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English
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Published:
2024-08-09
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346
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1/1
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2
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Hair

Summary:

After everything, she cuts her hair.

Work Text:

She cuts her hair. 

It's a simple act, and one that Keeper Deshanna would say is long overdue. The Lavellan clan don't keep their hair long, as a rule - Deshanna is extraordinarily overprotective of their children and often feared they would be dragged screaming from the camp, ensnared by their hair. 

Her hair had grown on her journey to the Conclave. Months of travel, alone, free of the rules of her clan. A tiny rebellion, allowing her hair to grow past her chin. It was hastily tied back when she arrived in Haven. It was a matted mess by the time she woke up in shackles. 

Her braid now is practicality. She didn't want to cut her hair - she liked it. Her first arrival at Haven - her first experience with a hot bath and a kindly serving girl to help her scrub - ended with her hair in a braid. She had kept it in that style ever since, a thick twisting of dark curls that she only unleashed when washing.

She had let her hair loose more often after she had caught him looking, transfixed by a curl that had escaped. With soft fingers almost trembling he had tucked it behind her ear, continuing to trace the line of her jaw. 

'Beautiful.' 

But now he is gone, and she is preparing for another Conclave of sorts. A trek to Halamshiral once again, to meet the Divine and discuss the future of the Inquisition. Another trip filled with desperately boring meetings, and the bowing and scraping of nobles who cling to her title to ignore her pointed ears and sparks of magic when all she wants to do is scream. 

So instead, she sits by the mirror and cuts her hair. A soft sawing of shears as she slices and cuts, her long tresses coiling on the floor. Finally, she is done. Her hair brushes the tops of her shoulders, smaller pieces falling in her eyes. 

She doesn't look like herself any longer. She looks Dalish once more.  

She will not be caught by another ever again.