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9:11
Ale sloshes over the rim.
“Tits,” Oghren mutters as it sops into his unkempt beard. He burps crudely then pours the rest of his drink down his gullet.
Beside him at the rail, a pair of patrons whisper and cast furtive glances in his direction.
“Wha’re you lookin’ at?” he shouts startling them away. In his fit, he knocks the into his lap, drenching the ends of his beard. “Ah shit. Look wha’ you made me do.”
“Go home, Oghren. Don’t make me cut you off,” the barkeep pities him.
“Home to wha’? An emp’y bed?” At least he doesn’t have to listen to Branka’s nagging any more. He’d had just about enough of that. “I’ll leave when I wanna leave or you’ll ge’ no more coin.”
“Clean up, at the least,” and the barkeep tosses him a rag to dry his beard.
He laughs at how it makes him smell like piss. That oughta keep others from getting too close.
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9:13
She doesn’t notice how much mud is on her hands, on her face, in her clothes. Merrill doesn’t notice much of anything but the dancing lights of Fade magic spinning around her fingers.
“Oh da’len,” her new Keeper, Marethari despairs when Merrill finds her way back to the aravel on the other side of the river.
“I was exploring,” Merrill explains. “The spirits are so lovely further down that way. I’m sure they have lots to say.”
Keeper Marethari purses her lips in a way the others at her old clan would, even before her magic came and she became a part of clan Sabrae, but it softens quicker.
Reaching out a hand, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Merrill takes it gladly.
Other children flock to Keeper Marethari’s knees as she scrubs at Merrill’s face. One little boy begins twisting at her mud-encrusted locks.
“Ouch!” Merrill yelps, trying to get away, to little success.
“I was just trying something,” he mumbles apologetically.
“Her hair’s filthy, let it be,” Keeper Marethari begins, but Merrill cuts her short.
“He can try whatever he likes,” she replies cheerfully. Just because she has no interest in her hair doesn’t mean others can’t. After all, doesn’t Keeper Marethari instruct her to be helpful and kind with all in the clan, no matter the request?
Keeper Marethari sighs, wiping the mud from Merrill’s arms as the boy puts her hair into funny little short ropes and braids.
“Is it alright?” he asks nervously.
“I quite like it,” Merrill says brightly.
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9:16
No matter how she tries, there is no manner in which she could style her hair which would be received as fashionable. And appearances are everything in this land. And Vivienne will not be left behind by society because of it.
She makes short work of the hair, shearing it close, but not gone.
Her new silk robes drape over her shoulder and wrap about her waist as she puts the finishing touches on her new look.
She draws charcoal around her eyes to give herself a keen appearance, but when she glances in the mirror, the hair softens her too much. She must be sharp and cunning like the Game itself.
Vivienne admires her shaven head in the looking glass before oiling it for the party. This is much better.
Stepping out on the dance floor, Vivienne is positive all eyes are on her. The whispers in the corner speak her name. A sly smile slips onto Vivienne’s lips; she will cause a sensation in this court and wrap them around her finger with a spell.
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9:17
The squabbling of Bartrand’s business partners goes on for hours. They hardly notice as his disinterested younger brother sighs, exhausted.
Varric eyes them over each in turn: red beard, grey beard, long beard, short beard, half beard – he notes with some wryness even in his own head. All of them bearded and otherwise indistinguishable; the only thing he has to go off of is the descriptor he’s given their beards.
He can’t help snickering to himself as he watches the businessmen stroke their beards. And when they stand, they puff with pride because their beards hide their paunched, big bellies from their wives. All too ridiculous.
The meeting finally adjourns. Varric sighs again, in relief this time. Though he shouldn’t have assumed he could escape so easily.
Long Beard slaps a giant hand on Varric’s shoulder, startling him, “Taking an interest in the family business at last, I see. About time.”
“Bartrand’s insistence.”
Either Long Beard doesn’t hear him or willfully isn’t listening, “Yes. Yes. It’s just about time your beard started to sprout too.”
Horrified, Varric’s hand flies to his chin. Yes, there is stubble there; the plague of all young dwarves, not old enough to grow one full and not young enough to remain blissfully clean shaven. But no more than he typically expects this late in the day.
“Yes. Won’t be long now before you’ve earned your seat at the table.”
Varric crooks his brow, “That’s how I earn my place?”
He can’t think of a more unrewarding, unfulfilling method to earn a place at a table he doesn’t even want.
The next morning, Varric commissions a silver razor. He won’t be caught alive or dead sporting a soup catcher. He’ll earn his seat some other way.
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9:17
No one would claim the Circle offers luxuries to its inhabitants, but Beryl is reasonably pleased with the quarters she shares with three other girls.
The greatest feature of the room is the small vanity with a wide mirror. Though Beryl never spends more than a few moments in front of it, it is a great pleasure to watch her brush run through her hair before she sweeps it up into a tight bun.
“I think my mother’s hair must have been like mine,” she ponders aloud one morning; Nina’s legs swing over the edge of her bed.
“Stop making things up,” Nina scoffs. “You don’t remember anything about your mother.”
Beryl bites her tongue, but she knows deep down she must remember something. It’s not as though the templars took her away as a newborn babe.
“Don’t start going on about how vanity is a sin in the eyes of the Maker,” Beryl snaps back, more irritated Nina would imply her memories are false than being accused of breaking Chantry doctrine.
Nina sniffs in disinterest, then pushes herself off the bed and makes for the door.
“Don’t get caught staring too long,” Nina imparts as a final warning.
When Beryl whips back around, her reflection glares harshly at her. Quickly, she tries to relax it as she completes her practical bun.
Beryl must say her hair, her face, her hands are her mother’s, for how else will Beryl carry her mother with her if the memories are false?
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9:17
Difficult was a word applied to her when fending off the tutors her uncle appointed in charge of her; it was, truthfully, not a word she expected to be branded with when she promised to serve faithfully and to be worthy of the Seekers of Truth.
The braid, apparently, must go.
“Austerity is a key tenant,” Cassandra is reminded in chiding and condescending tones. “We cannot be victims to our own vanity when serving the Maker.”
Cassandra fights an indignant snort. Anthony would call them all ridiculous for thinking his younger sister has any notion of vanity.
Even with the disapproving glares, Cassandra holds her chin up, “It’s custom. Grief braids can be worn up to five years, if one chooses.”
“Nevarran custom. If the Seekers are to represent the highest ideal of the Chantry, second only to the Divine herself, we must appear as a united body, regardless of our pasts or where we came from.”
Cassandra doesn’t mean to listen behind closed doors, but it is open a crack, and Seeker Byron is still bemoaning her conduct.
“It was a mistake to take the Pentaghast girl on. A year on and she still won’t let go.”
Cassandra’s heart skips as blood pounds through her. She wants to be here because of Anthony; they cannot take the two apart in her mind.
She runs back to her quarters, shining shears in hand, cutting away at her long locks which were her and her nanny’s eternal grief. The final look is awkward, but she pins the remaining braid around her head, the only crown she wants to know.
She keeps her head up when she meets with Seeker Byron the next morning.
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9:20
Silk ribbons of every color woven in braids; glittering gems knit into nets; feathers piled high atop coiffures sculpted into flames that would rival the ones which consumed Andraste herself.
Leliana cannot have enough of any of it, her eyes darting from corner to corner, each head sporting a new sumptuous treat for her to take in. They make her feel more light headed than the wine glass which seems to magically keep refilling.
Unconsciously, she reaches for her own plain snood, the silver threads suddenly feeling dull in comparison.
The widow Marjolaine outdid them all. Leliana tried to count the number of pearls in her hair, spiraling outward from the dainty cream hat on top of her dark waves. Leliana was enchanted and cannot stop thinking about it.
“You enjoyed yourself I presume,” Lady Cecilie says warmly, jolting Leliana back to the present more than the wheels of the carriage on cobblestone.
“Very much so,” she breathes, then remembering her manners, “Thank you so much Lady Cecilie.”
