Part #6

I brushed the stray strands from my face and shoulders and trimmed up my new hair. The sides and back were short, not even brushing against my ears. I had left the top a bit longer for style, letting the front brush high over my forehead, though still well out of my eyes. I loved it. I felt lighter, free. My eyes seemed larger and I stared at them in the looking glass for awhile. My ears seemed larger as well, seemed to protrude a bit from my head. I loved them too. I hurriedly finished brushing hair from my formal toga and myself, assuring I looked impeccable. I grabbed up the garnets Conner had gifted me with and secured them around my wrist. As the Rifter washed the room in shades of copper, Conner came to collect me for breakfast. I yanked open the door at his knock and twirled happily, a small giggle escaping. He froze in shock, before silently turning to shut the door and turning again to face me.

“Viviyana, what did you do? It was just starting to grow back.” Angry Conner was a new sight, I am sure he had been angry the night I slipped him the purgative...but had been too busy trying not to die to really let me see the full effect. This Conner's jaw clenched, and his eyes raked over me disapprovingly.

“That is why I cut it again, obviously, it is a bother when it is long, it gets in my eyes. You don't like it?” and just like that I felt depleted, though not for long.

“Viviyana, when are you going to grow up and stop acting the child? Really, if you would take the time to comb your hair and style it up, it wouldn't get in your eyes. Instead you spend your marcs on the gods alone know what.” he swept his hand towards the parchments tucked in my pack, my plans and ideas.

Rage enveloped me. In the past my anger had always been a quick one, burning fierce and extinguishing fast. But over the past few cycles a new anger had grown inside me. The kind that buries itself right below the skin, the kind that becomes a constant companion. Always present but always tightly contained. It had fed itself over the cycles, consuming almost all my play, my giggles, my dancing. Now it woke and surged up through me, for a tick I thought of Synvasti, of the fiercely controlled power of the enchanter. And with a blink, a click, I let it out.

Whatever Conner saw in my face caused him to take a half-step backwards, my words retreated him another. “Leave. Now.” I bit off, jabbing a finger at the door The silly man didn't take my advice and began to speak. I will never know what he sought to say, what words he thought would contain that which he had unleashed. I cut his words off as cleanly as I had cut my hair. “I am done. Done being contained and changed and controlled.” I closed the distance between us, as he retreated further towards the door, reaching back to open it. I raged on, “Done having others think they can dictate my ideas, my mind, my voice.” He stepped out and I took hold of the door. “Good-bye, Conner.” I said, the only words I had spoken not seething with anger, but firm none the less, and final. I shut the door with a satisfying crash.

I returned to the looking glass, ripping the strand of garnets from my wrist as I went, sending droplets of stones, like blood, scattering across the floor. My toga was next, discarded on the floor. I stood for a moment, chest rising and falling as I looked at the woman reflected back to me. I saw what those I face in battle saw, the determination and the power. I had betrayed her, handed her over to others keeping time and time again. I had sought to stifle her, lessen her. Traded away her laughter and joy like trinkets. But that too was done. There were things I had to do, darkness and bronze and demons. And with that clarity that comes in true anger's wake I knew that this was the person I was. And the anger melted away, shed from me like water. And the woman in the looking glass smiled.

This realization was quickly followed by the one that I was standing unclothed in front of the wide open arched windows staring at myself in the mirror and I dashed to drop the curtains. Typical. Shaking my head I giggled as I dug my Robe of Miranda from my pack and pulled it around me. Then I gathered up my fallen hair and wove it into a thick braid, I sent it off by courier to my Mother. I pulled Butterfly from her pouch and my stack of parchments from my pack. I flopped down on the bed, belly down, and spread the parchments around me. And did what I always do in these moments, sank myself back into work.