"Oh no." she protested, "get that look off your face. I am not going with you to a LARP wedding two days after I got back from the most horrible tour I have ever had. Besides, I do not want to be involved with anyone who would get you so stinking drunk that you were passed out for two days."
"Actually, it was probably closer to three days that I was out, but what is this about you having your worst tour?" Suichi's face was full of concern as it slid free of the shirt he pulled over his head. "What happened?"
"Nothing new. The actual concerts were great." Alanna grinned and then shrugged. "Music is my life. It was the other stuff. You know, all the usual pre-concert stuff, the post-concert stuff, the after-party and then the day or two on the bus going to the next concert site and listening to all the lectures from my mother about all the things I shouldn't be doing. 'Alanna, you aren't old enough to get a tattoo. Alanna, you aren't old enough to drink. Alanna, you aren't old enough to smoke. Especially that. Alanna you aren't old enough to let the tenor take you into the closet after your final show in a fit of excitement and let him have his wicked way with you. Alanna, you aren't old enough to go to the red light district in Amsterdam to check it out.' You know, the usual." She grinned again.
"The Amsterdam red-light district?"
"Oh yeah! It was really cool. Mom nearly tossed a gasket when she found out Udolpho took me around and let me check stuff out and talk to the people and stuff. I did try a few of the local delicacies. Did you know that everything is legal in Amsterdam?"
"Yes, I was aware. From there you went to Singapore?"
"How did you…?"
"Recall, I knew your concert schedule as well as you did. Plus, that is the only place you could have gotten a tattoo with such pungent vegetable inks three days ago." He stared at her face as he asked, "Does your mother know about this, young lady?"
To her everlasting horror, Alanna blushed a deep scarlet under her make-up. "How…?"
"I see. She doesn't. So she doesn't realize that those inks take nearly a week to set to permanency and that the tattoo can still be removed without permanently disfiguring your back for two more days." Suichi smiled diabolically at her. "I shall have to mention it to her when next I see her. Perhaps before I go to the wedding. Since I will still be looking for a date."
Alanna stared at him in horror. He was completely serious and would so totally rat her out. She had known him for most of their lives and when he made That Face, he was going to be utterly ruthless and do exactly what he said. No one had ever opposed That Face and succeeded. Suichi did not use it often, but when he did, those resisting fell.
She considered her options. She could stay with Suichi, even overnight. They'd done similar things before. And she would go with him to Gildean's to pick up the clothes. And then she would have to decide between dumping him there and hiding out for 2 days after he called her mother looking for her and expressed his gratitude for her very liberal opinion of the new tattoo and her generosity in allowing her to retain it while it was totally removable for another day or two even if it does make Alanna look "fast" and immoral. That's just what he'd do because he knew just which words to use. They all knew each other too well. She felt the trap closing.
While she considered, they walked a few blocks to a small tailor shop. Suichi caught a whiff of a faintly familiar scent as Alanna pushed the door wide and yanked him in before slamming it shut behind them. "Yo! Gildy! I have a special rush case for you!"
This greeting was answered, not by a person, but by a baseball-sized pincushion flying toward his head. Suichi snatched it from the air mere inches from his face. "Go away, Alanna," came a voice from behind a tall partition. "I'm up to my earth in Rush orderth for a wedding tomorrow and I don't have time for your thilly friendth."
"But Gildean, It's the boy you said you would pay to dress properly the other day when you saw him on the television show. And he has to go to a wedding tomorrow too, and if you don't help him, he will wear the yellow dress again."
"Of courthe the boy in the yellow dreth has to go to the wedding he would be the-" The slightly distracted voice came to a stop and a head popped out from behind the partition, not unlike a gopher from a hole. The head had spiky green hair and multiple piercings. As the eyes caught sight of Kurama, the became impossibly wide and a strange, high pitched squeal issued forth from his lips.
The head moved to the side of the partition where it was joined by the body which was tall, slender and decidedly male. And yet the movements and the very attitude seemed decidedly female. The spiky hair disguised the points on the ears and nothing else was immediately visible on the tailor to indicate a lack of humanity, Kurama recognized him at once. Although the last time Kurama saw him, he had long, curly black hair.
