I winced a couple of times as Cellestra worked her comb through my hair. I loved having long hair, but maintaining it, or rather, the pain that it could bring at moments like these were not a great thing to experience.

“I’m sorry if I’m hurting you,” Cellestra spoke softly in reaction to one of my many winces.

“It’s okay. I’ll get through it. I know you’re not doing it on purpose.”

“Or am I?” Cellestra said with a sly smile.

“You know I can still see you right?” I said. I could see that evil smile on her face with the eyes in the back of my spider head all too clearly. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me, but that smile of yours just tells me everything I need to know.” I referred to her joke.

“I can’t hide anything from you, can I?” She continued, still smiling, but in much less of an evil manner.

“Only if you do it behind my back. Quite literally.”

“Not hard to hide behind your back, to be fair.”

“Damn, Cellestra. That hurts,” I said before grinning.

“Awww, poor Kealyna,” She cooed.

Our little interactions like these were a wonderful drug. This elf had laid bare things within me that I would have never known about. I never would have known I could fall in love either…

“I’m so jealous,” Cellestra let out after a while of combing my hair.

“Because of my vision, or...?” I asked, not quite sure what she was referring to.

“No. Your hair. Didn’t I tell you before? It’s so soft and still so strong. Are you sure you don’t have some kind of ability for it?”

I chuckled. “Not that I know of. It’s always been like that. However, I’m not used to having it this long, you know? Armor and stuff.”

“Doesn’t really fit well in helmets, does it? Knowing you, you probably had, like, a full steel helmet that barely left anything of your face uncovered.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Cellestra pulled my head a bit lower and used her comb to scratch the roots of my hair. I instinctively closed my eyes out of pure bliss at the feeling of my skin being scratched like that. I could hear and see Cellestra grin softly as she continued doing it for a few seconds.

“Seems you’re enjoying that,” She let out before stopping.

“Please continue,” I begged her.

“Fine then,” Cellestra said with a smile before continuing to scratch an itch that I didn’t know I had.

I was still walking through the green plains ahead of us, albeit slightly slower than before. I didn’t want Cellestra to accidentally hurt me. I mean, I knew I could live with whatever she could do, but it was more of a ‘I don’t want her to feel bad about it’ matter. Could she even hurt me, physically?

She ran the comb down my hair a few more times before notifying me she was all done and ready. I decided to keep running for a while longer. It was a few hours into the afternoon now. Just untangling my hair had taken surprisingly long. I figured I could keep on going just a little bit longer and we would still have traveled a good distance today. We would then have time to wash our hair and I could get some full sleep in preparation for the next day.

When I had had enough, I decided to slowly come to a halt, and laid my spider body down on the grass, allowing all my limbs to fully relax.

“Good,” Cellestra let out. “I was about to force you to stop. You’re overexerting once again.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, until you’re not,” Cellestra said sternly. “You should really take things a bit easier sometimes. I don’t want you to drive yourself to an early death… again.”

I had no reply to that. I merely nodded as the elf dismounted and placed her backpack on the grass. I removed the other items from my back and carefully put everything together while Cellestra was going through her backpack, presumably for her shampoo.

I was right in assuming just that. In just a moment, she pulled out the glass bottle with the green liquid inside. A wide smile was visible on Cellestra’s face as she walked up next to me. She then eyed me from head down to… fangs?

Nevertheless, her smile helped me relax as it always did.

“Uhm,” She let out, clearly hesitating. “How do we do this? Should I just sit behind you? Do you mind getting yourself wet?”

“I see no issue. I can always dry myself anyway. Just be careful not to get it in my eyes,” I said with a bit of a grin at the end.

“That’s gonna be hard when you have that many,” Cellestra replied, grinning as well.

The elf climbed back on top of me, on top of my spider head behind my elven torso. In the meantime, I bent over forward and pulled all my freshly brushed hair in front of me, and cast the spell where many small streams of water would emerge from my hand.

Warm water washed over my head and hair. The feeling of something like this was as refreshing as it was alien. I’d never experienced anything like this when washing myself. It was simply amazing.

I felt myself relaxing even further as the water flowed through my hair. When I was confident it was wet enough, I carefully straightened myself back up into Cellestra’s waiting hands.

She’d already put the shampoo in her hands and rubbed the cold mixture into my hair before I knew it. I was caught a bit off guard by her getting to things so quickly, but the scent of flowers quickly made me relax again.

I chuckled as Cellestra had to take the bottle again which she’d placed behind my head.

“Told you it’s a lot,” I let out.

“I know, but don’t worry about it.”

“I’m worrying about you running out of shampoo at this point,” I admitted.

“It’s whatever. I have more than enough for the both of us, and it’s your time to be spoiled.”

“Thanks,” I said with a wide smile. “Although, it’s going to be, sort of, your turn to be spoiled soon.”

“And you ruined the moment,” Cellestra said with a giggle. “You don’t want to feel special, do you?”

