Chapter Text
The moment you lay eyes on her, you’re lost.
Varric wouldn’t approve of that opening. It’s weak, trite, overdone. You would try again—and again, just to make him cringe—but you’re too distracted by the long lovely curve of a thigh leading into a boot; a slash of blue slung jauntily over a hip; a bicep tensed, fingers clenched around a dagger that makes your mouth go dry.
Two refugees, an abomination, and a dwarf walk into a bar.
You’re not a storyteller, but you want to whisper words over every inch of her bared skin.
Bethany shifts irritably beside you like she knows; while your eyes are fixed on a tightly-laced jerkin, hers are rolling skyward. Sister, she’ll say later, too exasperated to blush, there are things I would rather not know about you.
There are things I didn’t know about myself, you’ll think, and you’ll dream of a tan that goes on forever and seawater on your lips, and you’ll wake so dehydrated that you might have drowned.
You make no secret of your regard for her. Isabela gives as good as she gets, and on a night when you’re both deep in your cups you can give quite a lot. It’s worth it to hear her peals of laughter—no matter that she finds it all a riveting game. It embarrasses everyone except for Varric, and even he clears his throat sometimes, with a wary sidelong glance at you, as if to say I wouldn’t go there, sweetheart, but you’ve never seen the point in playing it safe.
You raced your brother to Ostagar just to prove you could kill more darkspawn with daggers than he could with a big overcompensating sword, and nothing horrible happened to you there.
Something horrible will happen to you here—but not yet.