ic Transmutation

[Gizmo]

"I rather like my coat," Winifred called through the door, voice tinged with a defensive note. She'd come to understand that the high collared lab coat styled affair was a little conspicuous for day to day wear but having a piece of morphic molecule clothing loose enough to survive her episodes had proven extremely useful. She supposed that benefit leaned more toward Matthew's call for utility than Raina's advice. She turned about to consider the slacks she was trying on in the mirror before shimmying out of them again. "And my bandolier, I thought that was a bit dashing, really. Something of a soldier-of-fortune aesthetic! Perhaps I should move it to my hips." She lifted the pair of leggings the pyromancer had included in the pile to be tried on and regarded at them doubtfully. "Do these tights go under something or...?"

[Electra]

"They're leggings," Raina supplied helpfully from the dressing room next door. "They're not tights, tights are see-through. Leggings are pants, just snugger and more comfortable. They're also cheaper than buying pants if your clothes tend to have a short lifespan," she reminded the scientist. "Pair them with any of those bold-print tops, the longer ones will cover your butt, if that's what you're worried about. Then you toss a jacket over top of that and you're set!" She came out of her own dressing room in an outfit similar to what she'd just described, though with a much shorter top under the jacket, and examined herself in the triple mirror. "Ugh, I need a haircut. Definitely not enough to trust a mall salon, though." 

[Fox]

"On behalf of guys: we approve," Matt said, providing an unabashed - if serious-faced - thumbs-up. He was doing a remarkable job keeping his eyes above-board since Raina left the fitting room, but it was taking some effort. "They're getting more common. I guess they must be pretty comfortable, in addition to just looking good, but they don't really make 'em for guys so I guess I don't know."

 

He shrugged, leaning his shoulder against the nearest sturdy-looking object as he waited for the girls to do their thing. "I mean, they're probably not so great if you don't have the legs or the, uh. Y'know, to pull off the look. Some people out there underestimate how much other people don't want t'see them in tight clothing, but that's not really gonna be a problem for either of you so it's not really worth worrying about if you like 'em."

[Gizmo]

"I - I'm concerned with their ability to cover my - all of me!" Winifred stuttered from behind the closed door, trying to will away the heat rising in her cheeks. "Nor am I convinced your approval is measuring for the correct variables, Matthew. Really." She pursed her lips at the offending garment. She supposed she couldn't entirely rely on her own now outdated sensibilities if her goal was to look less out of place and 'less expensive to replace' was a strong argument given her condition. "...I'll work up to them," she muttered to herself as she tossed two pairs into the growing pile on the small bench.

 

On Raina's insistence that she wear a new outfit from her selections while the continued to shop the alchemist opted for a less daring - though still quite snug - pair of jeans with a dark, sleeveless top in what she was informed was a 'tank' style. She pulled a purple blouse on over that and felt confident enough to tie the front corners together in a loose knot as she'd seen done rather than using the buttons. "Do you know, I think these pockets might be more ornamental than functional?" she tsked, pulling her long black hair over her shoulder while studying herself uncertainly in the mirrors. 

[Electra]

"Yeah, welcome to the brilliant world of women's fashion," Raina informed her dryly. "If they gave us pockets, how would they sell us impractically small handbags? It's another good reason to go with the layers," she pointed out, "you can always wear a shirt with pockets or a jacket. There's stuff on YouTube about how you can hack the stupid ornamental pockets to make them real pockets, but you'd have to ask Cathy or something. She's crafty, not me." As she spoke, Raina walked a full circle around Fred, giving her the benefit of her full and considerable attention. "Yeah, this is good. You look hot, but not, you know, too hot. You have places to go if you want to step it up for a date or something, and you won't get yelled at by the teachers. You should wear this one for the rest of the day." 

 

Stepping up behind Fred, she gently picked up a hank of the shorter girl's long hair, even as she met Fred's eyes in the mirror. "So how about this, how devoted are you to keeping all of it?" 

