Oh, I'm going to mess this up

[emgoldened]

WHO: Gwen and Viserys
WHERE: grocery store TO START
WHEN: time is an illusion
WHAT: Viserys gonna get schooled about how damn bad his wig is; Gwen gonna get schooled in Westeros blather.
WARNINGS: honestly




Tangle-fighting. Frizz-control. Dries STRAIGHT! Dries CURLY! For a LUSTROUS SHINE! Gently moisturizes! Heat-activated!

Viserys Targaryen stands in the hair care section, his own brushed and crawling past his shoulders, sporting all dark clothing which only serves to make him look even scrawnier. The confused, frustrated look creeping over his face serves to make him look gaunt, almost haunted.

MADE WITH COCONUT OIL AND ALOE VERA EXTRACT

What the fuck does any of this mean?

In one hand, he holds HEAT-ACTIVATED! The other is wrapped around something with ethnic in the title, mostly so Viserys can inspect the image on the front. He has a basket crooked at his elbow, and inside it holds a few apples, a dark red candle, beef from the deli, and a business magazine he only threw in the mix because one of the big titles was something about BECOME THE POWER, OWN YOUR THRONE.

Let him live.

"I don't understand."

Muttered, now turning over a new bottle of conditioner. Won't someone think of the Targaryen men.

Comments

[trouvaille]

"Evidently."

--Viserys wasn't actually addressing anyone besides, presumably, Viserys; that does not appear to have stopped the young woman who has put her hand briefly at his elbow as she stops to look at both his basket (somewhat judgmentally) and the bottles he's holding (with more sympathy). Her slightly caustic opener isn't entirely unkind, and she follows it up without waiting for a reaction, "You don't need either of those - do you mind if I touch your hair?"

Hers, tightly braided upwards from the nape of her neck into a sleek, glossy ponytail that curls at the bottom, looks lovely. It ought to, considering what goes into maintaining it and maintaining her commitment to almost never letting anyone see its natural curl.

"You're an ImPort, yes? I feel like I should be calling my stylist for you. She'll discount the first three appointments."

[emgoldened]

He flinches away at first, not expecting a companion. He's more surprise than fear, though, especially when he lays eyes on...well, she isn't a knight. She isn't Jorah. She isn't a Stark or a Lannister, she isn't the Usurper. She probably won't slit his throat or cover his hair in molten gold. And his hair is a very notable Targaryen trait. Touching it is an honor. Of course she asks permission! She can tell it, and therefore him, are really quite special.

He nods, tilting his head so some hair falls in easy reach. So many split ends. So many. So much heat destruction. At least it no longer stinks of horse and manure. Only sad lonely man.

"I am." His eyes move from her face to her hair. Ah, yes, braids, his kind of enemy. Hers is quite fashionable and elegant, however, indicating potential good taste. "How often do you see her? This hair witch of yours."

Because Gwen's hair is magic, oooooh.

[trouvaille]

It's safe to say that Gwen wasn't expecting Viserys' face; there's a moment just long enough to be unavoidably noticeable where her fingers stop just before she'd have touched his hair and her mind stutters to a stop, not immediately prepared for 'Marc, but blond and badly dressed'. It's - well, she's in no danger of mistaking him for her brother, Marc wouldn't be caught dead in any of this, but the resemblance is striking enough that she is, well, struck.

Just for a moment, though. She turns tendrils of blond hair between finger and thumb and sighs--

"Once a month or so, depending on what I want her to do. You need like an inch of this cut or it's going to split to the root and be completely unsalvageable," in the firm tone of someone trying not to sound slightly appalled. These old timey people don't know any better, or something, it's like a public service to help them, probably. "And a deep conditioning treatment...this colour is natural, isn't it? Because a blonde shampoo could probably still gloss it up a bit, I think..."

It's not weird that he looks like Marc. She doesn't even miss him, probably, it's fine. Her fingers tangle loosely, gently in his hair, absent-minded, as she talks and looks at the bottles in front of him.

"You really need a treatment, though. And a good conditioner."

[emgoldened]

Obviously, she's struck by how amazing his hair and eyes and entire face are, because they are definitely amazing, very Targaryen. He isn't common-looking even by his own world's standards. Clearly she is just wowed that such a fantastic and powerful combination exists. He'll allow it.

The hair twirling is something he hasn't experienced in a while. He looks at her fingers, amused more than anything. He isn't taking any sort of insult here. And more importantly, he isn't ready to bolt because wow what a weirdo.

"Yes. I am descended of the blood of Old Valyria." That explains everything, of course. "I do not know this split you say. It has been quite some time since my hair was properly tended to, however. You know what you speak about."

He nods, glancing to her braid. It's meant to be a sort of compliment. Just a bit.

