[Once Claude is finally done, he returns to the living room, with a tray laden with tea for them both, much like they'd shared before. He leaves it on the coffee table to brew in the pot, and now it's his turn to linger uncertainly as he watches her brush her tail.]
Need any help? [He knows full well how proud she is, but it does look tricky to reach unassisted.]
[Her first instinct is to say "no". Because she is proud, she is doesn't like to accept help for much anything at all, and on top of that... It's her tail. Which is very close to other parts of her body that would probably become visible if he had said tail in his lap. But...
Nothing will change if she just refuses things. She had come here, hadn't she? And she had accepted his meal. And she did have a lot of hair... So after a long moment, a brow furrowed in internal debate...]
... You may help with my mane, if you are so inclined.
[She gives her tail a last few strokes, awkwardly turning the oiled-up comb over in her hands a few times before she offers it to him.]
All right. [She seems embarassed about her tail, which is fair enough. It's a lot more intimate than just grooming a horse, even though he has plenty of practice with that.
Instead, he sits down on the mattress next to her, and it dips slightly under his weight. He takes the offered comb, apprising her mane.]
Mind helping me with this part? I don't want to tangle your hair before we've even started. [The buns, he means. He doesn't have hair that long, so he wouldn't know where to begin with taking it out of a bun. He's probably caused enough messes for one evening, he thinks.]
[... It is a considerate question. She has already decided to let him (and she'd said it out loud, so she couldn't let herself take it back), but it still takes her a moment to remember how to speak when he sits down next to her. Which was foolish, because of course he had to sit next to her to do it, but.
She'd learned very quickly in Horos and Kenos that the culture of most other places did not seem to involve respectable women only allowing their husbands to see them with their hair down. It still takes her a moment to decouple from the idea of how intimate such a thing was to her, to tell herself that here it is just hair-]
... of course.
[That she releases from the loose, post-bathing bun in a heavy fall of ebony strands. She had not been allowed to cut it since she left fillyhood behind, and unbound it reaches to her fetlocks, longer than some men were tall. Thanks to the bathhouse's aromatic shampoos, it smells slightly of lavender.]
[Claude watches as her hair tumbles down, and he feels almost like he's seeing her in a new light. That she's even letting him see, much less touch...]
...You're so beautiful. [He says it, almost awe-stricken, and takes the comb, gathering a section of her hair to begin combing, starting from the middle and down to the tips. He's trying to be as gentle as possible, especially when her mane feels so silky smooth compared to the wild tangle of curly hair he has.]
[When is she going to develop some sort of... some sort of defense against his tongue? The moment he says it she averts her head, shifting heavily on the mattress with a little hmmph so that he can get a full view of jet black mane and not her pink-cheeked face.]
I know. You do not need to say it.
[... Except she knew because potential buyers had called her beautiful, and unlike friends, family, or lovers... potential buyers had no reason to lie to property about their visual appeal. ... It sounds much nicer when Claude says it, even if it has more chance of being a lie or empty flattery.
... It feels nice, too. Having someone else brush her hair. Her fingers curl on the bony knees of her forelegs, shoulders rising slightly and an occasional shiver running down her back to the rhythm of his combing.]
I can't praise the lady I love? You have an awful lot of rules.
[Don't say this, don't behave like that... But at least she's confident in her looks instead of denying it or playing coy, so he can appreciate that much, even if he hasn't quite comprehended the reasons why she has that confidence. He shifts his weight slightly as he reaches for the strands further away, and he can't deny how well-groomed she keeps herself. A strange trait for a warrior who acts like womanhood is a burden, but something he appreciates, all the same.]
Want me to keep going? [He sits back once he's done with the middle to the tips, wondering if she wants to comb the rest of her mane from the roots, or if she trusts him to do it.]
[It feels as if he’s talking about someone else, even though she knows he’s referring to her. The idea of being that, of being called that by someone… is just still that unbelievable to her. Her? Hayame? The lady someone loved?
She doesn’t even know how to respond to it, unable to muster even denial or anything beyond a humming silence. If she just lets him say it, perhaps he will eventually tire of it… or she will just somehow magically discover the proper way to handle it. (Something about muscles that had wasted away-)]
If you are going to tend to it, you may as well see it through.
[It is a mumble, but it is audible, and to be helpful… she hunches slightly to minimize the difference in their heights, tail swishing slightly over the sheets. If she closed her eye (and the eyelids over the empty socket)…
Can do. [He scoots closer, and up onto his knees. Even more gently than before, he starts from her scalp, starting with the strands that frame her face, combing down in careful strokes. Trying not to catch her ear, or her eyepatch, or irritate her scalp. She'd closed her eye, and somehow, once again, she was trusting him with something he wasn't sure if he'd earned.
