It’s more than a bit nerve-wracking when the guy who called me worm is staring at me about to cut his pal’s hair.

But I spent enough time around homeless shelters and charities to just take a deep breath and shrug it off. Sometimes, people would get very upfront about their opinions, even in my bakery.

At the end of the day, though, the amount of good you do is the only important thing. Is your food good and not too unhealthy? Great. Are you providing a net positive for people experiencing duress? Are you trying to move them up the ladder and maybe even having success with a couple of them?

That’s the only thing that matters.

My very religious mother used to say that they crucified Jesus, so looking for the love of others is really a foolish enterprise, especially if not even love-personified managed to succeed at it.

“How do you want it?” I ask Tiberius.

His hair is very long and... muddy. It looks like a bird’s nest, to be fair.

“I—” He doesn’t reply for a second, probably realizing that all of this is actually happening.

“Well, tell you what, I’ll give you a shampoo in the meanwhile, and you can decide later, okay?”

“What’s a shampoo?” Tiberius asks warily.

Right.

“I’ll wash your hair first. Then, we can decide if you want it just trimmed or shorter. How about that?”

The veteran nods, uncertain.

I take the hot water and take out a bar of soap from my pack. This one smells like roses, and I simply break off a chunk and put it in the water. I have to admit, though, this soap is much rougher than the ones I’m used to back home.

“Would you mind asking someone if they can bring a few buckets more? We could probably go faster.”

“Sure,” Tiberius mumbles, looking straight for his racist friend. “Quintus, fetch two more buckets. Clean ones.”

“Tiberius, I—”

“Shut up! I don’t care! Get me the buckets!”

The guy with the eyepatch leaves and quickly comes back with two more buckets. He mostly doesn’t look at me as he fills them up and places one of them over the heating rune.

By now, there are a few people stopping by to see what we are doing. Most of them are wearing ragged clothes, and I don’t even remember seeing them close to the road. Perhaps, they prefer keeping out of the way. Who knows, really.

“Well, let’s start this,” I say, “recline your head back, please.”

I gently pull his hair to the back, trying to make sense of the huge mess I’m looking at. Tiberius is a bit jumpy as I start touching his head, clearly not used to this.

I have to fight back a sigh in fear of being misunderstood. I’d like to sigh because when you are out in the street, you don’t respond well to others touching you. What’s worse is that people were always meant to be touched to live happily. Yeah, really. I’m not joking.

When you are out in the streets and have to fend for yourself, though, it’s not something you want. Touch means danger—or worse, death.

I inhale lightly, but I touch his hair with enough strength and confidence that he doesn’t feel like I’m disgusted or afraid.

I want to remind him that he’s a person, no matter how bad he looks—which is really the point of going out of my way to cut people’s hair and trim their beards.

When you look like a person, every time you walk in front of a shop’s window, you might actually be reminded that you are one.

Now, I’m not saying this is easy, though.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Even San Francisco probably has better hygiene standards for its homeless people. This is medieval-times homeless—something completely different from your average San Franciscan.

Perhaps, only some very dedicated tech bros who smoke DMT and go into the woods to compile their next crypto business plan can get this messy.

I start pouring warm water on his hair after taking out some leaves and small branches from his hair.

“Tell me if the water temperature is okay,” I say to Tiberius, stopping for a second.

“Huh, what?”

“The water, is it fine?”

“Y-yeah.”

I nod to myself and start wading through the jungle of mess. The smell is not flattering after I poured water on it, either. There’s probably something rotten in here. Thank God for my strong stomach.

It takes three buckets of soapy water and me carefully going through his hair with a comb to understand what I’ll be working with.

“I’ll have to cut some of it. Some parts are not good anymore. So, we can’t really keep your hair too long.”

I haven’t spoken much until now. Gotta get these people some time to acclimatize to my presence, you know.

“Short is fine,” Tiberius says with a sigh, “that’s how you have to keep them in the military anyway.”

Boom. First hook is to talk about something. Let’s see how it goes down.

“How long did you serve for?”

“Twenty-two years for those ungrateful bastards.”

