Shadow started to follow, but paused, realizing something. She went back and grabbed her tablets, taking a second to work them into her pouch. She caught up to the group as they waited at the door to the inn.

She pointed at the tablets sticking out of her pouch in answer to their questioning looks.

She was excited. She didn’t have to pretend anymore! She could just pull out her tablets and write stuff whenever she had a question!

“Ah.” Annie answered, giving her an understanding nod. The rest of the group seemed to get it as well, and they headed outside.

Her good mood was unfortunately tempered by the… hostile atmosphere of the village. As they were walking, quite a few people were giving them very… unfriendly looks.

Shadow pressed up a little closer to the group, feeling kind of nervous about all the frosty glares.

Annie was busy explaining tailors to her as they walked. She was talking about how they make and modify clothes to fit different people, but it was clear she was stressed, too, the tension in her voice clear. Shadow was trying to listen but was having trouble. The talk was really interesting, but the villagers were very distracting. She couldn't relax with everyone shooting daggers at them.

Or really, shooting daggers at Annie.

As they made their way to the tailor, she noticed that most people were mainly glaring at her mom-to-be.

When they glanced at Kirrik they tended to just look confused, and whenever their gazes fell on her they mostly seemed to be… sad? Upset? There were a lot of pained looks and head shakes before they went back to shooting dirty looks at Annie. Not universally, Shadow was still getting some dirty looks herself, but the majority was definitely Annie-focused.

She was both confused and concerned. She realized Annie had said the villagers didn’t like her much anymore, but this seemed a little extreme. Maybe it was because of what Kirrik said? Annie insinuating things about them?

She could hear them muttering and whispering to each other. Her companions probably couldn’t make out what they were saying, but her hearing was good enough to pick out some snippets.

Phrases such as: “That poor child…”, “How could they treat ‘er like that?” and “She’s terrible, makin’ tha’ little beastkin walk around without clothes. That can’t be legal.”

She also heard things from parts of the crowd that seemed a little more neutral, or just hostile towards both of them, like: “It really does look just like a shadeling,” and “I’m really not sure I buy it… but…”

It… seemed like most people did, in fact, think she was a beastkin now, but Annie’s treatment of her was considered bad now that they thought that? They obviously hadn’t thought it was bad when she was a dog.

Her eyes widened as she figured something out. She hadn’t truly understood why Annie thought she’d been such a bad mother when talking about making her pretend to be a dog. She thought she might understand now. There was a difference in expected treatment. In what was acceptable. That’s why people all had clothes on all the time, but animals didn’t. It wasn’t just that people normally wore clothes, it was considered bad not to wear them. But that didn’t apply to animals because they weren’t people.

So, when she’d been a dog it had been fine but now, it was… demeaning. Not wearing clothes was like stating you weren’t a person.

She felt a flash of anger at Annie, but it quickly cooled. Annie had already essentially apologized, and they were literally on their way to fix the issue. It had also been necessary for the plan, even if the plan had actually been bad, or unnecessary? Annie had certainly thought it was necessary. She was wrong, but that probably didn't matter? Regardless, Annie had been doing what she thought was best for Shadow.

It was a little confusing to think about. She decided that she knew Annie loved her and had wanted to help, and that was good enough.

She did determine to ask Annie about how people thought of clothing later, to confirm, and see if there was anything else like that, that she should be aware of.

She could ask now but she’d rather get away from all the aggressive villagers, even if their anger was mostly not directed at her.

It only took them a couple minutes of walking before they made it to the tailor. No one actually confronted them, despite all the hostility.

Once they got inside, she let out a breath, feeling a little bit of the tension seep out of her. She felt half exhausted just from the short walk. She was not accustomed to sensing so much aggression with no actual bloodshed happening. She had been all tensed, like a fight was about the start, the whole trip.

Looking around the room helped her calm down, some of her excitement resurfacing to replace the tension. There was cloth everywhere. It was hanging on the walls as square patches, as well as laid out on tables. There were various shirts, trousers, dresses, and other garments on display as well. The fabrics matched what she saw most of the villagers wearing, a little bit rougher and coarser than what Annie and Jonas normally wore. There were tans and browns, as well as some blues, reds, and yellows. The fabrics seemed to be mostly limited to lighter shades.

She felt the excitement for real now. She would be getting clothes! They probably wouldn’t fit too well, given all the garments were clearly made with humans in mind, but she saw some shirts that were a lot closer to her size than Annie’s had been. They must be for human kids.

Interestingly, many of the garments looked like they were already worn. Some had holes and patches, and there were many frayed edges.

Shadow started to wander around looking at all the different garments as Annie approached the counter.

“Shadow! Over here. We’ll need you for this.” Annie said, waving her over before she got too far into her explorations.

She wandered back over as Annie started talking to the woman.

The woman behind the counter looked… less than friendly. Kind of like the crowd outside had. At least there was only one of her in here. She seemed to be dressed differently than most of the villagers, but Shadow supposed that made sense, given she owned a clothing store.

Shadow paused. Did she own the store? Maybe she just worked here. Maggie had said that about her Dad and the Sawmill.

I can ask!

