Thanks for the enthusiastic response, all! Changing things up a bit for the second chapter. (Also note: end of this chapter is NSFW ... and femslash, so feel free to skip it if that isn't your thing.)
This journey into the wilderness had been an eye-opener for Bethany. She hadn't realized just how far apart she and her sister had grown. Somehow, with all the things that had happened in the Gallows—her relationship with Orsino, the ongoing politics that happened inside between the mages and the Templars, the defeat of Meredith and the rebuilding of the Circle—Bethany hadn't really thought about what Evelyn's life must have been like outside, or the changes her sister had undergone. On the face of it, Evelyn seemed the same. She was still a person who would sacrifice her own happiness for the right thing, still an indomitable warrior, still had a taste for dark, brooding men.
But as she moved through the desert with her sister's crew, Bethany had to admit that Evelyn wasn't the same person anymore. She was far more relaxed, even in battle, and instead of constantly turning to yell orders at everyone, she trusted the others to do their jobs, to be where they were supposed to be. Even Bethany, which was an all-new experience. Isabela, Varric, and Fenris laughed and joked with Evelyn and with each other like … well, like Bethany had always thought a family should. Like their family had, before their father had died, and before they had lost Carver.
As for Fenris … the elf was the same mage-hater he'd always been, and that showed no sign of changing, but being with him seemed to give Evelyn a confidence Bethany hadn't even known her sister was lacking, as well as someone to lean on. The two of them could communicate more with each other in a glance than Bethany and Evelyn could say in an entire conversation.
Bethany supposed she was happy for her sister. But some deep-down part of her was resentful. While she'd been locked away in the Gallows all this time, her sister had been free to save the city, to build up this new family of hers, to fall in love. Bethany suppressed a painful thought of the abomination Orsino had become, instead squaring her shoulders with determination. It was time to show her sister that she had changed, too, that she was a grown woman fully capable of pulling her own weight. She was First Enchanter, for the Maker's sake!
She walked over and stood next to her sister near the door inside the massive building. "I'll go first."
"Thanks, Bethany, but we usually give that job to Isabela. She's the sneakiest."
"Doesn't she say the nicest things?" Isabela winked at Bethany before gingerly pushing the door open and poking her head inside, then following it with the rest of her body. She signaled to the rest of them, and they followed her into the dusty room, filled with packing crates and old mine-carts. A hallway led farther in. Isabela led them down it, pausing to disable a couple of traps, and then down a creaky flight of stairs. Halfway down she halted them. A voice from somewhere at the bottom of the stairs called out, "Hold off on the bronto! We want to take the Hawke's blood alive!"
"Still the blood. Always the blood," Evelyn whispered.
Bethany watched Isabela, who moved slowly down the steps, somehow managing to keep them from creaking. At the bottom, the pirate removed a tiny dagger from the belt at her hip, aiming carefully, and threw it across the room. "Now!" Isabela shouted, and Hawke and Fenris ran down the steps, drawing their swords and attacking as soon as their feet were off the stairs. Varric followed more slowly, lifting Bianca to his shoulder.
Placing herself behind Varric and glancing quickly over the field, Bethany raised her hands and sent a fireball flying into the midst of some dwarven archers on a balcony, sending them flying. Three of them tumbled off the balcony to land on the floor, two others skidded across the balcony and hit the wall. None of them got up.
"Nice going, Sunshine," Varric said, squeezing off another shot into the melee on the first floor.
This grouping was harder—Bethany would have to target her magic very carefully if she wasn't going to hit Evelyn, Fenris, or Isabela. She focused and froze a big dwarf who was about to attack Isabela with a giant axe.
Another large dwarf took off running through a doorway along the side moments before a spell would have paralyzed him. "Get the brontos!" he was shouting.
"Venhedis!" Evelyn swore, following the dwarf with her blade raised. Isabela and Fenris were hot on her heels. Bethany ran after them, glad she had left her robes behind and worn her sensible old pants and armor overshirt.
With a sweep of her arm, she froze the two oncoming brontos in place. It didn't last long, but it was enough to halt their charge before they could knock Fenris and Evelyn aside, and for Varric and Isabela to take out the dwarves who were lurking in the shadows. Evelyn and Fenris set themselves and when the brontos thawed went immediately to work. Bethany kept her eye on the dark passageway behind the open space. As a new set of dwarves came running down it, she reached out with her mind to blast them all back and was thrown completely off-guard when she couldn't reach them.