Before long, though, he's getting back into the rhythm of combing, and starts humming away as he works. If he messes up at any point, he's sure she'll tell him.]
She tries to leave it at first, stubborn and reluctant to remove it in front of anyone, but… it is impractical. It would be shifted around by the movement of her hair anyway, if he tried to comb around it, so. Slowly, without comment, she reaches up to undo the connecting point where the straps crossed behind her skull, pulling it off and holding it tightly in one hand.
… It’s fine. He’s behind her.
He won’t see the unbeautiful part of her from there.]
[He touches her shoulder as a wordless gesture after she removes the eyepatch, as if to say it's okay. Then he continues, not once leaning around to peek at her face. If she doesn't want him to look, he'll respect that, even if he'd think no less of her for it.]
Almost done. [He says, as he progresses.] You sure you don't need help with your tail?
[There’s no stopping the initial flinch at the touch, on guard for any attempts to move around to her front or encourage her to turn her face, but when those don’t come… she relaxes back into it. Now there is nothing to snag the comb in but an occasional tangle, and… it does feel nice. When her master’s men had styled her hair for exhibition days they had brushed and combed it, but not gently. That had been harsh, utilitarian movements, combing in hot wax to make elaborate hairdos for prospective buyers to find pleasing, not for preparing before bed or taking care of her mane.
She almost forgets for a little while that she has only one eye and that she is in the house of a man who claimed to love her. Her eye drifts near close again, and this time…]
[Once her mane is all done to her satisfaction, he moves down the mattress to her rump. Her tail is that same pristine, silken hair as her mane, and he's especially careful with it as he lifts it over his thighs to start combing.
He's not looking on purpose, but as he lifts her tail, it does leave him feeling dully heated to realise how close he is. That if she let him touch her...
But that's not a boundary he'll cross. Not yet. So he finishes combing her tail from where she left off, this time in relative quiet, warmth dusting his cheeks.]
[When he moves away from her mane, she distracts herself from the fact that he is brushing her tail with necessary things. She refastens her eyepatch. She gathers her now silkily brushed hair and ties it back up on top of her head for the night.
But then there is nothing else but being aware of what he is doing and where he is. One of her back legs twitches slightly every now and then, a hoof curls on the mattress. She… she isn’t that worried, because she isn’t in heat, so her sex isn’t as easily exposed, but. His hands are still close. Powerful muscles still ripple slightly beneath freshly washed dun coat, the color darkening to black velvet beneath her tail and high on the backs of her thighs.
But he is respectful, and she-]
Thank you.
[Whispers politely when he finishes, hoping her face isn’t as red as it feels.]
Any time. [He says, sitting back once more and offering her the comb with a flushed smile. She was more than capable of taking care of herself, but it didn't hurt to have a helping hand once in a while to get to those hard-to-reach places.
And, really, part of him enjoys pampering her, as if she's his queen... and they're not on a makeshift bed on the floor of a small apartment. He pours tea for them both next, still warm from the pot.]
How often do you brush your coat? [He asks, resting a hand on her dun flank. It surely needed much less maintenance, but if she ever needed hand with that, too, he could offer.]
[Carefully... she takes the comb back and tucks it into the waist pouch that she has discarded by the side of the mattress, their fingers briefly brushing. In exchange, she accepts her tea, and... He is still touching her. Her glance slides towards his hand on her flank, but...
She doesn't say anything against it.]
Every few days. More if I exert myself.
[It took more effort and more stretching into odd positions to do...]
- The bathhouse had a scraper.
[Just in case he was concerned about the state of her coat in his new sheets. (Which she noticed, with a bit of pleasure.)]
I see. If you ever need a hand with it, let me know.
[He runs the hand along her flank, feeling the breathing of her second set of lungs, the warmth of her powerful body. Lucky she doesn't have the thick fluffy coat of a Fódlan horse, which would take a great deal more maintenance.
With that offer out of the way, he resumes drinking his tea. The perfect thing to help him conk out after all that food.]
Thanks for the new sheets, by the way. It was really thoughtful of you.
