This story is going to be a collection of smaller, mostly unrelated Ringabel/Edea pieces. I have been posting them in the same way to AO3, and figured that in the spirit of not flooding the front page with 1-2k words fanfics, I would just post everything as chapters! Please favorite/follow/review, because I will post frequently AND since I'm trying to do at least something a day, I'm very open to requests!

Assume all pieces have spoilers for Bravely Default, but I will warn for Bravely Second spoilers as chapters contain them!

This is for safe for work, at most fade-to-black pieces. Anything else is posted on AO3.


There were some things Edea did not want to see.

A naked Ringabel in the restroom, even just "mostly-naked", was pretty high on the list. It was right below "inside of a human body", but higher than "the oozing corpse of a gigantic moth". What was also alarming about this mostly naked Ringabel was that his hair was wet and loose, draping around his face and neck, allowing water droplets to cascade down his bare chest and sides, catching the light in their movement.

Also, he was holding a knife in his hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked, not sure if she should be massively concerned for his safety or massively concerned for her own.

"Ah, Edea!" he said, smiling widely at her, as though he wasn't shirtless with a blade dangerously close. "I was just trying to trim my hair."

"… with a knife?" Ringabel had some dumb ideas, but this one was a lot, even for him.

He huffed, and set the knife down, looking slightly shamed. "It isn't ideal, I admit it. But Tiz has hidden my scissors away. Something about making sure I didn't use them on him."

Okay, that she could see. Tiz was very touchy when it came to his hair. "But why a knife?"

"It's the sharpest one that the Proprietress owns," he tried to defend his idiocy. "I thought it would do the job just fine. It's only a trim!"

"You can't use a knife to trim your hair, Ringabel. It just doesn't work well." Not that she knew from experience from the time she had borrowed her father's sword to give Alternis a haircut. It had not gone well. They had both ended up grounded for weeks.

Ringabel sighed, looking down at the floor. "Then, perhaps you can talk to Tiz? I tried to assure him that if he would relinquish the scissors, I wouldn't go after him this time! He refuses to tell me where they are."

It was Edea's turn to sigh. "Can't you just go buy another the next time we're in town?"

"We won't get to Ancheim for another few days," he replied. "I wanted to get it taken care of tonight. The split ends might ruin my hair otherwise!" He pouted at her, his eyes wide.

He was being dramatic and a big baby about it all. "Your hair will survive until we land," she tried to tell him, but when he lifted a hand to run it through his light locks sadly, she had to give in. She couldn't let him hurt himself with a knife, or do some real damage to his hair that might actually make him upset. She hated it when he was upset.

"You can borrow my scissors," she told him.

"You have scissors?" He straightened up to look at her, hazel eyes blinking in astonishment.

"Uh, yeah? I sew in my free time, Ringabel. Of course I have a pair of scissors. Tiz does too, I'm sure." Though Tiz was likely hiding his pair of scissors away from Ringabel anyway. She also thought it likely that the Proprietress had kitchen scissors, but no one wanted hair in their food, so that was also not an option to suggest right now. "Put a shirt on and come with me."

Ringabel did not put on a shirt. Instead, he slung a towel over his shoulders and followed her to the room she shared with Agnès. She wasn't sure if she really wanted a partially naked Ringabel in her room, before ultimately deciding that she could take him out, if she had to. Besides, Ringabel was harmless. Just a little helpless.

She dug her scissors out of the sewing kit shoved into her side of the closet, and offered them to him handle out. He took them from her.

"Thank you Edea," he said, smiling at her. With his hair curling around his chin and the towel only barely covering his chest, he looked more handsome than usual, almost disturbingly attractive. Not for the first time, she thought it ironic that one person could be so good looking, yet off putting at the same time.

"Are you sure you can handle this?" she asked him, as he examined the pair of scissors she'd handed him. "I don't want blood on those when they're returned."

"I would rinse them off," he pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. "Ringabel… alright, I changed my mind. Hand them over."

"What?" He clutched the scissors to his chest, hiding them under the towel. "You can't just… take them back!"

"They're mine!" she argued, and considered if she was feeling up to trying to wrestle a pair of sharp scissors from him. Then, she threw up her hands. "I'll cut your hair for you, if only you give them back."