“Every young girl ought to experience the fashions of Val Royeux at least once in her life. More often even to truly appreciate how fast it all changes. I certainly can’t keep up these days, but perhaps you will try your hand at them.”
Leliana wakes the next morning, head aching and guiltily lies in bed through the morning chantry service. Sometime in the afternoon she tiptoes down the stairs to the chapel in Lady Cecilie’s estate.
On the alter is a simple wooden statue of Andraste. Maybe it is the color of the wood, or the light breaking through the glass and lead windows, but something about it takes Leliana’s breath away.
Cautiously she reaches a finger out to touch the statue’s shorn wooden locks. Leliana’s never seen anything more beautiful.
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9:23
Folding his arms across his chest, Carver scowls, but remains still.
“It will take longer, the more you struggle,” mother reminds him and the ragged ends of his hair fall to the floor as she methodically shears it every spring.
“How come you’re not doing this to Garrett?”
“Your brother will have his turn when he and your father return.”
Carver grumbles louder. That just means Garrett will have a chance to laugh at his haircut first. But at least he does have to suffer his own.
When mother is done, Carver stares hard at himself in the looking glass. Even trim all the way around his head. It makes him look stupid. No wonder he can’t get any of the village girls to look at him.
There isn’t even the faintest hint of a beard yet to draw attention away from it.
“Ugh! What is that? It’s hideous!” Garrett appears in the reflection over Carver’s shoulder. “Oh. It’s just you, Carver.”
“Laugh while you can, Garrett. Mother’s coming for you next.”
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9:24
“I am thinking of growing it out,” Zevran says idly into the mirror as the others rifle through a dead man’s pockets for the keys.
“You’re thinking about making love to your own reflection,” Rinna says tartly; Taliesin chortles, handing the key off to Rinna.
Even Zevran smiles, “As always, my dear Rinna, you know how to deflate a man effortlessly.”
“And yet it never seems to work on you,” her eyes sparkle back.
Taliesin seems to be fixated on their recent mark, whose information is better to a fellow noble dead than alive. “Why? So you can look like this puffed up merchant, same as the rest of them?”
Zevran casts a sidelong glance back at himself; the memory of the guild apprentice’s last bought with the shears still fresh.
“They are their own men, are they not?”
Neither Taliesin or Rinna have a response.
Zevran continues, “Forget what Eoman has to say about it; about any of us. The three of us bring in more gold for the Crows than any assassin has in half an age. We could be allowed a few liberties.”
The others are still silent and for a moment, Zevran fears he has said too much, even for the only two he trusts beyond measure.
Finally, Rinna speaks up, “We are their greatest asset. Why shouldn’t we look as well as the ones we deal with?”
Documents in hand, they return to House Arainai with their earned spoils and proposal for those worthy of their skill.
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9:24
Marian pulls at her hair with the comb, muttering swears under her breath like Bethany can’t hear her.
“Let me help you,” Bethany offers, putting her own comb down.
“Thanks, Bethy, but it’s useless.”
“It wouldn’t be if you actually combed it out more than once a month,” she chastises her.
Marian laughs dryly, “It wouldn’t be a rat’s nest if mother would just let me chop it off.”
“And risk looking like Carver?”
Wincing, “I’m not that ugly, am I?”
Bethany laughs at Marian’s disgust, “Right now you are.”
In truth, Bethany has always thought Marian the prettier of them pair of them. All of mother’s best features softening father’s Ferelden wildman appearance.
No matter how she complains, Bethany doesn’t think she looks bad with long flowing hair. Even when she keeps it in a braid for months at a time til it snags on a tree branch. She really is quite careless sometimes.
The comb catches on a snarl, Bethany mummers, “Sorry.”
“Better you than mother. I’d never hear the end of it.”
Bethany relaxes, less afraid of tugging too hard. Some of the knots need it after all.
After a few minutes, Marian breaks the silence, “How do you stand having hair this long? Yours is so well kept and you never have any trouble like I do.”
Shrugging, “I suppose, I just like it this way. I always loved mother’s hair. I wish mine were more manageable like hers. It can be a real pain, but it’s be a lot worse if I left it alone like you.”
Marian laughs at Bethany’s attempted scolding, “Well, at least it suits you.”
Bethany looks down at the comb, moving smoothly through Marian’s hair now and smiles slightly to herself, pleased Marian agrees.
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9:24
Cullen pulls self-consciously at a tight curl in the center of his head. It springs directly back into place. He pulls at another and another, each time returning the same horrific shape as before.
How Branson and Rosalie would mock him if they could see him now. Mia at least would be sympathetic, trying to assume him it looked well, all the while with a slight humorous tug at the corner of her lips.
Sighing into the mirror, “There’s nothing to be done for it.”
The curls, which are born by all his family, are just not suited to the standard clipped cut he was given on initiation.
Cullen casts a sideways glance at Hadley, caring not a fig for his own hair, straight and easy to manage as it is. It makes him feel all the more ridiculous for fretting it; he’s worked so hard to be here, he should not be so concerned with something so vain.
Fruitlessly, Cullen attempts to smooth the curls against his head one last time.
“Hopeless,” he grumbles.
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9:25
Ma tugs at what remains of her hair.
Nephthys yelps, “Ouch!”
“Hold still. You survived a lightning strike, you can survive a little yanking. You are lucky to be alive.”
Cross, Nephthys keeps her pain to herself and lets ma continue to tug and twist her hair into place. When ma finishes the too tight braiding, she draws a dagger to shave away the rest which was too singed to save.
“Don’t flinch now,” ma warns and moves the knife nimbly around Nephthys’s still-sprouting horns.
It is much easier to sit still despite the flashing of the dagger in the sunlight, reminding Nephthys of the lightning branching out across the sky. After all, it was during the storm, she discovered just how petrifying fear can be.
“Nephthys!” pa calls.
Her attention snaps in the direction of his voice. The knife in ma’s grasp slips and nicks her scalp. Nephthys cringes, trying not to get scolded again, but as she presses down another yelp, there is a snap in the palm of her hand.
No. Not a snap. A spark.
Nephthys stares down at her hand. The snap still echoing in her ears, blocking out ma’s chastisement of her and of pa for distracting her. She imagined it. She must have.
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9:27
He keeps waiting for mother to raise up out of her chair, to let go of father’s cloak. For father to return home. Neither happens.
The days grow shorter, the nights colder. Carver yells at him for no reason; he shouts back, unable to control his temper. Bethany whispers when she speaks, as though scared of him; he pats her hand reassuringly.
Out of the corner of his eye, Garrett spies father. He spins on his heel to teasingly tell father off for leaving him in charge, so woefully unprepared. But father is not standing over his shoulder; it is only Garrett’s reflection in the looking glass.
He laughs darkly, unable to recognize his own reflection. Between the new grisly beard and weighted shoulders, he mistook himself for father.
How could he? Garrett has none of father’s charm or sense of grooming.
It’s just him, a mess and not ready to hold the family together as father did.
Garrett picks up the razor to scrape away the beard as mother insists. But her gaze has been hazy, looking through each of her children as though they’re not there. Her own hair has rapidly greyed over the past months. Neither of them are who they used to be.
Returning the razor to its place, Hawke looks back at himself. The family is his responsibility now; father made him promise.
None of them need to see the haggard frown lines the new beard hides so well.
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9:27
The rain plasters her hair to her face. She pushes it out of the way, but it just falls back into her eyes as she works. Damp logs won’t burn, but she must work; she can’t sit in that dreary house all day and watch mother stare at her hands.
Mother’s better off in Bethany’s care. Who knows where Carver’s gone off to (the Lothering tavern, no doubt), but better he’s in anywhere he isn’t upsetting mother further.
When there are no more logs to split, Marian heaves the axe over her shoulder. Swinging the door open, spark lights in mother’s eye and quickly fades. Marian knows she hopes father will stride over the threshold and make everything alright again.
Bethany hands Marian a blanket, “You’ll catch your death out there.”
