ic Transmutation

[Electra]

"We don't exactly need your expertise for makeup consultation," Raina reminded Matt archly. "You could always take the packages out to the car while we're getting the rest of Fred's stuff." Her cellphone chirped at her from her purse, which foreclosed any further suggestions. She read the text and sent a quick one in return as she led the way through the store, somehow navigating without looking up from the screen. "Anibal got called back for some thing with his dad and his uncle, but he's gonna send the car back for us," she reported. "He says to have fun, and he's glad Fred's getting the stuff she needs. So I guess you're stuck with us for a little while after all." She turned her attention back to Fred. "They're going to want to put you in a chair and put makeup on you, show you a nice look for your coloring. You up for that, or would you rather just pick out some stuff to take with?" 

[Gizmo]

"Be fair, he has a canine sense of smell and rooms with Smith," Winifred reminded Raina as they marched toward the cosmetics section. Growing up where and when she had she doubted there were any odours in the modern world that could offend her sensibilities overmuch. Her shoulder did relax visibly as the blonde related Herrera Miramontes' message; she still wasn't entirely comfortable imposing upon their wealthy classmate's generosity like this but at least they had his explicit approval.

 

As the racks of different makeups and the adjacent chairs came into view her body language tightened right back up. "Ah... I'm not sure how wise it would be to let strangers approach my personal space with various brushes or implements or whatever they might have." It had been such a good day so far that she had an irrational stab of anxiety that she might ruin it all just before the end.

[Fox]

"Yeah, it's the smell," Matt admitted, still eyeing that section of the store with doubt and hesitance. "Like, Tin Man's bad - I swear he keeps a jar of urine somewhere, or something - but at least it's normal bad. Some perfumes and stuff are great, but a lot of them smell like acid and chemicals, and a lot of people use way too much. Can't be just me, right? People you can still smell minutes after they've left the room? I've heard other people complain, at least," he said, frowning. "....maybe it's just me."

 

"But, yeah," he admitted, shrugging, "if the car's gone then I'm sticking with you two, smells or no smells. But she's right, I'm not gonna be much help with the actual makeup part. It's not something guys have to do. So, uh. I'll sit there and do a good coat rack impression, I guess, unless you just want me gone."

[Electra]

"All right then, we'll just use the testers and swab your hand, it's not perfect, but you can get a close enough match with nobody poking at your face." Raina seemed a little bit disappointed, but lost no time in shepherding Fred to the MAC counter. "My friend is shy," she told the clerk, who'd come right over at the sight of all the purchases they'd already made. "We're looking for the basics. Line me up with some testers for her skin tone, and let's start the tab with your basic cleaner-toner-moisturizer package. You'll need that no matter what," she assured Fred. "Nobody's immune to zits." Obviously sensing a big sale, the clerk was more than happy to begin fetching little sampler tubs, chirping eagerly about colors and ingredients as Raina took Fred's hand and began carefully swiping stripes of foundation color over the back of it. "You don't want too pale, but you can pick between something that just evens out your complexion, or something that adds a little color." 

[Gizmo]

Winifred was roused from distraction at the rows upon rows of little bottles and tubes, reminding her very much of raiding her father's apothecary supplies, as Raina took her hand. She gave the gradients of colour being painted across it a bemused look and glancing toward Matthew for some sort of moral support and finding little. The fact that being as pale as possible wasn't necessarily the stated goal illustrated that styles had changed enough to put her well out of her depth. "Erm. Colours like those?" she asked, jutting her chin toward a row of small bottles with tall toppers that ranged from fluorescent pinks to blues and greens for which she lacked the appropriate adjectives. "How did they even achieve those pigments..? Ah, but perhaps nothing too bold? I expect the clothing will ruffle enough feathers as it is." After some of the comments she'd gotten about the ill-fitting outfits provided by the Academy she doubted all of their peers would take kindly to her suddenly putting on airs above her supposed station. Best not to give them too many targets all at once.