[Thanks to the rather intense energy she possessed, most people in Kenos were not so casual to touch her. It’s how she preferred it, of course, she didn’t… she wasn’t like a lot of those Springstar citizens who were so silly as to always be able shaking, patting, stroking, embracing, but. Hayame had noticed that those few who dared tended to always stick to touching her more human-like half… and there was something about that which made her bristle if she thought about it. Was the rest of her too much like a horse that they didn’t feel they were touching a person, or they assumed it would offend her? She doesn’t know what it was, but-
… Her equine flank is just as much her “side” as if he were stroking along the line of her waist, and it makes her cheeks darken further, her hide occasionally twitching beneath his fingers. Except he’s not a fly to dislodge, or a potential buyer examining her horseflesh before auction. He’s...]
… It was only proper.
[She finds distraction in the answering, sipping her own tea and using one hand to pinch the fabric of the sheets, rubbing a thumb in the pure white fabric.]
I dirtied the last pair.
[And sure there was washing, but. They’d been so terribly clean looking (to a woman from a breeding stables in 1590).]
You didn't have to do it, all the same. [They weren't even on speaking terms, then. Yet she'd swallowed her -- pride, embarassment, whatever it was -- and repaid a perceived debt anyway.] That honourable streak of yours... I admire it.
[It's something he'll never have, he knows that much. He drains the last of his tea and sets the cup aside. Part of him is still curious about how sensitive her equine body is to touch, and his hand travels up to her back, to the ridges of her lengthy spine. He wants her to be comfortable with this closeness, little by little. Just as he, a human with such a limited viewpoint of jinba, should make efforts to learn more of her.]
[He admires it, he says. She cannot help but doubt it a little, even if he sounds honest enough.]
Are you sure you do not find it “outdated” and foolish… ?
[By the sound of her voice, those are definitely quotes… but the touch is distracting and it takes the edge off her words, unable to present herself as hard or particularly intimidating when his fingers dance up to her long spine, making her withers twitch and rustling the bit of vestigial mane between her equine shoulders, a dark line of hair that seems to trace a little ways up her more human-like spine as well, slightly obscured beneath the fabric of her underrobe.]
I'd say they have a cynical way of looking at things. A trait like that is the sign of a good person.
[Like her. Like Dimitri. Neither were perfect, both had their demons, but they still had certain noble convictions they were determined to stand by, no matter how restrictive.
As his fingers travel along and he reaches the trail of mane-like fur that goes up to her human spine, he realises it is, dare he even think the forbidden word, cute. His fingers brush up against her bare skin and the slight dusting of fur just before it becomes hidden by her clothes.]
We're all from different worlds and cultures. It wouldn't kill people to be a little more open-minded about different ways of thinking, would it...? [...Then again, killing each other for thinking differently is the whole conflict this place is founded on.]
[He says that, that it is the sign of a good person… but Hayame can’t believe that. Not because she thinks him a liar, but because… she knows very well that her sense of honor leads often and directly to violence. It was for her honor that she had beheaded her enemies in Venera in Kenos, for her honor that she found herself unable to back down or de-escalate so many arguments and spats with her fellow Meridian, for that same tattered, false-from-the-beginning honor that she’d hunted traitors beneath the roots…
She didn’t think it made her a bad person, either, just. A warrior. A warrior trying to live with honor because she had almost nothing else.
Her thoughts become… somewhat annoyingly jumbled, however, when a hand traces up her spine to her mane, making her shoulders tense up and her fingers curl tightly on her tea cup. Canines nip into her bottom lip and her head lilts to the side, unsure if… was he attempting to proposition her? Teasing her? She can’t tell-]
W- well, you can preach that to Meridian in your next communion…
[(Never mind it was probably meant to apply to her, too.)]
[True, a sense of honour mixed with a warrior code can prove a nightmarish combination, something he knows all too well. But if there were a way to disentangle the two, and those noble inclinations were applied purely to peaceful means...
Well, that's a thought for later. He has to suppress a laugh, seeing the reaction to his touch. So she was sensitive there, too?]
Oh? Would you like me to sing your praises in this communion, too?
[He's carding his fingers through the mane, half-expecting to get swatted away before long.]
[... It feels good, his fingers brushing through that coarse line of dark hair along her spine that trailed over both equine and human-like parts of her. No one has ever done that before. It makes her tail twitch, and she almost... But no. He says that and-]
No.
[Her fingers tighten noticably on her foreknees, her gaze narrowing in a recollection she had not wanted. She has tried to keep peace and not bring it up when she was a guest in his home, but-]
You should not have brought me up in the last one, either. I can speak for myself.
[His hand goes still, and internally, he winces. He supposes he should have seen this come up sooner or later.]
I know you can. I just wanted to move the conversation along, since you've already made it pretty clear you don't want to participate.
