Chapter 46: ‘Dressing for success’ is when your girlfriend lives out her sexy-dress-up-doll fantasies on you and your friends
-Sephie-
As per Cassie’s wish, we quickly made our way to the sewing road – a small road near the centre of the city where all kinds of clothesmakers made and sold their fashion. There were many local clothiers, but also some orcs that sold fur clothing from the north, dwarves that sold geometrically embroidered heavy tunics, elves and satyrs from the Wolfland Forest, selling breezy cotton clothes, but, more than anything else: there was silk. Everywhere. And cheap.
Nydia was all over it immediately, running from store to store, from stall to stall, trying on different shirts, dresses, robes, skirts, veils, scarfs, occasionally handing one or two pieces to one of us to try on. I could tell she was fully in her element here. By the time we’d made it about a third through the street, Shyleen was already carrying a basketful of clothes that Nydia bought for herself and Cassie had half a wardrobe of “suitable clothes” picked out for her by the hyperactive demoness, chief among them a beautiful black evening dress with a slit along the left leg “for dinner tonight.”
“You wanted something to wear at night, right Shyleen?” Nydia asked, carrying half a dozen robes and gowns towards the quickly reddening redhead.
“Uh… y-yeah. Just… somethin’ so I don’t sleep… naked. Anything’s fine really!”
“Great! Okay try these on!” Nydia chirped, unloading her armful of clothes onto Shyleen, taking the clothes Shyleen was carrying for her in turn.
Shyleen quickly disappeared behind the curtain of the changing tent and came out shortly after, wearing a beautiful dark green silken nightrobe. Vines and leaves were embroidered onto the smooth fabric, trailing around the bottom part of it, which closed fully – like a skirt, but with layers – and then crawled upwards, along the waist, where one singular belt appeared to hold the entire robe together and then further up to the top half which… was cut in a very, um, breezy… way. Her unfairly large chest was almost entirely bare, her nipples just barely hidden by the seam at the edge of either side of the robe and a large portion of her abs were on full display, which naturally had no effect on me whatsoever and I was only blushing because of the heat. Or whatever.
“I think it’s a little too small for me,” the foxgirl said shyly, looking helplessly towards our resident fashion expert.
Nydia swiftly strutted over to her and began fiddling with the cloth, straightening out the robe in some places and adjusting the belt a little.
“I think it fits perfectly, Shyleen,” she said encouragingly.
Shyleen looked down to her almost fully exposed chest with a frown. “It’s just… um. Is it a men’s robe, or?
“Nope, why?” the demoness replied teasingly.
“Uh… there’s just… a lotta cleavage.”
“Exactly! It looks amazing on you!” Nydia flirted. “And it’s got easy access, just in case something ends up happening~”
Shyleen promptly hid her face behind her hands, trying her hardest to hide the massive blush that was quickly overtaking her face, just as the previous one had died down.
“Of course,” Nydia added, “the most important thing here is whether or not you’re comfortable with the robe or not. I’m not gonna force you into wearing it or anything.”
The ninefox stood up straight and crossed her arms defensively as a wave of resolve cascaded through her.
“No, I like it! As if I would be embarrassed from showin’ a little bit of skin. I mean, have you seen my armour?”
Riiight. She wasn’t embarrassed about showing skin this morning. Like… not at all. Well, it’s not like I’d tease her about that or anything, since she took it really hit and all. I’m not Cassie, I can hold back on the teasing… most of the time… some of the time… every now and then.
Either way, Shyleen got changed again and tried out some of the other nightwear, but she ended up settling on the green robe in the end.
I myself was pretty happy with the clothes I already had: my white blouse, sturdy trousers and trusty blue magician’s coat had served me well on this journey so far, but even I couldn’t escape the demoness’ wrath. Soon, I found myself dressed up in a waaay to fancy dress. It was a deep blue sundress with frills that fell nearly all the way to the ground. My arms and shoulders were completely bare, which Nydia quickly rectified by plastering a bunch of brass jewellery all over me: necklace, armlets, bracelets and a handful of rings, the whole program.
“Who looks like a princess now~?” Cassie teased me from behind, as Nydia did something to my hair to make it fancier.
“Oh, shush you! This feels so over the top… I’m just some country bumpkin with mage training…”
“You can keep walking around in your mage’s clothes however much you want, Sephie,” Nydia said, as she finished with my suddenly super wavy hair. “But we’ll dine with royalty tonight and I will not have you looking like a mercenary. The same goes for Shyleen and Ashe, but I expect more resistance from them…”
And they did – at least Shyleen did, Ashe was still sleeping at the teahouse, entirely unaware of her upcoming demise – but eventually Shyleen gave in and accepted an in-between.
She insisted on the clothes being practical – in case of a fight – and breezy, because she liked showing skin. In the end she got some beige, fancy looking, baggy pants from a southern vendor, an elven tight black crop top and an olive-green leather jacket. It was a much less regal look than mine, Nydia’s or Cassie’s, but “at least she doesn’t look like she just burst out of a tree trunk” -as Nydia put it so bluntly. Her abs were also once again on full display and I couldn’t help but notice a pattern in the clothes Nydia picked out for all of us.
I wasn’t entirely sure if I felt comfortable showing so much skin to total strangers, but having Nydia there was definitely a major confidence boost. And I really didn’t mind showing off to my girlfriends… or Shyleen for that matter.
Finally, we came to the end of the road, where the clothesmakers made way for restaurants, bars and all sorts of food-related businesses.
Although we were invited to dinner, we’d worked up quite an appetite over the course of Nydia’s shopping spree and it was only midday. The meeting with the magistrate was still a while away and this entire street smelt like heaven. Not wanting to leave our favourite critter out of it, just in case she woke up already, we quickly headed back to the teahouse to pick her up.
