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“Did you mean for this to be uneven?” was what she ended saying.
Mysterion snorted in response, which was very rude, at least by human standards. By Mysterion standards, well. It was not actively antagonistic, at least. It was, perhaps, even chummy.
Still, all that waste of beautiful golden hair. Kite mourned the long tresses. They were so fun to braid and unbraid, once she’d gotten the hang of human dexterity. Kite liked Mysterion’s hair. She liked brushing her fingers through it. She especially liked brushing her filamentae through it.
“Are you going to keep staring, Kite? Because I can go to Toolshed, I really can.”
Kite frowned. “Toolshed may be the expert at haircuts, but that's specifically for her own hair. You came to me for a reason.”
“Yes,” Mysterion said, sounding patient, if a little condescending. “I did. So, are you getting on with it, or should I find someone less traumatized by the sight?”
“I’m not traumatized by the sight, I’m enraged, thank you very kindly.” Even so, she picked up the… the shears.
Kite shuddered. It was a full-body revulsion—not at the traces of ergemite that clung to the surface of the blades, though they pricked uncomfortably at the edges of her filamentae sensors, but at the utter barbarity of the tool. Pruning shears, of all things.
She understood Stacy’s grievance against her: they were not currently talking, on account of a mistake in communication. Even if she hadn’t meant to conflate goth and emo, even if the two looked the same to her untrained lenses, she had still greatly hurt Stacy’s feelings.
But why extend the spat to Mysterion? Shears, of all things! Did Stacy not carry regular scissors? Had she no compassion for Mysterion’s beautiful, tragically ruined hair?
Kite was going to find that man and melt him into miea ivu khubuk with her eyes. She was going to turn him into vemimpus.
“I’m still waiting,” Mysterion said.
Kite smacked her on the back. Mysterion grunted with the force of the strike, but she didn't sway even a little. It was somewhat infuriating, to be honest. Kite worked hard to develop facsimiles of human muscles, putting in countless hours at the human sport of basketball, carefully honing the output of her real strength.
Mysterion, as far as she could tell, did nothing of the sort. Sure, she claimed to work out, but so did Raccoon. Mysterion, from her own admission, played no sport, had never once obtained a gym membership, and found sparring fellow heroes to be a waste of her time. If Raccoon’s gossip could be trusted, which was a tall tale on its own, Mysterion’s civilian identity was either a mechanic or a researcher.
Khubuk it all. One of these days, she would like a proper match, kitus meyparne to nether godling, without holding back.
Until then, she would have to do her utmost best to be gentle. Mysterion, strong as she was, remained a fragile creature; she even bled, should a stray bullet or attack catch her unawares. Kite undid the binding on her right hand and gripped more closely at the shears with the newly freed filamentae. With her left, she took hold of the remains of what had once been an impressively tight fishtail braid.
Mysterion had mercilessly hacked off the braid before the acid spores could eat their way up. She’d pulled it away from her body with Dark Whisper and simply slashed straight across. Or, diagonally, rather.
“Your poor hair,” Kite lamented one last time, and got to work.
The pruning shears were awkward, even with the increased dexterity of her filamentae. Kite snipped carefully at the uneven ends. She thought she remembered Stacy once say something about small movements, but it had been an offhand remark a very long time ago, and Stacy was down at the station booking the thrice-damned villain, and she and Kite were not currently talking, anyways. After some time, she diverted some filamentae to undo the binding of her left hand too, to better section the hair into tiny segments. It had the added benefit of improved grip, preventing the hair from shifting as she snipped.
Mysterion said nothing throughout the process, though she shivered a little whenever the shears brushed against the shorter strands on her nape. She was not ticklish, as previous attempts attested. Was she also sensitive to the ergemites? Kite had never met an earthling who even noticed their presence, but then, Mysterion was not human. Kite chewed on this thought as she watched the ill-fated slash straighten out, section by section.
Stacy may be the expert on home-made haircuts, but Kite had lenses for human eyes and a steadier hand, filamentae or not. Also, Stacy wasn’t here. Soon enough, the horrific remains of a callous act became a neat, simple bob.
It looked good on Mysterion, of course. Everything looked good on her, though usually, good was synonymous with cool. Without the braid, her hair fell in soft waves just above her shoulders, framing the delicate contours of her face. She’d been reading something on her phone while Kite worked, but she looked up now, checked herself out in front of the dressing room mirror.
“Not bad,” she said gruffly. She put her mask back on and dispelled the shadows she had worn to obscure most of her face. “You did good. Thanks.”
“It was the right thing to do,” Kite said primly.
A corner of Mysterion’s mouth quirked up. Kite’s lenses zoomed in on the movement. Mysterion rarely smiled, never when someone was staring at her, but she let Kite stare now through the mirror, not even forcing her lips flat. A smile! A genuine smile from that stick-in-the-mud!
“You’re taking this very seriously,” Mysterion said. She was still smiling. “Very personally, even.”
“Hmmph.”
“It’s hair from my head. Yet you seem more heartbroken.”
“Once more, I am enraged. That man—how fortunate for him that Toolshed is the one escorting him! I would have eaten him alive.”
