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Life Imitates Art ... Or Is It The Other Way Around? [AU] [Closed]

Varric Tethras

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#1
(AU - 35 Dragon) Isabela , Aveline Vallen

Donnen Brennokovic was not one to indulge in self-pity. Shit happened, like it or not, and the smart man figured out quickly that pissing and moaning over the things you couldn’t change meant maybe losing the opportunity to change the things that you could. He’d lived by that rule for most of his life, and while it might not have done much to make him happy, it went a long way toward keeping him sane.

But every rule worthy of the name had to have an exception, and the guardsman was currently on his fourth - or was it fifth? - round of oak-aged Nevarran single malt whiskey. Stupid, perhaps, spending most of his week’s pay on booze when a cheap rotgut would likely have done the job just as effectively. But the romantic streak that Brennokovic had been startled to discover beneath several decades layering of cynicism, pessimism and general misanthropy (he’d been called a surly misanthrope by a scholar he’d arrested for murder, looked up the definition in a dictionary and liked it) was evidently too stupid to lie down and die quietly; using cheap whiskey to drown out the memory of hair that flamed like the setting sun and emerald green eyes felt like sacrilege.

It had been a fool’s dream, at best, returning to the Kirkwall guard in the hope that something more than a shared devotion to duty might develop between himself and Captain Hendallen. He’d known it, and hadn’t even let himself acknowledge that hope until it had been dashed to pieces against the unforgiving rocks of reality. She deserved better than a washed-up smartass of a guardsman who gave her nothing but headaches - even for the minuscule chances of winning her affections, he had been unable to change his approach to fighting crime in the City of Chains. She deserved - his brow furrowed as he glowered into the amber liquid in his glass for a moment before tossing it back, feeling the heat spreading smoothly down his throat to join the fire in his gut. She deserved more than she would ever get in this town; the young buck who had caught her eye with a pretty face and pretty words was a decent enough bloke, but Brennokovic had been pub crawling with him after hours, seen the women he preferred. Could he even see past her face and those incredible eyes to the fiery heart of the woman warrior, full of courage and honor and a passion for what was right and good that burned every bit as brightly as it had in the legendary knight for whom she had been named -

“SHI-IIIT!!”

The quill dug into the parchment, and the tip broke off in the desktop, leaving a blot of ink on the wood. Varric tossed it aside, snatched up the piece of paper, crumpled it into a wad and pitched it into the corner. It hit the top of a pile of similarly discarded scraps, bounced and rolled down to the foot of the stack. He glowered at it briefly before capping the inkwell and pushed away from the desk with a growl of disgust.

Three days. Three sodding days he’d been banging his head against this brick wall, and the sequel to Hard In Hightown, which had begun with such promise, was currently stuck in a rut alongside its author. He’d never either confirmed or denied that the main character was an alter ego of sorts, but Brennocovik had never been too obvious of a self-insert, allowing him to slyly sidestep the questions, keep people guessing. And he’d always managed to keep a certain amount of distance between himself and the fictional guardsman when he was writing … until now.

One of the reasons that the original had been so successful (and that the author hadn’t wound up at the bottom of the harbor) was that he had managed to make the characters never be completely identifiable with any real persons, living or deceased. There had been plenty of talk and speculation, and a few people had gotten offended, but there had never been enough resemblance to hang a contract killing on. Captain Hendallen was a recent - and frustrating - exception. Not that the real person in question would waste time and coin hiring assassins; she’d just break his neck herself. Or never speak to him again.

Pouring himself a whiskey, the dwarf settled into his armchair. Take a break from writing for a few days, that’s what he needed to do. Spend some time bullshitting with the regulars downstairs, get out and spend a few nights on the streets rediscovering the grit of Kirkwall. Maybe he just needed to ditch the romantic angle altogether, make the sequel another straight-up crime thriller with a side of casual sex. Why mess with a good formula? Not everybody needed the hearts and flowers garbage, right? He certainly didn’t. He and Bianca were doing just fine.

A creak on the stair outside: the one he refused to let Corff fix. Too loud to be someone trying to sneak up on him. “Come in!” he called, saving whoever it was the trouble of knocking.
 

