"What do you mean, he's gone?"
The clerk swallows hard enough she can see it, his spectacles dangling precariously at the end of his nose. Understandable, really, considering she's got the knobbed hilt of her dagger tucked neatly against his jugular, but somehow the idea of Roscuro not kindly waiting for her to threaten him into submission had never quite occurred to her during the planning stages of this venture.
Of course, it doesn't help she can feel Fenris rolling his eyes behind her. "Well…when will he be back?"
The man swallows again, looks to Fenris for mercy, finds none. "Four, ah. Four days, messere."
"Four days? Where did he go, bollocking Par Vollen?"
"Jader," the clerk says, appropriately alarmed at the not-so-subtle dig of her hilt a little further into his throat. "But he'll return soon, I swear!"
Not much for it, then. Isabela steps back, sheaths her dagger, runs a palm over its worn wrappings. "Then take a message. Tell him—" she draws in a breath, "tell him Isabela's come to make good on Luis's debt."
"Debt?"
With a grimace, Isabela pulls a small bag from her belt and tosses it to the clerk's desk. Not much gold inside, not enough to really matter—but enough to snare Roscuro's interest, she knows. Enough to keep the guard away while they speak, if no longer than that.
The clerk thumbs a bit of gold with wide eyes, says, half-panicked, "You will return?"
"With all the rest," Isabela sighs, and when she leaves, Fenris follows silently behind her.
—
Four days, as it happens, weighs rather longer than days usually do when one has nothing to do but wait. The first day Isabela spends on her ship with her log—poorly-spelled, she's sure, but it's hardly like Aveline's here to mark it with red ink. Not that she'd mind the big girl being here for once; as dangerous as Isabela knows she can be, she's got nothing on Aveline in righteous indignation for inducing sheer pants-pissing fear. But if Aveline were here Hawke would be too, and probably Varric, nosy, and Aveline would have questions and Varric would have his pen, and Hawke would be fluttering in concern enough to drown her with the guilt. No, better like this—better with Fenris only, who understands best of them all that reopening the past can do more harm than good.
She ought to tell him the truth. She owes him that.
Isabela pinches her nose, tosses the logbook with a sigh to her quilt-covered bed. Later. Soon.
Later.
—
The second day she spends with Thalia and her carpenter Rupert, scrutinizing her ship inch by inch for every rust-ridden nail they can replace within the next few days. She's a lovely ship, if not her own, and they've still half a journey before her return to her master. She's shipshape, as Isabela expects, but they find a few small repairs they can make before they take to open sea again, and at the end of the afternoon she leaves Thalia and Rupert poring over order forms, heads bent close together black and straw-yellow in their perusal.
She drags in a breath, turns her face into the wind off the sea. She can see Fenris on the stern deck made smaller with distance, his shirt gone, his tattoos gleaming as he goes through exercises she doesn't know, sword in hand, step by step.
—
The third day she spends alone. Not intentionally, not at first; she sets out somewhere near midmorning for supplies and finds herself wandering the docks instead, the sea too much a comfort in its steady instability, especially when so much of her own bloody self has caught in hidden whirlpools just off the shore. The shadows thrown by the rope-wrapped pylons grow longer; the sky grows redder with sunset; the tide begins to ebb, waves lapping lower and lower on the docks with every passing wind. This isn't her. This isn't her, this confusion over Fenris and the worry over Roscuro, and she resents her own dithering even as she stalks up the gangplank to her ship and throws open the door to her mess.
"Fenris," she says, impatient with the world, and watches as he lifts an eyebrow, lays down his cards, and comes to meet her. To their credit, her crew continues mostly uninterrupted; there are a few knowing smirks that chafe like unwaxed rope, but Isabela is not Aveline to blush and stammer at the knowledge of watching eyes, and instead she hooks a hand in his collar and pulls him onto the deck proper in the evening breeze, where she can think a bit more clearly.
"I'm going into the city tomorrow," she says at last, her hands on her hips. "Come with me."
He glances her out of the corner of one green eye, the hint of amusement at his mouth. "Should I consider that an order, Captain?"
"Consider it whatever you like."
"An invitation, then."
