From Beneath the Waves

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He wasn't entirely sure why Olivia felt uncomfortable when talking about clothes, but he had a feeling he never would understand. Was it the idea of him being unclothed that was bothering her again, perhaps? He was doing his best not to cause her trouble, but it was difficult when he didn't know what the trouble was.

"All right," he said with a nod, following at her side as she started to walk even though his eyes wandered immediately. "These shoes are okay, if you don't want to look for new ones." They covered the bottom of his feet, so that was good enough, wasn't it? "But I'll follow your lead!" Maybe some day he wouldn't have to be guided and have things explained to him quite so thoroughly, but today was not that day.
 
She smiled as she led the way into the shopping centre, the automatic doors opening as they approached, letting them into the brightly lit, air conditioned space.

"Well certain places require or prefer closed toe shoes, plus sandals aren't super comfortable for long walks or uneven terrain." She explained softly as they headed towards the nearest clothing store.

It was fairly busy with people wandering from store to store, sitting in the food court, or just standing to the side as they window shopped.

As they stepped inside a salesmen approached them, giving Korrins attire a curious glance, but maintaining a professional smile. "Good morning, can I be of some help today?"

"Oh no thank you, we're fine." She answered with an easy smile, "my friend flew half way across the country to visit me and the airline lost his luggage, so we're just getting a few things."

He nodded in understanding, a sympathetic smile on his face. "They're the worst aren't they?" "Well let me know if you need me." He said brightly before heading off into the back.

She turned to Korrin and smiled, "Okay so take a look and see if there's anything you like okay?" "Like a colour or fabric."
 
Magic doors were the first big distraction as they walked into the building, Korrin's attention drifting aside and then behind them until he nearly tripped and had to turn around to be sure he wouldn't lose her. There was just so much to see! He couldn't help wanting to poke at things, and hearing so many human voices drifting here and there made him want to listen.

The person that approached to greet them got only an uncertain smile in response at first, and some mild but amused confusion at Olivia's explanation. He managed to give a soft thanks before the man walked away, and when they were moving on looked to her again as if to try and understand what had just happened.

"Luggage?" He questioned, but wasn't sure what else to question without causing trouble. With a little shake of his head, he glanced around near them and tried to decide where they should look first, overwhelmed. "Theres so many things. . ." He murmured softly, and wandered over to one of the racks of clothing to touch a few things, wondering what they felt like. Some of them were nice, but some made him shudder a little at the strangeness of them. He was so unused to being covered by anything at all, it would feel strange having something against his skin all the time that wasn't water.

"Is there something like this?" He asked after a little inspection, tugging at the end of the shirt he was already wearing. "I don't mind this." There were too many choices.
 
She smiled a little at his confusion, "I'll explain later." It might not have been the most creative cover story, but it was the most believable, explaining his current attire and the need to buy a new basic wardrobe.

Seeing he was having a bit of trouble, she nodded a little. "There should be, hang on a second..." She hadn't wanted him to feel like she was making the choice for him, but she supposed could help him narrow it down a bit.

She gathered up a few different items of clothing, different kinds of pants and shirts, making sure they were soft and simple. "How about you try these on and see what you think?"
 
Korrin was hesitant, overwhelmed by choices, and only trailed obediently after Olivia as she plucked things up here and there. There were so many things around he wondered how anyone made any decisions at all, and worried that if he made the wrong choices it would become something not unlike his scales - simply a color or covering that was different enough from others' to make them dislike him.

"Wear them?" He asked when she held things out to him, tugging hesitantly at the bottom of his own shirt as if he was going to begin taking it off, though he never made the actual motion to follow through. "I thought people didn't like seeing my skin. . ."

If she had been worried about him lying unclothed on the beach with only herself around, wouldn't it be strange to strip out of his current clothes in the middle of a place with people? He would do it, if she told him to, but it seemed a strange double standard.
 
She misunderstood his hesitance at first, assuming he didn't like the look of them or something. Once he clarified things however, her cheeks turned pink as she blushed and hastened to correct him.

"Oh no I didn't mean here!" Despite seeming a bit flustered, her voice stayed soft and her tone stayed calm. She led him towards the back, where there were a line of changing stalls.

"You go in here, close the door and then try on the different clothes." She explained quietly, "see how they feel and how they fit." "Then when you're done put the clothes you're wearing now back on okay?"
 
