My vision for Merelthina is that Meredith falls first, already having high regards for the Grand Cleric as the authority of Kirkwall’s chantry but also for being responsible of promoting her into the Knight-Commander’s title. The events involving the Viscount Perrin Threnhold are pretty essential to me bcs long story short: he attempted to get rid of the Templar Order in Kirkwall and so in response, both of them more or less worked together to have him imprisoned and not only that, Elthina allowed Meredith to elect another Viscount to rule, in this case Dumar. And so Meredith being intense as she is, would deeply value the person who stood by her side to defend the power of the Templar Order in Kirkwall…
Elthina, on the other hand, while she’s overall nice and polite, she pretty much works for the Chantry’s interests first and foremost. So I think that if she were to notice Meredith crushing hard on her, she would use that to her advantage as a means to still keep some control over her and maintain the status quo without disrupting the peace (at least for the nobles and non-mages lol)…This does make it a bit one sided, HOWEVER I think it could be fun to also have her be attracted to Meredith but since she’s sold onto her position as a gentle and virtuous old priestess, I could see her doing mental gymnastics on herself about how seducing the Knight-Commander or calling her “good girl” does not sound gay at all lol