She laughs; she can't help it. She's never seen him so open; she's never thought— "How smooth you've become over the years, you rotten elf. It's as if I'm rubbing off on you."
"Your influence has taught me more than I expected."
"Is that a compliment or not? Because if not, I take offense."
He inclines his head. "Consider it whatever you like."
"Fair enough," she says, and crosses her arms. "Dismissed, sailor."
"Until tomorrow," he says, lifting a brow, and adds, "Isabela."
—
There's a bar in Rivain she hasn't been to in ten years. Magpie's Crook, it's called, and it's filled to the brim with baubles and treasures and bits of old maps and interesting things people brought from their adventures but couldn't keep, couldn't carry with them. One corner has the first lock of hair a lover ever gave her, a bit of braid tied prettily with blue ribbon and fixed to the jamb with a broken dagger. She hadn't wanted to keep it, of course—she's never been one to carry that sort of thing with her—but she couldn't quite manage to toss it overboard either, not with the odd delight that had swelled in her every time she looked at it, and then they'd docked here and she'd thought—
Well. Better here than altogether forgotten, she'd decided.
She's oddly glad to see it still pinned above the back door when they enter, the ribbon a little faded, the braid a little dusty, and the memory of the man it'd belonged to gone almost as soft with years. Tall. Narrow shoulders, black skin—hands hesitant as sparrows, unsure where to touch her without direction. Isabela abruptly grins—she'd taught him well enough, she remembers, and others, too, and somehow she hopes that despite the years they'd taken what they learned to their next lover, if only once or twice. Too little time to waste on fools. Too little time to waste altogether, and she studiously ignores Fenris standing quietly at her back, watching the sailors laugh and call to each other around stacks of lovely, glittering, worthless trinkets.
The bartender lifts an eyebrow, and Isabela shakes herself roughly. Bloody bar, making her nostalgic—bloody country, the streets too thick with spices and the trees tall and slender and gold-green with sunlight, too close for memory and too sharp to touch. She orders a drink, downs it quick as she can—then she takes Fenris by the arm and says, "Have you ever seen a Rivaini marketplace?"
"No," he tells her, holding her gaze.
"Then come with me," she orders him, not letting go of his arm, not looking back to the little braid held in place by the pieces of a broken knife.
The sunlight strikes them like a wall when they emerge, but Isabela doesn't hesitate; she knows these streets like the tide-drawn winds, the cinnamon and ginger caught in the flap of a flag, the merchant's grin across the way made brilliant by gold-capped teeth. She knows these streets. She knows—
Bright silks, draped purple and blue and gold and green across the tentpoles, cardamom so heavy in the air she can hardly breathe. Shopkeepers shout across the narrow streets at each other, at their customers, at anyone who will listen and more who don't; wooden trays gleam with polished gems and stones, with silk so sheer a breath might tear it, with blades set to thick jeweled hilts, with fruit so red a touch might make it bleed. Ten years and she's caught like an eel netted; she looses Fenris's arm without meaning to, her feet carrying her forward into the press of people. Even the blue silk in her hair and at her waist, bought in a marketplace very like this one long ago, pales compared to the sheer richness of smell and sound and crushed color.
Gold, here—intricately carved necklaces, torques made of twisted wire and polished to a high shine, emeralds as large as her thumb dripping from every loop. A vegetable stand, unsnapped beans piled high in brilliant green; nuts soaked with sweet glaze and rubbed salt in bins beside, fine nets over them to keep back the flies; a gaggle of barefooted, gap-toothed children grinning and sneaking pinches time the merchant looks away. A woman tying back her long braided hair with red-embroidered satin presides over an array of hilted daggers, Antivan dirks lined neatly beside Fereldan knives, a Rivaini cutlass hung suspended from thick leather ties knotted to the tent's sturdy joists behind her. The woman smiles at Isabela's look, the glinting gold dragons at her ears unrepressed by the tent's blue shadow; Isabela shudders, her heart aching, and draws nearer.