Korrin chuckled softly, if a bit unsurely, at Olivia's rush to explain. It was a silly thing not to say out loud the first time, he thought, but maybe what she was telling him was so normal for people it didn't feel like it needed to be explained. He was going to have questions about a lot of things that were 'normal', he was sure.

"Little rooms for changing clothes?" He asked to clarify, keeping his voice low when she did though he wasn't sure why. "Okay. . . I'll go try." It was strange, shutting a door between them, but he did as told and after asking to be sure he knew which side of things were the front went into one of the little rooms.

The mirror made him pause at first, caught by the sight of himself looking so strange. Until then he hadn't stopped to really take a look. For a moment he stood still, touched his ears where his fins had once been and looked at his arms where there had once been scales, marveling briefly at how different his hair looked now that it was dry for so long. Just like everything else, his body had changed but he was still himself inside. He did his best to remember that.

Once he had pulled on some of the clothes, Korrin frowned to himself and, thinking he was still sufficiently dressed even if it wasn't in the clothes she had given him to wear before, opened the door of the dressing room to peek outside. "Olivia?" He called softly, a bit nervous until he spotted her. "I don't know how these are supposed to fit . . ." The shirt wasn't quite as lose as the one she'd given him, which he thought was probably okay, but he didn't think the pants were supposed to sit so loosely on his hips, as if they might fall off. Was that a silly thing to need help with?
 
She felt bad that she'd caused a misunderstanding, possibly embarrassing him. She guessed she should have shown him the changing stalls first, though at least he didn't seem to bothered by it.

It was hard for her to know what and how much to explain, if she was shopping with someone else and she'd explained something so obvious, they'd likely think she was being condescending and treating them like they were stupid.

She didn't think Korrin would feel that way, but it was still not her habit to explain every little thing. She had to remember that things that may be obvious to her and everyone else, weren't obvious to him, even if he seemed to know a lot already.

She looked up as Korrin poked his head out, "Hmm i think you need a smaller size for the pants, the shirt looks good though, how does it feel?" "Too tight or anything?"

She quickly grabbed the same pants in a smaller size, holding them out to him after checking the size. "Try these ones."
 
"I'm not sure. . ." Korrin said thoughtfully, tugging a bit on the shirt and rolling his shoulders to see if he felt restricted. "I don't think it's keeping me from moving." Having anything on his chest felt strange, anyway, so he wasn't sure he was a very good judge. If she thought it looked all right, he would get used to it.

When she came back with the pants he took them back into the little room and changed, shifting his legs around in them and bending his knees a bit to see if he could move freely enough before opening the door again. "I think that's better. I don't think they'll come off if I move too much, anyway." He wasn't sure what he would be doing that would make him have to move around a bunch, but it was better to be safe. "I'll go try the others."
 
"It should be fine then." It looked nice on him, so as long as it was comfortable she thought it was the right size. She could tell he was a bit unsure, she thought he was just unused to wearing clothes at all.

She thought he'd get more comfortable as time went on, assuming he wanted to spend much time on the land. She turned to look as he emerged again.

"They look like a good fit, so as long they're comfortable then that's good." She smiled reassuringly, "Alright, I'll grab you some other stuff."
 
As long as Olivia thought they fit all right, Korin was sure it was all right. He had a feeling he would feel strange in clothes for a long while yet, no matter how well or how poorly they fit. 'Comfortable' was probably not the word he would use, but it was good enough.

Once he had tried on other shirts and pants, having to go down a size in one other pair, he was finally able to put back in the clothes she had given him from her home, and opened the door of the changing room before turning to pick up the bundle of fabric.

"Okay," he said as he came out, looking around a bit before finding Olivia with his eyes and walking over to her. "What do I do with these?" Did they go pay for them now? Was that enough, or were there other things to get? Shed said something about shoes, but he didn't know if that was a separate store or not.
 
Whilst he was trying on the other clothes, she went around gathering other things he would need. Things like socks, pajamas, shorts, a belt and some underwear.

She still felt a little awkward buying underwear for him, it felt oddly intimate and strange to do for someone she wasn't dating, but he did need them.

She turned to face him, smiled and nodded. "Yup we'll pay for these, grab you some more shoes, then we can go wherever you want."
 
