Who knew how much time had passed since she sat down in front of the mirror?

It had likely only been a few minutes, but it felt like hours had passed, and had anyone watched her from a distance, they would have thought her to be the weirdest person in the world for staring into a mirror for so long. Or perhaps the vainest. Bethany did not really care what others might have thought, though, and for another few quiet minutes, she continued to stare.

For awhile now, she had been contemplating what her role as a senshi had been, a Dark Mirror Senshi, a blight on this world according to a handful for Negaverse officers, as well as some White Moon senshi. Perhaps they were right and she had no reason to exist, but that wasn’t what caused her to stare intently into the mirror. No, the lens of which others had seen her was not something she could easily change, and that was not what bothered Bethany.

Instead, what bothered her was her sphere. She was Canopus, senshi of Longevity, and she had no idea what that had even meant. When she had accepted the title, she thought it would have been taught to her what her sphere had meant, or that she would have learned, and yet, she knew just as much about her sphere back in December as she did now. Which was… absolutely nothing.

She knew absolutely nothing about longevity, what it meant, what it could mean. Her power didn’t seem to reflect it much at all, either. It provided a shield that offered its wearer defense but slowed them down… was it about preserving life? If so, then why was she not the senshi of Preservation instead? It made so little sense to her.

One thing a friend had told her was that in some cultures, long hair was a sign of longevity, and that was what caused her to look in the mirror so intently. She had grown her hair out and kept it in that braided ponytail for so long, was that perhaps a sign of longevity in itself? To keep it growing, longer and longer until it touched her feet? What would become of it then? Would it be a tangled mess? Would it keep its luster and shine, or would it lose its glamor from the strain of it all?

If long hair was a sign of longevity, then what right did Bethany have to have it? She, the senshi of Longevity and no knowledge of it? She grabbed the braided part with trembling fingers, giving it one, final tug, before holding it tight and taut, reaching for the pair of scissors that she had taken from the classroom for a project earlier in the week. She had gotten haircuts before, she told herself, and before she had the chance to change her mind, she pressed the base of the braid between the twin blades. She closed her eyes.

Snip.

A weight was lifted from her shoulders, literally and figuratively. She felt the hair fall to the floor, like the tail of a lizard that had sacrificed the limb to live another day, and when she opened her violet eyes again, she forced herself to stare at her work. In truth, she never liked short hair and felt it looked unattractive on her, but she had no right to long hair. Not until she had learned the truth behind her sphere… not until she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, what longevity in a senshi meant.

((Word count: 597 ))