She knows this language. Knows it better than the common tongue, better than the flick of a grin as she slides her thumb along a katar with a devilish black-woven hilt and an edge keener than a cry. Her coin, measured out against Rivaini cunning; behind her the children shriek with laughter when they are discovered, and the merchant's curses chase them all the way down the street. Even the noise of distant fountains is too familiar, and she closes her eyes, breathing in, her nose burning with heavy spice, her eyes burning—
"Serah," the woman says, throaty and low, and Isabela blows out a breath like a sigh, sinking into the game like an anchor has dragged her down by her ankles. Fifteen silver, a sovereign, a black-lined hilt made of leather and inset gold—stamped with the sigil of a ship at sea, birds driving ahead to break the wind.
She doesn't know how much she pays, honestly. More than she should have with her mother's blood in her veins, more than any respectable Rivaini with the language of gold and salt on her tongue. But she wants the little knife, more than she usually wants most things, and doesn't care that she's overpaid when the merchant bows and smiles and the dragons glint again, Isabela's coin already secreted away in the layers of her coat.
After that she drifts, aimless as driftwood in a pool, her knife in her hand, her coin returned to her pocket and away from dangerous impulses. They don't know her here, not as they once did—but she knows them, knows every curve unchanged in the clay-brick houses, the seers in their brilliant silk veils, coins dangling from every hem to make an endless song with their passing; the Qunari walking tall and grey and masked among them, purpose-driven, skin shining with sweat. She steps aside as the children dart back again, still laughing, their hair plastered even darker against their heads after some trip to one of the fountains in the square.
A man offers her a palmful of sapphires stained darker than the sea; a woman in dancing satin flips the edge of her scarf around her arm, laughing as Isabela laughs, letting herself be tugged into a momentary two-step at the woman's outspread carpet.
Her accompanist turns his zither to something brighter, meant for festivals, and without quite meaning to Isabela takes her hand and bends and turns and finds her slender cool hand ready to be taken again when she reaches—and her feet know this, stars and skies and Maker's blood. Ten years and she still hasn't forgotten how it feels to dance for the love of it, the zither humming songs old as her heart, her pulse racing, bright eyes and a secret smile there to meet her with every clasping reach. In and out like serpents twisting—she'd watched her mother dance this dance once, no older than five or six herself, peering through the sheer-draped linen to the men and women spinning under the lights within—a scarf pulled from the woman's waist to tie them, Isabela at one end and her gold-wrapped wrist at the other.
She's panting now, the watchers clapping now as they whirl, booted feet stamping alongside woven slippers, her hair come loose from the cloth, laughter breaking out of her hard as a wave on stone, unwilling, impossible to check. The zither laughs with her, the man playing it cheering them both on; he drives it hard to the end and they twist against each other, pulling in on the scarf step by sure step until they are come to rest at last, back to back, heads turned over their shoulders until their noses nearly touch, the scarf wrapped around both their waists to keep them there.
The zither thrums to a triumphant stop; the crowd bursts into applause. Isabela can hardly breathe through the humming in her skin, the bite of coriander scenting the woman's hair—and in the sea of dark hair and dark faces and glinting gold she finds one just a hair paler, hair a shock of white, slender tattoos winding down through skin as familiar as her own.
Fenris is smiling. Not at the dancers, or at the scene of approval, just—at her, openly, something faint and proud and wondering in his eyes that she has never seen before. She drags in a breath as the woman starts to turn; then she's untangling herself from the scarf with clumsy fingers, laughing again with more fluster than she's known in a decade, waving away the woman's invitation for another, not even remembering to check her belt for her new dagger until she's off the carpet and through the crowd that still thanks her as she goes.
She stops in front of Fenris. She's not embarrassed. She's not, even when her fingers muddle the knot of her headscarf as she adjusts it back into place again, even when Fenris's smile grows smaller, and fonder, no hint of shame in the showing of it. Between the cardamom and the brilliant silks, the sight's practically intoxicating.
"Enjoy the show?" she asks. Brazen Isabela, brash Isabela—
"Yes. I didn't realize you knew such dances."
"Authority on all my personal goings-on now, are you? Despite appearances, I do have secrets, sweet thing."
