SHOP THE LOOK

FRIDAY, 12 FEBRUARY, LAST SHOP

Okay, we spent too long at the café and were seriously running out of shopping time. It's do or die now.

Mum and Mrs Beta drew out a shopping war plan. There was no time to head down to the mall, and the parking was probably going to be crazy on a Friday evening, and we didn't have a moment to spare.

With less than an hour on the clock, we needed to find those three perfect dresses. Mrs Beta reapplied her lipstick. It could've been warpaint.

We will go to one last shop, and then each of us had to pick a dress or else our mums would pick them for us.

"But mum, I don't want to wear pink." Savy said, immediately remembering one of the dresses they tried earlier.

"No? I really liked that one." Mum thought about it, "It made you look like a fairy."

"It made me look like a ballet recital!" Savy retorted.

So we got to the last shop. It was highly recommended by Laura. I don't know why they didn't just come here to begin with.

As we walked in, a couple of ladies were leaving. The sales lady was loudly waving them off, "My shop doesn't stock dresses above size 8!"

"Your shop is for midgets!" One lady yelled back.

I winced. Part of me wanted to turn around immediately, but Ben's hand on the small of my back pushed me through the door.

The sales lady gave us girls a quick up and down, "Welcome, how may I help you?"

I guess we were midget enough for her to be polite to.

I dropped back behind Ben. I disliked dealing with sales ladies at shops, especially those who could turn rude should we as her customers fail to meet her expectations. Those were the worst.

"We're shopping for dresses, for our daughters." Mum smiled, "We're in a bit of a hurry. We need the dresses in an hour."

"Oh, what lovely girls! I'm sure we can do something for you." The sales lady gushed, "Please, feel free to leave your coats on the armchair over here. What kind of dresses are we looking for today?"

Oh... We were three midget royalty, with the promised sales of 3 dresses.

The saleslady started showing us dresses from the new arrivals and an ornate open rack nearest to the cashier which I took to mean were the most expensive dresses.

I left the others with the sales lady and wandered around the shop on my own. The shop was cosy and warm, but I kept my pink coat and hood on so I could make a run for it should the saleslady turned rude or something.

Okay, fine, I just wanted to leave.

Ben was tapping on his phone on the edge of our armchair that held our coats and shopping. These were one of the times I wished I were a guy too. We could go to the arcade. I still hadn't checked out that new arcade and I had the stored value card on me...

But I was a girl. So okay, a dress. The quicker I got this over with, the better. There was a single blue one - it was the brightest, most vivid blue I had ever seen. I took it out of the rack. It was draped in front, and its back opened up in a deeper V. Everything else fell pretty straight in soft smooth material. It looked about my size too.

I took the dress to where our mums and Savy and Lizzy were still deliberating over the choices the saleslady was recommending.

"May I try this one?" I asked.

Mum gave my dress a cursory glance and nodded, "I guess that's fine. The back might be a bit low though. Just check that it covers the back of your bra strap when you try it."

Oh.

My mum's rule for clothes. If it leaves any part of a normal bra exposed, it's too exposed.

"How about trying a couple more dresses while you're in there?" The sales lady pushed two into my arms, "These would be around your size too."

I looked at a fluffy scratchy cream coloured sequinned thing, and then a hot pink satin like slip she had given me and nodded. Then I retreated into the changing room.

Of course I was only going to try my blue dress. Oh! The blue dress was nice. The v drop behind my back just stopped above my bra too. And when I walked out to show mum, I realised that it had several hidden slits in the folds of the skirts that only revealed itself when I walked.

"Oh! That's really nice!" Lizzy said. She was just about to enter an adjacent changing room with an emerald green dress and a pale gold one.

Savy was still empty handed.

"It's a bit long." Mum said.

"Oh, but it's just right! She just needs higher heels." The saleslady said clapping her hands together, "By the way, I meant to ask, are you by any chance the Alpha Princess?"

I froze.

The saleslady beamed, "Oh, I knew it was you! It's true what they say! You look just like the moon goddess!"

I noticed Savy sneak off to the other racks to find a dress. Urm, so was it my turn to keep the sales lady busy?

Ah... What should I do?

"If you don't mind, Alpha Princess? Can I take a photo with you? I'm a very big fan." The saleslady said.

Yeah, for what, like the last 24 hours?

Savy cast me a fugitive glance as she picked out a dark red dress.

I nodded, "Uh, yeah..."

I saw Ben get up from the arm chair frowning, "I mean no..."

Ben was by my side the next second and growling, "Sorry, madam. It's against pack law to take photos or publish photos of Alpha heirs in the green packlands."

The saleslady quickly nodded and put away her phone, "Oh, I didn't know that..."

Ben gave her a cold nod, "Well, now you do. Don't forget it."

