The birds were singing. There was early morning light. And Anna was insistently trying to get me to let go of her.

I was confused, the dreamless sleep, the sudden wakefulness, the sudden transition from lying down to sleep to opening my eyes, leaving my mind to tumble.

“Saphine,” Anna called to me, her hand tapping the hand that held her belly.

She sounded not frightened or scared but more entertained. She was almost giggly like she was stifling a laugh.

My ears flicked, kicked of my a slight itching across my head. I mumbled something stupid like, “mhum?” As my brain slowly started turning on because, despite the feeling that I had not slept, that I had blinked through time, I certainly had slept.

“Ah, finally awake. Saphine, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I intended to get out of bed today.”

I responded with all the grace my head meat was able to, “Wha. Whu hahen hue?” I asked.

I could feel Anna laugh as well as I could hear it as her body convulsed to make the tittering sound.

“Sa- ha. Saphine, you’re stopping me. I know I said I wouldn’t mind getting woken up with kisses, but you’re holding my shoulder.”

I’m not holding her shoulder. I only have an arm over her…

My mind, a bit slow didn’t get it.

I yawned, my mouth stretching wide, or wider to the point where my jaw felt clicky. My tongue extended, feeling the woven fabric of her dress.

I blinked my eyes and focused as the yawn passed and my mouth returned to pressing down lightly on Anna’s shoulder.

I froze, my eyes dilating as I looked towards Anna, her head turned to face me, starting almost smugly at me. She looked strangely satisfied.

I vary slowly, very carefully, opened my mouth wide, and pulled it away from her shoulder, my eyes never breaking from hers.

Anna’s face was slowly but surely loosing her composure. She looked like she wanted to start laughing uncontrollably, the way she was pressing her lips together and the crinkle at the corner of her eyes. But she didn’t, which at least saved me the horrible fate of embarrassment.

“Sorry,” I said unsurely, “I don’t know why I was doing that.”

“No need to be embarrassed. It might not have been kisses, but it was certainly something. I suppose you could say I match your sense of taste?”

It took me about three seconds to run that line through my head, first feeling even more embarrassed, then it lessened, then it took a totally different direction, and I groaned as the pun soaked in.

Anna’s face never wavered, it actually got sharper. Vulpine and predatory.

It was strangely hot, but if I knew Anna at all, indulging her would just lead to an unending tide of puns and jokes. It would be a stretch to say that I wanted that, but at the same time… it made her look happy. And if I could trade a little painless misery for taking Anna's puns, I would because her being happy made me happy.

So I groaned and watched her face, so full of joy at my minor suffering.

But just because I wouldn’t try and get her to stop didn’t mean I was just going to ignore the convenient weak point.

I leaned on my skill [True Strike], and as I did, the world around us fell away, the more I focused on her, the more it fell away, and as it did, more about her was revealed. To be more precise, the more about her weak points.

Her neck was an easy go, the back of her neck was wide open, but I could get around the side. I could go for the obvious weak point of her mouth, but I think she was expecting that. I had a sense that it was a weak point that had been left intentionally weak. A trap.

I couldn’t fall for it, I would be giving her exactly what she wanted.

Well, I would be giving her what she probably wanted anyway, but I was going to do it on my terms. If I couldn’t surprise her, then what was the point?

There was the feeling of behind her knee, the weak point from yesterday, but that was a bit of an awkward place to kiss. It kind of sent a different message.

I couldn’t sense many proper weak points on her, surprisingly, or at least no weak points that I would use for kissing.

[True Strike] didn’t care about the context, so the weak points the skill suggested I capitalize on were more for combat than kissing, I wasn’t exactly going to go for her eyes, for example, which my skill informed me, were incredibly vulnerable.

Could I get off a surprise?

Not with kisses, I couldn’t. She was expecting it. A sneak attack would play right into her hand. I needed to flip the script.

I slipped my hand around to behind her knee, to her weak point.

“What are you-” she started saying, face changing before she let out a squeak.

I pulled away, letting her wiggle and fall on her back, before sliding in on top of her, letting my head rest on her chest like a pillow.

“I’m still sleepy, what can you bribe me with to release you?” I asked her, turning my head to meet her eyes.

She was blushing like mad, and that brought a grin to my face, and I had the teeth to pull off the rest of the foxy look that she had given me. She could have blushed and been serious and just asked, but instead of giving up on the bit, she gulped and gave it a think.