Fenris chuckles, warm and low, and without warning he reaches up to tug the knot of her bandanna more squarely behind her hair. His palm is cool, striped warmer where the lyrium runs, and Isabela can't quite make herself move; and then she doesn't wish to, because instead of withdrawing his fingers brush just barely over the inscribed coins at her ear, over the softer skin just behind it light enough to bring a chill to her skin. It's not a feeling she's unfamiliar with after all this time, but the look in Fenris's eyes as he tips his head, just enough to swing his hair in his face…
She's not afraid. She's many things, bold and reckless among them, but she is not afraid, and it's only a moment's work to hook her fingers in Fenris's shirt and drag him to the mouth of the nearest alley. Just enough privacy for his preference; just enough shadow and close angles for hers, a startling oasis two steps out of the jeweled river of her homeland.
She knows what she wants.
The zither starts up again behind them; the crowd begins to clap in time to the dancer's jingling steps, their laughter rolling in waves over the constant washing clamor of the marketplace. Isabela leans back against the cool clay wall behind her, intentionally letting her eyes hood over as she tugs him that much closer. Fenris doesn't even offer token resistance; he moves forward with her pull until his chest is against her own, his knees along the leather of her boots, his palms flush to the wall on either side of her head.
"Well," she says, more for the sound of it than anything. She's still breathing hard from the dance; every inhale reminds her of exactly how solid Fenris can be, and when he lifts his eyes to hers, the remarkable intensity of them reminds her of exactly why she's teased him so long. "Should I say it took you long enough?"
One of his hands slides along her hair; his weight shifts against her, closer. "This, from you."
She laughs in outright delight. "What can I say? It turns out you're too pretty to love and leave. Not right away, anyhow."
"I am flattered."
"I'm a flatterer," Isabela points out, draping her arms over his shoulders, her fingers linked in open air. The pressure is enough to bring him even nearer; his nose slides against her own, his eyelashes brushing against her cheek as he blinks, his mouth less than a breath from hers.
It's been a long time since she's had a friend and a lover at once. It's always gone too complicated too quickly, one of them after more than the other, but—Fenris has known her ten years. He's watched her run for her life and come back again, has watched her flirt and needle Aveline and laugh while taking men's lives. He knows her in a way few people do, and she knows him, and still somehow they've managed to find their ways here, to a lovely dim alley in Rivain, her jewelry warm with his heat, his eyes fixed on her like she's just handed him the map to every slaver hold north of the Minanter.
She doesn't care what comes after. She's wanted him long enough, still wants him now; if she keeps wanting him, even afterwards, so be it.
Besides, it turns out she's rather fond of him looking at her like this.
She's grinning as she kisses him. Can't help it, really, anticipation flipping lazily in her belly, Fenris's fingers still cool and gentle on the curve of her neck as they stand on the edge of a place not half so much the home she feels against his lips. His mouth is unsure, unpracticed; still, he doesn't pull away, and when she sighs and smiles and slants her mouth against his properly he's a quick-enough study to delight her. His hand slips a little farther into her hair; she grins again, biting at his full lower lip, and his low noise of encouragement has her back for a second nip as soon as she can catch her breath.
"Ooh," she gasps when his teeth graze over her jaw, and again when his tongue finds the hollow of her throat. "You've gotten bold, haven't you?"
His voice is unsteady, hitching as her fingers draw up and down his ears. "After all these years in your company? I could hardly avoid it."
"Good—oh, yes, good. Remind me to thank past me for her foresight."
He breathes something in Tevene, his mouth returning to hers, and Isabela lets her arms tighten around his neck. His shoulders shift as he moves his hands to cup her face; she likes the easy strength of them, likes more the odd humming of the lyrium through her skin as she palms her way down his exposed arms. His fingers slide behind her ears; she shivers pleasantly at their coolness against the heat of his mouth.
She's always enjoyed a good duck into an alley. Something about the weight of a warm body pressed flush over her own, both intimately aware of every movement, the glorious grit of the wall against the backs of her shoulders. To add to that Fenris's caught breaths, the low noises in the backs of his throat as she does something particularly noteworthy with her tongue, the way she can feel his muscled thigh maneuvering between her knees—
Well, it's bloody ideal, honestly.
