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It was a quiet night. Unusually quiet.
But then, Gary Oak thought to himself dreamily, it had been a very unusual week.
He hadn't been attacking his journey with the usual vigor he normally did. For the past couple days, he had felt almost, well, detached. The cheerleaders were grating on his nerves. He wanted to be alone. He chose to walk the roads that he had before zoomed through so many times in his chauffeur-driven sports car; now the car trailed behind him almost like a dejected dog, useless.
He felt dirty, like he had been doing something horribly wrong his entire journey, and only just now were his eyes opened to it. He felt dirty, but he also felt blessed. Sure, he may have been a fool back then, but now he was acutely aware. Aware of how crisp the air was, how bright the sun, how abnormally large the moon, how tension seemed to hum all around him. There was something very special happening, something that he felt a part of, though not as much as he would have liked. It was like he was party to a monumental event... but only as a spectator, not a participator.
The feeling made him want to sigh in wonder and cry in anguish at the same time.
Sometimes during these long days, as he walked in an innocently awe-filled daze, he found his thoughts straying back to his childhood days. That was a time that he missed more than anything else in the world; especially so because he knew he would never live it again. He had made certain of that, with one self-obsessed, arrogant blow.
Tears welled up unexpectedly in his eyes, and he hurriedly dashed them away with a swipe of his sleeve.
He thought about those days a lot. That had been a happy time for him, a time when being the best hadn't been important. It had just been two little boys, bestest friends forever, pinky-sworn and spat-handshook, sealing a promise that said they would never forget one another. Those days, nothing had mattered except the two of them. The boasting and the striving and the challenging hadn't come until later... much later. But it had come, and Gary had suddenly found himself in a world where stick-a-needle-in-your-eye didn't amount to anything, and a magical afternoon where he and his best friend had cut their palms and pressed them together and become official blood brothers, though as far as they were concerned, they had been that way all their lives... he found himself in a world where such an afternoon faded into a dusty memory that would soon enough be filed away in the farthest corner of his subconscious.
Plodding along the dusty road, his red Corvette obediently purring along a few yards behind him, he looked at the palm of his right hand. The thin dimpled lines of a white scar gleamed there. Before he could stop it, a single hot tear splashed against the old, healed cut. Sometimes, especially these days, thinking about Ash was just too painful. But lately he had been thinking about his old friend
(rival, he's my rival now)
an awful lot. He couldn't help thinking that somehow, his
(rival)
had something to do with how strange the past few days had been. The world seemed a little bit more alert, and who knew, maybe Ash was responsible. Maybe --
"Gary, Gary, he's the best! He cries better than the rest! Goooooooooo--"
"SHUT UP!" he roared, and the girls cowered back down into the comfortably leather-upholstered car seats. "I was not crying!" He quickened his pace, snuffling back unshed tears. The Corvette followed him silently. A few minutes later, the cheerleaders started a tentative round of 'Gary, Gary, he's our guy! He's the best, and he don't cry!' The boy was so lost in his thoughts, he couldn't hear them.
They had been walking all day.
Misty was fond of using that phrase. True, for the past few months, the majority of their days had consisted of walking, and whenever she felt too exhausted to go on (which was often; a girl can only stand to keep moving for so long), she would reign in her friends with an emphatic 'We've been walking all day!' But all those times, it had been an exaggeration; a few hours worth of a good, steady pace had been enough for her. Now it was no overstatement: the moon was peeking over the horizon, and they started out early that morning, immediately after the amulets had finished explaining. From then until now, they had walked quickly, with not a single minute's rest in between. And the path they followed could barely qualify as a path: the girl's arms and legs were covered in angry red scratches and her clothes were torn from the thorny underbrush she had been pushing through all day. If not for the amulets' guidance, and the strange primal instinct that was telling her which direction to take, they would have been impossibly lost long ago.
