Chapter Text
One late autumn night in the months following the Day Of Unity, Lilith was hard at work attempting to brew the curse-countering elixir, when King bounded towards her and tugged at the hem of her long skirt to get her attention.
"Weh! Lilith!" He screeched in his little voice.
"What is it, King?" Lilith looked down at her nephew as she sprinkled some powder into the cauldron.
"How's that elixir coming along? Eda can't tough it out for much longer!"
"Don't worry about it," Eda said, emerging from the trees. "I'm fine!"
King crossed his arms. "You cawing two minutes ago didn't sound like 'fine.'"
"Oh, Titan help us," Lilith groaned. "Just a moment." She sprinkled a blue substance into the cauldron, and it turned red and dissolved. The mixture turned orange with a slight tint of crimson.
"Um... I think I may have messed up something." Lilith said sheepishly.
Eda inspected the potion. "Yeah, it should be yellow-orange instead of red-orange. But it's not that far off." She grabbed her mug inscribed with "curse this mess" and dipped it into the cauldron.
"Are you sure it's safe to drink it?" Lilith asked skeptically.
"Nope!" Eda answered, but proceeded to drink it anyway. Most of the feathers that covered her body disappeared, but a few remained.
"Gross," she gagged. "Well, it kind of worked?"
"Enough to stop you from making bird noises," Lilith shrugged. "Still needs work, though. For now, maybe try taking another dose?"
"You'll get it eventually." Eda encouraged, dipping the mug into the cauldron again. "It tastes horrible, and the ones we got from Morton also tasted horrible, so I think you're on the right track." She choked down the second dose of elixir, and the remaining feathers vanished.
"Thanks." Lilith nodded.
"Eda, you really need to wash your hair." The furry child with the skull chimed in.
"Okay, I know I've never really taken care of my hair as often as I should, but in my defense, it's a lot harder now that I only have one arm." Eda pointed out. "I could cut it. That would make it less of a hassle."
"That's an idea."
Lilith pondered for a minute about how to store the potion-- it worked if you took enough of it, so maybe larger bottles? Of course, they could just put them in regular-sized bottles and take two at a time...
Her thoughts were interrupted when she realized Eda was standing in front of a mirror, holding scissors to her hair.
"Eda, dear Titan! Your hair will be a mess if you cut it yourself."
"We're in the apocalypse, Lily. Everyone else is puppets. There's no one to impress."
"Fair point, but still. Give me those and sit down."
Eda surrendered the scissors and plopped onto the nearby chair.
"It would be easy enough to cut another person's hair, but you can't properly reach the back of your own. I'll take it from here."
"Okay, but don't worry about making it look perfect. That'll take so long and I can't sit still forever."
"Okay, I'll see what I can do." Lilith said. "Wait, you did brush your hair before you started cutting, right?"
"Of course I did. I do some questionable things, but I'm not a monster."
"Just making sure."
Lilith cut Eda's hair carefully and with precision, which took a while, much to Eda's chagrin. But eventually she decided it looked decent.
"All done."
Eda looked in the mirror. "Whoa, I forgot how good I looked with short hair." She smiled at her reflection. "Thanks, Lily."
"Not a problem." Lilith said, picking up her brush. "Hey, do you think you could trim the ends of my hair?"
"You really trust me to do that?" Eda sounded surprised.
"Not really," Lilith admitted, "but if you do the cutting part, I should be able to even it out myself if it looks messy. Well, most of it."
"Fair enough. Alright." Eda took the scissors and got to work. And for a while, she was actually doing a decent job of it until a sudden interruption. There was a noise from the nearby bushes, startling Eda, and without realizing, she snipped a piece of Lilith's hair with the scissors.
"WEH! EDA!!" King waddled over and hugged his mother's leg.
Eda turned her head and looked into the bushes. A baby snaggleback had hidden there before running off as soon as it had been noticed.
"It's okay, Kiddo. It's harmless, and it's gone now." Eda returned her attention to Lilith's hair, and quickly realized what she'd done. "Oh, shoot."
"What?" Lilith asked.
"Lily, I messed up. I accidentally cut way higher than the rest of your hair is cut."
"By how much?"
"Several inches."
"...Oh."
"I'm sorry..."
Lilith glanced at herself in the mirror. The light orange roots of her hair were visible. The last time she'd dyed her hair black, she'd been with the Emperor's Coven. She'd never liked it, but she couldn't imagine being the dark, serious leader of the Emperor's Coven with such unruly ginger curls. But now she didn't have to keep up the image anymore. So why bother?
"I can try to cut it in a way that will hide the messed up part, but I don't actually know if that's possible, and I'm not good at this stuff, I might just make it worse."
"No, it's..." Lilith stopped her. "It's fine. Just cut it all. Up to the roots."
"Oh. Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"...Okay." Eda shrugged. "Well, at least now I have guidelines for where to cut."
Eda snipped off all that was left of the black hair. Lilith glanced at the mirror to find her face framed by short, light orange hair in messy waves across her scalp. This was the last possible way she would've ever expected to cut her hair, but she didn't think it looked all that bad. It was certainly a step up from the straight black hair she used to have.
"So... What do you think?" Eda asked.
"I like it." She said.
Eda looked at Lilith's smiling face in the mirror. She looked almost like a different person. It would take some getting used to. But she looked happy.
"Yeah, I do too," Eda nodded in agreement. "It suits you."
Lilith stood up and brushed the loose hair off of her shirt. She was about to walk over to the cauldron she'd regrettably left unattended, but she stopped. She looked over her shoulder at the mirror, and stared at herself with a soft, genuine smile.
It's not perfect, she thought to herself, but it's the real me, and I like it.
And in the end, that was all that really mattered, wasn't it?