[Gizmo]

Winifred reflexively tucked her chin toward her neck as Raina circled around her, not entirely sure if the approval made her more or less self-conscious than a negative assessment would have. "I am relieved to know I've fallen on the proper side of scandal," she replied blithely, clasping her hands behind the small of her back to keep from fidgeting with any of her new outfit. When the blonde touched her hair she froze for two long beats before forcing herself back into a more neutral posture and considered the question with a small frown. "My hair? I suppose it's not... necessary." She hadn't done more than tidy it up since awakening in the present day and now it very nearly reached down to her folded hands. "I have noticed it's uncommonly long in the here and now, of course and it can be a tad cumbersome. I'm not sure I'm prepared for one of those boyish, asymmetrical styles but it... it does grow back, after all." The alchemist set her jaw resolutely but the way her eyes flicked between Raina's hand and her own reflect betrayed some nervousness.

[Fox]

"Never really got the pockets thing," Matt admitted, shrugging helplessly while his hands were still trapped in his own. "Purses, right, sure - I kinda envy those sometimes, unless they're those little...what're they called. The little tiny purses - clutch purses?" He paused, gesturing a jacket-pocketed hand toward the relevant counters a bit away in the store. "If I wanna carry something that doesn't fit in my pockets, I've gotta use something backpack-sized or bigger, or I'm some kinda deviant. The pocket thing seems dumb, though - why make it look like you have pockets, if you don't?"

 

He cocked his head, eyeing Winifred's hair as Raina held it up for inspection and evaluation. "Short hair could be cute," he admitted, raising an eyebrow. "Could be worth trying. If you don't like it, I'm sure Raina could find you a hat you like, and at least you wouldn't have to worry about your hair getting into chemicals and science and stuff for a while?"

[Electra]

Raina took a step back and pulled her hand away when Fred stiffened, but otherwise acted completely unaware of her friend's moment of unease. "Oh, you probably wouldn't want to go too short anyway, but maybe something fun and shoulder length, get some layers going. I bet you might have some natural wave in there if your hair weren't so heavy. And Matt has a good point, if you hate it, it always grows back." She turned to start gathering up Fred's sizable "keep" pile, unceremoniously pressing Matt into service as pack mule for the many outfits. "You could do something with the color too, but it's nice the way it is, and good for winter. You ready for shoes? Honestly, we really ought to get you something steel-toed, but you won't find them here. They've got lots of other stuff, though." Raina seemed extremely pleased at the idea of a visit to the shoe department. 

[Gizmo]

"Shoulder length might not be so terribly bad," Winifred allowed cautiously, giving her reflection one last look before moving to take some of the clothes back from Matt to carry herself. She wasn't some delicate flower about to wilt under the strain, after all and if the redistribution of items removed the pairs of leggings she'd hesitantly included from under her classmate's nose that was most likely entirely beside the point. "Thank you, Matthew." The displaced Victorian considered Raina's own hairstyle as they moved on. "I'm not clear how hair could be anything other than layered but I suppose I'll have to defer to your expertise. I doubt I would take well to being a blonde, however."

 

She also hadn't been planning to worry overmuch about footwear. The 'sneakers' provided to her by the school were far and away the most comfortable shoes she'd ever worn and from observing the rest of the Academy's student body they seemed to be considered appropriate with very nearly any casual outfit. Seeing the pyromancer's expression as she led them toward the next section of the sprawling shop silenced any objections she might have been thinking to raise. "You had some thoughts on that count, I take it."

[Fox]

"'Women and shoes' is sort of a modern stereotype, but I guess it's also a fashion thing?" Matt offered, adjusting his load of clothing now that Fred had taken part of it off the top. If he'd noticed what items she'd deliberately made sure ended up in her set, he was wise enough not to let on. He seemed perfectly content to play pack mule, really - either because he figured it would be his role, or because he was somehow already used to it. "There's a lot more variety in your fashion, gotta have to the shoes to match, I guess. Guys have it easy, unless you want to be really fancy or go all movie-star."