"Nice to see you, too, Gildean," he said, holding up a hand as the tailor rushed toward him. "Alanna said you could help me get ready for tomorrow. I would also like to get something for her as she will be accompanying me."
"I have not agreed to that, Suichi Minamino, and I am still not sure I will go with you. I don't know how you found out about the tattoo, but when I find out, somebody is soooo going to pay."
"You'll go. And I told you, I smelled the inks."
"Exthcuthe me, but are you talking about the tattoo Alanna got in Thingapore?" Gildean interrupted the conversation. "Can't you pretty much wipe it off ath if it never exithted? In under a minute?"
"Yes, but Alanna wants to keep the tattoo until the inks are set and if her mother were to find out about it while it is still removable by mortal means, she would do so at once." Suichi smiled at the tailor. "Alanna does not want to go to the wedding with me, but I do not have another female who I could take. In case you haven't noticed she can be very blind in some areas."
Gildean considered and then nodded. "Tho tomorrow you are going to which wedding?"
Alanna waved the invitation in his face. "This one. Apparently it is being put on by the same people who put up that Dark Tournament show you enjoyed. At least some of the names are staying the same. I guess if you're gonna LARP, you may as well do it in front of a camera for money. I still think it's silly."
"Be that ath it may, I will need to measure our mutual friend here and I will give conthideration to the betht thing for you to wear. Firtht, though, I need to thee the new tattoo." Alanna looked at the tailor in anguish a moment and then turned her back and pulled her shirt off and the top of her pants down to display the entire thing. Both Gildean and Suichi were impressed with the artwork and with the hours of agony Alanna had been subject to, both during the creation and since then by wearing normal clothes over it as camouflage while trying to keep it moist and fresh with the oil she had to rub in several times a day.
Alanna's back needed a new coat of oil, so Suichi did it for her and then Gildean sent her out for accessories, a pair of Black shoes for Suichi and a pair of burgundy shoes and a matching purse for herself.
"Tho. You weren't at all thurprithed to thee me. Why ith that?" Gildean dragged him into a back room and started pulling his outer clothes off.
"Why should I be surprised? Alanna said she was taking me to see Gildean, the tailor for the stars of Youkai Records, owned and operated by her boss, Mr. Sesshoumaru. Who else could it possibly be?" Standing there with his arms held out from his sides, wearing nothing more than the briefs Alanna had grabbed from his dresser while Gildean measured all the appropriate (and possibly a few inappropriate) parts, Kurama seemed completely at ease. Right up until Gildean pinched his butt.
Kurama turned a stern glare at Gildean. He ducked his head to hide the mischievous grin and muttered, "thorry."
"You have to know he is lying," came a voice behind Gildean. Gildean jumped and almost swallowed the pins he was holding in his mouth.
"Yes, Hiei, but we are going to let it pass this time since he dare not do such a thing while he measures Youko for his suit."
"You know you shouldn't thneak up on people, shortcake."
"Hn. I didn't sneak. I thought you knew I was here and were just ignoring me while you got this half of Kurama measured for the suit."
"Well you thought wrong. Do you have thith magical elikther to change him to Youko or are you jutht here to annoy my fashion thentheth with that monotonouth monochrome look of yourth?"
"Neither. Koko is insisting I accompany her and that you will dress me for it. Apparently I am to be part of the wedding party."
"Actually, I have the elixir. It takes a few minutes to work and then the effects last about ten to twelve minutes. If you are almost ready for the second measurements, I can take it now." Kurama held up a small flask. At Gildean's nod, he screwed the top off and drank a few sips of the contents. Gildean giggled. "What?"
"You had better not let Alanna thee you do that tomorrow. She'll want to thample whatever you are drinking."
"I had not considered that. Can you get me two matching flasks for tomorrow? I will put the potion into one and something suitably toxic into the other. That way if she tries to drink it, it will not disagree with her."
"That might work. Jutht don't mix them up. After all, having you thtroll down the aisle in a drunken thtupor with Holly might be amuthing, but do you even know what that thtuff will do to a human?"
"Hn. It might be almost worthwhile to see it."
"Hiei, what a terrible thing to say!"
