I'm glad my leg is fully healed, because it's quite a distance to the next shop. Deeper into the central district, it's not all that large on the outside, but the way it's painted brightly, with flowers in the open windows and a big, colorful sign with the name painted in a swirly style I have some trouble reading, it really stands apart from the surrounding businesses and houses on the street.

'Lola Fashion and Garments,' it reads, and I'm again reminded of the places Reena told me Kathy visits regularly. We head in through the big, blue door with a whole bunches of lighter blue swirls painted over its surface, into the shop.

It's light inside thanks to the windows all around, and I'm immediately reminded of the low class clothing store I went to before, but way better in every way. There are some tables with small piles of colorful clothes, and more of the wooden people shaped displays of fancier things, with all sorts of colors and amazing patterns on them.

It's nowhere near as crowded as the lower class place, with plenty of open floor space to walk around and look at the clothes, even though the shop isn't all that big. There are already a handful of people browsing as we approach the counter.

"Good afternoon, Kathy, Irene," a young man behind the counter greets them respectfully. "I'm sorry, but Mina is out right now."

"That's fine, Evan," Kathy dismisses his concern. "We're here with a pretty difficult order today."

"Oh?" He perks up, his blond hair swishing a little around his ears as he looks back and forth between the two women.

"Yes," Irene follows. "We're short on time, and this little one is very small for her age, so we were hoping you had something in stock that could be resized for her." Even as she speaks and gestures down at me behind them, the man's eyes widen as he sees me.

"How old is she?"

"Seven."

Evan lets out a long breath, but quickly recovers, and I can see his face become a little more serious as he gets to business. "Seven, huh? How tall? Could we measure her?"

"Of course," Irene agrees.

"Uhh, I'm one hundred six centimeters tall," I offer as the man starts looking around behind the counter. When I get questioning looks from the three adults, I explain that Beth measured me last Shanaday.

"Oh, good to know," Evan nods a few times, but still draws a measuring tape from behind the counter anyway. "Let's just double check, then get your other measurements, alright?" He waves for me to follow him into a room in the back, and I look between Kathy and Irene when they don't move to follow. I guess it's just me going with him?

I follow Evan through a door into a small back room. There are no windows, so all of the light comes from candles mounted on the walls. Even so, there are a surprising number of them, so it's pretty bright in the room. He closes the door behind me, then picks up a thin sheet of wood and a pen from a tiny little table next to the door.

"Name?" he asks as he's dipping the pen into the ink.

"Aria."

"Mm, Aria. That's a pretty name," he smiles kindly as he writes, and I can't help but smile back. This man is nice. I look him over as he finishes writing and sets down the wood. He's actually pretty young, maybe fifteen or sixteen, barely an adult. "Ok Aria, let's get you measured. Do you need help getting out of your dress?"

"No, I can do it," I answer. Even if Irene always dresses me at Eryk's house, it's not like I need her to. Still, it's so much better fitted than my peasant clothing that it does take some work to get out of. Evan lays it out neatly on a table so it won't get messed up, then measures me, just like Selena did before, noting down each one as he goes.

Even while working, he keeps up a conversation. "Those are a lot of bandages, did you hurt your hand?" he asks. They barely cover half my arm, nowhere near how many I had on until recently, but he doesn't know that...

"I burned myself." I try to stay still so he can keep working while I answer.

"Ooh, have to be more careful," he says. Not in a scolding way, but like some advice instead. I can't say much to that, so I nod slightly.

Soon enough, he has all the measurements he needs, so he grabs my dress and hands it back to me while looking over the little sheet of wood in his hands.

"Irene wasn't kidding, you're tiny." I feel like he's talking to himself more than me. And I really don't want to talk about this. Once I'm dressed again, we return to the front. "Alright, I got her measurements," he addresses the two women. "You're right. This is going to be difficult. What we have for children her age are about double her size. I'm assuming this is for the party on Independence Day?"

Reaching up to ruffle a hand through his blond hair, he says, "You really should have come sooner so we could make her something to order..."

"I know," Irene sighs. "Tell that to Master Eryk."

Despite the difficulty, Evan searches through whole stacks of paper he pulls from behind the counter. Inventories of their clothing, I realize, after watching him briefly. He copies a few notes onto another thin bit of wood, eventually straightening up when he finishes.