Misty (and her friends, too, she could tell) was more exhausted than she had ever been in her entire live. She trudged along, back hunched and shoulders forward as if somebody had tied a millstone to her back. ('That's exactly what it feels like,' she mused to herself.) Her legs were taut with a cramped pain that hurt like nothing she had ever imagined; the bunched muscles in her calves and thighs throbbed in an incomprehensible agony, and still she plodded onwards. Her arms swung wearily at her sides like dead weights, all feeling and use gone from the dangling limbs. Her mind was numbened with fatigue; she was at the point where, for all she knew, she had been walking forever, and would keep walking forever, and her only concern was to put one foot in front of the other. She forced each step out of her debilitated body. Her brain screamed for mercy, but she kept going. 'Just one more step,' she said to herself for what seemed like the millionth time that day. 'Just one more. Then you can rest.' And then she would take that last step, and the amulet, as worn out as she was, would send a tired flicker of energy through her body, and she would manage to squeeze out the next step. And so the fatal cycle continued, and with each step she grew more and more exhausted, to the point where she was on the verge of collapsing. Finally, she could take no more. She stopped wearily in her tracks, dimly aware that her two friends had halted with her, and swayed for a second, about to fall, when suddenly a voice rang like a bell without warning in a silent room, throughout the three fatigued travelers's minds, reverberating with clarion finality:
'We're here.'
A whispered hum flitted through the silent trees, a faint breeze ineffectively stirring the sluggish night air. The darkened leaves of night rustled only slightly in indignation, settling back into place without another sound. In the night air, tension was closely packed, as if in unravelenable layers. A low murmuring collected about the trees; perhaps only the sound of thick, heavy silence, but perhaps something of a far more enchanting nature. The moon shone down only faintly, its bright light muted. The night was at a stalemate, waiting silently, motionlessly, for something to happen.
When suddenly a bird began to trill musically.
It was like a contagious disease, only wonderful. Three more birds lifted their voices to join with the first, and then three more. With a swelling effect, dozens of birds, hidden in the dark trees, sang in clear, beautiful, high voices, warbling and trilling and chirping to form a music more beautiful than that any other. A stronger wind stirred though the forest, and the rustlings of thousands of leaves formed a percussional background to the song. And then, as if breaking through a film of darkness, the clear light of the moon danced through the trees, painting each detail in a vivid silver.
Deep, deep in the forest, there was a large clearing, the size of a small town, bundled in amongst the trees. The moonlight swept through it like a cleansing rain, buoyed along by the magnificent song of the forest. In that clearing, hundreds of human faces lifted themselves up to the sky, reveling in the wondrous masterpiece. And then, the song was suddenly penetrated by a high-pitched keening, and a thin beam of yellow light pierced the night sky, glowing faintly. It was joined almost immediately by a red beam, and then a gray one. And then, exactly like the birds had, scores and scores of vividly colored beams of light, in every color imaginable, joined them and painted the sky, as the strange people in the clearing watched, the colors dancing on their upturned faces.
Hundreds of miles away, Gary Oak looked up instinctively from where he lay in his sleeping bag. He gasped almost inaudibly at the display of lights that radiated from far away. The lights dancing in his eyes, he watched the dazzling show in the sky, mind reeling.
And standing at the foot of the clearing from which the lights shone freely, dazed from exhaustion and overwhelmed with what lay before him, Ash Ketchum's eyes filled with tears as he looked at an old scar on the palm of his hand and suddenly remembered an old friend.
They walked in silence.
And not in the silence that is created by lack of speech. True, they had not spoken a single word to one another since that morning. Now the sky was dark with night, and a passive moon shone down to light their path. They refrained from speaking, but their utter noiselessness went further than that. The three of them moved through the pitch-black forest without a sound, slinking along like a trio of cats, picking their soundless way with an almost feline instinct.
True, one of their number was an actual cat. It prowled so close to the ground, its belly brushed against the dewy grass. It placed each paw down with a researched purpose, making sure each step it took was as quiet as possible. Its body was lean, and its eyes were narrow with an inner hatred. But the most recognizable of its characteristics, and quite possibly the worst of all, it moved with an incarnate evil. As it moved further and further into the forest, birds and insects were silenced in its presence, and a chilling wind swirled in its wake. It left a trail of pure hate, thick and dark in the dead night air.
