Sanctuary

Chapter Three - Senna

The next morning came and nothing about it seemed different, save for the lingering feeling of doom that hovered over Senna. Her mother was skittering around the house in a whirlwind of skirts and nervous cleaning. Senna did her best to stay out of the way, but eventually her mother's flustered energy turned to her anyway.

"How in the name of health do you get filthy so quickly?" Nami dusted off her daughter's clothes with a disapproving frown, carrying on in the way only a mother could. "Where are your gloves?"

"On the counter."

"What good do they do there?"

"I don't like wearing them. I lose dexterity in my fingers." Senna wiggled her fingers as she complained, as if to demonstrate.

"Well, get used to them. Everyone in Central wears them. Even your school uniform will—"

"I have to wear a uniform?" Senna's whine carried through the modest house as Nami wiped at a smudge on her cheek.

"Yes. We've been over this. Seriously, you never listen. Now go get your gloves. Hurry, before the driver gets here."

Senna let out a whine, but did as her mother asked and headed back into the kitchen to retrieve her gloves. She fumbled to get them on as she walked, admittedly making a show of it all.

It was clear that the gloves weren't intended for working in. They were too flimsy to offer any protection and any speck of dirt would be glaringly obvious on their stark white surface. They had been sent in a package from her mother's mysterious friend from high school, along with an equally annoying face mask and a white outfit that her mother had referred to as a 'travel suit'. Apparently she called it that because it was more comfortable than what they'd be wearing out in public, but Senna didn't think it was comfortable at all.

"Come here, your hair is falling out already." Nami waved her daughter over, removed the ponytail holder from Senna's hair, and started working it back into a 'proper' ponytail. Senna let her head get tugged back dramatically, complaining yet again.

"It's too tight like that! I'm gonna get a headache."

"It has to be out of your face."

"Why? Is hair illegal in Central?" Senna crossed her arms over her chest, a stubborn pout crossing her lips beneath her face mask.

"No, but it is a carrier for germs and having hair in your face is considered unclean. How many times do I have to go over all of this?"

"I don't get it. Face masks, gloves, the weird clothes, this hatred over hair. . . I thought that Central was cleaner than the Rim, so why do we have to take more precautions?" She fidgeted with the face mask as she talked. Her warm breath was bouncing back off the oddly humid confines of the fabric.

"It is cleaner because people take more precautions. They don't trail dirt in on their clothes, they don't spread germs onto everything they touch, and they don't let their hair hang in their face." Nami tugged Senna's hair one last time before looping the elastic over the ponytail. "There is a higher concentration of people per area in Central then there is here. When there are that many people in a small area, it increases the risk of spreading illness. If you take precautions, you protect not only yourself, but everyone around you. It is polite."

"I'm not contagious. It's unnecessary."

"Like your temper tantrum," Nami pointed out, crossing her arms as Senna finally decided to leave her face mask alone. Fidgeting with it wasn't helping.

"I'm not throwing a temper tantrum, I just don't understand."

"And I'm explaining it to you, yet you still don't listen."