The moment I was recognised, Ben turned to his mean beta mode. Now he was standing aside, but on alert. Active duty time.

Savy came back with the dresses she wanted to try.

I quickly excused myself to change out and vacated the changing room for Savy.

"Have you chosen already?" Mum asked when I left the changing room.

I nodded and let the saleslady take the dresses from me, "I want the blue one, please."

"Yes, of course. It's an excellent choice that flatters your figure and the royal blue color brings out the color of your eyes." The saleslady agreed at once.

Actually, my eyes kinda stuck out all the time quite on its own. I don't mean stuck out like on stalks like a snail's, that would be weird. But since they always looked like the goddess used bright blue crayon to color them in, it sort of jumped out at you.

"What beautiful eyes, it's like they were made of sapphires!" The sales lady exclaimed before tutting to herself, "The most beautiful ladies of Green Packlands and beyond come to my shop, and I've never seen such a stunning girl."

And that was how Mum, Mrs Willow, and I had to listen for half an hour to how this sales lady wasn't just a human sales lady but a human designer and seamstress who came to Gate City with a dream, a bit of seed money, and a sponsorship from the Lorent Pack.

The Lorent pack liked to sponsor work passes to "talents" into Gate City to design their homes, custom clothes, give manicures, open restaurants, and a host of other necessities in the Lorent world.

And then the sales lady, I mean designer named May (her shop label was Mayflower... Sigh these wildcard humans!)

Anyway, May, the designer and owner of Mayflower, pulled out a white gown from the rack behind the cashier. It had an elegant satin v neck white top with tailored three-quarter sleeves that joined to floaty organza dress with feathers sewn into it. You know, so that a perfectly classic gown would have something weird about it.

All the gowns in this shop were designed by her, a few were sewn in part or in whole by her, and the ones that were not would be checked by her personally. Usually, she would be working upstairs, but due to the storm, her shop assistant couldn't come in today, and she had to open the shop herself.

As I heard this, I realized why this was the last shop we came to. It was probably the most expensive shop in the row. Probably. I wouldn't know. It was the only shop I've stepped into on this side of 16the Street.

But the whole set up just sounded expensive. All the dresses were hand sourced and sewn by May and a few other tailors she had on freelance. There was only one or at most 3 pieces of each dream dress. It wasn't clothing, it was more like wearable art.

"You really should try this, Alpha Princess! I promise it would look good on you." May enthused.

"Everything looks good on her." Ben rudely deadpanned in an attempt to put her off.

"Why don't you try it, Sam?" Mum decided.

What? Ben and I looked at her like she had gone mad.

"Your inaugeration is approaching. It'll be broadcast across the continents, and you haven't gotten a dress yet." Mum said, "If you like May's designs, perhaps we might be able to arrange for an endorsement deal."

May's eyes brightened at that, "Yes, if the dresses here aren't suitable, I have more upstairs."

My mum could be really crafty. But in the interest of saving my dad money, I accepted the dress and went into the changing room where Lizzy and Savy were standing next to each other, one in a pale gold liquid dress. The other in a dark burgundy one. It was like a tall glass of champagne and a warm deep wine standing next to each other. Not that I've ever drunk any, but they just gave me the feeling of being at a very fancy dinner.

"That's nice." I said.

"Really?" Savy asked. I nodded.

I took the dress into Savy's changing room and shut the curtains even though her stuff was still inside. Carefully, I stepped into the white dress and pulled it up. I had to call Savy in to help zip me up from behind.

Then I went outside.

"I can add pads on the inside." May immediately offered when she saw me.

"She's too young for that!" My mum gasped.

"I can also take in the seams." May counteroffered.

It was a little loose on the top due to my urm... Powerpuff girl figure, but the rest fitted like a glove.

May produced some feather hairpiece she had personally made and helped me put it on. She also had laced gloves which matched the lace on the hairpiece (but didn't have feathers.)

If Savy said the pink dress she tried on earlier was like a ballet recital. This one made me feel like the whole of Swan Lake.

I worked very hard to keep my expression neutral.

"It's quite lovely, Luna." Mrs Beta commented to my Mum.

Mum gave me a critical once over, "What do you think Sam?"

I kind of wanted to wear like a leather jacket and jeans to my inaugeration. But at this moment, I realized that this would be out of the question as far as my mum was concerned.

"The other option would be the traditional ceremonial gown." Mum mused, "What do you think Willow? Traditional or this?"

'This' being Swan Lake.

"It's unique and the white still keeps to some of the tradition." Mrs Willow answered after some consideration.

"We need to go, or we will be late for dinner, Luna." Ben finally came up with another excuse to extradite me.

So Mum promised May that we would return another day, and we bought four dresses. Lizzy had begged and got herself two dresses, the gold one for the dance, and the emerald green one for her eyes.

