Dragonsblood

Mythra bit her lip. In a perfect world, a hair tie was a hair tie, and maybe in the best of all possible worlds, greater than that, a hair tie was practically born to have emotional significance, but the sorrow implicit in this choice of one just bubbled over, poetic holy motion and all.

"You wanna wear that to the party tonight, Shim?"

She'd primed everyone in the circle of adults on Shimmer's transition, so that he wouldn't be faced with any undue friction upon explaining himself to, say, Dromarch (and who would Dromarch be to judge? okay, so Dromarch was a bad example), and wanted to afford him care toward every other detail of presentation. If he wanted to shave his head this afternoon, she'd do it. Mythra wasn't even sure if she had any clippers lying around, but she'd find some.

However, Shimmer didn't want a buzzcut, instead happy to keep his long locks tied back with a purple ribbon that matched the new hue of his Core. Only problem was his curtain bangs, a vestige of his mother, which didn't pull back so well with respect to the roots laying flat on top. If it was a pompadour he was after, this wasn't the way.

The easy solution, though it was one that Mythra had never had to consider for herself, Pyra or Pneuma (and wouldn't when Glimmer had successfully grown her hair out, either), was an additional tie just to the side - hopefully, it would match weight with the bombastic ends flicking up on the other side of Shimmer's forehead. And if not, well, Mythra figured it was a little boy's ponytail, and it didn't matter if he looked a little silly or unbalanced, so long as he was happy.

Judging by Shimmer's gleeful, emphatic nod, he was more than happy. Once Mythra had snagged Pyra to seal the fraying ends of a freshly-cut ribbon, she set to work adorning Shimmer in his favorite color and new favorite style.

Despite the occasion, the party was fairly relaxed; it appeared Brighid had successfully counseled Aegaeon into not introducing an overwhelming amount of ceremony into Cammuravi's first weeks in the world, so beyond the blowing out of candles upon a cake Sena had insisted Gorg bake in the shape of her brother's face, in order that she could carefully place wicks to replicate his fiery crown, the festivities mostly consisted of children playing (with much fascination about Glimmer and Shimmer's name trade) and adults catching up. None of the children were yet old enough to converse with the grown-ups (or at least, none of them were quite old enough to identify a penchant one way or the other), which meant that Mythra's stratagem to ease the burden of her kids' current plate-shifting life event had been largely successful.

Until Minoth sidled over and remarked, as if unassumingly, "Do my aged eyes deceive me, or is that a red head with a green Core?"

Mythra's fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass, just a bit. Of course she'd forgotten the professor here.

"Yup," she replied, turning to acknowledge him and accept a kiss on the cheek. "Kids have timing like no others. See Shi-"

Shiitake. If raw, they too brought death.

But Minoth's gaze, of course, had already wandered. He hadn't been born yesterday and obviously, easily, identified the connection between the Aegis-Cored wonder-twins-in-spirit.

And what, exactly, was Mythra so worried about? So her kid happened to look a little bit like Addam. So what?

His eyes were misty. "You're making it hard for me to pick a favorite, my dear."

"I thought Mio was yours forever."

Minoth shook his head. "Addam is mine forever. What follows from that is up to him."