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"So, I think it goes like this..." Jade muttered quietly, feeding clumped strands of hair around each other, over under, under over, trying to remember the times in vain that Rose attempted to teach her how to braid challah. Oh lord, if she could barely manage bread dough, what were the odds she could handle hair?
Feferi laughed a little bit, just wiggling at the sensation of her hair being played with. "You know, if you don't know how to braid it, that's okay! I've braided my own hair before. Just need to say the word!"
"No!" Jade responded, screwing her tongue up, sticking it out of the side of her mouth. Her fingers tried, so, so hard, but threading the needle felt absolutely impossible, not at all helped by the strange texture of Feferi's hair compared to Jade's. "I got this." She said, humming with exertion while Feferi bent over, dragging Jade's grip along like a rider trying very hard to stay on a bucking horse.
However, instead of being a bucking horse trying to kick someone off of them, Feferi just leaned back and handed Jade a brush, smiling politely. "Maybe you should get all the knots out first? That might make it a little easier." She helpfully suggested, and Jade just sighed and took the brush out of her hand.
"Fiiiiiiiine!" She whined, jokingly overdramatic to entice a giggle out of the other girl. Sliding her hand beneath Feferi's hair, and using the other one to guide the brush, she got to work. It snagged about every two inches, but Feferi barely even seemed to flinch when Jade yanked a knot out of place, or some other tangle or snare or mess of hair, just brushie brushie brushie. "How exactly do you deal with your hair? There's just... so much of it!"
Feferi laughed and wiggled around a little bit more, adjusting her sitting position until she was comfortable yet again. "Well, when you're underwater, you kind of stop caring too much about your hair other than tying it back and making sure it doesn't get in your face!"
"Oh, right, so it's probably pretty salty down there, isn't it?" Jade asked, in between long strokes from the scalp down to Feferi's mid-back (and then a second stroke to get all the way to the end, the hair flared out around Jade's legs).
"Yep! Every couple of weeks I might confishion it with something sulfate free, but it pretty much takes care of itself!" She answered, raising a bunch of chemical questions that, while interesting, Jade wasn't sure Feferi would have the bandwidth or understanding for.
So instead, she asked the second best question. "Can I take a couple of strands with me to peek at under a microscope? Promise I won't clone you! Just very curious about troll hair."
Feferi shook her head "yes" vigorously, chuckling, clearly getting some measure of enjoyment out of Jade's boundless curiosity. "Shore! Just no clones. I would probably feel compelled to murder them on sight and that wouldn't feel great!"
Jade stopped to blink a couple of times, and then just moved on past that statement. "Thank you!" She instead said, deftly avoiding the issue entirely. Nice job, Jade! "I'll just take this brush with me, if that's alright?"
"Shore, shore! Just make sure you give it back. It's ancestral!" Feferi replied, waving Jade away a little bit with her hand as an indicator that she had the all-clear. "What do you do with your hair? Lather it every day like a landdweller?"
"Oh, no, no no! Uh. What is shampoo like for you guys?" Jade responded, going back to idly brushing Feferi's hair nice and neat. "Just to make sure we're talking about the same stuff."
"Well, it comes in little rocks and you break a bit off and rub it into powder between your hands. Then it fizzes up into a lather upon contact with water! So, obviously I can't really use that in the ocean." Feferi answered, causing Jade to once again pause for a bit to consider the actual logistics behind that.
"Can you get me some Alternian shampoo when you have the time?" Jade asked, now intensely curiosity about the composition of such a thing and if it could be used to make less shitty human shampoo. Feferi nodded eagerly, so Jade continued. "Well, all our shampoo and conditioner and stuff is just like... goo of various consistencies."
"Gross! That sounds disgusting!"
"Yeah, tell me about it. And if you use it too much it dries your hair up soooooooo badly! So I just shampoo a couple of times a week and condition whenever I shampoo. Plus humans have really different scalps and mine tends to be a little dry naturally. Some people have really oily hair and they have to shampoo a lot more frequently!" Jade explained, while Feferi just made pleased, curiosity-satisfied noises.
"Oily... hair?" She sort of half-asked, half-stated.
"Yeah! Do you guys not get that?" Jade asked, resulting in a head shooken no from Feferi. "Huh. Weird! I would love to examine the implications of that later! For some reason I get the impression keratin doesn't even enter the equation for you guys. Anyway, my arm's getting kind of tired, can we take a break?"
"Yeah, sure! Can I brush your hair this time then while you rest? I'm not gonna bother asking what keratin is, hehe--" Feferi asked, already starting to turn around, with yet another brush somehow conjured from the aether. Or, more likely, her captchalogue.
"Yeah, shore!" Jade replied, sticking her tongue out playfully before turning around.