"Dwarves, Sunshine. Natural magic resistance," Varric commented, catching one in the throat with a quarrel. Isabela was flipping and twisting, her daggers moving through the air at speeds Bethany wouldn't have believed if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.
In a very short period, the dwarves were down and the brontos had been taken out.
"What do you think, Varric, should we cut out some steaks and see what we can do about dinner?" Evelyn snagged a dagger from Isabela and went to work cutting open one of the brontos.
"Ew. Bronto steak?" Bethany wrinkled her nose.
"Don't knock it till you've tried it," Evelyn said. "Varric, go look to see if these dwarves left any good ingredients. One thing you can say about the Carta, they like to eat well. Let's just hope this bunch hasn't been so crazed that they forgot that."
"What can I do, Sister?" Bethany asked, as Fenris began the unpleasant task of dealing with the dwarves' bodies, Evelyn butchered the brontos, Varric went looking for ingredients, and Isabela explored the next room for treasures.
"See if you can help Isabela, will you, please? She has a tendency to get sidetracked. Help her clear some space to eat on and maybe a sleeping space as well." Evelyn looked up from her work. "Nice job, Bethany. Glad to have you along."
"Thanks."
In what seemed to Bethany to be an amazingly short time, they were all sitting around a table, eating some fine rare bronto steaks with a mushroom-wine sauce and a side of roasted potatoes. She had forgotten what a good cook her sister was, and those skills had improved over time.
Once the plates had been cleared, Isabela taking on the task of washing them with surprising willingness, Varric leaned his elbows on the table, staring meaningfully at Evelyn.
"Something on your mind, Varric?" Evelyn asked, grinning at the dwarf.
"Ale, Hawke."
"What'll you give me for it?"
"What could I possibly offer you that Broody wouldn't kill me for suggesting?"
"I would never kill you, Varric," Fenris said with a rare smile. "I'd merely pluck out your chest hairs, one at a time, until they were all gone."
"Oh, is that all? Come on, Hawke, let's see the jug."
Evelyn relented, as Bethany had been sure she would. One thing hadn't changed since she'd been in the Gallows—Evelyn still couldn't say no to Varric. Bethany wondered what would have happened if Fenris had never entered the picture. Would the obvious affection between her sister and the dwarf have become something deeper? The jug shone in the lamplight as Evelyn uncorked it, taking a careful swallow.
"Mm. That's very good." She handed the jug to Varric, who breathed in the aroma before taking a mouthful of his own.
"It's been too long," he said affectionately to the jug.
Fenris took a single swallow as well, coughing slightly. Varric and Evelyn exchanged amused glances.
To Bethany's surprise, even Isabela only took one mouthful, licking her lips to gather all the flavor from them. "Careful, sugar," Isabela said, handing the jug to Bethany.
She tilted the jug back, allowing the thick liquid to roll slowly into her mouth. It coated her tongue with a rich, dark taste that carried a dash of sweetness and a hint of smoke. A pleasant warmth filled her mouth and slowly began to move through her body. "Oh, my."
Everyone else laughed, and the jug went around once more.
By the fourth round, Bethany was startled to discover herself lying propped up on a pile of cushions on the floor, a glowing lassitude filling her body and making it feel like the most comfortable bed she'd ever lain in, and laughing at a joke she already couldn't remember. Isabela was stretched out next to her, and Bethany could feel the heat of the pirate's body pressed against her. It felt good, and she wriggled slightly closer.
"Varric, about this spy network of yours," Fenris was saying, his diction overly precise. He was slouched in his chair, his eyes half-lidded. Evelyn leaned against the wall, her legs stretched out across Fenris's lap, her brown hair loose around her face. She looked surprisingly young.
"What about it?" Varric seemed untouched by the alcohol other than a slightly overbright glitter in his eyes.
"I don't believe there is any such thing."
"It's possible that's true. Or it's possible that I have an army of elven urchins at my beck and call, watching you all the time."
The dwarf and the elf stared at each other for a long moment; Bethany had the impression it was a contest of wills, but couldn't tell which of them won.