Isabela

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#2
Isabela fingered the small pouch at her waist, and grinned at the distinctive outline of the coins that were swelling it to bursting point. It had been a good week for her - of course, working alongside Hawke meant it came with a certain amount of do-goodery, but she wasn’t complaining about acting nice to the two milksops who had run off together in exchange for looting the bodies of the bandits who had immediately taken them hostage the second they got to the coast.

Oh, it had been a lovely tale. The pair had met at a ball and fallen desperately in lust (or love, as they put it, being far too young and hormonal to work out the difference). The parents had disapproved, given that they'd known each other all of five hours. They’d fled together in the depths of the night, taking a hefty amount of the family jewels with them, aided by a gnarly old gatekeeper who just wanted the best for them. Or so they’d thought. Displaying a business acumen that Isabela could respect, the gatekeeper had collaborated with some of the bandits along the Wounded Coast, working out he could get a cut of whatever ransom they demanded from the parents.

Obviously the bandits had killed him the moment he handed the cooing couple over, so he hadn’t been that smart.

Anyway, Hawke had been asked for a display of her usual mix of diplomacy and violence, and had been sent to retrieve the couple while hopefully not having to pay all of the ransom. Rich families didn’t get rich by just handing out money left and right, after all. Lured by the promise of both a down payment and a chance for some looting, Isabela had been all too happy to come along, and between herself, Hawke, Kitten, they’d done a fair job of mopping the floor with the bandits.

The frightened couple had been escorted back to Kirkwall, and given some gentle advice about maybe leaving it longer than a day and a half before they repeated their attempt. Hawke was back off to her mansion and Isabela had walked with Kitten to the alienage before heading on back to the Hanged Man. This was a story Varric would enjoy, and she could afford some nice brandy to bring up as an aid to the telling.

He wasn’t holding court from his usual corner of the tavern, so he was either at the Merchant’s Guild or up in his room. Banking on the second, Isabela splashed out on the finest bottle Corff had available (from the stash at the back, not the stuff on the shelves which looked all right but had probably been topped up with water over the years) and bounded up the stairs. She knew about Varric’s creaky step and could have jumped over it easily enough, but she wasn’t planning on approaching stealthily. It squealed like a pig when she landed on it, and announced her presence fairly effectively.

“Come in!”

Varric was brooding in his armchair, a drink already at his elbow, and there were drifts of crumpled parchment scattered against one wall. Isabela took in the scene, quirked an eyebrow, then grinned at him. “I take it you might be in need of a distraction. Have you given any thought of my suggestion of a spin off series? Harder in Hightown: Tales from the Blooming Rose could be a winner, you know.”
 

Varric Tethras

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#3
As it turned out, Varric needn’t have bothered with the invitation, as Rivaini seldom bothered with such mundane niceties of knocking anyway. She swaggered through the door with what looked suspiciously like a bottle of Corff’s best Orlesian brandy in one hand and a shit eating grin plastered on her face.

“I take it you might be in need of a distraction,” she announced, glancing over at the discard pile. “Have you given any thought of my suggestion of a spin off series? Harder in Hightown: Tales from the Blooming Rose could be a winner, you know.”

Varric chuckled. “Not exactly my genre,” he deferred. He turned over the notion in his mind, however. His books generally had a steamy scene here and there to spice up the intrigue, but he’d never written out-and-out smut. Maybe a change of pace was what he needed.

“Taking a break from writing for a few days, anyway,” he told her, filing the idea away for future consideration. Not Harder In Hightown, mind you; he wouldn’t do that to Brennokovic. Something else …

“What’s the occasion?” he asked, eyeing the bottle. Isabela wasn’t averse to buying a round if she was in a good mood, but it generally wasn’t top shelf hooch. Or the whole bottle. Either she’d had a very good day (measured in galleons liberated from their rightful owners), or she’d lifted the brandy from under Corff’s nose. Not that he minded either way, since Corff’s standard business practices constituted highway robbery. Just curious.
 

Isabela

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#4
Varric chuckled, waving off her suggestion as he had before. “Not exactly my genre.”

“No matter.” Isabela tossed her head. “I’ll have a go at it. How hard can it be to write sex scenes with a little bit of plot looped around them?”

