Xaviers!

Tereza stepped out of the salon, checking out her now-shorter hair again in the salon window before smiling and waving to someone inside before setting off down the street. She's dressed pretty low-key by her standards with a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, all in decent condition.

((Open))

A loud wolf whistle came from behind Tereza. Stephanie was approaching the salon for an appointment herself when she saw her bandmate stepping out onto the street.

"Your hair looks amazing, Tereza. I *love* it."

Tereza turns around, moving back towards Steph. "Thanks! Just felt like I needed a change you know? Something different. What about you?"

"I...haven't had a haircut done by someone not me rage clipping it myself in front of the mirror before a date since before I mauled my ex boyfriend," she smirked.

"....annnnnd, since I'm being wild and crazy now.... you know, joining a band, trying to swear more," she chuckled, "I'm getting some purple thrown in here too." Steph grabbed a handful of hair for emphasis, and looked with nervous excitement at the salon.

She smiled broadly. "Need some moral support?"

"Oh my god, yes." she exhaled with nervous laughter. "I have never done anything fun with my hair, and I am terrified."

"No problem at all," Tereza chuckles, opening the door, "Let's get you looking fun."

Stephanie pulled open the door of the salon and after checking in was quickly escorted back to a sink where her mane of hair was washed.

She sat down in the styling chair while the stylist went to grab some supplies and was left with a booklet showing varying shades of purple. There was an empty chair nearby for Tereza.

"Okay. How crazy should I go? Do I keep it really subtle, or really throw caution to the wind and get a lot of purple?"

"You're talking to the wrong person if you want me to counsel moderation where hair is concerned. I say go all in."

Stephanie chuckled. "Point taken...but...I think you're right. Fortune favors the bold."

"Have you done crazy things with your hair before?"

"A couple of times out of necessity, a couple of times for fun. It wasn't really permitted when I was growing up, so I made up for lost time after... well... stuff."

Steph wasn't sure if she should pursue a line of inquiry about "stuff," and her face showed that she was thinking about it, but thought better of it.

"I tried short hair my freshman year of high school and immediately regretted it. So I don't think short is in the cards for a long time, if ever. And my house was way too conservative to ever consider a crazy color. So...we're going to go with this," she smiled, pointing at a deep, dark purple color swatch in the booklet.

"I don't know why people get so hung up about what is and isn't proper for hair," Tereza says, "It usually grows back or eventually washes out. People are weird."

“My mother was a hypocrite too. The brown she dyed her almost stark white hair certainly wasn’t her natural color.”

Stephanie showed the stylist who returned with a push cart full of supplies the color she chose, and the woman made another trip into the back to start mixing up some color in a bowl.

“I’m realizing my family were hypocrites about a lot of things though. And so was I. It’s been…a year of a lot of self-reflection.”

"My family was bad too, just in a different way. So I'll take my found family and be happy," she says, leaning back in her chair.

"This school definitely feels more like family. At least more like the family I want. Never thought anything good would come out of mauling my ex, but..." she smirked.

"I'm the last person to judge about asshole exes and your response to them. Mine kidnapped me and tried to sell me back to Russia."

Steph quirked her eyebrow, "Wait, so are you actually from Russia? You don't have an accent I would have picked up on at all."

"Yup, and the accent is a *long* story and involves my biological mother, my surrogate parents, and a nightmarish 'school'. Ask me again sometime when we're drinking and I'll tell you the story."

"I'll definitely need to take you up on that, if it's not something hard for you to talk about. Can you speak Russian? I took about half a semester of it in college back in the states before I ... transferred," she replied, choosing her words a bit more carefully as the stylist returned and began to apply the color.

"<Fluently,>" Tereza says, easily dropping into a Russian accent. "If you want to practice and learn some more, I'd be happy to teach you."

"<That....great is being?>" Stephanie haltingly replied in Russian. "I think that was wrong," she chuckled, "but that would be great. I'm pretty good at German, so now I want to learn something else."

"I got the gist of it,' Tereza laughs, "Can't say that I recommend traveling to Russia these days, especially not for... us."

“…Worse than the US?” she asked. “I…don’t pay a lot of attention to the news, as it tends to remind me what a…really crappy person I was until pretty recently.”

"In its own way, worse. They're pretending to be welcoming, but it's just exploiting the mutants for the government's ends."

“…yeah. That’s worse. Our bigotry is better. USA! USA!” she deadpanned.

"I don't understand the 'race to the bottom' with regards to mutants."

“It’s a race with no winners, that’s for sure…”

She sighed, “Okay. Topic change needed. How on earth does dating two people at once work? This is, like most things, completely foreign to my sheltered little brain.”

"A lot of communication," she says, "Sometimes we spend time together, sometimes in just pairs, but you have to talk a lot to make sure everyone is getting what they need and want."

“It sounds…stressful. But…I suppose maybe you get different things from different people? Right?”

"A bit, yes. Everyone brings a little something different to the relationships. When it works, it's very good. But it is a lot of work and trust and I can certainly get that it's not for everyone."

“Is this your first time in a…throuple? Is that the word?”

"Yes, and no. I dated a woman for a while whose power had split her into three identical people. She ended up being a terrible person, I just wasn't ready to see it at the time."