I, for my part, sat back, so to speak. Anna, while thinking, reached out and ruffled my head, my ears flattening out with her hand between them, my eyes narrowed instinctively, and I let out an accidental hum of pleasure.

A part of me wanted to give a grin, but it was time to be serious. Incredibly serious in the most serious of ways, and not at all a false seriousness.

Would I do that to be playful? Me? I was a saint.

The intrusive pun aside, I let her think, for all the lack of beard, she looked like a [Sage]. Then She looked me dead in the eye, a sudden resolve in her eyes.

“I levelled again,” she said carefully, “I have a cool new skill that I can show you.”

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She was coy about it, like she was holding back a smile, a smug aura radiated around her.

“This mollifies me, remove your hand from my head when you wish to leave this bed,” I told her, doing my best not to sigh at the feeling of her literally scratching an itch while keeping up the bit.

“Well, if you want me to…” she told me, lifting her hand from my head.

It was a bit depressing to say, but I did enjoy it. Letting it go on, however, was not in the cards, it was time to start the day. I lifted myself up and awkwardly rolled off of her and the bed. I didn’t land perfectly, but it was solid enough I managed to stay on my feet at the very least.

I offered my hand to Anna as I steadied my feet, “May I?”

Anna was looking at her hand and, instead of taking my hand, and asked, “Are you shedding?”

I blinked but looked at her hand, which had red bits of hair clinking to it. Only a bit, but it made sense.

My scalp was tingly.

It was time for my summer coat, so to speak.

“I guess it’s summer? Or my body thinks it’s summer. It’s just letting the small hairs go. It will be a bit messy, I’ll have to brush it out,” I told her awkwardly, ruffling the back of my head and, in the process, knocking a few hairs loose.

“It's no issue,” Anna told me nonchalantly, “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t sick or something. I’ll brush your hair if you’ll brush mine?” She offered.

I smiled and gave a quick nod, “Sure. I’d like that a lot. So are you going to take my hand? Or should I scoop you up?”

Her blush turned into more of a general flush, not flustered, but more of a healthy glow.

“I do have legs, even if they wibbly,” she said, swinging herself carefully out of bed and standing with a minor wobble before finding her feet.

Anna moved to change her clothes, so I made my way out to give her privacy and got into my now-repaired dress before making my way up the ladder to check on Selly. I gave the tunic a look. It was rough and looked uncomfortable, even if I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it.

She was still tucked in, still resting, and I let her get it. It would be one thing if she was having a nightmare, where waking her up might help her, but a dream might help her. There was something about dreams that helped you unwind a little. It helped relieve some of the tension of it.

I checked her, tucked in the sheet, a set of hands holding the lip, while another was left uncovered and lay next to her sword. She looked peaceful, in a way, like a finely made porcelain doll. The mouth she spoke from was closed, with her bigger mouth slightly a jar.

She seemed at peace now, for all that, there was something that spoke of a lack of peace in the way she slept. Something about how she looked like she was ready to pull herself out and to arms, maybe. so I left her after making sure the windows were shut. Letting a bird in would do the opposite of giving her a place where she felt safe. I imagined waking up from a griffin breaking into our room, and it got me shivering.

I got back down the ladder and out into the main chamber in time for Anna to open her door.

She had a brush in hand, held like she was holding a knife, ready to roll into battle. I blinked down at the brush and back up at her. Her face was resolute, impassive. A warden ready to tell you your sentence was the gallows.

“Come, your time has come,” in a perfectly serious face.

Her tone bit into the melancholy of Selly, though I didn’t laugh, it at least made me smile a bit.

She pouted as I made my way in, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and Anna pulled herself on behind me.

I was taller than her, so she guided me back a bit, and I lay on her, but that was just too awkward. I puzzled it out for a few moments and then moved to lie down, using her lap like a pillow but facing away from her so she could get at my hair.

“It’s quite long now. There is a lot of hair here. You haven’t gotten it cut since you got here,” she told me quietly.

She was right, I wasn’t. I hadn’t gotten it cut since my mom died, and it was wilder and longer than I was used to before I met her, all the more for the extra months I had spent with Anna on top of that.

“Neither have you,” I pointed out.

She started brushing my hair, the bristles tingling my scalp as they caught and pulled the loose little hairs that gave me my hair its thickness and poof. They would fall out on their own, like anyone else’s hair. I just had more, and they came loose, depending on the season.

Winter sheds were the worst, by far, for clutter. It wasn’t even close. It got thick, and it got thick everywhere I had hair. On a plus, it kept me warm, even with lighter clothes, trapping heat where you lost it easily.