She was teasing; Varric was an artist and she appreciated his work (especially the bits that were veiled retellings of Hawke’s adventures, or had characters resembling people she didn’t like in real life having a horrible time). Sitting down and trying to concentrate enough to write out an entire book was boring. There was booze to drink, coin to make and people to seduce! She’d settle for providing Varric with inspiration.

It seemed he was a bit down on it at the moment. “Taking a break from writing for a few days, anyway.” He indicated the bottle. “What’s the occasion?”

“Courtesy of a grateful pair of parents, and a whole lot of kidnappers who hardly needed ransom money in the first place.” Isabela grabbed two of the nearest mugs and splashed the brandy literally into both, before handing one to Varric. “I thought you might like the story. A-hem.” She cleared her throat dramatically. “A young pair of lovebirds spied each other at a ball, and immediately felt the sort of attraction that inspires them to do really, really stupid things. Their parents made note and forbade them to be together...not something I’d normally condone, of course, but this time it was genuinely to stop them doing something unusually prattish.

“So, naturally, they leapt straight through the first act of a bad play, and decided they needed to elope together. They turned to a friendly, trustworthy gardener to aid them in their flight, and naturally he tricked them into being captured for ransom by bandits immediately.”


Isabela took a swig of her brandy as she settled down, one foot swinging idly as she talked, dislodging a few balls of parchment from the pile. A word, not entirely obscured, caught her eye. Brennokovic

This was why she wasn’t a storyteller. Immediately sidetracked, she made a swipe for it, and started to pull it open. “Ooh, is this what you’re working on? The big sequel?”
 

Varric Tethras

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#5
Varric wasn’t surprised when Isabela’s enthusiasm for erotic fiction wasn’t dampened by his demurral. “No matter. I’ll have a go at it,” she announced breezily, making a beeline for the glassware. “How hard can it be to write sex scenes with a little bit of plot looped around them?”

“Harder than you’d think,” he answered wryly, well aware that he’d just handed her a solid gold straight line. He was a giver like that. “You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I’ve gotten.” Aspiring authors were constantly sending him manuscripts to critique; he’d finally started having his agent send them back unopened. He was a bullshitter by trade, but there was only so much he could do with “breasts as round and pale as ostrich eggs” and “lips as plump as slugs that hadn’t been sprinkled with salt”, and being a dasher of literary dreams was nowhere on his limited list of ambitions. Rivaini could probably do better than that, and if not, ‘fragile’ didn’t describe any part of her, least of all her ego.

“Courtesy of a grateful pair of parents, and a whole lot of kidnappers who hardly needed ransom money in the first place,” she announced now, dumping generous servings of brandy into the pair of mugs she’d snagged and passing one to him before sprawling carelessly in a chair. “I thought you might like the story. A-hem.” Varric obligingly set his whiskey aside and took a sip of the brandy. Never drink your own good booze when someone else’s is available. “A young pair of lovebirds spied each other at a ball, and immediately felt the sort of attraction that inspires them to do really, really stupid things. Their parents made note and forbade them to be together...not something I’d normally condone, of course, but this time it was genuinely to stop them doing something unusually prattish.

“I’m guessing that didn’t work?” Varric stretched his legs out, willing to be entertained. All the same, he couldn’t help nudging the elements around in his head, evaluating the potential. Tale as old as time, and trite as it could be … but what about a different angle?

“So, naturally, they leapt straight through the first act of a bad play, and decided they needed to elope together,” the pirate confirmed with relish. “They turned to a friendly, trustworthy gardener to aid them in their flight, and naturally he tricked them into being captured for ransom by bandits immediately.” She tipped back her mug for a deep swallow and kicked one foot out in that never-quite-still way of hers. One pass nicked the pile of discards, sending a few of them tottering along the floor. Like a magpie catching sight of something shiny, she swooped and snagged the closest one.

“Ooh, is this what you’re working on? The big sequel?”

“Ahh-ahh.” A lifetime of keeping his cards close to the vest helped Varric keep his reaction off of his face, but his heart still did a quick triple-time run in the second before he reached out and plucked the partly-uncrumpled parchment from her grasp. “No sneak previews,” he admonished her, tossing it back on the pile and sending the other escapees after it. “Bad luck.” Sailors had plenty of superstitions; Rivaini wouldn’t question him on his. And it would be bad luck - for him - if she read any of his rough - really rough - drafts. She’d recognize “Captain Hendallen” in a heartbeat, and a certain Guard-Captain would hear about it a couple of palpitations later. She wouldn’t be able to resist.