She immediately bites her tongue. No reminder of father’s passing will be gentle, but father did not die from catching cold.
Marian puts her hand on her sister’s shoulder, “Why don’t you take mother to the chantry?”
Bethany nods at the suggestion, “I think, she’d like that.”
Coaxing mother out of the chair is difficult, but convincing her not to wear father’s cloak is impossible.
Alone, Marian pokes at the fire as she drips dry. Her hair falls back into her face and, without thinking, she grabs the sewing shears. Long strands of hair easily come off in the palm of her hand. Marian tosses them into the fire as the Chantry demanded they do with any item father touched in the final days of his unidentifiable ailment.
As the last of the burning aroma is drawn out through the chimney, Bethany and mother return. Though still harrowed, mother does not seek the comfort of her chair, instead making herself busy preparing supper.
“Marian, dear, would you fetch the onions from the root cellar.”
Dutifully, she does as she is asked, though mother’s hand lingers on hers in the trade off. For the first time in months it doesn’t feel as though mother is looking through her with vacant eyes.
“I like what you’ve done with your hair, darling.”
“You do?”
“It suits you. You always were as headstrong as your father, after all.”
Hawke presses her lips to mother’s forehead; she’ll keep her promise to father. She’ll do him proud for mother’s sake.
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9:28
The first dead body Sigrun ever saw was in the middle of a square in Dust Town. Devoid of any blood, the thing that really struck her was the fact that the body had no hair. Whether they never had any hair or the Carta or some noble wanted to make an example of the corpse, it doesn’t make a difference. Sigrun knows: the dead have no hair.
(Even mother’s hair was falling out in the end. Like Sigrun’s always known.)
“You’ll need more branding, now you’re one of us,” the commander assigned to her says gruffly. “That won’t be a problem for ya, will it?”
“Why would it be?” Sigrun says lightly as she glances over the Legion’s paltry leather armor. She reaches for the smallest plate.
“Most Casteless object to the addition.”
“I’m not most,” Sigrun retorts back, testing the weight of the armor in her hands. It’ll do.
With a razor she nicked out of Mischa’s shop, Sigrun brings the blade close to her scalp, removing her hair, bit by bit.
“By the Ancestors, what are you doing?” a fellow legionnaire asks, more quizzically than accusatory.
“I’m supposed to be dead, right? Dead bodies don’t have hair.”
The man laughs, “Oh I’ve seen plenty of dead in my day with more than their share of hair. I’ve still got my beard here, don’t I?”
“I suppose,” Sigrun muses, but doesn’t stop shaving until half her head is smooth like a stone.
“It’s not a bad thing they tell us we’re as good as dead, because we are, but don’t forget there’s still blood pumping through you yet.”
In time, Sigrun understands what he means.
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9:28
It wasn’t like this before. He doesn’t think so at least. He reaches up and touches the snow-white lock curling around the back of his skull, wincing at the searing pain of his arm flexing.
The white tattoos curling up his limbs, they’ve always been there.
Maybe he’s remembering wrong and his hair has always –
“An interesting side effect,” Danarius notes to his apprentice. He can’t remember her name, but he does remember his true master’s.
“Should we cut it?” she asks Danarius with disinterest.
Danarius moves his reaching arm carelessly out of the way; another jolt of unbearable pain shoots up his arm, deep in his bones.
“Hmm,” Danarius considers, wrapping the strand around his finger. “I do think it adds to the striking look. Wouldn’t you agree, Fenris?”
He isn’t sure if he’s supposed to answer, but Fenris is his name. He opens his mouth partway, his tongue tasting of iron blood. He must have bit down on his tongue sometime.
“He’s lost his voice as well,” the apprentice says in a sneering voice.
“No,” Fenris says reflexively.
The apprentice is taken aback, but Danarius’s mouth curls at the corners, “See Hadriana, the experiment was not as damaging as you worried – hoped maybe even?”
Hadriana and Fenris remain silent.
“Do not shave his head. It stays for now,” Danarius says as he turns on his heel, leaving the room. Hadriana follows closely behind, leaving Fenris alone.
Cautiously, he steps towards the wall, covered in reflective, shining tiles. The tattoos have always crawled and curled over his body; his hair has always been as white as blank page.
And yet dark brows raise up in question. What doesn’t he remember?
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9:29
The long strokes of the hairbrush are a relief from wielding a broadax all day, though Kat will readily admit to being more comfortable with the latter.
“Are you just about ready to braid?” Rica asks, breaking Kat’s trance. She isn’t impatient, but she cannot linger tonight.
“Sorry,” Kat murmurs, parting her sister’s hair into three parts.
Rica’s hair is such a lovely deep auburn; a lucky gain from her father. It is the purest red, like a silk gown Kat saw for sale in the Diamond Quarter, not like the red Berhat smears on Rica’s face.
As Kat wraps each strand around the other, the light catches traces of gold, like the thread in the nobleman’s tunic, not like the coins Rica stuffs under Kat’s mattress to hide from their mother.
“I wish I had your hair,” Kat sighs, not for the first time, glancing at her own.
Her hair only resembles dirty dishwater; shorn short and hanging loose. The ends are just long enough they brush against the top of her shoulders, creating an undesirable itch, even though not directly on skin.
“But you have such lovely texture,” Rica says cajolingly without turning around. “It’s a shame you can’t grow it longer.”
Kat shrugs unseen at Rica’s appeasement. “It wouldn’t be practical.”
She ties off the end; Rica stands. “Don’t wait up for me.”
Kat watches as Rica and her heavy braid disappear behind the door, then Kat gets up herself, pulling her loose hair back and tying as well in a swift movement.
After all, Berhat could call on her tonight for a different kind of job.
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9:29
Having perfected the art of sneaking into a kitchen, Alistair’s optimistic of his chances slipping out of his bunk, even with his loudly growling stomach.
Alistair tiptoes through the dark halls, trying not to hit unfamiliar corners in the dark unsuccessfully.
“Ow, ow, ow!” he winces as quietly as he can.
Lit by the perpetual fires in the hearth, Alistair’s almost made it to the desired stew when he catches a glance at his warped reflection in the copper pots.
Leaning closer, he runs his fingers through the front of his hair. It might be getting a bit long for his tastes; certainly too long for a templar initiate – which he is no longer, he must remind himself. So many of the other wardens let their hair go wild and long. Alistair’s not sure he’s ready for that.
Fixing his hair just so, he doesn’t hear the kitchen door open and the cook, Gains, come in.
“Fretting about chin hair, are we?” he asks over the loud clattering of Alistair banging into the pot and, thank the Maker, not spilling any of the day’s stew.
“Uh, yes,” Alistair stammers. There are a few hairs there to finally warrant regular shaving, but thankfully nothing so dreadful as some of the beards he’s seen on other wardens.
“It’ll come in soon enough,” Gains chuckles.
Sheepishly, Alistair sneaks one final glance in the pot, hair now satisfactorily standing on its own. He’s got to find a better place to preen.
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9:29
Grubby hands reach for her, no different than the soft and warm ones which used to.
(The servants used to call her hands grubby. Ha! These new hands which took Lady Em’s place put Sera’s old hands to shame. She’s got to practice getting even worse.)
“It’s not right for you to be styled like the human nobles,” the woman with another set of dirt-smeared hands says in weird hushy tones. “You’re one of us; you’re with your people now.”
“No!” Sera kicks hard against the air, just slipping out of reach. “I’m not you!”
“I didn’t say that dear,” the woman says in a voice like how Lady Em used to when she was about to give Sera a plateful of cookies. Sera sees red.
“I know what you said and I don’t want cookies!” Sera cries out, stomach twisting and turning like when she found out.
“I’m sorry, I’m confused,” the woman says dropping the voice. For a split second, Sera likes her. Then she remembers what comes after.
“No noble’s hair or elfy’s. They’re all the same with their stupid pride,” Sera’s voice cracks, sore from yelling.