[Fox]

"Eh, who cares what they do with their feathers," Matt said, almost with conviction. "Everyone's always upset about something, may as well be something useful. Attention's not great, but they'll always find something new eventually - and heck, we can always give 'em something else. You wanna wear the flashy makeup some day, just let me know and I'll have the dogs steal homework or something. Make 'em howl a barbershop quartet in the hallways. They like spotlights, at least some of the time."

 

He eyed the colors on display dubiously, clearly unsure how some of them even worked in practice. "My opinion here's worth squat, and that's fair, but maybe it's like fancy clothes? Have some super-loud stuff, but save the super-loud stuff for super-loud occasions."

[Electra]

Raina followed Fred's glance. "That's fingernail polish," she informed Fred. "It tends to come in way more vibrant colors than most other makeup." She wriggled her own fingers, showing off maroon nails with delicate swirls of white. A home job, but her audience wasn't likely to know the difference. "Even people who like subtle makeup sometimes go crazy with their nails, at least the toenails. Your palette's gonna look more like this." One of the stripes on Fred's hand appeared to pass muster, since Raina proceeded to cover the entire back of Fred's hand with the shade, then began the process over again with pink powder blusher. "Do it right, and nobody'll even know you've got makeup on, just that you look good." She smirked. "It takes a lot of work to look effortlessly beautiful." 

[Gizmo]

"I can see why you wouldn't bother, then," Winifred replied serenely, attention focused on the colour being brushed on the back of her hand. After a beat she blinked and looked up at the blonde. "I regret making that joke before you helped me choose appropriate cosmetics," the shorter girl acknowledged with a glum look and a small twinge of guilt. With the way the witch avoided showing any signs of weakness it was difficult to tell what might be crossing a line. Since Raina was understandably hesitant to risk irritating Winifred too badly toeing said line seemed unfair. "You're very pretty. In a manner that is extremely subtle. Erm, but not so subtle that it isn't immediately obvious! I'm always quite taken by your..." There was an awkward pause while the alchemist narrowed her eyes and scanned her friend's face, trying to spot something that had taken a lot of work to look like it hadn't taken a lot of work. "...lips? Eyes. Eyelashes. Matthew, help."

[Fox]

"What? I don't - what?" Matt's eyes were wide with surprise; however he'd seen this conversation going, this wasn't it. He'd barely had enough time to try to figure out if Winifred was flirting with Raina before she asked for his help, and the topic was apparently well outside his areas of expertise. "I'm a guy, what do I know? ...I mean, I guess that's the point, though, right?"

 

He shrugged, and absently caught the clothes that subsequently threatened to shift out of his grip. "Like, you always look really good, but you aren't covered in forty layers of oily crap," he suggested, uncertain. "Everyone thinks you look good but half the female class tries way too hard and doesn't make it half way? And I don't know how much super-fancy stuff you have, but I'm betting you make do - better'n they do - with stuff that isn't this expensive a lot of the time, without anyone being able to tell, and that's pretty impressive. Or, I guess, would be if I knew more about makeup. Yeah?"

[Electra]

Raina looked between Fred and Matt, makeup brush still poised in one hand. "You," she told Matt, "that was pretty good. Work on your delivery a litle and you could really have something there. Thinking on your feet is two-thirds of flirting, and you're cute enough to fake the rest." 

 

She winked at Matt, then turned to Fred, smirking. "As for you... let's review," she suggested in the exact same tone their Tactics teacher adopted when somebod had just done something incredibly stupid in a tabletop exercise. "In this situation, when presented with an opening, the appropriate thing to do is wait for exactly one and a half beats, long enough to acknowledge the line, and silently announce that you are much too big a person to exploit it. That is the only way to win this kind of social interaction." Raina twirled the brush in her fingers, made a magician's pass with it, and reappeared it in her other hand. 

