[PRP] Expect More, Pay Less [Hemera/Sascha]

[Gl!tch~]

But what to expect is the question

 

[Gl!tch~]

If she were to be honest, Hemera would admit that this was not her first choice when it came to clothes shopping. One should never trust department stores when there were places just as large devoted to what was a small portion of this overly-lit warehouse. Smelling popcorn while passing cards, beauty products, and DVDs was just bizarre. It was also not unusual to hear a child start to wail at their lusus.

Frankly, she could do better. But she had a coupon, on top of a storewide sale. Even if it was tacky merchandise sale, the tealblood could surely find something. If one couldn't even find a nice dress for a Four Fronds outing, then how would Bullseye Bargains dare to invoke being on-point?

With that in mind, she shifted through the racks. Perhaps she should have brough Elidae along, for her cheer despite the surroundings. Actually, no. The poor thing might actually like some of these selections and not understand the taste issues. For instance, who thought sequins was ever okay in an every-night top?!

seekingCylem

I just realized they are both crossing their arms. Clearly they have to be friends now

 

[seekingCylem]

Sascha's core value was perhaps "reliability." He liked it. Prioritized it in his own life, and expected it from others. That was why he liked shopping at all-purpose department stores. He could reliably expect their clothes to shred to nothing within three weeks, but he could also reliably buy a replacement any time of the night for less than five beetles.

Currently Sascha was looking for a jacket. The desert was by no means as hot at night as it was during the day, but it still never got chilly enough for Sascha to have bothered investing in a proper coat. Hell, he'd only recently stopped growing long enough to warrant replacing his old one. If he was going to be making more regular trips outside of Chittentown, Sascha wasn't about to be that tourist that constantly bitched about how cold it was.

Sascha pulled a jacket off of a rack and tried not to grimace as the fabric refused to wrinkle under his grip. This transcended faux leather. It would have been generous to call it faux pleather.

Still... As long as it was warm......

Gl!tch~

ikr i just noticed that

 

[Gl!tch~]

"Tee shirt dresses? Might as well just call them sacks with holes," she muttered. She could understand the concept of trying to look nice on a budget, but at the same time she wondered if the manufacturers weren't just ripping trolls off. These looked like something a troll wore to go into a recuperacoon, not where others might see them.

Hemera tsk'd. She moved on to the lacier variety, if only in the hopes of saving herself a headache. Again, more daygowns than anything chic, but there were one or two prospects. Get a little bit of a dye job and they could be acceptable. Some accessorizing could help avoid pinning them on cheapville, too. The tealblood took her finds over an arm and started searching the nearby jacket selection. Even that might be difficult. The safest a store could play was selling their products in white, gray, and black, but even so some of the items would be too garish no matter what. Who thought it was okay to make a cable knit sweater look like a biker jacket, for instance?

She sighed and looked over. Another troll around her age was also dealing with the fashion plight, though his face seemed unreadable. She could appreciate the jumpsuit, and wasn't about to make any commentary about the bandages, but she wasn't sure about what he was looking at.

"A leather jacket might work for you, but you'll probably need something a few shades darker if you want it to stand out. Maybe with piping like your gloves or nails? Which look nice by the way." she paused, catching herself giving unsolicited advice in the midst of flipping through the tops on her side.

"Sorry," Hemera added after a moment. "You didn't ask for those comments. I think I needed a mental break from trying to make any of this work." She gestured to what was effectively the store's entire clothing department.

seekingCylem

Opinions are here

 

[seekingCylem]

Sascha had been investigating the odd squeaking sound the pleather made when rubbed against itself when he heard an unfamiliar voice over his shoulder. He looked up to see a tealblooded woman looking up and down the merchandise. Er... The jacket. Sascha was visibly surprised by her appearance, but unbothered. It had been a damn long time since anyone had a nice thing to say about the way he looked, and even then it was "Could have been worse."

"Nah. Thanks," Sascha said, accepting the compliment and dismissing Hemera's claim of intrusion. He dropped the jacket's hanger back on the rack. "Hemotyped accents are nice and all, but if I had enough beetles for a tailoring budget, I wouldn't be shopping here." While Sascha certainly wasn't broke by any stretch, he didn't want to develop any problems while on leave from his work at the Technology Center. Sascha was intent on clinging to his rare display of financial self-restraint for as long as possible. He had to at least be able to say he'd tried before ending up on a diet of dry noodle packages.

"What's someone with standards doing shopping in a place like this?" Sascha asked conversationally. He was covertly snooping on the bundle of garments in Hemera's arms in case she'd managed to find something actually good in this store.

Gl!tch~

the saddest part is how much i actually love shopping at target

 

[Gl!tch~]

"I understand, though accents are just a quick dye job. In the proper hands one could even do it at home, but that isn't here or there, is it?" Maybe the necessary supplies would be too costly. Either way, she decided to drop the subject lest she looked too assumptive. It was slightly difficult, when there was much she could say on the matter.