Quick as she can she slips out of the woman’s house, smaller than half the pantry back home – no, not home.
Sera scurries into an alley where she watches cutpurses take more than the charity people intended to. She manages to get a knife off a slower thief. It’s still tucked there behind a barrel.
Hair comes off in nice clumps it turns out. Feeling the itchy ends, Sera smiles.
Sera’s hair, no one else’s.
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9:30
There is blood crusted in the ends of her hair. Fianait frowns at it in the firelight.
She doesn’t regret gutting Lord Vaughan. How could she? But beyond the city walls, she feels vulnerable. Still, she’d rather be vulnerable than trapped.
“How far to Ostagar?” she asks Duncan, giving her space and quietly humming to himself.
“Nearly three hundred miles. We can be there in ten days, if we don’t waste time.”
Fianait nods. “What sort of welcome should I expect?”
Duncan crooks his brow, “How do you mean?”
“As an elf.”
“You are my recruit. Elf or no, you are owed the same respect as any other warden, though I am not so naïve to assume you will receive it.”
Fianait scoffs, “Figures. My world is so much bigger now, but people’s minds are just as small.”
Duncan chuckles to himself, “Adaia said something similar first time she left Denerim.”
Fianait frowns again. Her mother had a chance to change her life, to live beyond the walls, which contained them, but she chose to stay. If Fianait had a choice now, she wonders if she would have made the same one or been bold and followed Duncan as she is now.
But things are how they are and she is who she is, nothing can change that. If Fianait must accept those facts, so must the world.
From of her pack, Fianait draws out the Fang of Fen’Harel, mother’s dagger. With very little regard for the locks which used to shield her ears from public view, she shears away her blood-soaked hair almost to her scalp. She only leaves a little length for fear of cutting too close.
In the morning, she catches a glimpse of herself in a nearby stream as she rinses the dirt from her face. Fianait frowns; she hadn’t realized quite how short she cut her hair. It messily sticks out at awkward angles, but her ears protrude unapologetically.
Smoothing it down, Fianait accustoms herself to it. Who cares what anyone else thinks? She doesn’t have to impress anyone.
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9:30
The murky bog water turns to glass with a wave of her hand.
Flemeth tuts, “This simply will not do.”
How her appearance has served through Morrigan’s childhood has nothing to do with the impression she must make now. The Witch of the Wilds is an old crone who stalks the swamp hunting for victims to hex, not a goddess bestowing a quest upon a burgeoning hero.
Daring all her weight onto the glass, it shatters – plunging Flemeth into the waters. Like her ancient followers, she sinks, cleansing herself with all the prayers which have been offered to her over the ages of her deception. They pound in her ears with the mounting pressure until she hits the silty bottom like a stone.
Strength returns to her aching bones and muscle sinew. Her skin pulls taught across her body. Her matted iron grey hair detangles and grows, shining like silver.
Naked as a babe, Mythal spreads her arms and pushes herself through the murky waters to the surface.
Breathing in the air, Mythal’s skin hardens to scale. Breathing out, she roars.
If Morrigan is clever she will likely discover Flemeth’s secret soon. Mythal will be prepared for her daughter’s return and destinies must be forged.
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9:30
Straight into a storm, the qunari have chased them. It will be the doom of them all, but Isabela cackles gleefully, taking up the helm.
“We’re still faster! They’ll never catch us in there!”
Her confidence bolsters the crew’s, cheering in reply. Their cries are carried on the winds, a sound that would rattle the hearts of any lesser pursuer.
“All hands!”
Rain plummets to the deck and the winds kick up again. Isabela isn’t cowed by thunder and lightning, but if she’s to sail them through the storm she must focus on the ship and not on the prize waiting for them on the shore when they deliver the relic.
Untying the kerchief she nicked from a stall in the Antiva City marketplace, Isabela secures the blue cloth around her head.
Hair bound, she sets her sights on the eye of the storm.
----------
9:30
It is no easy thing to remake oneself over again, as one is only born once. But then once, he was Ashkaari and now he is Hissrad.
(Tama told him he told so many lies, he’d likely make himself over and over again before he died with a knife in his back.
Confused, “In my back?”
She affectionately tapped his nose. “They’ll never get you if they come from where you can see them.”)
He deals in secrets, but it is no secret what he’s about to walk into in Seheron: utter madness. It would be hubris to think he could escape the asala-taar, but he cannot let his fear take him like it takes so many other soldiers. (And if reports to the south are to be believed, there is more madness coming for them all.)
Hissrad takes one good look at the long braid down his back. It is unacceptable for a soldier, and though he is no karashok, it would be best to start thinking like one before he walks into the jungle.
A knife easily takes care of the braid. It ingratiated him with the Tal-Vasoth who sold their souls to Tevinter; he has no use for it anymore.
“Fucking Vints,” he mumbles under his breath as it falls to the ground.
“You can say that again,” one of the karasaad laughs.
So he does, this time with a shit-eating grin.
Taking up a razor, there’s not a single hair left on his head, every inch a proper soldier of the Qun.
----------
9:31
A loose strand of Jeyne’s hair mingles with Zevran’s in a sharp contrast; a dark curve not unlike the tattoos slashed across his cheek and ribs.
The similarities send a shiver down Jeyne’s back, exposed in the chill night air. Without opening his eyes, Zevran puts a warm hand over her hip and across the small of her back.
“You shouldn’t be cold, amor.”
“I’m not,” Jeyne half-heartedly protests, but the thought is already at the tip of her tongue. “It’s just… my being nobility doesn’t bother you?”
Now Zevran opens his eyes. “Why should it?”
Jeyne rolls slightly back on her hip, her shorter hair pulling away from Zevran’s longer locks. With her better vantage, she looks him in the eye. Tentatively, she reaches out to run a finger along the tattoo on his ribs.
“All your life, people high up telling you what to do, what to be,” she muses out loud, trailing off.
“No one has ever told me what to be – at least not successfully,” Zevran says firmly, though not in irritation. “I won’t have you thinking that sort of thing. Let others think that if they wish –” he doesn’t glance over his shoulder at the camp but Jeyne does “– But I couldn’t forgive myself if you did.”
Jeyne sighs, not entirely in relief. “Everything is so uncertain –”
“So let us be the one thing that is, a handsome couple such as ourselves?”
Jeyne can’t help but smirk, brushing her hair back over her shoulder, “We are rather fetching, aren’t we?”
“Exactly.”
----------
9:31
There might as well still be the soot of the burned forest clinging to both of their hair. Velanna’s fingers move smoothly through her sister’s, but she feels the dusty remains clinging to her skin.
“How is it you always manage to keep your hair from getting tangled running from the shems?” Velanna asks Seranni with a sardonic grin curling onto her face.
“Well, it’s a lot easier when you keep it short,” Seranni retorts brightly, a gentle jab at Velanna’s own long and frequently bedraggled locks.
“Tsk,” Velanna protests, never the cleverest the two of them when it comes to words.
She dusts her hands off briskly, then deftly begins to take up delicate strands of Seranni’s hair, braiding with ease. Maybe she’s not so good with words, but she is quite good with her hands. It made her an invaluable First once, no matter what Keeper Ilshae thinks of her now.
“She will want you back someday soon, don’t worry,” Seranni says gently, intuiting Velanna’s thoughts better than anyone else in the world.
“I called her a coward,” Velanna shrugs, finishing off the braid. “I doubt it.”
Seranni turns Velanna’s shoulders so Velanna’s back is to her, taking out the deep knots in her hair. “She loves you as I do. Everything could be back to normal before we know it.”
Velanna snorts, but trusts Seranni’s intuition, just as she trusts her to put her hair in a tight, twisted bun.
“Put in a good word for me, will you?” Velanna asks as Seranni heads back to the clan.
“Of course.”
(Seranni never comes back; Velanna never undoes the knot.)
----------
9:31
“You’d think after the Blight the weather would choose to cooperate,” Connie laughs out loud, pulling her cloak closer around her head, her hair already stringy from the heavy rain.
