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Fig Faeth has brown hair and brown eyes and a face full of freckles and a little bit of a sunburn from all the time she spent in the sun this summer, and she smiles at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair is tied in a ponytail with her cheer ribbon, and everything is perfect.
“Today’s gonna be a great day,” she says, giving herself a thumbs up, and she believes it.
She skips down the stairs, gives her mom a hug and her dad a kiss on the cheek, and then she goes to school. It’s a great day.
Fig Faeth has brown hair and brown eyes and cheeks full of freckles and a little bit of a sunburn and a major headache. But it’s no big deal, because she’s got cheer practice after school today, so she brushes her teeth, ties up her hair, and tells her reflection, “Today’s gonna be a great day.”
Her thumbs up is a little less exuberant than usual, but she smiles brighter to make up for it, and she skips a little less down the stairs. She gives her mom a hug and her mom asks her if she’s sure she’s feeling okay, and Fig says, “Yeah!” and her mom frowns but lets her go anyway. Dad gives her a kiss on the cheek and reminds her to go to the nurse if she gets sick.
She goes to school, and unlike the other times she’s had a headache, the lights and the noise don’t bother her. But her head hurts, so much she worries that her skull is going to explode, but it’s fine. It’s just a headache. Today’s gonna be a great day.
Fig Faeth has brown hair and brown eyes and cheeks full of freckles and a really bad headache, and a really persistent sunburn.
But it’s not a big deal. Mom gives her a kid’s pain relief potion and dad gives her a jar of sunburn cream and a gentle reminder to use sunscreen. When Mom asks if Fig’s sure she’s feeling well enough to go to school, there’s something in her voice that makes Fig waver, but she says “Yeah!” and she gives her reflection a weak thumbs up and tells herself, “Today’s gonna be a great day,” and it’s almost not a lie.
She goes to school and her teacher gives her a worried frown and a pass to go to the nurse’s office and the nurse asks her if the lights are bothering her (no ma’am) if the noise is bothering her (no ma’am) if she’s nauseous (no ma’am, but I am hungry) and lets her lie down anyway.
Fig Faeth has brown hair, and cheeks full of freckles, and a really bad headache, and a really persistent sunburn, and brown eyes. She does.
“Today’s gonna be a great day,” she tells her reflection, but she’s looking into her own eyes which means she can’t not see the tears that are threatening to run down her cheeks.
She does have brown eyes. It’s just- that they used to be a solid oak brown like her dad’s and they still are, because it’s probably just her bathroom’s terrible lighting, but now instead of oak brown they almost look more like the red clay that her class learned about in science last year.
She doesn’t pull her hair up into a ponytail today. Instead, she lets her bangs hang low and when her mom goes to give her a hug she makes sure to avoid looking at her face and when her dad tries to give her a kiss on the cheek she darts forward and hugs him instead, and then she goes to school.
She’s almost used to the way it feels like her skull is on fire and the way her front teeth have started aching and the way her fingernails are starting to grow a lot faster than they used to.
Fig knows her mom is worried about her and that she and dad have been talking in their room a lot more than they used to and her sunburn hasn’t cleared up and almost seems like it’s worse, and she’s scared, scared of the way her eyes have started to shine when she catches her reflection in the dark in the way she’s only ever seen her tabaxi classmates’ do before, but if she can just get better and figure this out, she can fix it.
If she just fixes it, Mom won’t look weird when she smiles at her in a way that seems like worried, but not for Fig, and Dad won’t look at Mom with that weird look in his eye that’s almost like betrayal when he thinks Fig is distracted, and Fig’s head and teeth and nails will stop hurting and her eyes will be back to normal and her sunburn will go away and everything will be fine.
One week later, Fig is in her bathroom, and she has a poster taped over her mirror because if she doesn’t see her eyes then she can pretend they’re still the same oak brown as her dad’s, and she was brushing her hair but then there was a burst of pain so sharp she started seeing stars, and when she put her hands in her hair they came back covered in blood , and Fig is pretty sure she’s screaming, and then the door to her bathroom is being busted open and her mom is there, her mom is there, and Fig is scared and bleeding and her eyesight is fuzzy but her mom is there.
She runs for her mom’s arms and her mom wraps her in the tightest hug ever, and everything is okay, because her mom is there.
(And then they go to the hospital and Fig’s horns are coming in. Her horns are coming in because she’s a tiefling and her mom lied.
Her parents are getting a divorce, but they didn’t want to tell her just yet because it’s just a separation right now, and of course it’s not your fault sweetheart, but how could it not be Fig’s fault?
How could it not be her fault, when it’s her horns and fangs and claws that are coming in, and she doesn’t have a sunburn because she’s a devil, because her real dad was a devil and apparently it’s not abnormal for some tieflings to have tails, and the doctor gives her a pamphlet about what signs to look for and tips for how to care for her horns like this is normal, like Fig’s not an elf (she isn’t, because her mom lied, and didn't tell Fig) and he tells her that her darkvision is probably going to change (and she wants to stop changing!)
They go home, and Fig is scared and confused and angry and wants her mom to wrap her up in a hug and to never come near her again, but mostly she just wants her dad to give her a kiss on the cheek and tell her that it's gonna be okay.
They go home, and dad’s not there.