Mistaken Identity (IC)

[Blue Rose]

Sam gives a dismissive gesture with her free hand, the other still in Tona's. "Bah. It's not like that. Some dresses'll slow you down, but if you're in something a bit shorter, maybe flowing, you can move and kick and climb just fine. Something like a sundress, or your normal pleated skirt. May take a bit of getting used to, but we can totally get you in something nice that'll work."

She makes her way to the handbags as soon as eyeing Changeling permits and starts going through the selection, picking out something in black a bit larger than is tasteful, since she knows Tona'll settle for nothing else. "And if you still insist on pants, we can get you fitted for a tux."

[Raveled]

Tona followed Sam deeper into the store, making sure to keep a few display cases between herself and Changeling despite the magical disguise. She picked a few pieces of clothing up and put them back down again almost immediately. She looked at the stuff Sam had picked up and made a face. "Dresses. Skirts! I like pants just fine. They have pockets, and they show off my ass." She turned to watch as Changeling disappeared into the dressing rooms, heavy bag over her shoulder. "I worked on my ass. I have a good ass, and I like showing it off."

She glanced back at Sam. "What's a tux, anyway?"

[Blue Rose]

Sam carefully considers Tona's argument. Which is a charitable way to say she gets a good long look at Tona's ass, seeing right past the illusion. It is a compelling argument, and when she realizes the length at which she contemplates this argument, she begins to flush. Thankfully, the Asian girl whose face she's borrowing doesn't have a blush that turns her into a tomato. Or at least, most wouldn't imagine her to, and that's the part that counts.

"Okay, good ass... er, point, but it can't hurt to try it some time," when they're not under magical disguises and on a mission. And then, she realizes she forgot to be shocked at Tona asking what a tux is.

"A tuxedo," she clarifies helpfully. "Usually men's formal wear. Can work for women, too. Classy getup. Has pants. I'll show you mine later." She, of course, isn't thinking about expense. Then again, she's always had plenty of pocket money, and this is the sort of thing she's used to blowing it on.

Oh! Changeling! She checks out of the corner of her eye to check where their quarry is.

[Raveled]

The pair didn't have much longer to browse the clothes. Only a few minutes later Changeling emerged from the dressing room, her entire outfit switched out for a long dress with a floral print -- but with the same heavy bag still over her shoulder. Tona caught Sam's eye and the pair of them waited until Changeling had cleared the door, and then headed after her.

The next shop was more up-market, filled with blown glass artistry and dangling charms. It was harder for Tona to spot anywhere to hide in this store, since most of the products on display were clear or colored glass. She kept to the edges of the store and tried to, as Sam had said, 'act natural.' She wasn't sure how to act in a store like this, though, so mostly she ignored the merchandise. What she couldn't ignore is how the older woman behind the counter was watching her; like Tona was already condemned, and the woman was just waiting to find out why. "What is her problem," the young archer muttered.

[Blue Rose]

Sam, meanwhile, actually acts like a customer, looking through the art. "You're trying to hide behind wind chimes," she says in a calm, low voice. "It makes you look like a thief. A bad one." And she should know.

At that, she holds a couple of small shell-shaped glass earrings up to either ear, one powder blue, the other a yellow that looks just as horrid on the Asian girl as it would on Sam herself. But the look is less important than getting Tona to act like a regular customer, or at least like she's not hiding from rampaging bears. "What do you think? Which one looks better?"

[Raveled]

Tona frowned, turning to look at Sam with a sudden and total concentration that she rarely turned on anyone that wasn't about to get an arrow through them. She tried hard to recall the other girl's actual, real appearance behind the magical mask. She tried to mentally impose the blue and yellow sea-shells on the image. "Definitely the blue," she said. "Your face is too... um, too cherche des malades. Not enough blood to your joues for yellow, I think." She glanced over at Changeling, saw the woman considering a long, interconnected string of jewels. The archer spotted a brooch closer to hand, featuring a red robin in flight. She picked it up and wrapped it around her wrist experimentally. "What do you think?" She tried to ignore how the older woman behind the counter was glaring at her even harder.

[Blue Rose]

At this point, the scrutiny is starting to get under Sam's skin, too, but all she can do is try and look normal. She studies the brooch, then nods. Maybe not the perfect color, but it works. "I like it." She picks up the other blue earring and sets aside the yellow, then starts rummaging through some other products, keeping up the ruse until she can't take it anymore.

