Even with waterproof bags, toting around books with thin pages in the current humidity would ruin them swiftly, so they agreed that the book store would have to be the last stop they would make. After all, the books they most often purchased were very much not the type to be heavily bound and resolutely made! It was pulp writing all around.
The first shop they stopped by was a weapon-smith’s, although from the outside it had more in common with a general store than anything else - it lacked the large vents and smoke that came to mind for metalworking, that most places in adjacent fields had in town. Just like how the Wander Inn had a good amount invested in its plumbing magic, the Forge’s owners had gone above and beyond to throw money at getting an enchanted forge set up, situated across half of the back wall.
The owners were… not human, certainly, but neither Rora nor Mila nor anybody else in their group knew what their species was, exactly, and it would have been the height of rudeness to ask out of nowhere. They looked mostly human, but had a yellow-orange complexion and their hair seemed to be, in part, fire itself. Physical enough, but flickering and dancing about like a flame. That and they were a family of clones, born from some process or another that they had control over. That they lived in the other half of the building with the magical forge inside of it made Mila think they kept it quite toasty at home.
The oldest, Ray, leaned against the tall counter and seemed to be bopping along to the muted melody of metalworking coming from behind the other half of the back wall, where a clear panel allowed customers to watch the family work their craft, if they so chose. More enchantment work kept it from being deafening on this side, she suspected, or perhaps the room at large was magic’d up to keep from being too loud. She had no real idea.
What she did know was that her specially ordered item should be ready. Both of the kobolds’ weapons were made here, and damn if either of them were ever going to get steel elsewhere. The Forge’s works cost a pretty penny, but they more than earned the otherwise presumptuous name, going out of their way to ensure their customers only got quality, with a touch of magic folded in. Nothing too fancy, no fiery blades that were better for arson than real work, but if you needed something that would never rust, was easy to clean, and could be gnawed on by a prickle-possum and come out fine? They had you covered.
Mila strode up, making a beeline for the counter with a bounce in her step, and popped herself up onto the rail that was attached about a foot off the ground along the base of the counter. Rora made a more steadied approach but also stepped up off to the side, to watch the smiths through the window. Ray looked down at Mila with a cool gaze, stony eyes not seeming to notice how she bobbed upon her perch on the step railing, installed for the shorter races.
She was vibrating with excitement, but Mila held strong, all her might exerted to keep from breaking, and it was Ray who crumbled after some fifteen seconds. “Miss Mila. This was a… particularly challenging commission.” Their voice softly crackled underneath the words, another trait for the fire theme that they all had to a degree. There was a twinkle in Ray’s eye though, similar to the one Mila reckoned she got herself when she got to working in her trap design journal.
“Well, if the great Forge can’t handle it, I understand. I just figured, since y’all’re supposedly the best, might least let you try,” she counter-attacked, not bothering to hide her smile. She threw her hands up to the top of the counter and beat out a series of alternating slaps against the lacquered wood.
“Mmm. We are the best. And you needed the best. A lot of peoplehours went into making it work, but… well. It works. Of course it does.” Professional pride was easy to rouse with a poke or too, and Mila would have sworn to any of the gods she did not follow that Ray actually glowed. Before she could figure out how to test for that, he ducked down behind the counter, grabbed hold of something, and pulled it out and up. An undersized wooden briefcase of sorts, he slid it onto the counter and spun it around, latch facing Mila and demanding to be opened immediately.
Never one to be able to resist a good present, even if it were one she had prepaid for, one of her claws darted out to throw the latch back before she grabbed the top half and slowly raised it up, moving steadily and giving a sluggish blink to give the grand reveal the dramatic note it so deserved.
Inside, nestled in a beige fabric and coiled up like a deadly snake, sat the piece that she had been waiting for for a long time. The flickering light of the store’s overhead lamp glinted off of the steel that shrieked of danger and purpose, a tapering length of chain whose links had an edge on each side, its tip ending in a nasty flexible point. The large end had a series of leather cuffs, and it all looked perfect.
