POV; Zen
The two travel deeper into the forest, the dirt road stretch onward, with small hills, twists and turns.
Enya walks beside him, he keeps catching her staring at him, moving around him when she thinks he wouldn’t notice.
“Hey… Zen?” she asked.
“What is it?”
“Can… can I take a closer look at your top?”
“What? Why?”
“Please?”
He sighs, slipping his jacket off and handing it to her, she looks at it closely, inspecting the stitch and the zipper.
If she asks to look at the rest of my clothes… please don’t ask… I don’t want to strip in front of you…
Her purple eyes shoot up with excitement, looking at his t-shirt. She takes hold of it, feeling the material.
“What… what are you doing?”
“What is this made off? I’ve never seen material like this before.”
“I’m not taking it off…” he mumbled.
Enya blushes as she takes her hand away. “What? No! I didn’t mean… no… no… I don’t want that!”
“Oh?”
A silence passes between the two. Zen takes in a breath, preparing to break the silence. “It's made of polyester.”
“Poolaa…? What's that?”
“Oh, sorry, it’s a synthetic fabric from my world. I’m not surprised you haven’t seen a top like this before. It’s a great breathable material, good for sports and hot weather.”
“I see…” she looks down to his trousers, “what about them?”
He looks down. “My jeans? Actually… I don’t remember what the tag says… not something you think about when you wear clothes.”
“You don’t?”
“Well, it’s not like I make clothes, I don’t really know… and most clothes in my world are mass produced…”
“Can… can I touch them? I’d like to feel the material.”
“Why?”
“I… I’m really interested in them…” she kneels down, not waiting for his response as she presses her hand onto his leg around his knee. Feeling her small hand press against his leg freezes him in place, he’s not used to being touched by other women like this.
It’s not sexual… it is not sexual… she’s just interested in the material… He panicked thought, trying to keep himself calm.
“I’ve got it!” she said excitedly, she stands looking around the surrounding forest, “wait for me, okay?”
“Wha-” she throws his jacket into his arms before running off towards the edge of the tree line, ducking behind a thick tree trunk. She vanishes from view.
He leans in on the spot, confused wondering what she was doing, a faint light emits from behind the tree.
“If you needed to go toilet, you should have said so!”
“What’s a toilet!?” she shouted back.
His eyes widen in fear. “Oh no, you’re kidding right?”
She laughs. “Of course! That's not what I’m doing though… but, I’ve never been able to use one…” she goes quiet, “I can actually try one now can’t I?” she mumbled.
His eyes catch the flash of the smooth, slender skin of her naked back. He quickly averts his eyes, turning red. “What the hell is she doing?”
He hears her grunting, as if struggling with something, he’s tempted to turn his head again but no, he can’t. The fact that he saw her in a state of undress, even if he didn’t see too much, it makes him feel a little guilty.
He looks onto the twisting road ahead, taking a deep breath trying not to think about it.
“I’m done! What do you think?” she said happily.
He turns around to see her walking back towards him, a big grin of accomplishment on her face. “What?” shocked, he stared at her bewildered for a moment, she was no longer waring her strange dress but instead, a smaller, better fitted duplicate of his own clothes.
“Well?” she twirls on her heel, showing off her new outfit.
“How did you?”
She takes hold of the black jacket she is wearing, looking at the strips of metal where the zip should be. “I couldn’t do this ‘Zip’ thing, but everything else was simple enough. Your clothes feel so strange to wear, just how many layers do you need?”
He stagers back, unable to stop inspecting her, the blue t-shirt and the blue denim jeans appeared to be an exact copy of his, the jacket was the only thing different as it was missing the zip. He found her raver cute in them, seeing her almost like when his Sara would wear his clothes just because she wanted to. “Where… how did you-?”
“Get these? A magical skill only my race has…” she walks over amused with herself as she raises her hand, “Create!” she yells out, her hand firmly raised for effect, “it’s a unique magic the Goddess Ophelia gave to the Unseen, so we wouldn’t be walking around naked all the time…”
Her hand lowers putting her finger on her chin.
“Although I couldn’t manage your footwear or that zip thing… anyway, if we had only human clothing to wear, or whatever we could create by hand, the other races… they would only see flouting clothing walking around and we can’t have that, we are meant to be unseen and unnoticed.”
“You can recreate clothes with magic?”
“Well…” she holds out her hand, “Create,” a flash of light appears in her hand, leaving behind a simple, clean white cloth folding in her grip.
“So that's what that light was?”
“Create magic is an ability only the Unseen can use, we can’t make clothing normally so we rely on this spell for it instead, it not just limited to clothing either.”
