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nina zenik

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This is probably a terrible idea.

It's just that ever since Sweeney, of all people, put the idea into her head, she's had a hard time getting rid of it. Maybe it's because she saw a few women in suits up at Kagura over New Year's -- a reminder that such things are done, if not in large numbers. Or maybe it's because slightly looser formal wear seems, incongruously, like an easier stepping stone to manage than the unsettling normalcy of tight denim. Or maybe it's simply because there's no one to say she shouldn't, which is near enough to should that she can't help but consider it.

Consider it enough to want to try it. Maybe. Just to... to see what it would be like.

But she needs help, is the thing, and no idea who to ask. Thomas is entirely out of the question; she doesn't even want him to know she's thinking about this until she has her own thoughts in order. She considers Sweeney for a few seconds longer than she probably should, if only because he's the one who started this, but she can't imagine he'd be very, er... patient. And she needs someone who will be patient, and supportive, and kind enough not to tell her outright that she's being completely ridiculous, and reasonable enough to convince her she's not walking a bloody cliff's edge.

Which is how she ends up texting Nina to see if she's available for an outing, and shortly thereafter finding herself fidgeting on her doorstep like a first-time petty criminal. God, this is mortifying. She's already blushing, though hopefully that could be mistaken as a result of the chill, or the walk.

She takes a deep, steadying breath, then knocks.

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"We both liked Rhiannon, that was one of his suggestions," she admits as she lets Greta go and starts pawing through suit jackets. I liked the idea of Alina Rhiannon... or the other way around, maybe?"

She pulls something off the rack and holds it up to Greta with a discerning look. The trouble with men's suits is they're built for, well, men. Greta will be more narrow in the shoulders, but that isn't going to stop Nina from trying. She'll just stick to smaller sizes and be creative with imagining how it will look tailored.

"Katerina Alina. Eric Aleksy. Hold this, we need to find trousers."

It’s with mingled surprise and relief that Greta watches Nina dive right in. She hadn’t expected the other woman to take charge quite so readily, but it’s far better than the alternative. Beyond her limited experience of helping Thomas get all done up for parties, she hasn’t the first clue where to begin.

“That has a nice rhythm either way,” Greta notes after repeating it a few times in her head. “Bit like a waltz.”

She accepts the clothes Nina thrusts at her, managing not to make any absurd, wordless noises when she mentions trousers. God, they’re actually doing this.

"I love waltzing," she sighs. Nina plucks up a simple white button-down in passing and hands it off to Greta. Trousers are a little more trouble, mostly because men's trousers are always measured and sized differently, but after some hemming and hawing and holding things up to Great, Nina finds something she thinks will fit.

As she heads for the dressing rooms mid-way between men's wear and women's formal, Nina plucks up a tie.

"Now, let's see how this all looks."

"It is fun, isn't it?" She supposes that's one mark against suits as party wear: the loss of any flaring skirts as Thomas twirls her around the floor (presuming, of course, that he has no other objections, and a hiccup of panic briefly chokes her as she wonders if he'd even want to dance with her if she was dressed similarly to himself).

But then she remembers the way Sweeney had looked when he'd insisted she'd look fantastic. And she realizes that fleeing now wouldn't make her feel better as much as it would make her feel cowardly.

No sense in getting ahead of herself. She'll try the bloody thing on, see how she feels about it, and save worrying about Thomas's opinion for when it actually becomes relevant.

"Right, I'm going to need all the help," she mutters, ushering Nina into the dressing room as if they're being pursued. "I mean, I have a good idea of how it all goes; it'll just be like--like undressing Thomas, but backwards." She realizes how absurd she sounds only after the words have left her mouth, and then she groans under her breath, her eyes falling shut so she won't have to see whatever face Nina's making.

Nina helps Greta hang up each item on the hooks in the room. "Alright then then, down to your underthings," she says with a gesture as she starts unbuttoning the shirt and the trousers. "I don't think they'll fit quite right without proper tailoring, but I think we can get a good idea of how it'll look - and it'll give you an idea of how it all feels."

She doesn't balk at the idea of another woman undressing with her in the stall. The Second Army didn't have separate barracks for boys and girls, so they'd all gotten over each other fairly quickly.

When Greta mentions undressing Thomas backwards, she peers over her shoulder and gives a wink. "Just like that."

Greta casts her eyes heavenwards as she starts to shuck off her clothes. It doesn't even occur to her to be bashful about it with another woman, especially a friend, and she had the sense to wear a separate skirt and blouse, rather than one of her more involved dresses.

"No, I wouldn't have high expectations for something right off the rack," Greta absently agrees. That, at least, is very familiar territory; almost everything she owns she either made to measure or tailored to fit. She understands the convenience of buying off the rack, and there are items that don't have to fit perfectly, but she's not used to going about in things that are only sort of her size.

Once she's down to just her underthings, she takes a breath and motions for the trousers. "Might as well start with the weirdest bit."

"Do you really not like pants?" She's curious, mostly because she embraced them before ever coming to Darrow, when the need arose.

