Kitsune in the Shadows

Chapter 99 – A Simple Shopping Trip

It had been more than a week since either Ava or I had last seen Cattleya.

She did say that she would come to us when she was ready, but I was expecting her to appear the next day at the latest. She hadn’t even come to ask me to watch the ships with her like we had agreed, but at the same time, there hadn’t been any ships crashing since that day, at least none I had noticed. There was a small part of me that was a little worried about what might have happened to her, but I had no way of knowing.

In that time, however, the days had been surprisingly normal, especially compared to our first few days in Haelmor. Very little happened aside from the occasional heavy rain, which kept us indoors from time to time, although it normally cleared up quite quickly after.

I mainly used the time to continue trying to get used to my magic. It quickly got to a point where I could concentrate my mana just like I did before, without too much effort, but that was about all I achieved… I did try making a few different shapes using my mana while thinking about the flower bracelet Cattleya made, but all it did was change the shape of the blob as it floated in front of me, nothing as impressive as what I saw from her.

There was even one point where I asked for Ava’s help trying some things out, but the end result wasn’t too different to when Cattleya had stuck her hand inside the ball of mana. I still wasn’t able to draw anything back into myself that wasn’t the shadow, although at least that time it didn’t lead to me sneezing, just a nice calming feeling.

Today, however, there was something else I wanted to do. The last time I visited Ovia’s domain, we had agreed on picking out some outfits for each other to wear. Yet, beyond seeing a few stores in passing, I had yet to actually go pick out anything for her. The pendant around my neck was already showing a full moon, so half my time was already up.

The one thing on my side was that I already had a specific store in mind for where to start looking. Ava and I had come across it by accident while trying to avoid the rain.

What interested me about it was that instead of having a regular set of items to sell in bulk like most of the other places in town, they would go and buy up the last few items that others couldn’t sell at a discount, then they’d sell them forward in smaller quantities. Which would make it perfect to find what I was looking for. I even already had an idea of what might be good to buy from the brief glimpse I got of what they had at the time. It was like the outfits were already swirling around in my mind, and all I had to do was put them together.

Fortunately, when I asked Ava if we could go, she said it was a good idea without much hesitation, and we set out almost immediately after eating breakfast. It was all going so well that there was even a moment where I contemplated leaving my hood down, but I quickly decided against it.

Surprisingly, the hardest part of wanting to go and do this was actually telling Ovia… I had asked before that she not watch as I picked out clothes for her, but when I brought it up this morning, she seemed a little hesitant to go ahead with the idea, even debating out loud about whether she should give her pendant to Aria or not, although in the end she did ultimately give in. However, she said it was only for a few hours; after that, she’d come back no matter what.

“This is the right place, isn’t it?” Ava asked me, pulling me out of my thoughts and back into reality.

“Mhm,” I responded, looking up to see the building in front of me.

The shop was in a fairly quiet area, closer to the outskirts of town. The building itself was much like those around it, hardly standing out aside from the large glass windows at the front displaying a myriad of things they currently had on sale, from books to watches and, what I was interested in, clothing.

“Then what are we waiting for?” She asked as she led the way into the store, holding the door open for me.

As I walked inside, the place looked a little cluttered, but that was bound to happen with how many different things were being sold. The first thing I decided to do was look for the small jewellery section I had noticed the first time we found this place.

“Will you be okay looking around on your own?” Ava asked, “There are some things that I’m also wanting to look for while we’re here.”

“Yeah,” I responded halfheartedly, not really thinking about the question.

It was at that moment that I saw exactly what had caught my eye before, and I immediately set off to get a closer look. Ava didn’t follow me, instead making her way over to the larger clothing section.

What I had found was a thin silver chain necklace. The reason why it had first caught my attention was just because of how it reminded me of when I had first gone to Ovia’s domain, only to see the place decorated with chains hanging from the ceiling, much like the ones at Beni’s wrists. However, they were certainly not as delicate as this one was.

I instantly knew that it was something I wanted to buy, although not for Ovia to use as a necklace, as she already had the pendant. Instead, it would rather be used to accent the rest of the outfit I had in mind for her in some way.

