Princess Tutu © Itou Ikuko and Hal Film Maker, I'm just borrowing the characters for the enjoyment of myself and others.

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A Change of Clothes

"Oh, Ahiru!" Raetsel cried, clambering down from the cart and pulling the younger woman from Fakir's arms to hug her. "It's so good to see you! Charon told me all about you coming back and your trunk getting lost; how terrible it must have been for you!" She pulled back, holding Ahiru's shoulders in her hands and taking a long look. "Goodness, look how much you've grown! Has it really been so long? How was your trip?"

Fakir and Ahiru both glanced nervously at Charon, wondering what he must have told her. It was obvious that Raetsel remembered Ahiru in that same vague, distanced way of the few classmates Fakir had spoken with, but apparently Charon had come up with some sort of cover story on his ride over to get her.

"Well… I got here safe and sound," Ahiru said with a smile, unsure of what to say. She tried to look to Fakir for some sort of cue, but thankfully Charon stepped in and saved the day, or at least the moment.

"Why don't you two head inside while we grab this case down, and then we can start making dinner. You remember where everything is, right, Raetsel?" He motioned for Fakir to help him with the cart as Raetsel and Ahiru made their ways inside.

Ahiru gravitated towards the table and tried to stay out of Raetsel's way as she started getting out all sorts of plates and cookware and crockery. Ahiru had never paid much attention in the kitchen when Charon and occasionally Fakir were making things. Pleased with the items she'd retrieved, Raetsel turned her attention once more to Ahiru.

Ahiru gulped.

However, her smile was still warm and soft like Ahiru remembered, and it started to put her at ease even though she had no idea what Charon had told Raetsel. Wiping her hands on the apron covering her skirt, she took a seat next to Ahiru. "Charon said you took some time off for your health to visit your relations and you've just returned back to resume your dance studies at the academy."

"Ahh…. Yes," Ahiru lied, hoping Raetsel couldn't tell and feeling bad about her dishonesty, "I went to stay with my family because I couldn't dance." That's almost the truth... right?

Raetsel reached over and patted her hand. "That must have been hard for you." Ahiru looked at her in confusion and she continued, "You looked so happy to be dancing with Fakir, just now," she said with a sudden sly look to her smile.

Ahiru looked away and fumbled with the tails of the shirt that were bunched up in her lap. "I missed being able to dance," she admitted. "I tried to practice by myself, but it was hard."

"I'm sure it will come back to you with time; you and Fakir looked quite nice together, from what I could tell." She squeezed Ahiru's hand and giggled when the girl flushed, her cheeks a rosy pink. She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, "He looked like he was enjoying it too." Rather than helping, it just made the blush worse.

Ahiru was about to stammer a denial but heard the door to the kitchen open and whipped her head towards it, both relieved and nervous to see Charon and Fakir arrive with the trunk of clothes. They placed it down at the foot of the stairs for the moment and Charon began working on dinner in earnest.

Raetsel went over to the chest, motioning for Ahiru to follow, and showed her how to work the latches to close it and where she could insert a lock if she wanted to protect what was inside.

Fakir left them to their clothing inspection and went to help Charon with dinner. Seeing him depart, Raetsel gave that same sly smile from before but covered it before Ahiru could notice, handing her the topmost shirt before rummaging around for a skirt for Ahiru to try on with it. She finally settled on one that would suit her well and found an underskirt to go with it, extracting both from the masses of clothes in the trunk and handing them to the smaller woman. "Here," she said happily, helping Ahiru up and guiding her towards the stairs, "you go and try these on; I want to see how they fit." She made little shooing motions with her hands, encouraging the smaller girl as she went.

Ahiru bundled her hands around the mass of fabric in her arms, clutching them to her chest as she ascended the stairs. Once she was safely back in Fakir's bedroom, she closed the door and sighed, starting to feel overwhelmed. She wasn't used to being the center of everyone's attention, and she was so bad at hiding things! Closing her eyes, she let herself fall back onto Fakir's bed, taking in the softness of the messy blankets as her legs dangled off the side.

