Other Trails Chapter 7

[random_xtras]

"Well of course she was embarrassed." Meena's voice was soft and very gentle, yet still managed to convey asperity and amusement as she dug through one of her large duffel bags to see what she might have that would fit Freedom. "It doesn't matter if he's interested in her type of woman or not, you still don't want some boy randomly listening in on your girl talk."

Shade paused in signing and glanced at her sister, seeing matching surprise on Mist's face.

"I don't think our people girl talk," she said, turning back to their new passenger. "Everybody knows everything."

"Crazy hippies." Meena chuckled, then held up what looked like a pair of close fitting human shorts with modest-length legs in one hand, and a short skirt made from thick fringe in the other. "Now this is the favourite kind of bottom for the people cat women who walk upright. This one's made for someone without a tail." She turned and looked quizzically at Freedom, who had been sitting quietly on Shade and Mist's bed while the elderly unicorn woman looked for something pretty for her to wear.

The human girl squeaked and blushed in wide-eyed horror at the suggested garment. "Oh no. I... I think that there is too much of me to fit into that." Then she looked more closely and dropped her voice as she spoke to herself as she tended to do when thinking something over. "And I do not think I want to let that much of me stick out."

"No?" Meena set the skirt and pants down and lifted up a vest similar to the ones that Mist and Shade were wearing. "What about this?"

"I know that there is too much of me to fit into that," said Freedom, giving the offending part of her anatomy a reproving frown before looking up again at Meena's chuckle.

"What about a dress something like mine?" asked the tiny, greying woman, her large orange eyes twinkling from the shadow of her softly curling hair.

Freedom looked at the loose, comfortable looking ankle length crochet dress with the long, loose sleeves, A-line skirt, and drawstring waist. "Oh. Maybe..."

Meena nodded, then went over to another bag and unfastened the tie string. "Will you get my sewing machine out of its case, Shade dear?"

"Alright." The dark-furred girl carefully opened the case out so that it formed a table to hold the portable sewing machine, then argued with the folding stool as its hinges stuck.

"Gold, I think," said Meena, pulling out yards of soft, draping fabric of a modest and comfortable thickness. "Now let's see how tall you are and how long your arms are..." A quick squint at the now intensely curious Freedom, and the little purple woman nodded and went over to settle on her stool. "Humans are so easy to sew for. Two arms, two legs, a head, and that's all that needs to be taken into account. My daughter, on the other hand, can be a trial about the simplest of clothes if they go anywhere near her tail. And woe and lamentations have to happen before she ever admits that a tail sleeve finally fits comfortably." She absently scratched at the base of her horn, then pulled her scissors out of their drawer and set to work. "That copper vest will go with this nicely, and give you a little extra coverage for your chest. Would you like to sew that pretty green trim that you showed me onto it?"

"But..." Freedom tried the vest on and blushed as she tried unsuccessfully to get it to meet in the front. "This does not fit, meme."

"Not like that. You'll have to use a cord to lace it together." Meena made the sewing machine whirr cheerfully. "Once we're planetside I'll send for some orange fabric and maybe some sort of bold yellow, so that you can have a change of clothing. And I'll make you some underthings, too."

"...Underthings?" Freedom looked up from laying trim along the bottom of the vest to see how much she'd need.

Meena peered at the girl over her shoulder. "I can see that there's a lot we need to teach you, child."


* * *


"Yes, when you haven't any fur it's nice to have a little extra to protect your skin." Meena scooted sideways a little and continued to mark the hem of Freedom's new dress with little tiny brightly headed slivers of plastic that she took from a padded wrist band. "And I'm told that the layers even make looser garments feel more comfortable for smooth skinned people." Then she paused and tutted. "What did you do to your feet?"

"They got cut on the streets when I ran away from my father's house." Freedom curled bandaged toes, then poked one set out from under the dress to peek at them.

"Stand straight, please. I'll see what I can do about getting you some shoes after we reach Freedom XIV. The base isn't in a rocky place, so you shouldn't have this problem again." Meena patted the foot gently and continued with her work. "We're nearly done. And once you're in a nice ankle length dress you'll be able to move much more freely. I've never understood the desire to have your clothes sweeping the floor as you walk. That's what brooms are for. And those Elite women and their drags... Hmmph. Alright. You can take it off and let me do the serging now."

Freedom slipped the garment off and stood in her chest wrap, pants, and under dress, then looked over at Shade and laughed softly when she saw that the ship's captain was sound asleep where she'd been reclining on the edge of the bed. "They do not worry about anything, do they?"

"Hmmph?" Shade peeked at her with one eye, and then stretched with arms to the ceiling. "Sure we do. But there's nothing to worry about right now."

"There is nothing to worry about right now?" Freedom looked at her with surprise, then handed the orange dress to Meena and settled down on the floor to finish trimming the copper vest. "But you and your sister are so young to be alone and away from home."

Shade snerked. "We're not alone. And this is our home, even if it does seem strange to live inside another person."

"But you said that your father and brothers were kind to you and valued you," said Freedom with surprise. "Isn't your home with them?"

"No. We were going to wind up in some other herd anyway. And I didn't want Mist taken away by some man who couldn't even talk to her. So we decided to travel the star trails, and found out that they're good." Shade grinned and stretched out her front legs, then rolled onto her side in a comfortable sprawl. Spotting her latest knitting project, she picked it up and started counting stitches.

"What will that be when it is finished?" asked Freedom, deciding that she needed to think about what seemed to her to be Shade's strange attitude toward an accepting family before asking more about it.