"Unfortunately standards and beetles don't always come together happily." Hemera admitted. "Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and plunge when you're given a sale and coupons in one go." She sighed. What a sell-out. "I had the foolish notion that there might be some basic items here that I could get without putting my checkbook in dire straits. But now I'm starting to wonder if it's childish, like if you hope really hard it will come true. Ha! Positive thinking, I suppose. But one would think there must be something here worthwhile, or else how would they still be in business?"

She paused.

"Though I did see some extremely gaudy things. If those manage to sell, I might lose my faith in trollhood as a whole," she added with a friendly grimace.

seekingCylem

Oh same; too bad Mera is a spoiled child

 

[seekingCylem]

Sascha watched Hemera with a deadpan expression. This was hardly the venue or the audience for such floral dialog.

"Gaudy is good. Gaudy at 'finer' establishments gets called haute couture and charges trolls an arm and a leg. At least here I don't gotta feel bad if I end up tearing the sleeves off with my amazing biceps."

It was a joke Sascha managed to say with a completely straight face. If he didn't look like he was held together with tape and paperclips, he might have been almost serious.

"I take it you don't do much slumming down here with the lowblood budgets," Sascha added dryly. "Wouldn't a tealblood be shopping at least at a 'Rustic Blue Denim Emporium'?"

Gl!tch~

 

[Gl!tch~]

"If someone is paying so much to wear a tank top that wishes to be a disco ball, they're an idiot." Mera stated, unyielding about that much. "But," she added with a breath, "you do have a point." There was a lot of glitter and glam in the fashion circles, but Hemera had been thinking day-to-day practical. Ten-inch platform boots weren't going to tackle Busthind, but it seemed she had to get her thinkpan out of assuming everyone was on that same wavelength.

More importantly, this other troll seemed somewhat into that...questionable...aesthetic. A disarming thought. More than that, Mera was taken-aback by his deadpan joke. She blinked. Even smiled a little, despite the biting comment that came right after it. This yellowblood was rough around the edges, but there was something there. Enough to keep her from letting her feathers from getting too ruffled.

She let out a little snort. "Please. I'm the pretentious tealblood, not some hipster. There's a fine line you seem to be missing here. And honestly," Hemera looked around, "I don't find department stores, as a concept, embarrassing. That wouldn't be fair. I just feel like this one could bear to respect the clientele a little more. But maybe I'm approaching it from the wrong angle. Any problem can turn into a challenge if one tries hard enough." Now she was just quoting television, probably for her own sake. "For instance."

She pointed at the pleather jacket again. "Good enough start, could still use the basic dye job. Alternatively, if they have a basic two-tone variety of gray and some generic red it would go with your nails. They have got to have that much here, wouldn't you think? If not, there has to be something that can make the color pop out more."

seekingCylem

 

[seekingCylem]

Hemera hadn't been put off by Sascha's snide remarks. She'd managed to pass the test Sascha subconsciously subjected new acquaintances to that was having an obnoxious personality. As such, Sascha allowed his stern neutral expression to slacken somewhat. He nodded in approval. "Big businesses respecting lowblood patrons. Revolutionary concept. I like it!" Once again Sascha was being snarky, but he allowed his genuine appreciation for the sentiment to break through in his lighthearted tone.

His interest only piqued further at the mention of a challenge. Sascha watched Hemera break down her hypothetical plan of attack with the patient intensity of someone learning a new sport.

"I think I'm following," Sascha muttered, "You're talking like 'quality over quantity' type thinking with the colors, right? Right amount of black makes the symbol pop without having to rely on a lot of hemotyping in the rest of the outfit." Sascha began to handle the jacket once more with renewed interest. The material was still garbage, though.

Gl!tch~

 

[Gl!tch~]

"It's only revolutionary if you let yourself believe it's difficult. They're not selling potato sacks yet, so I would like to believe there might be hope in this world of competitive business." She could dream of a night when enough disinterest in the garbage would set a standard.

Ahhh, but colors. A much more pleasant thing to discuss. "Yes! That's exactly it. Hemotyping almost always works, in moderation, but branching out with other colors is bold. Tougher to make work, but with a tight, smart palette, can really pull a look together. Gray, yellow, red. Primary, secondary, tertiary." She was quoting color theory, very basic, but explanations were in order. "And, I suppose, white," she added, acknowledging the bandages before looking through the rack. "But as long as there's less than say, five colors, it's fine. Some trolls are happy looking like they are the entire hemospectrum, but that's very messy and extremely difficult to pull off. However. The efforts to keep it simple." She pulled something out. "Like so."

Gray jacket, red accents. Off-hue and tacky for most redbloods, but someone of another blood color entirely? There was some hope for it. Fortune was in her favor for once; even if it went nowhere she at least was having a good time talking about practical fashion.

seekingCylem

 

[seekingCylem]

Sascha rolled his eyes at Hemera's comment on the state of casteism in the fashion industry, but at least had the good sense not to say anything snide about it. The bar was set low enough to trip him.