"Let's go," she finally says, taking the brooch with her earrings up to the counter, hoping to make the transaction quick and painless. "We'd like these, please," and pulls some cash from her pocket, not grabbing wallet and ID with it.

[Raveled]

Tona followed Sam up to the counter, letting the other girl pay for the jewelry. The older woman rang them up with a sniff. "Well it's good to see that you're learning your lesson from last time."

Tona blinked and gave the woman a blank look. "What are you talking about?"

"Last time you were here. Remember, the way you tried to steal that necklace?" She sniffed sharply again. "It would've been a lot worse if I'd caught you before the cops, that's for sure."

Tona ground her teeth. Of course she hadn't stolen anything from this shop in her life, but with the disguises... She grabbed the bag containing her purchase, and as soon as they were out of the store she gripped Sam's arm. "Just who's body did you drop me into," she hissed.

Changeling, for her part, exited soon after the girls, arranging the long chain of gemstones to hang in her hair. She followed the block down towards a cafe on the corner.

[Blue Rose]

Sam grabs her change, the bag, and her receipt and bolts. "I don't know!" she exclaims, trying not to be too loud; but realizing how this must look, she cuts the huddled-over whispers and tries to walk calmly along, and let Changeling pass before talking again. With a great many sideways shushing gestures to Tona along the way.

After Changeling is a safe distance ahead, she starts up again. "Okay, making up convincing humans wholesale is hard. It's like... I need to make a perfect picture, or I can't plant those expectations to fill in the blanks, and I end up with an image that looks more like a doll. So... I borrow faces. Just folks I see around. I have kind of a catalog in my head. I mean, in a city as big as this, what are the odds of something like that? These are just a couple girls I saw at the mall!"

[Raveled]

Tona grumbled under her breath. "Couldn't have made me look like Nana Visitor, or Gina Torres," she said. "Had make me look like a shoplifter." A few steps further on though she bumped Sam's hip to get her attention and flashed her a smile. It had been the most excitement all day, frankly, and since they hadn't been caught by Changeling it was silly to hold a grudge.

Speaking of Changeling, their quarry turned into the cafe. The girls followed her but all too soon she was walking back out again, holding a cup of coffee and a copy of a newspaper. She took a seat at an outdoor table -- the last free outdoor table around. Tona quickly guided Sam to a table inside that had a view of the outdoor tables and sat down. "So what do we do now," she asked quietly, staring at the older woman reading her paper out in the sunlight.

[Blue Rose]

"I think we have different ideas of 'inconspicuous,'" Sam bumps right back, giggling. "I'd offer to make you look like a competent thief next time, but I did that last time," she calls back to the prank they pulled on Mali, even if it didn't last long enough to get much of a laugh.

In the cafe, Sam's already looking at the menu. Changeling's probably not going to be too terribly long, and she has to keep her cash going for as long as they're on the mission. "Hm..." she muses, pondering Tona's question. As long as we're here, "Have you ever had a milk shake?" she asks, waving a waiter over so they can split one.

[Raveled]

Tona considered the question, and shook her head. "I don't think I've ever tried one before, no." She waited while Sam put in the order, then shifted her chair so she could seem to be looking at Sam's face while she watched Changeling. "We didn't really have milk in... where I grew up. But I've had milk lots of time at the cafeteria. But why would you shake it up?"

The young girl's gaze shifted outside to Changeling. The blonde was still sitting there, reading, not even through with the first section of the newspaper.

[Blue Rose]

Even before Tona starts talking, Sam starts lowering her disguise to Tona alone, letting her see her own face instead of the Asian girl's. The rest of the world, of course, sees the pair Sam picked out of a mall, but at this point, Tona gets the idea. No one reacts to the change.

That Tona had never had a milkshake isn't particularly surprising- at least this one didn't catch Sam off guard- and her laugh is kept to a few short breaths as her face lights up. And watching Tona try to unravel what this mysterious 'milk shake' might be is just adorable.

And it won't do to ruin this mystery now, so Sam keeps her answer as minimal as possible. "More blending than shaking, really. It's all about what you're adding to the milk. You'll see."

