Sharrkan didn't need to put up his hair. In truth, it wasn't quite long enough. It didn't require the small gold tie he pulled it into every day. He knew that, but he did it just the same.
Waking with the sun, quite literally rolling out of bed. Checking to make sure he had not lost the small gold hoops from his ears. Tying his hair.
At some point, he accepted that the small ritual of arranging that ponytail each day as a leftover reflex from his days as royalty. His hair had been much longer then, often catching on gold circlets and headdresses he wore in public. Mother had insisted on growing it out. The longer, the better, she'd said. A sign of nobility.
She had known that he hated it. Long hair had never suited Sharrkan. Mother had known and yet, she would never hear of cutting it. Besides being a clear sign of his status, it gave her something to jerk just in case, a reminder not to run his mouth. A needless gesture. In those days, Sharrkan rarely had much to say. Any time he considered speaking out, he would feel the ghost of her hand resting on the back of his neck, a migraine beginning before he even formed the words. A beautiful child, father would say. Best seen and not heard.
In those days, Sharrkan hated himself, mostly for staying silent. For simply watching as a noble elder was thrown bodily from the royal court, dragging heavy, gold chains behind him: a clear sign of his exile. Even now, he remembered the pain of nearly biting through his bottom lip, so enraged that not even the man's grandson had cried out. Instead, the boy had remained still, eyes on the ground as his pet cobra curled tighter around his throat, seeking warmth.
Years later, Sharrkan would leave the court in a similar fashion, gold chain wrapped symbolically around his throat and waist, just long enough to skim the ground as he moved toward the looming royal gates. He still remembered the creak of the old doors as they swung open to reveal the only man who'd ever truly encouraged him. He remembered how badly he'd scraped his knee, dropping hard to the ground in a traditional Heliohaptian sign of loyalty, raising his voice as loud as he could. There he'd declared a new loyalty, just outside the gates of his former home. In plain view of the royal family, of his former mother and father.
He remembered his new king smiling sadly, hauling him to his feet, offering Sharrkan a dagger as he stood. He remembered mother gasping as he tore through his waist-length rope of hair, shearing it off just above the shoulders, and tossing it backward through the gates. Choking back angry tears as he followed Sinbad down the hill.
The next morning was the first time. The very first time he tried to pull all of his hair back, realizing that only about a third of it would stay contained.
It was an old habit, a remnant of his childhood. Sharrkan had long since come to terms with it. And so each day he pulled his hair back, watching himself in the mirror as he wrapped the gold chains around himself. Some days he would smile at his own vanity. Others he would simply shake his head, before turning and drawing his Sindrian robes around his shoulders and leaving to start the day.