Finlo and I sat in complete silence as he tried working the knots out of my hair.
My scalp ached with every slight movement of his hands, and I could feel it resisting the smallest movements. It was… Uncomfortable, but not by any means unbearable. ‘I asked him to do it, so there’s no point in complaining… No matter how much it hurts.’
Eventually, after a lot of tugging and pulling, I finally felt it begin to relax, and the tangles began to come out. Not long after that I stopped feeling any movement at all. “And done.”
“You're done…” Im muttered, making sure he really was finished before I dared to relax my body. The tension I was holding helped to keep my mind off the pain.
“Yea. It was harder than I thought, but I did it.”
I raised my hands up to my head and gently touched it. I had no idea what it looked like, but judging from the feel, it had been tied back into a ponytail, and put into several thick braids that intertwined with the leather string attached to the medicine pouch. “And you can't see it?” Following the string, I could feel the pouch tucked under my hair just below the base of my hair.
“I mean, it's not perfect, but with how messy your hair is you can't even tell that there is a string in the braid, and the pouch should stay under your hair, so it's a lot better at least.”
I groaned. ‘After all that my hair still looks dirty enough to confuse it with leather?’ “Thanks…” I mumbled.
He stood up and brushed his hands off on his pant legs before forming a rectangle with his thumb and pointer fingers. “Yep, perfect.”
“What?” I didn't know what he was doing, but I had seen artists use that same method when painting to judge relative size. He wasn't painting though.
“I used to help the girls with their hair, so I got pretty good at it, if it wasn't perfect they'd get pretty mad. Needless to say I learned pretty fast. Your hair was really dirty, but it was surprisingly easy to deal with. I thought for sure you'd yell at me for pulling too hard. I guess tangles and dirt are easier to get out than dried blood and clay.”
I wasn't sure which of the two things he mentioned confused me more. ‘Maybe it's better I don't ask about the blood though…’
I knew he had just as many memories he didn't want to revisit as I did, probably a whole lot more. I probably didn't want to know, as much as he didnt want to remember.
I sat still, waiting before I turned around. “Clay?” I asked, thinking that would take the conversation in a different direction than blood.
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“Yea, a lot of people use it to help hold their hair in whatever style they want. In other places they use lime, or animal urine as they wash it. Clay is the preferred option.”
My whole body shuddered at the thought. My hair was already bad enough, any of those three options sounded awful.
“Are you still cold?”
I let out a timid chuckle. “No, I'm fine, that just sounds really gross…”
I heard a thud as he leaned back against the wall. “Right. I can't imagine it smelled good either, of course the clay was really dusty, taking care of that was its own problem. Luckily we were pretty well off, so we only ever used clay.”
I slowly turned and leaned against the wall again. It was difficult not to let my curiosity get the better of me. I wanted desperately to ask him more about it, his life before he came here.
I suddenly remembered the first time I saw him. He was even muddier and dirtier than I was when he walked through the front gate. His eyes were sharp as knives, and his body was so thin I was amazed he could even walk.
‘What brought that to mind all of the sudden.’
I looked over at him, unconsciously staring. ‘He looks so much better now.’
All the dirt was replaced with a clean shaven face. Even covered in sweat his pearly skin shined clean. His hair was still wet, but that only enhanced its white sheen. His clothes and heavy armor made it hard for me to not think of him as a noble himself, and his lime green eyes carried a warm softness that sharply contrasted the daggers I saw when we first met.
“What are you staring at?”
I felt a small smile come to my lips. “It's just good to see you're doing so well.”
“Ha, wish I could say the same.”
“Pft, whatever. I'm alive aren't I?”
His eyes suddenly grew distant and the color faded as he looked down. “Barely.”
“Hey maybe you could teach me a few tricks, somehow your super strong, even though your smaller than all those big guys.”
“You don't want to get strong the way I did… I'm not even sure if a human could survive that…”
“What's that supposed to mean, are you a monster now?”
He grinned with one side of his mouth, but the distance in his eyes grew even more. “Half elf…” He muttered.
My eyes immediately jumped to his ears, they looked normal. “Seriously? But your ears aren't even pointy, that's so cool!”
He turned back to look at me as I tried my best to keep a smile to soften the mood. It really was exciting though. I had too many questions for him that I felt like I wasn't allowed to ask. Now I had even more, but I felt like I could actually talk to him about it.
‘It's probably still sensitive judging from the way he said it, but I dont think talking about it would be bad.’
I was too excited to think it through carefully. As far as I knew, he was the only person I had met that wasn't human. I had read about other species of course, but I had never actually met anyone that filed that category.
“So like, are you going to live super long and stuff? It's weird though, you look way older than I do, I thought elves would age slower. Oh, and what about your ears, they look just like normal?”
The shocked expression he had on his face only made my smile bigger. ‘I guess people dont like half elves. I might just be the first one to think it's cool. That makes me feel special… That makes me happy.’
For the first time ever, I saw him slowly stutter and pause, unable to find the right words. “No Im- wait… But like–”
I waved my hand dismissively. “Come on, you really think I would think less of you because you were a half elf. Me of all people?”
His dumbfounded expression slowly left and ended up getting replaced with a big smile as he broke out laughing. “I guess not.”
“I mean, if anyone should be ashamed of their birth it should be me right.” I thought about adding in a few reasons, but decided I'd just leave it at that.
As I was speaking his laughter calmed down, and the lime green in his eyes became fuller again. “I was born weak too, you know. Although we had to get stronger under different circumstances, the fundamental reason was the same.”
‘Survival…’