The Parts We Play

Shame! Shame! Shame!

Sofia stared at Irene with a hand over her mouth, eyes wide and eyebrows as high as they could physically go.

Jordan was nodding approvingly. "Good choice," he told Irene. "This style frames your face quite nicely."

Sofia shot him a look. "Jordan-"

"-sorry, love."

Sofia sighed, then carefully said, "I just- are you sure about this. Irene? The Sirens didn't like it the last time you cut your hair. I doubt much has changed in the last century."

"The Sirens can eat a bag of rocks," Irene blurted, then immediately shrank into herself as danger sparked in her mother's gaze.

"What was that?" Sofia asked, with a distressing faux calm.

"Like I said, I can grow it out when I go there," Irene shrugged. "What the Sirens don't know can't offend them."

"Sofia," Jordan said calmly, putting a hand on her shoulder, "Irene's almost a millennia old- and we were the ones who decided to raise her outside the Sirenlands. It's unreasonable to expect her to follow all their traditions and customs."

"It's not that I don't appreciate the Siren customs, either," Irene said. "Apparently I did some decent healing the other day! It just... doesn't come to me as easily as it does for you. Or Aiden, for that matter."

"We always knew she took more after me," Jordan added. "And hey, sorcerers, wizards, hedge witches- rebellious hair is kind of a tradition for us magic users. Frankly, I'm disappointed she didn't go for any interesting new colors..."

Irene had to keep herself from smiling. "Besides, Aiden's got short hair?"

"'Cause he's a baby," Sofia said immediately.

Aiden peeked around the wall that hid the stairs. "... I'm sixteen-"

"I'm not a child anymore!" Cara called from further upstairs, cracking and wobbling her voice and all around mocking The Little Mermaid.

"We can talk about it when you're 25 or something!" Sofia called out.

Cara and Aiden both laughed, the latter ducking out of sight.

"What happened?" Sofia asked quietly, "There's usually a reason you go so... Short." She played with the ends of Irene's hair. "Did someone die?! Where's Vicky???"

Irene stood straight up. "She's fine! Goodness- Mom! Everyone is fine! I just... I'd been feeling uncomfortable with the length, that's all." Not entirely untrue- long hair was a liability in combat, and Irene had a nasty feeling there was a lot of it coming. She couldn't deny the loss she felt, either, but she knew bringing anything up would further her mother's worries.

Instead, she went upstairs and plunked herself down in Cara's room.

"Good morning to you too," Cara grumbled, shoving Irene off the bed with her feet.

"What're you up to?" Irene asked.

"I wasn't up to anything, Irene, I was asleep, before people started yelling," Cara muttered, looking off the edge of the bed at her. "I was- I had some trouble falling asleep."

"You were up until 1 A.M. texting Krel, weren't you?"

"Hey shut up- so, what's got you tangled tighter than a Victorian corset?" Cara asked.

"A photoshoot Victorian corset with photoshop?" Irene stared at the roof. "And the fact I'm well past my fifties and my parents still care about how I present myself."

"Yeah exactly, the photoshop thing," Cara said. She paused, clearly in serious thought for a moment. "I think that's just how parents are..." she got up and pulled an Akiridion device out of a drawer in her bedside end table, and sat on the floor next to Irene, holding a six-legged stuffed dog she definitely hadn't had before.