"It feels like a lot," Korrin murmured to himself, looking at the things in her arms and his owns. Maybe the pearls were worth enough to trade for the equivalent in human money. At least, he hoped it was. He wanted to be able to help.

"Wherever I want?" He asked a bit louder as he followed her away from the changing rooms, curious but hesitant. "I'm not sure where to go. Where do you like to go? Everything is new, so I'm sure anywhere will be interesting." He did want to see more human things, he just didn't know where to start. If there were places she went to that were fun for her, maybe they could go there. "Do you like the places with books?"
 
She smiled and shook her head a little, "it's not too much, some people have massive wardrobes full of hundreds of different clothes." She said with a little laugh, "you should see my aunties."

She considered his question as she paid for everything, "Hmm well it's a pretty small town, most of the big entertainment stuff is in the other city I told you about."

She answered as they grabbed the bags, "but I do like the bookstore, the cinema, there're some great places to eat, there's a bowling alley that's fun, just window shopping can be fun too."
 
"Hundreds?" Korrin made a soft, astounded hum, lost for a moment in trying to picture someone having so many things inside their home, and had to hurry up for a step or two to catch back up when it slowed him. "Is . . . Is that normal?"

She made it sound as if it wasn't, but who was he to know? He wasn't sure if he even owned hundreds of things, let alone hundreds of just clothing.

"Small is okay," he said after he'd recovered, though he was curious what a few phrases she had mentioned might mean. "I don't know if big would be too much or not."
 
She laughed a little at his astonished reaction, which she thought was pretty fair. "No not really, or at least not for someone who's not crazy rich."

"She doesn't have a lot of expensive or brand name clothes, but she does like to mix and match outfits and things." She didn't see the fun in having so many, but she enjoyed her aunts passion for it.

"It's like her hobby, or her collection." "A lot of people can have collections, and sometimes they're pretty massive." "Like people who collect books, or art, or cards, you know?"
 
It was astounding still, but a collection was something Korrin could understand much better. At least then it made it clear that the clothes weren't purely for practical use but just because someone liked having them. He'd known merfolk before that had collections, whether it was just pretty coral, or sea glass, or rocks that had somehow made their way to the ocean from the mainland. Minamet had quite a collection of magical things, but those were more practical he supposed.

"I like to collect things that fall off boats." He said with a little smile and a shrug. "Or things that have been sunken for a long time. It's fun to guess what they're for." It had been a while since he'd found a sunken boat, and the last one he'd found was quite a swim away from home, but it was an adventure to look for things small enough to take home with him that told stories about the surface world. Maybe all along he had liked them because they were vaguely familiar. He didn't know how many places his lost memories intertwined with his life under the sea.
 
"I have a pretty big collection of different enamel pins, but they're all back home." There was a touch of homesickness to her tone, "pretty much everybody in my family collects stuff, though they're all pretty different from each other."

She led the way back to the shoe store, steering him towards the sneakers so he could pick out a pair he liked the look of. "That sounds like it'd be a pretty varied collection."

She said with curiosity, "what's the coolest piece you have?" "Like what's your favourite thing in your collection?"
 
In the middle of wondering if an 'enamel pin' was what he thought it was, Korrin felt as if he had been dumped into ice water. The pins in question were at home. It was an abrupt reminder that Olivia did not live in the house she was occupying, that she was only there to see what she'd been gifted after her parents died. He'd been so focused on himself, he'd forgotten that someday, probably sooner than he would have liked, she was going to go home and he would probably never see her again.

"Um . . ." He adjusted his grip in the bag she had given him with clothes in it, following her into the new store and trying to shake off the notion that he should just stop now, before she spent more of her currency on things he would only need for a little while. "I think . . . a necklace. It was very pretty, a chain with a big, flat stone that changes colors in the light. I don't know the name of it. . . But I gave it away." Minamet still wore it, he thought, but he last time he'd seen her he'd been too distracted to remember if it was there.
 
She was admiring the sheer amount of different styles on offer, when she noticed Korrins sudden hesitation. She turned to face him, confused concern on her face.

"That sounds really nice." She said with a gentle smile, wondering what had upset him. Had her mention of her home and family made him long for his own?

Was he just feeling a bit overwhelmed? "Korrin, are you okay?" "I mean is something wrong?"
 
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