“So, how do we get from star-crossed lovers to your getting paid and buying me a drink?” he asked as he leaned back in his chair, hoping to nudge her back onto her original track.
 

Isabela

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#6
Isabela pouted as Varric pulled the parchment from her hand - but also intrigued. Normally he was fairly relaxed about her seeing odd scraps of his work, especially the discarded stuff, and he seemed amused by her teasing him over the crap stuff. Still, what was crap by Varric’s standards was fucking poetry by the standards of most of the market. Her antennae for gossip twitched sharply, but she also wasn’t shitty enough to immediately grab it back off him.

Besides, he invoked luck, and if there was one lady Isabela tried to make a point of not pissing off these days it was Lady Luck. Not that she was doing too great at that, mind.

“So, how do we go from star-crossed lovers to your getting paid and buying me a drink?”

Fine, he wanted to focus on that. Isabela lounged back in her seat, swirling the brandy in her glass. “Well, first off we were hired with half-payment up front to bring the young idiots back - with a promise of a percentage of the ransom if we got them back unharmed. Then after we killed all the bandits, we looted them, and it looks like they’ve been making a decent living terrorising people up and down the Wounded Coast.”

Admittedly, Isabela had once done the same herself, but she’d always had pretty flexible morals anyway.

“Then we returned the lovebirds for the other half of the payment, and on the way gave them a stern finger wagging about running off with somebody they barely know. Great for sex, admittedly, not so great for a lifelong commitment. Also, never trust the gardener.” She waved her brandy in Varric’s direction. “Hey, what about a murder mystery set in a posh house? Those places have a million servants, you’d have lots of potential red herrings to strew about.”

A small piece of parchment had ended up under her foot as she gesticulated. She kicked it backwards, under her chair.

Hey, never waste an opportunity.
 

Varric Tethras

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#7
As Varric had hoped, invoking luck seemed to convince Isabela not to question his reticence. Normally, he didn’t mind sharing; her guesses as to who various characters were inspired by were seldom less than entertaining, and she had occasionally provided nuggets of inspiration that ended up in one tale or another. He didn’t want her within a league of his current project, however, and his query had the desired effect of drawing her back into her own tale. Rivaini loved bullshitting almost as much as he did, and she was good enough at it that he could seldom tell whether or not she was embellishing.

“Well, first off we were hired with half-payment upfront to bring the young idiots back - with a promise of a percentage of the ransom if we got them back unharmed,” she said, kicking back in her chair and savoring her drink.

“We?” Safe bet that Hawke was involved, but with bandits in the mix, there should have been others. Daisy and Broody, maybe. He was a little wounded they hadn’t invited him, but Josc knew that he wasn’t much for nature hikes. Ilsa and Andvar’s baby boy liked cobblestones under his feet and the hustle and bustle of city life surrounding him.

She went on, “Then after we killed all the bandits, we looted them, and it looks like they’ve been making a decent living terrorising people up and down the Wounded Coast.”

That sounded entirely too much like work to Varric. He’d spent enough time on the Wounded Coast to know the kind of shit that was out there. Crazy Tal-Vashoth and pissy Dalish and feral mabari and spiders as big as mabari. Anyone with any sense went out armed to the teeth, and anyone robbing them on top of dodging the other hazards was doing things the hard way … particularly once Hawke got involved.

“Then we returned the lovebirds for the other half of the payment, and on the way gave them a stern finger-wagging about running off with somebody they barely know,” Rivaini concluded grandly. “Great for sex, admittedly, not so great for a lifelong commitment. Also, never trust the gardener.”

“Rescuing lovers in distress and telling them to behave?” Varric shook his head in mock amazement as he tipped up his glass. “Next thing you’ll be telling me you’re applying for a spot in the guard.” Only slightly more likely than her joining the Chantry, but a year or so ago, the idea of her doing as much as she’d done, even with the prospect of a payday, would have been long odds. Josc Hawke had that effect on people.

