Brom kept an eye on Eragon whenever he wandered into town. Some part of him still flushed with pride whenever the boy would come swaggering into town. His son.
The boy had grown independent recently, going out to hunt frequently- it irked Garrow more than the man would admit, but Brom was a little proud of him- and vaguely, Brom could see the beginnings of the man his son would be.
At the moment, though, that outline was covered by the fuzz of a boy who was too young to grow a beard and blissfully unaware of that fact. The mustache was spotty and sparse, the beard about as thick as a forest in the desert… and the boy clearly loved it.
Garrow would be too busy with the harvest to handle it, and Brom had a feeling Roran would find it funny… so it was up to him, unless he wanted the boy to sport that pathetic excuse for facial hair for weeks.
Firstly, though, he let the boy handle his business- selling the game he had shot, grabbing a few odds and ends- but before he could retreat back to the farms.
"Eragon."
"Brom!" The boy's smile was easy, his mood bright. It was easy to forget the Empire, sometimes. A looming threat for Brom- practically nothing to the boy.
"You seem to have a little something there." He gestured vaguely towards the boy's upper lip.
"Isn't it great?" He chirped.
"You need to learn how to shave."
Eragon looked as if Brom had threatened to steal his bow away. "But-"
"A beard won't grow properly when you're this young, boy."
"I can wait!"
Brom sighed. "I will not suffer you looking like a young fool."
"But-"
Eventually, Eragon did concede to Brom's greater knowledge of facial hair, but he managed to weedle a promise of a story out of Brom as well. (That was a price worth paying for some time with his son.)
Admittedly, he was a little unfamiliar with the practice himself himself. Brom had gotten used to shaving with magic, a habit he picked up from the Riders, and before that, in his homeland, they used pumice stones.
Brom "took a pot off the fire" (read: heated the water with magic while Eragon was distracted) and bade the boy to wash his face in the warm water.
It was almost certain that Eragon had a hunting knife on him, but Brom had finer knives than that clumsy thing. Knives he had driven into the flesh of the Foresworn, a narrow curved one from far Surda, a dwarvish one, even…
Eventually, Brom found a sufficiently unassuming knife and brought it to the boy, who analyzed it with a keen eye and careful hands. (He had some of his mother's skill with blades, Brom thought, although it was used for little more than skinning game.)
Brom explained the very basic concept of shaving- use warm water to prepare the skin, use a knife to remove hairs- and Eragon took the blade and…
"Gods above, boy! You'll cut your neck open!"
He shrunk under Brom's ire, but he wasn't dead or bleeding seriously. (Brom was grateful he didn't reveal the secret of his magic to stop his damned fool of a son from exsanguinating himself.)
Unfortunately, by the time Brom had finished walking Eragon through the process of shaving, it had grown dark. With not so much as a sliver of the moon to light the way, Brom convinced Eragon to stay at the village. After Eragon's earlier display of skill with the blade, Brom didn't want him absolutely stumbling to death on a root or something.
Garrow would be worried, but Eragon was slowly growing into his own man, capable of nights out on his own.
Well… not really on his own.
"So can I hear that story now?"
"A story?" Brom mused, "Why don't I tell you of the elves, the fairest people in all of Alagaesia? Despite their many advantages, not one of them can grow a beard…"