to shave a princess

i've been wanting to draw these two again all week but i had to get through the unicorns thing before i could post anything else and it was driving me crazy. hi. do you want to hear about dwarven shaving and bath culture? (contains some light spoilers for the long road, have you read that? you should read that. come back after you read that)

as established, shaving is the fashion for highborn/wealthy dwarves, because it implies you have the leisure time to do it and/or the money to pay someone to do it for you. a dwarf like tourmaline would have a dedicated team for her skincare, who'd routinely trim, pluck, and wax as needed to maintain perfect smoothness. while traveling, she doesn't have that. she can do a fair bit of it herself, but she is a crown jewel. she is not going to do that.

"but wouldn't angre feel some sort of way about this because of his feelings for her?" yes! but mostly no. dwarves are largely fine with casual, non-sexual nudity, especially in regards to bathing. mixed-sex bath houses are the default in the lower classes and it's just normal. we're here to wash after a long sweaty day. everyone has tits and your typical dwarf is so hairy you can barely see their genitals anyway. zero sexual thought. we are just bathing, please wash my back for me, my arms are too short.

it's slightly different for higher dwarves. a jewel like tourmaline would hide her genitals (as she demonstrates here) because a lower dwarf does not "deserve" to see them, but even then it's less out of sexual modesty and more out of pride. there isn't an expectation for angre to do so himself because he's common. he can be fully nude and it's absolutely whatever so long as it's in the context of bathing. if they were both alone and naked in a bedroom then it would feel different, much like the difference between a bathing suit and lingerie.

as for shaving: this would be kind of huge. shaving with a blade is an intimate act of absolute trust. royal barber is probably like, The highest serving position you can have and would have insane requirements and prestige. shaving your lover is The Big Thing. slitting somebody's throat while shaving them would be an ultimate unforgivable crime. their culture is crazy about it in their stories.

so angre would definitely feel some sort of way about being asked to do it for her. even if it's absolutely, totally, just because circumstances require it, and nothing more than that. it's not sexual, it's just unbelievably intimate and would say a lot about their relationship.