jyndarcy:
The flare of annoyance is visceral. Fucking Imogen. She takes great pains to keep her expression smoothly amused. She can’t show a crack here, not in front of her of all people. Never-mind that she’d spent hours in her room, hiding. So maybe she was vain about her hair, whatever. Except it had driven her half mad, hours trying spell after spell to undo the pattern.
She’d had to ask River for help, the only companionable person she knew that was adept at changing appearances. Once, she’d changed hair colour to amuse the class. So more hours of trying the solution given to her, until at last she’d gotten it right.
She was furious, but she couldn’t let it show. She arches a careful eyebrow. “Imogen, darling. You needn’t go so out of your way to compliment me. I know it must be hard to deal with –– these feelings between us.” And so here goes the self defence mechanism, the jokes piled on snide comments piled on more jokes. “But we simply can’t do anything about it. You know what happened to Romeo and Juliet.”
She throws a wink in with the words, knowing that the deflection isn’t as masterful as it should be. She folds her book closed as the Kappa on the other side of a wall does something that results in a rather loud crash. One of the grand old tables smashing against a wall, it sounded like. And so her smile turns more gleeful. Her fingers itched. Ideas whirling. What could she possibly do to get back at Imogen for the hair prank? It had to be good.
“Though now that you mention it, I do look particularly stunning today, and its nice to have someone point it out.”
There is a steel there, beneath the surface, a hint of Jyn’s fury seeping into her usual quips, which lets Imogen know that the pattern had done the trick. A selfish and petty part of her wishes she could ask how long it took for Jyn to undo what she’d done. Was it just her wishful thinking, her imagination, that made Jyn’s dark hair seem to glow a little less red in the light than it once had? A little lighter at the ends, a little darker at the roots?
She expects better, from Jyn, too, than a Romeo and Juliet comment. They’d evolved past the you hate me because you’re in love with me jokes early on in third year, after a particularly dense period of time where they were about the only ones Jyn could seem to come up with, fueled by an obnoxious mistake on Imogen’s part at a Samhain party. In top form, Jyn was much better at pushing her buttons than that.
“It’s true. Who would have ever thought Jyn D’Arcy would dye her hair? I thought the ombre effect was out of fashion, but it turns out it’s not so bad.”
