"I hate you alllll..." Valey moaned, held miserably in place as a large purple earth pony carefully parsed her tangled, misshaped emerald mane with a mouth-held comb, a pair of scissors at the ready and occasionally darting in.
Starlight's horn glowed, maintaining four crystals that bound the batpony's hooves to a barber chair in the upper story of Sycamore's bathhouse. Valey struggled against them, but she had a feeling it was mostly for show: in Ironridge, she had once shadow snuck free from a crystal prison, and her head stayed still enough that Sycamore could actually work.
Beside her, Amber reclined on a pillowed bench, craning her neck and chuckling. "A little more to the left... Hey, step back and let me see the back! Oh, I like that! Hey, Valey! You should see yourself in a mirror!"
"Shut up," Valey whimpered, sounding like she was going to be sick. Starlight hoped it was just a dramatization, because that would be gross. "No one will ever be able to take me seriously any more!"
"So?" Amber shrugged, showing off her own new, restyled mane. "Looking adorable is better than looking like a hack. Shows ponies you take care of yourself. And if you can get mares to swoon, hey, isn't that better than not?"
Starlight self-consciously touched her own bang. It had only been a week since her last manecut and it hadn't grown out enough to need trimming, but Sycamore had taken nearly an hour to professionally brush out and condition it, and it had reached the point where her head felt made of feathers. The short hair swayed effortlessly at her touch, light enough to hold itself up instead of staying matted to her skull, and when she peered in a mirror positioned where Valey couldn't see, her teal stripes stood in sharper contrast than she had ever seen in Equestria. She almost felt... pretty. It was nice, even though she knew she valued plenty of things over her own appearance and would probably go back to being a scruffy ragamuffin the moment something happened.
Not that anything would happen. She was going to talk to Maple, they were probably still going to return to Ironridge, and then they'd fly back to Riverfall, settle in and live a nice, peaceful, fulfilling life. At least until she was an adult. Probably longer.
She told herself that one more time, not understanding why she couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't true.
Maple was outside, down in the pool area in the middle of Sycamore's triangular compound, the magically-generated rain shield Arambai had installed keeping the bathing area dry as the weather continued to pour down atop it. Willow was there too, and White Chocolate had joined them once again. It was easy to tell her apart from Willow even at a difference, Starlight noted, staring out and watching them through an inward-facing window. White Chocolate was the one Maple never quite looked directly at.
There were other ponies, too. Several foals - Willow had picked up her eldest two and brought them with her, and they were eagerly acquainting themselves with the middle-aged colts and fillies of White Chocolate's brood. All the youngest were still nowhere to be seen, but Starlight noticed Hayseed glued to her mother's side and Snow staring intently at the pools from the sidelines, missing his trademark magazine. What was he staring at? Starlight frowned, trying to trace his line of sight, but the only thing she could see was a bunch of mares and foals laughing, relaxing and playing. She shook her head in confusion.
The other pools in the bathyard were occupied too, some by groups of two and others by larger parties like theirs. Starlight mentally shrugged, glancing up at the rain hitting the shield. Apparently being wet made ponies want to get wetter. Or maybe they figured they had nothing to lose? She had enjoyed the bath and the industrial drying that followed, leaving the rest of her friends behind to go with Amber and Valey to get her mane taken care of.
"How much longer?" Valey whined, snapping her out of her thoughts. "I probably look hideous!"
"Adorably hideous. Or hideously adorable," Amber corrected. "And not long. I think we're getting ready to pick out the bows. Do you prefer pink or purple? I think something with red in it would look good on your mane..." She held a hoof to her chin, trying to look contemplative but barely able to hide an infuriating smile.
"Help! Help!" Valey yelped. "Starlight, lemme go! Do something! Starlight, they're going to put a bow in my mane!"
Starlight gave a noncommittal shrug. "I'll get one too, if it makes you feel better."
Amber glanced at her, and with a look they once again agreed that Valey was just enjoying being dramatic. "A bow for you, hmm?" Amber squinted, changing the subject. "I'm thinking a big one, bow tie, maybe. Teal, to match your accents? We could do two on the sides. I wonder how you look with pigtails."
Starlight shook her head. "That's how I looked back home. I don't want to look like that."