“The south – so unpredictable,” Zevran chortles from several strides behind her. “I’m sorry to say, my dear, but I don’t think much of your Ferelden.”
Connie pushes what she can out of her face and doesn’t respond. To be fair, Loghain Mac Tir and Rendon Howe have spoiled much of any loyalty she had for the nobles of her country. Thank the Maker, she has the Grey Wardens now to direct her attention should this endeavor prove fruitless.
It stops raining sometime in the night, but the lingering damp and stink of the swamp cannot be brushed out of Connie’s hair.
“Is that mud? I think, it’s mud,” Connie mutters out loud, cracking it off.
They run into straggler soldiers on the road, all with conflicting reports on where Fergus was last seen, but Connie is confident they must be getting close.
A camp of wild looking soldiers rises out of the reeds.
“I’m looking for Fergus Cousland!” Connie calls out from a distance.
“He’s out hunting, who’s asking?” a voice calls back.
Connie hesitates for a moment, still on guard from a year of life on the run. “A survivor from Highever.”
Before anyone can answer, there’s a booming cry from the south and a bearded man striding forward to embrace her.
Stepping back from the stranger, “Fergus?”
Looking over Connie’s own disheveled appearance, he grins, “I’d recognize you anywhere, sister.”
----------
9:31
Cold water drips from the unyielding stones onto Nathaniel’s head. The storm outside does nothing to dowse the raging battle outside.
He feels strangely safe behind the cell’s bars. Ironic, considering the fate which awaits him when whatever victor finds him here, but then he never thought he would wind up imprisoned in his family’s own ancestral keep, being kept guard by Grey Wardens no less.
Another drip plops on his head and Nathaniel must push his slick hair out of his eyes to see.
Not that the otherwise empty prison is much to look at.
Some pride of the Howes he turned out to be. He won’t even look presentable at his own execution.
----------
9:32
“It’ll do just fine, mama, stop making such a fuss,” Lace grumbles as gently as she can.
She knows it’s her mother’s greatest disappointment she cannot live up to her lofty, lady-like name, but there’s no fine needlework to be done. Ferelden farms finally need hands again after near a year of poor yields and sickly livestock.
“Just try to stay warm, alright love?” mama reminds her as she tucks in Lace’s scarf even tighter.
“Alright papa, I’m off,” Lace calls over her shoulder.
The early spring gales blow something fierce; Lace continuously brushes newly freed locks out of her eyes, though she knows the road to Farmer Jerry’s like the back of her hand.
“I’m here!” she tries to announce herself as cheerfully as possible, despite being cold and wind-bitten already.
Farmer Jerry looks up from his stooped over position when Lace makes her way up the path.
“The Harding girl; is it?” he asks in a creaky voice, beginning to rise.
Pushing her hair away again, “Yes, sir. No – don’t get up sir, I know where the paddock is just fine.”
The sheep are as unperturbed by Lace’s arrival as they are by the winds. “Look at you,” she chuckles. “Nice and warm and no bothersome hair in your faces!”
The sheep bleat in disinterest.
Lace shakes her head, untucking the scarf and wraps all the offending locks up nice and neat.
----------
9:32
Prayers start before the day proper; jeynejeynebrian’s hands dip below the cold surface of the stream, taking on a blue quality to them under the ripples.
She would linger and stare but Istimaethoriel stands close behind her, no doubt a crooked brow waiting for Celebrian to do something behind the waterfall of her loose hair. Hastily, “Mythal, all-mother, protector of the People –”
Istimaethoriel applies Nial’s vallaslin in silence; Celebrian keeps her hand wrapped tight around her staff, as much as she’d like to run it over her still bare cheeks.
Now standing behind the Keeper, washing the ink from her hands, Celebrian posits, “If Mythal came from the rivers, why does vallaslin in her service look so much like a tree and its roots?”
“If there once was a true reason, we must have lost it over the ages, but it’s appropriate, wouldn’t you agree? A river’s water may nourish the roots of a tree, allowing it to grow and flourish, just as Mythal –”
“Helps us grow,” Celebrian responds dutifully. “The roots need to be strong.”
It’s rote, but the thought stays with her through the night.
When it’s morning again and still in lingering dark, Celebrian considers her curtain of untended hair. She can’t leave it like this forever.
Very carefully she begins twisting and pinning, the braids and strands finding some natural root like the ones which reach for the riverbank. It isn’t refined, but then neither is nature, just as Mythal would have it.
----------
9:32
The room is still, but the air isn’t oppressive like a brothel or, worse, back home. Dorian takes it in before he even puts down his bags. It was odd, being greeted warmly by Alexius and his wife, not with stony silence or cold words.
Like they want him here.
“And how long before this tutor sends you packing?” Dorian asks himself aloud, anything to break the silence and the ringing in his ears that accompanies it.
He cut his hair before his arrival, too far gone to save from what transpired in the slums. Catching a glimpse of his reflection in the solitary mirror, he sighs as he drops his bags on the bed.
“It’s a start.”
Dorian fiddles with his new moustache. It’s a weak attempt to make himself look older, to disguise the years of schooling he missed out on, even if he doesn’t really need it.
“Mother says dinner’s in an hour,” a voice says from the doorway. Dorian almost jumps out of his skin but makes a good show of not being startled. Turning around, he’s faced by a boy, clearly his father’s son, though still too young to grow his own facial hair.
Before Dorian can respond, Felix pipes up, “Is that moustache some sort of fashion in Minrathous?”
“It’s distinguished,” Dorian counters with an edge.
“That’s not what my friends say you are.”
“Well, your friends are little shits,” Dorian risks the insult. To his correct judgement, Felix smiles like his father at Dorian’s barb. “Wait until you can grow one all your own.”
“I’d rather not,” Felix says dryly.
They’re still talking when a servant fetches them late to dinner.
----------
9:33
“You’re not terribly Antivan are you?” Marcelle asked Josephine when she arrived at the academy.
Outwardly, Josephine hadn’t understood it at the time. She wore her hair in the same topknot her mother had always styled for her; the very same topknot mother wore herself.
And none of Josephine’s other young peers, for all their outrageous fashions wore a gold lip ring.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she murmured self-consciously.
She knows what Marcelle meant now; too reserved to match the Orlesian expectation that all Antivans must be as flamboyant as the merchant princes in manner and appearance.
But years in the Orlesian court have taught her how not to be Orlesian either. If an Antivan is too concerned with being the loudest voice in the room, an Orlesian is too concerned with being the most self-important. As ambassador, she can be neither.
Josephine sighs at her reflection in the vanity; the perfect twin to Yvette’s moping on how to style her hair on any particular day.
Despite her better judgement, she begins to pin her hair in the latest curls; her predecessor, Miranda, wore them the day she vacated the embassy.
Josephine is halfway through the pins when she’s struck with the idea. There was a merchant she saw on the docks in Val Royeux selling fruits and vegetables. It wasn’t plain, but it was practical.
Carefully she begins rolling her hair as she remembers the merchant’s. As ambassador, she must put others at ease and if they feel more important than her, then that will suit.
----------
9:34
The news arrives before the ships from Kirkwall; Viddasala puts the letter in Kithshok’s hands, who in turn passes it to him.
“I have only made Karasten,” he protests, a Sten all his years since the madness in Ferelden.
“Do not doubt the judgement. The Qun needs a mind which understands the south in the years and wars to come. Arishok turned to his own ego before the qunari.” Then, with almost irony (he became too acquainted with the idiosyncrasy during the Blight), Viddasala says, “You are one of our lucky ones; do not doubt the value in that either.”
Karasten swears under his breath, but accepts.
Pulled away from Seheron, he reacquaints himself with Par Vollen, seeing what the people say of the previous Arishok when they think the Ben-Hassrath cannot hear. (Fools. The Ben-Hassrath can always hear.)
Though all are relieved at the return of the Tome of Koslun, few relish the prospect of a renewed war with the south as well as Tevinter.
