The sounds of bird calls and rustling of an early breeze through the trees mix with the smell of summer dew and Pop's racks of herbs set out to dry. A few were wrecked by pilfering forest dwellers, but most of the plants aren't ones animals like to eat. At least, the animals that don't build cabins up on the side of a mountain for privacy from everyone but the snow-capped peaks and bright blue skies. The weather is beautiful, the shade is crisp, and the world is such a splashy mix of color from wildflowers and our garden's overflowing produce it's like living in the middle of a rainbow.

It makes me want to do cartwheels.

I can do three in a row before I fall over. It might be two and a half by technicality, but according to Pop, we round up in this household.

And by all the messy gods above, I love this home.

I don’t know (or care, really) what that awful Kontis was thinking, throwing me into a newborn body as if I owe him fealty for getting tortured. He didn’t sound totally in control of his own situation, if what I remember isn’t being overwritten by the persistent nightmares, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t expect me to abide by the threats he made. 

I sure hope I’m not meant to build him a temple or something, that's absolutely out of the question. Just, ew. For now, until something stops me, I get to live like the luckiest kid alive.

Really good parents are underrated. Having someone to make food for me, make clothes for me, hold me when I cry and take me on hikes to valley clearings where we eat picnics and lay in the sun-soaked grass? Someone who listens when I tell them who I am? Just the thought of how much love my family is built on just about incapacitates me with sheer joy.

More importantly, though, our house has a busy few days ahead. My imminent fifth birthday is its own special event, and Mom has a friend coming to visit later today for some kind of meeting, all while Pop has been trying to teach me about the herbs in his work cabinet. He also promised to show me the best way to swing an ax, “even if I turn out knee-high and strong as a blade of grass.” Mom, on the other hand, already gave me the best present I could have hoped for, even if she doesn’t realize it. Yeah, it’s hard to top a loving and accepting family.

“Come inside, Red!" Pop calls from the back door just as I flop over from exhaustion after another failed handspring. "Breakfast is up soon and you gotta clean up for our guest!” 

Red isn’t my actual name, despite Pop’s efforts to make it stick over the last few days. Apparently, tradition states the mother handles most of what falls under childhood development, especially names, leaving Pop looking a little desperate to participate. According to Mom I’m technically not allowed to have a proper name until the Day of Beginnings festival, and the Naming ceremony at the center of it. Until then, though, I’m Red.

As I get myself up off the ground, the dark strands of my hair frame my vision. Mom and Pop have both told me it's the deepest red they've ever seen, but I can’t quite see it as anything other than shiny black. The closest comparison which comes to mind is maybe blood drawn from a vein, but with only a vague memory of that particular shade, I'm left relying on the words of others. Then again, I try to not think about my hair as often as I catch Mom chewing her lip and staring at my head, if only because she always looks sad, scared, or both when she does. If there’s one danger to the joy I’ve gotten since noon yesterday, it’s how many times I’ve caught her looking and chewing.

That said, hair is what’s on my mind as Pop holds the door for me. 

Inside the house, my parents become perfectly-coordinated dancers in everything. I’ve seen them fold clothes like it’s a circus act, clean like it's a competition, and turn an absolute mountain of dried herbs into ready-to-sell poultices in under an hour. It’s like a magical manifestation of true love playing out before me, ironic as it might be to call it that in a world where Pop regularly lights the stove and fireplace by snapping his fingers at them, and Mom can punch a tree in two then carry both halves home for splitting without so much as a pair of gloves.

Watching them together, it’s easy to slip into the seat of a blissful audience as they giggle and wriggle their way around the tight space of our kitchen. I hardly even notice how long they drag things out, taking extra time to the tune of the other’s laughs, goofing off with the sharp objects, and spending almost as much time trading kisses as actually doing work. Interrupting them seems rude enough that it’s not until plates are being carried to the table that I work up the nerve to speak.

“Mom?” I say. Despite the ready distractions of flirty dancing and balancing precarious piles of breakfast, she replies as easily as if I’d been chatting with them the whole time.

“What is it, my darling daughter?”

The way those words roll through me, I nearly forget my question in the avalanche of mental fireworks. It’s good to be loved.

“Oh! Um, why does my hair scare you?”

Mom flinches at that, and I catch Pop glancing at her warily. Just as quickly as they’d started, the fireworks stop. A tingle of worry settles in my stomach in their place.

Setting plates in front of me and her chair, Mom sits at the table

“It’s not that it scares me, honey, it’s just…” She glances over her shoulder at Pop, who gives a knowing nod. Mom turns back to me and offers her hand, which I take.

“There’s a lot of… history in that question. Most of it’s just stories, honey, but what I’m worried about is other people. Not everyone sees that history as anything other than a guarantee of the future, and I don’t want you to be scared or worried about what they’re going to say.”

She squeezes my fingers gently, and I squeeze back.

“If that’s true then why are you scared and worried?”

Pop snorts a laugh, finally sitting down with his own plate of food. Mom shoots him a glare, but he just shrugs and picks up his toast.

“Red’s gotcha there, Moell, don’t look at me,” he says before stuffing his mouth with food. Mom just sighs and turns back to me.