She released her wad of clothes and rolled over, burying her face in the blankets and breathing deeply. They smelled like Fakir and the memories of dancing with him earlier flooded her mind, causing her to squeal quietly into the bedding. Being held by him again, getting to dance with him again… it was nothing short of amazing. She waited until her giggles died down before getting back up, sitting up and starting on the buttons that held her shirt closed.

If she hadn't been looking down at the buttons, she probably would have never noticed the changes to her chest. Before, Fakir had held her and then given her his shirt so quickly, she'd never gotten a chance to look down, and now that she did, she found herself just staring. Her eyes widened as she took in the curves that were most assuredly not there before, not as large as Raetsel's, but certainly more than she'd had before.

She gave in to the urge to grab them, comparing how they fit in her hands, and noticing that her waist tapered just a bit more than she remembered. This had to be new; there was no way she would have forgotten looking this… nice? She moved her hands to the sides of her hips, pressing against the supple skin and then bringing them up to look at the width between her open hands, how did that even happen? She was still fairly thin and narrow, but there were definitely dips and swells that were not there previously.

She wondered if she was any taller, but had no good way to check, since she knew Fakir had grown some these past months too. She tried to remember how he had felt when she was dancing with him, but she ended up fixated on how his shoulders felt broader and managed to derail her brain completely.

Slapping her cheeks to force herself to focus, she took the shirt all the way off and discarded it on the bed, followed soon by the cuffed slacks. She lifted the skirts from the pile first, shimmying into them and trying to tie the strings in the waistband as tightly as she could. It felt weird to be wearing Fakir's shorts instead of real girls' underclothes, but that would be something she'd have to get on her own.

If never even entered her mind as strange that she didn't want underclothes from Raetsel but had put on Fakir's without a second thought.

She shrugged into the shirt, somewhat at a loss for what to do with the sleeves. She tried to drape them off her shoulders like Raetsel wore them, but they kept falling and dragging down the front with them. She gave up and pushed them up further on her shoulders; it wasn't perfect, but it would work. She'd have to see if there were different styles of shirts in the chest Raetsel had brought her. Clearly, even when she was younger, Raetsel had more curves to her than Ahiru, who was struggling to fill the shirt.

Content that the shirt was going to stay in place and utterly pleased with the wide, swishing skirts, Ahiru bounded back down to the kitchen to show off her efforts to the waiting Raetsel. She spun in a few slow circles, enjoying the flare of the skirt before it settled down once more.

"Oh, Ahiru, you just look so cute!" Raetsel exclaimed, directing her over to where the men were still finishing up cooking.

Ahiru smiled at the praise, looking down at the pretty, swishy skirt. "Are you really sure I can have all these clothes, Raetsel? Thank you so much!"

"Of course, of course," Raetsel replied, "Ah, this is so fun, it's like playing dress-up with a little sister," she added with a giggle. "Doesn't Ahiru look pretty?" she asked as she presented her to the boys.

"A vision of loveliness, to be sure," Charon said with that warm, fatherly tone of his.

Fakir glanced over and saw Ahiru holding up her skirts to get a better look at them. The angle she was leaning at caused the sleeves of her shirt to slip and the front of the neckline to scoop down; it gave him the perfect vantage point to accidentally look straight down the shirt, yet again seeing an image of that new valley of skin that would haunt his memories. He flinched when his eyes focused on it immediately, and forced himself to look away. He awkwardly scratched at his cheek while averting his eyes, cursing the blush that was already crawling across his cheeks as he mumbled "…it's fine."

Raetsel shot him a look and clapped her hands happily. "After dinner, let's try a few more pieces, to make sure they all fit, Ahiru." She said it with a pleasant smile, but something about her look sent a shiver down Fakir's back.

Realization dawned on him as her smile widened when she ushered Ahiru back over to the chest of clothes. In that brief glance Raetsel shot him, it was suddenly all too obvious…

She knew.