She started to extract her tablets as Annie spoke.

“Hello, we were hoping to have some tailoring done on short notice. Shadow is in need of clothes that will fit her.” She explained, gesturing at Shadow.

“Of course. Wouldn’t want ta deny a child clothin’, now would I? I’ll just be a bit.” The woman said with a tight smile that didn't seem particularly happy, before turning her attention to Shadow.

“Right…” Annie answered, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

Shadow had just managed to get out the tablets when she noticed the eyes on her. The woman looked a lot more friendly than when she had been interacting with Annie.

“I’m Clarissa. It’s nice ta meet ya Shadow, dear.” The woman said kindly.

Shadow nodded and quickly wrote a response.

‘It’s nice to meet you too! Do you own this place?’

She took her tablet in her mouth and pointed at the question while presenting the tablets to the woman.

Clarissa looked surprised.

Shadow had a moment of worry about whether or not the woman would be able to read, but it seemed it wasn’t an issue.

“Oh, yes, I do. Can ya not speak? An’ where did ya learn ta write?”

She put the tablets back down and grinned, happy her theory was right, but quickly stopped when she noticed the woman backing up a bit. She started writing again.

‘Sorry, I was just smiling. I didn’t mean to be scary. I can’t talk. My voice can’t make the right sounds. Annie taught me to read and write.’ She finished the last sentence by pointing back at Annie, just in case Clarissa didn’t know her name.

The woman had been following along as she wrote, and gave Annie a confused glance when she got to the last part.

“Ya poor dear. Don’t ya worry, ya won’t look nearly so fierce once we get some clothes on ya. Do ya mind if I look ya over ta size ya?”

Shadow shook her head. She wasn’t quite sure what that meant exactly but figured it wouldn’t be anything bad.

Clarissa walked off and started to gather some shirts and pants. Shadow took the opportunity to start clearing the tablets with her tail again. They were basically full of all the writing she’d been doing.

“Oh, is that how you did it? I was wondering. That’s… probably better than the normal method, for you at least.” Annie said, crouching down beside her.

Oh! That reminded her!

‘Can you rub wax on me?’

Annie gave her a strange look.

“Umm… why, exactly?” she asked curiously.

Right. She hadn’t showed her.

Shadow rolled her tail over and showed Annie the shiny spot, grinning with excitement.

“Ah. I see, very pretty. I’ll pick up a jar of beeswax before we leave.” She said, understanding in her eyes as she gave Shadow a warm smile.

Yes!

She spun in a circle and then gave Annie a nuzzle, before walking back over toward Clarissa. The woman was returning with a pile of clothes.

What followed was a few minutes of Clarissa holding up various articles of clothing to her in various places. She had Shadow do different things, such as stand on her hind legs or hold out her tail straight.

Shadow noticed she was frowning for a while when she considered Shadow’s lower back, by her tail.

Shadow tried to imagine it from Clarissa's point of view, trying to make some human clothes fit her very not human form. She had a tail, and some of the scales on her lower back got very spikey. Human pants didn’t really account for all that. She could see why it might be an issue.

Clarissa eventually came to some sort of conclusion. She took out some leather straps and started wrapping them around Shadow at different points, like her waist, top of the legs, and base of her tail. Clarissa also laid them along her back and legs at different spots, nodding to herself.

'What's that for?' Shadow wrote, pointing at the strap, tilting her head in inquiry.

"Oh, these are jus' ta help me figure exactly how I need ta cut tha clothes. Help me make tha holes tha right sizes an whatnot."

Interesting.

She wasn't sure she completely understood but Clarissa seemed to think the explanation was complete.

It didn’t take long before she finished and laid out a few similarly sized shirts and surprisingly large pants in front of Shadow.

“I thought about dresses, but I fear yer spines back there would tear ‘em up. Better ta have somethin’ closer fittin’ with a hole cut in.” Clarissa stated, nodding to herself.

“Well? Pick yer favorite pair and I’ll get ta work alterin’ em.” She said, motioning to Shadow.

I get to pick?

Shadow eagerly started walking around the garments, looking them over. She noticed all the clothes laid out were the new looking ones. None of these had patches or frayed stitching.

Color-wise, the shirts were blue, red, and yellow, and there were two pairs of brown pants and one light red pair.

She was just starting to try and work out which color she liked more when Annie piped up.

“How about you just adjust all three outfits. Some different outfits would be good. And please alter 4 sets of underpants as well.”

Clarissa gave Annie a strange look, like she was trying to figure something out, but was having trouble.

“…Sure. I can do that,” she said with some hesitance.

She gathered up the clothes before grabbing some strange, uncolored, smaller pants (underpants?), and heading into a back room.

Shadow grabbed her tablets and set off in pursuit.

“Ah, ya want ta watch me work?” Clarissa asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

Shadow nodded, practically bouncing, looking at her enthusiastically.

She was really curious to see how Clarissa was going to make them fit her.

Clarissa gave one more questioning glance at Annie before answering.

“Well, why not? It’ll be nice ta have some company while I work.” She said to Shadow with a friendly smile.

She stepped into the room and Shadow followed right on her heels.