Into the Woods (a Dragon Age fanfiction)

Who Couldn't Dance with You?

"Isabela, why did I let you talk me into this? I look ridiculous." Jennie surveyed herself fretfully in the glass. Isabela had used some sort of clear gluey substance to spike her short blonde hair up in what she called an "artful tousle", and from somewhere had procured a simple dress of shimmering blue silk that left Jennie's collarbones and shoulders exposed. Jennie felt thin and bony and gawky in it.

"You look beautiful," Isabela said, rearranging the little puffed sleeves that rested on Jennie's upper arms. "All you need is some jewelry." She looked at them both in the mirror over Jennie's shoulder, and her expression brightened. "A-ha." From around her own neck, she took a gold amulet with a blue stone embedded in the middle, putting it on Jennie.

"What if I lose it? Or trip in these shoes and fall flat on my face? Or step on my dress and rip half of it off?" Fruitlessly, Jennie tried to tug at the dress's neckline, to pull it up and cover more of her bare white skin.

Isabela slapped her hand. "Stop that!" Her golden eyes glared at Jennie in the mirror. "You, my girl, are the Champion of bloody Kirkwall. You may be a badass Qunari-killer and one of the three most powerful bitches in town, but if you can't walk into a ballroom like a confident woman, you're going to lose everything you have."

"I've already lost everything I had, Isabela. What more can be taken from me than my entire family?"

"If you have to ask, maybe you don't deserve to have it." Isabela stepped back. "Hawke, whatever you think of yourself, you are a striking woman, and you have power and influence in a major city, which adds considerably to your allure. Men—and women—are attracted to you. They will despise you if you walk in there looking like you're sorry they have to associate with you. And being despised can lead to ... very bad things."

Jennie looked back at the mirror, trying to see herself the way Isabela saw her. The blue of the dress brought out her eyes, that much was true, and the amulet broke up the expanse of white skin across her chest. The high waist of the dress made her small breasts seem larger, the poofy sleeves made her large shoulders seem smaller, and the skirt was narrowly cut but with enough fullness to make her seem slender rather than skinny.

"You see it now?" Isabela's voice was kind. She reached up, touching Jennie's hair. "I wish you'd let this grow out."

"It used to get in my face. I had to cut it." Jennie remembered all the times she'd been in the midst of a battle and had to push her long blonde hair back out of her face. Too fine to stay confined for long, sooner or later it always slipped out of pins and ribbons. First she'd cut it in a short bob, but stray wisps had blown into her face all the time, spoiling her shots. At last, in frustration, she had hacked it off herself, taking a perverse pleasure in seeing the silky blonde locks falling to the floor. In a family of black-haired people, that hair had always made her look and feel out of place. She hadn't been at all sorry to see it go.

"Mine doesn't get in my face."

"Yours is a lot heavier and more manageable than mine." Jennie smiled at her friend. "Thank you, Isabela. I mean it—I don't know what I'd do without you."

"You'd slink in there like an apologetic rabbit, and let all those stuck-up Orlesians walk all over you."

"Vividly put."

There was a knock on the door and Isabela went to answer it. Varric bustled in, his chest hair sleekly brushed and the stubble on his chin artfully trimmed to just the right length.