The Stylist- who went by Petra, thank you very much- liked her pad pretty well. It could stand to be a bit closer to the ocean, but it wasn't the worst. The Dye Trader was just one house over, and he was one of the few people in this world blessed with actual taste. The Clothier wasn't awful, but his taste was so horribly retro that she was afraid he'd offer her a bonnet.

All in all, things were looking up. She had an actual house with fresh air and no spiders she couldn't crush underfoot. (Chores weren't usually enjoyable, but crushing the little blighters with a broom? That was a special pleasure.) Business was… slow, but there were what, a dozen people who could be trusted to sit in her chair without attempting to attack her? A cut a week was good business, unless she wanted to brave the dead.

Still, she jumped to her feet when she heard the door open, rushing to greet…

Vale. Her rescuer from the spider's den, the man who singlehandedly rose up an entire village in this land, monster slayer, etc. It seemed that he had been doing some slaying recently, considering…

"What happened to your hair?" She cried. Great chunks of it were cut off and those that weren't were singed and burned horribly.

"Demon," he groaned. "Can you… salvage it?"

She held a lock of it in her fingers for a second- when she let go, her fingers were dusted with fine, powdery ash. Looking a little closer, she could see a line of eyebrow scorched off here, a slice or two through the sideburns there…

"Petra?" Vale cleared his throat. "You, uh, have a verdict?"

"Right… we're gonna have to lose a lot of it, looks like. We could make something totally new out of it if you'd like…?"

"And what if I get it burned off again?"

"If you don't do it on purpose… well, you're keeping me busy. I was thinking mana-star blue?"

"What about silver?"

"With your eyes, honey?"


"That's one hell of a scar." She commented, looking at the stretch of tragically hairless skin across the top of Vale's head. "What happened here?"

"There was this… I thought she was another girl who needed help." He started.

"Fond of damsels, hm?"

"I don't recall you complaining when I rescued you."

"Think about it, though. It's a real trend. Me, the mechanic, the tinkerer…"

"I don't want to think of him as a damsel. Why did you say that?"

"Enjoy that mental image." She chuckled, trying to arrange his hair in a way that would cover up the scar. Seemed… possible. It would require a bit of work, but she had been wanting a challenge.

"Where was I?"

"Innocent, doe-eyed damsel? Did you fall on your ass when you saw her?"

"I did not. I got close and she grew claws. Attacked me!"

She thought about it for a moment or two, what she remembered of the underground… "Sounds possible," she conceded.

"Possible? She tore clean through my helmet!"

"Sounds like you need a better helmet."

"Certain need a new one," he grumbled.

"Maybe get one that won't ruin all my hard work as soon as you put it on?"

"I'd rather have helmet head than be dead."

"I wouldn't be caught dead in half the stuff you wear, Vale."

"Sorry you don't have taste." He sniffed.

"I'm just trying to save you from yourself," she hummed. "Need a shave, while we're at it?"

"Go for it. You need new tools?"

"That would be… nice."


She was attempting to tame the Clothier's beard when it happened. The sea breeze was blowing gently, the sun was creeping down towards the horizon, and it seemed like things had settled into a sort of normalcy. Her biggest concern was if the Witch Doctor would come down and ask her to do scale cleanings or something.

Then the earth shook and trembled, the wind shrieked, and brilliant streaks of white and black sprung from the earth and danced about in the air.

"Damnit, Vale."

He would limp into her salon a few days later, almost every piece of his armor broken. Hair scorched and doused in ash, half-melted by spider venom, and worse of all: fried. Her panic was mostly because his hair was ruined.

Mostly.

(He would apologize for scaring the wits out of her with the strangest pair of scissors and razor she had ever seen. Damned thing was so sharp, so hard, she cut clean through her whetstone. How did that even happen?)


It felt like the universe was determined to throw more and more esoteric forms of hair damage her way. The Hallow was all nice and sweet until you realized that the fairy dust was like the worst glitter you could possibly imagine- it got in hair and on surfaces and would not get out ever. Horrible. You didn't even want to imagine what ichor did to hair.

Honestly, she was probably undercharging. There were multiple occasions where she had to wash somebody else's blood out of his hair and one instance where she plucked out some Crimson thing that squirmed and wriggled in her hand. She had thrown it, and it proceeded to make a very gross ichor stain on her wallpaper.

What she was trying to say was that working as Vale's stylist was traumatic. The injuries he picked up made her blood chill and she was getting them all secondhand- the Nurse had worked all sorts of terrible marvels. Idle chit-chat with Vale could head all sorts of areas, but she learned to avoid the specifics of his injuries after a while. He had lost a limb more than four times, which was just…

Yet somehow he was her favorite customer, and not just because of the consistent paydays. Better than bribing the Angler into a haircut with sweets or swimming through the Pirate's unholy beard, that was certain.

"What do you think of facial hair, Petra?"

"I've grown real tired of beards, Vale my friend."

"But there's what, two guys with beards?"

"Two is too many. The Pirate's is like a booze-soaked carpet."

"Mustache?"

"No thanks. I like my men clean-shaven."

He grinned. "Clean-shaven it is."

"That includes the sideburns."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Oh, before you go shaving, have these." He held up a razor to her. It was scarily light.

"This isn't like those stupid ghost scissors you gave me, is it?"

"It worked with a paintbrush!"

"There's enough moaning in my life without adding a ghost to it, you hear me?"