"Will you hold still!" his mother had all but forced him into the chair in front of her dresser and was waving the scissors around in a way that he didn't consider healthy AT ALL.

"Mama, I don't want to cut my hair," he said, ducking as she tried to position his head.

"Don't be stupid, Anders, it's getting in your eyes, you can barely see at all."

He blew a strand away and scowled into the mirror. "I so can," he said. "I can see perfectly. And in a couple of months I'll be able to tie it back.."

"Anders, you've always had your hair short, why do you want it long now?"

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. He wasn't going to tell her - ever since he'd seen the warden Commander in Denerim he'd been thinking about growing his hair. He would never have the black hair and dark skin his father and the warden had, but he could at least have the hair style. And if he could ever find out how to do it, maybe he'd even be able to get an earring...

"Mama, can't I just grow it? It will be less trouble - we won't have to cut it as often and I..."

"You'll have to wash it," Joscelyn pointed out. He frowned and looked down at his tunic - covered in mud and dust and Maker knew what else from his forays in the streets of Highever. "And brush it. If you don't it will end up snarling and tangling."

He had a sudden image of himself, rugged and unshaven (not that he had to shave yet, but he was sure it would happen eventually) with matted hair. Oh, the girls would love it.

His mother was smirking at him in the mirror. She always could read his mind. "They won't love it, darling," she said. "Women prefer men who don't knock them unconscious with their smell."

He blinked. It hadn't occurred to him before that women might be smelling him. Gingerly he sniffed the top of his shirt, and grimaced. "Is that true mama?" he said.

She laughed. "Yes, Anders, it's very, very true."

"So.. if I promise to wash it and brush it can I let it grow?"

Joscelyn sighed and put the scissors on the dresser. "I'll hold you to the promise," she said. "The last thing I want to do is help you cut a live spider out of your hair if you don't..."

"What?"

She grinned at him. "I had to help my brother do that once," she said. "He'd left his hair for months and months, and a spider got caught..."

"Mama!" he said, spinning around on the chair. "You're joking!"

She shook her head, still smiling, and pinched one of his cheeks. He groaned and ducked away from her hand. "Absolute truth," she said. "You've been warned. So. You'd best go and have a bath!"

He grumbled, but did as she said.

A week later he was getting irritated at having to brush his hair out of his eyes every couple of seconds, but despite the shagginess he didn't want to give up. Strangely enough, he found he actually enjoyed being clean. Before, he'd not thought twice about wading through mud and dust, or rolling in the dirt. He was still willing to get dirty, naturally, but when he got home in the evenings he didn't need encouragement to draw water from the well and have a wash. The other boys thought he was weird and girly, but he didn't much care, especially when Portia - the acknowledged best looking girl in the town - accepted his invitation to go walking.

By that stage he could pull his hair back into a small knot at the back of his head. A few strands escaped but he convinced himself that they looked rakishly handsome rather than messy. Portia didn't seem to mind it at all.

"Back here," he whispered as they ran from the town square, away from where the other children were busy playing. The Peacock and Grouse was a respectable pub that kept its stables clean, so Anders knew they wouldn't have to avoid piles of horse dung if they ducked behind it. Portia - fifteen, lithe and tanned and ever so slightly taller than him, giggled as he pulled her close once they were in the shadows. He was nervous - for all they'd been spending a lot of time together recently he'd not managed to get her quite so alone before and he wasn't entirely certain what to do with himself now that she was encircled in his arms. But oh it was nice just to feel the curve of her waist and the splay of her hips under his hands. Portia was getting impatient, however, and one of her hands reached up to tangle in his hair, slipping behind the tie he had in place and gripping his skull, pulling his lips down to hers and delivering his very first kiss.

Years later, he could still remember the feel of her fingers and the press of her lips and he would smile. None of the other boys had ever listened to his advice about personal hygiene.

None of the other boys had ever managed to get quite so far with Portia, either.