[Raveled]

"I don't understand why you would have to add anything to milk," Tona said. "I've seen Mali and Morgan Crowe add protein powders to theirs sometimes, but it always makes the milk taste bad. Besides, there's too many chemicals in food around here, I don't see why you feel the need to add more." In fact Tona almost exclusively kept to fruits and vegetables. Early risers would sometimes catch her finishing off a bowl of oatmeal before going on a run. Whether she was a vegetarian or not was up for debate though, since there were consistent rumors of her hunting and eating birds, both on campus and in the woods behind Claremont.

In a few moments the waiter was back with their milkshake, a pale red blend in a tall glass, with whipped cream and a cherry on top. And two straws, facing in opposite directions. Tona glanced between Sam and the drink, bending forward to sniff it experimentally. "I've never seen anything quite this shade of red before," she allowed. She sipped a mouthful and let it sit on her tongue a moment before swallowing it. "It's... almost like strawberries."

[Blue Rose]

Sam, for her part, watches and rocks, just at the brink of laughter. Every time. Every single time Tona discovers something new, it's so adorable. She's like a puppy. She waits until Tona has had her first sip before getting her own taste of the creamy, fruity goodness.

"It's milk mixed with strawberry ice cream." It's a lot simpler than her usual idea of dessert, but may as well start small. She somehow doubts Tona's been able to grow a sweet tooth big enough to blot out the sun just yet, though she finds herself looking forward to introducing Tona to all manner of new food. "A lot better than the protein shakes, I'm sure." She goes down for another sip.

[Raveled]

Tona licked her lips. "It tastes really good," she said. "But why did you get it with two straws?" She leaned in again and took a deep pull, letting it sit on her tongue only a moment before swallowing. "Mmm, this is really good. We should have gotten one for each of us, so we wouldn't have to sh--" And then the pain. Stabbing pain in her head, like someone had grabbed a knife or a pick and rammed it in just above her eyes. Tona opened her mouth in a silent scream and pressed her hands against her head, searching for a wound that had to be there but wasn't. She double over in her seat, trying to figure out how and why someone was attacking, but the pain seemed to blot out her world.

[Blue Rose]

"Oh, don't worry, we can get another if this isn't enough. We just need to be ready to go when she does," Sam nods to Changeling and takes another sip of milkshake, looking positively sunny, and utterly oblivious to the insidiously inconspicuous incursion into Tona's innermost mind. This depraved and dire damage being dealt to her now-dashed psyche.

"Hm?" She finally seems to notice. "Brain freeze?" she asks, then realizes Tona probably doesn't know what that is. "Oh, um, don't drink too fast. It'll give you a headache. Just take it slow." She scratches the back of her head. "Maybe should've warned you about that part sooner."

[Raveled]

Tona rubbed her head, feeling the pain recede. "It's... very odd," she said, sitting back. "So many things in this world are very sweet, they taste very good. But you're not supposed to have too much." She leaned forward and took the tiniest sip of the milkshake, swallowing quickly. "Back home we took what we could get. Usually that meant small game, or wild berries, or just stone soup. This world has so many different kinds of food you can have all the time, sometimes I can't keep track of them all."

[Blue Rose]

"Awesome, innit?" Sam asks, leaning back to stretch her shoulder. She's beginning to realize just how much Tona has never tried. And if every time is this much fun? She can't help but smile.

She waves down the waitress for a plate of fries to share, so Tona can have something warmer to balance things out. And they have those nice, thin, slightly crispy fries here, too. "And if you have trouble keeping track, you can always ask a friend for help." She gives a wink.

Oh yeah, Changeling. Amid the distractions, she remembers to give an eye towards their mark again, almost like it's a distraction from the rest of the day.

[Raveled]

"It's just... this whole world can seem overwhelming sometimes. I mean, look around." She waved a hand, encompassing the people sitting at their tables, the barristas behind the counter, and even the folks walking on the street outside. "At the moment, right now, there's at least seven people on this planet who could wipe out this city if they chose to. And at least half of them aren't even in Blackstone! Yet everyone just seems to ignore it, somehow." She shook her head in disbelief. "Where I come from, all life is about the Terminus. About fighting from it, or running away from it, or getting ready to fight it. That there are people here who go entire days without worrying that they could be obliterated at any moment... I can hardly believe it."

