Very few people knew this about Deryn but when she was little her, hair was red. It was the same red as fire and at one time, she loved it, the fact that no one else had the same hair color as her, that deep auburn which looked almost orange in the right light. Plus it was the exact same color as her Da's hair and the fire that lit his balloons. She never understood that people found her creepy, with her snow-white skin and sky blue eyes, like some sort of spirit from hell.
When she was very little her mother only dressed her in white. It was the same white as her skin and it seemed like she was wearing no dress at all. Then she started jumping in mud and the color of her dresses changed. She dressed in a rainbow of colors that ended up a shade of mud brown. Her mother fussed over her dark red curls making her back into the doll she wanted her to be. The Aunts would coo that she was the cutest thing they ever saw. Then they would yell at her because she pushed Kitty into the mud.
Then her father died. Then every time she looked in the mirror, she saw the fire that killed her Da. One day during her silence, she decided that it was the length that scared her. So she took a pair of kitchen scissors and cut it as short as her brother's. Her mother threw a fit when she saw it but Deryn didn't respond. The fire on her head still scared her no matter how short. She heard Kitty talking about how her cousin used lemon juice to bleach hers. Deryn stole the lemons from her kitchen and squeezed all of the juice into a bowl. Taking a breath, she shoved her head into the bowl and drowned her hair. When she lifted her head after two hours, the fire was finally gone. Her hair was as pale as her skin. Her mother freaked out and tried to change it back.
That it didn't work, and she was stuck with the blonde hair. It had only just begun to fade the year before she joined the Leviathan. Alek liked to joke that he could barely see her when he rescued her from the snow. His hair was red too. It was a shade of red that seemed to be half-brown. It seemed to suit him, flattering his skin tone better than hers did. After she left the Leviathan, she liked to play with the short curls at the base of his neck, remembering her younger years.
Alek was the first one to notice the shift back to red. Two months after they were married, they had been lying together and he was running his hands through her hair. He made the comment about how her hair looked lovely in this light, how it was almost red. She laughed saying something about it being red naturally. That sparked a discussion, which led to the heartbreaking story of how her hair went from red to white and now back to red. He stayed quiet the whole time taking everything in.
Over the months that followed her hair darkened and it took about a year and a half for it to return to its natural dark red. At first, she saw the flames of her father's balloon but then she realized her hair was very similar to Alek's. Now when she looks at her hair she sees Alek's and she sees how they are a matched set. And when the bump in her stomach turned into a little person she was happy to see, that tiny little Mimi had his dark green eyes, and her flame red hair.
Authors note:
I have no idea where this came from; it just came from somewhere deep in my brain. And about Mimi, it's short for Artemis, which is traditionally a name for girls. It is also the name of Deryn's father. Guess I just wanted to be different and not name her Sophie like everyone else.