“Not very heroic talk.”
Kite sniffed. “Raccoon and Super Woman say that all the time.”
“Hence why we never let either of them do PR. You, however, are integral to our public facing front. Don’t learn from them, don’t let that become a habit.”
“Fine. And I wouldn’t have really eaten him, anyway. Humans do not taste good.”
Mysterion chuckled. Chuckled! What a strange world she lived in now. “Tasted a lot of humans, have you? Oh right, I forgot you used to bite Raccoon. Yes, humans do not taste good.” She got up from the dressing room chair and knelt down to gather the newspapers she had spread on the floor.
Kite joined her. They brushed the clippings into the center of each newspaper, then folded the newspaper along the middle seam. Mysterion produced one of the Professor’s biodegradable hand-broom and dustpan from somewhere and swept all the remaining strands. They went to the burn room, where the mizyo glass bowl that took up nearly half the space stood. Kite tossed the newspapers into the bowl, Mysterion tossed in the broom and dustpan, and then Kite burned the entire thing to dust.
Then, it was all done. Mysterion turned to face her. Kite couldn’t help but sigh internally. That rich golden hair looked no less beautiful in a bob than in a braid, and the short length served to draw attention to the slender neck that peeked out from the indigo hood.
“You’re staring again,” Mysterion said. She was smiling again, and she sounded amused.
“Can you blame me? You could have died! And you even had to cut your hair! Although it looks gorgeous now, thanks to me.”
Mysterion didn’t protest the death part, though she did roll her eyes. She didn’t insist on her immortality again, at least. “Very humble. So, ask your question.”
“Huh?”
“You’re so incredibly unsubtle it’s actually hard to watch. Come on, don’t make me wait.”
“What?”
“Kite, you’ve been staring at me all evening. I can hear both of your hearts. Just ask.”
Well, no sense in beating around the bush. Kite offered a little prayer that she was interpreting the hint correctly. “Allow me the honour of courting you. Your civilian identity too.”
The smirk on Mysterion’s mouth turned gentle. “Sure. I have a three-day conference coming up, but I can do lunch after that.”
“Lunch sounds wonderful. Toolshed just introduced me to this panini place on 16th Street and Central Ave, if that’s not too far?”
“Nah, it’s fine.”
“Great! There’s also a gelato place next door, unless you prefer cakes, there’s this adorable vegan dessert shop across the street……..”
“Oh khubuk su letav…”
She was going to die. She was going to explode and the poor humans walking about would have to scrape bits of her off of the sidewalk. They would have to explain to her poor mother how a meyparne of her lineage could so easily die on Earth. Oh, by all the stars…
Mysterion—Kendra, because that was her name, Professor Kendra McCormick, Ph.D., though she didn’t like being called doctor—Kendra stood smugly before her. She was ostensibly coming straight from work, but rather than dress responsibly for the lab, with the whole closed-toe shoes and full-length pants ensemble Kite thought all human researchers wore under their lab coats, Kendra was dressed to kill.
Dressed to kill her specifically. The baby blue Hawaiian shirt with blush-pink blossoms and leafy stems, knee-length white cargo shorts, matching green sandal heels—she was dressed to kill Kite. She was going to kill Kite.
Kendra smiled back prettily. Under the mask, she had ultramarine blue eyes and a constellation of tan freckles across her nose. Bright orange plastic hairclips pinned her hair away from her face, but the rest of her hair curled vaguely in the shape of a heart beneath her chin. And her neck! Her graceful neck.
Kite was going to die. “Oh my goodness,” she said faintly. That was a modified version of Stacy’s favourite thing to say when faced with pretty girls, particularly Caller. Kite understood her now.
Kendra reddened before her very lenses. “You said paninis…?”
“Yeah,” Kite said. Her voice cracked. She ran her filamentae—her hand, actually, the bindings disguised as a palm cuff bracelet, because she was in her civilian human disguise—through her hair. “Come, I’ll take you. By the way, are you looking for a girlfriend by any chance?”
Kendra blushed further. “I don’t just go on dates,” she said. “You figure it out.”
Oh, khubuk vonet ju su letav—!
Kite offered her a hand and Kendra took it. If Kite then proceeded to link their arms together, Kendra said nothing. The flush climbed up to her ears. Kite debated internally for a hot second, before finally deciding it would be bad for people to see her lenses zooming while in her human disguise, and kept her gaze sternly forward.
Panini first. She would have to see later if Kendra was also looking for a wife by any chance. She would have to thank Stacy for accepting her apology and giving her the chance to cut Mysterion’s hair. She would have to tell Stacy the good news.
“I can hear you thinking,” Kendra said. “And your h— your circulatory system.”
“That’s fine,” Kite said, giddy as all venius. “I can see your blush.”
Kendra's grip tightened. She dug her nails in, but Kite’s skin was made of jaen, and would withstand anything short of a missile. It was the thought that counted. Kite smiled.
“I’m sooo happy,” she said, and gave in to temptation. She turned her head enough to look at Kendra, and cheered when she saw that Kendra was looking and smiling right back.