[Her next response is somewhat delayed, because she is confused, and needs to read between the proverbial lines. His hair wasn't that unwieldy last time she saw him.
Which was... before the moon things happened...
Which had resulted in her growing feathers....
Oh. Well then.]
I understand!
I'm going to need to buy a few things, but I'll be right there!
[ And indeed he does, pointing her toward one of the apartments the Moonblessed are awarded on arrival. He has not yet seen fit to move elsewhere, though he is considering it. ]
Thank you for your assistance.
[ Estinien is not a man that usually gives thanks, but even he knows when someone is doing him an out-and-out favor. ]
[Honestly, she almost wants to thank him. He has deigned to admit to needing help! He has asked for help from her! It is a sign of blooming trust and friendship! She will give him the best haircut she possibly can!
After she goes and purchases some scissors and brushes and such....
It is almost an hour later when she shows up at his apartment door. It took a while to find the appropriate store! And then to price everything and keep it in the range of what little Chroma she has left to spend! But surely his hair, wild as it is, hasn't gone anywhere in all this while...?
When he opens the door, she can see why: draped over one arm and trailing behind him is a good seven feet of hair, longer than he is tall and quite thick despite being as silky as it has ever been. One look at his face shows the cause: there are scales dusted on his cheeks and down his neck, which open to gills that flutter slightly whenever he breathes.
There is no fish tail, this time.
Thank the Fury. ]
Dakki. Come in.
[ His apartment is nicely made but clearly spartan, with only the essentials: kitchen, two chairs, a bed behind a shimmering, standing screen in silver and white. ]
[The hopeful smile upon her face lingers for but a moment after he opens that door. Because she sees him and it is alarming. Concerning. And it's not even entirely about the absolutely enormous amount of hair that he's sporting. Are those scales? What is he doing with scales, of all things? He doesn't need those! That can't be good! Hadn't all the Nidhogg been pulled out of him?!]
...of course!
[She may still be boggling, but she's good about following orders when under all sorts of pressure and confusion. In she steps, quick to shut the door behind her.]
Are you... are you alright?
[She will take in the utilitarian merits of his apartment after she has reassured herself that something menacing is not building inside him. Or somesuch. She's really not sure.]
[ He doesn't fault her for her concerns. They had been his own, though his horror and his fury had been markedly stronger. It is difficult to say if he was in fact happy when he learned the true nature of his transformation, but some part of him had been relieved to know that it had not been what he had first assumed.
In a way, it is a little pitiful.
Better some obscene animal than a dragon. ]
Gills.
I am 'blessed' with the attributes of some type of fish.
[ He leads her to the kitchen, where he can pull out one of the chairs to sit in, offering her the other with a gesture. ]
[She doesn't mean to laugh. It's not that funny a thing. But as a gust of relieved breath leaves her, there's laughter in it. Anxious emotions have to go somewhere, they have to take some shape.]
Thank the Twelve, I was worried that...
[Well. No need to say.
She follows him to the kitchen, but in all her lingering excitement and tension, she takes his gesture at the chair differently than how he likely intended it. Her shopping bag is set down upon it, and she instead is preparing to approach to look all that hair over.]
Those would be some very long fins... aah, is it still growing?
[ A little frown screws onto his face at that, but he can forgive her that entirely inappropriate levity since she is doing him a major favor. He had cut his own hair the first time; the results had been...unfortunate. ]
Yes, I know.
[ If she wants to stand, that's just as well.
He sits in the other chair, his back to her, letting her inspect him. ]
During my initial transformation, it grows to my ankles, then continues to grow slowly after that.
[Given their respective heights, him sitting while she continues to stand is probably the best arrangement available.]
To your ankles? That fast? All at once? Does it... does it tickle?
[A pause. That's a strange-sounding question. She needs to amend that.]
I... I grew feathers. It tickled.
[...that is probably too much information. She clears her throat, claps her hands together once, and then carefully reaches in to touch some of that lovely long hair. Just carefully bringing her fingers under a lock of it and lifting, getting a feel for the weight and thickness.]
How short would you like it? I don't think I have the skill to give you a properly... close haircut... but I could get it to more or less its usual length?