“He spent more time lording over his small gain than searching,” one bemoans.
“Relying on bas and not his own,” another spits.
Arishok listens to this all and considers, as he had with the wardens once. He will not make the same mistakes.
His predecessor took too much pride in the gold pressed into his horns and skin; Arishok looks much as he did when he returned from Ferelden when he kneels and takes on his new name.
As soon as the task is done, he turns on his heel and returns to Seheron, where Arishok is always needed. He will lead from there.
----------
9:35
This is the longest Arash has ever been able to grow his hair, not that he’s ever particularly tried before. It’s always come in patchy and irritating and it’s just as easy to take a razor to it as not.
He grabs the grease, sickly smelling and thick, and with it warmed between his palms, begins running it through the mane of hair running down the middle of his skull. It stands on end relatively impressively and when judging his appearance in the reflection of the pond, is moderately pleased with the affect.
Footsteps crunch up behind him and Mol’s voice adopts a tone of disgust.
“That smells awful! What did you use, the wagon black?”
“The axle grease, actually,” Arash informs her.
“Andraste’s tits, why?”
“Don’t you think it makes me look more intimidating?” he asks, now a little uncertain.
“You’re over seven feet tall and practically a wall of muscle. You really needed to add to the affect and bring a smell into it?” Mol asks sardonically.
Every taunt from other Tal-Vasoth about his choice to pick up a shield rather than a hammer echoes in Arash’s head. Noncommittally, “I’m the newest and the youngest member of the company. Everyone’s expecting me to be a hardass like the boss.”
Mol snorts, “No one’s the hardass Tully is and trust me, in a fight, everyone’s seeing some big qunari bastard come at them. That’s intimidating.”
Arash takes another glimpse at his reflection. “I’m keeping the hair though.”
“You know they make stuff that actually doesn’t smell like ass, right?”
Arash flashes a grin at her, “You don’t think it helps?”
Mol gags.
----------
9:36
His face itches. When he goes to scratch the new stubble scratches back. Thom jerks his hand away.
It’s been a week since he’s seen his reflection proper. Since Warden Blackwall collected his new recruit and laid down for an undeserving, unworthy man like him.
It’s been a week since Thom Rainier has been free to choose his own path.
Though he probably looks more like a feral Ferelden than a distinguished commander. He scratches at the scruff again, expecting it this time.
Perhaps it is not such a bad thing a beard is growing in. Thom Rainier can disappear as he was meant to and Thedas can have Warden Gordon Blackwall back. The world deserves more good men like him.
----------
9:37
The razor nicks his skin; Krem sucks in a hiss of pain.
“You’re going to have to stop moving,” Stitches seems to be talking through a clenched jaw.
“I’m not moving,” Krem grumbles in protest. He really wasn’t; it turns out Stitches is just an appalling barber.
“Am I going to prove better with an edge than you too?” Stitches jokes blandly.
“Fat chance,” Krem counters. “How about I don’t elbow in on your needlework and you don’t come for my sword work.” Krem pauses, trying valiantly to stay still while Stitches finishes the job. “I don’t know how you managed to survive your Blight, shoddy as your technique is.”
“Don’t you start with that too, like an Orlesian, or I’ll give you a bad haircut to boot.”
The scraping at the back of Krem’s neck stops. Stitches reaches around waving the blade in Krem’s face. With a final jostle to his back, “There. You take care of the front yourself, lieutenant.”
“Thanks.”
Krem examines his small reflection in the metal. Of all the people to come over from Fisher’s, he’s glad Stitches was one of them. It’s nice to have someone to rib, who’s only an ass to him because he’s Tevene, despite being one step below the boss.
Krem trusts Stitches with the back of his head because it’s not like there’s any mirrors in this Maker-forsaken wilderness to keep up appearances.
His hair was too long anyway; he needs both eyes to keep a lookout for the Iron Bull.
----------
9:39
Wind blows harshly in western Orlais; creeping ever closer to the seemingly endless Western Approach and to parts unknown except possibly the first Grey Wardens.
There is no hair oil in the farthest reaches of civilization and Elaine’s scalp protests when she snags another knot in her windblown hair.
“Merde,” she hisses to herself.
“Just cut it,” Pierre says irritably. Elaine could kick him. After all, her hair is aggravating her, not him.
“I will when you shave,” she retorts. He reflexively reaches up for the paltry stubble which clings to his chin.
“As I thought,” she smirks, returning her attention to her seemingly untenable hair. A braid serves most days, same as it had when practicing with her knives in a secluded courtyard on one of her father’s estates.
Darkspawn do not care for the niceties her half-siblings do, which Elaine can appreciate about those demons from hell compared to the ones she is related to. They crawl out of caves which tunnel down to the Deep Roads covered head to toe in gore.
Elaine makes her way to the nearby stream, splashing water in her face. As she begins to undo her braid, grimacing at the thick, black blood clinging to her hair, it occurs to her this could be the softest her hair has felt since Solange had her pulled practically stark naked from the bath.
With a hearty chuckle to Pierre and Unae’s mystified expressions, “A use for darkspawn blood we could sell to all the nobles back in Val Royeux!”
----------
9:39
Someone’s passing reflection catches his eye in the icy surface of the pond. It is a ghastly sight.
It is a reckoning of a man, thin practically to the bone barely propped up by his staff. What were once plain if serviceable robes are now shrouded rags, ready for the pyre which he will not have. He is indifferent to the cold nonetheless.
(Once he was healthy and hale, as much as anyone can be in the confines of the Circle. He hasn’t had a square meal since Varric and Hawke paid for one for him – it cannot have been that long ago.)
There are a few long strands of remaining hair clinging to his skull, truthfully one of the few things keeping Anders from looking like the abomination Justice was when they first crossed paths.
(Now he is the same abomination and perhaps in time, Justice will find some other wretched soul to play out the same unhappy dance. Maybe someone who isn’t a corpse or as good as a walking one.)
He despised the Grey Wardens in the end, his quick and easy escape from injustice, then bound himself to the righteous fury of true justice. But it makes no difference which he has willingly chosen; it now appears both would have him end in the same unhappy way.
It is not an easy task, the ghost of Justice’s old voice echoes in his head.
“That’s why I’m doing it,” Anders says aloud to himself, voice cracking the stillness of the night.
Someone must.
----------
9:40
Even on the fringes of society, it is obvious this is not the world he bargained for.
What transpired in his years of sleep, Solas can only guess. Elvhen history obliterated. Dwarven history lost. Qunari history incomplete. Human history biased and ignorant.
What he knows is his people are once more slaves, their connection to the Fade is severed, and he did nothing to prevent this. He is the sole cause. It was all for nothing.
Now the orb is lost as well. He cannot restore the world.
The high winds howl the depths of his despair and sorrow. Solas sinks to his knees in the snow before a defaced alter to the Dread Wolf – to him.
From his boot he draws a dagger, one of a once matched set (the other now lost like the world), and hacks at the mane of hair which grew while he slept. It is the token of another, the pride of the man he once was. He does not deserve it.
Solas does not stop at the root, but lightly shaves all the way to the scalp.
When next he passes his reflection, Solas does not recognize himself any more than he recognizes the world.
----------
9:40
No curtains to draw back, only rain hammering away on the sill, bitter and cold. The room is dark, all candles snuffed off by the winds which blow through. So many things are empty here.
Compassion cannot feel the cold nor the wind; cannot be bidden in by a strong gust. Yet Compassion knows they are there.
So many people die out in the rain and cold. Not this one.
What form can be taken outside the Fade is not strong, but the Veil is thin around those with magic. The soul in the body is snuffed out and near as cold as the room, but it is enough.
Gently, for Compassion can rarely do more than that, the soft hair is parted to reveal eyes, wide in shock.
It would have been a mercy for the others if they were closed, but it helps Compassion. Compassion understands the fear that was here, is still here, in this once boy.
I’m sorry, says Compassion, though there is nothing to hear their cry of empathy.
