Feeling much better, we went to a shop with a shirt sign out front, made of Grassnds cob and painted whimsically with falling items of clothing, and followed the walkway through the pleasant flower-edged yard beside it. That took us to the door of a cob house painted with a chest-height border in a soft abstract design of pastel shades—but a couple of bookends had been added on top, as though it were a shelf, and there were books between them.
“Feriosa’s partner Arjon writes fiction novels and pys,” Serru said. “And sometimes works at a shop that sells them. Smaller settlements can support more specialized shops in the Midnds, travel is faster and easier. There are a lot of small frequent coach runs, and distances are shorter.”
“Got it.”
“Here, Myu’s safer with you.” Serru passed her to me before she knocked on the door.
It was opened a moment ter by a woman who was nearly as curvy as Serru, her hair a deeper pink with a bit more purple in it and cut short and shaggy, but I would have picked them out as reted in any crowd. Her green eyes widened.
“Serru? Oh, and that has to be Nathan! In you come! Arjon!” She barely had the door closed before she wrapped both arms around Serru in a ferocious hug. “We’ve been so worried about you! That message didn’t tell us much!”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been... maybe not quite myself. We have a bit of unfinished business to take care of. If you don’t hear the whole thing before then, well, I think I’ll be talking Nathan into coming with me for the new year.”
“No way home, then?” asked the man who had emerged from a nearby doorway. “From what we heard, you were hoping the Axis would do that.” His hair was a brilliant shade of yellow-green, in long dreadlocks, and his skin was a medium brown with a greenish-olive tone that I couldn’t swear wasn’t picked up from his hair.
“Turns out that was never a possibility,” I said. “We just didn’t know that. I’m here to stay.”
“Without your family?” Feriosa freed a hand to y it on my shoulder. “That’s a sad thing.”
“I got lucky enough to find friends who are as close to a family as you can get.”
“I think a vote among our parents and siblings would be unanimous that even if you don’t have your family, you have a family. Come in, sit down.” She let go of Serru and ushered us towards a corner of the room that held a couch that reminded me of a wooden futon and a couple of wide matching chairs. “Did you eat yet? There’s noodles and vegetables nearly ready and I made extra so we could do leftovers for lunch tomorrow but that’s fine, we can do something else, that’s tomorrow and not now.”
“Food would be wonderful,” Serru said. “And a pce to sleep. Everyone wants to say thank you, and that’s a lovely sentiment and all, but right now, it’s just too much to deal with after everything else, so we’re staying out of inns and taverns and trying to be subtle.”
“Yes, well, rumour has it that our saviours are a red dragon woman, or possibly a human man with red hair, or maybe a palomino centaur woman, and a human woman with light skin and pink hair. It was difficult not to make that connection. Aquian was not mentioned.”
“Useful,” Serru said, and gnced at me. “Whichever you most feel like right now is fine.”
“Aquian’s good,” I said. “Dragons eat too much and centaurs are a bit awkward indoors.” I joined Serru on the couch. Feriosa sat on Serru’s other side, and Arjon took one of the chairs. Myu took the other and made herself comfortable; Arjon let her sniff his fingers, then petted her gently, and she accepted it.
“That sounds complicated,” Arjon said.
“At moments, but they all have advantages. Sorry for showing up with no warning.”
“Oh, any time!” Feriosa said. “Really. You are both okay, right?” She seized Serru’s hand and squeezed it anxiously.
“It was difficult,” Serru said. “But it is over. The Moss Queen is now a zombie, the Zombie King has agreed not to make other zombies as long as he has her and he very much wants to keep her, and he and Nathan together can re-zombie her at the end of two years if they work together. Terenei and Zanshe and our newer friends Heket and Aryennos all died, along with all of Drumsong Cascade. There have been very long deys in people returning but all four have. Recent events have been extremely unpleasant and stressful at moments, but for her to be no longer a threat, it was worth it.”
“I... would like to say that I agree, but that hardly seems fair when I wasn’t going through any of the unpleasant stressful moments. Aside from worrying about you. And the little one?”
“Belongs to Heket. We’re responsible until we can get them back together.”
“I hope she doesn’t mind the dogs. They’re in the back yard pying off their supper.”
“We’ve seen her around dogs. She’s fine. She may remind them to be respectful if they aren’t.”
“I’m sure they’ll survive that. All right. We won’t make you talk any more. I’ll go get supper and we can eat and just talk about... oh, anything you like, anything that won’t be difficult. You know the couch folds into a bed, you’re welcome to it. I assume you’re leaving in the morning?”