He paused. "You would?"

She was going to regret this, she could already tell. "Yes, I will. Besides, how were you planning on getting the back of your head? You can't see any split ends there."

Ringabel went quiet. "I was just going to trim it," he finally admitted. "That would have taken care of all the split ends."

"And risk cutting off length you didn't mean to? Ringabel… don't be dumb." He was bravely stupid, she would give him that. When she held her hand out once more, he reluctantly placed the scissors in it.

Brandishing the scissors in his direction, she made him drag a chair into the restroom and sit down in it, facing away from her. She stood behind him, observing his hair as she brushed it out carefully with a comb to get out any tangles. It was nearly dry now, and more than a little fluffy.

"I think you have a couple of gray hairs here," she teased him.

He sat up straight so that he could look at her, astonished, through the mirror. "I do not!" he gasped. "You take that back."

"How would you know? You can't see the back of your head." She grinned at his reflection. "So, a trim, right? How about we cut your hair to look like Tiz's?"

"Please don't joke about that," he said, and she could detect a hint of true irritation in his voice. So Ringabel was touchy when it came to his hair, beyond just how particular he was with styling for it. Alright, so she'd better be nice. She could understand him wanting to take care of his looks.

"Alright, alright." She'd back down. Teasing wasn't any fun if she actually upset him. "Just a trim, Ringabel. Maybe no more than an inch? It's getting so long, you could put it in a ponytail if you'd like!"

"I can't have a ponytail and a pompadour, that's a bit of overkill, isn't it?" he replied. "An inch is fine."

There was probably a joke somewhere, something about men not knowing the true value of an inch, but Edea paid that thought no mind as she carefully began to trim his hair. It was easy, despite how light and hard to see the strands were. Using the blade of the scissors, she could see any split ends that he did have, but mostly just focused on straightening out the length in the back. Judging by how uneven some of it was, had he attempted to cut his own hair before?

After the back was neat, she moved around to his front. Here, he also wanted no more than an inch, and she could see him watching her every move. She wasn't so cruel as to give him a terrible haircut, at least not this time. As she moved away from each section, he would take some in his fingers to examine it.

"Do I really have gray hairs?" he asked her. His voice was strangely sad.

"It's really hard to tell with your hair color," she pointed out. His hair looked almost silver in all but the brightest light, and not for the first time, she wondered if it was his natural hair color or not. She'd never see him with dye, but one never knew. "Why?"

"It's not dyed," he said, as if he'd read her mind. That was a creepy thought. "I just thought, that if perhaps I'm graying already, I may be older than I thought."

She sighed to herself. Ringabel had still not confronted his past, though everyone was beginning to suspect the truth behind who he really was. As far as she was aware, his memories had yet to fully return, though he had begun to complain of headaches lately, and flashes of bright light. If he was who she thought he was, then he wasn't very much older… and if he was who she thought he was, his hair had been this color since he was a boy. Probably not dyed, then.

"You're not going gray," she said to him, snipping off a particularly frazzled section of hair. "You look fine."

"Do you truly think so?" he asked her, and she pondered on her next words. She had to tread carefully, especially when he sounded so hopeful. She didn't have it in her to be mean right now.

"It's a unique hair color, that's all. But it looks nice. It fits you well, no matter your age.." That… probably worked.

He smiled warmly at her from underneath the hair she was trimming. "Thank you, my dear."

When she finished up, Ringabel examined the strands of hair that he could see, before sweeping it all back away from his eyes. He brushed the trimmings from his shoulders and shook out the towel over his shoulders.

"Well?" she asked him, watching him fuss into a handheld mirror. "What do you think?"

"I think it looks perfect," he said to her, his smile wide enough to highlight his white teeth, gleaming even in the dim light. "Edea, you are a lifesaver. Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said. "That will be 40 pg, please."

"… what?"

"You didn't think I was doing it for free, did you?" she asked him, and watched his smile fall, his eyes go wide. "40 pg. Or… you could take me out to eat a chocolate crepe when we land in Ancheim." Which was worth more than 40 pg, but he didn't have to know that.

He recovered swiftly. "Crepe it is!" he declared, catching on. "It's a date."

"Payment for services rendered," she corrected him.