She leaned forward suddenly, nearly sloshing her brandy out of the glass. “Hey, what about a murder mystery set in a posh house? Those places have a million servants, you’d have lots of potential red herrings to strew about.”

“Too cliche,” he scoffed, but his mind had snagged on ‘Never trust the gardener’. He’d never read a tale where the gardener was the murderer, despite all that time they spent digging and mulching (he wasn’t sure what mulching was, exactly, but it sounded ominous). “Hang on.” He got up and went to his desk, pulling his leatherbound Idea Journal from a drawer (the most recent one; he had a dozen others, their pages filled with notes, stashed away in a trunk), opening it to a vacant page and seating himself. Uncapping the inkwell, he dipped the quill and wrote three lines:

Murder mystery.

Mansion.

The gardener did it. This last he underlined three times.

“All right.” He looked expectantly to her. “Anything else?” His mind had already churned out the first few lines, along with a first draft of the plot, but since Rivaini had generated the idea that might finally drag him out of the rut he’d gotten stuck in, he was willing to give her some more input. Hell, he might dedicate it to her, if he actually got it to the publishing stage.
 

Isabela

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#8
Naturally, Varric expressed disbelief at Isabela’s handling of the whole situation. Isabela couldn’t blame him. Frankly, she’d have been offended if he’d taken it in his stride. “Rescuing lovers in distress and telling them to behave? Next thing you’ll be telling me you’re applying for a spot in the guard.”

Isabela shrugged, grinned, and retrieved a gold coin from her purse, walking it lazily along the back of her knuckles. “What can I say? The payoff was so good I felt like being a decent citizen for a change.” Nothing to do with Hawke making her soft-hearted of late, as some people liked to claim. Those people usually found themselves stuffed into a water barrel and relieved of all their possessions in short order.

She was a tad insulted when Varric shook his head at her suggestion, denouncing it as cliche...then grabbed fresh parchment and started scribbling at it. “Hey. Hey! If you’re stealing my idea you could wait until I’m out of the room!”

This was said in jest, though. Varric didn’t need to steal anybody else’s ideas, and he knew she was joking. Then again, the pile of abandoned ideas did indicate he was struggling - not that she believed for a moment that he’d outright lie to her (he wasn’t stupid), so maybe it was worth letting him have it and popping up when it was time for him to spend his advance at the bar. Varric was always good for a round.

“All right. Anything else?”

“Mhmm,” Isabela lounged in the chair, swirling her brandy. As she drew her legs up, she kicked her foot back, the parchment slid towards the back of the chair - well within reach of her dangling fingertips. Now out of Varric’s line of sight and within reach of her dangling fingertips, it was quickly scooped up. “Perhaps with a frame up job involved? Maybe one where even the person being framed thinks they committed the murder! Perhaps they did actually hurt the victim, ran off thinking they were dead, and the gardener came along and decided to finish the job to his or her advantage. Or! The framee thinks they caused it with an accident, but it was an accident set up by the gardener in the first place!”

This writing thing was sort of fun! Isabela would never become much of a scribbler herself (the little friend-fictions she churned out aside), but she could see why it appealed to Varric.
 

Varric Tethras

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#9
Rivaini was quick to head off any assumption that she might be in danger of becoming law-abiding. “What can I say?” she smirked, casually walking a sovereign across the knuckles of one hand. “The payoff was so good I felt like being a decent citizen for a change.”

“Hey, as long as there’s a profit in it, your reputation shouldn’t suffer too much.” Varric opted not to mention all the times that the pirate had assisted Hawke even when there was not a copper to be made. Even when she and her family had been dirt poor, Josc had been all too willing to help out someone in need without demanding recompense (making up for it by charging the ones who could afford it), and now that she was filthy rich, that inclination had only grown. Isabela’s reasons were her own, and Varric wasn’t going to risk life, limb or chest hair by suggesting that there was a heart of gold beating beneath that impressive cleavage.