 

"Steel-toes aren't a bad idea, though. Good for kicking people and stomping around off of nice roads and sidewalks, pretty durable if you find a good pair. Guessing Raina's gonna want you to get a pair of heels or...whatsit. The not-heels dress shoes," he weakly proffered, glancing at the fashionista in question. "Flats - to go with any nice clothes you get. Those ones are probably not great for every-day wear."

[Electra]

"You'd look terrible as a blonde," Raina agreed definitively with Fred's assessment. "You haven't got the coloring for it at all. But you could punch it up with some highlights, add a couple more subtle variations of color so you look like you've been getting out in the sun. All optional, though. Shoes are a requirement." She herded the group to the shoe department, then abandoned them to gravitate to a display of strappy icepick heels in a rainbow of colors. "Now these, these are some amazing shoes," she murmured appreciatively. "But again, not for you. Can you wear a kitten heel?" she asked Fred, holding up a shoe with a much lower, substantially wider heel. "You don't want to wear any shoes you can't run or fight in." 

[Gizmo]

"My family may not have been wealthy," Winifred harrumphed with slightly exaggerated indignation, "but we were well off enough that I had more than one pair of shoes. I was wearing heels a century and a half before you'd head of them." It would have been more accurate to say that she'd owned exactly two pairs of shoes at most at any given time and the heeled boots had been rather modest compared to some of the structurally unsound monstrosities on display before her but there was a point to be made. She wasn't particularly sorry to have said farewell to most of her old wardrobe and so far that day she'd gained a new appreciation for various advancements in undergarments but she did vaguely miss her boots. Footwear had been an easy way to discern a person's wealth and be extension social standing and they'd been awfully nice all things considered, not like the derisive-snort and pitying-look inducing bulk ordered clothing she'd been making do with in the present.

 

She realized she'd been considering the 'kitten heel' shoe in Raina's hands in silence and cleared her throat quickly. "Boots," she said aloud. "I think I should like to see boots."

[Fox]

"Other side of the aisle, then," Matt offered, pointing back and to the left toward a relevant display. "Probably a little less variety, though. I guess they're less popular? Unless you go to, like, someplace that sells the big knee-highs or whatever, but that's all vinyl crap. Or work boots, but like Raina said, probably not a lot of that here worth getting, and they're more practical than fancy." His tone made a moderate attempt to give both terms equal weight despite his better and more frugal instincts, and largely succeeded.

 

"Might be able to find something with a thicker heel, at least?" He frowned at the less comfortable-looking heels on offer, shifting Fred's goods to one arm so that he could pick one up and frown at it. "Y'know, I've seen people actually move in these, and I still don't know how. Pretty sure I'd snap my foot off at the ankle, and then who'd walk my dogs?"

[Electra]

"Ahkay." Raina blinked a little at the sudden spurt of fashion consciousness, but rolled with it, putting down both heeled shoes and heading over with Fred and Matt to the aisle with boots. "Again here you're gonna need a specialty store for anything really good, but there's enough to get you started. The jeans you got are bootcut, which is a stupid name because it really should be "hard to wear with boots," but you can scrunch 'em on in there with the right pair of socks," she assured Fred. "If you want to wear tall boots without looking like a dominatrix or an Arctic explorer, you're gonna want riding boots. Liiiiike... here." She perused the shelves till she found the sort she wanted. "Do you know your shoe size, or should we measure you for that, too?" 

[Gizmo]

"If these shoe sizes make as much a mockery of standard measurements as the trousers," Winifred began before reflexively lowering her voice and leaning closer to Raina to add, "to say nothing of the undergarments, I suspect it would be best to start from scratch, so to speak." The shoes she'd been given were labeled with a startling array of different numbers on the tongue which she gathered from the notation came from some regional discrepancies but she wasn't inclined to take their word on the matter. 

