When Isabela was born, her mother had left her on the shores of a Rivaini village.
It was two days later that the fisherboy found her, blue in the face, shivering in the muddy rag that swaddled the tiny limbs of her body. Through the haze of this new world, bright images and nonsense colors, she had glimpsed the shape of the boy, recognizing him as same. Not like the plants or animals or lapping waves. He had hands and hair and stood up tall. Like her mother, like herself but bigger. Could there be others? If she'd been strong and healthy, she might've wailed and stretched out her arms to him, but then, if she'd been strong and healthy she wouldn't have ended up on the beach in the first place.
Her eyes, still the milky blue of infancy, had looked up at him with such innocent hope, as if he might be the one to take care of her...
The fisherboy did not know what to do with her, so he left.
If Isabela had been old enough to remember, that would have been the moment that vulnerability hardened into spite, when she realized that the world did not look out for you, rather it tried its damn hardest to keep you from whatever goals you set, so you'd best keep your hopes and dreams to yourself, hidden away under lock and key.
It was because of that fisherboy that any hope there might have been for the little Rivaini girl on the beach was blown out to sea. It was because of that fisherboy that everyone else decided that if he could walk away... Well, then so could they.
Growing up, the village had done its darnedest to ignore her.
The villagers could not see her. Sure, they saw her — but they pretended they did not. Turned their backs and averted their eyes, hurried away from where the dirty little mongrel hid awaiting in the shadows.
Isabela knew it was the wrong thing. The villagers knew it was the wrong thing. So they made up excuses to assuage their own guilt: oh, she wouldn't know how to live in a house full of servants and ladies, anyway.
She's dangerous; best if we don't go near.
She's doing just fine out there on her own; who am I to weave Fate?
Don't give her your leftovers, Ceri! You'll only teach her to come back for more.
Sometimes people did not listen to the warnings, came to her grove by the river and left a loaf of bread or a wedge of cheese or a half-eaten apple.
There had been that boy with the hard face and the soft hands, twelve years old maybe, perhaps double her age at the time. He'd leave sticky jam in a hollow gourd beside a paper-wrapped package of only slightly stale bread. When the wind blew cold and the first drops of snow came 'round, she'd find something extra, one of those hard candies they brought out for the holidays, a honey-flavored sweet wrapped in a single blue thread that tied into a winter bow. With the wind raging outside, she'd crouch in her hollow, atop her sleeping rock, and she'd hum a song that had somehow never washed away, even after six years of solitary living. Her mother's voice, she imagined, rife with sorrow.
That had been the last thing the boy had brought.
Much, much later, there'd also been the girl, black-haired and sweet, thirteen years and only a summer apart from Isabela. It was a cold night, that night, and she found herself awake far before dawn. Isabela had sat, right in the middle of her sleeping rock, gazing out into the night until the sun kissed the horizon and stained the sky pink. Then, it'd been only a few minutes before the silhouette of a girl appeared in the entrance to her home.
Unlike the boy, the girl had not brought food. Instead, she wore a smile bright and a shoulder-strap bag. Inside the bag, there had been two books and a series of unattached papers. The girl claimed she had come to teach Isabela the art of language. Now, Isabela knew how to speak back then, and a young girl, she'd been awful confused (and a young girl hardened by the truths of life, she was also awful suspicious).
It had taken much coaxing before Isabela trusted the girl even remotely enough to come inside the cave that was her home, and even longer before she gifted her with her attention. Once she did, she found herself captivated.
The girl was everything she had never been given. Kindness and patience and determined for Isabela to succeed. Isabela learned how to read, and she learned that the titles of those books were A Puppet in the Spring and The Straw Man's Lyre. They were fairy tales, and she loved them. She learned that those extra papers had actually been the letters of the alphabet. The girl said that they had been a gift from her grandfather before he passed, and distressed and slightly embarrassed, she had admitted that she did not own any more ink and paper.
That was alright, said Isabela. She could just write in the dirt.
They'd laughed and talked their way through three years, until the girl turned sixteen and did not return.
Isabela's childhood was hard, not just because of the obvious, but because of how quickly her world views changed.