[ It is hard to describe the sensation. Close to pain, perhaps, but he isn't about to share. He keeps surprisingly still for a man that does not usually wish to be touched, his back straight and his head upright. His hair is more silken than soft, more smooth than fuzzed, but quick thick, and it flows over her fingers like water. ]
[She can accept that judgement. He answered her question, didn't he? He is truly a friend.]
To your shoulders, then.
[And with that decided, she reaches in with both of her hands, threading through his hair to gather it all up together behind him. Practical a task as it is, she can't say that she's not enjoying it. It's so smooth, and so lovely, and it's such a... a close thing, to be doing this for him...]
A box?
[Her hands still a moment.]
You're... going to keep the hair?
[...ah, she'd better go and get some of the hair ties that she purchased. In fact, best she bring over everything she bought. She slips away, leaving that gathered hair trailing behind him, and fetches both the bag and the chair it's resting on. She can use it as a surface to lay things out.]
[ He waits patiently, watching out the far window. Outside, the city gleams pleasantly, all white brightness and colored lights and patches of greenery. It helps to keep him calm; with Sanguis in the sky, even partially disguised by the sun, he is restless and he is not about to cause a scene with Dakki here.
Not that he doesn't think she can defend herself from him. ...although she is a healer, is she not?
...
That begs the question, if she as the Warrior of Light was a healer, then how did she slay Primals? Would she-- ] Hm?
[ He is pulled out of his spiral of inner rhetorical questions by her own more direct one. ]
No. I will give the hair away or sell it.
There is too much to fit in my automatic garbage bin and it will clog the mechanism.
[Perhaps she hits them very hard with her staff? A mystery to continue pondering on later.]
Oh. It... would make for nice hairpieces, I suppose. That's practical.
[And there is an awful lot of it. She'd almost respect him for his financial acumen, but... it's not really that, is it? He just wants to be rid of the stuff. At least there's the possibility of making a bit of profit from the whole mess.]
I'll try and keep it neatly together, then.
[A few more moments are taken to lay out the contents of the bag. There are scissors, combs and brushes, various clips and ties... it's a flat paddle brush that she goes for first, though. She wants to brush his hair out some before making that initial cut. Which is what she sets to doing, careful and slow at first so as not to pull unpleasantly on any small snags. And once she has disentangled the hair closest to his scalp, she starts with longer strokes to smooth out the rest.
It's pleasant work, really. It's nice to finally be able to fuss over him a little. Oh, how badly had she wanted to help clean him up, after all that time they'd spent slogging around in the Coerthan wilderness... this was like some long-realized (if slightly foolish) dream. Here and there through it all, she gives a pleased little 'hmm' or 'aah', happy with how it's turning out. Happy... just in general.]
[ This is all...very familiar. It brings to mind old, old memories, early mornings behind the house coming back to him by slow degrees. All winter, their hair would grow long, his own and Hamignant's, though his little brother's had a curl to its ends that matched the very distinctive waves that fell elegantly down his mother's back. He more resembled their father, each strand straight as a line, though he would have just as much hay stuck into after a night sleeping with the lambs in their winter shelter.
But when the snows melted and the bright green spring came to Coerthas, his mother would take a chair to the grass just shy of the back gate, and sit them both down to tame the heavy locks they weren't wont to brush if they didn't have to. Beyond the fence posts was a beaten soil and cobble street, where chocobos and carts leaden with wool would pass. Spring had always been a busy time.
The brush sounds the same now as it did then.
His lids lower slightly. He...relaxes. A little. ]
I will likely need a cut every Sanguis moon.
I can provide recompense. [ Meaning, if she could do it more than once. ]
[Her expertise in the regard is limited to having cut her own hair, and many a trip to the aesthetician after too much time out in the field... but you'd need good hair to make hairpieces, wouldn't you? It seems reasonable.
It's quite a lot of hair, and it takes quite a lot of brushing... and perhaps a bit more brushing than strictly needed, for she's enjoying the work of it and doesn't want to stop. But she can feel him relax that little bit, and it's not getting any smoother or straighter... so reluctantly she sets the brush aside, then gathers that hair back up together again.]