“I’m special enough now, am I not?” I said as I raised my rearmost two legs and poked Cellestra in the back with them.

“I mean, I guess,” The elf said, dumbfoundedly.

“But no worries, I’ll let you have your fun before I have mine.”

As I’d predicted, some of the water dropped onto my lower head, between Cellestra and me. I had to admire the elf for doing a good job of keeping her own clothes dry. It took a while to finish, but eventually, all my elven hair was all soapy and scented. After Cellestra finished, she hopped off of my back and started taking off some clothes.

I tried to look away, but it was futile. I had too many eyes that couldn’t be closed. The elf didn’t strip down all the way, but rather only removed her upper clothes, except for her bra. I couldn’t help but blush slightly.

How could she do that when she knew I had feelings for her?

“Didn’t want to get those wet,” Cellestra simply shook it off as she tossed her clothes to the side. She sat down on the grass before me before turning around to look at me. “Are you okay?”

I quickly nodded. “I’m fine. I just wasn’t… expecting that.”

“Oh…” She let out. “But you’ve seen me with fewer clothes on. I didn’t expect you to be fazed by it.”

“I shouldn’t be, but that was before I knew…” I shook my head. “Whatever.”

“Aw, I’m sorry, Kealyna,” The elf let out as she took her hair and spread it across her back.

I took in a deep breath and lowered myself as much as I could… which turned out to be not as far as I wanted. Even with my spider head as low as I could bring it and my fangs spread open to allow me to lower it even further, Cellestra’s head was still barely above my chest, hindering me. In the end, I had to move slightly backward and then bend my body forward to allow proper access.

Cellestra pretty much did the same as I did and tilted her head back while her arms supported her body at the sides. After she closed her eyes, I used my spell to summon water and rinse her brown hair.

“Hmmm,” Cellestra let out in pure bliss. “This is as wonderful as I’d expected. In fact, it’s even better than that.”

I was glad she had her eyes closed. The feeling of running my fingers through her hair was as wonderful as I’d expected. While allowing water to flow onto her head and hair, I used my legs to grab the comb and the bottle of shampoo from beside me.

I then proceeded to carefully remove the tangles from the elf’s hair, which had gotten just as messy as mine. I used my fingers at first, and the comb later on. I went about it as meticulously as I could, but I didn’t like doing it for the simple reason that it could cause pain. Nevertheless, it had to be done.

When that particular part was out of the way, I applied the shampoo in the same manner as Cellestra had done to me.

“At least you don’t have so many eyes I need to care about,” I said in a playful manner, breaking the silence.

“Heh, funny.” Cellestra let out one of her soft giggles.

I grinned. “No, but in all seriousness. I never knew something so simple could help me relax as much as I did, especially when we still have such a long way ahead of us.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Cellestra asked. “Rose told me it’s important to take some time to unwind from things every now and then. She said clearing one’s mind can be helpful for the spirit and allow one to focus better on the task at hand. I don’t know how much of it is true, but I felt like you needed it.”

“Maybe I did. A wise teacher, that woman.”

I couldn’t believe that I’d said something nice about a human, but Cellestra had already shown me that not all of them were as bad as I believed them to be. I would trust her when she said that Rose was a good person.

“Yeah,” Cellestra affirmed softly. “She was.”

A minute of silence followed her words before she spoke again, with renewed energy.

“I think you can rinse out the shampoo right about now.”

I did as she suggested and tilted my head to the side and then forward, allowing my hair to fall down in front of my large spider eyes while I rinsed it with plenty of water to get all the soap out. After doing so, I felt refreshed as I touched the result.

“Pretty good isn’t it?” Cellestra mused.

“It is.”

I had a hard time finding words, but I hoped I conveyed enough with the large, involuntary smile that had appeared on my face. I waited some more time before also finishing up by rinsing the elf’s gorgeous hair.

I then summoned the warm air to dry both of us at the same time. Doing so didn’t appear to be an issue.

“I swear you could make good money doing this,” Cellestra said while I worked. “By the goddess, I would pay for this.”

“And I’m doing it for free. Lucky you.”

“I’m quite lucky alright,” She said warmly. “How are you feeling after all that?

“Honestly? I feel amazing. Thank you for your suggestion.”

“And now for my next suggestion, I’m going to have you sleep. Properly.”

I looked up to where the sun was and noticed that it was somewhere in the late afternoon. Evening was still a while away, but I imagined it might be a good idea to do as she said.

“Alright. Do wake me up if anything happens.”

“Will do. You just make sure to get your rest.”

For a moment I was left wondering just how long I would be asleep and how long Cellestra could stay awake for, but seeing as it was still so early, I should wake up somewhere at night to take over.

I looked at Cellestra, who was still sitting in the grass before me, one last time before laying myself on top of my body. I could feel some of my spider hair had gotten wet from all that, but couldn’t be bothered to dry it at this point.

“Good night, Cellestra,” I spoke as I closed my eyes.

Cellestra chuckled before speaking. “Good night.”