She looks down at the cloth in her hand; it flashes in light before vanishing without a trace.
“The only issue is, we have to maintain it all the time because it is made up entirely of magical energy, if we run out of magic, our clothes will vanish along with anything else we’ve created using the Create ability.”
“Oh…”
“The only problem is…” she glances down to the ground, looking disappointed in herself.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, you see… as kids, we learn how to use this ability since it's something we all use every day. I remember when I turned eight, my mother told me she would not create clothes for me so I had to learn and improve my skills unless I wanted to walk around naked all the time. You have no idea how many times I walked home naked.”
“She made you do that at eight?”
“I understand that seems a little… off to you but, nudity is normal for my people, you can’t go five minutes without seeing someone naked, but I still had to learn, the problem is… I’ve always had trouble maintaining the things I create. I’m good now, clothes are easy and I’ve gotten to where I don’t even have to think about maintaining it, but…” the jacket she wears starts fades away, “I struggle with solids like metal objects and they tend to… drain my magical power super quickly…”
Zen stagers back from her as her jacket becomes transparent. “You’re not going to…?”
She raises her hand to hold the jacket; it flashes with light and vanishes. “That was difficult because of the metal in it, I tried to create that zip thing but it was too complex, I only managed strips.”
“Wow, that seems to be… I know someone who would love that kind of power,” he looks at her more closely, seeing her recreation of her polyester top pressed upon her ample breasts, I have to admit, she’s good looking in those but… that tops a little too tight without a bra under them… her… nipples are sticking though…
She goes a little red looking down at herself, crossing her arms over her chest, realising what he was staring at, she turns to walk back behind the tree. “I’ve… um, your clothes feels too strange to wear, I’m going to change back now.”
“Okay…”
As she reaches the tree, she turns her head. “No peaking! If you peak at my naked body you will pay dearly, understood?” she had said it in a light-hearted tone, leaving him a little confused.
“Okay?” he blushes, “I wouldn’t even dream of peaking!” he turns, hearing her give out a disappointed sigh.
“Shame… it was fun to try but…” she grunts, “this is so much better, your clothes have way too many parts to it for my liking.”
She walks out from behind the tree, tying string tightening the mid riff of her dress, she is back in her fantasy dress that has robe like qualities.
“That was fast…”
“Well, I always wear this, what can I say? I’m used to it…” she looks at him with trepidation.
“What’s wrong?”
She sighs opening her palm. “This spell isn’t just used for clothes, it’s also used for other things too…”
“Like what?”
“Tools and… um… weapons…”
“Weapons? You mean like swords?”
“And bows… the thing is, I can’t do them. Like I said, I’ve always had issues with managing my magic, I can’t maintain anything more solid and complicated then clothes, the more complex the item is, the harder it is for me to maintain. The summoning circle I made to summon you took a lot out of me, I’m still recovering from just creating it let alone maintaining it.”
“I understand, but why do you look so…?”
“Because I should be able to…”
“What do you mean?”
“As your summoner, I should be able to do more than just empower you, I’m useless. The Unseen aren’t some defenceless people, our weapons are considered near Deity levels of power because of the nature of their creation. My best friend could create a bow that fired powerful bolts of magic at her targets. I can’t even manage a simple knife to cut my food…”
“Enya I-”
She cuts him off. “I should be able to create a sword for you to use that can cut through anything!” she takes a breath, looking grim in the face of what she’s saying, “it’s wrong that I am your summoner, someone as weak as me should never have been chosen.”
Tears fills her eyes, the frustration getting the better of her.
He steps towards her, placing his hand onto her shoulder. “I don’t fully understand, but right now, I doubt that matters. It’s okay, Enya, we can deal with it. Like you said, we’re in this together, right? We’ll manage our own way.”
“It’s not okay though, if I try to create a sword for you, it’ll take a lot out of me, I might not even be able to use Link-Support.”
“Then don’t,” he smiles at her, she is just as uncertain as he is in this, maybe even more so he figured, either way, he wants to cheer her up, “can you get stronger through training?”
She looks at him confused. “Yes…?”
“Then, that’s what we’ll do, we’ll get stronger, together.”
A moment of silence between the two passes, her eyes swelled but yet to release a tear, she smiles. “Yes… we are-”
She pushes him away from her almost in a panic, turning as she grows red wiping her eyes dry.
Zen breaths a sigh of relive, throwing his cloak back over himself after slipping his jacket back on, he turns to her with a smile. “We should probably get goin-”
“Get out of the way!”
