Yay. Flower fic, more of an extended metaphor than anything. An exercise in characterization and symbolism. 42 Days challenge. No real spoilers I guess but a warning for Young!Fuu.
Fuu's hair isn't the sort that caters to flowers. If she puts one behind her ear, her bangs shove it away with their own weight, crushing petals against her face and sending the shell down to hide in her collar. If instead she tries to coax one into her hair its fineness never holds the stem, and the flower slides easily away from careless strands that were never persuaded to treasure the prized and pretty adornment.
Fuu can remember a time when her hair was full of flowers, of petals and seeds, of blades of grass and soil. Fuu's fingernails were always dirty then, always caked with the remnants of gardening or dirt from the roads kicked up when she ran. She smelled of sunshine and sweat, and kept seeds in her pockets to feed the birds.
There were always flowers then, towering over her head. She jumped and tried to press her nose into their centers but they turned away from her shadows on the ground and she could never grow fast enough to catch them. When in frustration she broke one down and brought it to her face, its black-burned heart stared up at her, empty like the void with its seeds eaten by the birds. Fuu turned her face away from it and dropped it like a vile thing and never broke another.
Those flowers were too big to put in her hair anyway.
Fuu can remember a time when she did not know how to put her own hair up, a time when she pricked herself on pins and caught her tongue in a decorative comb trying to get at the fish carved into it. When older, stronger hands trimmed her hair short when it grew into her eyes and when older, stronger hands swept her hair up into two high tails before she had the chance to squirm. Yet, Fuu always settled when she was allowed to present the flower she wanted in her hair. It was tucked safely into the ties of one of her pigtails or, as she grew older, twined between the two sticks that held her bun in place. Even as the deft, patient fingers plaiting perfume into her hair grew thinner, softer, weaker, Fuu never pressed to learn the art for herself. It was a sacred thing, a moment shared in the quiet of the morning to be cherished. Even as Fuu learned to knot her own bun, she still returned to the same spot on the floor she had worn thin with her knees and sat, awaiting the flowers.
When she could only bear the flowers in her hands, the petals creased and curled and died without ever having ridden in the ties of her pigtails, drowned in salt from the tears in her eyes.
Fuu's hair refuses flowers, and she does not force any into it. With her lifestyle, they would have been ripped away within moments and she can not afford to worry about a mess of petals while saving her own skin. In moments when she allows herself to think, she reminds herself that she does not have the time for it every morning, and stops herself from feeling jealous of the women that can afford jewelry in shapes that tease her for the emptiness behind her ears. Instead she busies herself in looking for the black faces that turn toward the sun and stare dead into hers when she cuts them down. These are the flowers too big to wear in her hair. Instead, they settle comfortably into the burden on her back, undetected but for the stench of sweat and sunshine, and the dirt under her fingernails.