Chapter 61: Two Truth’s and a Lie (Patreon)

It was…melancholic.

The mall, that is.

Ritz bumped me in the shoulder. “Why the long face.”

“I haven’t been shopping in…years maybe.”

“Tell me about it,” Artemis said. “I never really got the hype. The whole mall scene is just preppy kids and popped collars.” She gave an exaggerated shudder.

My lips twitched. “Don’t ruin Megan’s fantasies. She’s been looking forward to this.”

As one, the three of us glanced to the side, where Megan was going over the details of our shopping trip with Raven and Tula. The Atlantean, fittingly also a redhead to compliment M’gann, looked enthralled by the displays, while I could feel Raven telepathically calling out for help from over here.

“Why’d you decide to tag along, anywho?” Artemis asked. “Doesn’t seem like your deal.”

I couldn’t stop a blush at that. “I realized that…I didn’t really have any clothes except…” I pulled at the black fabric of my jeans. Even now my costume choice was paying dividends. “It wasn’t healthy, being so hyper focused that I didn’t own any civilian wear.”

I sighed as Ritz and Artemis turned to me, looks of abject horror writ plain on their faces. Luckily, I’d prepared for this moment. “Raven actually only has a closet of identical cloaks and leotards.”

Artemis’s head snapped around. Half of the crisis averted. But Ritz’s eyes only took on a strange gleam. She reached out and snagged my wrist. “We have some work to do, Clannie.”

“Ritz.” I tugged, but her grasp was like iron. “You’re not my clan leader anymore…”

Her grin was positively feral. “Girls,” she called, pitching her voice to sound aghast. “Taylor doesn’t have any other clothes!”

They descended on my like a swarm of sharks, with Tula swept along as an increasingly invested protégé. “Your skin is so smooth,” she murmured, as the group of piranhas hustled me towards the first store. “And the shine!”

“She does glow,” Ritz said. “It’s almost enough to make a girl jealous.”

“Hello Megan, we need to start at the bottom and work our way up!”

I blinked at the non-sequitur, as we suddenly swerved towards—!

No.

Adrift, I cast my hand out for a savor. “Raven!”

Behind me, I saw her shadowed eyes take me in with glee. “Oh, don’t mind me,” she said. “I’ll just be…in the bookstore.”

“You can’t let them do this to me!”

But dark laughter was her only reply.

The automatic doors hissed shut behind me.

I turned, only to see rows and rows of bras, swimsuits, chemises.

“Welcome to Foxie!” I heard a chirpy attendant say. “Can I help you find anything? You’d look gorgeous in some of our ice themed attire.”

“Thank you!” Ritz said. “I might have to try them out. But we’re actually here for these two.” I found myself pushed to the front, next to Tula. I sighed. At least she looked like she was having fun. I could feel her excitement lapping against me in waves. “They need a completely new wardrobe, late growth spurt.”

The shop attendant’s eyes flashed. I could already hear her counting up her commission. “Our full catalogue is available to you.”

“Traitor,” I growled, even as Megan pulled me and Tula along the racks. Ritz put her hands on her hips in a moment of triumph.

Before she vanished behind the racks, I saw her lean towards the shop assistant, finger toying with her own collar. “So…what do you recommend for…”

I blinked, only to open my eyes again as a dozen hangars were dropped into my arms.

This was going to be a long trip.

***

Later, I found myself—plus several bags—in the food court. Raven, my newest nemesis, had reappeared in a tasteful black sweater with a mountain of books. She deftly parried any attempts to take her out for another round of clothes by hiding her face behind a romance novella’s lurid cover and insisting that she had ‘seen to’ her own needs.

“I had though surface fashions much more constricting,” Tula said, as she munched happily on a plate of French fries. “To think there was an entire industry devoted to garments for swimming. I can’t wait to show this to all of my friends back in Poseidonis.”

