"You have such lovely hair," Marco's mom said one suddenly-pouring day after school, as she patted it dry with a towel. "Does everyone in your home have hair like this?"
"Sometimes!" Star smiled brightly, a warm feeling in her chest from the compliment. Nobody complimented her hair, only her parents did. She remembered her own mom brushing it out at night before bed, telling her she looked lovely before dropping a kiss on top of her head. "Some people have bright pink hair, or blue, or purple-"
"It's natural?" Marco asked from a few feet away. His mom finished his own hair without issue in minutes and he was now combing it out. "Nobody dyes?"
"Psshhht, of course people die, Marco! Everyone dies!"
"Wh- Oh. Oh God, no, I mean- People don't color it? It just looks like that?"
"Ohhh - not usually! I mean, okay, yeah, some people use magic to color it but only if they don't like it. Mewmans are born with pink or blue or green hair all the time."
"Did you ever try to color your hair?" Angie asked curiously. The towel had moved from the top of Star's head down to the ends of her hair, gently rubbing back and forth to dry them.
"Nah," Star said with a shrug. The towel moved from her head down to the ends of her hair, and Star idly blew a puff of air upwards to get her bangs out of her eyes. "I thought about it when I was little, but I'd need the wand. And since nobody ever left it alone..." She shrugged. "I prob'ly coulda done it after my birthday but I thought I might set my head on fire. And I didn't care about changing it anymore anyway."
"Not to sound like a dork, but if an enchanted forest was a color, your hair'd be it," Janna said a few days later, over magazines.
"Stoooooop..." Star laughed, waving her off.
"No, it's cool!"
"Does anyone else have hair like that, or is it a princess thing?" Jackie asked, looking up from her Sports Picturesque issue.
"Nobody else," Star said, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her chest. "Just me. Think it's a 'princess thing.'"
The Magic High Commission alternated between pointedly avoiding looking her in the eye, and staring at her crown. Depending on the day, depending on what she'd done or had not done. One day she had successfully managed to sit quietly and patiently during tutoring, and they looked at her feet. The next day she'd talked excitedly about all the spell ideas she'd had and wanted to try as soon as she got the wand, and they stared at her crown.
She wondered what the big deal was about her royal headgear.
She wondered why they were so reluctant to let her near the spell book, to let her speak to Glossaryk.
"Can I bring the book?" Star had asked as she was packing her things. "Please?"
There was a collective of "no" before the queen could even speak.
Moon had tried to sneak it off with Star.
It had been taken away before she got in the carriage. They stared hard at her crown - no, not her crown, Star finally realizes when she saw Hekapoo's eyes flick downwards. At her hair.
Star had wanted to cry. This was the worst birthday.
"Juuuuust a princess thing."
A/N So this story will not exactly follow the canon episodes of sequence of events.
Because, much like Toffee, I have a plan.
