"I love you." Mom said to Em, like she did every day. Em felt the brush tug softly at her hair but she wasn't in front of a mirror. She wasn't preparing to get on stage or even dress up. On occasion, Mom would just brush Em's hair, sitting behind Em and settling her considerable weight on one end of the couch. And that's how it was this Saturday after breakfast.

And she would just brush Em's hair, affectionately.

"I need to tell you a story." Mom said. The brush ran through Em's hair. It was different than when the brush ran through Em's hair before going on a 'shoot' in front of cameras. The idea behind the brush was somehow different. The intentions made each stroke soft and affectionate.

When there wasn't a pagent to wake up for while it was still dark, and drive to, and get dressed up and ready for, Saturday mornings were for sleeping in and eating cereal and watching cartoons or wrestling until you could be bothered to go get dressed so you could play outside. This morning there was no pagent, and so Em had been able to sleep until the sun was awake, and had enjoyed the sugary weekend treat of a bowl of cereal with a cartoon character on the box.

Although Em wanted to go see what was on TV she hadn't complained when her Mom had grabbed her. Em wasn't a child who enjoyed having her hair brushed and styled and played with; putting up with all that was just another chore that had to be done. She did like the rare occasions she got to spend with her Mom that weren't about winning some pagent or other. She liked them enough to put up with as much hair brushing as her Mom wanted to do.

Em wasn't a fidgeter - either through her natural tendencies, or long practice, or both - so she sat quietly, leaning against the nice, comforting softness of her Mom and drowsed as the brush was pulled through her hair.

"Love you too" Em replied because she knew that was the correct response of a good girl, and also because it was true and there was no one around to see her being soppy.

At the promise of a story Em perked up a little; stories were better than getting your hair brushed. "What story?" she asked "one with monsters in? And the army has to fight them? In planes? Neeeeow! Boom!" she put her arms out, miming a plane, as she made enthusiastic fighter pilot and explosion noises.

Mom jumped back a bit, clearly surprised by the burst of enthusiasm and the level of energy that Em displayed in her reaction. Then she did something that Mom did often.

Mom closed her eyes.

To others this would have been a subtle reaction that meant nothing. But to Em it was clear: Mom was annoyed. Probably at the burst of energy or at the reaction or at something Em did or said just in that moment.

Then Mom opened her eyes, having regained her composure.

"No, its nothing like that" Mom added, now having regained control of her emotions. "I need to tell you a story about what happened when I finished school." Mom advised. "What happened to me when I finished school and had to go out and be an adult. It's a good story." Mom promised.

A story about what Mom did after school was unlikely to have any monsters, fighter jets, guns, explosions or even car chases in it. In other words, it was likely to be boring. Em would have known better than to express this even if she hadn't caught the way her Mom closed her eyes. Em knew that she was very trying sometimes, even if she had no idea why.

Putting her arm wings down Em snuggled back against her Mom "really? That sounds like an even better story" she lied without missing a beat "will you keep brushing my hair while you tell it?"

Em didn't want her hair brushing, Em wanted to pull her hair back out the way and forget about it, but she knew that her Mom liked to brush it and she wanted to fix whatever she'd done to upset her Mom. She also wanted to take her shirt off, but if Mom was already having to close her eyes there was no way in a billion years she'd let Em do that this morning. Which was totally unfair, because her Dad and her brother got to just wear underwear until they got dressed and didn't have to put up with a stupid stuffy too warm T-shirt. But at least it was the oversized hand me down He-Man shirt, and not the pink Aristocrats PJ set that was buried in the bottom of her closet.

Em leaned back and felt the wrinkle of the oversized T-shirt's cheap, worn cotton crease into Mom's considerable stomach, as Em folded herself into her.

Mom let out a breathe, as if relieved that she didn't have to escalate the situation by telling Em to 'calm down' or to 'stop being silly.'

"Yes." Mom said at the end of her exhale. The comb went through Em's hair again, this time catching on some frayed hairs, tugging a bit before continuing to the split ends.

"The world is a dangerous place." Mom started. "When you go to school you have to study things and its hard work. And then when you become an adult sometimes you realize that what you studied and all of the work you did didn't matter."

"So that's why you are doing what you are doing with being a model. I have to give you something." Mom said, emphasizing the word 'something' with a shrill sound like to give Em nothing would be akin to...to...bad stuff.

In Em's opinion Mom's story wasn't much of a story. Not just because it didn't have anything fun or exciting in it, but also because it wasn't really a story, it was being told something disguised as a story. That might have been enough to make Em yearn for her cartoons, but what Mom was saying - while absolutely not a story - was interesting.

Em had long held the opinion that school was a thing you did because you had to do it and that was that. She was a fairly average student, bringing home report cards of mostly Cs, with a few Bs and Ds thrown in. Gym was ok, as was being able to spend time with friends, and she didn't mind math, but the rest of school seemed fairly pointless to her. Grown ups seemed very keen on the idea of school, so Em had never expressed this opinion. She'd certainly never thought she'd hear her Mom say that school didn't matter.