In the distance, the zither slows, then stops, then begins again. Fenris's kisses turn quiet; Isabela lets them, lets the lovely curl of anticipation in her stomach settle into something calmer. She plants one last kiss on his chin as he pulls away, utterly unable to keep the smirk from her face, and Fenris snorts.
"Do not look so satisfied." As proud as he can be with a flush across his cheeks, his breath coming too hard. A good look on him. A fantastic look, really. She can hardly wait to see it again.
"What, didn't enjoy it?"
"I said no such thing."
"You were eager," she says, leaning her head back against the cool wall, toying with his collar as her own heart at last begins to slow. She doesn't shift herself away from his hand, and he doesn't drop it from her neck. It's a good weight. Grounding, like the first step on solid earth after a decade lost at sea.
"I may have considered this more than once."
"Ten years!" she exclaims, laughing, and slides her hands down his chest and up it again. "It's not like you weren't invited before. Should've had the bloody assassins after me a lot sooner if I'd've known you'd come with them."
His thumb slides along her neck. "I was not my own before. And after, I was…uncertain."
"Uncertain." She loops her arms around his neck, pulls him forward in the shadow of the alley until they're pressed together again, until his forehead rests against her own. "If there's one thing you ought to know about me, sweet thing, it's that I never turn down a chance to bed a brooding man with a jaw like marble."
"Cold insolence and a smolder. I remember."
She hums, pressing her lips to the corner of his mouth, enjoying the way his shoulders move in and out of the heavy Rivaini sunlight as he leans closer. "All for my very own. I can hardly wait."
His eyes flick away, then back; she doesn't know what's in her own face, but she's fairly certain she's showing more of her cards than she should. She doesn't care.
He says, "Isabela."
It's time. She's kept him drifting long enough.
Isabela closes her eyes, opens them again. "Come with me," she says at last. "I need to tell you about Roscuro."
—
And she does, over a traditional Rivaini dinner in the back room of the Magpie's Crook, both of them cross-legged on bright pillows around a table decorated with even brighter foods. She catches him watching her a time or two, learning what is meant to be dipped in sauce and what is not, but mostly he only listens, green eyes fixed on her face as she tells him of her husband's primary investor and the ships he lent Luis, one in particular stolen after her husband's death with a hold packed full with spices and her own hand leading Captain Everton to its pier. She tells him of the rumors that flew afterwards, and the first letter delivered two years later with polite questions; the next, months later, with veiled command; the next few spread over the following years, further between, each shorter with open threat.
The cost of the cargo or a replacement ship, he'd demanded. And if she could provide neither—her head on a pike instead.
"He grew impatient," Fenris says at last, leaning back on one hand. "And came for you."
"And came for me," Isabela sighs. "Or tried to kill me, anyway. Very impolite."
"You can't repay him?"
"Doesn't matter if I could. With the 'interest' he's demanding he could buy four ships over, and even if I had the coin I wouldn't give it to him. Roscuro—" she breaks herself off, rolls a fat purple plum between her thumb and forefinger. "It doesn't matter. He's not a man capable of being satisfied, is the point."
She doesn't have to meet his eyes to know Fenris understands. They've got enough shared history between them to recognize the bruises and scars between the words, and when Fenris nods and touches the hilt of his sword laid flat behind him she's overcome with a bitter sort of gratitude that the one member of their group of friends who might understand what she means would understand her need to kill, too. She won't pay Roscuro. Not him, not for this.
She won't die for him, either.
"Will he try to kill you?" Fenris asks.
"Probably. Once he realizes I won't give him what he wants."
"He will not succeed."
Isabela laughs. "I rather hope not. I'd have come a long way for a last breath if he did."
"Isabela," Fenris says, and even though he does not reach for her he might as well have taken her face between his hands for how intently he looks at her. "I will not allow it."
"Oh," she says, the word silly in her mouth for how surprised she is, but she can't quite think straight through the emotion swelling in her throat. "In that case—I'm glad you're here, Fenris."
"So am I," he says, sighing, but when they rise at the end of the meal, his hand brushes over her back, just once, and the warmth of it lingers for a long time.