"Okay..." Amber tapped a hoof in thought. "Let's go with a bow tie on the front. Or maybe a flower ribbon. No, a bow tie. How about red? I think it would go well with your natural purple coloration."
"Aren't you the fashionista," Valey droned, hanging limply as Sycamore continued to arrange and rearrange her bang. "Why does she get to say what she doesn't want and I don't!?"
Amber gave an evil smirk. "Because I know you're eating this up and think you can save face and be entertaining while doing it. Now, Starlight, maybe I should get a bow too? What do you think?"
Starlight frowned. Amber's manestyle looked like it was supposed to mirror Shinespark's, but based on a loose description instead of the actual thing. Maybe they had different hair types, or something. Grenada could probably pull it off so closely because they were related... Hmm, hopefully seeing that wouldn't trigger any unpleasant memories for the Sosan ex-hero. Amber's orange locks were cropped short and spiked in every direction, almost like a fuzzy explosion, but at least didn't look as windblown as Shinespark's.
"Maybe a small one?" she decided, remembering she was supposed to be giving feedback on a ribbon. "On the side? I don't know where you'd put one."
"Hmm... yeah, you're right." Amber ran a hoof through her mane. "Maybe I should try to get this to lay flatter. My head feels bigger than normal, even though I just got some cut off."
"My head feels ridiculous!" Valey chimed in, still struggling against her crystal bonds. "I need a mirror! What do I look like!? What do... Oh no no no I feel a ribbon help!"
"This isn't a bow," Sycamore said around the comb in her teeth, holding a hoof on the back of Valey's head as she measured her part one last time. "That's a bow."
"Aaaaaaugh!"
Valey thrashed, writhing, a giant pile of lace pinned to her tail and a big purple bow affixed slightly off-center to the back and top of her head. It stuck up like a third ear, her real ears desperately radaring around as she twisted her head in search of a mirror. "Starlight, what did she do to me!?"
Amber didn't quite stand on her own, Starlight supporting her as she got up and walked in front of Valey. Mercilessly, she probed her with her eyes, grinning wider and wider and refusing to say anything until Starlight felt compelled to put the batpony out of her misery. "You look... cute?" she offered.
"Try 'adoracute'," Amber corrected as Valey started to weep. "You look like a schoolfilly from these weird comic books the mother of a foalhood friend of mine used to write. Super straight bang that's shoulder-length on the sides but'll stay out of your eyes, and then short in the back."
"What...?" Valey whimpered, chin beginning to wobble.
"Yeah, sorry." Amber shrugged. "We would've made it nice and straight there too, or maybe done a cute little curl around your neck, but that's where you got chopped so we had to make do with short. Got it going up a little, so if you wear your hat it'll look like you've got a bunch of your mane tied up under there or something and the style's deliberate. Hey, you could actually do that while it grows back in, if you want to look consistent. And then there's the bow... the bow!" She squeezed her own cheeks, putting on just as much of a show as Valey... or was it real? "It's so cute! And a little over the top but you can take it off in public. But you look nice. And cute." Her sly grin returned. "And adorable."
"I hate you all," Valey muttered.
"Look at this, though!" Amber lurched forward, running her hooves through Valey's mane and earning a hiss. "Your mane has a stripe! It's a darker, forest green that blends into the rest all the time because it's always tangled! It's so cute!"
Sycamore just shook her head. "If you two need a room, we do have a few on the other side of the compound that are rentable for occasions like this..."
Valey and Amber both went red. "Uhhh..." Valey glanced between the two. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not that bad. Thanks for ruining... uh, I mean, fixing my mane, and all that. Maybe that means we should get going, though? Starlight?" She glanced over in Starlight's direction. "Do you wanna let me go now?"
"Maybe she'll wait until she's sure you two won't strangle each other with kisses, first?" Sycamore chuckled, earning a slappy look from both mares. "Here, though. Have yourself that mirror."
She held up a mirror in her jaw, and Valey stared into it, blinking... and then her expression constricted in horror.
"What?" Amber chuckled. "Is it that-"
Whud! With four ripples around her hooves, Valey freed herself from her entrapment, vaulted out of the chair, whirled around, and pounced like a lightning bolt against the far wall, earning a high-pitched shriek... and when she stood up, it was with a struggling Jamjars in her hooves.