When she was six, she was of the opinion that her mother had merely forgotten her and would be coming any day now. When she was eight, she'd decided that mothers were cruel and hers had just been crueler than most (but then she'd witnessed the tender kiss of an aged woman upon the brow of a golden-haired boy, her little lion, and that had been the end of that theory). When she was twelve, she thought that it didn't matter if you had a mother or not, because there was always someone with a heart set on helping those who needed it. When she was fifteen, she'd left all that behind and said only this: the world does not care for love or hate or spite or joy or any of mortality's harboring emotions. It does not care about the widows weeping in their cottages, or the blossoming bond of the newlywed, or the seething anger that he feels for everyone and everything that dared make a fool of him. It cares only for the changing of the seasons, and the turn of the tide, the rising of the sun, the things that have happened since before time and will continue on into eternity.
At fifteen, she had let go.
And then she'd met Hawke.
It was at a pub in a dirty, backwards town that housed folk even more backwards and more dirty. Isabela had walked up to the counter and ordered a beer (water it down and I'll slit your throat), pulled a passing barmaid by the back of her skirt (and maybe catching a glimpse of the goods beneath) and with a wink asked her to bring her order extra quick (I'll make it worth your while if you do). From there she had leaned her hip against the hardwood counter and peered out into the mass of hoodlums and thieves and should-be criminals.
She'd been having a real good time, making up stories about how that mannish brute of a woman had got the scar on her cheek (probably cut herself shaving, Isabela thought with a snort), undressing all the pretty barmaids with her eyes, playing her game: eavesdropping on conversations and filtering out a name or two, whispering them at varying volumes until she was blessed with a head jerking up, a spilled drink, a surprised What?
But then she'd walked in, mousy brown hair and eyes blue as the seas she sailed on. Isabela noted the many daggers on her person, noticed the flame-haired captain and the rough-faced dwarf walking at her back, and she grinned into her cup.
She shifted her weight from the counter-top and began a mindless amble into the sea of sweat and harsh laughter and pounding fists. She drifted for a while, clever gaze set always on the sharp woman. Isabela knew that the flame-haired captain was watching her, so she winked and waved back. The captain scowled and looked away. Isabela took this as her cue to step in.
Isabela took note of just how invested the woman was in her conversation, hands gesturing emphatically, expression clear on her face, and it brought a fond smile to her lips, but —
Not at all invested in me.
Her boot scuffed against the floor (definitely unintentional, that), and the woman finally glanced up (albeit along with the rest of her ragtag group), and as she looked Isabela over, the warm smile on her face shifted to something wicked.
Isabela sidled over to the table. "Hello there, gentlemen, ladies." She grinned at the captain's frowning face and tipped a nonexistent hat.
The woman cocked her head, that half-smile still painted on her face. "Who are you?"
The way she said it was just inviting Isabela to swipe the abandoned beer mug from the table, no matter whose, and slide into seat across from her (nice and close to the friendly ol' guard-captain). "Captain Isabela, at your service." She took a swig from the mug, made a face when she found it lacking, then turned her attention back to the task at hand, leaned forward far across the table, making sure to get everything on display, until she could see the little orange flecks in those blue, blue eyes. "But more important, sweet, is who you are."
The captain let out an affronted noise, but Isabela kept her gaze trained, intent, on her target,
The woman didn't back down one inch, replying in a sweet, breathy voice, "And I suppose you'd know?"
Delight flared. This was someone to keep up with! She pressed even closer, balanced on a single knee lain across the bench and a boot barely brushing the floor, body strewn across the tabletop with not a care for the other two present, 'til her lips brushed the shell of a delicate ear and she could whisper, "Sweet, you're my next conquest."
It may have been her imagination, but she could have sworn that the woman's breath hitched, so Isabela pulled away just far enough that she would would not be able to feel the smug edges of her smile or the way her eyes lidded at the possibilities of this one, of all the delightful reactions she could elicit from such a responsive individual.
Behind, someone said, "That's quite enough, whore."
Isabela wasn't paying much attention — licked her lips, then let out a startled oomph as she was dragged bodily back into the bench, a nice healthy distance away from her "conquest," who was now wearing the most delicious smirk across those lips that seemed a whole lot more distracting than before. And who would notice if a flush had spread beneath those pretty blue eyes?