"You," Fenris said deliberately, "are a strange, hairy little man."
"Takes one to know one, elf."
"Oh, he's not hairy," Evelyn said. She giggled. "Not … anywhere."
"Ooh, do tell." Isabela sat up, looking intrigued.
"Hawke," Fenris said, "be quiet."
"Make me." It was a dare; Bethany recognized the tone, and clearly so did Fenris.
The air shifted as Fenris and Evelyn looked at each other. The elf's eyes were a very bright green. He hooked a foot around the rungs of Evelyn's chair, hauling it—and her—the few inches across the floor toward him, the chair legs scraping along the wood planks. The movement brought her whole body into his lap. Fenris's hand cupped the back of her neck, under her hair.
Bethany glimpsed Fenris's face just before his mouth and Evelyn's met, and a shiver ran down her spine. Mage-hater though he was, Bethany couldn't help but appreciate him for his whole-souled devotion to her sister. No one had ever looked at Bethany that way.
The two of them were kissing passionately, their arms around each other and their whole focus absorbed in one another. Varric cleared his throat loudly. "You two, get a room. No, really," he said, when they stopped kissing and looked at him in confusion. "There are rooms, right over there. Pick one, go in it, and close the door. I'm going on watch."
Disentangling from each other with some difficulty, Evelyn and Fenris stumbled toward the three antechambers, falling against the nearest door. The elf's hands were caressing Evelyn's stomach, hers tangled in his white hair.
Bethany felt odd watching her sister be made love to, but somehow she couldn't look away. Her body was flushed with heat. Part of it was the ale, part of it was embarrassment, but part … She didn't dare contemplate.
Evelyn fumbled behind her for the doorknob, and she and Fenris half-fell into the room, the door slamming shut behind them.
Varric had gotten up and left the room, and Bethany could hear him talking softly to Bianca in the hallway as he stood watch.
A hand moved up her leg, and Bethany jumped, having completely forgotten Isabela was there.
"Don't worry, sugar," the pirate breathed in her ear, sending shivers down Bethany's spine. "I'll be gentle." It was on the tip of Bethany's tongue to protest, but Isabela laid a finger over her lips. "If you don't like it, we won't do it again …" Her finger trailed down over Bethany's throat and between her breasts to her stomach, and without conscious thought Bethany moved with it. "But I think you'll like it," Isabela finished, her chuckle as dark and rich as the ale.
Isabela cupped Bethany's breast, squeezing gently, and Bethany sank her teeth into her lower lip to stifle a moan. Just that small pressure sent sparks through her. Isabela held the mouth of the jug over Bethany's lips, letting a single dark drop fall. Bethany eagerly held her tongue out for the liquid, and then Isabela's mouth was covering hers, the exotic spicy taste of her mouth mingling with the strange sweetness of the ale. Bethany couldn't get enough. Her arms moved around Isabela, holding the pirate close as they explored each other's mouths deeply and hungrily.
A whimper of disappointment escaped Bethany when Isabela pulled away, but changed swiftly to an excited moan when the pirate's mouth closed on one of her hardened nipples. She had no idea where her clothes had gone, or when, but it mattered not at all, as Isabela's teeth and tongue caressed her nipple. Isabela's hands were stroking her stomach, the muscles quivering under the attention. Bethany wriggled, her insides on fire, and raised her hips to bump against Isabela's.
The pirate obliged the silent signal, one hand moving between Bethany's legs, her finger sliding deep inside. Bethany's head fell back into the cushions, her eyes closing, as a second finger and then a third joined the first, and Isabela's thumb rubbed in little circles.
The world had contracted to nothing but Isabela's lips and hands on her body, the fires burning beneath her skin, and the release that hovered just out of Bethany's reach as she strained against Isabela. And then Isabela's tongue joined her fingers between Bethany's legs, and the tension that had been building inside Bethany snapped, a starburst of colors exploding behind her eyes, the muscles in her stomach rippling with the force of her climax. She sank back into darkness, falling into the depths of the Fade, into soft clouds that cushioned her and a warmth that wrapped around her.
Isabela pulled a blanket up around both of them, stretching out next to the sleeping woman at her side, and soon she, too, slept.