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Kendal's request comes out of nowhere, and it catches Alinua off guard.
"Could you braid my hair?"
If Alinua's being completely honest, the answer is probably no. She'd been starting to learn how to braid hair before she left her family, creating knotty little messes in her mother's hair that her mother declared beautiful, but she'd never quite gotten the hang of it, and that was ten years ago. Still, Alinua would do just about anything for Kendal—she's stitched his bones back together and healed his tissues more times than she can remember. Surely she can figure out a braid.
"I can try," she offers, and Kendal settles down on the floor in front of her. He crosses his legs, rests his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, and places the sword to the side. He doesn't need that part of him right now, doesn't need to be on guard or ready to fight.
Kendal's hair is soft as Alinua threads her hands through it, gently working through each tangle that catches her fingers. "Tell me if I'm hurting you."
"You're not," Kendal says. "It feels nice. Vash never bothered to do anything with his hair."
Alinua's fingers are clumsy as she weaves the sections over each other, and she has to pull out half-finished attempts and apologetically detangle Kendal's hair multiple times, but by the end, Kendal's hair is in a loose braid hanging down his back. It's much looser than what an experienced braider would do, for sure, and much looser than anyone would want if they needed a braid to keep their hair out of their face. Still, Alinua is proud of herself for remembering how to do it, and she grows a small flower and tucks it into the bottom of the braid, right where she'd tied it off. "What do you think?" she asks, draping the braid over Kendal's shoulder.
"It's beautiful."
"Was there any reason why you wanted a braid in particular?" Alinua scoots closer and tucks her chin over Kendal's other shoulder, pulling him into a hug.
"I just wanted to try something different," Kendal says, twisting around to return the embrace. "Thank you."