While they talked, the pair saw Changeling fold up her newspaper and stuff it into her bag. She stood and walked inside, making her way through the cafe and towards the back, where a handy RESTROOMS sign was hanging.

[Blue Rose]

"Only seven?" is Sam's immediate response. "I mean, yeah, there are a lot of folks who can blow up the world, but not a lot have a reason to, and the ones who do get stopped. The rest try and take over the world or something, but we have the muscle to take care of that." She thinks for a moment. "It's like... we've had a lot of wars. Big ones, small ones. But for the most part, people aren't really worried about 'em except the really big ones, because we have people who go out there and fight for them. I mean, isn't that the job we're training to do?"

Beat.

"I'm sorry," she follows up, letting out a nervous giggle and mussing her hair. "That got a bit heavy, didn't it?"

Then, Changeling walks by. At first, she's angry at the interruption, then remembers why it's an interruption. Job! Right! She keeps her cool until Changeling's past and considers things. Follow? No, no point. She has to swing back this way. She hasn't been doing anything crazy to drop the trail so far, so she's probably not gonna jump out a window or anything.

"May as well finish it off," she says before slurping down some more shake, before getting ready to pay and wave the waitress over.

[Raveled]

Tona giggled suddenly. "I'm sorry that was just... A very matter of fact way to talk about the end of the world." She grinned broadly, even as she eyed the (potentially treacherous) milkshake. "I know, I know, we're the ones who are supposed to worry about things so that other people don't have to. It's just that back home everyone thought about the Terminus, all the time. Everything and everyone was dedicated to one goal." She took a sip of the milkshake, paused to see if she would get another headache, and continued. "Now I'm here, and there's so many different things to do that don't have anything to do with saving the world. I hardly know where to begin!" She paused and smiled at Sam again, a little more shyly this time. "But milkshakes are a good start, I suppose."

[Blue Rose]

Today, it seems smiles and laughter are contagious. "And just think. Here, all this worrying about city- and planet-destroying catastrophes means other people can worry about making you milkshakes! Totally worth it." She digs into her pocket and without even needing to look, pulls out the cash for the bill plus tip, then gets up and with a positively dashing little flourish, offers her hand to help Tona up.

"And maybe while we're out, we can figure out step two." Yet despite the ideas in the back of her head for what 'step two' might be, Sam manages to not stammer or blush.

She hands off the cash, telling the waitress to keep the change, and starts leading Tona out, not particularly inclined to let her hand go. It's a nice day out, and Changeling will have to go that way anyways, so it can't hurt to wait outside.

[Raveled]

Tona took Sam's hand and they walked out of the cafe, into the warming day. Nevertheless when they stopped she found herself standing close the other girl. Part of her knew that she should be keeping an eye out for Changeling, even looking for other exits from the cafe, but it was drowned out by the much larger part that wanted to stand here with Sam, just like this.

 

"So. I'm not used to living in such a crowded place. What kind of things can we --" For a moment Tona saw a tall, raven-haired woman out of the corner of her eye, then then other woman bumped into Tona's back with enough force to send her tumbling forward, grabbing Sam and hugging her close so that neither of them fell. The other woman probably had some sort of apology, but Tona couldn't hear it over the blood suddenly pounding her in ears. ".. Can we do?"

[Blue Rose]

Sam, for her part, is just as distracted, her attention split between Tona and her own thoughts.  The day's definitely going well, and she's starting to feel bold, though maybe not bold enough.  The longer she holds Tona's hand, the more nervous she gets.  She's seemed... receptive.  But maybe that's just a friendly thing, and not because she's... interested?  Would she even consider that, or is that just one of those things that never came up in her world?  Terminus comes in, romance goes out, and it's all, 'make babies to fight Terminus.'  She swallows, reconsidering her plan, about ready to just let go of Tona's hand, go about their day, and dig for some information before making the first move.

 

She doesn't even notice the raven-haired woman.

 

Next thing she knows, in the middle of her question, Tona practically whisks her off her feet, and Sam finds herself in her arms, eyes locked but a few inches away, her own hands resting on Tona's hips as she supports hardly an ounce of her slight weight.  What can they do?  This is a good suggestion.

 

Taking Tona's lead, Sam shuts her eyes and closes those last couple inches for a short, soft kiss.