Walking with a mask of confidence, Nova was really starting to feel pretty good looking.
Especially when Beil looked up from the coats and she watched as his jaw dropped. She chuckled and raised an eyebrow at him when she saw the bow tie he had tried on, literally the only piece of clothing she had ever seen him wear, and it was comically large, but for some reason the burnt orange color complimented his greyscale feathers.
"You look amazing," he said a little breathlessly and his eyes went up in a smile. Nova smiled right back, sweetly and folded her hands in front of herself to mask her mild embarrassment.
"So do you."
While many in the store agreed with his observations and admired her not so discretely, they looked incredulously at him after her reply and had to hold back from sighing or shaking their heads in disagreement.
Sure his human features, however few they were, were relatively normal if above average, but the rest of him just looked scraggly and lacking. His tail was too short, and he didn't even have vibrant feathers like others of his kind.
It mattered very little to Nova, who not only had no other references of Itunade to go off of, but who's main focus was almost entirely on one's character, and Beil was selflessly kind and held great consideration for her. On top of that he was playful, humble, patient, generous, and honestly one of his best phisical features was that he had lush silky black hair, and such soft caring eyes that had moments of unwavering focus on her when she needed practically anything. How could she not appreciate those?
So Nova beamed when she saw him blush a little and look away, fiddling with the bow tie absent-mindedly, while everyone else just wondered what the duck she saw in him.
"So that was twenty-eight silver and seven copper, if I'm remembering correctly," Nova asked the Lion guy abruptly and right on cue Lion and Beil both snapped into action as if it really was scripted out.
"You are indeed correct," Lion began and Beil had turned around from the coats to fish for his coin pouch that he had tucked back into the crease of his wing. Nova finally noticed how he was able to do that even though he had opened his wings before for flight. A small strap overlayed with feathers lay just under the shoulder joint, like a gun holster with a latch covered with a vest to keep it hidden, and the coin pouch would sit perfectly in that little pocket that was now vacant.
"And what does it do when I shift back into a snake or any other form?"
Lion's eyebrow rose with that last part of her sentence, but when she didn't offer an explanation and in fact crossed her arms softly after the pause in the conversation grew oddly long, he cleared his throat.
"It simply vanishes. If you wish for an outfit for your snake or other form," he added and waited half a second before continuing, something Nova itched to confront but chose to ignore, "then that would be possible to add to the outfits options and can be removed by will. Once it is willed away, however, it will reappear next to you as the default sundress until you put it on again. Is this something you wish to add?"
Nova shook her head. "Not at the moment."
Lion couldn't hide his dissatisfaction anymore and his smile dropped into a professionally even expression. "Then let us draw up the sales paperwork for your garb."
"Yes, let's, but please add in his bow tie."
Lion breathed in deeply, like he was restraining himself from saying something that he knew would either lose him this sale or be deemed inappropriate, and he even looked shamelessly annoyed now. Nova was starting to get irritated herself, at this point.
Now she could see it. She'd had an inkling before but now that he wasn't making much effort to hide his distaste for Beil anymore, it was obvious. Towards her it was easy for him to withdrawal his criticism, she was strong and was probably not even done growing, but with Beil he couldn't care less.
So he was in fact not at all remorseful about how he had let Beil be treated. Nova grit her teeth, able to do that now the she was in human form, and reminded herself that she now had micro-expressions that she needed to control, but damn if it wasn't hard to do at the moment. This jackass was really only after Nova's value as a customer, and he had only taken the appropriate actions to rectify his and the rest of the staff's prior disregard of Beil only in order to land the sale with her.
Holding in her anger, and trying to make her face look bored so that even if a little of her irritation seeped through it would only add to the effect, she tilted her head over at Beil and casted her next words only to him. After a moment Beil looked a little aghast but regained his relaxed appearance and nodded, handing her the coin pouch. She couldn't help but feel a little better after his understanding, and as she took it from his tallon her lip twitching back up a bit.
Not noticing or maybe just not caring about any of it, Lion turned back with a sheet of paper and a pen. "Your total is now thirty silver, even. Will that be coin or trade?"
Nova felt the warm feeling wash away like the Lion went and poured ice water on her. Shifting into a serious expression, one that made Harume shrink a bit behind the counter nervously, Nova dug in the pouch and pulled out exactly twenty silver before handing it over to his expectant paw.
Counting it quickly he frowned and his head jerked up to look at her. His bobbing whiskers were definitely not endearing anymore.
Lion saw that she wasn't even making an attempt to retrieve the rest from the pouch, with her hands down and leaning her hip against the counter, he straightened his back and his brow lowered in anger.
"Young lady, this is not what we agreed upon."
"No, it isn't. I never agreed to the original price, I simply asked for confirmation of what you had it listed as."
