Glancing at Sharon, she queried quietly, “Sharon, can you get me a clean cloth? This is going to get a little messy.” Meanwhile, Tina was chattering about how she’d been climbing a tree and gotten into a tussle with the neighborhood boys. Meanwhile, Jade was directing her little body to push the infection to the surface, leaving the body clean and knitting the flesh together behind it. She put her other hand behind Tina’s knee as Sharon silently brought over the cloth, looking concerned.
Jade took her hand off the wound itself, taking the cloth as she let Tina ramble on. Camille had caught on that something was abnormal and come over, keeping the little girl’s attention. Cloth in hand, she pushed mentally, and the scab came loose, blood starting to flow along with a yellow pus. Jade quickly mopped it up until she was sure she’d pushed the infection out completely, then had the wound heal up after. Little Tina was a trooper, and she’d only let out a small whimper when Jade had initially pushed the scab off.
When she was done, she heaved a sigh of relief and folded the cloth up around the contamination. She smiled wanly at Tina and complimented her, “You did great! Come on, let’s go wash up.” Tina happily hopped down from the counter now that she was all better and started heading towards the bathroom. Feeling a little drained, Jade handed the cloth to Sharon and commanded, “Touch it as little as possible, you’ll want to burn it and then wash your hands immediately. She had an infection, and now it’s all in that.” She smiled at the three of them and concluded, “I’m going to go help her wash while you take care of that.”
Sharon nodded, bobbed a short “excuse me,” to the princesses, and hurried into the back to dispose of it. Jade had also quickly made her way to the bathroom, helping Tina wash her hands and knee before sending her out, then washing her own hands. Sharon came as she was finishing to wash her hands. “Thank you so much. I thought it was just a scrape, so I didn’t take her in…”
Jade smiled and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. It was still in the early stages, so you would have noticed and taken her in as soon as the signs started appearing. My coming here just caught it a little earlier.” She smiled, then cajoled encouragingly, “Now come, the princesses are waiting.”
“Oh! Right!” She’d been so distracted by her daughter that she’d almost forgotten the princesses were in her shop! She bustled Jade out, who was just grinning, as she quickly got down to the business of dresses with the girls. They picked out the styles they wanted from a little book of drawings that Jade was quite impressed with. Sharon shook her head in bafflement when she was measuring Jade. “I just can’t get over it. You were skin and bones two days ago, and now look at you!”
Jade noticed Camille was paying special attention to what she said and sighed. Then she realized what she was doing, and almost went to bang her head against a wall. How could she have been so stupid!? She was getting measured when her measurements were changing day by day! “Yeah...about that, I just realized that these measurements are going to be wrong tomorrow.”
“What do you mean?” Sharon looked confused, as did Camille.
Jade sighed and tried to explain. “Well, you know how you said I was skin and bones two days ago? My body is growing stronger at an incredible rate due to my special ability. I’m not sure when everything is going to settle. I don’t think I’m going to get huge, but I’ll probably put on a lot more muscle and…” She glanced down at her chest. “You know...” Sharon looked contemplative.
“How about this then, I’ll make it bigger, and then you can come in on Sunday morning, and we’ll make any final adjustments. What has been changing the most?”
Jade tried to think, then shrugged. “Pretty much everything. I’ve been putting on muscle pretty uniformly. Sharon nodded. “Very well, I’ll do Princess Tisha’s dress first; then I’ll get the fabric for yours ready. If you can come by in a few days, we’ll do another measurement to see what’s changed and I’ll have more to go on as well.”
Jade grinned. “That works! Thanks, Sharon.”
Camille was frowning now, however. “How are we supposed to buy you clothes if your sizes keep changing?”
Jade shrugged at her a little helplessly. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking about it. We could just get things bigger. It should work well enough…”
“No, that won’t do. You need things that fit correctly. We’ll just have to get some basics and then go again next week. Things like capes or cloaks, scarves, nightgowns, and perhaps shoes. Has your foot size changed?” When she shook her head, Camille nodded, satisfied. “All right, we’ll do that then. We’ll get your necessities and a few things that won’t change.”
They then proceeded to do just that. For what felt like hours, she was dragged shop to shop by two enthusiastic princesses. She ended up with the promised cloaks, capes, scarves, nightgowns, and shoes. She got towels, bathrobes, and a few blankets, one of which she had almost refused to stop hugging because it was so soft. She got various soaps (there were some better quality ones, though still nothing like her world), ribbons, paper, ink, and a single quill (she didn’t think she needed more than that, given she was going to create pens). She had a fancy rug for her room, random various crafting materials she figured would be useful for her experiments, a small table she was sure was not going to fit in the bag, but Camille somehow shoved it in there, a few locked chests of varying sizes to keep her things organized in, and some pretty, but simple, jewelry.
She hadn’t been able to find any hair things other than ribbons, however, which disappointed her. Perhaps her first attempt at metal magic would be creating bobby pins after all. They seemed simple enough. She had thought they were done when Camille announced, “Okay, I think that’s just about everything. We just need to get you some weapons. I think we’ll wait on armor until next week when you’ve finished your growth spurt, but you need to be armed just in case. You’ll also need them for your classes. I think I saw you were in archery and small blades?” Jade nodded, and Camille grinned proudly that she’d remembered from her quick observation. “Good. Then our last stop is here!”
They stopped in front of a shop that was quite a bit more impressive than the rest. It was bigger, roomier, and upon reading the sign name, she figured out why. ‘Castle Armaments’ was the name, and royal suppliers was the game. They entered the store, and like just about every other place they’d gone to, people jumped to greet and obey the princesses’ will.
“Princesses, welcome! What can we help you with today?” A very fit man who seemed higher up on the food chain was the first one to greet them, having noticed their arrival. Like most of the bodybuilders before him, he wore a sleeveless tunic, though his was a nice burgundy. It contrasted well with his tanned skin, which she could vaguely see white crisscrossing scars on. He had a boyish charm that didn’t quite match his buff body, and she could only describe his brown eyes as anime-like. It was oddly incongruent, but no one else was batting an eye, so she tried to ignore it.
Camille smiled graciously at him. “Sir Edward, good to see you. This is Lady Jade,” and here she pulled her forward. “She needs a good bow and some small knives. Actually, get her a sword too, she’ll need that eventually.”