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"Are you ready?" Stede asked. Ed was sitting in the chair in Stede's- and Ed's - bathroom. Stede had filled the basin up with hot water, and he had a variety of lotions and oils and soaps on the small table next to him. They were all stolen of course, to replace the collection that Ed had given a burial at sea. She winced a little at the memory. She leaned back in the chair with a sigh.
"Ready."
Ed's beard had grown quite a bit in the past few months, when she was still trying to revive the corpse of Blackbeard. But Blackbeard was dead now, dead to the world. And Ed wanted a shave. Stede worked his fingers through her beard, his hands were damp with hot water and coated in a floral smelling oil. He lathered it through the hair, making sure to knead his fingers into Ed's skin, easing the tension out of her jaw.
Edward started growing the beard when she was still a young boy, hardly reaching sixteen. Her youth was stark against the other, more world-weary sailors that she worked alongside. Everyone wanted a piece of the new kid. Boys didn't get respect on ships, they got orders. Only men were respected, men had power, and what better way to masquerade as a man than to have a long, bushy beard by age twenty.
Stede had finished applying the oil and Ed could see him brandish the razor. Stede used his free hand to cup underneath her chin and carefully nudged her head backwards. He positioned the razor near where the beard started in the middle of her neck. Only Stede Bonnet could get away with pressing a blade against her throat in such a loving way.
"Just do it. I want him gone." Ed said. Stede raked the blade upwards. He made quick work of the hair on her neck, swiftly shaving it all off before working up to the hairs on her jaw and cheeks.
Ed used to worry that, without a beard, she looked like him . She looked like her father, the other Edward Teach. She saw him in the mirror, reminding her of the monster that lived within her. She tried to suffocate him by growing out the beard. She wanted to hide his face. But her father didn't have that hold over her anymore, this wasn't his face. This was Ed's face, she was going to embrace it.
More and more hair fell onto the floor and the towel covering her chest and shoulders. Stede used his left hand to occasionally and carefully tilt Ed's head one way or the other. Until….until…
"There we go." Stede set the razor aside. Ed's skin felt strange, the way it felt in the naval barracks when she first shaved. The air was touching skin it didn't normally touch. She wondered if this was what newborn babies felt when they entered the world.
Stede grabbed another bottle from the table, it was an amber colored liquid that smelled like citrus. He dabbed some on his fingers and started applying it all over where Ed's beard used to be. It tingled a little. Stede removed the hair covered towel from off of Ed, tossing it aside in a basket. Stede handed her a silver hand mirror.
"Ready to see 'Ed' again?" Stede beamed at her. It was a different face from the one he made when he first saw her beardless. She remembered his shock. She couldn't blame him, though, in retrospect. Blackbeard without the beard is a ship without sails. She's glad Blackbeard was left to sink below the waves. She raised the mirror to meet her face, her smile breaking through. She didn't see her father, she didn't see Blackbeard, she didn't see a man who was hiding a million secrets under his beard. She saw herself. She saw Ed.
"Hello, there." Ed whispered to the mirror.