Serru nodded. “We need to do something. And meet up with the others, and get Myu back to Heket.”
“Stay there,” Arjon told her, rising. “I’ll get it.”
“Thanks,” Feriosa said. “Practical matters. Any clothes I should fix tonight? You’re often hard on your clothes and I can’t imagine that hasn’t been the case recently.”
“The other road-practical clothes I have on me,” Serru said with a sigh, “my other favourite set you made for me, are a disaster and possibly beyond repair. Nathan has, literally, what we have bought on the road over the past... two months? Something like that. Other than Coppersands, that has been entirely what’s been essential. And you know that clothes don’t necessarily transfer well between species. Human isn’t so bad, centaur is better than most but with one badly damaged jacket and bra, aquian has one badly damaged sarong and nothing else which is why one of two felid outfits has been repurposed, and I wouldn’t know where to begin on finding clothes for a dragon.”
“Hm. Well, that will be an interesting challenge.” Feriosa got up and went to a corner, dumping the contents of a basket on the floor and returning with it empty. “Whatever needs fixing, toss it in there. We can go over to the shop after we eat or in the morning and see what I have. Most of mine are human but I have a trade system with others who have other specialties so we can keep some variety on-hand. I know there are aquian sarongs in stock, and felid clothes. Would it be rude or difficult to ask what a dragon needs?”
Serru dug around in her bag and pulled out what remained of her grape-purple leggings and pale leaf-patterned blouse and ced-and-buttoned violet-and-grey jacket, even her grey boots. We’d rinsed the worst of the blood and mud out of everything, at least, but her clothes still had serious damage and the rips still had stained edges.
I followed her lead and found my aquian rainbow sarong and my centaur blue-and-ivory jacket and matching bra. I hadn’t been able to stand the thought of switching to centaur to use healing magic and being in bloody and ruined clothes, so I’d changed back to my creamy tunic with the multicoloured heart border. My human clothes had been fine once washed.
If people were watching for a palomino centaur, maybe I could dye my white hair and tail and leg-feathering; I wasn’t sure changing the colour of my golden hide would fool anyone with my skin still the same hue, but if the white was no longer white, I wouldn’t be palomino anymore.
“I don’t have any alternative clothes at all for my dragon form,” I said. “I don’t mind changing and it’s not hard or rude, but if you want those clothes, you’re going to have a naked dragon in your living room.”
“Yes, and?” Serru said. “You don’t have to stay that way. Feriosa will want measurements, but it will give her some idea where to start.”
“Yes, please,” Feriosa said. “But I don’t want you uncomfortable, and it sounds like you are.”
“It’s all right,” I assured her, and changed to dragon, and stretched.
I heard a soft gasp that was quickly silenced, and then a nearly-inaudible giggle followed by the kind of sudden rush of air that might be, for example, caused by a sister elbowing one in the ribs. I’d been on the receiving end before.
“Those clothes,” Feriosa said pragmatically, while I was uncing and pulling off my calf-height boots, “were obviously mean to show off the markings on your legs and to not interfere at all with your wings with any kind of straps or sleeves or anything across your upper back. I can’t do anything fttering without some serious measurements and alterations, but your tail is a lot like a saurian’s and I have leggings for them, and skirts will generally work perfectly well with tails of any kind. I don’t have any tops with no straps at all, but I do have a style of halter that has buttons and I think that would work, although I’m not entirely sure how much breast support it will give you. Dragon clothes are clearly going to require a completely different set of adaptations in order to be comfortable. Can I see your back?”
I obligingly turned around while I was peeling off my leggings.
“Hm, yes, those halters will work. I’ll sketch out that top and see if I can replicate the basic cut of it, although I can’t finish it tonight, and we can use that as a starting point. I don’t know of any standard works on dragon requirements so I suppose I might as well start one.” I gnced over my shoulder as her voice began to move; she headed for what I first thought was an end table, but it had drawers down it, and she slid the top apart to either side to reveal compartments inside. “Where is my measuring tape? Do you suppose Terenei could do a good clear sketch for me, front and back and side, that I can add numbers to and share for reference?”
“I’ll ask him,” I said.
“Very roughly, saurian lower body, unique and complex upper body, all in a jotun size range. If dragons typically have gorgeous iridescent scales with intricate markings like that, it’s going to motivate some very creative offerings to show those off to best advantage. Why isn’t it here?”
“Did you have it upstairs?” Arjon asked.
“Hm. I’ll check. I might have had it in my pocket when we went to bed and not even thought about it.” She darted up the stairs in the corner.