 

The alchemist moved over to the racks of footwear with less hesitation than the previous sections of the store, partly due to growing familiarity with the modern shopping experience and party due to genuine enthusiasm. "I'm a bit surprised riding boots are still in vogue," she mused while poking at a series of buckles and laces to determine what was functional and what was purely decorative. "Not that most had the time or resources to actually go riding, of course but one at least wanted to give the impression. Is that still a leisure activity?"

[Fox]

"Eh. I mean, sorta?" Matt shrugged, but the shrugging disturbed the clothes he was carrying enough to leave him scrambling to make sure nothing fell. "Sorry. Riding is...still a thing, I guess, but not as much."

 

He shoved a hand forward far enough to hold up three fingers, ticking down his view of the world. "So, sometimes people do it during a vacation or for a romantic getaway or whatever. But for people who do it a bunch, you've basically got people who live out in the country - who ride 'em because they raise horses - or stupidly rich people, because they've got more money than sense and figure owning a horse is something rich people oughta do."

 

He resumed his more easy grasp on Fred's shopping, shrugging again. "Most people won't even see a horse in person these days, though, much less ride one. It's got...I dunno, old school appeal, though, which is probably why the boot design stuck around. Someone who actually wanted to ride horses would probably buy real riding boots, though, not the stuff they sell for fashion."

[Electra]

Raina looked over at Matt while he gave his rundown on modern horsemanship, and for a moment the air around them seemed perceptibly warmer, like a breeze from a heating vent had wafted through. It went away when she turned to scrounge the metal foot-measuring device from under a chair, dropping it down unceremoniously in front of Fred. "Here," she said, her voice just a little clipped. "Take off your shoes and stand on this, right foot first. The number closest to where your toes line up is your shoe size. Measure both feet, then take the bigger number. Matt, get over here and help her." Obviously uninterested in getting down on the floor to suss out Fred's shoe size, Raina disappeared around the corner of the aisle, to where more boots were apparently waiting. 

[Gizmo]

Having grown quite familiar with the various indications of suppressed agitation Winifred looked away from the racks of boots at the change in Raina's tone but was quickly distracted by the metal contraption dropped with a clatter at her feet before she could read much into it. The rugged and well-used measuring tool seemed at odds with the rest of the sprawling a store, a more utilitarian holdover. It was a little while before she realized that she was turning the device over in her hands in study rather than putting it to use.

 

With a small cough she placed it back down and found a place to sit. She hesitated for a moment as she undid the laces of her sneakers, giving Matthew a glance. "This seems like vaguely sensitive information," she remarked before placing her heel into the curving backstop and standing back up as instructed. Dainty feet had been very fashionable in her day and while she considered her own to be very much proportional to her height the thought of frankly discussing the specific measurements still felt strange.

[Fox]

Matt almost managed to say something before Raina vanished, but he either failed or thought better of it, shaking his head. "You don't know the half of it," he grumbled, setting her things aside as he took a knee to adjust the device. "Guys're supposed to have bigger feet for...reasons that're stupid and we don't need to get into. I don't think anybody actually cares anymore, though, unless you're real big or real small. Even then it's the sorta pathetic stuff a really bad bully would bring up. Like, someone who's really not great at bullying."

 

With the sliders in place and feet properly measured he indicated that Fred could free herself from mechanical judgement, carefully picking the tool up to point out how it was marked. "So, there's your starting place. Keep in mind that you're gonna want the US measurement, not the UK one, and none of the dang shoe companies play nice with each other, so sizes'll vary a little between 'em. If you're buying from a second-hand shop you kinda take what you can get, but a place like this, you've got the luxury of choice. May as well try a few things on and see what suits you."

[Electra]

As soon as Matt and Fred figured out the all-important size issue, Raina reappeared, this time clutching an armful of single boots and also towing along another store clerk. "Find three or four things you like," Raina instructed briskly, "then Emily here will go to the back and bring out the right size to try on. And also these in a nine and a half," she told the clerk in an aside, handing over an extremely impractical-looking heeled sandal that Fred would never wear. "We has better get a move on, time's a-wasting!"

