Prompt: Splitting Hairs
Went with something a bit silly.
~*~
Split Hairs A despairing cry pulled Alistair from sleep and he came awake reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. His hand slid across the sheets, grasping, before reason asserted itself. Bed. Bedroom. Palace. Denerim. There were no threats here, and if anything
did happen, well, the rest of the palace would probably know before he did.
He rolled over onto his side and looked blearily across the room at his wife, who sat at her vanity weeping softly. Facing an archdemon a week seemed almost preferable when his pregnant wife was a weepy, inconsolable mess. Dragons he knew how to handle. Upset pregnant women? Not so much.
“What’s wrong, love?” he called across the room.
“My hair!” Lya wailed,
Oh, Maker, help him. It was going to be one of
these days. He sighed softly and slid out of bed, padding over to her on bare feet. He stopped behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders, rubbing them in soothing circles.
“What’s wrong with your hair?”
“It’s ruined!”
He looked down. Long, dark brown tresses, with a hint of wave and slightly mussed from sleep. Everything looked normal to him. “It looks fine to me.”
“It’s not! Just look at it!” Lya held up a lock of hair for his inspection. He took it gently, examining it and frowning.
“I still don’t see the problem.”
Lya pulled her hair from his grasp angrily. “The ends! They’re frayed. And it keeps getting snarled and when I tried to brush it this morning the brush got caught and I couldn’t get it out and I ended up ripping out a hunk of my hair and it hurt and—!”
“Hey, hey, hey, calm down.” Straddling the bench next to her, he hugged her. Experience had taught not to try and convince her she was being silly, but to simply reassure her and try to find a solution.
“Listen, if that’s the problem, then we’ll just cut your hair.”
“No!” She pushed away from him, suddenly angry. “I don’t want to cut my hair!”
Taking a deep breath, Alistair closed his eyes and counted to ten. “And why don’t you want to cut your hair?”
“Because you said you wanted to see me with long hair. So I did this for you and now you’re saying I shouldn’t?”
Andraste’s flaming sword! “I’m not suggesting we leave you shorn, dear. I’m just suggesting something I thought would make it easier for you.”
She fingered the ends of her hair. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“Oh, Lya, of course not. To even think that is sil—I mean, don’t even consider me. I fell in love with you when you had short hair, and I’d love you if you were bald. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s just hair.”
Her expression, which had started to soften, suddenly hardened and her eyes snapped with anger. “It’s just hair?
It’s just hair?!
You, who spends almost as much time as I do fixing your hair, are telling
me that it’s just
hair?!”
Oh, he’d really stepped in it now. It would be nice if he could see these pitfalls before he fell into them. He scooted back a little, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “Poor choice of words on my part, sorry. You’re absolutely right. This isn’t something to take lightly.”
“Maybe I should have you cut off as much hair as I do.”
Alistair winced, touching his hair reflexively. It wasn’t that long. If he did that, he would be practically bald and he wasn’t too keen on that. But, if it would help….
He sighed in resignation. “If you really insisted on it, well, I’d live.”
Lya frowned thoughtfully. “You really would, wouldn’t you?
At least her crying had stopped. “Yes, I really would.”
She looked at him for another minute and then threw her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m being an idiot.”
“I never said that.”
“But you thought it.” She kissed the side of his neck. “And I am being an idiot. I’ll find someone to cut it for me later. And don’t worry—I’d never make you do that to your own hair.”
He smiled, glad that this had been fairly easy to resolve
and that he’d gotten out of it intact. A good start to any day.
“Probably,” Lya added, a mischievous smile pulling up the corner of her mouth.
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I'm a Duncan fan too. 