 

"If, on the other hand, you absolutely cannot restrain yourself, you've gotta have the courage of your convictions," she advised Fred, shading a second color of blush on the outside of Fred's wrist. "The only thing worse than calling somebody ugly as a joke is going on and acting like you're afraid they're ugly enough that you'll hurt their feelings. If they do care, it ain't gonna help, and if they don't care, they're just gonna laugh at you. Since you can't fake it, you're just going to have to learn to be smooth." Now the grin was even broader, both her eyebrows raised in a kind of silent dare. 

[Gizmo]

Winifred made a quiet, straggled sound while using her free hand to cover a face reddening enough to make any questions of blush colour temporarily redundant. "Thank you, Matthew. Now excuse me while I turn myself back into jade through force of will..." she grumbled largely to herself. She certainly wasn't going to be able to bring up the museum incident in jest ever again after that; she couldn't believe she'd started with 'lips' of all things. Obviously the eye makeup required more effort.  Thankfully the hand Raina was holding didn't exhibit any of the telltale spasms and convulsions that preceded an episode; her embarrassment was evidently not literally life-threatening.

 

"Yes, well, excellent advice," she said a little too loudly as she lowered her hand. "Was that clerk returning soon? It's important that I manage to fit the entirety of these new boots in my mouth in front of as many people as possible."

[Fox]

Matt wasn't quite sure whether to look embarrassed or pleased, standing just a hair taller while not appearing overly distracted - a dog given a compliment, but not one offered a treat. "Yeah, well. I live to serve," he dryly noted, shrugging Fred's clothes back into place. "Sending messages, guarding junkyards, helping g---people," he corrected, whatever word he was going to use completely lost. "Hauling wardrobes. Glad I could help."

 

He snorted, but there was good humor in it. "I don't think the clerk's gonna care. Nobody who works in a mall is paid enough to care. Like, good people, sure," he hastily added, "but really, really not paid to care. And I famously don't care about anything, so, y'know, y'only really need the one foot for Raina. If it matters."

[Electra]

Raina smirked again, but refrained from further comment as she tested out shades of eyeshadow on Fred's now-liberally decorated hand. She was going with mostly subtle shades, as requested, and a liquid eyeliner that was not too vivid. Mascara was easy enough, though the notion of Fred poking herself in the eye and having an incident was a bit disturbing. The clerk came back and forth with new samples, taking the old ones away and ringing up full-size versions of the makeup Raina selected. Raina passed Fred a couple of the boxes. "Here, these have the ingredients on them, amuse yourself." 

[Gizmo]

"You make yourself indispensable," Winifred assured Matthew, frowning slightly at the accumulating layers of colour on the back of the hand Raina had commandeered. "All of that is going to wash off, I assume?"

 

When the witch handed her the full sized cosmetics she decided not to press the point and risk further smirking."So long as they've found a substitute for lead I'll consider it an improvement." While she understood the health risks the products of her time had posed the line was mainly for her friends' benefit; lead-based cosmetics had turned out to be one of the minor bits of trivia about the Victorian era that remained reasonably common knowledge and was apparently a hilariously absurd notion by the standards of the day.

 

Skimming the list on ingredients while humming quietly the alchemist reversed engineered the approximate ratios based on what she knew of the final product as a mental exercise. There were a few names that sounded like marketing double-talk more than a chemist's notes but she could read between the lines easily enough. Winifred quirked an eyebrow as she reached the end of the fine print on the side of the foundation's packaging. "Well, I could make this," she scoffed, sounding a little unimpressed. Juggling the box with her one free hand to pick up the next she read its ingredients as well before discarding it for the next. "I could make all of this."

[Fox]

"I don't think all of it comes off with water," Matt mused, trying to remember half-eavesdropped conversations and the useful bits of color commentary from his dogs. "Keeps it from getting messed up by rain or sweat or whatever, I guess. I think they make wipes? Or oil? Something about oil, sometimes, or alcohol. I think I've heard people complaining about it."