[He didn't want to listen to people tossing insults at her or otherwise saying unkind things about her. The deflection seems to have worked, by and large... not that it stopped Hayame elsewhere in the discussions.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
leicesters) wrote2022-12-06 08:26 pm
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Need any help? [He knows full well how proud she is, but it does look tricky to reach unassisted.]
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Nothing will change if she just refuses things. She had come here, hadn't she? And she had accepted his meal. And she did have a lot of hair... So after a long moment, a brow furrowed in internal debate...]
... You may help with my mane, if you are so inclined.
[She gives her tail a last few strokes, awkwardly turning the oiled-up comb over in her hands a few times before she offers it to him.]
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Instead, he sits down on the mattress next to her, and it dips slightly under his weight. He takes the offered comb, apprising her mane.]
Mind helping me with this part? I don't want to tangle your hair before we've even started. [The buns, he means. He doesn't have hair that long, so he wouldn't know where to begin with taking it out of a bun. He's probably caused enough messes for one evening, he thinks.]
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She'd learned very quickly in Horos and Kenos that the culture of most other places did not seem to involve respectable women only allowing their husbands to see them with their hair down. It still takes her a moment to decouple from the idea of how intimate such a thing was to her, to tell herself that here it is just hair-]
... of course.
[That she releases from the loose, post-bathing bun in a heavy fall of ebony strands. She had not been allowed to cut it since she left fillyhood behind, and unbound it reaches to her fetlocks, longer than some men were tall. Thanks to the bathhouse's aromatic shampoos, it smells slightly of lavender.]
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...You're so beautiful. [He says it, almost awe-stricken, and takes the comb, gathering a section of her hair to begin combing, starting from the middle and down to the tips. He's trying to be as gentle as possible, especially when her mane feels so silky smooth compared to the wild tangle of curly hair he has.]
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I know. You do not need to say it.
[... Except she knew because potential buyers had called her beautiful, and unlike friends, family, or lovers... potential buyers had no reason to lie to property about their visual appeal. ... It sounds much nicer when Claude says it, even if it has more chance of being a lie or empty flattery.
... It feels nice, too. Having someone else brush her hair. Her fingers curl on the bony knees of her forelegs, shoulders rising slightly and an occasional shiver running down her back to the rhythm of his combing.]
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[Don't say this, don't behave like that... But at least she's confident in her looks instead of denying it or playing coy, so he can appreciate that much, even if he hasn't quite comprehended the reasons why she has that confidence. He shifts his weight slightly as he reaches for the strands further away, and he can't deny how well-groomed she keeps herself. A strange trait for a warrior who acts like womanhood is a burden, but something he appreciates, all the same.]
Want me to keep going? [He sits back once he's done with the middle to the tips, wondering if she wants to comb the rest of her mane from the roots, or if she trusts him to do it.]
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She doesn’t even know how to respond to it, unable to muster even denial or anything beyond a humming silence. If she just lets him say it, perhaps he will eventually tire of it… or she will just somehow magically discover the proper way to handle it. (Something about muscles that had wasted away-)]
If you are going to tend to it, you may as well see it through.
[It is a mumble, but it is audible, and to be helpful… she hunches slightly to minimize the difference in their heights, tail swishing slightly over the sheets. If she closed her eye (and the eyelids over the empty socket)…
Maybe it would be almost relaxing.]
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Before long, though, he's getting back into the rhythm of combing, and starts humming away as he works. If he messes up at any point, he's sure she'll tell him.]
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She tries to leave it at first, stubborn and reluctant to remove it in front of anyone, but… it is impractical. It would be shifted around by the movement of her hair anyway, if he tried to comb around it, so. Slowly, without comment, she reaches up to undo the connecting point where the straps crossed behind her skull, pulling it off and holding it tightly in one hand.
… It’s fine. He’s behind her.
He won’t see the unbeautiful part of her from there.]
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Almost done. [He says, as he progresses.] You sure you don't need help with your tail?
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She almost forgets for a little while that she has only one eye and that she is in the house of a man who claimed to love her. Her eye drifts near close again, and this time…]
… if you want to.
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[Once her mane is all done to her satisfaction, he moves down the mattress to her rump. Her tail is that same pristine, silken hair as her mane, and he's especially careful with it as he lifts it over his thighs to start combing.
He's not looking on purpose, but as he lifts her tail, it does leave him feeling dully heated to realise how close he is. That if she let him touch her...
But that's not a boundary he'll cross. Not yet. So he finishes combing her tail from where she left off, this time in relative quiet, warmth dusting his cheeks.]