‘This’ being her sea green bikini and matching sarong. It complimented her eyes, and Happy Harbor being a beachfront town, nobody at the mall gave too much thought to her clothing.

Artemis smirked. “Isn’t it a bit revealing?” she asked. “You guys have that whole deep-sea diver thing going on.”

Tula blushed. “Well, yes…for the most part,” she said. “Clothing like this is almost ceremonial, why, if not for the material it would hardly look out of place at the conservatory’s annual banquets.” She wiggled her shoulders, “and I do like how it looks.”

Raven raised an eyebrow. “Swimsuits as formal wear? Now that’s a culture I can get behind.”

“Don’t worry.” Ritz ribbed her gently, “I’m sure Garth will like how it looks too.”

I chuckled at Tula’s blush.

“Oh, it’s all so pretty!” M’gann said. She clasped her hands together. “Taylor too! Artemis, you should have let us pick you out some new clothes as well.”

“No thanks,” the archer said. “I’m good with what I got. Have too many uniform skirts already.”

“Megan’s so lucky though!” Ritz complained with a grin. “She can change her skin tone to match anything.” The albino woman flicked her hair. “Do you know how hard it is to find clothes that don’t make me look washed out?”

“Have you ever died it?” Artemis asked.

A complicated expression flickered over Ritz’s face. “I used to, because I wanted to hide the way I looked.” She smiled. “Turns out white was always my color.”

I felt a sudden surge of admiration and shame from M’gann, but when I looked her way the Martian had an awestruck look on her face. “It was that easy?” she asked. 

“What? Hell no!” Ritz laughed. “I got sucked into a magic book, met Taylor, and had to do some serious soul searching along the way. It’s never easy, getting over what society tells you about the way you look vs the way you’re supposed to look.” She patted M’gann’s hand. “But remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Artemis blinked. “Eleanor Roosevelt?”

“I’m a font of wisdom,” Ritz said, smirking. “I never said that all of it was mine.”

“Oh har, har.”

I can’t help but smile, more than a little bit relieved that my friends are all getting along. I’ve never had enough friends where I had to worry about that before, as sad as it sounds.

Now, as long as I’m nice and quiet, someone will probably suggest icecream sooner or later, and after icecream nobody wants to do anymore shopping and we’ll be home free.

I just have to make sure I don’t say—

“So, is it time to leave yet?”

Raven I swear to god.

“Oh, but I want to look at the dresses,” M’gann said.

“Yeah and we have to hit the chains, just to show Tula what not to buy.”

“You have Acerombi and Veech in this world too?”

“Uh, kinda?”

I sighed. “You’ve doomed us all,” I whispered to Raven.

“I wasn’t the one who suggested shopping,” she hissed back.

“What’s that?” Ritz asked. “You suggested some more shopping? What do you think ladies?”

Tula shrugged. “Well, I hardly need any more outfits, but…”

“Come on, girl,” Ritz said with a grin. “When are you going to get a chance sample surface fashion?” She leaned in for a whisper, “We have more than just bathing suites up here.”

As Tula’s face reddened to match her hair, I jabbed Ritz in the side. “Look at you, playing the experienced older woman.”

“Playing nothing,” she said. “Stick with me girls, and I’ll never steer you wrong.”

At Raven’s questioning glance I could only sigh. “She does have a good track record. Though, back in the day she got us into trouble almost as often as she got us out of it.”

“It’s called having faith in your comrades.” Ritz posed dramatically, “and on that note, onward! To fashion! We still have half the mall to try.”

I gave Raven my driest stare as the two of us were swept along in the current. “Doomed,” I told her.

“What?” Raven asked.

“Doomed,” I replied. “We’re all doomed.”

“And here I thought I was the dramatic one.”

I only shook my head.

Oh, sweet summer child, I thought, you know not the horrors that await us. Seven girls let loose in a mall, half of whom were no doubt still sitting on their pile of League provided discretionary funds? It could only end one way.

