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Nona was long past the days where she had to be helped with her nightshirt, but in many ways, she was still the worm with problems.
As she grew older, this fact began to grate on her. Nona had mastered her trousers, and her vest, and the toggle closers on her canvas jacket. She still fumbled a bit with the UV sand shirt and its fussy cuffs, but this step barely slowed her down anymore. The real sticking point was her hair.
Nona didn’t know how to explain it. She adored her braids, but sometimes she looked at other, shorter hairstyles and longed for them wildly. Pyrrha was marvellous with the braids—they looked dark and juicy and glossy still, even though Cam was right about her hair drying up—but as her six-month birthday came and went, Nona found herself frowning down at her new pack of coloured rubber hair bands, lost in thought.
“What will it be today, kiddie?” asked Pyrrha, without turning around.
Pyrrha was bathed in the orange glow of the hot plate (as usual), wearing her pyjama pants and string vest and no shirt (also as usual), but today, she hadn’t found the time to shave her head. Nona found herself staring at the dark russet hair cropping up from her skull and feeling wildly envious, even though Pyrrha was a ginger.
“I don’t know,” she sighed, which earned Pyrrha's attention.
“What, no attempts to wheedle out of breakfast this morning? Are you feeling all right?”
“Not really,” replied Nona glumly. At Pyrrha’s look of concern, she hastened to add, “I’m fine, physically speaking. I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, is all.”
This was an expression she’d stolen from school and the nice lady teacher. It was her diplomatic way of telling Nona that such-and-such tiny was fussy today, and would you mind watching them and taking them outside to the hallway if they needed to self-regulate, please?
Nona didn’t feel overstimulated, but she felt cross. Not tantrum-cross, but morose. Despondent, even. She told as much to Pyrrha, who nodded sagely, hip cocked against the counter.
“Ah, I see. The doldrums getting you down?”
Nona didn’t know what doldrums were, but she was fairly certain they weren’t her issue. “No. It’s my hair, I think.”
“Your hair?” said Camilla, opening the door. “What about it?”
Camilla emerged from the bedroom wearing a sedate grey shirt with plenty of buttons and a pair of dark, wide-legged trousers. She hadn’t pulled on her boots yet, but her sunglasses were perched on top of her head. Nona still hated how chilly they made her look, but she couldn’t deny that the pushed-back look was effortlessly cool.
“Maybe my clothes, too,” said Nona unhappily. She picked at the front of her Salt Chip Fish Shop shirt, pulling it away from her body. Ordinarily, Nona loved her Salt Chip Fish Shop shirt, but it felt childish, suddenly, just like had happened to her cheeseburger T-shirt. Nona thought she might cry. “Cam, can I borrow one of your shirts today? Pretty please?”
“What for?” asked Camilla, automatically evaluating her outfit for spills or stains.
This only made Nona more upset. “What would I have even spilled!” she exclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest in a huff. “Pyrrha hasn’t even plated the eggs yet.”
Camilla held her hands up, conciliatory. “Sorry, sorry.”
“You weren’t kidding, huh, junior,” mused Pyrrha. “Hect, what are the chances you can take her for a dip tonight?”
Cam’s lips pursed. Nona felt briefly sorry—she was usually able to last a whole week between trips to the ocean, but her last salt water cure was four days ago and she was already whinging—but Camilla just said, “We’ll find a way,” and Nona was overcome all over again with how much she loved her and Palamedes.
“Why do you want to borrow one of Camilla’s shirts, anyway?” Pyrrha asked Nona. At the same time, she set a bowl of eggs on the table in front of her, probably hoping that Nona would be too distracted to protest at how full it was. “Trying to steal her cute aesthetic?”
Pyrrha winked at Cam as she grabbed the bowls for the two of them and took her seat at the table. Camilla looked largely unmoved, but she ducked her head a little, which Nona watched with interest. This was a new development.
Nona struggled with her answer. “I like the way you carry yourselves,” she said eventually. “People like you, and Camilla, and Crown, and the Angel, and even Pash sometimes. It’s hard carrying myself when I look like me.”
Cam’s lips quirked up minutely at ‘even Pash sometimes.’ She grabbed her journal, and Nona could tell from the hunch of her shoulders that she was scribbling something down for Palamedes.
Pyrrha hummed, considering this. “I see, kiddie. You want to be butch, is that it?”
Nona pushed around her eggs with her fork. All of a sudden, she felt too shy to look Pyrrha in the eyes. “I don’t think I can be.”
“Why not?” asked Camilla, looking up from her notes. She moved to push a pair of glasses up her nose, which meant of course that it wasn’t Camilla at all, but Palamedes. He waved at her, caught out, and the sight of Camilla’s dark, stony irises confirmed it. “Good morning, Nona.”