Its two companions were human; at least in form and appearance. But beneath each of the two humans' skin prowled a feline entity, a being that was slowly but surely gaining control of each of the humans' conscious minds.
The female exuded an aura of wildness. Her clothes were torn and stained, her face and arms were criss-crossed with thin scratches, and her hair, coiled into a long whip, snapped at her back as she moved. She had at one time worn a long-sleeved top and long black boots and gloves, but had discarded them long ago, and her arms and legs, marred by the stripes of red inflicted on her by the underbrush she moved noiselessly through, glowed white in the darkness. Her eyes, colder than ice, glittered with a cruelty that chilled the bone. On her face was an expression of rapt concentration as she moved through the forest, brushing through branches and leaves so inaudibly that it was almost as if she wasn't there at all. Around her neck hung a pendant: a piece of silken red cord adorned with only a small, quarter-sized disk of ivory stone.
The male, on the other hand, radiated a sense of calm and peace. He, too, was disheveled; his uniform was ripped and tattered, and his face, also covered in the thin scratches inflicted by the trees and bushes, was grimy. Yet he was the exact opposite of the girl. All one had to do was look into his eyes. Then his appearance seemed to blur away into a disheveled nothingness, leaving only his eyes, and the ghostly light of the gently glowing purple amulet that he wore twisted about his fist. Compassionate and soft, his eyes peered into one's soul, but in a way that neither violated nor alarmed. He emanated a sense of gentleness as he moved throughout the forest, passing through trees like a ghost, his silence the ever-present quietness that accompanies a compassionate soul.
The three moved quickly, efficiently, and without a sound. The three had been, were then, and would always be united in a way beyond human comprehension. The three knew each other, were close enough that they could read each others' thoughts.... and yet, as they continued their almost non-existent journey through the night, there had never been a trio of farther apart, and colder, creatures in the world...
In a wave of warmth, a sea of diverse faces, and a rising babble of voices, Ash, Misty, and Brock found themselves in paradise.
They stood at the foot of the enormous clearing, eyes opened as wide as they could manage, all weariness forgotten as they drank in the scene around them. People milled freely about the field, chattering happily. Colorful booths were set up in what appeared to be an entirely various manner: it was like someone had taken a handful of the cheerful booths and scattered them about the clearing. The moon shone down gaily, the moonlight so bright it was barely discernible from sunshine. Jumbled music played in different places all over the clearing, and the smell of divine desserts were in the air: somewhere in the crowd, someone was making what smelled like some heavenly banana nut bread. And, attracting his eyes like tiny magnets, one thing held in common for all the people grouped there, at least one that Ash could spy: they each wore a fantastically shining amulet around their necks, each a different color.
'Ah, the convention,' the blue amulet murmured to Ash approvingly. 'I'd forgotten how much fun it is.'
Ash barely heard it in his wonder. A tiny voice in the back of his head said to remind Brock and Misty that they oughtn't get split up in this massive crowd, but as he turned to address his friends, he found they were already gone, drifted away into the convention,
For the oddest reason, though it didn't occur to him at the time that it was in the least bit remarkable, he didn't mind at all.
Ash was content to wander about, shaking hands with friendly strangers and gawking at the sights. There was a booth to his right with an amassed wealth of evolution stones laid out orderly on its surface; a handful of people were examining them approvingly while the person behind the booth pointed out the finer points of a pure-cut moon stone. And then to his left, someone was calling out to him, and suddenly a slice of warm bread was pressed into his hand by a smiling, matronly woman, a pendant of a small, flat disc of chocolate brown stone swinging about her neck. "Here you are, dearie," she murmured, and then disappeared back to her stand. Ash smiled after her, then crammed the bread ravenously into his mouth. He had been right before; it was banana nut, and it was heavenly.