“Feriosa’s anxious,” Serru said in an undertone, getting up so she could take my leggings for me, add them to the basket, and help me with the csp at the back of my neck and the ones down one side of my body that let my top wrap across comfortably. “Worse than I expected. I know you aren’t always comfortable naked but try to give her a minute.”
“I’m getting used to it.” I stretched, and partly opened my wings to wrap them around myself. “Besides, I can hide.”
It was really good to hear her ugh. She ducked under my wings—I moved one to make it easier—and snuggled against me for a very enjoyable hug-within-a-hug, although the top of her head didn’t even reach my shoulder in this form. I tightened both arms and wings around her, careful not to hurt her. Considering that I was naked, and our retive heights, possibly I was being objectified a little bit. From her, I didn’t mind.
“Must remember,” Arjon said from the kitchen area. “Do not write dragons into pys until we have dragon actors around. Because a jotun could pull off the height, and the scales could be faked well enough for a performance although I don’t know that we could get the sheer intensity of colour or the iridescence or the intricate patterns, but there is no way to imitate those wings.”
“Definitely,” Serru said. “But the first dragon actor is going to be a sensation. I hope they can actually act.”
“Seriously,” I said, releasing her, “I could just change to, well, anything else has clothes on and I could go sit down. It feels rude to do that naked.”
“I don’t know why,” Arjon mused. “But I don’t think Feriosa will take long. And she’ll be calmer once she feels like she’s doing something helpful.”
“This way, she’ll stop focusing on worrying about me,” Serru said. “And what was, and what could have been, and what I might not be saying.”
“Ah,” I said. “Ulterior motives. Good ones. Got it.” Honesty and openness mattered here. So did looking after your loved ones.
Sure enough, Serru’s sister darted back downstairs a moment ter with what was clearly a measuring tape. “Found it. Serru? Maybe if you do the actual measuring?” She passed Serru the tape and picked up a small notebook from her table-bench-thing.
Well, Serru did most of the measurements, anyway, clearly familiar with exactly what her sister meant by each. That did require a bit of reaching a few times, but I wasn’t allowed to move to make it easier, since that would change the result. I didn’t mind in the least having Serru wrap her arms around me to check circumference. Feriosa, with permission, did some measurements herself of my back and around the base of my wings and what felt like a lot of angles and things, but presumably she knew what she was doing.
“All right,” she said briskly. “That gives me something to work with. Probably there’s someone in... dragons are turning up in the Highnds, right?”
“Yes,” Serru said. “The few anyone has seen have been there.”
“Someone in the Highnds must be making clothes for dragons, I’ll look into it. But there are people who will be very interested in a new creative challenge, and I’m one of them.” She set her notepad and measuring tape back in the table-thingie and slid it closed. “Thank you for being patient with that when I should really have let you eat first.”
“It’s not a problem,” I said, and switched back to aquian, just so I took up less space and would need less food.
It still amazed me that people could take me changing form so completely in stride, when that wasn’t normally possible.
Serru and Arjon were right: Feriosa was less anxious while we ate, Myu daintily accepting bites as tribute before retiring to her own meal. While they were understandably curious, I didn’t find it uncomfortable to expin which skills I had in my various forms. Feriosa knew an awful lot about the anatomy of centaurs and felids and aquians, at least as far as what each would find most useful for practical travelling clothes or work clothes or showing-off-going-out clothes.
After which, Feriosa sat in one of the chairs with her legs crossed and her table-thing drawn close with the top open, working deftly on mending our abused clothing; the rest of us joined her, and Serru managed to turn the conversation to family news, what was going on recently with siblings and parents and cousins and these two personally that she’d missed. Feriosa and Arjon’s two dogs, a pair of the little beagle-types common in the Forest, flopped on a thick rug on the floor but kept a respectful distance from Myu.
She gave me back my dragon clothes looking like they’d never been damaged at all, and my rainbow sarong likewise; she was still working on my blue-and-ivory jacket when we called it a night.
“I’m sorry about putting you on the spot with clothes and all,” Serru murmured, as we snuggled under a bnket on the folded-out couch. Myu chose to sprawl across one of the chairs. “I didn’t expect quite how upset Feriosa would be.”
“Hey, I can actually be presentable in dragon-form again, once I change and get dressed, and there are future new clothes that will fit, and whatever we get in the morning from the shop. And I got a great hug. It’s all right. Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry you running around with me has been so hard on your family.”
“They always worry about me. More so in... in the past few years, but that started before I met you. I suppose I’ve gotten too good at not thinking about it. I can’t stay still, they know that. I’ve tried. But it will be much safer now. I hope they can worry less.”
