"I'm not!"

Her voice catches in an awkward upward inflection that only manages not to be a squeak by turning itself into a moment of choking coughs that erase the rest of the sentence. She looks away as she walks, but even an ordinary palace servitor could catch the fresh blush rising into her cheeks for the second time in just a handful of minutes. Even they would barely have to wonder if she meant 'not one of you' or 'not fucking [a Toxicrene]', because the answer is that she's lying in both cases. 

That reaction isn't embarrassment. It's shame. She really hadn't put the pieces together before now. Why she was here, why the Master of Assassins had an interest in her life, why she would have the skills and power that she does when her job and the function of her species was to be pretty and desirable. They hadn't made her an Adept, but they'd only rescued her from that hell so she could be a weapon.

She hadn't considered what all those nights in bed meant, either. Night after night of falling asleep arm in arm, just two friends warding off the loneliness and the dark together. Hadn't it been? But all of the biting, the touching, the play which had been the exact opposite of trying to find a restful night. The stubborn, irritating insistence on never being more than half a room away. Antidotes. No, impossible. XIII's eye widens in horror and surprise, before it flickers in the obvious way of someone who's thoughts have just been interrupted by a stream of memories. Tellus. The [i]Anemoi[/i]. The [i]Yakanov.[/i] Her teeth clench dangerously tight. She draws a breath through a single sharp sniff that makes her entire body go rigid as the dead. And this is all the reaction she allows herself.

"I don't need a name," she lies more calmly this time, "I was an Imperial Pet, and then a Praetor. I ran this ship. I broke the Kaeri here because they were being useless fuckwits. I lifted the Lanterns in their place, because they weren't. And now none of that's true, so what the fuck do I need a name for? Tredecima is an honorable distinction for a graduate of the Kennels."

Her posture as she draws herself up with a flourish isn't straight enough to indicate pride. Confusion. Stress. The impact of the previous attempt at conversation is still echoing inside her. She is telling herself it doesn't matter, that Mynx is gone forever now. She's not sure she really believes it. Her breathing is uneven. Her steps are rapid and she is closing distance quickly while trying not to seem like she's doing it at all.

But she arrives. She is not deterred by any act of cooking. She knows her way around a head of hair almost as well as she knows her way around a kitchen, or how to work on someone who won't sit still. Barely two seconds elapse before her fingers find and start to gather the first of the golden locks before her breathing starts to settle. Her body's ticks disappear. She is no longer thinking about memories or implications, or burning with shame. 

She is incredibly talented. Her fingers gather hair and tease it straight with greater precision than any comb could hope for. Hera watches from somewhere and sighs for want of a helper this good. She untangles knots that had only just started forming at tips or by roots before they'd even had a chance to be noticed. She plucks up layer after layer of smooth golden hair and twists it into shapes worthy of a princess, bobbing and ducking and leaning as she needs to so she can keep perfectly level with Beautiful's head as she darts about the counter space.

"You sure that's what you wanna go with? Most people I know aren't lucky enough to get to pick their own names. And I'll tell you something else, as soon as anyone thinks they know something about you it pretty much stops mattering what you try to change later. So just... oh whatever, do what you want. Like I give a fuck."

She tugs on the braids more than she needs to as she weaves them, just for a moment. But the relaxation of the action is total, and before breakfast can finish cooking, XIII as turned her new Ikarani friend's head into an intricate scene of a golden waterfall with a mermaid's tail swimming up it to her crown, where a tight loop of hair sits like a crown of laurels as her prize for reaching the top.

She takes three quick steps backwards and folds her hands in front of her waists again, a gesture born out of years of habit. She watches with a hungry intensity that shatters the gentleness of her posture into little fragments for some hapless Azura to sweep up in a decade's time. Her tail flicks like a whip behind her. 

She has made a decision just now. And it's too late for anything to change her mind anymore.