“My my,” she says, gently rubbing my head. “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were a few years older and ask what your name is. But that’s kind of the catch, honey, people will think and say things that have no bearing on who you are. It’s no fault of your own, it’s just the will of the Gods.“

I nod quietly, waiting for her to continue, but she starts to turn back to her food.

“But Mom!” I interrupt, tugging on her hand. “What are they going to say?”

The pain and worry return to her eyes in full force, and she looks down at her plate.

“If we’re lucky they’ll only assume you’re some distant cousin of the royal family, which is true enough. But too many…” her voice cracks, and all of the fear over what might come to be in the future drains out of me as I see my Mom, the woman who can split wood with her hands and could probably lift the mountains turn to Pop with the most anguish I’ve ever seen. Pop sees it too, and he reaches over to gently touch her shoulder.

“Red,” he says, not taking his eyes off Mom. “A lot of people think your hair makes you. That it says who you are, where you’ve been, and where you’ll go. It’s not true,” he meets my gaze just long enough to make sure he’s understood, but it feels like he’s telling both of us that much. “Any more than clouds in the sky are a sure sign of rain. There is coincidence, and getting led about like a horse on a lead, but the future is not written by the gods, kiddo. They just give us the first few steps on a path, and you can change that path anytime.”

My food is still untouched, as is Mom’s, but Pop takes the last bite of his own without stopping the slow circles he’s rubbing into her back. Without prompt, Mom starts again, voice now a croak.

“Hair is used to read your future, and some still think it is the only way to see your destiny. Many don’t think that way anymore, but the Church has ensured most do.”

Something about the soft way she says it makes me dislike the Church. That, or my previous life is infiltrating my instincts in this one. I feel my jaw tense, and ask a question to avoid grinding my teeth.

“Why won’t you tell me what it is, though?”

Mom winces again, and Pop shakes his head with a sigh.

“Might as well tell her, Moell. It’s not like Essie or the other kids are gonna spare her that.” He stands, collects his plate, and steps over to the kitchen. Moments later he’s heating water for tea. Mom just sighs, suddenly looking very small in her usual seat.

“I just… I don’t know how to say this without it hurting you, honey. I don’t want you to think it’s how I feel about you, because it’s not.”

I put my other hand around hers, and sit as far forward in my chair as I can.

“I believe you, so please try.”

She stares at me for a long moment, and I can almost see the questions poking holes in the veil of fear she’s been shrouded in.

“Are you… sure?” she asks. I nod, meeting her gaze evenly. 

“Okay. They, um… mm. This is how my mother, a Baroness, taught me. Again, this is just make-believe, it shouldn’t be considered any more reliable than the weather was two months ago. 

“Darker hair is associated with nobility, and the royal family is all black of hair. The shadows of decisions which tower over their head, as it were. Those with the lightest shades of hair are most often seen as having the least responsibility for others and for themselves. And…” she trails off, and I watch her lose the struggle to not glance at my hair once more. At least she mostly just looks sad this time, but I squeeze her hand for reassurance all the same.

“There’s an old story. It’s… they hold puppet shows about it, for children! It’s cruel. You didn’t get to choose this yourself.”

Tears build up in her eyes and I instantly slip out of my chair to hug her. She squeezes me back tightly, stroking my head as she gulps down enough air to choke back the sobs trembling through her.

“It’s okay, Mom. You can tell me because I know you aren’t trying to hurt me. And that way I’ll know what others will say or think, even if it isn’t true.”

I’m still shoulders-deep in a hug, so I can’t even crane my neck to see her face without letting go – absolutely out of the question at this point – but I can feel her breathing tighten to a shallow gasp, can feel her hand stop at the back of my head.

“The puppet play, it’s about the foundation of Parthin, the country we live in. The four families, and the usurper King. The history books all say it was a complicated affair, rights and priorities and bloodlines didn’t exist at the time as the four smaller countries were on equal standing.

“Then, a brother or cousin of Poul Gray tried to kill the Queen of Soessa. The play… spends a lot of time on this and the next part, when that lord of Gray became the greatest villain in the history of this nation, at least for the founding families. After they came together to kill him, they unanimously elevated the Queen of Soessa to Queen Heila Parthin I. The other three families were made duchies, and the rest is recorded in much greater detail as the history scribes were well-paid.”

She stops before explaining the rest once again, but I can guess where it’s going.

“Did that usuber… you-super.. you-ser-per guy have red hair?” I have to bite the word out in separate syllables, but my meaning gets across enough that Mom sighs heavily.

“Yes, he did. We don’t remember his name, where he came from, or even which branch of the Gray family he belonged to. All they cared to mention was his hair, red like fire.”

I nod into her side, my assumption confirmed. An image of a faceless man with a cloud of red about him, pointing his sword at a queen on her throne, builds itself into a question before my imagination can catch up.

“Isn’t it okay, then?” I ask. Mom leans back a bit, the obvious question in her eyes.

“You said his hair was like fire, so it must have been a lot lighter than mine, so there’s no way I’d be like him anyway!”

She opens her mouth to answer, then shuts it again, brow furrowing as she works over my logic.

“Yeah,” I say before she can figure out the problem. “I think it’ll be okay.”

The sound of three mugs being set on the table by Pop is almost perfectly timed with a knock at the door, both of which bring an end to the conversation for now.

“I’ll get it,” Pop says, crossing the room.