day thirteen: Flowers in my hair/make up
Meg and I were sitting out in one of the grassy patches by the cistern making flower crowns together. Meg’s was rather big with a wide array of flowers of all different shapes and colours. Mine on the other hand consisted of daisies which kept falling apart.
“Ugh how do you get them to stay together?” I whined as mine fell apart for the third time. The flowers were floppy and broken now, as if they too had given up on my flower crown making skills. Meg just giggled at me. “I dunno. I just kinda…” She intertwined her fingers and wriggled them. I rolled my eyes.
“Not very helpful. Hey, off topic but do you wanna get dinner together tonight?” I asked. All this flower crown failure was making me hungry. Not that I could really get hungry as a god but it was making me want something that would bring me joy instead of frustration.
“Can’t.” Meg said. “Got a date.” It was at that moment dear reader I’m pretty sure my godly heart stopped. Not because I didn’t think she would start dating eventually, I knew how mortals worked, I knew she would grow up I just… didn’t think it would be quite this fast.
“EXCUSE ME!?” I yelled. Probably louder than was necessary, but I was rather shocked. She looked up from her flower crown with a bewildered expression on her face.
“What?”
“You’re a child! You can’t go on a date!” I cried.
“I’m fifteen.” She deadpanned. “Nearly sixteen.” I paused and realised she was indeed correct. That was usually an acceptable time for mortals to start dating, wasn't it?
“...right. W-well… still!” She just smirked and went back to weaving her flower crown. I wondered who she was going on a date with. Was it a boy? I hoped not, boys were usually little shits, especially teenage ones. After about a minute of me pondering this Meg interpreted me from my thoughts.
“Hey, do you think you could help me get ready? Like do make up and stuff?”
“What makes you think I can do make up?” I asked.
“Well can you?”
“Yes of course I can. I just didn't think I gave off a does makeup vibe.”
“You do.” She told me rather bluntly. I sighed and stood up, leaving my destroyed daisies on the floor.
“Very well. How much time do you have before your date?” I asked. Meg shrugged because she was Meg.
“It’s at six so like… an hour?”
“Gods Meg! You really do leave things to the last minute don’t you? Right, Inside, inside.” I made a shoo gesture at her, nudging her forward towards the house. Once we were in her room I shut the door behind us. “Alright! What are you planning on wearing? Because I should really base the makeup off of that.”
“I dunno.” She shrugged. You know you’d think I’d be used to her short answers after all these years but nope, they still frustrated me to no end.
“Okay well go get options Meg! We don’t have much time.” I watched as she went over to the cupboard and pulled out a few dresses. One was a pink midi dress with spaghetti straps, the other was a yellow knee length dress with short sleeves and the third one was a somewhat short grass green dress with puffy sleeves. “Mm… Try the green one.”
“Okay, turn around.” I did as she said and faced the wall while she changed. “Done!”
“Nice. wear that one. Now sit I’ll do your make up.”
“I don’t know if I have any-” She stopped herself, noticing the make up that was already in my lap. “Right goddy powers.” She sat down cross legged in front of me and I got to work.
I started with a bit of blush but didn’t add foundation or anything cause she was new to make up and didn’t need any (not that anyone ever needed foundation). Also because I knew she would forget to wash it off and that’s not good for her skin.
“So tell me about your date.” I tried not to sound like I was being nosy, though I absolutely was. “Boy? Girl? Something else?” She stared at me for a moment. As if unsure if she wanted to tell me any of this. I couldn’t imagine why I was very calm and collected about this kind of thing.
“Boy.” She told me eventually. I nodded. Right. I’ve known plenty of teenage boys throughout my years and they were usually little shits. Other than maybe Ganymede. He was nice as a teen though he’d just been kidnapped when I first met him so I suppose that’s a bad example. Or I supposed some of the mortal men I dated back in ancient times weren’t too far from teens, though what was considered an adult at that time was quite different to what’s considered an adult now though I know they would have been older than 16. And Artemis also often told me I acted like a teenage boy, especially before my lester-fication and if that was in any way accurate I certainly didn’t want Meg going out with a teenage boy. I tried not to sound too uneasy in my response.
“...Ah. And he’s your age, yes?” She nodded. “What’s his name?”
“I’m not telling you that.” She huffed. I moved from blush to highlighter (yes it took me that long to do blush because Meg simply won’t sit still). “You’ll be weird and try to find him or something.”