Don't ask. I can't explain it either. It was apparently a girl thing because Savy was fully in agreement.

Anyway, I got the blue dress, not for my eyes, just because I liked blue and I liked the rest of the dress too.

And everyone was happy. Particularly Mum, "I think it would be good to support local designers at Gate City. I'll talk to Ki and see how we can arrange for your wardrobe to incorporate local designs in the future."

Right. But I only realized why at dinner when Savy showed me this online article about how the outfit I was wearing when I left The Langston could be bought completely from a nearby H&M and every single piece was sold out today.

Everyone in the Green Packlands wanted get that "urban moon goddess look".

By the time we got home, Ki reported there was also a post on social media of me taking off my pink coat in the cafe.

It was a back shot of me with my coat half off. My hair was caught and pooled in the pale pink hood.

The original caption was "OMG. That hair. #DreamCoat #UrbanMoonGoddess"

Which made no sense whatsoever.

And there were some likes and random comments from the posters friends.

Who tat?

You at 16 St too, gurl? Come find me.

R u a stalker?

In love with the coat.

#CoatObssession

Something like that. Nothing close to a PR emergency or anything, unless you were my coat.

And then the crazy fan reaction to the newly (and totally unrelated) unveiled images of LuvMuunMuun's new "cute moon goddess look" spilled over to our territory.

One LuvMuunMuun fan boasted that the Alpha Princess of her pack was the original cute moon goddess, linking to the news footage.

Now Lycan and humans all over the continent were trolling the web.

Why can't they find anything online about this Alpha Princess? She had to be bogus.

Most of them, loyal diehard LuvMuunMuun fans, were quick to slam the little they found.

Their greatest criticism being that the Alpha Princess was less cute than LuvMuunMuun's perfect goddesses.

The Alpha Princess was a copy cat who stole LuvMuunMuun's new look before it was launched.

A number of them also commented on the impossibility of the Alpha Princess' look being natural.

My hair floating in the footage was due to strong winds that somehow got into the hotel lobby and only lifted my hair and nothing else.

And there were some really rude and mean stuff too which Ki flagged as he scrolled down.

Now and then one of our wolves would post something back in defence, politely or just as rudely.

Mum didn't want me to know about it at first because she thought the hurtful words might upset me, but Savy had convinced her that it was better I knew in case someone in school asked me about it.

And it turned out that I thought the whole thing was incredibly funny, except for the bits about our wolves getting into heated online arguements.

Someone had said, "she needs a haircut."

And someone, probably our wolf answered, "Shut up, or I'll cut off your head."

That was the more urm... amusing response.

The other ones started calmer, but they usually ended up with some unwarranted trash talking.

"Oh no. How is she going to go to school now?" Mum worried.

I just laughed at her, "Relax. No one in school cared today."

"That's because LuvMuunMuun's pictures only came out an hour ago." Savy told me.

"If it's this bad now, what would it be like by Monday?" Mum worried.

I was quite sure she was considering the option of locking me up in a tower again.

"It'll just die off by Monday." I tried to sound confident about it. Please don't lock me up in a tower, or I'd die off.

"Or it could get worse." Savy said. Gee thanks.

Ki assured my parents that the FAO was currently monitoring the situation closely. The plan was to ignore the LuvMuunMuun fan posts and let LuvMuunMuun command the spotlight with their Vday album release.

If we don't add fuel to the fire, it would die out on its own. And LuvMuunMuun's publicity team was in all probability going to do everything they could to steer their girls center stage.

"Being beautiful is a gift and a curse at the same time." Dad zenned to himself.

Although I was sure the entire hoo-ha was just because my unnatural hair and eye colour just happened to be LuvMuunMuun's new look.

This was not about beauty, Dad, but thanks for being properly biased like dads should be. Hahaha.

And then I quoted, or perhaps it was Boo, "Beauty is a curse on the world. It prevents us from seeing who the real monsters are."

And then I smiled, or perhaps it was Boo. It was definitely Boo. The quote was in ancient lycan.

Ever since I let Boo out to "test run" yesterday night, I've not felt like she ever went back in. I knew it was a bad idea from the beginning, but I did it anyway, and the moment I released control fully to my wolf, there was like this further merge between us that I could not stop.

This made me worry about our tentative test run into the media eye. What if our stepping out would never allow us to step back into the safe seclusion of our Packland Forests?

Deep within the Green Packlands, a babaric pack of extra large wild wolves had been quietly living out of the public eye.

Yes, there were a few economic and business covers mentioning the Alphas behind the City and our ruthless ways, but who read those?

And those were mostly focused on Gate City anyway. Whoever really noticed what lay beyond the glittering new city or the monsters that dwelled there?

Maybe it was better to keep it that way.