"Impractical Shopping"

Posted on Thu Jun 2nd, 2022 @ 5:11am by Lieutenant Commander Rin & Lieutenant Myne Redal
Edited on on Thu Jun 2nd, 2022 @ 5:15am

Mission: Rejoinder
Location: SB1
Timeline: MD1 1200
1881 words - 3.8 OF Standard Post Measure

//ON//

Rin and Myne disembarked from Elysium and headed for the station's promenade for some promised shopping. Rin was dressed in civies: a plain, short sleeved, blue tunic and black pants. She was looking forward to the outing, a time when she and Myne could just be friends and hopefully not have to worry about beating each other up, nightmares, the occasional psychopathic former host, or the general grind of work.

Myne was a beaming, smiling ball of excitement at Rin's side. She was wearing a yellow, long, flowery dress and kind of a silly white hat to match along with a silly grin on her face. She had been looking forward to the shopping trip for a while now and the only thing that had came close recently to getting her this giddy had been the maintenance she did on the fancy flower pot she gifted Rin.

Clapping her hands together she looked at Rin. "So what do you wanna do first? I know they have a Klingon fast food joint with unhealthy but delicious stuff. We can go before or after! Oh, if we go before we might not fit in what ever we try on! Work up a healthy apetite?" She was just as chaotic as usual, looking around wanting to go and do everything at once if possible.

Rin wasn't sure where to start. This was mostly a social outing with Myne. There was nothing she particularly needed that the Elysium replicators couldn't provide.

"How about we leave it to chance?" Rin closed her eyes and spun around a couple times and pointed randomly. She found herself facing an upscale clothing shop, suit coats, cocktail dresses and the like on display in the window, perhaps the least useful clothing in Rin's estimation. "Well, that's not very helpful."

"Go Rin!" Myne cheered her friend on as she spun around and hugged from behind. "That was awesome!! Your spinning around thingy made such a cool choice!!" Moving around Rin she grabbed her hand smiling widely and pulled her towards the shop. "We can get those dresses that you have to drink Human ale in or get long, fancy guy clothes to play gangstars! This is gonna be so much fun!!" Myne said butchering the word gangster somehow as she pulled Rin into the shop. Where she immediately just ignored most sense of propriety and began to loudly, well, more or less bully the vendor into assisting them by simply pestering the poor fellow with a verbal cascade of excitement.

"This is what I get for embracing spontaneity..." Rin exclaimed as she was dragged into the shop.

She started poking around the suit designs, out of politeness if nothing else. Some were quite flattering for a female form. Pants and jacket were still inside her comfort zone.

But was this outing an exercise in comfort? She didn't own a single skirt or dress. They were impractical. Too easy to trip in long skirts, have to sit just right in short skirts, and heaven forbid you have to get on the ground while wearing either.

Be honest, Rin thought. You volunteered for a full day of impracticality.

She started scrutinizing options. Long skirt...nyah, would never wear it. Maybe something above the knee. Slightly flared. Sleeveless. OK, narrowing options. Some of the dresses even appealed to her, once she got away from the impracticality. She could survive this.

"Myne, could you help me choose a color?" she asked. This was meant to be a social outing after all. And she'd allow the poor vendor a momentary respite from Myne's waterfall of words.

To the great relief of the poor vendor, Myne turned towards Rin with a while a smile and came next to her friend while taking in the dresses nearby. "Have you thought of what you would like to wear first? Though for obvious concerns, green is out. And I don't think you'd appreciate being covered in pink or purple?"

That question turned Myne's smile into a mischievous one and left no doubt that if Myne had her way, Rin would end up drowned in those two colors. "How about a combination of blue and red shades? Think dusk sky on Earth? Or we can go for dawn? I think a mix of cold and warm would fit you very well Rin. Speaking to both sides of you. That's what a dress should do in my opinion."

Myne was happy. Recently things had been good, like really good. Life seemed brighter and more optimistic and she had found he control over herself more stable than it had ever been. And in part she knew it was because of her friends, the people around her that helped take her mind off of things. Friends like Rin, whom Myne only wanted to make smile and laugh as much as possible as her own way of showing her gratitude for their frienship.

"I like the idea of two colors," Rin mused. Not what she was expecting, but predicting anything associated with Myne was like debating what kind of toy one should buy for Schrödinger's cat. "But...why not green?"

"Yay, I had a brilliantly awesome idea! Your words!" The Trill chuckled and came in closer a bit to whisper. "You know, green and the B word that is followed by org." Pulling back Myne shrugged. "Unless you want that in which case green and orange usually work well together."

Rin considered the green and orange combination. Nope, that's a bridge too far, she silently concluded.

"Ah yes, the Grob. Wouldn't want any Grob references," she said with a smile, using one of Myne's old nicknames for the Borg.

