Passion (Book 1 of "The Fantasy of Life" Series)

Chapter 18

York

Hollie walked back out. "I forgot to ask names."

"Oh, well mines York, that was Ashanaya." I smiled.

She smiled back. "Well York, follow me."

I nodded and followed her back into the back room, the same way that I'd seen Ashanaya go a few minutes before. The inside was completely covered in more fashionable clothes, the walls were almost invisible. It was a smaller room than the one I was just in. The room wasn't necessarily small but it was in fact relatively small.

Hollie dug through clothes trying to find something. Her eyes lit up and she pulled out black pants, jeans I think, I remember people describing my father as wearing jeans, though I believe they said the jeans were baggy and blue, these were tighter and black. They didn't have any features, just mainly black. "Here's some denim pants."

Denim? Okay. She dug some more and found a shirt that was short and black, the fabric wasn't smooth, it had ridges all through the fabric. It was loose and soft with long sleeves.

She threw that at me. Then she found boots, similar to the ones I saw Ashanaya have except they weren't as tall, they wouldn't reach my knee but close to it. The heels were also shorter, but not much.

"Okay, that's all I got, go in the room at the end of the hall to the right and try them on." She waved her hand in the air telling me to leave.

I walked down the hall to the other room, I heard Ashanaya bumping around in the other room, I couldn't tell if she was stuggling to get out of the trap she called 'gear' or if she was struggling to get into her first normal outfit. I decided maybe that was something to leave to the imagination.

I moved into the small dressing room. The walls were lined with mirrors and the room itself was small. The floor was hard wood and the ceiling was low, along one wall was a wooden bench.

I looked into the mirror at the outfit that I currently had on, it was the same one I had on when I met everyone. I had a beige and very rough shirt on, with green pants that belled out at the bottom and were very baggy. I didn't have any shoes, which used to be annoying, nymphs, at least the children, didn't wear shoes, my feet hurt all the time at first, but you get used to it as you get callused and your feet get tougher. My feet are ugly, but if you tried to stab the bottom of my foot, the knife would bend.

These clothes were practically the only outfit I'd worn since I was orphaned, I remembered Malia had given them to me when they still were trying to see if I was going to be a water nymph. Actual water nymphs only wore robes around their lower bodies, but she thought since I still spent a lot of time on land I might as well have some clothes for when I'm up there, and roaming about.

I sighed and thought about Malia. She was always there for me, when they pulled me from the water to move me to the forest she kicked and screamed, even attacked on of the nymphs working for the emperor. After I left, she became cold, I never understood why, she'd never acknowledge she got colder. She'd narrow her eyes at me like I was insulting her, but if I asked a favour she would always be there to do it, usually there was no 'You owe me for this' included. I've just taken that as the way that she shows she cares. I also check in with her regularly to make sure mother hasn't made it out of confinement. I didn't want her back out into the world just so she could hurt more people. If she escaped, I'd kill her myself.

My mind is wandering again. I shook my head and began to pull of the clothes. I folded them neatly and set them in the corner of the room.

First I pulled on the pants, they were different than I thought, they came up to my belly button, just over it in fact. I spun around and looked at myself in the mirror, the pants really accented probably the only part of me Valen really liked, my booty.

I laughed to myself and pulled on the shirt. It covered my arms and was in fact short but long enough to fall just past the hem of my pants. It was very comfortable and it all felt very lightweight and tight.

The last thing was the shoes. I sat down on the bench and pulled on the boots, tying them up at the top and making sure they were very tight. I moved around in the outfit to make sure nothing would pinch or pull. It seemed to bend well with my body.

I smiled at myself in the mirror, I looked good. I jumped in excitement, I wanted to show Valen my new look.

I swung the door to the dressing room open and grabbed my other outfit, I ran out of the dressing room and I saw Ashanaya in her outfit standing at the end of the hall, she seemed to like my look. I ran up to her. "Where's Valen?"

"I think over by Kel." She smiled.

I ran back to the front of the store and I saw Valen and Kel, not facing me, sifting through clothes, Kel was very much annoying him jumping up and down at his side and he just kept shaking his head.

I walked up to him slowly and cleared my throat. He whirled around and looked at me. He just stared for a second.

"Well? Ain't ya gonna say something?" Kel looked at him confused as he just stared. "He's speechless. Impressive innit?"

I smiled and scratched my arm self consciously. He walked toward me slowly, he put his hands on my sides and looked me up and down. "I like this." He smiled.

"You do?" I looked up at him.

He nodded and leaned in. "I like it a lot." He put his lips to mine and pulled me up against him.

"How adorable!" I heard Hollie yell from behind us.

I jumped out of Valen's grasp and he put his hands behind his back. Hollie looked at us with a patronising look.

"Well. Have you picked anything out?" She cocked her head to the side and looked at Valen expectantly.

He nodded and lifted up a pair of black pants, and a black shirt alone with black boots.

"Black is a very popular colour between all of you isn't it." She laughed.

The only one who didn't fit that was Kel, she had an outfit exactly like the one she had, except it was yellow and purple

Marhara had picked out baggier very basic clothes, pants were dark grey and his shirt was black.

Cullen had picked something similar to Valen's outfit except he had a white shirt and thin black jacket to go with it.

"Is everyone done?" Hollie stepped back behind her counter.

Cullen stepped up to the counter in front of her and dropped a handful of golden coins on the counter. "Will that be enough?"

She counted it and seemed unsatisfied. "Do you have... 10, more?"

Cullen smiled and pulled a few more out of his pocket and counted 10 out then handed them to her. She smiled back. "It was a pleasure doing business with you."

"You too." Cullen nodded at her and all together we walked out of the shop. The streets were less busy but we weren't getting as many strange looks as before. I smiled at the people who passed and they smiled back. I guessed I was passing as a human with weird ears, which would make more people comfortable since that would make our human to non-human ratio 3 to 3, much more managable. People still seemed a tad bit uncomfrotable around Ashanaya, Valen and Marhara, but they weren't too obvious about it and they were decently friendly to the face.

People were uncomfortable around Valen but they always looked down to see what was in his hand, and their eyes always widened when they saw that what Valen was holding, was my hand. They'd give Valen and I, a strange look, then they would look back up at us and seem a little more comfortable, giving a forced smile. The people were completely fake to our faces and were obviously judging us, but I hardly cared. The chances of me ever wandering around this city again were very low. I don't spend much time in human cities, and if things work out between Valen and I then I'd probably stay in the Evenura with him, I'm sure I looked elfy enough to stay there. Whatever happened I knew I didn't want to stay in a human city, at least not Hope, everyone is very judgemental and not good at hiding it. Not to mention it smells wrong, like a long dead mouse that no one can find.