He gingerly flipped through the tiny pages, frowning in concentration, fighting the urge to smile.
She ran a comb through her short hair, peering into the mirror on the table, frowning harder.
"Ohh! That's so nice!" He finally erupted.
She jumped, combing the front of her hair straight up. "Don't do that, Blades."
"Sorry. But this picture is amazing! I like your hair like that."
She scowled, rolling her eyes a little bit. "I forgot my prom picture was in there." Still, she took a few steps over, and Blades tilted the book toward her. She took it into her hands, fighting a smile.
"I like that color, too." Blades leaned over her. "What is this? I noticed the girls posed with your brothers wore dresses like that, with bright colors…"
She chuckled. "This was my prom. It's a party we all have when we're almost done with high school."
"But all the clothes looked different. How do you know what clothes to buy?"
Dani shrugged, glancing up. "Stores sell the right clothes around the right time of year. But mostly, you just know. It's everywhere."
"And all the boys wear dark colors, and the girls wear bright ones?" Blades leaned further, looking down at the album.
"Mostly. You'd never see most of those girls wear those colors normally."
"Like you. I've never seen you wear yellow!"
"Maize." She glared.
Blades cocked his head, neck clanking. "What?"
"That color's called maize." She snapped the book closed, handed it back to him, and wandered back to the mirror.
"Humans have such amazing names for colors, but it must get so confusing. I mean, I heard you call something blue once, but Graham said it was purple and Cody said it was periwinkle…"
She snickered.
"What? Was it something I said?"
"Cody called something periwinkle?"
"Yeah? Why? Does it matter?"
She giggled, picking up her comb. "No. not really. But people think it does." She went back to work on the front of her hair.
"Oh. What do they think it means?"
"Fancy color names are a girl thing. So if a boy uses them…" She shook her head. "You know what? I'm not the person to explain that to you. All you need to know is, it doesn't mean what they think it does, and even if it did, it wouldn't matter."
"…but you called it blue."
She ran the comb through the front of her hair again, flicking her wrist just a bit. Her bangs curled slightly at the tips. "I don't know if you've noticed, Blades, but I'm not always a girly girl."
"So what you're saying is… girl and boy aren't… permanent?"
She grinned, glancing over at the orange bot. "Well, some parts of them are. But how you act? That's totally up to you."
They were silent for a moment as she took the comb to the top of her head. Finally, Blades asked, "Do you still have that maize nail polish?"