Nina smiles and hands over the trousers. She finishes unbuttoning the shirt and passes that over next, tipping her head as she watches Greta get dressed. She can see the possibility, certainly.

"It's not about liking them or not," she starts to argue, before realizing that isn't entirely true. "Well. I don't like the look of jeans. They're all too clingy -- the women's ones, anyway." They look more like thick hose than anything else, and while she can understand the reasoning behind wearing little but glorified undergarments to the beach, she wouldn't want to wear them round the shops. The entirety of Darrow doesn't need to know the exact shape of her arse. "And I've never had cause to try anything else, really."

These trousers, at least, are a far cry from skinny jeans. It takes her some awkward maneuvering to get into them, and some of the looseness is doubtless down to them being the wrong size for her, but they're not designed to lie like a second skin. They're sort of silky, actually. She lifts first one foot and then the other like a fractious horse, then hums in a manner that's uncertain, but not displeased. The shirt is easier to manage, despite having many more buttons, and she tucks it in before looking up at Nina.

She doesn't quite have the courage to turn around and face her own reflection in the mirrors behind her. "What do you think?"

Nina digs into the pockets of her dress to find some bobby pins. She takes some of the extra room in the waist of Greta's trousers and pins the fabric together, giving a slightly more tailored look. She helps Greta into the jacket to complete the look and gently coaxes her to turn toward the mirrors.

"Button the front," she suggests. As Greta does, Nina carefully pulls the fabric on the back of the jacket, giving a better idea of Greta's waist under it all.

"You really do like dashing, darling."

Nina doesn't answer right away, instead pulling out a handful of bobby pins and taking in some of the surplus fabric, pinning and adjusting until it all lies a little more as if it's been tailored to her. Which makes sense -- it's hard to have an informed opinion of an outfit that looks as if you've stolen it off someone else's laundry line -- but still leaves her nerves a little frayed by the time Nina finally nudges her around to look in the mirror.

"... Oh," Greta says quietly, blinking at her own reflection. It feels a little like when she first saw Sara: someone with a shared face but few other similarities to speak of. Because she, naturally, would never wear anything like this. Except that she is. Her back straightens unconsciously, and she makes an astonished little noise before finally forming a full sentence. "It's... it's not bad." She could be talking about the look of it or the feel of it; either way, she's failing to manifest any of the shame she'd anticipated over this sartorial deviance.

But she can also recognize that there's something off about it -- something besides the imperfect fit, which Nina's bobby pins can only do so much for -- and after a moment of pensive self-study, she murmurs, "I'd have to do something different with my hair..."

Nina grins, peering over Greta's shoulder as the woman takes herself in. "We could put it up. Slick it back, like a man's style. Or we could do something very feminine but still pulled back," she muses, considering different looks.

She lets go of the jacket so she can gently pull Greta's hair back into a twist. She holds it in one hand and reaches around to tug a few strands of hair loose to frame her face.

"I think people would fall over if you walked into a party like this, darling. And I mean that in a very good way."

"I don't know about making it masculine, just... a bit less 'harried baker,'" Greta says with a small, shy smile. The contrast between the sharpness of the suit and the windswept state of her hair is rather glaring, albeit easy enough to fix.

As Nina soon demonstrates, pulling it back into a temporary twist, fiddling with it a little until there are a few loose strands hanging artfully around her face. She looks like... well. She looks like the sort of woman she might gawk at during some party or other, stunned and perhaps a little impressed by such a bold fashion choice. (And then, of course, she'd feel silly for being so surprised by something that is hardly unprecedented, and only as striking as it is because she's a bit of a bumpkin, still.)

Well, look at the bumpkin, now.

Suddenly, she's grinning. "Can we try a waistcoat instead of the jacket? I want to see how that looks."

Nina just cackles gleefully and lets go of Greta. "You wait here," she says as she leaves the dressing room on a mission. She paws through a rack of waistcoats until she finds something that she thinks will fit.

She comes back and takes it off the hanger once she's back in the dressing room.

"People's jaws will hit the floor if you do this, you know. And I mean that in a good way. Saints, but you look so terribly dashing."

She knows she's used that word already, but it really does fit, she thinks.

"We can find you some nice heeled boots to give you a height boost."

Greta spends the interim pacing the dressing room, not out of restlessness, but just to get a feel for what walking in trousers is like. It would take some getting used to, she thinks, the fabric clinging in places it normally wouldn't. But it's just odd, not unbearable. She could cope.

Especially if it meant giving other people a delightful sort of shock. She turns in front of the mirror, taking herself in, and bites back another giddy smile.

She's shucked off the jacket by the time Nina returns, and she beams at the compliment. "You really think so?" she asks as Nina helps her into the waistcoat. "I've never been dashing before." That was a word reserved for Princes back home, or Knights. Not women, and certainly not peasant women. It's rather thrilling to think she might qualify, here.

With an amused snort, she adds, "We'll have to be careful with the heels. It'll spoil the whole effect if I fall on my face because I can't walk in the bloody things."