Against all odds, she really was wide awake and happily sipping on a cup of tea when we arrived. The idea of ‘food’ in general seemed to appeal to her quite a lot as she nearly jumped at the chance to get something to eat… despite a whole bowl of that super delicious bread sitting in front of her – no crumbs to be seen.
She did not cooperate nearly as much with Nydia’s dress code like Shyleen did – and Shyleen resisted quite a bit – but after insisting to cover bread baskets – yes, plural – and promising to let her keep her giant sack of clanking metal stuff that was definitely not stolen, she agreed to wear the clothes.
Who knew a rat girl would look so damn cute in a tiny, strapless, white cocktail dress. Especially one with ruffles!
As promised, we paid for her meal and went on our way back to the deliciously smelling food-street we’d found and began scanning for a suitable place for us.
I’d really enjoyed the broth from yesterday, but I was also excited to try something completely different, but Nydia and Cassie wanted to try the Ramen as well, so we looked for a place that served good ramen. I had no idea what the metrics were for finding such a place just from outside looks alone, but Shyleen seemed to have an idea, as she quickly waved off a bunch of the places we crossed that served ramen as one of their specialties.
In the end, we found ourselves at a shady looking diner: An open kitchen with a long bar and only three tables with sitting pillows strewn around them. There was no entrance, no door, not even a wall towards the street, just a large opening into this one-room restaurant. Inside the kitchen were two people: A balding middle-aged man with a heavy tan and a young girl, no older than me or Cass, equally tanned, with a long black ponytail and sunken, sleep deprived eyes.
“This is the place!” Shyleen proclaimed.
“Been here before?” Cassie asked her while taking in the… atmosphere of the place.
“Nope!” the foxgirl replied and strutted towards the bar.
There were other guests here already, which only added to the strangeness of it all. A group of teenagers had claimed one of the three tables and were goofing around… or flirting? One of the two, maybe both. A massive man, as tall as Shyleen, but just as wide as he was tall, sat on one of the comparatively tiny bar stools and practically inhaled a bowl of noodles and finally, a beautiful even maiden with pale white skin and waist-long midnight hair, dressed in a long dark blue dress sat on the other side of the bar, legs folded on top of one another, gently picking away at her assortment of rice… cylinders.
Shyleen greeted the middle-aged cook and pointed to one of the free tables, then gestured to all of us to sit down. She exchanged some more words with him – none of which I understood – and then joined us on the floor, taking a deep breath.
“Can you feel it?”
“Feel what?” Ashe asked.
The ninefox glanced around at the guests. “The atmosphere. The people. They’re all very obviously from entirely different walks of life and yet they all come here to eat. Which means: The food’s special. That home-cooked kinda feelin’. It’s always the strangest places that serve the tastiest food, trust me!”
I did trust her. A lot more than I probably should, considering we met less than a week ago. But she did lead me to that amazing place near the docks and that was pretty great food as well. Although we were the only customers at the time and the customers here seemed… well… strange. I mean, that guy just emptied his third bowl of noodles since we came here, those teens are definitely groping each other right now and that elf looks like she’s a runaway princess.
But then again, we were also very strange customers, all dressed up for a fancy dinner as we were. Which, I suppose, made us part of the atmosphere, now. Oh well.
After a minute or so, the pony-tailed girl came out of the kitchen and took our orders. Which is to say: We told Shyleen what we wanted and she told the girl. I tried to order myself, but after the third time that the girl didn’t understand my catastrophic Zenshian, Shyleen took over for me and ended up taking quite a while to describe the order – no wonder I failed miserably.
Nydia and Cassie both got Ramen, as they wished, Ashe got a dish with fried rice and chicken covered in a yellow sauce, Shyleen got those same rice cylinders as the elf woman had – which I learned were called Sushi – and I got a massive omelette filled with fried rice, chicken, mushrooms and a bunch of veggies with some symbols in a red sauce on top of it, called Omurice.
Shyleen finished her plate first, which I found ridiculous, because hers was by far the most expensive item out of all our dishes. Nydia and Cassie both fell in love with Ramen immediately and were pestering Shyleen practically throughout the entire dinner to ask the chef for the recipe. Ashe was happy as well, though it was obvious she was still somewhat getting used to the dress. Apparently, she’d only ever worn torn cloth and crude leather before. Actually wearing something nice was completely beyond her scope of experiences. It was kinda like… putting a flower on top of a cat’s head, but with a dress and a rat instead.
I myself was also very happy with my meal, trusting Shyleen was definitely the right choice. That was until…
“You know, Sephie…”
“Yes, Shyleen?” I replied between bites.
“There’s something really special about Omurice.”
“What’s that?”
“You see, it’s actually kind of a children’s dish. Like, parents make them for their kids a lot. Sometimes teens use them to confess. Stuff like that.”
“What? Isn’t it just an omelette with filling?”
“Yeah, but there’s usually a message on top of it, you know, the symbols?”
“Wait, what did it say? I was way too engrossed in eating; I didn’t even ask about that!”
“Uh… It said… uhm…” Shyleen started blushing again. “You’re a cutie-pie.” She swallowed. “And it had a little heart in the top right of the last symbol.”
““PFHAHAHAHA!”” Nydia and Cassie began bursting with laughter and Shyleen tried to hide her blushing mess of a face again.
Betrayal. From all sides.
How dare they.
It was kinda cute tho…
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It really is nice that the girls are preparing for the upcoming dinner party while having fun in their shopping spree during this chapter. The moments that we got between all of them were fun to read.