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Around the isles of the wounded coast, the sea is almost always calm, unless a storm blows in. On a clear day like today, there are hardly even waves, just a quiet roll of water up and down the shore. Hawke flexes her toes in the wet sand and sighs happily, glad to be free of her boots. Maybe elves have the right idea when it comes to shoes after all.
“Oh, it’s not even cold today! Try it, ma vhenan!” They’ve found a little cove along the shore, deep enough that it might reach even Hawke’s chin, on their way back from the camp full of dead Antivan Crows. It didn’t seem polite to just abandon Isabela to her reunion, and besides, killing that beast was exhausting. They deserve a bit of a break.
“I’m getting there,” says Hawke, shrugging off more armor into a pile on the sand. “Do try to behave yourself, Sebastian.”
“I see nothing,” he murmurs, which is true enough; he’s currently up to his shoulders in water, leaned up against a rock face with his eyes closed against the sun. Like a lizard soaking up warmth.
Or a cat, Hawke thinks, a little more charitably. A tiny chantry kitten. Probably couldn’t misbehave even if he still remembered how.
Because she has a pretty clear estimation of how gracefully she’ll jump in, Hawke sidles along the shoreline, sprinting nearly tiptoe over hot black stone, and throws herself into deeper water before swimming towards the others.
The water really is quite nice, pleasantly cool on her skin without too much of a chill—Hawke once tried to swim on Ferelden’s eastern coast, when they lived in a village near the road to Denerim, and she mostly remembers shrieking and splashing in the ice-cold shallows. Something about a current from the south, Father had said, laughing when she raced back in rather than accept the blanket in Mother’s hand.
Now, she scoops up Merrill and saves her the trouble of treading water, mostly for the simple pleasure of holding her. It never ceases to surprise her, a steady lovesick ache in her chest, how small and infinitely precious Merrill remains. Merrill smiles, combs her fingers into the short wet spikes of Hawke’s hair and kisses her, draping her arms around Hawke’s neck.
She doesn’t stop kissing Hawke, even when perhaps they should. It’s one of the things about Merrill—her kisses are truly filthy when she is content, slick and slow and hungry, with an inexorable patience that drives Hawke more than a little up the wall. Or in this case, the nearest rock.
Sebastian coughs. “There’s only so much nothing a man can hear. I can leave, if you like.”
“Oh, sorry!” says Merrill, cheerfully breathless, utterly unapologetic. “I got a bit carried away.”
Hawke drops her head and noses along Merrill’s neck, sighs warmly against her skin to make her shiver. “You’re not helping,” she murmurs, petting Hawke’s hair approvingly.
“Hawke!” calls Isabela, scolding. “Did you decide to start having fun the minute I left?”
“Yes,” says Hawke without hesitation, as Merrill twists around in her arms. Isabela walks closer to stand at the edge of the water, eyes shaded from the sun by the brim of her hat, smiling down at them all with a great deal of put-upon lasciviousness. Sebastian snorts and barely shakes his head, seemingly too lethargic to move.
“We didn’t want to leave you! Did you have a nice time?”
“Of course I did, kitten,” says Isabela, the boasting softened by the fondness in her smile, the easy sway of her limbs. “I always make sure of that.”
As she speaks, she drops her hat on top of Hawke’s armor, the only bit of clothing she cares to leave unsullied by sand. Her daggers are tossed on the pile already containing a bow, staff and greatsword. For a moment, she traces her fingers fondly along a stone, lined with salt residue from high tide and the autumn storms.
Isabela tends to snatch bits of the sea where she can, eyes lighting up at the chance to dip her toes in the surf or feel the breeze ruffling her hair. She lays down her boots and sheds the rest of her clothing without hesitation, pausing only to make a rude gesture at Sebastian, whose eyes are politely averted again. Merrill giggles into Hawke’s shoulder.
“The Maker sees all, you know,” he says serenely, not batting an eyelash.
“Oh, really?” The drawl of her voice is slow, suggestive, but Isabela moves with purpose and efficiency, braces her hands on the ledge and swings herself down into the water, smooth and practiced where Hawke would certainly slip and scrape her arms on the stone. From Isabela there’s hardly a sound, only a pleased sigh and a quick arch of her neck to soak her hair in the water. “Then I hope He’s enjoying the view.”
“No,” says Sebastian, affecting a solemn sigh, though he can barely keep a straight face. “The Maker can only weep, to see the folly and sin of mankind.”
“Well, I’m afraid I haven’t tired of my sinful ways just yet,” she tell him, winking at Merrill, who laughs delightedly from her perch in Hawke’s arms. “That was lovely.”
“Another day, perhaps,” he suggests, chuckling helplessly up at the sky and swiping one hand over his face. Drops of water sparkle on his improbable cheekbones, brilliant in the sunlight.
“Here, let me help you with that,” says Isabela, which is all the warning he gets before she splashes an armful of water into his face. In true Sebastian fashion, he retaliates before remembering to sputter with outrage, and the bright-white flash of his grin ruins the effect entirely.
Isabela ducks neatly under the water and rises up smiling just as broadly.
“Do you like swimming?” Merrill paddles towards her, a bit unsteady but utterly determined to reach her goal, and impossibly adorable in the process. “We should go more often!”
“Sometimes. Not much chance for it on a ship—even when you’re anchored, it’s often best not to.”
“The men,” says Merrill solemnly.
“Men,” she agrees, reaching out to tug fondly at a lock of Merrill’s hair. “Worse than jellyfish.”
Hawke stands up just enough for the sun to warm her shoulders, then drops back under the water, bending her knees so it rises to her chin. It really is quite relaxing. Perhaps they can do it again sometime, in between all the blood mage hunting and endless tragedy. Might be nice.
“Next time we should bring Varric. Can you imagine all that glistening chest hair?”
“Varric, swimming?” Sebastian points out, eyebrows raised.
“No shit,” growls Merrill, in her best impression of Varric, which sets them all off laughing so loudly it echoes back from what Hawke still stubbornly calls the injured cliffs. “There I was, in water up to my neck, surrounded by rocks. And I hate rocks.”
“Is it rocks,” asks Isabela, “or only caves?”
Hawke shrugs, splashing herself a little in the process. “Caves, deep roads, weather. The outdoors as a whole.”
“I don’t really understand why,” says Merrill. “At least the outdoors are meant to have dirt. And there isn’t half as much of it in the air, which is better for breathing.”
Hawke wishes she could’ve seen Lothering, before the blight. The green-gold fields and rolling hills, the low stone wall Hawke perched on once to watch the harvest; the peaceful inlet of Lake Calenhad to the west, and the sun-drenched forests of the Hinterlands in the south. Maybe, when all this is over — because she can feel it coming, building on her skin with all the prickling menace of a lightning storm, with every step she takes in Kirkwall — maybe, when it’s done, they can travel back to Ferelden, and the places they used to call home.
It seems as good a reason to survive as any other.