It's not the time to lose our heads, though!

"Don't you ever see him without that stupid ponytail?"

"Stupid? I think he looks rather handsome, myself."

"Well of course you'd think that." The nominative word was simultaneously compacted into a single "u" and drawn out into an entire liquid cacophany of pseudo-teenage brattiness by an accompanying eye-roll. It was very telling. Very, very telling.

"And just what exactly is that supposed to mean, Mythra?" Addam demanded, crossing his arms and trying but failing to ply his own sass back at sarcasm's master.

It was entirely possible, after all, that he could have scrapped a sight better had he not still been gazing at the so-professed "rather handsome" man (or not a man, or whatever you'd like of the usual analytical-analogical rigamarole), but let it alone, would you? If you're Mythra, reading this, that is, but then I don't think you are. I'm not Minoth, writing it, after all.

Mythra rolled her eyes again. "You're a guy. Guys like guys. Duh."

They...they do what now?

"Mythra, your gender has nothing to do with the sort of people you...fancy. And even if it did, the common conception is that girls are the ones who like guys, and, then, guys like girls, and so forth and so on." As if there was anything more one could extrapolate from that.

"Where is this...notion coming from?" And of course Addam didn't mean to paint shame into it, or heteronormativity, or whichever, but it was quite confounding to be confronted who someone who thought things were so firmly the opposite way.

"Where?" Now Mythra squinted. "Isn't it obvious? You're always making googly eyes at Minoth, and Jin does sometimes too, and I l-" Biting her tongue in her haste to stop the next word from leaving her mouth, Mythra shifted back, composed herself, seemed to consider something, then smirked and continued: "And I think Brighid's got a bit of a crush on me. So."

She let that notion linger in the air for...probably a bit too long, before hastily moving on once again to the idea that "Hugo's never so much as blushed at any of the girls in Auresco, and Lora and Haze are always being giddy around each other. Vronka's not interested in guys, and Noowl's not interested in girls...it all fits."

Addam stared back at her, silent and even dumbfounded.

It did, in fact, all fit.

"Oh, come on! You can't tell me I'm wrong," Mythra insisted a few moments after the onset of his apparent befuddlement.

Could he? Did he want to? Whose honor was he preserving, if so?

Slowly but surely, Addam counted it up and out on his fingers, then shrugged, even relented. "I must admit, you have a point there. But what's all this about...'googly eyes'?"

Back to rolling eyes - which is an activity frequented by the googly craft variety, yes, but not with anywhere near the level of sass Mythra inflected into the idiosyncrasy. "I'm not going to explain that one to you. If you don't get it...you're hopeless."

Hopeless indeed, but there the facts stood. They let the subject alone for another few hours, until it came time for dinner, and that was when things unfolded out another step.

"Agh. Damn it."

"Something wrong, Minoth?" Addam hummed without looking up.

He was busy trying to make sense of a request note penned in Aegaeon's unfortunately chicken-scratch handwriting (not that his was all that much better, but he'd never gotten too many complaints regarding readability). He'd have to be more careful to jot these things down himself, next time.

Minoth, meanwhile, was taking his sweet - or, perhaps, not so sweet - time answering. Still poring and puzzling (was that MacMac or Macneth? Marena or Marcus? these names weren't even all that similar in letter shape!), Addam gave a prompting "Hmm?"

Not to be pushy, but he was curious, and Minoth did always hesitate to speak out about his problems unless asked; put another way, he loved a cue.

"Snapped my ponytail holder. It was my last one."

And so. So, so, so. Now Addam looked up.

He didn't exactly know what he was looking for - rather, in some respects, like when your friend's gotten a haircut, and you didn't know they were intending to, and you recognize them, of course, but...do you?

Gently curling locks of dark brown hair, flecked with red undertones where the waning evening sunlight hit them, flowed loosely down past the orange stripe atop Minoth's collar, flanked in the front by short, jagged sideburns, and those telltale pieces just the slightest bit too short to stay trapped up in the elastic, which had apparently snapped due to sheer incomprehension of the...wild beauty it was attempting to contain.

Or, that was what Addam thought, anyway. Mythra, to his left, was also blushing, but if the deep-pocketed prince had to wager, it was because her Core was taking a second to recognize such lush, long hair framing the face as belonging to a male (a guy...?) rather than a female (a girl...!).

And would you look at that...Minoth, too, was blushing. However involuntarily, he was aware of two sets of golden eyes fixed on him, unable to tear away. They had no idea, of course, when they'd next see a sight like this. For his part, Addam was much too bashful about his crush, which Mythra had so easily clocked, to so much as mention to Minoth that he looked, well, good.

"...what?"

Addam wanted, oh how dearly did he want, to just reply with something distractingly stupid but almost believable, because of its blatant stupidity: "O-oh, nothing - I was just looking to see if Lora was around to lend you another."

(Lora and Aegaeon were fishing down at Lake Wynn, and they had very loudly announced their destination some minutes prior.)

"Eh, it's fine." Minoth seemed to have recovered from his cursory disappointment, then. A shame the same couldn't be said for Addam and Mythra, in their bewitched stupor. "After all-" he shook his head to the left, almost like a horse tossing its manes, and ran the fingertips of an ungloved hand through the strands running back from the deep lines creasing his forehead "-there's not much more to do, today. I'm sure I can find a vine or something tomorrow to make do."

Then...this glorious sight was to be theirs all night?!

Well, his. Mythra had seen all she needed to see, and was now trying to disguise her smirk as she watched Addam nod completely absentmindedly.

"You alright there, Prince?"

Mythra chuckled. "Better be careful there, cowboy. I think he's gonna swoon."