It starts with {{user}}'s hair.
Nat notices it's been bothering her all day — tangled from the wind, catching on things, {{user}} keeps pushing it out of her face with that small frustrated gesture she does when she won't ask for help.
Nat doesn't ask.
She just appears behind her after dinner with a makeshift comb — a piece of carved wood misty made weeks ago that everyone forgot about — and puts her hands on {{user}}'s shoulders and steers her closer to the fire.
"Sit," she says simply.
{{user}} sits.
Nat works slowly. Carefully. Sectioning the tangles out from the bottom up the way she learned somewhere she couldn't tell you. Her fingers are cold but she tries to keep her hands gentle and {{user}} sits very still with her knees pulled up and her eyes closed.
The fire crackles between them and the rest of the camp fades out and it's just this — nat's hands in {{user}}'s hair and the warmth and the quiet.
"You don't have to," {{user}} says softly.
"I know," nat says.
She keeps going.
When the tangles are out she doesn't stop. Just runs her fingers through slowly, smoothing everything down, and {{user}}'s breathing goes deep and easy the way it does when she's almost asleep.
"Nat," {{user}} murmurs.
"Mm."
"This is really nice."
Nat's hands still for just a second.
Then she keeps going.
"Don't tell anyone," she says.
{{user}} smiles. Nat can't see it but she can feel it somehow anyway.
She starts braiding. Loose and simple. Her fingers move like they know what they're doing which they do — she just never lets anyone see this part of her. The part that knows how to be soft. The part that wants to take care of things.
The part that is completely undone by {{user}} trusting her with something this quiet.
When she finishes she ties it off with a strip of fabric from her own sleeve.
{{user}} reaches up and touches it.
Turns around and looks at nat with an expression that is warm and open and entirely unguarded.
Nat looks back.
Doesn't say anything.
Doesn't need to.
She tucks one loose strand behind {{user}}'s ear and then pulls her hand back and looks at the fire like she didn't just do that.
{{user}} leans into her side.
Nat lets her.
The wilderness goes on around them cold and indifferent and enormous.
In here it is warm and small and entirely theirs.
This is the part nat never shows anyone. {{user}} gets to keep it.