18. Ren Gets Grooming Advice

As Ren sat on her heels staring up at Merlin thoughtfully, Jack appeared from the stairs down, followed by Ritsu.

"Mommy, we ate and ate but we're still so hungry."

"I brought the grooming basket," said Ritsu apologetically. "I tried to let you rest but she started talking about going to the village to find food."

Ren went cold, and reached out for the basket as Merlin stepped out of the way. "Thank you for letting her come to me instead."

Ritsu sighed as she looked at Ren's expression. "I wondered. I mean, normal familiars don't even eat, just drink, and if they can't get recharged by their Summoner, they can cause a lot of trouble. It's why I'm worried about that one summoning gone wrong." As Jack came over to Ren and hugged her, Ritsu gave Ren a keen look. "What's special about you and Merlin is that you don't seem to need any recharge at all."

"Oh, I do," said Merlin. "I just get it from elsewhere. But Ren doesn't even have that, which is interesting. Now… Ritsu, would you go sit with Tora for a while? I think she'll give us her parole when she awakens but it wouldn't do for her to awaken alone."

"Wait," Ren objected. "I wanted to get some tips on the magic hair brushing." Jack had used an enormous amount of power in her brief fight with Artoria, and Ren had serious concerns about her ability to replenish it.

Merlin said, "I don't think she can help you, Ren, but I may be able to. When I watched you and Jack earlier I had some ideas."

Ren hesitated and then shrugged. "Okay. You're the expert."

Merlin beamed. "So nice of you to realize that!" He sat back on the bed again, behind Ren.

Ritsu, looking conflicted, said, "I'm so curious! But I want to go sit with Tora."

"Hungry, mommy!" Jack said, still clinging to Ren. Her eyes gleamed in a disturbing way as she added to Ritsu, "We won't let Caster do anything weird to Mommy, don't worry."

"Eheheh." Merlin scratched his cheek. "This may be exciting! You watch Tora for me, Ritsu." Then, as Ritsu left, he leaned forward and reached between Jack and Ren to pluck a comb from the grooming basket in Ren's lap.

Jack promptly bit his arm through his mantle and then recoiled. "Yuck! You taste as nasty as you smell!"

"Well, I'm not your mommy," said Merlin reasonably. "Ren, you go ahead and brush her hair while I comb yours."

Ren eyed him. While he once again wore his usual faint smile, he seemed serious, so she decided to go along with him. Besides, if she didn't tend to Jack soon, it seemed very possible the little Servant would be taking a bite out of her next.

So she turned her back on Merlin, positioned Jack in front of her and started running her fingers through Jack's fine, flyaway hair to pull apart forming tangles. Once she'd moved onto gentle brushing, she felt Merlin's light touch against her own scalp. Quietly, he began to hum as he started combing her hair: an atonal scattering of notes that had more of the cadence of speech than music.

Ren did her best to focus on the feel of Jack's hair against her fingers instead of what Merlin did. Jack's restless squirming certainly helped. "More, more, more, mommy."

Merlin stopped combing Ren's hair, but his humming continued. Then he said, "Give me that brush for a moment, Ren," reaching over her shoulder.

"Um, sure," said Ren, releasing it to his grasp and immediately switching to braiding and unbraiding strands of Jack's hair. A few minutes later, Merlin, still humming, returned the brush to her, clean of the loose hair it had accumulated from both Jack and Cú.

Jack tilted her head back to look at Ren. Her eyes had an empty shine. "Mommy… can't we go find some better food? Maybe those soldiers who touched you all over."

Nervousness became full-on dread. Remembering how more extensive physical contact had helped Cú, Ren dropped the brush and pulled Jack into her lap to cuddle her. "We'll find something better than that, I promise."

Jack, her small body cold, nestled in Ren's arms, pressing her forehead against Ren's arm like she had a headache. "Hungry…"

Merlin's humming stopped again. "Ren, I need you to brush my hair for a few minutes."

Ren craned her neck around to give Merlin an incredulous look. "This is really not the time—" She stopped as she saw his serious expression, and remembered him saying he didn't know exactly how it felt. He had multiple fine strands of light woven around the fingers of one hand, as if in the midst of a game of cat's cradle.

Helplessly, she glanced down at the Servant in her arms. Jack's pale head was bowed and her body curled tight, but she pressed into Ren with an almost painful intensity. And when Ren looked at Merlin again, he had a distant, measuring look in his eyes.

