@bloodlessbhaalbabe put this demon of an image of henry shaving hans in my head so I had to exorcise it.
If you see any inaccuracies about medieval shaving in here no you didn't, enjoy the fantasy
“You’re gonna mangle yourself,” Henry says from behind his book. “Have you ever even shaved your own face before? Thought nobles didn’t lower themselves to tasks like that.”
Hans gives him a withering look. “Of course I have. What kind of a foolish question is that?”
He drops down onto the chair he’s dragged to the edge of their table in the Devil’s Den. It squeaks at the weight of him, as though if he wiggles the wrong way the legs might give out and send him crashing to the floor. Irritating, what a dump the place still is.
Not that Hans had expected the inn to be somehow transformed after Suchdol. Just that he could use some comforts, is all. Proper chairs, a wash basin. Something better to use as a mirror than the communion paten he’d nicked from the ruins of a crumbling church outside Trosky, but oh well. He’s survived in worse conditions.
Hans leans the silver plate up against their cracked pitcher, tilting it until his blurry reflection comes into view. He gets nothing but his chin first- the surface on the thing’s no bigger than his palm- then his forehead. Props it up a bit straighter and-
There. His own face staring back at him in hazy relief.
He’s not certain what he’d expected, really. Same scars on his cheeks from the pox he’d survived as a boy. Same off center nose, broken on a ride with Aethon at age twelve. If he has dark circles beneath his eyes, or looks a little more ragged than he’d looked when he set out on this whole journey, well. He blames the plate.Â
It’s not as smooth surfaced as the little mirror he has in Rattay, and he wishes desperately that he had that with him. Pretty little thing framed in gold, he’d bought it from some distant land called Venezia. He’d spent a real fortune on it too- Hanush had called him Narcissus gazing at his own reflection when he’d caught him using it and he’d laughed in shock that the man even knew who Narcissus was.
Hanush. If it weren’t for Hanush he wouldn’t be trapped in this rat hole at all.
Hans scratches at the dark blond hair growing thick along his jaw. He watches his wavy reflection wrinkle its nose. Even the last dregs of golden sunlight filtering in through the window do nothing to flatter hollows beneath his cheekbones. The healthy young man who’d set out from Rattay is gone.Â
Hell, his mirror probably is too. Hanush has likely sold it to pay off his gambling debts by now, he thinks. Just another thing he’d treasured lost.
The plate will have to do. Even if only because if he has this beard for even one more day he’s going to lose his fucking mind with the itching. He doesn’t know how Henry stands it.
[Read on AO3]