Other spirits may join bodies like a bucket to be filled, a building to be fled. Compassion creeps, tentative and slow. The sensation is new. Dark, darker than the furthest corners of the Fade. But not cold.
Slowly, ever slowly, a tiny light glows and grows. Compassion can only watch, feeling the new constrains and boundaries of the boy, Cole.
Compassion knows this now because Cole knew it once.
“Thank you,” Compassion croaks in Cole’s voice, not to be heard over the lashing rain.
----------
9:40
There are so many things one forgets with age. Mercifully, there are certain things that have grown hazy with time.
Corners of the barn where she sheltered in the hay. The endless books she paged through in her youth. Small disappointments over the years have been replaced by even greater ones, as well as magnificent triumphs she could never have imagined as a middle-ranking mage in the Circle.
She doesn’t remember when Rhys was born; gone before she could come to her senses, but now she unmistakably looks at her son and there is no question, he is hers.
He has the same dark hair she once had, so long ago. She would say he has his father’s eyes, but she knows Rhys’s face better than she remembers the man she knew only a few months.
Rhys’s hair is already streaked with grey, the burdens of Circle politics weighing on him as they once weighed on her. After today and the loss of his friend, he’ll likely go as white as her.
“You have to help her,” Rhys does not so much plead as order over the templar Evangaline.
“I’ll do everything I can,” Wynne says determinedly. She never wanted to be a mother, but it is the least she can do.
In a flash of white, white as snow, white as her hair, Faith pulls from her body and dives into Evangaline’s.
She doesn’t feel her own body collapsing to the ground one last time.
----------
9:41
Mother’s last tongue lashing stings between Medb’s shoulder blades.
Crude and horrible things were said by both; wishes of death on the other. Frankly, if Medb doesn’t come back, she’s not sure mother would even notice, too absorbed in her drink.
Still, there’s a reason Medb never put her faith in others and mother continuously proves her right; wits and blades have always served her much better.
Perhaps if she does come back from Haven, mother will not recognize her. What a blessing from the gods that would be.
Thoughts race through her head as they tread through the forest ever closer to their destination, until suddenly Mihris signals for them to rest. Medb could go on for hours more into the dark, but these are woods unknown to them, traveling as a group requires far more caution.
Medb keeps to the fringes of camp, twirling her dagger. Mother’s last words still echo in her ears.
In a fit of frustration and annoyance, she grabs a fistful of her hair and shears it so close to the skin her heart nearly misses a beat. She throws the lock to the ground and hacks away at the other side.
Might as well play into mother’s inability to recognize anything which does not reek of alcohol.
She takes more care not to cut herself as she shaves the side of her head clean.
----------
9:42
The bang is not unexpected, the materials she’s been using are highly unstable after all.
Harritt can’t help but shake his head at her from across the Undercroft. Dagna must give him credit, he tolerates her experiments far better than anyone at Kinloch Hold ever did. The mages were all so stuffy about just about everything.
“Mind passing me that water bucket,” Dagna coughs through the smoke. Her nose hairs tingle from the burning sensation. “Harritt, hurry up with the safety bucket!”
She turns to see what’s taking him so long. Harritt screams and tosses the water over her head. Too late, Dagna holds her hands up to block the splash and she is drenched head to toe.
“What’d you do that for?”
“Your eyebrows were on fire!” Harritt wheezes.
Reaching up, she feels for her brows only to find two spots that have been completely singed.
Dagna laughs, “They’ll grow back. Have I ever told you about the time my whole head nearly caught fire? That was when I had to start taking more precautionary measures.”
She chuckles merrily at Harritt’s horrified expression.
“You’re a menace.”
“Wouldn’t learn any other way.”
----------
9:42
Lisbet curses and Cec’s ears perk up. He expects it now, that when she speaks it is directed to him, even though he doesn’t understand. After all, it’s been just the two of them for so long.
Only she’s not talking to him this time, just the way the infernal wind tangles her hair. The knot Lisbet currently battles refuses to loosen no matter how much she tugs.
She lets out a frustrated groan and tosses her comb to the ground, reaching for her dagger.
Cec whines and paws at her leg.
Lisbet pauses, gaze flitting between Cec and the knife. Leliana gave her this dagger, just in case she said with a wink. Lisbet’s eyes prick with the reminder of her love, so far away.
At the thought of how Leliana would run her fingers through Lisbet’s long locks when she was plagued with darkspawn dreams or how she complimented it even when Lisbet hated how short she cut it after leaving Kinloch Hold, Lisbet lowers the dagger.
This journey has been trial enough without needing to sacrifice that which she has treasured since childhood. Not when it still has not reached its original length.
Lisbet sighs, resigned. She never did care to braid her hair either, but it is the only practical solution out here.
----------
9:43
There’s no time of the day her fresh haircut doesn’t stand on end: early morning bed head, after training helmet hair, a stressful meeting finger combing, a pre-bed spiking by Sera.
Sera cackles gleefully at the handiwork. “You should wear it like this all the time.”
Eirene grins, “It’d send Vivienne into a fit.”
“Then you definitely should.”
“You planning to wake up early enough to spike it for me?”
Sera blows a raspberry in response.
Eirene laughs, “I didn’t think so.”
She wouldn’t mind it, honestly, but she messes it around enough herself that the spikes wouldn’t last five minutes into the day.
“What if I swiped Cullen’s hair wax? You would look amazing and Cullen’s haircut would go all –” Sera gestures her arms like an explosion and blows more air between her lips.
Eirene doubles over in laughter, but doesn’t explicitly encourage Sera to go through with it. But in the morning a small jar has appeared on the vanity. At the council meeting, while Eirene’s hair is spiked, Cullen’s head is all curls.
----------
9:43
“He’s going to hate it.”
“I don’t really give a damn,” Aveline says curtly to the reflection of Donnic behind her. She gives her shorn head one more close run over with her fingers and a final adjustment of her headband. It feels coarse and bristly, like the still sharp memory of her father.
“You’re Captain of the Guard. Please try to remain on speaking terms with our new Viscount,” Donnic says with a wry smile as Aveline turns on her heel to face him. “I’d prefer not to have our patrols upended again.”
Aveline manages a grin for Donnic as she bends over to place a kiss on his forehead.
“I’m nothing but professional; the Viscount should have no problem with the Captain of the Guard. And if Varric has a problem with me, well, then we’ll settle the matter a different way.”
(She saw the engravings for the printers laid out the last time Varric called the Hanged Man home. She’d casually rifled through them, stopping on one.
“You’re a lot more fun than the Seeker, you know?” he said, looking at her over his glasses.
Mouth half-pursed, “I find that hard to believe.”
Still, it was an idea.)
The throne room’s filled with petitioners in a way it hasn’t been in over a decade; everyone’s clamoring to say their piece. Aveline sighs and waits her turn patiently.
He hasn’t looked up from the new stack of papers when she steps forward. “Thank the Maker you’re up, you don’t need your hand held like – oh, shit.”
To Varric’s credit, nothing is knocked off the table next to him.
Deadpan, “Lest you get any ideas about fun, Viscount.”
“You’ve won this round, Aveline.”
----------
9:44
Unconsciously, Kieran runs his hand through his hair as he reads. Unraveling the mysteries of entropic magic, he twists a strand around his finger.
“Would you like a trim, little man?”
Kieran startles at mother’s question; the lock unwinds from his finger.
“It has grown quite wild since we left court.”
“I had not thought about it, mother.”
In truth, it was strange to have been continuously pampered and dressed at the Winter Palace. Strange and uncomfortable to wear clothing meant for play, but not to get dirty. Strange to see mother so restricted by gowns grand enough for the empress. Finery suited neither of them.
“Of course, there is no need if you prefer it this way.”
Shaggy fringe falls in his eyes as Kieran glances back down at the book. It would be nice to be able to read unimpeded, but it is hardly an inconvenience compared to the soaps and oils he would have to carry to keep himself groomed in the Orlesian fashion. It is not practical.