“Oh, good morning, Palamedes,” said Nona, cheered up immensely. He’d been spending less time at the front lately—he said it was having deleterious effects on Camilla’s body—which made his presence at breakfast today a real treat. Nona rarely got to see Palamedes anymore, except for the lessons where he tried to instruct her in the bones.
Upon reflection, this probably meant something she’d said had been interesting enough for Camilla to bring him forward. Nona felt a bit sorry for eating up his allotted time so early in the day. She took a small bite of her eggs as penance, and she barely even gagged.
“Would you mind explaining what you meant by that?” asked Palamedes. “I can’t promise to understand, but I’d like to listen.”
“Well, butches are strong,” said Nona, thinking it was obvious. “They’re confident in themselves, and capable, and wonderfully handsome. I’m not really any of those things. Cam fusses over me for being a hundred pounds soaking wet, and someone still sits outside the door when I take my bath in case I have a funny turn.”
Palamedes looked thoughtful. “I think you’re conflating ‘butchness’ with ‘ability’ there,” he said. “Again, not my area—this is really more of Cam’s purview—but I don’t see why your body’s capabilities should dictate how you choose to identify.”
“But I’m not even handsome,” argued Nona, frustrated that he wasn’t getting it. “I’m cute, which is another thing entirely. I’m small, and I have these braids, and even if I swaggered around as confidently as Our Lady of the Passion, old men at the dairy would still chuck me beneath my chin and give me coffee coupons.” Frustrated tears welled up in her eyes. “I want to be independent, but I can’t even do my hair by myself. I feel like a baby.”
Silently, Palamedes passed her a napkin. Nona wiped away her tears and blew her nose lavishly, wishing he’d put his arm around her, too.
“Would you like to try a different hairstyle?” Pyrrha asked. “Something easier to manage on your own?”
Nona considered it. Hesitated.
“Yes?” she said, and then, “No, I don’t think so. I like my braids; I’m just tired of needing help with them. I’m tired of feeling like a burden to you and Camilla and Palamedes. I want to be able to do things by myself.”
Something about that struck a chord with Palamedes. His throat worked, and he looked very far away for a moment.
“Wanting autonomy is an understandable impulse,” he told Nona. “You’re not a burden, though. You’ll never be a burden to us, all right?”
Nona’s throat felt dry and scratchy. “But what if this is the most I ever learn how to do?” she whispered: a fear so deep she’d barely acknowledged it, even to herself. “What if I lose my progress and I stop being able to do the things I could do before?”
Her secret was out, but Nona still flinched away from addressing her sickness directly. Maybe, as the time grew closer, her feelings would change; but these uncertain weeks had the feeling of dangling from the pull-up bars, and she tried to ignore the topic as much as she could.
“Hopefully it doesn’t get to that point anytime soon,” answered Pyrrha gently. “But yes, even then. We’ll stay with you for as long as you’ll have us.”
Palamedes nodded in agreement, then bit his lip, solemn. “Do you mind if I tell you a story, Nona?”
Nona perked up. She loved stories, and she rarely got to hear them from Palamedes, whose time in Camilla’s body was so carefully rationed. She nodded enthusiastically.
“Before Camilla and I knew you, we knew another girl, and we loved her, too,” said Palamedes. Nona felt a hot rush of jealousy, until he added, “She was also very sick. She wasn’t supposed to make it to fifteen.”
Pyrrha’s brown eyes were fixed on Palamedes, but he had dropped his gaze to the surface of the table, hiding behind Camilla’s fringe. He was fiddling with the tape recorder in his pocket, Nona realised: not quite clicking the recording button, but pressing it lightly, for comfort.
“She was seven years older than us, so time wasn’t on our side,” he continued. “But the whole reason Cam and I are here today is because we loved that girl. Camilla will be the first person to tell you I have a saviour complex”—(“And she’s a massive hypocrite,” muttered Pyrrha, under her breath.)—“but I devoted myself to necromancy because I wanted to help her. I wanted to ease her pain, even if I couldn’t save her, and give her all the autonomy possible in her own treatment.”
Nona flinched involuntarily at the mention of necromancy, struggling to understand. “You probably can’t save me, either,” she pointed out, hating to say it but wanting everything out on the table. “You can’t even save yourselves.”
Palamedes grimaced. “Not yet,” he allowed. “I’ve made too many inroads on Camilla’s soul already. I have to be extra careful when I use necromancy in her body, but we’re thinking through possible solutions—and the point is, we’re going to be here for you, Nona, no matter what. I don’t know how we could do anything else.”
Nona’s vision blurred with tears as she stared down at her mostly-full bowl of eggs. In response, Palamedes scooted his chair closer and wrapped one of Camilla’s warm, lovely arms around her shoulders. Pyrrha joined him on the other side. She pressed a kiss against Nona’s forehead and allowed her to cry into her vest, until eventually, her body lost the urge to tremble and shake entirely.
Nona cried, feeling so loved she almost couldn’t bear it, certain once again that she was the luckiest person who had ever been born.