She's easy on the eyes, okay, he's just a man.

[trouvaille]

The -

Oooh, this is going to go sideways, she can feel it. Not because she's being a weirdo - no, Gwen's laissez-faire approach to the rules of social engagement and the liberties she's grown accustomed to getting away with taking is nothing new, and when prompted she's perfectly capable of both keeping her hands to herself and brazening out that nothing about it was strange anyway, god - but...

It had never occurred to her, previously, how much like Marc Daenerys apparently looks, too. And it's not what Daenerys has said about her brother, as Gwen slowly realises who it is she's stopped, so much as it is the tone in which she hadn't said so many things; the shape of the silences. She can't know the details that fill them, but she's not stupid. Whatever picture Daenerys chose not to paint, it wasn't a pretty one, however handsomely he might clean up given the opportunity.

Top ten things one through ten not to do in this situation: give him any reason to be angry with his sister. The instinct that says oooh, you should probably leave is tamped down by a second impulse that says one hundred and ten percent do not create a situation Daenerys has to deal with in doing so. Which means -

She smiles, taking her hand out of his hair to find her phone in her purse. Stylist. Phone number. Text her for availability. And, you know, double check--

"I'm very particular about my hair. Do you want me to make you an appointment with my stylist? She'll just need your name and a contact number to confirm it. And we can pick you out some of these in the meantime...we have a similar hair texture, you can just about use the same products as I have been. Have you ever had it, like, straightened?"

[emgoldened]

He's still not quite used to technology. He won't be for some time, really, which is to be expected. So when Gwen pulls out her phone, he scoots forward, leans to squint at it. She's touched his hair and so the personal bubble has since been banished. At least, now he's had the chance to enjoy running water, he doesn't stink or anything. There is a faint scent of vanilla and lavender about — basic scents one puts in a bathroom, or uses to freshen a room. Nothing to write home about.

He can't know who his face reminds her of but it's right there. Enjoy.

"I am Viserys of the House Targaryen, the Third of His Name," he says easily, leaving off the other titles. He held onto them long enough before. A dead man alive in a new world cannot cling to much, at least, not in the presence of those who won't know any better. "Straightened? No. That is...here."

He picks up a bottle nearby. One of those straightening gels. And he wiggles it a little. Has he picked up the lingo well yet? Look, he's very good at learning when he wants to be, did he do good, praise him.

[trouvaille]

Personal space is overrated, in Gwen's opinion, right up until the moment when she decides she needs it in a mile radius around herself and heaven help anybody in her arm's length-- but she spells out, "V-I-S-E-R-Y-S?" and doesn't need to ask him how to spell Targaryen. After mastering 'Daenerys' in her contacts, extrapolating his probable spelling isn't even that much of a challenge.

She smells headier than he does, up close; Valentina by Valentino, a perfume described as fit for a rebellious Italian heiress and a bottle of which had been in the purse that came with her when she was first dragged into this mess.

"I'm Gwen. Gwenaëlle Clothilde Decima Wynne-York unless I'm writing poetry, which is not applicable to my mastery of the GHD. Do you want to try it? It'd be neat to see how long your hair is without the wave before you get a bit trimmed off. And it needs a proper wash anyway. Do you have anything on? She's going to send me some times."

[emgoldened]

He nods at her spelling, seeming to be Impressed. And he is! After all, where he's from, not just anyone knows how to read and write. As it should be. Beautiful, educated, and what a name. Royalty, perhaps. He assumes she is some sort of nobility at the very least—if not in this world than in her own, since the differences are so stark.

His smile grows and he laughs, thoroughly pleased, a bit amused. So many words! What a talkative woman! Does she sing, too? He'll be sure to find out later.

"I'll try most anything once." A man did not sup from the beggar's cup all his life to really, in the end, be that picky. "Anything what, Lady of Wynne-York? Anything — oh, these?"

He points to the gels, the sprays, the stuff that says it's for hair but he has zero experience with, and shakes his head almost as if in terror. Boy don't play that game, he has no idea about most of them. Oils and the like were meant for older men with beards, for women, for princes only on special occasions. Exile wasn't one of them.

[trouvaille]

She laughs with him, then, but when she clarifies, "Schedule-wise, I mean, are you going to have anything that clashes with an appointment time, do you think?" she takes care not to be laughing at the misunderstanding. Her own self-preservation instinct is depressingly minimal, but she can be a lot smarter when she thinks she's working on someone else's behalf -

Daenerys is a lot more important to her than her general inclination to be mean to all men.

"A lavender shampoo would probably be good for your hair," she says, musingly, of the products. "I wonder if they've got anything with honey in, though, I think that would go a long way to repairing the dryness." More to him, then, than herself: "It'll feel so much better."