Ash continued working through the crowd, stopping only to accept a bottle of clear, cool water from a young woman with a blue amulet much like his own resting in the nape of her neck. He thanked the woman and was about to set off in the direction of what appeared to be a booth of extinct Pokémon fossils when a sharp voice rang throughout his mind: "Stop!"
He jumped slightly. "Don't do that!" he muttered under his breath, gazing around himself to see if anyone had noticed he was talking to himself.
"Oh, stop fretting, they're all perfectly used to it. Criminy, Ash, they do it themselves all the time! But that's besides the point; talking to yourself isn't half as important as this. Ash, you need to follow the girl who gave you the water. It's essential."
The boy immediately whirled around, peering through the crowd for a glimpse of the girl. He caught a fleeting glimpse of her back as she walked away, barely catching sight of her before she disappeared into the crowd. Without a second thought, he hurried forward, rudely jostling through people who jovially laughed it off and returned to their business. It was with a very strong regret that Ash followed the girl through the convention, because there was an impossible amount to see. It was, after all, a Pokémon Master's dream come true. And to have to hurry through it without so much of a second look...
"Don't worry your pretty little head, Ash. You'll get the chance to see it all, a dozen times if it so pleases you."
"Yeah, well, this girl had better be worth it, all the same," he gasped as he dodged a rather fat man, not bothering to keep his voice low in his effort to keep up with the girl. The man, momentarily bewildered by the unmannerly boy who came close to jostling into him, chortled in forgiveness and turned back to the young woman he was talking with, straightening his top hat as he did.
"Excitable young man, isn't he? Wonder what's got him in such a tizzy."
"Oh, I myself can identify with him. Imagine, being so young, and being involved in such an important thing..." She fingered a pink amulet rather nervously.
"Oh, 'course you're right." The man guffawed. His deep purple amulet flared with light as he did so.
The woman laughed in spite of herself. "Oh, anyway, what were you saying about the problem in the East, Governor?"
Misty giggled, and she peeked around the corner of the blanket. "This looks so stupid," she informed the girl waiting for her outside the booth.
The girl laughed. "Oh, come on, Misty, get yer tail end out here. I wanna see." She tucked a tendril of curly, green hair behind her ear. "`Sides, it cain't be that bad."
The red-haired girl giggled again. "You have no idea."
"Oh, come on, I thought it looked cute!! I swear, it jest screamed 'you' when we picked it out!" She spoke with a husky Southern brawl that brought images of dusty roads and grassy plains to Misty's mind.
"Oh, okay, but don't you dare laugh!" Misty, her face burning with embarrassment, stepped out from behind the protective curtain. She looked down at the pale blue dress that flowed like liquid over her body, the hem swishing at her knees. "I just don't know... I don't think it looks good, at any rate." She looked up at her friend anxiously.
Her one-person audience seemed to be choking. Her face was bright red, and she was hunched over. She squeezed her teary eyes shut. "M-Misty..." she forced out. "Go take it off NAIOW!!"
Misty stamped her foot, tentativeness vanishing, replaced by offhand anger. "HEY! I told you not to laugh!"
"I'm sorry... it jest don't suit ya!" She ducked her head as a fresh bout of giggles burst out.
"Ooh, you make me so mad!" Misty ducked back behind the curtain and slipped out of the dress. It slid to the floor immediately and collected like a puddle of blue silver at her feet. "I don't understand, though," she called out to her friend as she changed back into her regular clothes. "The woman at the counter swore it was great for water-types, and if I'm anything, I'm a water person."
"WELL, I NEVER!"
"Yikes!" The outburst was so sudden that she jumped backwards, nearly knocking over the curtain stand.
"Misty? Are ya okay?"
She shivered. "Don't EVER do that!" she hissed under her breath. "You nearly scared me senseless!"
The amulet responded by sending a flare of pain through the girl's head. She bit her lip and staggered back out into the convention fair, holding her head miserably.
Her friend rushed to her side in an instant. "What happened?!" she cried out worriedly. "Didja get hit or somethin'? What's wrong?"
