Peas in a pod

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Elise hesitated for a moment. Would it truly be safe? Well, it wasn't like she would speak or anything, and no one would find her out completely based on looks. "Yeah, I have time." She finally said with a smile. "Just tell me where you want me and what to do."
 
"That's great! It's really a help." Beaming the older woman looked ready to hug Elise. Instead she waved over the two teen girls. "I think Madison and Jessica can give you the rundown of the show, it's not the longest event so it should be easy to remember."

Spotting the gesture the two girls came over, giving Elise curious glances. Cheerfully Melanie took over the introductions. "This is Erica, she has offered to take over for Isabel. Isabel suddenly had a sick aunt that needed taking care of, I hope she will be okay." Frowning worriedly for a moment she then returned to her ever cheerful manner. "Erica, this is Madison and Jessica, they're my nieces and was kind enough to help out with the fashion event."
 
"Nice to meet you Erica." Jessica responded and extended her hand. Elise shook it politely without hesitation. "Too bad about Isabel's aunt, I hope she'll be okay. It's really nice of you to jump in like this on such a short notice."

"Don't mention it." Elise told her with a friendly smile.

Jessica looked Elise up and down a few times. "Hmm.. Yeah, I think her clothes should fit. Maybe one size off, but it's probably not anything that will be majorly visible nor kill you if you try to get into it. Madison, you wanna go over the schedule for tonight?" Jessica asked the other girl.
 
Thinking over the schedule for a moment Madison smiled, "there's getting the clothes set up in the right order, make sure we all remember our parts. After that it's the runway followed by dinner. Then we're good." Smiling to their help Madison added: "Really, thanks for helping out."

Seeing that the three seemed to get along Melanie smiled. "I'll leave you girls to it. I don't think you need me breathing over your shoulder." Worry-free she moved along and started talking with some other people at the store.

Once Melanie was gone Madison's smile faltered into an unimpressed frown. "Jess, she bailed out on us, didn't she?" Lightly referring to the lacking participant the younger of the two girls was frowning softly, glad that her expression wasn't visible from where Melanie currently was.
 
Well that seemed pretty easy. She shouldn't have any problems with that amount of work considering she used to do much more on a regular basis. Elise got quite the surprise when the conversation suddenly changed once Melanie had left.

"Yeah, sick aunt, are you kidding me? She barely even visited her mom when she was hospitalized for three weeks. I'm not buying it." Jessica crossed her arms and shook her head disappointed. The very least she could do was to inform them a week beforehand that she wouldn't show up instead of just ditching them on the day. "I'm sorry you got dragged in like this Erica, Isabel makes up excuses as fast as she gets the chance. She has a problem with saying no when people ask her for a favor so she needs an easy way of getting out of it." Having a hard time saying no or just liking the attention of being helpful without having to work for it. That was debatable.

"Oh, too bad to hear that, but at least you got a replacement in time." Elise replied.
 
Nodding in agreement Madison added: "It doesn't help that Aunt Melanie sees the best in almost everyone." Sighing softly the teen took out her cell and checked the time. "We still got some time, wanna use it for a final fitting? This is kinda our pet project after all."

Putting the cell phone back in her pocket she glanced over to where the older woman was clearly enjoying herself among adults her age. Giving 'Erica' a warm smile she added: "Really, thanks for helping us. If you like any of the clothes you're gonna wear and they're made by me then go ahead."
 
Jessica nodded in agreement. "We need to make sure that the clothes fit her anyways, so it's probably for the best." She eyed Elise quickly before adding "not that I think there will be any problems. They seem to be the same size."

A hand grabbed Elise's wrist and started to pull her towards the clothes. "Come on, you'll love them I promise." Once they got to the dress hangers, Jessica started to pick out the clothes that had been intended for Isabel to wear and almost threw them into Elise's arms.

"You don't have to show us everything, just make sure they all fit. If something is way off we'll just have to throw that out of today's show. If you're uncertain about how it looks, just come out and ask us." Elise nodded, slightly overwhelmed all of a sudden. Jessica then showed her behind the curtains that they had put up as temporary fitting rooms.

As Elise disappeared behind the curtains, Jessica turned to Madison with a pouting lip. "How come you've never offered a clothing to me? You know I adore your work." She failed completely in her fake sadness as she started to smile already halfway through the sentence.
 