If it grows like this every time, yes, I imagine you...
[Oh. He'd already like her to do it again? Her hands still briefly. This sort of kind closeness, again....]
...I'm happy just to do it for it's own sake. No compensation needed!
[And she laughs softly as she reaches for an appropriately-large hair tie to keep everything together for that first cut. It seems like perhaps not quite the right way to do this... but it's so much hair, and she just wants to get rid of the better part of it without too much mess and fuss.]
But you should wait until I'm done before you make up your mind! I can't promise how good this will turn out...
[And she proceeds with tying up his hair into something of a ponytail, the knot of it resting somewhere near his shoulder blades.]
[ To be entirely frank, Estinien is relaxed enough to drift off to sleep. Sanguis has driven him to desire many base, instinctual things - food, combat, sex - and yet what instinct refers to could be very broad. When all his exertions are over with, the body requires rest and recuperation.
Granted, this body is urging him to rest in a pond, across a nice flat rock in the cool shadows away from the bank, but he is attempting not to dwell on that. ]
It will be an improvement over my first effort.
[ Estinien is not a vain man but he has some pride. ]
It's also somewhat difficult without a mirror.
[ He had had a mirror in his bathing room, but, before she asks - ]
Every time I look upon the bath I have an extremely powerful urge to be in it. I desire to be in water constantly.
[There's that hint of laughter in her tone again, but she'd like to think it's warm rather than mocking. She gives his hair one last bit of smoothing down, and then she sets to cutting. Quite a bit of cutting. She bought normal-sized hair-trimming scissors, and doing this in small snips seems like the way that will result in the least snurble-like unevenness.]
You... really?
[For all that she sounds perplexed and alarmed, the cutting doesn't stop.]
So you're not just looking fishlike but... oh.
[There really is a lot of cutting to do.]
If you had a very nice bathtub here, I suppose that wouldn't be so bad... it would be expensive, though, wouldn't it?
[So, so much cutting.]
...will you be alright? I mean, if you don't? If you're... you're feeling the need to do it, maybe you need to do it to be well?
[ To be frank, it had been very laughable. He is certain that somewhere some deity had been chuckling at him as he stood in front of the window, using the meager reflection to paw at fulms and fulms of hair, getting it everywhere, shoving it with hands and the heel of his boot.
This is much better.
Relaxing. Easier. Not quick, because there is so much, but there is definite value in asking for help. ]
My bathtub is plain.
And too small. [ There is a lot of Elezen to fit into a normal-sized tub. ]
I think I will be well, so long as I do not grow a tail again.
[ He doesn't move his head, but he does tap his thigh. ]
When last affected by the moon, I was almost more fish than man.
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Yes? What can I help you with?
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Also, I believe there are professional aestheticians in this city. Wouldn't that be a better choice?
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The hair is unwieldy.
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Which was... before the moon things happened...
Which had resulted in her growing feathers....
Oh. Well then.]
I understand!
I'm going to need to buy a few things, but I'll be right there!
[Then, after a short pause:]
Where are you?
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[ And indeed he does, pointing her toward one of the apartments the Moonblessed are awarded on arrival. He has not yet seen fit to move elsewhere, though he is considering it. ]
Thank you for your assistance.
[ Estinien is not a man that usually gives thanks, but even he knows when someone is doing him an out-and-out favor. ]
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[Honestly, she almost wants to thank him. He has deigned to admit to needing help! He has asked for help from her! It is a sign of blooming trust and friendship! She will give him the best haircut she possibly can!
After she goes and purchases some scissors and brushes and such....
It is almost an hour later when she shows up at his apartment door. It took a while to find the appropriate store! And then to price everything and keep it in the range of what little Chroma she has left to spend! But surely his hair, wild as it is, hasn't gone anywhere in all this while...?
We'll see. She knocks.]
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When he opens the door, she can see why: draped over one arm and trailing behind him is a good seven feet of hair, longer than he is tall and quite thick despite being as silky as it has ever been. One look at his face shows the cause: there are scales dusted on his cheeks and down his neck, which open to gills that flutter slightly whenever he breathes.
There is no fish tail, this time.