Misty shoved the silky dress into the girl's arms. "It's nothing," she moaned. "This little bugger-" (She swung the amulet on its chain. The stone was burning bright red.) "-got mad at me, I think. I've got a real bad headache, but that's it."
Her friend laughed a little uneasily, relieved, but not totally convinced. "Well, if you're sure you're all right..."
"I'm fine," she reassured, and she even felt that way a little: the pain had already faded to little more than a dull ache. But the amulet was still fiercely afire, and Misty could tell by its obstinate silence that it felt hurt. She sighed unhappily. She really didn't want the amulet to feel bad. "Here, let's go return this." She tapped the silky bundle cradled in her friend's arms.
"ASAP," the girl giggled in response.
Misty rolled her eyes in mock exasperation and punched the girl lightly on the arm, but inside, a warm feeling blossomed up her stomach and into her throat. She had only been inside the fair, wandering aimlessly, for a few minutes before she had bumped into this Southern girl. It was as if they had clicked instantly. The two had traversed the convention together since, the entire time telling one another about themselves. Misty had never had a friend growing up, and never once in her life had a girl friend. Brock and Ash were wonderful, and they meant a lot to her, but there are just some things you can't tell boys... like, for instance, how stupid boys are.
The two stopped at the large booth piled high with assorted clothing in several vivid colors. Misty poured the dress into the booth attendant's hands. "It looked horrible," she confided, somewhat embarrassed, while her friend snickered silently.
The kind-looking woman placed the dress back onto the table and frowned slightly. "That's so odd," she said curiously. "Didn't you say you were a water-type?"
Misty winced reflexively, eyeing the amulet that dangled from her fingers. "Er..." she hesitated, fearing yet another painful reprisal.
The woman behind the booth followed Misty's eyes to the violently red amulet. "Oh, dear!" she cried. "Of course it didn't look good! Come away from the water colors, dear-" (Stepping out of the booth, she took Misty by the shoulders and moved her to a separate part of the table, leaving the stacks of various blues behind.) "-and try out something in a fire." The woman tsked as she began sorting through several red articles of clothing. "Imagine, a fire trying to wear a water's clothing," she murmured to herself as she did. "Have you ever heard of such a thing?" The tips of Misty's ears grew bright red The woman glanced up and smiled at the blushing girl. "Not to worry, dearie. Why don't you look through these? These seem to be in your size." She pointed Misty towards a stack of crimsons, magentas, blood-reds, and burgundies. Taking a glance at the other girl's amulet color, she took the girl by the hand and led her away. "Now, you would be looking for something over here..." The woman trailed off as she pulled the girl to a far end of the table. The girl shrugged at Misty, bewildered, as she was tugged along.
Misty half-smiled, then turned back to the table. "I'm sorry," she murmured to the amulet. "I guess I'm so used to being a water trainer that being even remotely connected to fire seems kinda unbelievable." She sighed.
"It's okay. I understand completely. Your life's taking a huge change. Don't feel bad." It paused, then added a bit bashfully, "I'm sorry I was so, uh, mean about it."
The girl laughed despite herself. "I guess I can find it in myself to forgive you. Just don't do it again."
"Um.... I'm not making any promises."
Misty snorted. "Meanie," she muttered as she began leafing through the clothes. "I don't see why you insisted on me getting a new outfit anyway. I like my yellow shirt, thank you very much."
"There's a very good explanation. Your current outfit signifies your past. As your life is now taking this huge turn, it's best that you leave all aspects of your old life behind."
"That's bull, and you know it."
"Oh, shut up. Fine. You want me to be truthful? It's because the yellow doesn't suit you."
"Hey! It does, too!"
"And it's all old and worn out."
"Ooh!" she said huffily. "You... you..."
"AND, you're going to be dealing with fire and magic and lots of other things that your current clothing can't handle, and these clothes are made with these differences in mind."
Misty fell silent.
"Yes, were you saying something?"
"No." Another pause. "Shut up. I'm looking for some new clothes." She started shuffling through the stack again.