Certainly not the guard-captain, who had been the one to tug her away and still had her hands planted (too-) firmly on Isabela's waist. She was on a tirade, now, Isabela thought, too far gone to stop, using words like improper and physical violation and don't go tainting the good folk with your harlotry.
At this, Isabela almost laughed, but she was afraid it would ruin her response as she twisted to face the other captain, face melting into a mask of sweet innocence as her dark hands brushed the two, brutish paws still clamped around her waist (yes, that grip was really not very romantic at all). "Oh, honey, if I'd known you wanted to play as well —"
Across the table, the dwarf choked on his drink. Through the hearty pounds on his back, he managed, "Play with — with Aveline?"
"Mm, Aveline. A-ve-line. Aveline." Isabela bit her lip on that last one, secretly delighting in the furious expression that crossed the captain's face. "What a...long name. Instead, I think, I shall call you 'Big Girl', after your...assets." A pointed glance at the grotesquely muscled arms and the hands attached that still gripped her hips. Now, those very hands flew into the air as if the Maker had blessed them with wings, and Isabela gleefully watched as Aveline stood and excused herself (Ey, Big Girl, don't clench your jaw like that or you'll wear those pretty teeth).
After a moment, the dwarf, who politely introduced himself as Varric, said something about getting another drink and moved towards the order counter down in back. Leaving them alone.
The woman glanced once at the back of her retreating friend, then back to Isabela. She raised an eyebrow. "It looks like I've been dumped."
"Mm. Like a Lowtown whore from the window of the Rion estate."
She huffed a laugh. "Or shit out of a dog's arsehole."
Isabela grinned and slung herself back in bench, booted ankles crossed beneath the table in a perfect show of "casual." "So, gorgeous, you gonna tell me what all the other shitbags in this town call you?"
"You mean my real name?"
"As far as I'm concerned, 'Gorgeous' suits you just fine."
The woman laughed outright this time, just before sketching a mocking bow in her seat. "Well then it's Gorgeous Hawke, at your service."
Hawke... And this time she said it in her head.
Isabela planted her feet on the ground and leaned across the table. "And may I make use of that service, darling?"
Isabela was selfish.
She knew that, always had. But with Hawke in her arms, breaths high and sharp in her ear, it was hard to think about herself. To think about anything other than the glorious expanse of dark flesh, and the scars marring every little patch of skin, from her neck and shoulders to her torso down to her calves, even the inside of her thigh, though Isabela was loathe to think how that one had got there.
Hawke was panting when they'd first entered the old room in her estate, the same room they'd been defiling over the past three years. Isabela flung her onto the bed, ripping at cloth and buckles and supple leather as she went. When Hawke was naked, and Isabela was not, she set about her task promptly, two fingers in and Hawke's thigh between her legs. She moved fast and hard, impatient and desperate, not the slow worship of two nights ago or the steady burn of years past. No, this was a farewell, for it would be the last time she met her secret lover.
She shoved aside those thoughts, in favor of Hawke, of distraction in sin: hands in the sheets, sweat on her chest, breasts heaving in the open air, those pretty blue eyes hidden behind the blackout blinds of ecstasy. Isabela ground her cunt harder, free hand gripping almost violently into the supple flesh beneath her.
Hawke murmured her name, both hands smoothing the sides of her half-clothed figure.
Her eyes snapped open, sparking and gasping as lightning shot through her core. "Shit."
She was still rocking slowly back and forth when Hawke sighed, "Isabela..." and drew her down beside her on the bed.
They lay there in the aftermath of what they'd done, the gentle lull of something more twisting out into the silence that hung around them. Hawke gazed at her with the eyes of cresting waves and fading ripples, an action that she'd edged in so subtly over time, Isabela was still unaware of its intimacy.
In the quiet, Isabela's mind set to working, replaying all the things they'd done together, how she would not get to do them again. It was not only Hawke she would miss. There was also Varric and his farfetched stories. Bethany and her sweet smiles. Merrill, oh adorable Merrill. Fenris and his broody, get-drunk all-nighters. Maker, even Aveline.
She'd built a life here, and she had to leave it all.
Hawke was still looking at her, gaze still knowing and far too old for one her age. She said, "Stay," as if she did not understand what that meant, all that the word entailed. Isabela knew that she did.
Hawke said it again. "Stay."
Isabela was selfish, so she did.