[Gizmo]

"The idea of proportionate anatomy is not a recent one, Matthew," Winifred noted with an exaggerated glance toward her classmate's shoes and a poorly concealed smirk that gave way to an embarrassed cough as Raina reappeared with the clerk in tow. She might have been getting a better handle on modern banter but there were practical limits. "Ah, yes. Thank you then, Emily."

 

The thought of having three or more pairs of shoes seemed positively decadent but she supposed that would place here somewhere between the extremes represented by Robin and Raina respectively. Before long she'd selected a pair of heeled riding boots in a rich, dark brown with laces up the length on their fonts but looking for something more general purpose a bit overwhelmed for choice. Looking over a row of tennis shoes - she'd gathered that like the riding boots this was a case where the name owed to the original function more than the current use - she paused to ask her blonde friend in a lowered tone, "Is... is everything alright? You seemed irritated earlier. I realize my questions must be trying your patience by now."

[Fox]

Matt grimaced, though he was half-glad to have a distraction from the implications behind shoe-gazing. Yoga pants had been bad enough. "That one's probably on me," he admitted, leaning the foot measurer up against one of the stands in case they needed it again. "Not sure what part of it, but I've gotten pretty good at telling when I've shoved my foot in my mouth."

 

He shrugged, helplessly, though he did seem appropriately guilty. "Happens when you spend too much time talking to dogs, I guess," he said. And dead people. "Whatever it was, didn't mean any harm by it - sorry. Feel free to smack me if I do it again? Usually works after at least the third, fourth time."

[Electra]

"It's nothing, it's stupid," Raina assured Fred with a careless laugh that was just a tiny bit forced around the edges. "Even though I'm always up for smacking Matt around a little bit. You'll know if I'm ever really mad at you by the way you'll be on fire," she assured him. Raina had apparently decided on the shoes she'd tried on, and busied herself wrapping them carefully in their tissue paper-lined box. "Matt doesn't understand these things because he's a peasant, but if you do want to ride a horse, all you need is a boot with a supportive ankle and a low heel to keep your foot in the stirrup. They don't have to be expensive. You'll lay out more for a decent helmet." 

 

She set the lid back on her box and turned back to Fred's tennis shoe options. "Get something with a lot of tread for icy weather," she advised, "and don't worry if it's kind of expensive. You'll need them for running. We can buy you some sneakers to be your grubby disposable shoes." 

[Gizmo]

Winifred pursed her lips and made the small sound in the back of her throat that Raina had begun to recognize as the precursor to a stubborn argument over some particular turn of phrase but the alchemist glanced in Matthew's direction first and instead simply cleared her throat politely. "We do seem to do a fair amount of running, true." She didn't like when the blonde dismissed her own feelings as 'stupid' instead of being forthright about them but that discussion certainly wasn't going to go anywhere with an audience. In practice that discussion had never actually managed to go anywhere other than an awkward near-miss of her condition but that was beside the point.

 

After confirming that she could wear the boots out of the store with the rest of her new outfit and taking a few minutes to properly learn how to artfully tuck the bottoms of her new trousers into them to achieve the current style she took stock of what they'd gathered. "That would seem to cover the gamut, yes? Am I yet missing any essential elements?"

[Fox]

Matt almost objected to being called a peasant, but he glanced down at his clothes and shrugged, as if it was a fair estimate of his personal and financial situation. Some fights you just can't win.

 

"Pretty sure you've got the lot of it," he suggested, picking his load of clothes back up and carefully poking through it. "Might still be worth hitting another smaller store or two after this, for stuff these guys wouldn't carry, but there isn't a lot else here," he said, eyes scanning the store, "'cept maybe some jewelry and--"

 

His face fell, head following it down - a reflex so honest one could nearly imagine a pair of dog ears slumping to boot. "Aw. Aww. Okay, okay, promise me, if she drags us over there, on behalf of people everywhere with sensitive noses, you'll use stuff like perfume and the really chemical-y makeup sparingly. A little does a lot, y'know?"