"Thatta girl."
"What'd you think of this one?" she interrupted, holding up a frilly magenta blouse.
The amulet made a raspberry. "Are you kidding me? Next."
"I hear ya." She dropped the shirt and dug around some more. "How about this?" She peered closely at the dark red fabric of the long skirt. "Looks like silk."
"Sorry if your heart was set on it. I tend to find that dresses and skirts are impractical in this line of work. Go for casual, and long-lasting. And definitely comfortable."
"This line of work?" she echoed worriedly, setting down the skirt. "What kind of work am I about to be doing?"
"Oh, nothing. They'll clue you in at the briefing."
"The briefing? And that would be?"
"You'll see. It'll be before long. That's what the convention is for."
"Wha?"
"Look, just try not to think about it. You'll see, sooner or later."
"I dunno...." She looked down at her feet, stomach churning with anxiety, and was about to say just how nervous she felt when she spied something in the corner of her eye. "Ooh," was all she managed to get out before she hurried over. A sleeve was poking out of a huge bundle of clothing, buried under a stack of bright red sweaters. She took hold of it and pulled hard -- an instant later, she was on the ground amid a forest of sweaters, holding a cherry colored coat in her hand. "Isn't it perfect?!" she cooed as she tugged it on. It looked like a big, red varsity jacket. It was baggy, especially at the sleeves, and ended at the waist, cinched shut. She zipped it up and plunged her hands into the pockets. "Ooh, it's wonderful!!! I love it!" She twirled in place. "And isn't the color simply beautiful?!! The dark cherry-" Her face fell. "Oh..."
"What's wrong? I think it's great!"
"No, it's just.... redheads aren't supposed to wear red. It clashes with their hair."
"But doesn't red go with red? Makes sense to me."
"Well, yeah, but my hair is more orange than anything. It'll look awful." She unzipped the coat and pulled it off, feeling sick to her stomach. "I can't wear it."
"Hey, here's an idea. Why not just try it on anyway? Go take a peek in a mirror, see what you think."
"No, you don't understand, I-"
The amulet heaved a weary sigh. "Criminy, Misty, do I have to spell it out for you? Just do what I said!! Trust me!"
"O... kay..." She pulled the jacket back on and tentatively approached a mirror propped up against the side of the booth. "But what's-"
She stopped dead. Her jaw dropped. Her eyes widened.
Her reflection in the mirror did the same. And, as she reached a trembling hand up to touch her hair, her reflection did too, fingering what now appeared to be dark-cherry red locks.
"Muh muh muh... muh.... m-my hair..."
"Great, huh?" The amulet was quite cheery.
"It's.... i-it's... muh muh muh..."
"Oh, get over yourself. I think you look simply fantabulous. Look, you're even more of a redhead than before!"
"Buh buh buh.... muh muh..."
"It looks pretty cool, I'm telling you!"
"I-I..."
"And it matches the jacket perfectly!"
"Yeah, it does..." She turned, and examined her back in the mirror. "It is pretty cool-looking... and now I can wear the jacket..."
"Come on, Misty. When have you ever put that much value in your orange hair?"
She smiled. Her smile grew to a grin. "You're right." She laughed. "I love it! The new me! Even Team Rocket couldn't give me a makeover this good!"
"Er, quite. Anyway, you're going to need more than a coat Go ask the lady for help."
"Um.... all right..." She made her way back to the red section, hands protectively in her jacket pocket. Looking in the direction the booth attendant had dragged her new friend, she spied two figures hovering over the end table, digging through piles of clothes. Jogging towards them, Misty could make out the vivid green hair of her friend, and the plumpish figure of the booth attendant.
The woman looked up as she approached. "Have you found something yet?" she called out. As Misty neared them, she clapped her hands together, pleased. "Oh, wonderful! You look so nice! I'm so glad you could find something that suited you!" Standing behind the woman, the Southern girl pointed at her own hair, then at Misty, then made an A-OK sign and winked. Misty grinned.