Gildean chuckled as he finished up Kurama's Suichi measurements. Then he started on Hiei's measurements while they waited for Youko's arrival. Knowing that his time was short, Gildean took Youko's measurements in a very short time and promised that the suit would be ready at the wedding site when Youko needed it to be there.
The potion wore off at that point and Kurama and Gildean continued their conversation without missing a beat as Gildean finished measuring Hiei and they waited for Alanna to return. As they waited, Gildean snatched a length of a silky and very fine burgundy and cream striped material from his stores in the back of the shop and started sewing. He didn't even measure. He just cut and sewed.
After a few minutes, he sighed and scurried back to the racks for some virtually transparent scarves in matching colors. Again, seemingly casually, he snatched them in equal proportion and started sewing them, seemingly in random, onto what could only be described as the "base" of the dress. Then he sewed a layer of alternating black and burgundy scarves atop the burgundy and cream, giving the illusion of decorum with occasional flashes of near-nakedness as the layers slid together and apart. Then came cream and royal blue. The flashes were rarer, but appeared clearer. Then sky blue and rose. Visions of beautiful legs leading up to a shadowy paradise chased itself across the skirt.
Gildean nodded to himself as he drew a long section of the virtually transparent cream silk gause around the entire affair and up to meet as a flat knot at the base of a very long and graceful fall of a pair of twined scarves, one to either hip, just above the end of the bow. They started down her back from her shoulders. They were joined to the back edges of the bodice just below the chest-line, leaving the entire back bare.
The front of said bodice appeared to be a scarf coming down from each shoulder and meeting with the shoulder straps on the outside. There was a deep scooped neck on the front that appeared to be yet another nearly transparent scarf swept across the lowest point of the bosom without exposing the nipples. Or so it appeared to the fascinated watchers as the gown took shape.
By the time Alanna finally got back with the shoes, the gown was draped on a mannequin as it was meant to be worn and set in front of the 3-way mirror with a fan blowing gently. The illusion of a shapely and yet nearly naked girl whispered across the dress at intervals. Nothing actually inappropriate, but there always seemed the possibility of more. Hiei took his leave and Kurama and Gildean were having tea and chatting when she breezed in.
"So, you boys done already? It usually takes his highness this long just to get my measurements." Alanna tossed Gildean the bag with 2 pairs of shoes and a purse in it. "This what you wanted?"
Gildean pulled a pair of heeled boots, nearly combat boots, that laced up in the front and the back to half way up the thigh. He pulled out the black laces and gave Alanna the boots and some strands of cream colored lace. "Uthe thith inthtead," he said, shoving her back toward the dressing room. "Try on the frock in there and let me know what you think."
Alanna looked at him in confusion for a second and then went warily into the dressing room. Gildean listened carefully as Alanna walked into the room, stopped, and then walked slowly around the gown. He heard her sigh and then he heard the sound of clothing being practically ripped off and flung to the floor. Then she sat down and used the lace to lace up her boots. He heard her twirl in front of the mirror and then she skipped out. Kurama's jaw dropped.
The dress had looked ghostly and mysterious on the mannequin. On Alanna, it looked like a peek-a-boo peeping tom's dream. The boots added to the illusion that the dress showed what was below all the layers. Alanna spun in front of them and apparently gave them an almost complete view of her charms. Or so it appeared. Kurama nearly swallowed his tongue. Alanna took one look at his face and laughed.
"I see you have perfected the naked dress you said you would make me." Alanna swung in front of the mirror and grinned back at Gildean.
"Yeth, well your mother thaid you could not have it for your thtage act until you were 18. Your mother will not thee thith on you until that time, do you underthtand me, Mith?" Gildean looked at her firmly. "If there ith any fall-out from thith, you will never thee another dreth of it'th like before you are over 21."
Alanna looked down and nodded. "Yes. Gildean," she said sincerely. He would do it, too. He had this annoying thing about supporting a parent's right to make decisions for a child. Fortunately for her, his concept of when those controls should be loosened because the child is no longer a child was a great deal more liberal than her parents. He said it was because when he was alive it was normal for a girl her age to be married, sometimes with a child, and running a huge household.