Loyalty, Honor, and a Willing Heart

Chapter 2 - Going Through Changes

They slept as they were, too tired to bother to put the tent on, the supper warming their bellies and souls. There was no visible or audible menace all night long, and the first light of the sun found Iris stirring the fire to make some gruel for them all. Her feet were sore, and she disobeyed the command not to take the boots off and was in her hobbit feet slippers. Lily yawned and stretched, Ellen scratched her head.

“Aunt, didn’t you take the wig off to sleep?”

“Oh, I was so tired I forgot it on. Come on, help me with it.”

Ellen sat on a log and her niece begun to search for the hairpins. The woman sensed her fingers touching her head and sometimes pulling her hair.

“What the hell…” Lily muttered under her breath.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find the hairpins. I’m sure I used quite a lot to get the wig really fast in place, and I can find none.”

“They may have fallen along the trekking day. Just take the wig off and be done with it. Ouch!” She screamed. “Don’t scalpel me, dear!”

“I don’t understand, I just pulled the wig by its hair!”

“No, you pulled my hair!”

“You are kidding me, Aunt. Here, this is what I’ve done.”

She got in front of Ellen with a lock of black hair in each hand and pulled them up quickly.

“Ouch!” Ellen jerked in pain. “It hurts!”

Lily looked at her in amazement. She had done lots of hairstyling and wig work since she begun to go to LARP and boffering contests with her aunt, but she never ever saw a wig so well adjusted that it took so hard to get it off. She bent close and fingered Ellen’s head at the hair line, trying to find the border of the wig. All around her hair line, it was not visible or touchable, and there was no trace of the brownish, shoulder long hair. She was stunned.

“Aunt, I can’t find it.”

“Find what? A merciful way to get the wig off?”

“No. I can’t find the wig. I mean, I can’t find your own hair. Or, none of them. It is like the wig became your own real hair. I don’t understand, I never saw anything like this before. What is happening?”

Ellen touched her own head over and over again, fingering for the wig as Lily had done before. She scratched the skin, pulled her hair, and it was, by all means, her own hair and head. She shook her head in disbelief.

“This is the weirdest thing to ever happen in my life. I… I must think about it for a while.”

She stood up and went to the river to wash her face. The girls ate their gruel in silence, occupied with the thought of the weird thing that happened to their aunt. She came back.

“It behaves.”

“What?”

“The hair behaves. I went to the river to wash my face, bent my head down, and the hair did not fall from my shoulders. It behaves. I will keep it.”

The girls nodded, as there was nothing to be said. They all finished their gruel and begun to pack. Ellen changed her skirt for pants, but kept her crude leather corselet over her shirt and all other cosplay stuff on. The girls didn’t change, either, but Lily packed her aluminum hauberk. They were putting on their backpacks when they noticed it.

“Iris, you didn’t put your boots on. You know we will likely tread a long trek today, your slippers won’t do.”

“But my feet are sore! When I woke up for my watch turn they hurt so much I couldn’t stand it!” The girl complained. “I know I should be on boots, but I would not be able to walk at all with them on!”