"Alright, ladies. Here are the options that might work. He turns the wood so we can see. I can't really read what he has written because his handwriting is weird and he only shows us briefly, but there are only four things written down. "Let me go find them for you."

We stand for a while at the counter, as Evan goes off into the back of the shop to search for the couple things that might work, and it's not long before I wander away from the two adults. I still try to avoid the other people in the shop, even though I know I'm dressed well enough to be here. They still make me kind of nervous anyway.

Walking carefully between a couple tables, I look over some of the clothes. They're so well made, all the seams so perfectly straight, none of the fabric patched or falling apart. In fact, when I look at one of the display dresses closely, I see that the hanging sleeve doesn't have a single bit of it frayed at all.

How is that even possible? I'm afraid to touch it, but I can't help myself leaning in really close. It looks like... they folded the fabric over at the edge? It's kind of like how I've run some patches over the frayed edges of my clothes, but because it's the whole edge folded over, it doesn't cause it to pull or fray anywhere else...

When I look down at the sleeve of my own dress, I see that it's the same. I never checked these clothes so closely before, but now I see how it was done...

Nodding to myself, I decide that I'm going to try something like that later. There are a number of other tricks I pick up on as I look at the high class clothing all around me. Ways I can modify my own clothes so they fall apart a little less...

I'm still lost in my observations, when Irene calls, "Aria," and I see that Evan has returned from the back of the shop. So, I walk back up to the counter to join them.

Evan starts laying out the four dresses on the counter for us to look over. They're red, blue, green, and yellow. They each look mostly the same to me, but I think the yellow one is the prettiest color. The adults have an entire discussion about the sizing of the shoulders and sleeves though, and how it might be possible to bring in different parts of the dress to make them work.

I try to listen, but I'm pretty lost with a lot of it. I still manage to pick up on a few ideas to keep in mind of later though.

"Alright, the yellow one it is," Irene finally decides, and I smile. I'm glad that's the one they chose, it's my favorite.

"Good, I'm glad we had something," Evan sighs. "That will be five azriums, five irons."

I hardly notice Irene digging through her coin purse. I'm too stunned, mouth falling open at that price. Fifty five thousand barr? Even selling large animal parts, that would take weeks for me to afford! It's almost half a year worth of my pay at the refinery!

"That's a quite a bit more than Eryk expected to spend," Irene's words cut through my shock. "Hopefully this will teach him not to delay these things until the last moment."

"Why is it so expensive?" I can't help myself, the question just comes out.

When Irene looks down at me, I can see her trying to hide the tightness in her expression. She knows how much money that is to me. "The cloth used is a higher quality weave than most. Normally, we would have had gotten you a dress made of the same quality as the one you're wearing now. That would be a fraction of the price."

"Oh..."

"It's fine, Aria. This is just my brother paying for his own mistake. It's no concern of yours." Kathy gives me a hesitant pat, as she tries to comfort me. I try to tell myself she's right. Eryk should have done this sooner. But... he's still paying for me.

No, he's paying to dress me for a party where he wants to use me to show that things are fine at his company.

Wait, but that's only because me being there is causing bad rumors about him.

So... is all of this my fault after all...? I don't know what to think...

No no no, it's fine. I'm only there because he hired me, even though he shouldn't have. And my work with him is going to make him tons of money. He's willing to pay for all of this stuff for me because having me work for him is exploitative. And like he said, he does care about me too.

Yes, this is fine, everything is going to even out in the end.

...I think.

After my long hesitation, I slowly nod up at Kathy and Irene. Irene finishes paying, and Evan folds up the dress for us. After a round of thanks and goodbyes, we leave the shop with our purchase.

We head straight back to the tailor shop. "If I'd known we were getting something this expensive, I would have had Kristene come along," Irene says, failing to hide the hint of nerves in her tone.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine," I tell her. Nothing bad will happen to them while I'm here. She looks doubtful, while Kathy tries to hide her stiff expression by looking away.

As we walk, Irene keeps my dress folded over her arms, so it doesn't really look like much and doesn't give any indication of how ridiculously valuable it is. At their fast pace, it doesn't take too long to get back to Holly Tailoring. When we walk through the front door, a little tension goes out of Irene's shoulders. It's starting to get kind of late, already after the ninth bell, and I'm glad I don't have a strict curfew anymore.