But he would rather not be mistaken for an Avaar either.
Closing the book, Kieran nods, “Not too short, mother.”
----------
9:44
Skyhold clears out faster than anyone could have predicted. The rookery empties quickest of all, Leliana recruiting her best spies to her Divine network. The mages’ tower is next, then the barracks, and suddenly there are a lot fewer people for Tempe to wail on with her practice longsword.
She takes to slumping in one of the armchairs in Josie’s office. Her sour mood unfortunately makes it difficult for Josie to convince diplomats their cause is still worth fighting.
Tempe snorts rather loudly at one noble who has the gall to accuse her of making the whole thing up. It takes all of Josie’s might to usher the noble from the office before Tempe can start waving her stump of an arm in their face.
Returning, Josie kneels before Tempe, taking Tempe’s hand in hers, “I know it’s hard, my love, but you mustn’t let yourself sink into this helplessness.”
Determinedly, Tempe tries to sink deeper into the cushions.
“You must take care of yourself.”
“What’s the point?”
Josie is taken aback by her defeated tone. Tempe feels guiltier for having burdened Josie with her woes than anything she said to that prick.
But Josie is stronger of will than Tempe is now, “If you won’t take care of yourself for your own benefit then do it for mine.”
“It’s not that easy. The fight’s gone. I don’t know what to do next.”
“Then let me help,” Josie pleads.
Swallowing her stubbornness, Tempe allows Josie to lead her to their chamber. First things first, Josie washes Tempe’s unkempt hair. She combs it out then takes up the razor to shave Tempe’s untidy stubble away.
Tempe watches Josie clean her up in the mirror and when she’s finished shaving under Tempe’s chin, she reaches up towards the overgrown undercut.
“Wait,” Tempe croaks.
Josie pauses.
“Let me.”
----------
9:44
Of all the things Sekhmet must relearn, she’s glad it isn’t how to handle her hair. The past few months have proven tiring enough on their own without every morning being an extra fight.
She never really used the looking glass in her quarters anyway – what use was something like that for a life spent on the road?
Instinctively, Sekhmet sits up in the large bedroll she shares with Sera, smoothing out her hair with her right hand, then quick as she can, knotting it around itself behind her horns.
“Why are you up?” she thinks she hears Sera mutter irritably into her pillow.
“Can’t let the day go to waste,” Sekhmet teases. “We’ve got a tent to break down and baddies to take on.”
Sera doesn’t respond, but jerks herself up in an unamused manner. As they disassemble their camp, Sera looks at Sekhmet through still tired, squinting eyes.
“H’come you’re still keeping it?” she mimes a swirl in at the back of her head.
Sekhmet shrugs, “Because it’s easy and it’s what I’ve always done, as soon as my horns came in. Why? Do you have a suggestion?”
Sera yawns and doesn’t respond, still peeved she’s awake.
Sekhmet grins, “I suppose I could take a knife to it, give myself a Sera-cut.”
Sera groans, “Please tell me Varric didn’t write that.”
“Nope, thought of it all by myself.” Sekhmet half grimaces, “It’d stick out something awful around the horns though.”
This, for some reason is what jolts Sera awake. Smirking mischievously, “Then we’ve gotta try it, yeah?”
Oh no, Sekhmet’s created a monster.
----------
9:45
It’s been a long time since she’s been in the Deep Roads proper. Never has it been so beneficial to her. The archdemon will never know they’re coming.
Val leads the way into the dark, Velanna and Solas at her side, staffs raised high to dispel the shadows.
She doesn’t recall it being so humid and damp so far down in the earth. Wiping the swear from the nape of her neck, her hair sticks to her hand. Her lip curls in distaste. Breathing grows more difficult down here too.
“We’ll rest here,” Solas decrees.
“There is still much further to go,” Val objects.
“I have waited a thousand years for this. It can wait a few hours more.”
“And while you slept, the rest of us suffered,” she snaps back.
Coolly, “We rest.”
Val snarls.
Aiding him as she is, Val does not completely see eye to eye with the man the Dalish proclaim as their savior. Even Velanna cannot sooth her irritation. Val wipes more sweat from her body when they are spent, breathing more heavily than ever.
“He knows what he’s doing.”
“Don’t defend him. He’s wasting time.”
More sweat drips down her spine and Val’s had enough. She reaches for the Fang of Fen’Harel and hacks at her hair; she doesn’t know how she let it grow this long anyway.
Velanna comes up from behind and ties the uneven ends back, “Consider the benefits of following him.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”
----------
9:46
Roslin runs the brush through the ends of her hair, suddenly realizing how long it’s grown over the past several months. She never intended to let it grow this long again, not since she first picked up a bow.
Mother did an excellent job instilling the fear of her hair getting caught in the bow string. Keeping it shorter was just more practical, even if she did grow accustomed to the twang of the string next to her cheek.
Still, she is not foolish enough to keep her new locks loose when she hunts. The braiding is clumsy with artificial fingers, but it is enough to keep her hair under control in the blowing of the wind through the trees.
Placing a kiss on Cullen’s still sleeping brow, Roslin collects her bow and steps out into the courtyard. It is eerily hollow before dawn, no ringing of steel or shouting of merchants; it reminds Roslin of when they first arrived.
Harding waits for her at the gate, waiting to begin their hunting excursion, a weekly routine they began to keep her arm strong and her aim true.
“You ready?”
Roslin nods, pushing the braid over her shoulder, “Let’s go.”
----------
9:47
The ripples in the water still again after the disturbance from the bucket; it is then something catches in the corner of Morrigan’s eye. Her hair is no longer quite jet black.
There is a passing shiver of Flemeth down her spine, having nothing to do with the fall chill in the air. She shrugs it off as best she can, trudging the heavy bucket back to their camp.
Unconsciously, she tucks the lock back behind her ear; Kieran takes notice.
“Are you going to dye it like the women in Orlais?” he asks teasingly.
Morrigan scoffs loudly, “Like those silly birds? I think not.”
Kieran chuckles at ‘birds’, the pun not lost on him. Morrigan could just as easily tease him that his voice only recently stopped cracking to a higher pitch, but will not damage his pride so.
They’re both getting older; the inevitable passage of time creeping upon them. Morrigan’s hair will continue to grey and silver; her skin will droop and spot. She knows this; she’s seen as much on Flemeth. The important thing is not to cheat it, the same as anyone in this world.
“Best I look the part of the Witch of the Wilds, don’t you think?” she poses to Kieran.
“You would have to be in the Korcari Wilds to truly claim that title,” Kieran playfully rebuts.
“True enough,” she nods in agreement. Perhaps one day she will do that and with her passing, the Witch of the Wilds will truly be nothing more than legend.
----------
9:47
Curls snarl badly when caught between wooden and metal joints. No level of enchantment by herself or Dagna is going to solve the problem, Angelica sighs to herself.
Carefully, as she has done so many times now, she extracts the ringlets from her false fingers. Once freed, she pats down the offending spot to disguise the knots, just as there’s a rap on the doorframe.
“I’m here,” Angelica winces, before pulling herself away from the mirror to see Rosalie at the door with Neria in hand, though hidden slightly behind her mother’s skirts.
“I think she was a little afraid Hunter was going to be here,” Rosalie confesses as they sit at the table for tea.
“He and Cullen left yesterday, you’re alright on that front,” Angelica promises the little girl who’s settled down on the hearth with her toys.
Without prompting, Rosalie reaches over to the concealed knots.
“Oh don’t worry –” Angelica starts to protest, but Rosalie shakes her head.
“This won’t do at all. We must find a way for you to manage this.”
Rosalie doesn’t pick up any brush, but carefully wraps strands around her fingers, gently pulling the ringlets back into form and hiding the tears. Neria watches with close fascination.
Angelica stares idly upwards with her own hand reforming her curls. “Is it any wonder Cullen wound up using that wax? He’d never have the patience for this.”
She meets Rosalie’s eye and they both burst into laughter. Neria joins in, even if she doesn’t know what for.