From the moment she made the decision to leave, she felt it against her scalp, against her magic. The bleach, weighing her down, making her more human, making her less fae, making her less. And she wants to get rid of it, wants to be back to who she was.
Hell, she's halfway to Dizzy before she thinks twice, snagging an electric razor from a nearby stall {the instinct, the ability, to steal never really left} on her way back to her {their} hangout.
The white locks hit the floor one by one, and she doesn't stop until it's all on the floor, doesn't stop until each uneven chunk is dealt with, until there are cuts on the skin where she angled the razor wrong.
She feels free.
Her entrance at Cotillion is met with shock, and gasps of horror. She's not the Auradonian archetype of a girl, she knows, and she knows what she looks like, to these people- she looks other.
But Ben- when he arrives, he doesn't look at her at all, doesn't take the slightest notice.
And she can't decide if that's better or worse.
A month after the Cotillion, she'd still getting snide looks everywhere she goes. Jane had offered to 'do' her hair for her, like Mal had done so long ago, but she'd turned the other girl down. She needed this, this fresh start, and what Auradon thought didn't matter.