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“Isabelaaaa.” Kensa let her head fall over the edge of her bed, watching the pirate pace upside-down. “I had hoped you would think of something more tasteful.” She ignored the blood rushing to her head, half hoping Isabela’s skirt would fall to reveal her small clothes. Did Isabela even wear them?
Perhaps Kensa should have taken up with the Rivani woman. She was beautiful, no doubt, and a relationship would be so much more fun than what she was putting herself through. As it was, she was half tempted to buy the captain a boat and flee Kirkwall with her. Worst part was that she wouldn’t miss it. Lothering, it it’s degradation, was still home.
“Look, Starling,” Kensa shot her a glare at the enuciated nickname, the sound drawing her back to the problem at hand. “You asked me to help you woo your man. If you don’t like my advice then do it yourself.” Isabela showed her the short dress again; the red ends swaying toward the ceiling. “Red is sensual, especially against darker skin. I would know. Short shows off those wonderfully slender legs of yours. If anything is going to catch your quarry, this is it.”
“It’s fine for Rivani standards, but here I’ll just look like a muscular strumpet.”
“Hawke, you have no bust,” Isabela admonished. Jutting out her curvy hips and crossing her arms to push out her own proud bossom. “I have to work with what you’ve given me and you’re proving difficult.”
“Surely there’s a better way to catch elusive dwarven men and surly elven slaves.” Rolling onto her side, Kensa looked at her tan skin and her black hair. It wasn’t the first time she’d wished she were more like Isabela. Better wit, sensual and mysterious, adventurous. Perhaps she just wasn’t made for romance.
Isabela laughed, the kind that send warm shivers down men and women alike. “After tonight,” she started, a weight dipping the mattress beside the distressed Kensa, “everyone will be flocking to your side. They’ll be crawling all over each other.”
Sitting up, brushing shoulder-length hair from her face, Kensa scoffed. “No more bird metaphors, I draw the line at my name.”
“Not when Varric uses them, or calls you Starling.”
Feeling agitated, she pulled herself off the bed. Sensing Isabela’s sharp eyes following her as she stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. “He doesn’t know.” The admission felt heavy on her tongue.
“How could he not know you hate anything with feathers? Well except for your wonderfully plush pillows.” Kensa ignored the comment and picked up the dress, holding it up to herself as she closed her bedroom door. That’s when she heard Isabella snicker. “Ooh,” she drew out the syllables and ended with a huff, “you have been very careful to not bring it up when he’s around. Let me guess, Starling came about from the beginning. Didn’t it?”
Turning to face Isabela, who was now sprawled out on her bed like a graceful tiger, Kensa dropped her robes and stood there in her small clothes. She half hoped the woman would teasingly proposition her so she could accept in turn. A one night romp would prove better than this party. “If he shows no interest tonight, then it doesn’t matter.”
“It really is horse shit to be stuck between two lovers, isn’t it?”
Kensa threw out a fake smirk, it was so much easier than allowing the pain of rejection to show instead. Feeling marginally disappointed that she’d showed no interest in herself, finishing pulling the dress snugly into place. “But it does leaves open the opportunity for numerous lovers and steamy encounters.”
She didn’t miss the way Isabela’s eyes glinted with pity.
“That’s the spirit!” Her friend quickly jumped up off the bed and started combing through Kensa’s sparse jewels. “I may have to run to my room at the Hanged Man real fast, you have piss all to go with that-”
Kensa nodded but stopped listening. She’d tugged the hem of the dress again, the edges barely brushed her knees and hid nothing as the slits in the sides exposed nearly all of her thighs. The bust wasn’t nearly as revealing as she’d assumed, but was tight and made her meager breasts look bigger. At least red had always looked stunning on the Hawke siblings; that had always been natural.
On her desk sat an unopened bottle of wine from Fenris and a letter of tales from Varric. She felt her hurt dissolve into bitterness. Her story was her own and she couldn’t just wait for others to decide when they wanted to be a part of it. She would not wait anymore. Spotting a red slip of satin on her desk, a remainder of the fabric used for the new Hawke family banners, she wrapped it around her head and under her hair. Kensa would not allow ostentatious hair, that wasn’t who she was. It made her feel more like herself.
Tonight, people would have to earn her favor. If they were lucky, they would recieve her favor, a token of house Hawke. Tonight, the Hawke was not the prey, she was the hunter.