Window Shopping

[Trickster]

"Ohh Morgan! Take a look at this!" Lynn's hand darted deep into a rack as she triumphantly pulled out her prize, a deep green silk shirt decorated up on side with an embroidered bird in flight. "How did someone ever give this up?" She held it up against her as she turned to look in the mirror.

After pledging their Motley, the two had decided to go out shopping for a bit and Lynn had successfully drug her friend into one of the nicer thrift stores in the Sacramento area. Still definitely second hand, but verging on "boutique" in the way that they displayed their wares and made some attempt at actually putting together displays.

"Look!" She was momentarily distracted by a jacket in a deep wine red that would go wonderfully with both Morgan's fur tones and her Mask's coloring. She held it up to the raccoon. "You should try this on."

[Morgan Bellanar]

Morgan smiled and nodded along at Lynn's find, trusting her new motley mate to know more about fashion then her: "T-t-tis uh, p-pretty Lynn, yes it tis."

This was a much nicer thrift store then where she usually went, but he bright colors were not her preference. The raccoon preferred color coordinating darker shades that made it easier to hide or tougher material that didn't tear easily. The silk shirt certainly looked like it would feel comfortable, the bird broke up the color which to Morgan was bad as it would hinder hiding. Lynn however seemed to adore the bright colors.

Morgan blinked owlishly as Lynn presented her with the red jacket. She already had a solid jacket, which looked tougher then the thrift store one. She looked up at Lynn in confusion, about to voice this concern but bit her cheek upon seeing her friend's eagerness. "As-as a, uh, formal j-jacket yada-yes? If-if-if ye t-t-think it twill looo--appear nice, I c-c-can try the fragile-erm, pretty-pretty jacket heh-heh."

Morgan took off her own beat up, brown leather jacket, letting it slide to the floor with a solid thump. She gingerly took the red jacket from her motley mate. Slipping it on, she found it was nice and soft feeling...though nowhere near as mentally comforting as the coat that had saved her life. "Ano-um, heh-heh how tis the look?"

[Star]

Sometimes you train surf, sometimes you thug Supernal Thieves, and sometimes you... clothes shop.

Clothes are totally a thing. An identity, an impression, or even self gratification. Any good performer, well, okay, even the not so good ones, know that Presentation is totally A Thing. At least, that's the thing to keep remembering. Racks of clothes? Like reading the Lex Magica. Or Charter. Or Charter Version Two. Or Charter Version...

But it's a thing. A We thing, even if neither of We was super excited about it. Especially when there's not an Asp or Mandy.

"Hey. Did you see that? The green thing? You'd look good in green.I think." Brown hair, green clothes? That had to work. Trees are brown and green and look just fine. The mop bobbed at his Warlock. File under Sincerely Trying.

"Can we see that..."

Wait.

"Oh. Hey. It's, like, you two."

Brows furrowed. Were they still Not Together? They looked awfully Together.

"Ummm. Hi."

Wave? Fist bump? Hug? Definitely wave. Fingers waggled.

Avis Cayce

[Trickster]

Lynn grinned at bit at the look Morgan was giving her. The poor woman looked about as thrilled trying on something brightly colored as a soaking wet cat thinking about running out into the rain. But she was trying it on anyways and Lynn appreciated the gesture. "You look good, really. You're a club spokesperson, so you should have something nice, even just for the formal occasions. You can bring a change of clothes, change in the car or something." She frowned thoughtfully as she looked over the clothes rack. "How about this?" She pulled out an elegantly cut tunic shirt in a pattern of blacks and greys. It would look wonderful in a well lit room, but out in the dark it might actually function as camouflage. "Would you feel more comfortable in this?"

Lynn turned as she heard a familiar voice. "Oh hey! How are you doing?"

mask hardened, sorry

[Avis]

Lazily, the Councilor of Warlocks, First Talon and Leader of the Adamantine Arrow in Sacramento, drifted from between the nest of clothing racks towards the one who'd called her and his two acquaintances. Just to look at her, you'd never guess she had any claim to titles so impressive, not unless she was frying grey matter in a chemical attempt at communion, but hey, most of the time appearances were illusion. That was why she'd come shopping with Star in the first place, actually, to buy the thread for more illusions. You couldn't always walk around in a grey cotton sweat suit, no matter how comfortable it was. Sometimes, you had to conform. Commodify. Camouflage. There were too many situations where a hoody and sweats would just look ridiculous, and in the life they lead that was dangerous. Illusions helped keep you safe.

Except...It wasn't just that. Illusions could do far more. Sometimes, you needed an Illusion to help reveal the Truth, and that was why a worn black leather jacket, with far too many studs, was draped over her dull cotton clad arm. Yeah, she was pretty happy with that find. Not surprised by it, that was also something you couldn't exactly where all the time, but fuck, she'd be lying if she didn't relish how it'd juxtapose next to Kaptn Khakis.

An amused look filtered over to Star, and then Avis' dull green eyes made their way back to Lynn and Morgan.

