic spiders, weirdly enough; where the hell did they all come from, anyways?
In her she sees everything she could be, but isn't.
Isabela feels the same way about Hawke.
They continue drinking. Isabela tells a variety of lewd jokes, including one about a goat, a horse, and the Duke of Cumberland.
In between the jokes, Hawke wonders what it would be like to leave with her; she knows she can't, maybe she never will, but it's fun to keep dreaming, isn't it? She looks at her and sees the world; she looks at herself and sees...nothing. She downs her drink.
Isabela wonders what it would be like to stay with Hawke. She thinks about kissing her, holding her, loving her. For a brief moment, she imagines what it would be like to settle down with her, spend the rest of her days confined to Kirkwall. She can't think of anything more terrifying. She downs her drink.
There's a moment of silence.
Isabela kisses her.
It's not long enough. It could never be long enough. She accepts this.
She gets up from the counter and gestures towards her quarters; it ends up looking more like a drunken game of charades. She heads off to bed. A few moments pass before Hawke joins her.
Hawke kisses her, and holds on tight.