‘Little kitsune?’ Right as I was about to go looking for the rest of the outfit, Aria’s voice entered my mind, ‘Since we now have some time alone, I was hoping to take the opportunity to ask you some questions. Would that be alright?’

But-

…

‘Okay,’ I quickly gave in.

‘Well, I noticed that you started taking a bit of an interest in magic lately…’ She said, her voice sounding a little unfamiliar to me, ‘I was just thinking that you perhaps might need some… assistance? I don’t know if you remember, as it has been a few years since I showed it off for you, but I’m quite familiar with the topic myself…’

‘I-’

‘However, I should preface by saying that I did have to promise Sister that I wouldn’t bother you for the whole time today, and I do very much intend to keep that promise,’ She quickly interrupted me before even hearing my answer, ‘So, there was one question in particular I had… something that seemed somewhat unusual about your magic and the way you use it… Whenever you moved your mana, your shadow moved along with it, which in and of itself might just be a unique quirk of yours, but at the same time, it was your shadow that ultimately coalesced into that orb. So, I guess what I’m wanting to ask is if you know where exactly your mana is stored? As it normally would be within the body, however, in your case, I almost wonder if that isn’t true simply as you always seem to be in control of your shadow, although, if that was the case, then I’m not sure how I would explain it… Storing mana in something that is essentially intangible is somewhat unfamiliar as a concept.’

‘I… I…’

I wasn’t expecting such an in-depth question from Aria all of a sudden. It had been a little while since I had heard from her, so I was expecting a few questions about Ovia like she would normally ask, not… whatever that was. It wasn’t even like I could give her an answer with how little I understood.

…

‘I… don’t know?’ I responded hesitantly, unsure of what she was even expecting me to say.

‘Hmm… I really wish I could go down there right now and test it…’ She paused for a moment before suddenly coming back to life, ‘Oh, and did Sister talk to you about that vampire you met?’

‘… About what?’

‘I see… I’ll have to remind her again in that case… You can go back to what you were doing for now… Oh, and I’m looking forward to getting a sneak peek at what you’re going to pick out for Sister.’

With that last comment, she left me alone… and feeling a little embarrassed.

I took a moment to clear my head before focusing back on what I was planning to do. For the first outfit, I knew that I was going to incorporate the chain I had picked out in some way, just not around the neck, so I started looking through what they had on display.

Most of their items were wholly unique one off pieces; what was out on the shelves was more than likely all that they had just due to how the store operated, which meant that there were somehow both too many options, and not enough. Looking along just one of the shelves, I saw a litany of trousers, skirts, shorts and a whole host of other clothes just for the lower body, yet none of them really jumped out at me in any way.

I already knew that I was probably wanting to find a pair of trousers more than anything. I had pretty much only seen Ovia in dresses before, so something a little different would be nice. OIn the shelves there were many options in bright colours, which seemed strange considering I had never seen anyone wearing anything of the sort, but that wasn’t my biggest problem. Almost all the clothes were designed with humans in mind, which meant that they were almost all lacking any accommodations for a tail.

With how much trouble clothing and tails have given me, I could only guess at how much more inconvenient it must be for Ovia, who has nine of them at her back.

There has to be something here…

I kept looking over the shelves over until finally, there was something that caught my attention. A pair of pure black trousers right at the end. I pulled them out to get a better look, and immediately, I liked what I saw. They were a fairly plain set of trousers that reached high up the waist, and had two sets of loops for two parallel belts running along the top, which in turn would provide the perfect place to drape the chain I had picked out to provide an additional point of interest.

However, as I turned them around to inspect the back my heart sank a little.

“No room for a tail…” I muttered to myself.

…

…

I do have that sewing kit from Ana…

I wonder…

…

As soon as the idea had entered my mind, I just couldn’t get rid of it. I knew that these trousers were a perfect place to start… and well, even if I did find something with room for a tail, I doubt there would be enough room for nine. So, no matter what, some modifications would have been needed.

With the trousers now firmly decided on and in my arms, it was time to find what would be good to compliment them with to have a complete outfit.

This is more fun than I expected.