Thank the Fury. ]
Dakki. Come in.
[ His apartment is nicely made but clearly spartan, with only the essentials: kitchen, two chairs, a bed behind a shimmering, standing screen in silver and white. ]
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...of course!
[She may still be boggling, but she's good about following orders when under all sorts of pressure and confusion. In she steps, quick to shut the door behind her.]
Are you... are you alright?
[She will take in the utilitarian merits of his apartment after she has reassured herself that something menacing is not building inside him. Or somesuch. She's really not sure.]
W-what's that on your neck?
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In a way, it is a little pitiful.
Better some obscene animal than a dragon. ]
Gills.
I am 'blessed' with the attributes of some type of fish.
[ He leads her to the kitchen, where he can pull out one of the chairs to sit in, offering her the other with a gesture. ]
My hair is meant to invoke long fins. I assume.
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[She doesn't mean to laugh. It's not that funny a thing. But as a gust of relieved breath leaves her, there's laughter in it. Anxious emotions have to go somewhere, they have to take some shape.]
Thank the Twelve, I was worried that...
[Well. No need to say.
She follows him to the kitchen, but in all her lingering excitement and tension, she takes his gesture at the chair differently than how he likely intended it. Her shopping bag is set down upon it, and she instead is preparing to approach to look all that hair over.]
Those would be some very long fins... aah, is it still growing?
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Yes, I know.
[ If she wants to stand, that's just as well.
He sits in the other chair, his back to her, letting her inspect him. ]
During my initial transformation, it grows to my ankles, then continues to grow slowly after that.
[ Will it ever stop?
Not until the moon wanes, most likely. ]
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To your ankles? That fast? All at once? Does it... does it tickle?
[A pause. That's a strange-sounding question. She needs to amend that.]
I... I grew feathers. It tickled.
[...that is probably too much information. She clears her throat, claps her hands together once, and then carefully reaches in to touch some of that lovely long hair. Just carefully bringing her fingers under a lock of it and lifting, getting a feel for the weight and thickness.]
How short would you like it? I don't think I have the skill to give you a properly... close haircut... but I could get it to more or less its usual length?
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[ Estinien judges silently. ]
No, it did not tickle.
[ It is hard to describe the sensation. Close to pain, perhaps, but he isn't about to share. He keeps surprisingly still for a man that does not usually wish to be touched, his back straight and his head upright. His hair is more silken than soft, more smooth than fuzzed, but quick thick, and it flows over her fingers like water. ]
To my shoulders would be sufficient.
[ So yes.
About ordinary length. ]
I have a box for the hair.
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To your shoulders, then.
[And with that decided, she reaches in with both of her hands, threading through his hair to gather it all up together behind him. Practical a task as it is, she can't say that she's not enjoying it. It's so smooth, and so lovely, and it's such a... a close thing, to be doing this for him...]
A box?
[Her hands still a moment.]
You're... going to keep the hair?
[...ah, she'd better go and get some of the hair ties that she purchased. In fact, best she bring over everything she bought. She slips away, leaving that gathered hair trailing behind him, and fetches both the bag and the chair it's resting on. She can use it as a surface to lay things out.]
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Not that he doesn't think she can defend herself from him. ...although she is a healer, is she not?
...
That begs the question, if she as the Warrior of Light was a healer, then how did she slay Primals? Would she-- ] Hm?
[ He is pulled out of his spiral of inner rhetorical questions by her own more direct one. ]
No. I will give the hair away or sell it.
There is too much to fit in my automatic garbage bin and it will clog the mechanism.
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Oh. It... would make for nice hairpieces, I suppose. That's practical.
[And there is an awful lot of it. She'd almost respect him for his financial acumen, but... it's not really that, is it? He just wants to be rid of the stuff. At least there's the possibility of making a bit of profit from the whole mess.]
I'll try and keep it neatly together, then.
[A few more moments are taken to lay out the contents of the bag. There are scissors, combs and brushes, various clips and ties... it's a flat paddle brush that she goes for first, though. She wants to brush his hair out some before making that initial cut. Which is what she sets to doing, careful and slow at first so as not to pull unpleasantly on any small snags. And once she has disentangled the hair closest to his scalp, she starts with longer strokes to smooth out the rest.