“Gorgeous,” she whispered, not yet willing to disturb the beauty by touching it yet.
“Devil of a time figuring how to keep the back half from drooping. If you look closely at it, you’ll see what we had to do - the ‘flat’ links are connected to each other too, pivot against each other. A jeweler’s trick, that.”
At the direction, Mila dipped a hand in carefully, picking up near the tip to examine what he meant, and sure enough there was what looked to be a stud driven through the links that, on a normal chain, would hardly even touch. She gave an appreciative growl as she admired the workmanship, until she realized how she might better show how much she approved of the work. “Want me to try it out? Just, you know, to make sure it’s up to standards.”
Ray caught the cheeky wink she gave with a laugh, “Please, be my guest. Just to make sure.” That was more than approval enough, and Mila hopped down to shrug out of her poncho, putting it over in the corner and making sure to shake off any water before she moved back to the counter, hands slipping into the case and withdrawing her weapon with the loving care that only a mother could give her new favorite child.
The tome she had learned how to fight proper from was all about using everything as a weapon, and included how to fight with your tail. While it lacked instruction on how to create them, this included what had fascinated her for quite some time and now had finally acquired - weapons for one’s tail. And while Rora strode about like a particularly outdated Tyrannosaurus rex, Mila had the long tail of a less outdated but still incorrect velociraptor. The kind from the first Jurassic Park. So to make that longer and all the more deadly was a dream come true.
Noting Rora also watching her, Mila laughed and began to awkwardly put on a bit of a show, unrolling the long chain but moving slow to keep from slicing her hands open, turning in place to demonstrate the sleekness of her naked tail before she began to thread it through the cuffs, bringing those most of the way up before she ratcheted them tight and buckled all five of them down her tail’s length.
It was perhaps the world’s least sexy reverse strip show involving a novel dangerous implement, but by dint of possibly being the only one, it was also in the running for best, and by the time she was finished, Mila had to take a few moments to calm her breathing down and center herself, Rora having laughed so hard she stumbled right off of her spot on the railing, Ray doing their best to remain professional by hiding their laughter behind a hand. But as Mila reigned herself in, her audience also managed to calm, and she focused.
She lifted her tail up against the weight of the whip, and even if the chain had been built to be light as air, it would take some getting used to, but the metallic slither as link shifted against link felt *good*. As her tail fell into its natural, constant movements back and forth, the steel came to life and soon followed suit, dancing above the pocked wooden floors as if it were a natural extension of herself. The laughter that bubbled up from Mila was less silly and more awestruck this time, and she gave a tiny hop forward while rubbernecking behind to watch how it weaved its way to follow.
“Give it a test swing,” was Ray’s half-request, and Mila saw no reason to kick up a fuss that the other half might be a command, not this time. The store was empty space away from the walls for just such an occasion, and Rora backed up as far as she could just in case, which got an appreciative nod from Mila before the dervish straightened up and slowly turned around, unwilling to strike towards the counter just in case. She had practiced from her tome before, and now she could actually test it out, and it had her soaring.
Her tail and its bladed whip rocked back and forth as Mila shifted her hips, getting two iterations before she snapped her body to the side and her tail forward. It was a bit sluggish compared to what she was used to, but the chain seemed to have picked up how her tail sometimes had a mind of its own. With a bullwhip’s crack, the sharp tip slammed into the air and just as quickly danced back, eager to strike again.
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Slowly she allowed the dance to end, links clinking as they fell to the floor. Mila turned slowly, fully aware of her stupid, goofy grin and glad to see that Rora and Ray both were just as impressed as she was, albeit likely less thanking the stars that she had not just gouged the hell out of the store’s inner walls. After a beat, Rora began to softly applaud the display, and Mila jumped in place twice before scampering forward. “Ray, this is amazing! The best indeed!”
“A fearsome weapon, just as you wished. I take it you are satisfied with our work?”