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But then there is nothing else but being aware of what he is doing and where he is. One of her back legs twitches slightly every now and then, a hoof curls on the mattress. She… she isn’t that worried, because she isn’t in heat, so her sex isn’t as easily exposed, but. His hands are still close. Powerful muscles still ripple slightly beneath freshly washed dun coat, the color darkening to black velvet beneath her tail and high on the backs of her thighs.
But he is respectful, and she-]
Thank you.
[Whispers politely when he finishes, hoping her face isn’t as red as it feels.]
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And, really, part of him enjoys pampering her, as if she's his queen... and they're not on a makeshift bed on the floor of a small apartment. He pours tea for them both next, still warm from the pot.]
How often do you brush your coat? [He asks, resting a hand on her dun flank. It surely needed much less maintenance, but if she ever needed hand with that, too, he could offer.]
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She doesn't say anything against it.]
Every few days. More if I exert myself.
[It took more effort and more stretching into odd positions to do...]
- The bathhouse had a scraper.
[Just in case he was concerned about the state of her coat in his new sheets. (Which she noticed, with a bit of pleasure.)]
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[He runs the hand along her flank, feeling the breathing of her second set of lungs, the warmth of her powerful body. Lucky she doesn't have the thick fluffy coat of a Fódlan horse, which would take a great deal more maintenance.
With that offer out of the way, he resumes drinking his tea. The perfect thing to help him conk out after all that food.]
Thanks for the new sheets, by the way. It was really thoughtful of you.
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… Her equine flank is just as much her “side” as if he were stroking along the line of her waist, and it makes her cheeks darken further, her hide occasionally twitching beneath his fingers. Except he’s not a fly to dislodge, or a potential buyer examining her horseflesh before auction. He’s...]
… It was only proper.
[She finds distraction in the answering, sipping her own tea and using one hand to pinch the fabric of the sheets, rubbing a thumb in the pure white fabric.]
I dirtied the last pair.
[And sure there was washing, but. They’d been so terribly clean looking (to a woman from a breeding stables in 1590).]
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[It's something he'll never have, he knows that much. He drains the last of his tea and sets the cup aside. Part of him is still curious about how sensitive her equine body is to touch, and his hand travels up to her back, to the ridges of her lengthy spine. He wants her to be comfortable with this closeness, little by little. Just as he, a human with such a limited viewpoint of jinba, should make efforts to learn more of her.]
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Are you sure you do not find it “outdated” and foolish… ?
[By the sound of her voice, those are definitely quotes… but the touch is distracting and it takes the edge off her words, unable to present herself as hard or particularly intimidating when his fingers dance up to her long spine, making her withers twitch and rustling the bit of vestigial mane between her equine shoulders, a dark line of hair that seems to trace a little ways up her more human-like spine as well, slightly obscured beneath the fabric of her underrobe.]
Most certainly seem to…
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[Like her. Like Dimitri. Neither were perfect, both had their demons, but they still had certain noble convictions they were determined to stand by, no matter how restrictive.
As his fingers travel along and he reaches the trail of mane-like fur that goes up to her human spine, he realises it is, dare he even think the forbidden word, cute. His fingers brush up against her bare skin and the slight dusting of fur just before it becomes hidden by her clothes.]
We're all from different worlds and cultures. It wouldn't kill people to be a little more open-minded about different ways of thinking, would it...? [...Then again, killing each other for thinking differently is the whole conflict this place is founded on.]
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She didn’t think it made her a bad person, either, just. A warrior. A warrior trying to live with honor because she had almost nothing else.
Her thoughts become… somewhat annoyingly jumbled, however, when a hand traces up her spine to her mane, making her shoulders tense up and her fingers curl tightly on her tea cup. Canines nip into her bottom lip and her head lilts to the side, unsure if… was he attempting to proposition her? Teasing her? She can’t tell-]
W- well, you can preach that to Meridian in your next communion…
[(Never mind it was probably meant to apply to her, too.)]
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Well, that's a thought for later. He has to suppress a laugh, seeing the reaction to his touch. So she was sensitive there, too?]
Oh? Would you like me to sing your praises in this communion, too?
[He's carding his fingers through the mane, half-expecting to get swatted away before long.]
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No.
[Her fingers tighten noticably on her foreknees, her gaze narrowing in a recollection she had not wanted. She has tried to keep peace and not bring it up when she was a guest in his home, but-]
You should not have brought me up in the last one, either. I can speak for myself.
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I know you can. I just wanted to move the conversation along, since you've already made it pretty clear you don't want to participate.
[He didn't want to listen to people tossing insults at her or otherwise saying unkind things about her. The deflection seems to have worked, by and large... not that it stopped Hayame elsewhere in the discussions.]
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