FELIX CULPA | ❝Everything I loved became everything I lost, but here you are, and I realized that maybe you were something I never knew I needed until you were all I ever wanted❞
THOR: RAGNAROK | VALKYRIE
A HERO OF HEROES BOOK
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ATIA NEVER HAD TO PUT UP HER HAIR. Unlike many of the other servants that the Grandmaster surrounded himself with, she never placed her hair in the intricate braids that the other servants were known for. She noticed that certain braids and hairstyles were worn by certain servants and once asked her mother if, perhaps, the hairstyles were native to their home planets, but her mother quickly hushed her and explained that everyone on Sakaar was now a Sakaaran, and the servants especially talked not of their home worlds.
As time wore on, Atia found that the servants that once spoke of their home planets were replaced with their children, who knew less and less of where they came from, and only knew of Sakaar, and often wondered how Atia knew their foremothers when she looked no more older than the rest of them. She wondered of it naught, figuring her own people simply lived and aged different to others, which was not out of bounds of others' understanding.
So she never put her hair up in braids, rather letting it rest atop her head, falling about in ringlets and curls that the Grandmaster, should he choose to see her that day, would twirl about his finger and coo and praise, petting her face and telling her what a lovely girl she always is, which never failed to make her smile.
"Atia," Hanina called, sitting in front of her mirror, her hair pulled to the top of her head held in her delicate hands, "Help me."
Hanina Selonia was a servant whose mother Atia had not known. She did not know whether Hanina was a newcomer upon Sakaar or was not born into the servanthood that most servants were, but Atia had quickly grown close to the other servant with hair as light as hers was dark and hands as delicate as Atia's own, but delicate in ways she could only dream of having.
Holding the silky strands in her hands, Atia watched as Hanina's practiced fingers wrapped ties around them, ties so lightly colored Atia could barely find them, taking her hair and wrapping them in an intricate braid that finished at the top of her head, poised and only barely moving.
"Beautiful," Atia breathed softly, because she could never truly tear her eyes away from the braids that sat upon the heads of all other servants except her own.
"Why don't you put your hair up?" Hanina asked, rising gracefully from her seat to adjust her servant robes, turning to face Atia who scrutinized her own appearance in her mirror.
"The Grandmaster never asks me to," she replied, twirling a finger around a curl the way he always did, smiling to herself.
"The others talk," Hanina pointed out as they made their way out of Hanina's quarters to begin their duties, Hanina's being to tend to the various needs of the Grandmaster's companions whereas Atia often switched from doing the same to tending to the Grandmaster's champion.
"They always do," Atia replied easily, unable to disregard how similar the talks of these servants were to the talks of their mothers and, often, the mothers before them.
