Encounter Ermintrude and the Headmistress. Miss, she's not impressed.

⚂⚀ + 1 = 5, Miss.

Take -1 Forward on your next roll, for disappointing your HANGER-ON.

"Look, Headmistress," Ermintrude says, "It all turned out just like I planned it. Morgan's hair is inhabited by her familiar spirit!" She pushes her glasses back up. Whenever Ermintrude gets distressed, she tends to bob her head a bit, and down slide her big round glasses.

"That's nice, dear," Pernilla Porcinilla says. The Headmistress, in lavish green robes cut with a flattering décolletage, looks as if her attention is a bit elsewhere. She's looking glamorous as always, her bright gold hair just so, her eyes just a trifle bigger and rounder than seems real, rings glinting on her fingers, and ribbons in her hair.

Ermintrude tries to talk up the conjuration and how impressive it is, but the Headmistress cuts her off with a cheerful word and a little wave. With a twirl of her wand and a shower of green sparks, the Headmistress disappears from view as Ermintrude is trying to plead her case again.

Ermintrude frowns at you. "Morgan, you could have tried harder," she says. "This was very important to me. My best work, and Headmistress is all, 'that's nice, dear', and off she goes!"

Your hair rises in a curved wing on each side and ripples up and down, making a grand demonstration of the shrug you were feeling but thought you were too discreet to actually perform.

As Ermintrude's voice rises, you try and work in a word or two about how Headmistress Porcinilla really cares most about glamour, charm, and alimentations, but Ermintrude brushes you off and continues her litany. She rattles on about how you've spoilt her best opportunity to make a good impression with the head of her House. Ermintrude looks like she might go on for the rest of the day, so you figure you have to do something before she talks your ears off.

Roll +AMBITION(0) (+2 Ambition, -1 HANGER-ON, -1 Forward) to talk Ermintrude around into a better mood.

⚃⚄ + 0 = 9.

She'll go along with your intention if you HAVE SEX successfully. Roll +BRAVERY(-1).

⚀⚀ - 1 = 1, Miss!

But before you've quite formed a notion, the tresses of your hair wriggle forward, tickling Ermintrude's face and chin and doing rather rude things with her ears.

Ermintrude sputters, protests, then calls out, "I knew it, you vixen," she says. "You can't distract me like that." Her pale cheeks bloom pink, giving the lie to her words.

It's all rather distracting to you, since you can feel everything through the many active tresses of your hair, touching Ermintrude's cheeks and neck, sliding along her skin, soft and faintly moist, twining into Ermintrude's hair and feeling the heat of her temples, tugging at her ears and tickling inside. Feeling the pulse in her neck grow faster and stronger.

But as you try and take command of your wayward hair, you end up pulling yourself into Ermintrude, knocking you both off-balance, and striking your foreheads together as you fall onto the floor. A stunning blow causes a bright flash inside your eyes, and you lie on the floor, not knowing up from down.

Some time later you wake up in darkness. Your head throbs.

"Here, drink a little," comes Miss Wormwood's dust-dry voice. "There, Morgan, good."

"Ermintrude?" you ask.

"She brought you to the Infirmary," Miss Wormwood says. She sighs. "Not a bad girl, Miss Cachalot, but she talks."

"Yes," you say.

"You should sleep," Miss Wormwood says.

Something feels a little off. "My hair?" you ask. It's lying slack. It feels heavy. Numb. It won't move when you try curling it up. "What happened?"

"I put it to sleep," the Nurse tells you. "It was being rather a nuisance, and it was bothering my serpents."

In the darkness of the little Infirmary room, you can't see the flicker-tongued green serpents rooted in Miss Wormwood's scalp, but you know they're there.

"We'll talk in the morning," Miss Wormwood says. She bends down and kisses you, her thin, dry lips meeting yours. You feel the piercing bite of one of her serpents, and your whole body flushes with tingling warmth. You hear your pulse beating loudly in your ears, and then everything goes foggy and vague. "Sleeeppp," her voice makes it to you through a layer of dizzy confusion.

Roll +BRAVERY(+0) to GET OUT OF THE INFIRMARY.

⚃⚀ + 0 = 5, Miss.

You wake the next morning with a headache and a terrible case of double vision. You hold up a finger and try to will your eyes to converge, but it just makes your headache worse and adds a twinge of queasiness.

Miss Wormwood is busy most of the day, and her attempts to treat the symptoms end up aggravating one at the expense of the other. Either you can see, but your sick headache is worse, or you feel better, but you can't see, or your hair is being actively uncooperative, or a couple of other variations on Morgan Is Not Going to Class Today. You congratulate yourself on not actually bringing up the contents of your stomach, which would be some combination of weak tea, bitter medicine, and acid.

⚂⚃ + 0 = 7, GET OUT OF THE INFIRMARY.

"How are you feeling?" Miss Wormwood says.

"Better," you say. You're a little dizzy. "Hungry."

Miss Wormwood is looking her usual self, an angular, whipcord beauty robed in white, all lines and hollows, a woman stretched and sharpened and garlanded with a headful of waving green serpents. You feel a little pull of the tides between your legs, gravitating toward her. You close your eyes and take a deep breath and shake it off. NOT a good day for more venom in your blood. You wonder if yesterday might have been a reaction to Miss Wormwood's little go-to-sleep bite.

"Excellent," the Nurse says. "You have a visitor."

"Ermintrude?" you ask, worried.

"I'm afraid it's Miss Applebum," the Nurse says. Miss Wormwood doesn't like Fay. But dislike, for Miss Wormwood, means that she's brisk and curt and sends Fay on her way as soon as business is taken care of, which is fine for Fay, because she doesn't like Miss Wormwood either. "She's come to take you back to your House."

And with a swirl of white robes, Miss Wormwood is gone, and Fay is getting you up and out and off with your Infirmary gown and into a fresh red and gold Leontes robe and off to breakfast.

Fay fends off most of the curious questioners, but you acknowledge that yes, you were in the Infirmary because you bumped your head, yes, it's still a little tender, and yes, your hair just does that. You can feel the tresses rising and spreading and curling as you answer them, like some people move their hands when they talk.

You manage to stumble through your class day with Fay's support, and let her tuck you into bed early.

"Try not to break your silly head again, Morgan," Fay says. "I hate the Infirmary."

"I love you too," you tell her.

Fay sniffs. Sniffles, really.

You have 3 XP, +2 Ambition, +0 Bravery, +2 Cunning, +0 Diligence.

You can use your hair as if it were another pair of hands. If it's cut short, take -1 Bravery until it grows back. Your hair owes you a one-time FAVOR you can use in an appropriate circumstance.

Your FRIENDS are Fay Applebum and Grace Winterthorn, both in House Leontes and formerly of House Minerval like yourself.

Your HANGER-ON is Ermintrude Cachalot of House Draconis, who feels proprietary about your animated hair.

What's your next Move?

• Roll +BRAVERY(0) and ENCOUNTER Mrs. Travers, your Conjurations mistress, to demonstrate your hair? (Or narrate a scene and make a different Move).
• Something else?