That got another laugh from Mila as she carefully brought her tail up and around so that she could begin to undo the buckles. “I’ll have to put it through its paces whenever it stops spittin’ outside, but preliminary impressions? Exactly what I was looking for.” Once she slipped her tail out from the whip, she began to coil the weapon back up, gently putting it back in the briefcase.
“Then I believe you are all settled. We included a number of brushes , under the fabric, for if you need to clean inside the links, but it has our standard magics applied to it, so that should happen rarely. Is there anything else we can do for you?” Ray was back to their shoddy professional mask, feeling a bit more butler than Mila cared for, but she shook her head as she gingerly slid the briefcase off the counter, moving to squirrel it away in her pack.
The last few pleasantries were exchanged, including a request for Ray to pass on the kobolds’ well-wishes to the rest of the Forge family, while in turn Ray wished for them to tell the others in their party that the Forge would always be there for when they wanted real weapons, which got guffaws from Mila and Rora both.
They went to an actual general store after, only stopping in to pick up a few things and not chatting much with the human shopkeeper. While the store was closest of its kind to the Wander Inn, Mila had long gotten the vague sense that they were not the preferred clientele for that particular establishment. Unfortunately, the nearest alternative was far out of their way, so voting with her wallet was not in the mix today.
The seamstress’s was the opposite, at least. When Mila mentioned wanting to stop by there, Rora had given her a bit of a look but was tactful enough to not poke at the weirdness of the request. And on top of that, the head seamstress was a lady that Rora got along with splendidly.
Mrs. Jo was petite, especially for a member of the kinfolk, and was shorter than even Mila, for all she otherwise looked like a human. By her own admission, rolled into the spiel she gave anyone coming in for the first time, she had a dreadful time getting decent clothes for herself growing up, which had turned her towards her profession and then opening a store of her own, albeit with a specialty - making clothes for those not being properly served by the human-run establishments.
It meant her business was *the* place to go for both kobolds and Naw-Naw, plus a plethora of other more diverse locals, and shop was packed with a massive variety of example items in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Mrs. Jo, or one of her employees-turned-apprentices, had been the one to make Mila’s own many-pocketed shorts and vest, and Mila was willing to bet that Rora’s duckling ensemble was bought here too, even if she had not been there for it.
Mila allowed the store owner to flutter around Rora, exchanging greetings and questions about how the other was doing, and instead began to wade through the store, meandering through the fabric jungle and feeling out different outfits with a gentle finger. The fabrics and colors were all over the place, a combination to match any customer’s preference, and Mila had no idea what she was in the market for in that regard.
It took a minute for Mila to notice that the chit-chat had petered out and that the other two women were watching her browse, the two apprentices at the back thankfully not paying attention to anything outside of their sewing. “Miss Rora says you’re in the market for something?” Mrs. Jo prompted with a smile and a measuring gaze, perhaps sensing that one of her more bland customers might be looking for something different than ‘the usual’.
Mila coughed to clear her throat, unsure if this was a good idea, and she knew her discomfort was clear to everyone who looked at her. After all, it was there in the buzzing dissonance of her split memories. Mila hated anything but the clothes she had on currently, clothes that did not get in her way but could hold stuff that she needed. It had been years since she had last been shoved into a dress, and she knew that she had looked about as happy as a soaked house cat on the occasion. But the other Mila also loved dresses and skirts, how they flowed about her and made her feel badass.
The issue was two-fold - she had no idea, now that she had both of those feelings simultaneously, which would win out, and that the half of her that hated those types of clothing had originated in this body, so it might raise questions if she suddenly switched it up. Yet she needed to know. She could justify it a dozen different ways, about how it was testing if the memories from this old version of her held primacy or something, but that was all dancing away from the straightforward reason, as silly as that reason felt. Half of her got a lot of happiness from clothes, and if that could bring her happiness in whole now, too, then she owed it to herself to at least know that much.
There was no way in hell she was about to throw all of that at Mrs. Jo and Rora, though. Instead, the moment drew longer and more cumbersome in Mila’s mind until she managed to spit out, “I’d like to try on some skirts. Something looser, probably, that I can move in?” Mila noted the surprise, albeit a happy kind, that flashed across Rora’s face, but the smile that Mrs. Jo suddenly sported was concerning.
