1.6, the afternoon before the dinner
Ochrefeldt Tailoring
Sav stared blankly at the invite that had been shoved into her hands. Glancing up, she saw a similar one on Gwin’s desk, unheeded for the moment, with Gwin in the middle of a delicate balancing operation of multiple wires leading into the pulsometrichyon.
Thick, creamy paper. Embossed with delicate gold leaf detailing. Her mother-given first name. Dress code: formal. Some restaurant she’d never heard of, in a quarter she’d never openly entered because she’d have been distantly side-eyed and sneered at.
All of this screamed environments far, far out of the spheres of her own knowledge.
Sav knew she was intelligent. She also knew that greater intelligence lay in admitting when one did not, in fact, know anything about a particular subject, and instead yielding to greater expertise.
Karal was surprised to see their little friend (taller than him, but who was measuring) burst into the shop. While Sav (no last name, as far as he’d ever been able to uncover) had no set days they’d come by, they almost never came by earlier than 21 on the clock, and it was barely 13. The only other time he could think of had been when there had been that collapse on the ridge above from a particularly heavy snowfall, and they’d come by to ensure he and his shop had fared fine. (None the worse for a little debris, fortunately. The gesture had earned them some extra brownies the next time they dropped in.)
He didn’t attend to them immediately, of course—the client in front of him deserved his full attention, as every client did. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lilyeva ushering them downstairs to the workshop and approved. Lilyeva was as gossipy as she was conscientious, she would have the story out of Sav and take care of them if it was something especially urgent.
As the appointment wound its way to a close, he ushered Master Stonefounder out of the shop and finally made his way downstairs. His brows rose on seeing Sav pacing back and forth across the workshop floor, their usually-untidy hair looking even worse than normal (part of him always wondered why wouldn’t she just get a sensible haircut? Another part of him rather enjoyed the unusual silhouette it gave her head), as well as Lilyeva suppressing a smile as she sorted through the racks of samples he kept down here.
“Sav, my dear, thrilled as ever to see you, but why are you here in the middle of shop hours?” Karal asked. He checked his watch, unnecessarily; he knew exactly what time it was. “There’s simply no opportunity for you to be touching up anything at this time, not with my appointments giving me hardly any time to breathe in between.”
Turning toward him, the engineer thrust a letter at him without a word. Karal, accustomed to luxury with his clientele (even if he couldn’t afford much of it himself, not that he would ever admit such a thing out loud), automatically noted the quality of the mark and make. His brows, already up, rose even higher on sighting the name of the restaurant. The names of the invitee and the host were both unfamiliar to him, but clearly whoever was hosting this had money to spend—or at the very least wished to appear so. It did seem awfully close in time for the usual social etiquette of the haute classes, though.
Wait. Sav had rushed here in some distress, outside of their usual hours, bearing a letter that they’d offered as an explanation for why they were here. Karal looked at the name on the outside and looked back at Sav. One brow stayed up, the other went down. “…Sophronia?”
It might have been the first time he’d seen her blush, in nigh on a year of acquaintance. “Wasnae my idea,” she said, a little defensively. “Ye can see how it doesnae exactly… suit.” She looked as if she was about to say something else, then seemed to change her mind and said, “So can ye help me or nah? I know that I’ve got all that stuff ye’ve gien me, but I’ve nae the faintest clue what’s most fit for this kind o hing.”
He was tempted to heckle her some more, not to mention ask more questions—just how did she cadge an invite to this restaurant? Who was this Thorne? He did not, generally, make it his business to pry, as most of the time his clients were all too happy to open their mouths and let everything fall out, but he was only just now realizing how little he knew about the human. The unexpectedly beseeching expression on her normally-shuttered face—as well as the very real time pressure of another appointment in fifteen minutes—made him relent. He sighed loudly and moved toward the racks Lilyeva was sorting through, pushing her aside. “At least you knew when you were horrifically out of your depth and came to the right person. We’ve hardly any time at all—really, who issues an invitation with mere hours to spare? I assume you came to me straightaway, if you had any sense—especially with Mestren Arandiel scheduled in fifteen minutes—”
“The Mestren often arrives twenty minutes late, though,” Lilyeva reminded him.
“That’s no reason for me to be unprepared to receive them,” Karal snapped, briskly pulling out several items. “Lilyeva darling, where is that cape from two months ago, the one that—? Oh, you already pulled it, wonderful. Now, that restaurant, if I recall correctly, has a cool tone to its decor, so—ah, of course, your request was so sudden it has clean thrown me off my tracks—what is your goal at this repast? Do you wish to simply blend in and bring no shame upon yourself (or me, if I’m to dress you, I might add)? Are you seeking to stand out and draw all eyes to you? Are you going for theatrical and fanciful, with the advent of the Trickster Comet tonight?”
The fading blush on Sav’s face (no, Sophronia from here on out, he decided, so much less of a street rat name) returned full-force, and their gaze dropped. “Uh—” Never particularly voluble to his memory, they seemed even more reticent than usual. “…I wantae look… amazin’. An’ draw looks?” Their voice was so small he nearly missed the words.
