15: Comb

If only the tangles of their relationship could be brushed away, as well.

The task of running a comb through such lengthy crimson tresses was a strenuous one, but Nabooru had always found it a peaceful part of her routine. She took no less than an hour each night, letting her hair loose and working through it in portions. It always seemed a near impossibility that she could be free of every small knot and tangle at the beginning, but having seen it fall straight like the waterfall of the valley a thousand times before, she held faith that success would come again.

It had never bothered her when he watched.

Her King's golden gaze was welcomed, in point of fact, for she knew how he favoured her hair. It was the envy of many sisters, and Nabooru held great pride in its care and lustre—she knew it looked effortless to them. Ganondorf was one of very few who had ever witnessed her strict regime of oiling and combing, knives taken to the very tips once a week to be rid of the split ends a desert's heat produced.

It was a nightly practice she would normally keep hidden—just as a magician performing in the streets of castle town would never reveal his tricks for the illusion—but with the lone male of her kind, she revelled in allowing him this private glimpse. She wanted him to see the lengths she took to maintain its radiance and delicate texture, if only to remind him to appreciate it further.

So many of those things he favoured of her once had been lost to his distractions already, as more and more of Ganondorf's attentions went astray. The sheen of her amber eyes had been slowly replaced by the glass of a compass. Instead of mapping copper skin, he traced his fingers upon an atlas. Words spoken between them had been swapped for writing in dusty old tomes, leaving only silence late at night.

Nabooru could not let him forget her hair, when it was the only thing still beauteous enough to sway his attention.

Setting the comb down gently, her gaze shifted to capture his in the mirror, privately treasuring the rare sight of him simply sitting upon the bed to watch her. There was no book in his hand, nor any other thought on his mind that she could see; the lines of his face free from the pensive scowl he wore when mulling the east. Her lips pursed as she watched the man grow quizzical behind her, eyeing the idle comb at her side and glancing between it and her half finished hair.

It was the only warning he'd get to pay attention closely, and Nabooru counted the seconds before his reflection finally looked to her face. A flash of surprise caught him to see the subtle anger there, and though he hid it quickly, the woman would seize upon the opportunity to have his undivided attention.

Shifting on her stool, she turned to one side, staring over her shoulder expectantly—she knew it would draw him to speak. An unexplained stare always did, but the hair would cement it. He held an obsessive need for closure, and if nothing else, always tried to finish whatever he or anybody else started.

Ganondorf cracked a moment later, the corner of his mouth ticking with displeasure. "Is there any particular reason you've stopped, or are you just trying to be suspenseful?"

"You already know the ending. I come to bed, you run your fingers through straight hair." she shrugged nonchalantly, keeping a distance in her tone. "I was just wondering whether you still would if I didn't brush the tangles out."

Thick brows twitched with some confusion for her statement, but sensing an argument, a scowl was quick to take its place as the Gerudo King's head inclined. "Not that you haven't already formed some ridiculous answer in your head, but yes, Nabooru. Why wouldn't I?" it was sneeringly given.

His second's gaze sharpened into a glare as she readied some venom of her own. "I don't know, Ganondorf, why don't you tell me? Say I don't brush it tonight, or tomorrow night, or for a week or a month, would it still be good enough? Or would you lose interest and start running your fingers through some other bitch's hair?" as if in point, her shoulder rolled to toss a wayward lock aside; neglected.

The King stared at her for a long moment, his mouth hanging open just a sliver for the audacity, before a humourless scoff rolled from his throat. Sending his gaze to the window—simply to find some distraction in the stars—he would lightly shake his head, mentally trying to map where this evening had derailed as to draw such ire upon himself. There was nothing he had said or done that he knew to pinpoint and blame, but then again, there often needn't be. Shifting his jaw from side to side with that thought, his bulk would shift, bare feet finding the sandstone brick of the floor.

Nabooru watched him like a hawk as he stood, tensing in her seat like a cobra about to strike.

With a lessened frown, golden eyes shifted to peer sidelong at her, and a cynical curve ghosted his lips as he moved heavy feet toward the window. "You just can't let me have it, can you?" he seethed, tired and resentful as he held up a finger. "One thing, Nabooru, after a long and trying day... to simply sit and watch a beautiful woman comb her hair without having my intentions weighed. Gods forbid, it calms me."

She noted the bitterness tainting his words, and she simply couldn't hold it in—perhaps she couldn't simply 'let him have it', any more. No, indeed, it was high time he re-earned his right to indulge.

"...You've been talking in your sleep again." it slipped stiffly from her, painted nails digging into her pant legs.

Amber eyes caught the twitch as it ran through the muscles of his bare back, rippling the darkened skin in a manner Nabooru had always been fond of—in younger, simpler years, her fingertips on the back of his neck would invoke the same reaction as her suspicions did now. It saddened her how that, too, had come to be so commonly replaced.

The King's palms settled upon the brick frame of the window, and a irritable, defeated sort of sigh was offered to the chill, rolling fogged into the night through the gap. Silence then, as she swore her voice echoed around the chamber, becoming more cringe worthy for every moment he neglected it.

Finally, the rich rumble came low to answer, and she hated how removed from him it sounded. "Have I, now..." it was not a question. "And I suppose those unconscious ramblings of mine are not to your liking."

"No. But we've had that conversation before." Nabooru offered softly, painted lips creasing into a thin grimace. "Frankly, I can't help but listen, when it has become the longest you speak to me at any given time."

Anger thundered as he flashed a golden glare her way. "I am leaving for Hyrule at dawn and you will not persuade me otherwise."

"I was never under any illusion that I could!" she hissed back, rising from her stool to flash a fearsome scowl of her own as she snatched the comb from the mirror side.

"But when you get to that damned castle, Ganondorf, you have a good long look around you, because I guarantee none of those pretentious snakes in court are going to have hair like mine. Enjoy your white brick room full of gaudy furniture. Shiver in your cold, empty sheets. Stay there, since you think so highly of their country, and don't come back until you can't stand the sight of green. Maybe then you'll learn to appreciate the desert's beauty again..."

Trailing off, the Woman's jaw would tense, her gaze losing its fire to drop mournfully to the comb in her hand as a thumb gently ran over the teeth. She could brush her hair all night, but nothing in the world could've untangled the knot in her stomach.

"...Maybe mine, too. But I guess at the moment, nothing compares to the beauty of Hyrule in your eyes."

He said nothing, his back to her still. Though Nabooru wouldn't see it, the scowl had twisted into something of pained remorse the instant her words reached rounded ear. There were parts of him that screamed out in protest, the silver tongue darting behind his teeth to correct and assuage. Ganondorf's first instinct was to tell her that she was wrong... but even he couldn't form a lie strong enough to remove the fact—the awful fact—that she was right.

By the time he turned from the window, she was gone, leaving only a lonely comb to take her place upon the silken covers of his bed. She did not complete her ritual. He did not feel calm.

When dawn broke, he left without saying another word, cleaving to the country he longed for. That evening, Nabooru did not brush her hair, spiteful and cursing the very thought of him in her hurt.

It was a week before she cracked, sneaking back into his room in search of her comb.

She cried herself to sleep in his bed, when she discovered it had gone with him.