Shopping on a budget

[Martha Villiers]

Nodding excitedly, Martha smiles and nods and waits with patient stillness for Diana to do what she needs to. With Diana's help, Martha is soon out of the car. Trembling a little, she holds to Diana and smiles her thanks as she taps her peg leg on the ground to sound out its fastness.

"Goodness! Thank you, Miss! How gentle and kind you are!" she chirps sincerely. Clearly building a high opinion of Diana already.

Her minty aroma is noticeable again. Gripping her cane, she helps Diana secure the car and, after looking around the parking lot for signs of threat, the wide eyed Mekhet takes Diana's arm and hobbles towards the store.

"Quite so, Miss!" she enthuses, meeting Diana's eyes with excitement, "Sporty...." she echoes, looking to Diana again, wondering what strange ideas Diana's fertile mind might have. "I am confident we can find something here, and then we might explore the thrift store too! There's usually something wonderful to see there!" she giggled once more and made sure to hold close to Diana as they head inside...

Blinking at the strange lighting and the sudden new noises, Martha holds close to Diana, looking around the store and gripping at her cane. Turning to Diana, she asks meekly; "Where ought we begin, Miss?" clearly Martha was happy for Diana to take a lead...

[Violet]

Walking into the store, Diana surveys the displays. "Right, okay. Do you want to stick together or split up and come back when we've found something? If you want to stick together, I think we should just wander around until something catches our eye! If you want to split up, I suggest going off on our own and meeting back here in 30 minutes or so when we've found some stuff, ideally for ourselves but also for each other!" she smiles brightly and waits for Martha to make the decision. If it were up to her, they would split up for sure to pick things out, but she isn't sure how her tiny companion will do with crowds. She seems to have some kind of anxiety disorder.

[Martha Villiers]

Nodding, her twin tails bob. She listened to the options. If pressed, Martha would have to admit her instinct was to stay close to Diana. But, she knew enough to fear seeming needy and just plain weird...

After a moment of obviously deep assessment of the situation, she chirped; "I like your plan, Miss!" Martha beamed a smile and offered an obedient military style salute to Diana, "Thirty minutes! There is no time to waste, excellent idea, Miss!" already her mind was full of sporty attire for Diana and seemingly utterly delighted at the time factor Diana had built into the situation.

With a giggle, Martha nodded again and, taking careful and wide eyed note of the exact location to regroup, she skipped and limped off to find the sports clothing.

Her twin tails bobbing with each limping skip and hop...

[Violet]

Diana comes back to the spot, now holding a shopping basket absolutely bursting with items. She sets it down and is clearly relieved to be free from the weight. Martha will be able to spot white, blue, gold, black and teal fabric threatening to spill over. She's got pink cheeks from the effort expended power shopping, but she is grinning widely and looks genuinely thrilled.

"Oh my goodness Martha. I thought it was going to be just alright in here, but it was great! I found so much stuff for both of us. Here let me show you. Please please be honest and tell me if you don't like it!!" she says, seemingly all in one breath. She begins furiously yanking a few of the white and blue items out, and some gold accents are revealed as well. Once she gets them all into her arms she offers the pile to Martha. "This is some stuff I found for you! What do you think? I hope it fits your budget... Oh! Did you find anything cool for me?" she asks with a tone of anticipation. Meanwhile the basket behind her still appears full.

[Martha Villiers]

Under the pressure of the 30 minutes, Martha had gone a little berserk.

She'd headed right to the sportswear section and begun to fuss over hat, sneakers and tennis skirts.

Before she knew it, she was admiring several brightly colored pairs of high heeled shoes. In truth, her study of the footwear and shorts took longer than she'd planned.

Ah, thirty minutes, she decided, is not long enough and soon she was making her way back to rendezvous with Diana.

As Martha limps back, she struggles along under the weight of two baskets laden with many items "Oh, Miss!" she beams. Smiling cheerily to Diana. Her peg leg taps as she hobbles along, her cane gripped under her arm. She seems to have experienced the same sense of urgency that brought a flush to Diana's cheeks.

"I found lots of things I hoped you may wish to examine! If not, I shall learn from my mistakes!" she chirped happily while placing a basket on the floor. Within moments, tiny Martha was carefully takiing from the pile a pair of blue high heeled shoes "What do you think?" she asks happily while proudly showing them to Diana before sneaking a glance to Diana's legs and then the basket Diana indicated...

Martha's own baskets are dominated by pastels and pinks, tennis skirts and shorts.

"Oh! Look!" she blinks and cheerfully nods as Diana begins to unload the basket and offers the pile of new clothes to Martha to study. Blinking, she seems immediately drawn to the blue skirt and hat. "Goodness! What a fine skirt!"

[Violet]

"Oh babe, there are no mistakes in shopping! Well, unless you take home something you don't like, but that's basically it." she says before getting a proper look at the shoes. They are pretty dark according to Diana's usual tastes, but she does wear dark sometimes. "Those are really classy!" she exclaims as she reaches out to feel the material.