She remembered how he'd believed her defeated at Artoria's feet. This, Ren realized, was a different kind of battle, and once again Merlin wasn't going to come to her rescue.

If the magus moved in front of her, she could probably manage to awkwardly brush his hair around Jack. As an immediate solution it seemed obvious but… non-optimal. While Jack had the body and emotions of a child, she had the soul of a monster and the power of a Servant. It was a tricky combination to handle.

"Come on, Jack, I need to get up for a few minutes." Jack's grip on Ren only tightened, so Ren gave her an encouraging shove. "I'll be back and then we'll find you something good."

Jack's shoulders trembled. When she raised her head, her eyes were glowing like a cat's at night. In a throaty voice she growled, "Lying Caster."

Ren pressed her lips together and then heaved herself forward despite the child clinging to her. Unsteadily, she rose to her feet, keeping Jack balanced with one hand and her own balance with the other. Once standing, she pried Jack off her and set her on her own two feet. Then, without releasing her, Ren bent to look her in the eye. It involved actively disrupting Jack's line of sight to Merlin, whom she hadn't ceased staring at through all the maneuvering.

"Jack," said Ren firmly. "Look at me. If you want me to be your mommy, you have to trust me. I'm not going anywhere. Be patient while I figure out feeding you."

Jack scowled and wrenched herself away from Ren, crouching down and hugging her knees. She continued to stare up, her eyes still glowing.

Ren accepted it. Good behavior mattered; a good attitude was probably asking too much. Briskly, she sat on the bed next to Merlin and started brushing the long hair flowing down his back. It pooled behind him on the bed and she didn't even try to run the brush through the full length. The strands felt like cool silk against her fingers, and glimmered with the faintest prismatic light.

After brushing for a moment, she became aware that the cool silky sensation and the prismatic glimmers lingered with her hand even when she released Merlin's hair to pick up another hank. The brush, too, had developed a shine. She paused a moment, looking at her hand, and Merlin said, "A little more, please. My analysis is almost complete."

Ren returned to brushing and the glimmer became a sparkle. "It's working with you?"

"In a limited sort of way. I had to tweak some parameters. Now hush." He moved his hands, playing with the strands of light. "You can stop now, but don't run off to hunt down soldiers with Jack just yet."

Ren immediately put the brush down and went back to Jack, picking her up and holding her out in front of her much like Cú had done with her the day before. Jack, however, responded as Ren never would have, immediately making like a starfish around Ren's torso and neck.

"What's he doing?" Jack whispered, pressing her cheek to Ren's.

"Trying to be helpful," Ren whispered back. "Give him a break, he's not used to it."

A faint smile flickered across Merlin's face, but he continued focusing on his threads of light. After another moment, he stretched the threads between both hands until they were taut. The light poofed into sparkles, and two woven bands, one blue and one white, dangled from his fingers.

Ren narrowed her eyes and took a step closer. "Are those friendship bracelets?"

"They're bracelets, anyhow," said Merlin cheerfully. "Your wrist, please. I discovered a problem in your ability to process and convert between local mana and your personal mana. Nothing that can hurt you, but you're dramatically less efficient than Ritsu. These bracelets, crafted from your Servants' hair and stabilized by my particular genius, should help."

He finished tying both of the bracelets onto Ren's wrist. "Go ahead and try. It won't be fast and it won't be as good as Magical Paths, but it should be significantly better."

Dubiously, Jack said, "We think soldier hearts would be better."

"You're wrong, little one," said Merlin. "They'll be satisfying for a moment, but then you'll want another, and another. There's hardly any energy at all there."

Ren swung Jack around as she sat on the bed. "Ah, junk food. No good at all, especially when you're starving." Ruthlessly, she started dragging the brush through Jack's hair. After only a few strokes, she could feel that coolness she'd felt brushing Merlin's hair. No glimmers or sparkles appeared, but Jack tilted her head back, her eyes closing.

"Oh yes, this is much better, mommy."

"Maybe we should thank Merlin," said Ren thoughtfully, more to tease Merlin than anything else. She glanced at him when he didn't respond, and saw his own gaze fixed on something near the door. Following his line of sight, she saw a black lizard about the size of the hairbrush creeping forward.

Suddenly Merlin swooped on it, catching it with one hand. Its little legs scurried and its head, poking out of his fist, twisted this way and that. "And who are you?" he asked it, turning it this way and that. "Hmm." He glanced over at Ren and Jack. "I'm going to take this little fellow somewhere else and see what he wants. Let me know when you're done, and I'll talk to you about Tora."