 

He shrugged again as Winifred's attention turned to the boxes, but her response was interesting enough to cock his head in attention. "That'd probably save you a bunch, long-term, if you could get the stuff to make it out of. Maybe even make some money, or earn some favors with people who can't shell out a bunch of allowance for good eye shadow or whatever. If you can find somewhere that'll sell you, uh...." He used the edge of one hand to tip a box backwards, eyeing the side of it with the gaze of a boy who had not spent enough time paying attention in chemistry last year. "....'dimethicone'. Probably somewhere online you can buy raw stuff, or some wholesaler down by the docks."

[Electra]

Raina rolled her eyes tolerantly. "Sure, and if I had a needle and thread I could make all the new clothes you just got, but it'd be a lot of time and effort for something that probably wouldn't turn out as well," she pointed out. "Anyway, you need to learn to use color before you go off trying to make it." With a disposable face cloth, she quickly scrubbed most of the makeup off Fred's hand, then replaced it with a few bright swipes of lipcolor. "Nope, nope, maybe, nope, but I like that one, maybe... yeah, that one." She pointed to a color that looked very dark against Fred's skin, but would probably blend in quite a bit better on her lips. "Get you a little gloss too, for when you don't want to wear as much." She turned to the portrait mirror next to her and picked up the tube she'd noped and liked, swiping off a sample and applying it to her own lips. "Yep," she decided with a nod. "Just effortless enough." 

[Gizmo]

Winifred bristled at Raina's dismissal, annoyed enough that she forgot to be embarrassed about lip colour and lips in general. "You... don't really understand how skilled I am at what I do, do you?" She didn't sound offended so much as slowly realizing that she'd never bothered to explain something that had seemed obvious to her. "Raina, I engineered byzantine fire in a corner of my bedroom when I was thirteen with what scraps and leftovers I could sneak. This?" She raised the tall, thin box containing the liquid eyeliner. "This I could make during a single free period with enough time left over to suffer through Faretti's entire repertoire of pickup lines. If I took the whole period I could make it byzantine fireproof for good measure." The shorter girl huffed. "Needle and thread, honestly."

[Fox]

"I dunno, she has a point?" Matt gave Raina a nod, biting his lip in thought. "Even if you're the best - and I'm not gonna say you aren't, 'cos I don't think that's a fight I'd win - it's gotta be more time than buying it, and maybe more money, especially with some...I dunno. Experimentation, I guess, to get started? Never really did a lot of the science thing, but everything anyone's gotta do takes some trial and error. Maybe the big companies get ingredients cheaper than you can, maybe their big factories and stores mean they can make stuff faster. But it'd be worth the try, I guess - worst case, maybe you can make something you like better than what's on the shelves. Or, I guess, worst case it doesn't go well but at least you had a fun afternoon blowing up lab equipment."

 

Matt snorted despite himself, though he at least got his sense of humor back under strict control. "Though, nobody," he said, quite seriously, "nobody should have to suffer through a period of Faretti's pickup lines. They're never directed at me, but with my hearing even I don't want to suffer through a period of Faretti's pickup lines. Y'know they seem to work once in a while? That kinda worries me sometimes."

[Electra]

"Hey, okay," Raina agreed, not actually taking a step backwards, but folding in her physical presence just a little bit at Fred's visible annoyance. "I don't even know what Byzantine Fire is, but I guess if you can make it in a cave with a box of scraps, you can probably knock together some makeup if you want to. I'm just wondering how you know it's any good if you've got basically no experience actually, you know, using modern makeup?" She capped the sampler she'd been using and gave it to the clerk with a nod that said she wanted a tube of it. "Like, you can use all the ingredients really well and totally make a thing, but how do you know if it's good?" 

[Gizmo]

"Et tu, Matthew? I'm going to make you--" Winifred looked more closely at the container in her hand and read aloud, "--'liquid eyeliner' and it will be so excellent you'll feel obligated to use it." The huff she affected toward the affable young man seemed largely an affectation but her shoulders slumped slightly as she noted Raina's body language and admittedly reasonable concerns. She couldn't really afford to even pretend to be irritated, she knew, good day or no.