"A vest that will fit someone Meena's size." Shade fiddled with the knitting needle and made sure that her thread wasn't twisted, then set to work carefully winding it around the pegs of her knitting loom and then pushing the new loops off of them.

"But Meena wears a dress. I do not think she needs a vest, Captain." Freedom glanced over to where Meena hummed and hemmed.

"I didn't say it was for Meena. I just said it'll fit someone her size." Shade chuckled. "This is for your mother."

"For Meme?" Freedom startled and sat up straight, but then smiled and finished off the thread she'd been using to sew on the trim. "You are right. She can wear clothing now. I will make her something to wear with the vest."

"Not with that, you won't," called Meena without looking.

Freedom flinched and took her hand away from the narrow strip of left over cloth from her dress. "Forgive me, I thought it was waste now. I did not mean to steal."

"Don't be silly. You're not stealing. But that shade of gold will not look good with greying purple fur, or with the light navy that I see Shade is using for the vest. Why don't you look in my fabric bag for some dark green Thana flannel that I'm pretty sure I tucked in there?"

Freedom scratched her head, then absently rearranged her hair, which was now a short mass of curls that framed her face. "Alright, meme."

"What does 'meme' mean?" asked Shade, looking up from her knitting as the other black-haired girl got up to look into the fabric bag.

"Ah? Oh. It is a pet name for the mother of my father," said Freedom, then gave a soft, pleased sound as she found the fabric that Meena had told her to get and ran it through her fingers. "It is as soft as my new clothing, only in a different way."

"So it means 'grandma'," said Shade, trilling softly with approval for Freedom's words. Then she perked and studied the flannel. "It looks a lot different from your dress material."

"It's woven." Meena cut her thread and came over to give the finished dress to Freedom. "This is non woven. It makes them hang differently, and yes, feel different. That flannel's the most washable natural cloth I know of, though. And synthetics don't ever feel as good against fur, no matter what the manufacturers do to them. Your meme's first outfit should be a comfortable one."

"Yes," agreed Freedom softly. "She has had enough discomfort in her life."

Meena pat patted the human girl on the hand with sympathy and reassurance, then studied the flannel as Freedom finished getting dressed. "A waistband might bother her, so let's hem the skirt to be just below the knee, and then sew it onto the vest to make a sleeveless dress. She should be able to fasten big buttons." She looked over at Shade. "Do you have any more of those crochet flowers that I could buy? You and your sister make such beautiful ones, they nearly look alive."

"I think so." Shade pulled her pocket over and opened it, then started pulling out sword leaves and fire sky and roses. "I only have these left. I need to buy more coloured thread."

"Those are plenty," said Meena happily as she took the small computer for transferring credit out of her pocket and held out a hand. "Give me your credit chit and I'll buy them."

Shade set down her knitting, then scrunched her face to one side and searched for the opening seam on her collar before pulling out a chit and offering it to Meena. "I could give them as a gift, too."

"Nonsense. I have a lot of credit and it needs spending anyway." The older woman snorted as she transferred the credit, then offered the chit back. "Oh wow. You'd better leave that one put away. It just changed colour."

"I haven't seen a credit chit this colour before," said Shade, frowning at it.

"You've got over a hundred credits on it," explained Meena. "But less than a thousand."

"Oh!" Shade's eyes widened as she grinned, then scrunched again as she put the chit away. "That's good."

"Yes. But you really should get one of these computers. No one has ever managed to steal credit from someone using one." Meena frowned with fussy motherly concern.

"Some day," said Shade, patting her collar after she got it closed. "Right now the credit is safe here. After we've done a few more jobs I'll think of buying fancier things."

"Hmmm," said Meena, then blinked as she muffled a yawn. "Oh. What time is it?" A quick glance at her chronometer. "Oh! We've been up for most of the sleep shift. Come, Freedom, we have to get out of here and let the captain and her sister sleep."

Shade reassured the chagrined and anxious Freedom that she wasn't upset with her, then watched as the human girl and Meena left to go to their own cabins before looking up. "Starfighter, can you hear me?"

"Sure can, Cap. You guys finally done?" he responded promptly, his voice as cheerful and awake as usual.

"Mmmhmm. Where's my sister?" Shade put everything back into her pocket, and then got off the bed to hang the pocket on its wall hook.

"Sleeping out here on the bridge with her blanket." Starfighter's voice went gentle. "We were playing Word Wars, but then she conked out."

"You're worse than Meena is." Shade chuckled.

"What? I'm not a mother. I'm a dude," he protested.

"That's not what I meant." She laughed. "Can you bring Mist to bed?"

"Yeah... sure." He grumbled quietly, the sound coming closer as his avatar carefully carried the sleeping girl down the hall. "Shhh."

Shade met him at the door and then helped him get Mist down from his back and onto her favourite place by the wall. "Hey, where are you going? Bring that back here."

The avatar stopped and looked embarrassed. "I thought you wouldn't want this in here while we had the passengers. I mean, what if they think the wrong thing?"

"Then let them." Shade finished covering Mist, then snuggled down on the bed herself and patted the spot beside her. "Lay that down here so Mist can snuggle it."

"What about you?" He turned and walked back, then climbed up onto the bed.

"Of course me too." She snorted. "I know you're protecting us. But if I'm the herd leader then I need to be able to protect at least a little piece of you."

"Heh." He ducked his head as he settled into a comfortable sprawl, then sighed as she snuggled against his back. "Have a good sleep, Cap."

Shade grinned as she got her blanket settled, then closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.