Following them to the changing rooms Madison was smiling in amusement as Jessica took the lead like usual. In that way they worked well as siblings.

Laughing at the attempt of complaining she just shrugged and countered casually: "Enough to make me sew clothes for you all the time." Heightening her voice slightly she jokingly mimicked Jessica: "Oh, Madison, make this for me. It looks soo cool. Hey, Madison, remember that you're making me that outfit for the party next month."
 
Jessica rolled her eyes. "Well, your designs are better than mine, so it can't be helped. I make delicious cake for you in return." She then said before sticking out her tongue at her sister.

Soon Elise was back with the two siblings. "They fit." She told them. It wasn't true. The pants to one of the sets had been way too slim for her real hips, but she didn't need the real clothes anyways. Everything could be solved with a few illusions.

"Great, I knew they would." Jessica jumped excited by the news. Now they had enough models again.
 
"Great, now that everything's in order I'm gonna grab that cake auntie promised." Chipper Madison turned to leave, pausing for a moment she gave Jessica an impish grin: "I'm holding you to that promise, there's this cake recipe I found that you absolutely have to make."

Taking another step further she paused as she realized one more thing. Walking back to the two she looked at them seriously: "The turn order! Which clothes are worn when! Erica doesn't know those things yet."
 
"Leave it to me sis." Jessica replied. "Go eat your cake. But not too much, you need to get into your pants later." She snickered before turning to Elise and started to explain which order the clothes would be in while hanging them back up. After having gone through the schedule again and after Elise had repeated the clothing order to Jessica so that she could be sure she knew it, they allowed themselves to relax until the show started.

Elise didn't change clothes a single time during the show, but everyone still got to see the clothes she was supposed to wear. Making an illusion took less time than taking off and on clothes.

The show seemingly was a success and soon they were all sitting down for a nice dinner. Elise had planned to sneak out before the dinner started, but somehow hadn't been able to get away from Jessica's, Madison's and Melanie. One of them were always too close for her to just sneak out, and making herself suddenly invisible in front of so many people was far too risky. Especially when she would show up there once every week for a while.

"You did great today Erica, If you ever want to join in again, just tell us." Jessica told Elise as they were about to part ways.

"Thanks, I'll think about it." She replied. That meant a no thanks though. Once was more than enough. She didn't want to draw too much attention to herself, even in such a small place. On top of that she would most likely move away from town shortly after her sewing lessons were over. She had stayed there for quite some time already, it was time to move on.
 
"Yup! Oh, and do you want any of the clothes? They did look nice on you." Cheerful Madison repeated her offer from earlier just to be sure if Erica wanted the clothes or not.

"You've been really helpful today Erica, perhaps you and that stubborn tomboy friend of yours would like to have dinner with us sometime?" Cheerfully the much older woman offered her own generosity, clearly appreciating the help and solution to the issue.

**^**^**^**

During the time Elise had been occupied with the store Xan had been hard at work, not just picking pockets but also tracking down the right fence. Satisfied with the evening's work the teen was in the mood to eat. Finding a small food joint it screamed cliche and cheap thanks to the gaudy decor. Grabbing a menu the cheerful teen glanced down at the list of food. So many choices...
 
"If I try to pack anything new into my wardrobe it would explode." Elise lied. Having as few clothes as possible was for the best since she never knew when she had to quickly get out of town. Too much package would slow her down. Plus, she could make her old clothes look as anything she wanted too.

"But dinner would be nice. I'm sure Alex would be love the invitation." Great, another opportunity to get a bit closer to her, if she accepted of course. Maybe this time she could persuade the girl into getting an honest job instead of stealing from people. Or at least convince her not to steal anything that can be of emotional worth to people.
 
"Aww, okay," accepting the excuse Madison nodded and smiled, not the type to push after a proper rejection. Getting a bit tired her attention was waning, the day had been busy for the two siblings.

Melanie on the other hand was thrilled at the accepted dinner invite and beamed cheerfully. "Wonderful, I'll cook up something nice." Turning towards Jessica and Madison she smiled warmly at her two nieces. "Of course you two girls are always welcome to dinner anytime you feel like it."
 