 

She cleared her throat quietly and made a show of busying herself doing a brief inventory of the assembled boxes and bottles. "Well. It isn't as if I couldn't learn," she reasoned with perfect, prim composure. She was confident she possessed the necessary manual dexterity for application; surely it couldn't be that difficult to find reference material to cover the specifics. The alchemist considered herself a rather quick study. "Matthew's not incorrect about allowing for proper trials. And... I might impose upon you for advice, occasionally. If it wouldn't be an imposition."

[Fox]

Matt had a very visible and traditionally teenage boy reaction to being threatened with eyeliner, uncertainty written all across his hook-nosed face, but he recovered well enough. "Now that's a serious threat. Maybe if I decided to go up on stage, or something. Didn't mean to, uh, demean your skills, really," he insisted, shaking his head. "Some stuff just isn't fought with big brains and crazy chemistry. Lotsa stuff needs practice, and some fights y'just can't win. Doesn't mean it isn't fun to try anyway."

 

He briefly wondered what the dogs would think of makeup, and immediately resolved to not tell them about the conversation unless absolutely necessary. He didn't need their heckling, and if they had their way he'd probably be fully painted - in a dress. "Not gonna be much help there, myself, but let me know if there's ever anything I can do. Maybe I can volunteer the dogs for testing. They'd probably find it funny."

[Electra]

"Sure, whatever, just so long as you're not doing any animal testing," Raina agreed. She quickly perused the selection of brushes and sponges to find the ones Fred would need for her new beauty regimen, then sent the happy clerk off to ring up their purchases. "Merlin holds a grudge about that kind of thing because of his background, and you don't want to see what a pissed-off monkey can do to your credit score." She nodded wisely. "Maybe you should get yourself into the mentorship program with a superscientist or something. They could teach you stuff you need to know about how to make a living at this sort of thing." 

[Gizmo]

"Hm. I suppose they must pay for all of those flying suits of armour and light beam pistols somehow," Winifred mused as they collected the day's selections, taking a moment to appreciate the sheer volume of it all. It was much more than she'd been expecting to walk away with then she'd gone to ask for Raina's help; part of her felt nervous about the metaphorical weight of it all - Matthew having been a good sport about the literal weight - but it was a relief to check so much off of her mental list all at once. Even if there were a few items she was going to need to work up to.

 

"Your hounds can't be trusted to respect that solid objects have mass, Matthew. I shudder to think of using them as any sort of control group. I think we can safely rule out any testing on animals, talking or otherwise." She made her own hands useful gathering up the new bags. "Using myself as a test subject has really only gone poorly the once, after all!" She wasn't able to keep a straight face for long. "Honestly, your faces. Is that reasonably everything a young lady might need, then?"

[Fox]

Matt's expression was dubious at best - not afraid, to his credit, though one could imagine that may as well just be his lack of first-hand experience with Winifred's other half. "Yeaaaah, I've heard some stuff," he said - without judgement, oddly, like he was reflecting on a bad habit or embarrassing rumor. "All the same, maybe don't do testing on people 'til other testing stuff gets done. Never hurts - everyone always thinks the new stuff is safe until explosions, and then it's my--and then it's someone else's problem, yeah?"

 

He shrugged, mentally shelving that idea. "You've probably got most of what you'd need, though I'm sure Raina knows better'n I do. Worst case, it's a good start and we can come back out another time. Besides, I still owe you a trip to a proper music store, anyway."

[Electra]

"You've got enough to get by for awhile," Raina assured Fred breezily, "though of course we're going to have to do all of this over again when the weather gets warm and you need summery things. Better hope that Anibal and I are still on good terms by then, otherwise you may have to start dating him yourself!" She laughed and slipped the credit card back into her purse when the clerk handed it to her, along with a hefty bag of makeup laden down with a generous selection of samples. "You guys hungry? We could introduce you to the wonders of the modern mall food court while we're here. If you like soft pretzels or orange-vanilla smoothies, you'll be all set."