“Oh look at that top.” Even Artemis had fallen to the darkside. The call of prestressed jeans and shredded shirts too strong.

Ritz was a monster. She knew not of retreat or of restraint. All that woman could see was victory, and whatever steps were necessary to achieve it.

I’d come along to the mall naively hoping to escape with only half a dozen new outfits, but now I’d be lucky to walk away with only a single wardrobes worth of clothes, even if Ritz had to buy it herself.

And to think I’d used my own magic to set her up with a credit card (legally, of course). Now she used it to betray me.

“Here.” I found a stack of dresses and airy shirts pressed into my hands. “Try these on.” Ritz met my eyes. “And don’t think I won’t come in there if I think you’re slacking, Clannie.”

Well, at least this time Raven couldn’t escape either. Tula and Megan had already cornered her, holding up fabric to see what best matched her skin.

With the conviction of the dammed, I carried my first bundle into the changing room.

It would not be the last.

Maybe two hours later, I found myself in a pair of slim jeans and a thin white shirt that barely came down to my hips. There were clips in my hair, polish on my nails, and I’d like to say that I couldn’t even recognize myself in a mirror.

That last one would be a lie though.

I…did recognize the girl in the mirror. She was me. A me I’d thought could never exist.

I’d changed so much on my journey, that sometimes it was easy to forget out much. 

Running my fingers lightly over the glass, I took myself in. Long hair, dark as shadow and gently curled, ran down nearly to the small of my back. A long way, considering that, somewhere along the way I’d hit six feet even.

I blame the Kabane virus.

Beyond that, it almost felt like I’d grown into that height, features, like my arms or neck or mouth, that had seemed so big and gangly on myself when I’d been fifteen looked graceful now. Like they were supposed to be that way.

And of course, my eyes had long since stopped being a plain brown. Now they were a dark red gold in the iris and glowing. Oh, the light was faint enough most people would blow it off, but I knew the real reason, and if I watched long enough, I could see the colors begin to change.

Most of all, however, I looked so much like Mom it hurt. But it hurt in a good way, like the pain was cleansing some deep held wound that had nestled so close to my heart that I’d forgotten it even existed.

Like I’d thought was just another part of me.

Ritz bumped my shoulder. “You look good.” She smiled softly at me. “Confident.”

“Do I?” I asked, turning back to the mirror. The rest of the girls were still going through another store, leaving just me and Ritz alone to talk.

She came up to right over my shoulders, white hair, blending in next to my new shirt.

It was still strange, realizing that she had to tilt her head back to meet my gaze, when I remembered looking up to her for so long. She’d been larger than life, in my memories.

Somehow, though, the Ritz in front of me was still better.

“I’m not about to start lying to you now,” she said. Her smile was infectious. “You looked good when you picked me up on my plane too, but just a bit worn down, a little ragged around the edges. That’s all gone now.”

I tugged at my sleeve. “And all it took was a new coat of polish…”

“Hey now, none of that from you, missy.” She poked me in the side, then winced. “What are you made of now, rocks?”

“Mostly semistable energy,” I said. “It’s a mind over matter thing.”

Ritz laughed. “Literally!”

I looked up. “I’m not used to…looking good. Glamorous. Whatever.”

“You’ve always looked good, Clannie,” Ritz said. “Now c’mon. I hear Megan’s been stockpiling pillows for a week for the sleepover.”

“A week?”

She grinned. “She got everything else she knows about Earth’s culture from TV? Why not sleepovers as well?”

I groaned, but I smiled too.

M’gann was sweet like that.

Before I could start moving though, Ritz slipped her fingers into mine and pulled me along, “We’ll have to do something even bigger for your birthday, whenever that is,” she said. “But this will serve as a good practice run.”

“I’ll leave the preparations to you.” I said as we rejoined the rest of the group. “I’m sure it’ll be in very capable hands.”

Ritz nodded, “The best.”

Behind me, the mirror stayed, but the girl in my reflection?

She stayed with me, this time.