Mila tended to think of herself as quite capable in a fight, with good reason, but Mrs. Jo proved in a flash that it was the battlefield that made the warrior. Mila had no time to react before she was piled high in fabrics, with even a petticoat that definitely did not fall under the ‘loose’ descriptor, and was then shoved about into the changing room tucked away in a back corner, its curtain wall pushed aside so that the kobold could be thrown through.
Mila’s poncho had been ripped off of her at some point in the frenzy, and she was not sure about all of this at first, but she carefully slipped on the first, a pleated, cotton-feeling skirt that stopped at her knees. At the friendly cajoling from outside, Mila slipped through the curtain and turned one way than the other, looking at a tall, thin mirror to the side to get a feel for how she looked. She did not love what she saw, but after a few seconds of thought, also decided that she did not hate how she felt either, a flash of a smile growing and then squashed. Mrs Jo unleashed a massive series of questions on Mila, Rora watching the whole exchange with a warm look, and Mila answered what she could, breaking down what she did and did not like, the seamstress noting answers down on a writing pad that looked humorously large in her hands. Once the questions wrapped, Mila was urged back to change again, this time a longer A-frame skirt in a deep red. The color was off again, but it felt a bit better around her hips, and the fabric felt good, even as she was barraged by more questions.
Whether from the flurry of energy coming from the kinfolk or the compliments that Rora gave for each trial item, Mila got caught up in the pace of it all, and she was nodding along as Mrs. Jo laid out three different items that Mila would apparently be commissioning, having gone through all the stuff she had been loaded up with initially and then all the items that had been handed to her during the changing and trying on of clothes. A yellow, shin-length light cotton skirt, a light green silk wrap that would be able to be worn a dozen different ways, and a slate grey dress of a variety that escaped Mila in name of design and fabric. And Mila was excited for them, looking forward to seeing the final items and a bit taken back at her own excitedness.
As they left, the only real comment Rora had about the visit was an offer to find something for them to do that could justify dressing up, which was normally something that Mila would have avoided like the plague. But normal Mila was normal no more, and after a bit of hesitation, she agreed, saying that she would look forward to it. And to Rora’s credit, she only looked happy that Mila had agreed, leaving Mila to feel relieved that Rora was not prying at the changes as the golden lady led the way to the bakery.
Not out of character was them getting to the bakery, Rora opening the door, and the smell of sweet baked goods sending Mila’s belly to yowling. Chuckling away the grumbling tummy and spying the line to get at the counter, Mila said, “It looks like it’ll be best if I wait out here. Don’t need more folks in there, and I really don’t need to spend all my book money on snacks.”
Rora laughed deeply. “Don’t need to do that again, you mean? I’ll be back fast, then!” She patted Mila on the shoulder, clearly focused on reigning in her strength in a way that Mila read as overly concerned about hurting her, and as caring. As Rora trotted inside to join the line, Mila sidled away from the door, swiping a hand across a bench to clear the water from its seat before hopping up, appreciating the awning that kept the rain from her proper.
As she watched the rain hitting the street, mostly free from the otherwise omnipresent red clay mud, her eyes unfocused, letting her sit in the moment, just appreciating the good day she was having. Her tail chain was amazing, and she had a surprising amount of fun trying on all the test clothes. Mila even looked forward to getting some new outfits of her own, something that the kobold-her was not used to.
Naturally, the words that cracked through her half-meditation tried to bring that all down atop itself as the nasally voice wormed its way to where it belonged - right next to mosquitos and people that left religious literature as tips for service workers. “Mila Vita. Up to no good, I see. Loitering’s not allowed around here, ya know.”
Mila had to close her eyes and breath deep, affirming to herself that she was not going to let this ruin her day, even as another part of her rightfully pointed out that such was not always her decision to make. “Sheriff Ouran. Good day.”