The two could agree that dress-up was a much preferable topic of discussion. Hemera had gone into full lecture mode. Despite Sascha not having known her for more than several minutes, he knew with absolute certainty that she was in her element. She was practically basking in it. Sascha was perfectly willing to let her keep talking as it was ultimately all to his benefit.

He caught Hemera's comment on his dressings with a bland, but knowing brow raise. Guilty as charged. He leaned over her shoulder to watch her sift through the racks.

Sascha took the ends of the jacket to hold it out under the fluorescent lights. "Not bad, not bad," he acquiesced. The material, while nothing elegant, was at least durable and inoffensive in texture. He pulled the jacket away from Hemera entirely and wasted no time trying it on. His limbs moved stiffly and his spine wouldn't allow for easy maneuvering into the sleeves, but he managed to shrug the garment over his shoulders. Sascha was pleasantly surprised to find the sleeves were even the correct length.

"Yeah, this'd work--practically speaking. You're the fashionista, though. Think I'll get heckled for wearing this? Sascha's tone was joking. He got heckled on the regular already.

Gl!tch~

 

[Gl!tch~]

First he took the item. Good. Perhaps not automatically expected- she certainly had no control over what someone did. So despite her knowing satisfaction, confirmation that yes, of course she was right, it was also nice to know that Sascha was agreeing with her enough to play along. All that work for something, and such and such.

Watching him put it on, Hemera felt a new feeling. A new role. Appraisal. Not something she got to do much, if ever. No one looked to her for fashion advice, and she didn't usually spend her time going after folks to save them from fashion disasters. That wasn't her lot in life. Sadly. So, she felt a pang of guilt at thinking to herself that she finally got to feel a little like troll Tim Gunn. She had to be careful with that. One hard slip into temptation, and she could become another Awassi. To sum it up: yikes.

Still, with a trained eye, she watched the subtle change in looks. And, for the first time, let herself acknowledge what Sascha's bandages might be hiding. She noted the difficulties. The awkwardness. However, it might hurt his pride to offer help. So she let him be, and the struggle lasted only a moment anyway.

And the results were...

Well, first there was Sascha's own comments. Sarcasm, a form of humor, probably a positive sign. Mera let herself smile a tad.

"I would hope they would look at you and immediately think it unwise. I would, anyway. Now let me see..." The tealblood took a step back. She rose a hand to her face and curled her forefinger under her lower lip. "The red is pretty close... Only someone really looking would care about the slight difference... The shoulders are good, the sleeves are actually more on-point than I expected... Yes, I believe we have worked a clearance miracle." And it was very, very hard to look anything less than thrilled.

"Actually it kind of reminds me of Troll Hugh Jackman, in a way. When he played that grizzled guy with a cigar? A very good look, I think."

seekingCylem

*Comes up gasping for air*

 

[seekingCylem]

Sascha didn't immediately appear to be paying attention to Hemera past his initial question. He drifted over to the nearest mirror a couple racks away. It wasn't tall enough to catch Sascha's reflection above the shoulders, but he made it work. He slumped at the knees and flared the collar on the jacket. Yeah, this could work. Sascha wasn't about to get let into any highblood clubs, but he wasn't about to get mistaken for a construction drone, either.

He let himself grin sharply at Hemera's commentary. "Yeah... I can see it... Maybe not so much hair in my case, but give it a few perigees and maybe a couple ninja fights and we'll see where I'm at." Sascha straightened and turned back to Hemera. He shoved his hands into the pockets. Yeah, that felt natural.

"So... y'think I can send this thing through the garment aspersion appliance? I don't got the beetles for real leather, much less dry cleaning."

Gl!tch~

 

[Gl!tch~]

"Ah." She assumed there was some hair, seeing some peek from the bandages. It must be sporadic, or something. "Well, ninja fights are always good for that, aren't they? You look like you can handle a few." Of course, cinematic ninja fights were ludicrous but Mera thought herself enough of a sport to play along. She was certainly in a good enough mood to banter like that.

When Sascha switched to a basic question, though, she couldn't help but comment, "I believe you can find that information on the tag." Her way of trying not to say anything about how the establishment likely lacked anything that was worth dry cleaner runs./color]

seekingCylem

 

[seekingCylem]

Sascha took one last look at the jacket--both in the mirror and down the length of his arms. With less struggle than it took to put the jacket on, he removed it and hooked the collar with one hand. He fiddled with the tags.

"Well based on what's printed on the label... This material is going to outlive you, me, and the queen's lusus. Also it's machine washable, thank gog." Sascha fiddled until he found the price tag. A grimace flashed across his face briefly before settling back into his standard smirk. Beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Well I got what I came here for," Sascha nodded succinctly. "If I wear this come dark season and get teased, I'll be sure to tell 'em it's your fault." He grinned. "But until then, thanks for the assist."

Gl!tch~