“Rude.” She was right of course, then again as a god I had various ways to figure out who he was anyway. But I decided not to mention that. Not that I would try to find him… probably. “And is he nice? What’s he like? Tell me.” She scrunched her nose up as I brushed highlighter onto it.
“He’s nice.” I moved my hand in a kind of go on gesture. She sighed as if it was a great effort for her to use her descriptive words. “He likes plants.” That was a good sign.
“Oh sounds perfect. And how did this date… occur? Did you ask him out? Vise versa?” She rolled her eyes yet again, clearly tired of my questions. Though that obviously was not going to stop me from asking them. Despite her evident annoyance she answered me.
“I asked him out. I was waiting for him to do it but I don’t think he realised I wanted him to.”
“Yeah that sounds about right. Was he happy when you did?” She nodded. A small smile on her face now. “Close your eyes for me.” I told her as I started putting some yellow eye shadow on the outside of her eyelid.
“Mhm. I already knew he liked me cause one of his friends told me.” I nodded and decided to stop questioning her for now. We stayed in comfortable silence for a while.
I wasn’t sure about how I felt that Meg was going on a date. On the one hand I still saw her as that little twelve year old who loved unicorns (which by the way is an obsession she has not grown out of). I wanted to bundle her in blankets and keep her safe from the horrors of the modern dating world. Which I did realise was silly considering she’s literally experienced trauma beyond belief starting from the age of five or six. On the other hand though I was glad to see that she was happy and socialising and getting to do some of those normal mortal things that demigods often never got the chance to do. And I knew Meg could protect herself. If this guy did turn out to be a dick she’d probably throw back some withering retort like “you’re stupid” and reduce him to a puddle of tears.
“Finished!” I showed her the look in the make-up mirror. She took the palette from me to get a better look. I did a green that matched her dress in the center of her eyelid and had it fade out to a bright yellow. I thought it captured her lovely spring vibe. “Do you like it?” She grinned and nodded.
“Thank you!” She pulled me into a rather sudden hug, Not that I minded.
“Careful! Don't mess up your make up. I worked hard on that.”
“Shut up. Do I look ready?” She stood up and did a little spin.
“You look beautiful. One thing though.” I grabbed her flower crown from earlier and placed it on the top of her head. “Perfect.”
“That doesn’t look stupid? Like… he’s not gonna think I’m weird for wearing a flower crown?” She asked. “Would you wanna be with a guy who makes you feel stupid for wearing a flower crown?” I asked back. She considered this for a moment. “No.”
“Well there you go then.” Meg grabbed a little canvas tote bag and headed downstairs. Sitting in the living room waiting for us was none other than Luguselwa. She stood up when she saw Meg. “You look nice.” A good start. She seemed much calmer than I expected her to be. That was until she started firing out questions. “Are you leaving now? Do you have everything? Pager? Are you sure you don’t need a lift?”
“You got her a pager?” I asked.
“Well I was hoping it wouldn’t attract monsters as easily as phones did.” I had no idea if that was sound logic or not so I didn’t say anything.
“I got everything, it's fine, Lu.” She said as she practically ran away from us towards the door, we followed.
“We can come with you if you want. Like just to hang around the mall in case you need us.” Lu told her. Meg had the audacity to snort at that. Good gods she really was becoming a teenager. “Gods no. Please don't.” That admittedly hurt my feelings a little. It’s not like I was some embarrassing parent! Lu may have been but I was cool and down with the kids. Meg tried to run out the door but Lu grabbed her arm. “I’m gonna be late!” She complained.
“One more thing. You know what to do if he’s mean, rude or creepy in any way?” She asked, kneeling slightly to be face to face with the girl. Meg sighed.
“Grab their wrist and do the twisty thing. But don’t break it cause of stupid laws.” Lu nodded with satisfaction.
“Very good. You can go now.” Meg practically sprinted away.
“That your method when guys in ancient Gaul were creeps?” I asked. She huffed a laugh.
“Nah. The laws weren’t as over the top back then I’d just stab them.”
“Sounds about right.” I looked out to see if I could still see Meg. I couldn’t. “They grow up so fast don’t they?”
“Yep. She's even embarrassed of us! We’re not-” She paused then turned to me. “We’re not embarrassing are we?”
“...Nah. I’m sure we’re not.” I glanced out once more to try and see if I could catch a glimpse of her. “Gods is this what parents feel like?” Lu laughed.
“Probably. Come on cellmate, I’ll get us a drink.” She shut the door and gestured for me to come into the living room. “Then later we can go and embarrass Meg on her date.”
~~~
omg I've actually caught up with my fanfics lets gooo!!