"I only wish your friend here were so easy to shop for," the woman continued, then stopped dead and blushed, as if she had perhaps spoken too quickly to consider her words. She turned guiltily back to the girl, who was still smiling charmingly. "Not that that's a bad thing, my dear, not at all. There's no good in rushing to find the right outfit. Many people don't stop to think about how important their attire is, but they've got a thing or two coming." The woman, having launched herself into her lecture, continued fervently. "And it's especially important for people like us. Chosen people. Sooner or later, all of the Chosen come to my booth to select their clothes, and if they make an off-hand choice, well, then they'll have to come back again. Everyone here at this convention has a long road ahead of them, and it's not going to be easy all the time. You don't understand now, but you will, in the near future. So choose wisely, dear, or you'll come to regret it."
The girl blinked. "Sure thing, ma'am."
The woman smiled. "Good. Now, let's keep looking. Here, you help us." Looking at Misty, she gestured at a stack of clothing. "Pull out anything that looks good to you."
Misty frowned at the array before her. She had never seen such an expanse of brown in all her life. There were all shades: from burnt sienna to mahogany, plain old dirt-colored to a light dusty brown. "Ugh," she muttered distastefully, tugging at her vivid cherry jacket smugly. "How boring."
The woman silenced her with a steely glare, then held up a khaki-colored trenchcoat. "How about this?"
"Nah. Doesn't speak ta me."
Without a word, the woman folded the coat neatly and set it down. "How about this?" She lifted a leather vest.
"Uh-uh. Nope. Not for me."
The woman suppressed a weary sigh and began to set the rejected clothes aside. Misty, on the other hand, had lost what little interest she had in helping her friend and was examining the downy interior of her new jacket. The Southern girl heaved an exasperated sigh. "Aw, it ain't no use. I'm never gonna find a new outfit." In a fit of impatience, she whacked a tall stack of muddy-colored dress pants. They tumbled to the floor.
"Ah-ha!!" The woman sprang into action. Seizing what had been lying underneath the pants, and now lay revealed, she turned triumphantly to the girl. "How does this please you?"
"Hey, that's pretty cute," Misty admitted, looking up from her coat.
It was a cotton-like dress, cut like a farm girl's. It was sleeveless, and was pretty tight at the torso, but filled out in a swirly knee-length skirt. It swayed in the woman's hands, and as Misty reached out an appreciative hand to feel its texture, she was astounded to feel a fabric not unlike velvet. "Ooh, it's nice."
The girl considered it long and hard. Finally she smiled and reached out and took the dress.
"Sorry. I dunno why, but it just ain't..."
She placed the dress back onto the table.
Misty groaned. The woman shushed her.
"Well, hey, now..."
The woman's ears perked up. "What's that, dear?"
The girl lifted up a tawny-colored workshirt. "Looket this!"
Misty frowned. "It's, uh... a workshirt. What's so great about it?"
The woman smiled warmly. "Oh, wonderful! I'm so glad you found it!"
"It's wonderful!" She slipped the shirt on over her blue tanktop and rolled up the sleeves. "Mmm, it sure is comfy." She smiled dreamily.
"But what good is a workshirt going to do, protection-wise?" Misty muttered to the amulet.
"Plenty. You're thinking too hard, my girl. We're not looking for armor here. We're looking for something that you wouldn't mind spending the rest of your life in. You'll understand later. Besides," it added, amused, "you're one to talk, Miss Suspenders."
"Hey!" she blurted out loud, then, blushing as both her friend and the booth attendant looked at her quizzically, lowered her voice. "What'd you mean?"
"You're going to have to lose the suspenders, dear. They just aren't you."
"Hey! I like my suspenders!"
"They're stupid."
Just shut up and lemme alone." She sniffed in indignation. The amulet, she noted with satisfaction, remained silent.
"Now, then, my dears, we've got to find the rest of your outfits." She eyed Misty critically. "Oh, my girl, we're going to have to lose the suspenders," she said delicately.
Misty sighed. Her friend giggled.