The ceiling above him was painted with delicate murals—clouds and birds and what might have been angels or might have been something else entirely, all rendered in soft blues and whites and golds. Beautiful work. The kind of thing you commissioned from a master artist and then never looked at because you got so used to it being there.
He blinked a few times, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes, and slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows.
His hair—gods, his *hair*—was an absolute disaster. He could feel it without even looking. Hopelessly tangled, sticking up at angles that defied both gravity and common sense, strands falling across his forehead and into his eyes in a way that would have mortified him if anyone important was there to see it. He raised one hand and tried halfheartedly to smooth it down, fingers catching in the knots, and immediately gave up. Lost cause. Complete lost cause.