She buttons the waistcoat, then takes in the new look, her lower lip caught pensively between her teeth. "You know, if the blouse were different -- the sleeves a bit looser, maybe -- it might look a little more feminine, but no less formal." She still likes the way the suit had looked, but she's also wondering if it might be a little easier to adjust to a less extreme change.

"I think bell sleeves that are tailored to a cuff at the wrist would be lovely, actually," she says as she takes Greta in again and tucks the waistcoat at her proper waist. "Tailoring will solve a ton of your worries, too, in terms of looking feminine."

She can already picture it and she's really rather excited about the prospect. "I'll talk to Krem. Let me get you something bespoke, Greta, please. I know it'll cost a bit but I'm not even going to miss it, I promise you."

"Exactly that," Greta says with a nod, both surprised and almost alarmed by how easy it is to picture. And it would look good, wouldn't it?

She hesitates at the offer, mostly on principle. Part of her wonders if it'll be worth going the bespoke route if she ends up with something her fiancé finds off-putting; she doesn't want Nina to spend a significant sum on something that might end up quietly stuffed into the back of her closet. But then again, he might love the new look. And if he's on the fence, it might be easier to convince him if she's wearing something perfectly tailored and not trying to sell him on a work in progress.

Besides, if all goes as well as it possibly can and she decides she wants to expand her options, she could probably buy things off the rack and tailor them, herself. They needn't break the bank for every single item in a rotating ensemble.

Greta exhales, playfully defeated. "Just this once. I won't have you buying me an entire bloody wardrobe, and that's final." Her stern look melts into a shy smile, and she adds, "Thank you, though. For all of this." She wouldn't have had the nerve to do this on her own.

Nina squeaks happily and claps her hands. "Thank you! I promise we won't go overboard and I'll keep my hands off anything else you might want to do for yourself. But I think something bespoke - at least your first set of trousers, jacket, and blouse, will give you an idea if you want to have at it yourself or take in things or-- well, you know. Besides, I like giving Krem business. He practically made my maternity wardrobe for free."

Maybe her reasons are a bit selfish: she's dying to see Greta in a proper suit now, something made for her. She really does love seeing women discover something that makes them stand a bit straighter, see themselves different. She blames the flood of hormones for wanting to give Greta a little kiss just then.

"Maybe I'll get something too, just to even the bill."

Nina looks so thrilled by the prospect that Greta can just about convince herself that it would've been mean-spirited to refuse. And really, a pleasant distraction couldn't hurt. Just because Nina isn't a puddle on the floor, that doesn't mean she isn't having a hard time.

None of those things are enough to magically transform 'letting Nina spend an absurd amount of money on her' into an act of pure charity on Greta's part, but at least it helps allay the discomfort she had with the idea.

So she grins, even as she starts to change back into her own things, passing Nina first the waistcoat, then the blouse. "Oh, you should!" she says, both because Nina ought to get something out of this besides satisfaction, and because the whole thing will be more fun and less intimidating if she's not the sole focus. "Then we'll both have something to show off at the end of it."

"Let's go get something to eat," she says as Greta passes her clothes to hang up again. She isn't very hungry yet, but she knows that if she lets it go, she's going to be starving before long. She can't believe this baby is still growing, but far be it from her to refuse to eat after some ridiculous notion of maintaining her figure. Her figure was currently that of a beach ball and she just has to deal with it.

"Then maybe we can stop by and see Krem to put the idea in his head and take some measurements. I have no idea what to ask him for, but he's creative. I'm sure he'll think of something I had no idea I wanted until he suggests it."

"Only if I'm treating you," she insists as she pulls her own things back on. It's both a relief and oddly disappointing to be back in her familiar trappings -- not unlike the feeling of stepping back into their bakery after her first sojourn into the Woods. But this is different, because there's already another proverbial trip planned, and if all goes well, she might return to these Woods whenever she likes (or at least whenever the occasion calls for it). She doesn't have to be setting aside that small sort of adventure for good. "It's the least I can do."

Once she has herself back in order, she smooths her hands over her skirt and lets them out of the dressing room, helping Nina carry out everything. "I trust Krem is, er... discreet," she half-asks, eyebrows furrowed. She's fairly certain Thomas knows him, and though she isn't sure how often they talk, she doesn't want Thomas finding out about this from anyone but her.

"Krem is wonderful, and I'd trust him with anything. He won't go parading around, talking about your suit. And I won't complain about free food."

Nina smiles and laces her arm with Greta's after they hang the suit and shirt on a rack just outside the dressing room. "Am I allowed to come to all your fittings? I promise I'll let Krem do his job, I just want to watch."

Greta nods, satisfied. She trusts Nina's judgment, and she doesn't have such an inflated view of her own celebrity as to think there's a risk of him blabbing for the exposure.

"Of course," Greta says, giving Nina's arm a squeeze. "I'll need the support. You can keep reminding me that I look dashing." She won't be forgetting that word choice anytime soon, nor the giddy little thrill it gives her.

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