"You do not seem to understand how this works, you must pay in full with coin or trade with something of equal value to--"
"Oh I understand fully how it would be, under normal circumstances. These are anything but."
"Care to elaborate," he asked in more of demanding tone than necessary. Nova frowned and took a deep breath.
"You ignored both of us, all of you did, multiple times, when there was still half of the staff unoccupied with any work. You apologized, but you were speaking only to me and not to him," she said, holding her hand up in Beil's direction for emphasis. "You try to hide it but I can plainly see your judgments against him for what he is and not who he is, and he is a wonderful person I'll have you know."
Beil coughed behind her but she kept her eyes on Lion with all her concentration, as Lion did with her. Only the rest of the staff saw how Beil's eyes softened when he looked at her and groomed his wing feathers to appear less flustered than he really felt.
"You even tried to justify your lack of attention towards him by insulting him right in front of us, saying, 'your companion has neither an air of authority nor the smell of riches on him,' and you expressed a bare minimum of concern about it only after you realized that I might be capable of more than you gave me credit for, and that you were about to lose a customer."
Her words rang true and Lion, who had kept his eyes on her and had not moved, glanced up at Beil behind her for a moment. Beil, for his part, raised his chin and one eyebrow as his eyes hardened, like 'she's right, you know'. Lion for sure did not like that this pathetic Itumade had the upper hand.
But Nova wasn't even done.
"On top of that, "she continued and Lion slowly returned his gaze to her, "even after we addressed that you had ignored him too many times, you decided not to ask him if he had wanted help finding anything for himself, or even offer him a seat."
'Why should he,' Lion questioned her silently.
"And it wasn't just him you were rude against. Any time the price of anything was brought up you acted as if it was taboo to even ask, like only the rich who believe that money is no object were qualified to shop here. You had offered a discount with your subpar apology, but you had no plans to follow through with it, did you?"
She didn't give him time to answer her, not after she remembered what he had also done to her. "You didn't give me a chance to mention if I had any preferences, either. Once you saw that I had a tidbit of intrest in any of the choices you provided you jumped into action and started spouting off all the qualities of the garb without allowing me to state my opinions about each outfit. You just offered a few examples and hurried along like I was using up your precious time."
Lion had the decency to look sheepish about that last one, but the fact that he hadn't shown any repentance about the rest up until this point only irked her more, and she was done ignoring his responses.
"Oh that one you regret? You hold no shame about the treatment you put us both through? You took my embarrassing wrapping paper thought that, quite honestly I should have kept to myself, and made an inappropriate comment about it. You even had the gall to claim it as your own idea for future wares, without offering to buy the rights off of me or provide royalties. That by itself qualities for a discount of half the price of the morphing garb, at least, and I was being generous by offering two-thirds, not including the bow tie which should really be provided for free to make up for yourself at this point.
"So to summarize: you were judgemental, arrogant, condescending, impatient, negligent, and overly ambitious, is that about right," she asked the rest of the staff rhetorically, and the four of them kept looking from her to Lion and back anxiously.
Lion shut his eyes tightly and he was gritting his fangs so hard that she could actually hear them grind on each other. When he finally looked up, it was like the fight had left him, replaced by a pool of barely restrained rage like a teenager backed into a corner, and though most of her felt annoyance that he still wanted to win this when he screwed up so royally, a small part of her felt a little guilty.
"What would you have me do, my lady?"
My lady? What?
"I would appreciate if you merely avoid repeating this behavior in the future, accept the price I offer as fair payment, alter the garb to my preferences without any additional charges or suggestions, and put actual doors on your changing rooms."
"Doors, I can do that, " he said oddly, "and I can do the rest as well."
"Very good. I also request that Harume provide me with assistance, she was the only one who actively listened to what I had to say."
"Right away," Harume answered in her own stead before Lion could agree and he eyed the back of her head carefully as she sprung up and over the counter and waited for orders. Nova really did like her enthusiasm and realized that maybe she was just following Lion's example and it was just customary in haughty establishments to ignore those who didn't look the part. That needed to change. This wasn't her old world where people weren't treated equally, his was a whole different realm. Can't they just get along and respect everyone?
Once they had made it back to the corner and into the changing room, Harume helped her alter the ball gown outfit into something completely different. The opalescent hues were removed and, instead of a bustle and puffed sleeves, it was brought into a softer leaner look, not quite skin tight with its ruched hips and relaxed hemline that only reached her thighs now. It definitely didn't have as many layers, only the white top and a pair of black pants. Billowy like the dress used to be, not as dramatic though. It reminded her of those harem pants from the desert that looked like they belonged in a pirate movie. It was loose fitting and tightened with straps on the ankles and a built in sash on the waist. The top was gently tucked in and she was even given a strip of cloth to tie her hair up into. It was now a perfect second casual wear.