He regarded this sequence of events with some interest, and glanced over at Lilyeva. She grinned and nodded faintly. Hm!
“Well. I am mildly familiar with this restaurant, fortunately for you, and know that they invest heavily in rich colors and ornate patterns in all their fabrics. So in order to stand out—no, not this—not this either—” He rapidly sorted and discarded the sapphire-blue dress, the vibrantly red suit, lingered regretfully for a moment over the pale green silk bodice with ornate embroidery all down one side.
He did have to fight Sophronia over the shirt he intended to put on them (“Are ye aff yer heid? I’m no aimin tae have ma chebs fallin outae my tap!” “My dear, be realistic, you don’t have enough to fall out of a teacup. Part of the entire look is to have that slash of dark skin cutting down into the expanse of—” “I’m no a knife. Gies me a proper shirt or I’ll wear somethin awful ye’ll hate.” “Ugh, you plebeian.”) and reluctantly added a white raw silk shirt beneath the caped shirt cut lower than she wanted, not nearly as low as he wanted—a perfect compromise that left neither completely happy. After that, the other pieces were comparatively easy to settle upon.
It took longer than it should have, with Karal having to attend to his appointments in between heading downstairs to check on the progress, but Lilyeva was only too happy to take a break from the finicky feather-patterns of Lady Loughton’s 60th gala gown to help out. Neither of them were adepts at makeup or hair, but between them they pulled something together, despite Sophronia’s increasingly wild-eyed demeanor.
sav_formalwear02.jpg
by Priscilla Kim
Some hours later, Karal regarded the finished look and sniffed disapprovingly. “Well,” he said thinly. “At least it isn’t a proper gala you’re attending.” Secretly, he was rather pleased with what they had managed to accomplish, under-resourced and pressed for time as they had been. He fussed with the fall of the crisp white folds of the shirt, an oversized drape with billowing sleeves that arced in a crescent behind Sophronia’s back; when her arms extended straight out to the sides, the drape formed an airy half-moon from arm to arm, displaying the white-on-white embroidery beneath. A wide black-embroidered waistband and slim black trousers with a crisp pleat down the center, a new style that had sprung up among the dandy set, contrasted starkly against the white of the shirt. Sophronia rummaged nervously in the pockets of the diamond-shaped cape over her shoulders, transferring items she deemed necessary between her previous outfit and this one; it was a heavy wool dyed in a black-to-white gradient from shoulder to hem, given such a rigid construction that it sat squarely on her shoulders even when its linking chains were unfastened.
Karal had lent her some of the jewelry he had acquired for shows—a long, delicate silver chain loop that dangled down in the cleavage that patently did not exist, no matter how they blushed about it, and a linked ring-and-bracelet set that he thought lent the right accent of ornate to the simplicity of the outfit. There wasn’t much they could do with the hair—he was not about to try his hand at cutting hair for the first time at the eleventh hour—but he had struck on the idea of weaving tiny glass beads into the rat tail she insisted on keeping, so that every time she turned her head there came a faint musical tumble of clicks and clacks. The makeup had been left simple, but Karal couldn’t resist the chance to kohl up Sophronia’s eyes and call more attention to them in a way that her nearly transparent lashes generally did not, and thereby hopefully draw attention away from her hair.
In all, the effect was one of stark shapes and airy, floating movement. With the latest trouser style paired with a shirt design never before seen (and utterly impractical for everyday use, but that hardly mattered for situations such as these) and a classic cape, he had hoped to achieve a look that was, frankly, rather strange, but also unmistakable. It was not a blatantly luxurious look, unless one knew to look at the materials and the details of the construction; in fact, with Sophronia’s square face and generally dour expression, it gave her a somewhat severe aspect. But it would, if he had calculated correctly, stand out like a snow-covered peak against a blue sky in the midst of the rich fabrics of the restaurant.
Even Aloysius, who had watched the hurly-burly with some interest, ended up with a small white cross-body sash and collar with tiny glass gems inset, standing out bright against his black fur. He sat in it much more comfortably than Sophronia did, having become accustomed to the various attempts Karal had made to design for him. He still hadn’t figured out something that would sit flatteringly on what was, essentially, a squashy tube of a body, but a collar and sash never failed.
“Well, I think you look splendid, Mestren Sav, you’ll certainly attract the eyes of whomever you care to,” Lilyeva said bracingly, giving Karal a frown, which he delivered right back. Impertinent assistant, who was the journeyman and who the master here?
Sophronia flushed beet red and quickly bundled up their discarded clothes. “W-what? I nivver said naught o the sort—”
Karl rolled his eyes as Lilyeva covered her giggles with a hand. It had been mildly amusing on first recognizance, but there was only so much adolescent coyness and demurral he could take. “Oh, go on then, and leave your work clothes here. You’ll barely make it to the place in time as it is if you intend to catch the 16:15 Phosphorus line to Sweetcinder. I expect you to take full notes and tell me everything about the experience when you come by tomorrow,” he said, shooing Sophronia and Aloysius ahead of him up the stairs. “And don’t you dare stain that shirt during the meal!”
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