Interacting with:
Kasir Dorran
Soah had never known what it felt like to have someone else braid her hair.
Her fingers had done the work for years, clumsy at first, then as she continued to practice, abliet better. Most of the time it ended up as half-matted locks, some twisted into hardened cords, others barely clinging together. There was no vanity in it, just function. To keep the strands off her face. To keep wildness from becoming a weapon against her. No one else had ever touched her hair.
So when Kasir suggested it by offering it, she'd surprised herself by agreeing.
Because that meant unmaking of what had come before.
Each braid she undid felt like unraveling some old version of herself. Her fingers worked in silent, steady commitment. She could feel the watchful stir of her sentient tattoos curling over her skin in tentative curiousity. But as she conducted her task, she didn't just scrub the dirt away. she
cleansed it. Sweat, blood, dust, ash, all washed and rinsed from her hair and down the drain. Some braids had been with her so long they tore a little when she let them go.
It wasn't just hair. It was everything that came
before him.
By the time she sat on the floor of the cargo bay with her knees pulled in, spine straight, the hum of the 578-R steady beneath her, she had already left something behind. And without needing to ask, she felt Kasir step behind her. That she allowed it, let him close, said more than words could.
It was a quiet trust that spoke in spades at the recognition of someone worthy to be followed and adhere to. The proverbial baring of a throat that understood he could kill her at any moment should he desire, but he didn't seek to. Instead his goal was another. One to forge and mold into something far more than Soah could ever imagine herself to be.
In the next moments, Soah felt how his bare and pale slender hands slipped into the damp weight of her hair, sectioning it as that ticklish draw of a finger laid out a new part in that cool, light and precise method of his.
And it
felt… nice.
Not weak. Not strange. Just… nice.
As the minutes passed, Soah couldn't help how her eyes fell into heavy half lidded slits, her tail slowly curling at her side in a lazy arc as her breathing evened out. The sharp angles of her face softened and for once, her shadow tattoos didn't twitch or shift with agitation, but instead laid still, restfully watching as they slid over the dusky skin of he bare shoulders and down her arm pulsing in a slow beat as if in sync with her heart.
And with every interweave and flex of his fingers, Soah felt there was more to it than just braiding her hair. No, there now was a far more special significance.
Yes, there was a ritual now to this, in how he braided with the certainty of a blade slipping into its sheath, but with care she hadn't expected. She could feel it with every pass of his fingers, what he was
trying to teach her. The control. The discipline. The trust. The
belonging.
It was there in the tight, clean rows that now crisscrossed her scalp like sleek ceremontional lines. And while she didn't see herself in a reflection often, she didn't need a mirror to sense the difference. No, she could
feel it in the way the braids were tightly drawn away from her face, clearing her vision. The girl who had once prowled through the Academy's dirt with knotted hair and clawed fists...was gone. And in her place stood something remade.
Not by idle will. But by
purpose.
Purpose she felt despite hearing that he would not let others see him mourn if she fell, but that he would feel it regardless. Felt it because she
understood.
Kasir wasn't a man who wasted words, so she had began to learn how to read the ones he didn't say. The heaviness behind his silences. The edge behind his hunger. The subtle shifts of his mood in the tides she'd started to sense long before they reached the surface. He had become something more than her Master.
Someone to be respected, feared, but also protected.
It was as simple and as complicated as that.
And finally, when he tied off the last braid and stood, the air between them felt shifted and changed.
She rose with him. Followed his nod to the crate, her ears twitching once, twice in curiousity before moving forward.
Every so slowly, she opened it, revealing inside the dark gleaming armor. After a second, her hand came up to hover over it it reverently. There'd be modifications needed of course. Her Felacatian shifts didn't always play nice with rigid gear but that wasn't the point.
The point was that he
knew she was ready.
Not just to fight.
But to truly embrace the fire he had been cultivating and forging her to be. The past washed away, the new carefully and precisely crafted Soah now in front of him.
Soah didn't need to say anything. There were no words that fit.
Instead, she stepped and turned towards him, pressing her forehead to his open palm in a gentle affectionate bap, soft and sure, the gesture instinctive. A low, deep purr vibrated in her chest, rolling through the quiet space between them. The kind that she never gave unless she meant it.
And it said everything.
Her devotion, her admiration, and her commitment.
She would not fall. She would be the flame he demanded her to be. Burning bright as she struck down each and every single one of their enemies.