But it had to come out, it was warm now, summer skys only a week away, for all that, it had been low on rain, with any hope the rain would come with the heat from the lake.

“No, I suppose I haven’t. Gosh, but it’s felt like a blur since you got here. I seem to have lost track of time. I should cut it. Don’t get me wrong, I like having long hair, but it’s a bit long, even by my standards. Would you like me to cut your hair? Or would you rather leave it long?”

It felt good to lose the hair, Anna dragged it through a few times before pulling the hair from the bristles and continuing. The itching eased as the bristles scratched, the hair came out, and it almost dragged my mind away from answering her.

I had been neglecting my grooming, and Anna ran into a tangle.

“I don’t know. Does it- Ah, ah, ah,” she got it out with a little wiggle, giving me a sigh of relief, “Does it look good long? I’ve never really thought about it as much more than hair, not so much how it makes me look and more does it get in the way?”

Anna hummed, moving closer to the back of my head, and I learned to let her get closer, turning my head and leaning in when she scratched persistent itchy bits.

“Hmm. I don’t know what it would look like longer, does it just grow longer, or does it also grow out? Your hair kind of grows down your neck. It’s not quite the same, but it’s kind of like how men get if they don’t get it shaved, just way more. I don’t know enough to guess how it would look if you just let it grow,” she said.

My face was practically pressed into her tights to let her get to the back, but I managed.

“It grows both ways, out and down. It doesn’t grow forever, I don’t think, It only grows so far, about… here, at least in winter, it’s about as wide as it’s going to get.” I told her, bending my arm behind my head and tracing the line where baby hairs left a barely noticeable pattern down the ruff of my neck, around and up to a shoulder, and then around to meet the hair at the edge of my face.

“It’s more of a mane than a human, you guys get to just have hair on the top of your head.”

“Mhmm,” she replied thoughtfully, “turn towards me so I can get the other side, ok?”

I did as she removed the brush, plucking the hair out of the brush and making a tiny pile. It wasn’t all that much, truth be told, but it was a spring coat… Or I supposed a fall coat, though they were about the same.

I faced her and let her work on my hair as she thought.

“I suppose I should ask if it’s hot in summer because, if I’m being honest, I could see it looking good either way. You could go long but cut it back up from your neck, closer to your ears than your shoulders. Or long down your neck but short. Or, honestly, any combination of the two, or just let it be. With a bit of styling, it could look great any way you cut it, but I imagine that would be rather warm in the Summer, especially with all the humidity.”

It could be very warm in summer, but the worst of it was the humidity, which would make a rat’s nest of my hair.

“Shorter than, or higher up my neck, or both. But you didn’t answer me. How short should I cut it, do you think? I don’t really know how good or bad it would look, you know?”

“So you don’t want my opinion so much as you want to know how I would think about it?” she asked coyly.

“Yes? Yes. You are the only person whose opinion of how I look matters, I guess. It’s not like I care about the length of my hair all that much, as long as it’s not, like, gone, and I don’t exactly stare at myself, you know?”

She tittered, slowing her brushing for a moment as her hand trembled.

“You bald is something that would freak me out just as much, I think. I have no idea what that would look like with your ears.”

She stopped and hummed and seemed to think before trailing a hand down to a point just about an inch or so above my shoulders.

“About there if you want to cut your hair short, I think. Much less, and your hair is bound to look more man than mane. And that’s all I’m going to say on the matter. I don’t know how to shave, and trying the first time on your hair is bound to result in me cutting you and messing up, unfortunately, so your best bet is a barber of some kind.”

I did my best to remember the length as she finished brushing my hair.

It was a literal weight off my shoulders as I raised my head.

I was almost overtaken by the urge to whip my head back and forth, but I didn’t want to do that. Instead, I got my hands moving and gathered up my hair, tossed it out the window, and got to brushing Anna’s hair.

There was a lot of it, and it took almost as long as mine did, but I did it skillfully, literally using my skills like I would with any other tool. There was a difference between before my levels and after, the extra proficiency giving me a greater ability to brush out her smooth sheet of hair.

I tried to get under her flower crown, but Anna tutted and didn’t remove it. It had to be magic, the way it stayed still as her hair moved under it. I was willing to bet a life that I could turn her upside down and shake, and it would stay on.

I finished, clearing the bristles of the long hairs and said, “There we go, all cleaned up. No more bedhead.”

“Good, then we can start our day.”