shopping for threads

[STEPHANIE GRACE UNDERWOOD]

shopping for clothes was supposed to be fun if you were a girl. but if you talked to stephanie about that, she'd have a completely different opinion. the muggle hated to shop. she was very body-conscious, so shopping was like a sacrifice. standing in front of the racks seemed like a nightmare. she hated trying on clothes, mainly because of vanity sizing. yeah, she heard about that. one brand would fit you nicely, but another brand would nearly give you those marks on your skin that you'd regret for a good hour. shirts were another story altogether. she preferred to wear shirts that were a little more form-fitting, but also looked presentable. a lot of what this particular store had, however, was nothing like what stephanie wanted. a lot of tight, revealing shirts made for one hell of a trip.

great. i'm going to look like i've been outside on some corner, she thought, looking at the low-cut tops that were on the hangers in front of her. i'm not getting caught dead with this crap on me. that's bull. she shook her head, then grabbed a shirt and a nice pair of cropped pants and quickly paraded her way to the dressing room. she was going to have to suck it up and try on something that she didn't want to try on. she could already taste the sourness of the day. going from piss poor to "i'm walking in rain puddles with shoes that feel like they've gone twelve rounds".

after a quick change of clothes to the ones that she grabbed off of the racks, she examined herself in the mirror. the pants were a good fit, and she thought that if she could get a few more pairs from that particular brand, then she wouldn't have to worry about getting anything else. they were comfortable, and that was the end of that. but the shirt? it felt a little too baggy. it didn't feel right. something was wrong. she complained to herself by shaking her head at the stephanie-shaped reflection in the mirror. "nope, not going to work," she hissed, changing into her clothes for the day.

she was going to have to go back to the drawing board.

shirts: one. stephanie: zero.

[HUGH MAYSON ZIMMERMAN]

Some might call it a peculiar jogging course, but Hugh wouldn’t care in the slightest. He had his reasons for not taking his excersize to nature completely, but always include the shopping mall in his daily rounds. First of all: The shopping mall was an excellent shortcut between two very busy streets which were horrid to circumvent, and second: he could sneak a peek at the hifi center, where he could look for the newest developments in sound systems, having a chat with the shop men there. One of them, Barney was his name, had even studied the same subject Hugh wanted to try himself on once he graduated – sound editing – and even though it had not worked out for Barney, he still was an invaluable source of tips and stories Hugh could relate to. If Barney had his way, Hugh would forget all about fencing and focus entirely on this career, but Hugh himself wasn’t so sure about that yet. He knew he would miss nothing more than the thrill he felt when entering the piste and examining his adversary, estimating the odds of the fight.

But Barney wasn’t on duty this afternoon, so his trip to the hifi section had been rather short in effect. Instead he was now picking up speed again, jogging through the clothes sections and taking stairs whenever it was possible to up his game of exercize. Tomorrow, he would have fencing training again, and he wanted to present himself in top shape, after having skipped last week’s training because of a mild cold and an oncoming examination. The mall was gladly not too crowded, and Hugh didn’t care for the few sideglances he was getting. Those who frequented the mall knew him by sight anyway, and those who did not were of no interest to him concerning that matter.

He was entering the woman’s clothes section now, a pretty store with loads of females flocking around. One younger girl was in a shrieking argument with her mother about some top she’d like to buy. “If it was for you, I’d be running around like a nun! This is not SKIMPY, it is fashionable! Seriously, what time do you come from, the Victorian era?!” The shrill sound was hurting his ears, but it was also like a siren’s call, just like probably every other person in close vicinity, Hugh had to look at the two quibbling women. It wouldn’t have been that bad of an idea, hadn’t his feet decided to keep up their light jog even as he was turning backwards. He just noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye, but even his quick reflexes couldn’t stop him from smack running into someone who must have tried to pass him by. Wrong-footed, he thought numbly. In fencing, that could lose you many a point, if you were caught on the wrong foot to quickly alter your movement. It was one of the flaws he really had to work on in training, and now it was even endangering other people.

Turning his head away from the fashion discussion and towards his poor victim, he quickly apologized: “I am so sorry, I didn’t look where I was going! Are you alright?”

[STEPHANIE GRACE UNDERWOOD]

stephanie had gotten re-dressed and stormed out of the dressing room; tried-on garments in hand, looking for a rack to put them on since she wasn't going to buy them. she handed off a pair of jeans to her mother, telling her to get "two or three more pairs; in different colors, if possible" and hung the shirt up on the rack that she had just found. she knew that if looking in the women's section for shirts was going to be a chore, she would shop in the men's section. not only were they comfortable, but they also fit in all of the right spots without looking too baggy. to her parents, it meant spending less money. that was always a good thing.

"mom," the girl said, looking straight into her mother's eyes. "we're going to the men's section. i'm not fighting with these people here."

it was pretty obvious that stephanie wasn't going to tolerate the sanity of these tweenage minds - they would dress provocative, even with the tight rule at smeltings, or whatever school they were attending. how many schools were there for non-magical children, anyway? and how the hell would anyone know that someone like stephanie didn't even carry magical blood to begin with? okay, those were pretty stupid questions for someone who never even thought of all of those things. but in all fairness... if there was any consolation, stephanie did not know how many schools there were out there. besides smeltings.

as she paraded off of the carpeting, where all of the racks of clothes were, she wasn't paying attention to where she was going - a common occurance, for her. she didn't think to pay attention, and most of those times came when she stuck the headphones of her ipod in her ears. but on this particular day... no headphones. so this was one hundred percent her fault.

as stephanie and the other person ran into each other, stephanie hit the ground with a thud. she would have yelled at the other person if it wasn't for the apologies that he had been telling her since the hit. she slowly sat up and looked up at the person who she had collided with. "yeah, i'm fine," she said, rubbing her lower back. "there's always a first time for everything - first time I've landed on my arse running into someone."