"Maybe you should wait for introductions to end before stealing from their shopping cart," she advised with a brief snerk. "Anyways, I'm Dez," she continued, holding a hand out to Lynn. "How'd y'all meet, anyways?"

[Morgan Bellanar]

Morgan nodded her head to Lynn's suggestion, though her tone wasn't enthusiastic "Ssssure, ye-ye know mmmore about fashion then me-Imma-sure, heh." The shirt however was something she was more happy to try on. Morgan hung up the red jacket and almost started to take her shirt off to try the tunic on. Fortunately she stopped herself before doing more then lifting the hem of her t-shirt. With a embarrassed chuckle she took the tunic.

But before she could try it on, folks arrived, making her shrink back towards Lynn. "Huh, oh-heh-heh-hi!" This came out as a nervous squeak as she weakly waved, not even raising her hand above her chest to do so. Oh, and there was someone else with the singing dood? "Oh, um-uh, heh-hello Dezzzz. Imma M-m-morgan. Um, ano-and uh-uh," she looked up at Lynn then shrugged, "We-zah m-m-m-encountered heh-him during karaoke-pub-crawl."

A succinct and accurate summary.

Mask hardened

[Star]

Was Karaoke Cheating A Thing?

Khakis is as khakis does, and aside for the vaguely different shirt proclaiming some music festival somewhere with neon paisley, he looked the same as he had that night. Or, mostly any other night. Or day. Nondescript can be Distinctive, but nothing like the Distinctive that a studded leather jacket and maybe a haircut might be. Because Joan Jett. Put another dime in the jukebox, baby.

"I just didn't see where..." Apologetic defensiveness. Picture a chinchilla. "Ummm, but, yeah. Right. Karaoke. They were like, singing, and then we did a threesome." Wait, that didn't sound right. "On stage." Nope, getting worse. Because Public. "I mean, you know. We sang. We sang a song. Together."

Couldn't they just talk about green shirts?

"But, okay, right, that's Morgan. That's Lynn. That's Lynn's fiddle, or violin, depends." A hand flopped outward, finger gesturing. "Lynn, Morgan, this is Dez. She's, uh. Like, she's the girl I mentioned." There. Everything sorted out. See? He'd been straight up about being Taken. "We're clothes shopping," he added helpfully.

Because Captain Obvious.

[Trickster]

Lynn reached out and grasped Morgan's shoulder reassuringly. Poor girl really didn't like new people. With the other she reached out and shook hands with Dez, grinning brightly. "Yeah, drunk karaoke. It was an interesting night, as in 'you had to be there to understand' kind of thing." Her gaze switched over to . . . what was his name? But she was interested to see that the awkward thing wasn't due to him being drunk.

"I'm really sorry, I can't remember your name." She smiled apologetically. "Mostly I remember trying to hit the high notes for Bad Moon rising and that really awful cover of Brittany Spears those guys did."

[Avis]

"Jack," 'Dez' supplied. "He's Jack. And even though I wasn't there, I'm pretty sure I understand. Don't worry, no judgements. I know how it goes."

Well, she was lying there, actually. There was some judgement. Drunk anything was fucking stupid, but, well, most people didn't hold to that point of view. Hell, most people didn't realize that there was anything besides their own point of view, so fuck it. She wasn't going to get into it in the middle of a second hand store. Wasn't worth it to chase that sort of conflict here. Different time and all that.

"So, um, I'm curious, if you do karaoke and you carry around a fiddle, that means your a musician, right? What about you, Morgan? Y'all every play any protest music? Like, punk, or industrial, or metal, or something?"

Ok, sure, a punk fiddler was probably pretty damn rare, but people experiment. Besides, music had been on Avis' mind a lot recently, specifically the kind of ideas that music could spread, the kind of wars it could fight, and she was curious what actual musicians might say. Even if, ya know, they were the type of people that got fucked up all the time. Like, seriously, either Morgan had trouble with her speech or she was super fucking high right now. Avis was pretty sure it was the first, but you never knew...

Anyways, sometimes Truth filtered down, even if it fell behind an existing Illusion.

[Trickster]

Lynn grinned a bit. "Yeah, I'm a musician; I actually just managed to produce my first CD and hooked up with a little production team to try and market my stuff online. So far I've almost made enough to pay them back for the work they did." She shrugged a bit. "But since I'm working my way up from being a street busker, I count that as a win." She frowned a bit in thought. "But as for protest music and punk...not so much. I'm new to the scene and I've never met anyone who was interested in that sort of collaboration."

"But, the really good protest music isn't something that's limited to one genre, really. It's the stuff that is so catchy that people start humming and singing it without even realizing it. You want it to get worked into the general consciousness of a population so much that nobody can really tell where it came from. That's how you write a good protest song." She shrugged a bit sheepishly for getting carried away with her explanation. "In a protest song, it's the message that's important, not the vehicle. So you make something that can reach people no matter what they like to listen to."

"So, do you have a message you want to spread, or are you just interested in the concept?"