"Ugh! Let go! Stupid bat! You're getting your dumb hooves all over my... Eeek!" Jamjars flailed.
Valey dumped her facedown in the barber chair as Amber and Sycamore looked on in surprise, Starlight sighing in resignation. Sycamore opened her mouth to ask something, but Valey didn't let her, expression thunderous and completely lacking her good-fun drama from earlier. "Okay, you little punk," she growled. "I don't like you. I told you not to spy on me. I hoped you'd be smart enough to at least bail when I'm letting my guard down and having fun with my friends, because bananas, I need to relax like this more often, and I sure won't be able to with you snooping around for blackmail or laughs that aren't nice and sporty or whatever. Now I'm ticked. Got it?"
Jamjars glared back at her, upside-down in the chair and nearly having her vision blocked by her giant mane. "Oh yeah? And what are you going to do about it? What you did last time won't work again."
Valey picked up Sycamore's abandoned pair of mane scissors, her grin growing even eviler than Amber's.
Jamjars gulped. "Uh-oh."
Valey moved like a bumblebee. For ten seconds, Starlight held a worried-looking Sycamore at bay, and for ten seconds a merciless snip-snip-snip echoed in everyone's ears... and then Jamjars was detached from her bulbous mass of a mane, the hair still clinging to her scalp never more than an inch or two thick and horribly see-through and uneven. Helpfully, Starlight levitated up a mirror. Jamjars gave a warbling, roosterlike scream.
"Yeah, serves you right," Valey apologized unapologetically, brushing the chaotic nest of raspberry-red to the floor. A paper tube fell out, bounced once and started rolling away. "Huh? What's this?"
Jamjars didn't focus, levitating and hugging the remnants of her mane to her chest with teary eyes like it was a decapitated doll. Since she wasn't answering, Starlight glanced at the scroll and shrugged. "That? She stole it from the Spirit hideout in Ironridge. I think it's a picture of some mares, or something."
Amber's lips pursed, and she shared a glance with Valey. "You don't say...?" the batpony muttered, chasing slowly after it and picking it up with a wing. Slowly, she unfurled it and whistled.
"Let me see... woah." Amber scooted beside her, looking up and nodding appreciatively. "Okay. I see what you meant the other night about twins maybe turning ponies on. I'm still never going to think of Willow that way, but this is really hot."
"Safe, too," Valey added. "Looks like some organization had an ethics code? Nice and saucy without showing the naughty bits. I like that. Leaves stuff to the imagination."
Sycamore looked vaguely disturbed. "I..." She shook her head and left, walking down the stairs.
"Oh. Yeah." Amber blushed, then glanced between Valey and the mourning Jamjars. "We might have just broken every professional ethics code in existence. I think that counted as assault, and now we're looking at mildly naughty images that were hidden in a filly's mane..." She reddened further. "Jamjars, what were you doing with this in your mane in the first place?"
"None of your business," Jamjars hiccuped.
"Does your mother know you carry this around?" Amber asked, looking concerned.
"Better question," Valey cut in, stowing the poster under her wing, having completely forgotten about the ribbon in her mane. "How old are you?"
"She told me she was seven," Starlight volunteered. "I think..."
"Seven," Valey and Amber deadpanned as one, then looked at Jamjars. "And you're looking at stuff like this?" Valey asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jamjars gave a hostile grunt. "No. I'm nine. I said seven in case she tried to one-up me by saying she was eight, so I could make her look silly. And give that back. I stole it first."
"Nine?" Valey and Amber looked at each other again.
Starlight sighed, laying down and putting her chin on folded forehooves. "That means she's actually eleven," she said, once again remembering she didn't know her own age.
Jamjars actually smirked. "You're smarter than you look, Starlight. Things like that are why we're friends."
Amber blinked again and gave up, turning for the stairs herself. "Well, that probably means she's thirteen, or something. Or we could just ask White Chocolate. Or it won't even matter, because for all I know she doesn't even see a problem. But let's get out of here before we get in trouble about this whole shaved-a-filly thing. See where the others want to go next."
Nodding in agreement, Starlight and Valey helped her to the stairs, leaving Jamjars to her own devices.