"Sounds great." Elise replied. "Maybe sometime after the next lesson then? I'm not sure if I'll meet Alex any more this week. We both are rather busy." She then said. Well, she would probably try to meet up with the girl, or at least keep an eye on her so that she wouldn't do something bad again, but no matter how often they seemed to bump into each other there were no guarantees that they would before the next lesson, so getting a time before she even knew if she could ask the other girl to come would be pretty bad.

After some goodbyes, Elise was off. For now she would just go back home and get some rest, and the next day she would try to find some work for the upcoming week.

She didn't get far as a familiar person walked out of a small food joint when Elise was about to pass it. "Ah, Alex." She said happily. Sure, it was probably not the girls real name, but until she knew her real name, she could as well use this one. "Hey, wanna come over for a dinner party some time? I got on good terms with our teacher and she wanted to treat me. She told me I could bring a friend." Elise grinned, hoping the thought of free food would win over the girl. It wasn't like she was asking the girl to come over to her place and that they would be all alone. Hopefully that would help convince the other girl.
 
Selecting some simple dishes Xan felt more for eating at the new nest instead of eating at the joint. Opting for takeaway the teen made the order and waited. Finding an old newspaper the teen flipped the pages carelessly, skimming over the titles until reaching an intriguing one. While the paper was plenty old and before the great reveal the article spoke of a phenomenon that couldn't be caused by anything but a mutant. Reading the article while waiting there wasn't anything else to do.

When the order got called out Xan immediately went over to pay and get the sorely needed meal. Once paid and the food safely in a plastic bag Xan headed out the store thinking about the interesting article. All thoughts about that was ruined as the familiar voice, and face, of someone the teen didn't particularly like the curse almost slipped out of hir lips. Looking over at 'Erica' Xan was hardly amused and even though the dinner invite sounded tempting there wasn't much that sounded pleasant with that naive stalker around.

"... Erica..." Using the other girl's assumed the teen sighed heavily and nodded to the nearby park. Better appease the nuisance instead of being forced to use powers that was better off as a trump card. "You're annoying, you know that?" Walking towards the park the teen hoped for an open bench, somewhere to eat the meal while thinking out a good way to chase off 'Erica'.
 
Elise wasn't at all surprised to hear something like 'you're annoying' coming out of the other girl's lips. Alex seemed to be an extremely blunt person who spoke her mind whenever she had something to say even if it hurt people around her, and Elise hadn't really given a good impression of herself so far.

"I wouldn't have been if you hadn't tried stealing from me." She countered as she followed the girl to the park. "As they say in Sweden, you've made your bed, now lie in it. With other words, you created this situation yourself, now take the consequences." Elise gave the other girl a playful grin.

"Either way, I weren't going to tell you before our first lesson, but since we bumped into each other I just thought, why not? I'm just asking if you would accept a dinner invitation from your teacher. I doubt such a lovely soul would try to poison you."
 
"Correction, you could've chosen to ignore me, turn your back on me or anything really. Of all things you chose to stick to someone who happened to steal a trinket from you. That trinket is of course returned to you." Snarking back at the high and mighty response first Xan looked around for a free bench.

Finding one the teen headed straight over and sat down, taking out the food the teen addressed the second subject. "I usually don't worry about poisoning, if you're really like me in any way at all you should already know that the kindest strangers are the ones to call social services on you if you slip up." Finding a pair of chopsticks instead of a fork the teen sighed. Of course, chopsticks, that wasn't going to make eating any faster.
 
"Social services?" Elise looked slightly confused for a moment as she sat down on the bench beside the other girl. With a bit of distance of course.

"Ooh, so you're under-aged then." She said eventually when she finally fit the pieces together. "I haven't had the need to think about that for the last one and a half years." Elise shrugged. "Well, even if that had been a problem still, I would just have changed appearance so that they wouldn't be able to find me again."
 
Inwardly cursing for cluing in the other girl about hir age Xan broke the pair of chopsticks apart. Slightly irked as the wood split unevenly leaving a wooden piece poking out on one Xan forcefully broke off the offending piece. "You're of age then, who're you running from?"

Fixing the grip on the chopstick Xan could finally eat some of the food but a thought struck. "Hey, why are you relying so much on your power? Some people can track you when you use them." Remembering a short run-in with a mutant group Xan had sworn off careless usage of powers, even as useful as they could've been with hir profession.
 
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