"Ah, good to see you back!" Chlea calls when we enter the shop. "Looks like you found something! Let's see it!"

"Here you go," Irene lets out a small chuckle as she hands over the dress for Chlea to turn around in her hands.

"Oh my, you really paid out for this, didn't you?"

"Eryk did," Irene replies simply, but she has this small grin anyway.

"Serves him right," Chlea scoffs. Then she addresses me, her voice soft and kind again. "This dress looks wonderful, let's get you into it. Come." She immediately brings the three of us through a door on one side of the shop, into a room similar to what they had at the other store. No windows, but lots of candles for light. There's more furniture here, with some tables and chairs as well as a few wooden boxes of varying sizes, and tall wooden thing standing in the corner.

On the left wall from where we entered, Chlea knocks on another door, and we wait briefly before a woman comes out. "A new customer?" she asks, before glancing past Chlea. "Oh, Kathy. Irene is with you today?"

"Not exactly. I'm just tagging along a little." She waves down at me, halfway hidden behind their legs. When she shifts aside slightly, I can get a better look at the woman.

"Mm?" She's pretty tall, with dark brown hair tied loosely behind her, and kind of droopy, tired looking eyes that make her seem mellow. She has a questioning look on her face as our eyes meet. "Who is this?"

"Aria," Irene answers for me. "Eryk told me to get her a dress for the party."

"Ahh, I see." Chlea passes her the yellow dress, and she begins looking it over even as she continues to speak, her slow, unhurried words giving a calm feel. "Well, it's always nice to meet new customers. I'm Jannette, I'll be working with you today."

Jannette? I cringe a little thinking about the other Jannette I know, but this somewhat older woman is about the furthest thing I can think of compared to the other Jannette...

"Is something wrong?" she asks.

"A-ah, no. Just thinking about something."

"Alright," she lets it go and moves on, eyes turning back to Irene. "This dress is clearly very large for a child her size, and the wrong style for her age."

Irene just gives a short wave and explains again that I'm seven, and how we're going through all of this because of Eryk. After the women finish shaking their heads at him, Jannette comes over and gives me a gentle pat. "It's fine, little one. Let's get you dressed. Irene?"

At Jannette's prompting, Irene nods, takes the dress, and leads me over to the tall wooden thing in the corner. When she steps around it, I finally realize it's a little separating wall. Oh, so this is like a changing room, isn't it? I turn around, and let Irene undress and redress me, as quick and efficient as she always is. Only this time, the yellow dress she puts me in is enormous, to the point it almost falls off my shoulders.

The bottom drags on the floor too, so I carefully lift it up when we return to the others. Chlea whistles when she looks at me, and Jannette frowns a tiny little frown. "This is going to be a bit of a challenge." Then she gets to work, walking around the room to gather various supplies. I see needles, thread, measuring tape, and numerous other little tools I'm completely unfamiliar with.

"Here are her new measurements," Irene suddenly volunteers, pulling a thin wood sheet from inside her dress. I guess she got it from Evan earlier. She passes it off for Jannette to look over briefly, before she continues moving about the room, getting stuff ready.

While she does that, Chlea returns to the front of the shop, and Kathy and Irene take seats in a few chairs against the wall.

Then Jannette stands me up on a series of bigger and bigger wooden boxes, until I'm on one taller than I am, and she finally nods and says that's a good height.

"Alright Aria, just hold still," Jannette instructs, so I do. I can feel her poking and prodding at the dress as she circles around me, a little at a time, and I soon realize that this is going to take a lot of time. So I steady my breathing, close my eyes, and let my entire body relax and go still.

It's not hard since I used to have to stand around so much as a rail unit. But now, it almost feels like meditating. Actually... As I continue to stand and let my mind rest, I do reach the same meditative state as usual. I've never done it standing up before...

Just standing like that, time flows past as Jannette works quietly.

Eventually, Kathy excuses herself, saying she should head home, then it's just the three of us. There are a few snippets of conversation between the two women about the upcoming party, and Jannette comments on how well behaved I am a couple times, but otherwise, there's comfortable silence. Just light breathing, the movement of Jannette's feet, and the shuffling of cloth.