It's pleasant work, really. It's nice to finally be able to fuss over him a little. Oh, how badly had she wanted to help clean him up, after all that time they'd spent slogging around in the Coerthan wilderness... this was like some long-realized (if slightly foolish) dream. Here and there through it all, she gives a pleased little 'hmm' or 'aah', happy with how it's turning out. Happy... just in general.]
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[ This is all...very familiar. It brings to mind old, old memories, early mornings behind the house coming back to him by slow degrees. All winter, their hair would grow long, his own and Hamignant's, though his little brother's had a curl to its ends that matched the very distinctive waves that fell elegantly down his mother's back. He more resembled their father, each strand straight as a line, though he would have just as much hay stuck into after a night sleeping with the lambs in their winter shelter.
But when the snows melted and the bright green spring came to Coerthas, his mother would take a chair to the grass just shy of the back gate, and sit them both down to tame the heavy locks they weren't wont to brush if they didn't have to. Beyond the fence posts was a beaten soil and cobble street, where chocobos and carts leaden with wool would pass. Spring had always been a busy time.
The brush sounds the same now as it did then.
His lids lower slightly. He...relaxes. A little. ]
I will likely need a cut every Sanguis moon.
I can provide recompense. [ Meaning, if she could do it more than once. ]
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[Her expertise in the regard is limited to having cut her own hair, and many a trip to the aesthetician after too much time out in the field... but you'd need good hair to make hairpieces, wouldn't you? It seems reasonable.
It's quite a lot of hair, and it takes quite a lot of brushing... and perhaps a bit more brushing than strictly needed, for she's enjoying the work of it and doesn't want to stop. But she can feel him relax that little bit, and it's not getting any smoother or straighter... so reluctantly she sets the brush aside, then gathers that hair back up together again.]
If it grows like this every time, yes, I imagine you...
[Oh. He'd already like her to do it again? Her hands still briefly. This sort of kind closeness, again....]
...I'm happy just to do it for it's own sake. No compensation needed!
[And she laughs softly as she reaches for an appropriately-large hair tie to keep everything together for that first cut. It seems like perhaps not quite the right way to do this... but it's so much hair, and she just wants to get rid of the better part of it without too much mess and fuss.]
But you should wait until I'm done before you make up your mind! I can't promise how good this will turn out...
[And she proceeds with tying up his hair into something of a ponytail, the knot of it resting somewhere near his shoulder blades.]
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Granted, this body is urging him to rest in a pond, across a nice flat rock in the cool shadows away from the bank, but he is attempting not to dwell on that. ]
It will be an improvement over my first effort.
[ Estinien is not a vain man but he has some pride. ]
It's also somewhat difficult without a mirror.
[ He had had a mirror in his bathing room, but, before she asks - ]
Every time I look upon the bath I have an extremely powerful urge to be in it. I desire to be in water constantly.
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[There's that hint of laughter in her tone again, but she'd like to think it's warm rather than mocking. She gives his hair one last bit of smoothing down, and then she sets to cutting. Quite a bit of cutting. She bought normal-sized hair-trimming scissors, and doing this in small snips seems like the way that will result in the least snurble-like unevenness.]
You... really?
[For all that she sounds perplexed and alarmed, the cutting doesn't stop.]
So you're not just looking fishlike but... oh.
[There really is a lot of cutting to do.]
If you had a very nice bathtub here, I suppose that wouldn't be so bad... it would be expensive, though, wouldn't it?
[So, so much cutting.]
...will you be alright? I mean, if you don't? If you're... you're feeling the need to do it, maybe you need to do it to be well?
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This is much better.
Relaxing. Easier. Not quick, because there is so much, but there is definite value in asking for help. ]
My bathtub is plain.
And too small. [ There is a lot of Elezen to fit into a normal-sized tub. ]
I think I will be well, so long as I do not grow a tail again.
[ He doesn't move his head, but he does tap his thigh. ]
When last affected by the moon, I was almost more fish than man.
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those sparkles tho
we otome game now
oh no how did we get on this route
it's because dakki's cute :3c
Shall we fade out?