She pretended to be offended when he took up her idea, but that was just the way they worked; she had contributed some nice tidbits to his serials, and he gave credit where credit was due at the place that really mattered to her: the bar downstairs. He waited now, quill poised over the page, as she settled back in her chair. “Perhaps with a frame up job involved?” she suggested, tilting her glass to and fro, watching the amber liquid within catch the lamplight. “Maybe one where even the person being framed thinks they committed the murder! Perhaps they did actually hurt the victim, ran off thinking they were dead, and the gardener came along and decided to finish the job to his or her advantage. Or! The framee thinks they caused it with an accident, but it was an accident set up by the gardener in the first place!”

“I like it!” he proclaimed, scrawling out the details, then pausing as The Line arose in his brain. Not all of his stories had The Line, but the best ones (in his ever-so-humble opinion) had all started with The Line: one sentence that captured the spirit of the tale and gave him something to build out from. Sometimes The Line was in the beginning, but just as often it wound up in the middle or end of the story. Too soon yet to know where this one would be, but it was definitely The Line:

“The roses had never bloomed so lushly, or in such exuberant proliferation, as they did that spring.”

“I owe you, Rivaini,” he murmured without looking up, already lost in lining up the details. A murder mystery, yes, but maybe one that did not involve the guard - or the guard captain. That was definitely what he needed right now.
 

Isabela

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#10
They were really getting into the swing of it now. As with most things, Isabela was working more with broad strokes, getting excited by the overall idea without thinking too much about the logistics of it. She only paid attention to fine details when planning heists, and she was quite content to leave all the boring writing hand-cramp stuff to Varric. How he had time to balance that with assisting Hawke all the time, not to mention running a spy ring and spending far too much of his own money paying off bandits to leave Kitten alone, Isabela had no idea. But she was happy to spend the time with him now shouting suggestions.

By the time they wrapped up for the night - or rather, Varric had got so absorbed with his writing that further conversation was impossible, so Isabela sloped off - it was pretty late, and she was half a minute to tumble into bed herself. It had been a pretty active day and she’d had enough drink to be tipsy now. Before throwing herself down on her bed - Maker, it was pretty much her room permanently now, not just a stopping place overnight before returning to her ship - she went to remove her boots and then stopped as she felt something brush against her leg inside the leather. Reaching for the obstruction, she retrieved the crumpled piece of paper that Varric had been keen for her not to see.

She wasn’t expecting much. It was clearly one of his stories and apparently one that hadn’t passed muster for him. But even Varric’s bad stuff was pretty entertaining - Isabela still thought he should have continued Swords and Shields - and she started reading.

As she did, her eyes widened.

She’d seen a few traits of Varric’s in the key character of his latest series, the dashing guard Donnen Brennokovic. Guards weren’t usually of interest to Isabela, most had a gigantic stick up their arses, but she liked him; he kept breaking rules to get the job done, and he had a heart in the right place (sort of like Hawke too, now she came to think of it). But there were just enough similarities to her favourite storyteller that Isabela normally pictured Varric’s face when imagining the living-on-the-edge, too-old-for-this-shit guard.

So when she came across a reference to a romantic interest blooming on Donnen’s end, she was intrigued. And as she read the description of his lady love, a guard-captain who sounded very familiar, her lips curled up in a cat’s grin.

It could just be Varric using Aveline’s description, but there was a lot about Donnen’s feelings, and more than that the writing was good but Varric had tossed it. More than that, tried to stop her from hiding it. It wouldn’t be good enough evidence for a court, but fortunately Isabela wasn’t a guard.

What she could be, though, was a combination of a romantic, and a total shithead.

Wide awake again now, she left the tavern and headed towards Viscount’s Keep.


O

She’d told Aveline a dozen times she needed better locks. True, Aveline replaced them every time Isabela broke in, and she’d threatened to clap Isabela in irons the last time, so Isabela hadn’t pushed her luck since then. However, this was important! It was a mission of love!

Sort of.

Aveline wasn’t in, so Isabela had broken into her office. She’d even been nice about it this time, using a key stolen from a younger guard rather than a lockpick so Aveline wouldn’t have to replace anything. The guard-captain would likely be checking in before too long so Isabela took up position on her desk, one leg drawn up and the other swinging lazily as she drank from her flask and with her other hand, read through the arrest record she’d just pulled from the shelves. Her own, of course. She liked to check in on recent updates, and chuckle over past exploits. She made herself comfortable, and settled in to wait for Aveline’s arrival.
 
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