"Why do I have to go to school then?" Em asked, and then a bad thought occurred to her "do I have to stop going? To just do pagents and modelling only?" she asked.

School was fairly pointless, but it did have gym and recess and stuff. Staying home to play outside or to watch TV was better than school. But school was a nice break from the pagents, even if it was pointless.

"You have to go because...." Mom started, and then interrupted herself to answer Em's second question, closing her eyes for a moment and then opening them to answer "No, you need to keep going."

"The thing is Em, is that the world is really dangerous. And if you work hard at something--at everything--then that's your best shot. So, what I'm saying is, you have to do it all." Mom sighed, and her large breasts heaved upward and then sank back down as if this topic was weighing her down.

"So you have to do well at school and you have to do well at modeling. The world is changing. The world isn't like it was."

"When I was your age anyone could get any kind of job and know that they would be able to have a family and raise kids and be OK. But now, there's no garuntee that that will happen. So you might study hard and end up without anything to show for it. That's why you have to work hard at modeling. To give you something. A little extra. Something in case, just in case, things don't work out the way you thought they would."

"When I went to school, I studied communications. And then when I got out I thought that I would be able to find any job that I wanted. The world seemed like a place where women were finally going to be able to participate in society. But then I realized that it wasn't that simple. There were wars going on in the world. And wars cost money. The Arabs did a really bad thing and ruined our economy by making us buy oil at a really high price. Instead of getting out of college and finding the job of my dreams and being a modern woman, I found myself waiting in my 1964 Dodge Dart on a really long line of cars to get gasoline."

"What I'm trying to say is that you need to go to school and you need to be good at modeling. You need to take advantage of all of your good looks. And really dedicate yourself to being a smart person but also a person who has many opportunities. Not just one."

Em wasn't quite surprised to find that she was relieved and not disappointed when Mom said she had to keep going to school.

As she'd suspected, this story wasn't a story, and was just an excuse for Mom to tell her stuff about how she had to behave. Em wasn't sure she followed everything that Mom was saying, not exactly, but she thought she got the general idea. Mom was giving her the standard grown up speech about how you had to try your hardest and do your best at school and at pagents and at dance class and gymnastics and everything else you were expected to do.

"I know" she told her Mom, hoping that this wasn't all preparation for telling her that she was going to have to start doing even more work "winners do what losers don't want to do. I'm a winner" Em said, parroting the one of the phrases that had been drummed into her.

"If I've got to do lots of things does that mean I can try out for basketball? Or football?" she asked carefully after deciding that this was maybe, maybe a possibility.

"If you have time." Mom said. "It's important to get involved with sports but not if your school work or your modeling suffers. Women's sports isn't really well..." Mom said, stopping short of what she was going to say, or perhaps thinking of a different way to say it, or not say it.

"Look, Em, please promise me you'll do just as hard at both things: School and Modeling. OK? It's really important. Even though you don't know it yet, I can't abandon my daughter to a world that just eats people up even if they do their best. Its really important that you start early. You also need to do all of this so you have good self-esteem." Mom said.

That word 'self-esteem' was something Mom said a lot.

'If you have time' was usually a way of saying no without actually saying no. It wasn't actually, definitely, really saying no though, so there was at least a little bit of hope. Not that Em wanted to do girl sports, she wanted to do real sport. Unless it turned out that she did have time for sports Em didn't think it was worth talking about - and potentially getting in trouble about - they type of sport she wanted to do.

At the request to promise Em pulled the neck of her T-shirt up to her face so she could chew it absently; her version of fidgeting uncomfortably. "Is this about school? Am I in trouble at school?" she asked, she wasn't expecting to be in trouble for anything from her new school, but she didn't always understand the grown up logic behind what was and was not ok.

Mom applied gentle pressure with one hand, pulling down the shirt that Em had pulled up to her face. “It’s about life.” Mom said, looking at Em in the eye.

Then she stood up. “Just, think about what I said, OK?” Mom walked towards the kitchen. “I’m going to go start dinner. Why don’t you go over Emily’s house and play. Or play with the barbies in the playroom?”

Hearing that she wasn't in trouble Em let her Mom pull her shirt back down. "Yeah, 'kay, I will Mom" she promised, it was an easy promise to make because no one could tell what you were or weren't thinking.

Taking the hint Em got to her feet when her Mom stood up "I'll go out to play" she said, heading towards her bedroom to go get dressed for the day.

OOC: Em Chooses One of the Following Threads

Em Rolls Intelligence + Composure then chooses one of the following threads

1) Em: Dad Explains What We Do

Or

2) Em: We Built This City on Rock N' Roll!

16:52, Today: Emmaline-Belle rolled 2 successes using 4d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s.  Intelligence + Composure.

It's a tough choice, but I'll go with 1) Em: Dad Explains What We Do please