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Kaladin stepped out of the shower, and ran a hand through his hair. It was getting long, strands trailing glistening streaks across his sternum. He looked around for his side knife, but of course, he’d lost it facing Graves and—
Don’t think about Moash.
Whatever the reason, he now had nothing to cut his hair with, and he didn’t feel like walking into the Bridge Four barracks dressed more sparsely than a bridgeman.
He did have a new weapon, though.
Syl? Kaladin called out in his mind. She responded with an impression of…curiosity? He was still unpracticed communicating verbally through their bond, but at least she didn’t seem presently occupied. And so, pair of silvery scissors forming in his hand, Kaladin pulled his hair to the side and cut down.
A cold shock, like a thousand pinpricks of ice on his scalp. And then…nothing. Alarmed, Kaladin sucked in Stormlight from the lone chip on the countertop, and a painful tingling replaced the numbness.
Kaladin combed tentative fingers through his hair. It felt normal. Strangely, it was the same length as it had been before. Syl? He asked. What just happened?
The Sylssors puffed into mist and his spren burst out. Syl circled him a few times, then hovered in front of Kaladin’s face, features scrunched in concentrated contemplation. Kaladin shifted uncomfortably, somehow feeling as if he were awaiting a verdict.
“I know you don’t act like it,” Syl said, “But did you ever realize that your hair is alive?”
Kaladin grunted. Actually, he had never given it much conscious thought. His hair was just there, like the wind and the rocks were. Every few months how it blew in his eyes stretched thin his patience, and he removed the excess with a side knife.
However, if it was alive, and he had just cut it with what was essentially a Shardblade…
“Is all my hair grey?”
Syl nodded grimly. “Not just that. It looks about as dull as a rainspren in the Azish desert, and believe me, those are boring.”
———
The moment Kaladin stepped from his officer’s quarters into the Bridge Four barracks, all Damnation broke loose.
“Calm down, men!” Kaladin shouted over the din. “It’s just my hair!”
“What do you mean, it’s just your hair—”
“Your hair is as much an integral part of Bridge Four as any one of us—”
“And people say my hair is greying early—”
“Morale, Kal! Think about morale!”
“You know why I asked to join your bridge crew, gancho? It was the hair, gon, I looked at that hair and I said, ‘Lopen, when you learn to have hair like that, all the Herdazian women and all the Alethi women and all the Horneater women and—” Drehy clapped a hand over Lopen’s mouth.
Kaladin sat down on the edge of Teft’s bunk, slightly overwhelmed. The other man laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Lad, with all due respect to Brightlord Kholin, them lighteyes have been working you too hard. Stormfather knows, we all have. If you need somebody to cover for you while you take a break, the men are all happy to help.”
“With the proper form, of course,” Sigzil said.
Kaladin rubbed his temples. “Of course. With the proper form.”
———
“We barely have enough to work the lifts. I’m not going to waste Stormlight on my hair, Rock,” Kaladin said. “Nobody will notice. It isn’t as if I was promoted for how I look.”
“Actually,” Drehy said, holding up a finger. Lopen clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Airsick lowlanders,” Rock said, shaking his head as he stirred the pot. “Don’t see how everything has spren. Don’t take care of hair properly, making spren of hair unhappy.”
“Maybe I should shave my head,” Kaladin grumbled. “Like the Assassin in White. It would save them the unpleasantness of living in my hair.”
———
“Storms, bridgeboy, do you need a new brand of shampoo? I’ve seen Gallant eat dried weeds with finer texture!”
Kaladin gave Adolin a flat stare. “I don’t use shampoo, Adolin.”
“I can’t spar with you like this,” Adolin wailed. “It’s like sparring with my great-grandfather!”
———
Kaladin was proud that his men were so coordinated. Or he would be, if he weren’t being held down by five members of Bridge Four as Leyten dashed to the Kholin quartermasters with a requisition for spheres because Kaladin had come down with an “ailment”.
———
The next day, Kaladin stepped out of his rooms, hair again a uniform jet black, to find Lyn waiting for him. “A parcel for you, sir. Brightlord Adolin insisted that I deliver it to you with all due haste.”
After a minor internal struggle, Kaladin decided against sending a message back to Adolin asking him to kindly cherish the time of messengers, if only because that would be just as much of a waste. “Thank you, Lyn.”
“Just glad to see you’ve recovered from your ailment!” She said cheerfully as he closed the door. Kaladin sighed and started unwrapping the contents.
It was a bottle of shampoo and a mirror.
The shampoo was rose-scented.
Kaladin found himself smiling. Well, smelling like Shin flowers was apt punishment for being such an idiot.