Twenty-Four -
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Shara and Ritz
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Ritz squeezed out the excess water and then looked at the thick wet rope of almost-white hair lying across her palms, and couldn't resist wrinkling her nose at it. "It's white," she told Shara, scraping her hair back from her face with both hands. "And I bet I can't get Vibresse Junior Miss Cotton Candy hair dye anywhere around here, either."

Shara straightened up, flicking her long ears and briskly scrubbing her palms down over her bared stomach. "Probably not," she said. "If you really want to dye your hair again there are some plants you can try."

Ritz sat down in the stream and splashed water on her face. Clear water pooled in the hollow of her crossed legs and she stared down into it like a makeshift mirror, her face made plump by the pull of gravity, with ropes and whorls of tangled wet white hair clinging to her cheeks and neck. "I hate my hair," she told Shara grumpily. "It's ugly. White hair is ugly."

"Really? I've never thought so." Shara sat down in the water behind Ritz and gathered up a double handful of Ritz's nearly-white hair, pulling it back off her face and neck. "It suits your coloring well."

Ritz leaned her head back and closed her eyes, letting Shara comb her hair back. The sun was warm and the river was cool, and it took her almost a minute to realize what she'd actually just said. Her eyes popped open. "I didn't mean your hair was ugly. I just meant... mine was. I like yours."

"Mm." Shara poured a double handful of water over Ritz's hair, slicking it back into a single streaming ponytail. "And I like yours better without all the pink in it." She twisted Ritz's hair up into a damp bun for a moment, admired the neat loop, and then let it fall again. "You're much prettier this way."

"Ha," Ritz said sourly, but then Shara lifted the heavy mass of her hair and ran two clawed fingers lightly down the back of Ritz's neck.

"Much prettier," Shara said, her voice absent and almost clinical, and her fingers stroked back up the back of Ritz's neck, and Ritz shivered, hunched her shoulders, and stopped protesting.