Rin awkwardly emerged from the changing room in a dress of icy blue and deep burgundy, hem above the knee, square neckline off one shoulder. "So, uh...thoughts?"

"Again, unless you want to. Thought you might enjoy some distance from the Gorb color scheme. Too much green and Command S'hib might think you're a walking, tasty looking mound of grass or something." Myne chuckled and went to look around while Rin changed.

By the time Rin emerged, Myne was wearing a mafia style, dark blue baller had and a matching coat draped over her shoulders. Which did not fit the colorful, summer dress she came in with.

"Oooh, I like what I am seeing." She chirped as she came to hover around Rin, checking her out. "Business like and yet playful. Or at least I always think of blue hues as being business. But, you are a adorable evening sky. This is a keeper and..." Myne trailed off as she took a few steps back to take Rin in. "Yeep, it does hug you beautifully. How does it feel?"

"Impractical," Rin answered before reminding herself that impractical was kind of the theme of the day. "But, I mean...I guess I like it? More color than I'm used to. I think it works?"

"Exactly. Rin-rin, fashion is not about being practical. But looking good and feeling good!" Myne poked her shoulder and hugged her tightly. "You do look adorable. And it fits you so well. I am sure you'll be turning heads easily in this. Now, one thing that can add to the ensemble is a shawl around your shoulders. After that you will look absolutely classy!"

"Ah, yes, cover the shoulders after we're removed the shoulders," Rin chuckled. "Maybe a jacket instead? Otherwise, I have to hold onto a..." she paused. Nope, stop with the practicality. "Ok, sure. And...I think I prefer 'classy' to 'adorable.'"

She looked Myne up and down. "Do you like what you've found for yourself?"

Looking at her gangster coat she nodded with confidence. Doing her best to look serious despite wearing a flowery dress under that long coat and having a cutsey white hat on. "Yes, I am the perfect combination of cute and deadly. The deadly gangster known throughout the galaxy as 'Flower Power'!" Myne was putting in a genuine effort to look the part, as well as show off what she's been learning recently about gangsters by doing the machine gun gesture.

"That's very you," Rin said. She couldn't actually quantify what would be a very Myne thing, but she was confident this was one of them.

"I do need shoes though..." Every shoe Rin had ever owned was practical, and even she could recognize the dress needed something other than a flat. So she found herself a black shoe with a two inch heel. Anything taller than that just looked painful. Embracing impracticality was one thing, but she wasn't going to torture herself for it.

"Where to next? I hear there's a shop that sells ice cream that doesn't even taste replicated."

"Ice scream?" Myne asked blinking curiously at Rin. "Ice that screams? There is such a thing? Oh by the stars, sure, let's go!! Oh my, and I don't even have my PaDD with me to record this!!" Her excitement was mounting quickly at the mental image of a potential ice-based lifeform screaming for their amusement while being eaten. "Humans have the weirdest, decadent passions!!"

"I fear this is going to lead to disappointment," Rin sighed as she headed down the Promenade, looking for the shop. "Ice CREAM. A frozen dairy product. No screaming, sorry."

"Awww, no screaming? Are you sure?" Myne's usually happy, cheerful expression now bore the suffering of ages. So much disappointment was gathered in her pouting face that it could break mountains. But thankfully for the universe at large, she recovered quickly and just sighed. "Just when you think Earth comes up with something really cool... it turns out I just misunderstood things, again! I swear, Earth culture is slowly turning into a huge disappointment!"

"What would make the culture less disappointing for you?" Rin asked, genuinely curious.

"I don't know?! Maybe something actually fun? Like screaming ice? Or underground beaver people battling for supremacy of the surface? Or anything from the past two centuries. Earth culture has so much unreal, imagined things recorded that make Earth look a loooot more entertaining than Earth actually is. And for some reason I find it hard to get my hands on anything culture related after Earth's twenty first century. Everyone rambles on about stuff that happened before that! Why?!" Myne droned on a bit, venting out her curiosities and frustrations with Earth.

"I've never quite understood people's fascination with pre-21st century culture either. Perhaps because it is so different from more recent times?" Rin mused with a shrug. "The 21st century was a terrible time for Earth. Humanity nearly wiped itself out and suffered for a long time before they developed warp capability. They were still digging their way out of their apocalypse when they came in contact with the Vulcans. From that point forward, human culture was much more similar to what we're familiar with today."

Rin shrugged, smiled, took Myne by the hand, and gently dragged her in the direction of the shop. "Now, I've done the impractical dress thing, and I admit it was somewhat enjoyable, so will you please share some frozen dairy food with me?"

//OFF//

Lt Rin
Chief of Intelligence

LT Myne Redal
Asst. Chief of Engineering

 

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