I chew on the side of my lips, wondering what’s the best question to ask next.

“How long have you been discharged for?”

“Since I got my leg cut off. Five years. Three since I...”

Three years since he started living on the street, gotcha.

I really want to ask some more direct questions about how he couldn’t find employment or something, but—

“If those idiots cleared my [Vow: Debt of Honor], I could have gone to do anything... even tilling the stupid camps. But how am I going to find one-hundred and ninety-five golds?”

What?

“Sorry, I’m really not familiar with the Elven society. What’s a [Vow: Debt of Honor]?”

And surprisingly enough, it’s not Tiberius answering me, but his extremely speciesist pal, Quintus.

“The military provides you with education, weapons, and armor. You can choose to have them go out of your compensation or to build a [Vow: Debt of Honor] to be repaid later on. Most think they will just pay it through engaging in skirmishes, battles, or, even ‘better,’ wars.”

As I start cutting into Tiberius’s hair, the guy goes onto explaining more with clear anger in his voice.

“When you are young, you always think that you’ll just repay the debt later on, and you just spend your money on booze and stupid shit. But then, if you get injured, you can’t take on another job unless your [Vow: Debt of Honor] is cleared. So, either you ask someone to lend you a big, lump sum of money, or you are not allowed to work for anyone until it’s cleared up, because you are still technically a [Soldier] with all the duties that come with it.”

“Shoot,” I say, almost cutting myself.

“Human!”

“Shut up, Quintus!” Tiberius shouts at his pal.

I exhale loudly.

“Goddamn, it sucks. Is that... how does that make sense? Why don’t they let you work? Wouldn’t it be better for them if you just took your time but repaid them eventually?”

“There’s no skill for that. [Vow: Debt of Honor] is older than anyone can remember. If you didn’t have that, you could simply go on and elope. You could get some new documents, and the military would have lost a bunch of money on you. Injured veterans are something that doesn’t happen often. Most of our job was to fight off monsters. There are not many skirmishes with Humans nowadays. But the military wants to keep you reeled in. It’s not so much to keep us on the street as much as to keep the healthy soldiers in. That’s their trade-off.”

I...

I just...

I inhale deeply, focusing on cutting Tiberius’s hair. I can’t keep talking about this. Nope. I really don’t want to say anything. I’m here to cut hair, not to make them feel worse. If they want to talk, I’m listening; but this is their life, not mine. I have no right to get angry.

And so, I start taking care of the hair, hoping it will do something for their souls as well.

My hands are fast enough that in less than five minutes, Tiberius is looking decent. I wish I had an electric razor, but I can still do it with a normal one.

“Do you mind if I use the razor for the sides?” I ask Tiberius.

“Do whatever you need to do, Human.”

I pop out the razor, and I carefully shave away the sides of his head. No blood so far, thankfully. I fear that if I mess something up, his pal will shiv me without thinking twice.

I’m giving Tiberius the Arthur Shelby haircut. With a nice hat, and only after I’m done with his beard, he could look like a very poor Peaky Blinder.

It takes me another five minutes to carefully shave his sides and wash away the hair. I touch up the top of his head and slick his hair back like a true Peaky Blinder. Even though I have washed it several times, the hair is still a bit matted. But that’s surprisingly useful to keep it styled backward. Sure, it is not as glamorous as an actual actor’s haircut, but his hair does look much sharper than before.

“Would you mind if I did your beard as well? I think a mustache would really suit you.”

...

Quintus, I, and several other homeless people who came to watch, are now staring in disbelief at the ruggedly... well, handsome is a big word. But now, Tiberius absolutely looks like Arthur Shelby. Goddamn.

“You cleaned up very well,” I say with a happy smile.

“This...” Tiberius has taken a polished bronze shield that someone had lying around and is looking at himself with wide eyes.

That’s when I notice his eyes getting wet and his breathing picking up.

“Yo, who’s up for another cut?” I say, putting myself to cover Tiberius.

Now that I have shown them what I’m capable of, many of these Elves raise their hands. One of them looks hesitant. Quintus.

“Yo, Quintus, what do you say; want to see who looks better between you and Tiberius?”