She squats down and roots through Martha's overflowing basket. She pulls out a few things, the yellow/silver dress, a pair of the distressed shorts, one of the tennis skirts and the yellow handbag. She looks up at Martha from her position near the floor. "You know, you've really got some great stuff here but I noticed you didn't grab any tops? All I grabbed for a top is a t-shirt but that'll do in a pinch to try on this stuff! That's one shopping tip though, even if you're not planning on buying more than one thing, always grab a full outfit to try on. It'll give you a better idea of the end result."

She sets her picks aside and shows Martha the remainder of her own basket. Another look at the green jacket she'd picked out herself made her reconsider the criticism she'd earlier thought about the shoes. Maybe she was branching out into darker shades. "This is some stuff I'd picked out for myself. What do you think?"

[Martha Villiers]

Martha claps her hands in glee as Diana examines the shoes and offers them praise. Smiling, she blinks and tries the skirt against her waist. Imagining the feel of the cloth and trying to assess the fit.

As Diana bent down to study the baskets, Martha in turn studied Diana's legs. Folding the selected skirt over her free arm, Martha suffered a heart stopping moment as she ever so narrowly avoided staring too long at Diana's legs.

But she was listening to her friends' advice, nodding gratefully.

Meeting Diana's eyes, she realized her companion was quite right.

"No tops...?" she gasps, blinking, Martha is clearly surprised and staggered by implcations of this sartorial focus, "ohhh" she cooed.

"You're quite right, of course, Miss... Goodness... I... I... " She nodded, as if grateful to have seemingly learned something. Determined to avoid studying Diana's knees, she held her eyes on Diana's until invited to study the basket.

Bending down and leaning on her cane, she admired the sunglasses. "Oh! Look at those! You will make everything here look splendid! Ah, but this is all fabulous!" she cooed once more, her eyes drawn to the rips in the skinny jeans. "Isn't it odd..." she makes a small, timid, hand gesture to the ripped jeans.

[Violet]

Diana starts laughing and holds up the shorts she'd pulled from Martha's basket. "You pulled two pairs of distressed shorts off the rack yourself, but you're surprised my pants have rips too?" she asks, while poking a finger through the holes in the shorts.

"Its just the style right now, don't worry about it, its been around since the mid 2000s so I'm sure its nearly had its day." she says with a smile. Her eyes look wistful as she remembers the style coming in not long after she was embraced. At first she hadn't adopted the style, but she'd since taken to it with open arms and she'd be sad to see it go.

"Oh, so my club seems nice. We're going to have a meeting soon." she tells Martha, looking to gauge her reaction. If any, assuming she understands she means her covenant.

[Martha Villiers]

Diana's observation about the shorts and the gesture of poking fingers through the holes made Martha giggle. Happily nodding, she was about to try to explain herself when Diana added the information about the style. Nodding in cheery and wide eyed agreement, Martha replied happily;

"Purchasing pre-ruined clothes is a most strange and... is the word gratuitous?... thing. The holes in the distressed look, Miss; where and why did that style originate?" she asks with obviously genuine interest and also a confidence that Diana would, somehow, automatically know.

"Oh!" she chirps, looking from the combat style boots to Diana now at the mention of the club. Nodding her understanding, Martha adds with a sweet smile; "Ah, now that is excellent! I do hope it will be a fun evening for you! Goodness! Everyone is your club all seem so skilled and so lovely! I hope I can meet them all soon too!" she smiles again, swiftly looking into Diana's eyes, fearful of staring too long at her friend's knees.

"But... style..." she echoes, collecting a pair of Daisy Dukes from her basket to hold against her waist to assess size and style, "hmmm these shorts, are they perhaps too short?" she asks, wide eyed, before adding, "...considering the style of the jeans and suchlike, Miss, what do you imagine will be the next Big Thing for a... a Look?" she asks, clearly and obviously fascinated by Diana and her insights.

[Violet]

Slightly surprised that she would care, Diana looks at Martha and furrows her brow as she tries to remember. "Ok, so like.. Have you ever heard of the band Nirvana? Grunge music. That whole 90's thing. This is a 90's revival, which is why I think its almost had its day." she says. She remembers now that she was wrong about when it initally came back into style, but decides not to mention it.

She always looks at my legs. I mean, sure I've got nice legs, but that's sort of weird. I wonder if she does this to everyone.

The Daeva grins and looks at her companion. Giggling a bit, she says "You know, I think its a good quality about you, but you really do seem to genuinely like everyone. Either its true or you're awfully good at being convincing. Either way, I'm hoping you can meet the club soon as well although its pretty small. Do you know Marco and Konrad?"


Again not expecting her tiny friend would really care much about clothes, Diana pauses before answering. She is reminded of an hour ago in the car when she was pressed for her opinion on the future of music. "I don't know but I hope it doesn't have too many layers! It makes costuming almost impossible. Forget about doing a period piece! You won't see it in my work." she says by way of genuine reply, but also to gently remind Diana where her true area of knowledge is when it comes to the arts.

"C'mon, lets get this stuff put back in the baskets so we can try on what we want!" she enthuses, and begins packing up her own haul.