Jennifer puts down the chainsaw, and looks about her room. A den of insecurity and overcompensation --- she hasn't had the chance to spend much time here since... Since she saw Tammy for the first time and realised that boys could be girls. She finds a notebook and jots down a to-do:
- Buy new wardrobe
- Check up on Yvgeny
- Keep/Sell/Burn everything
- Train
- Get a full-length mirror
With that written down, she grabs one of her 'I kissed a Ninja at Karate Con' shirts and throws it on. She runs a hand through her hair, finding it noticeably longer than it was yesterday.
She picks up the notebook and underlines the full-length mirror bit and adds
- Get a haircut
Fortunately, her ears are still pierced. She does not have a desire to go through having a piercer shove a surgical needle through her earlobes, no matter how experienced the piercer is.
Then she heads downstairs, briefly stopping to look at the now-empty guest room. Some of Tammy's things are probably still in there.
Downstairs, she finds the house empty. Such is the life of working middle class in America: paid vacation is the most exquisite luxury. Jennifer makes herself a light breakfast and checks the 24/7 news channel.
It's a harrowing thought she hasn't done much to act on, but one might imagine what would happen if the war between Mewni and Toffee spilled over onto Earth. It would probably be featured on the news, which is why Jennifer watches it in the first place.
Instead there's just more about the corrupt, narcissistic, President that a minority felt like electing into office because he promised to build a wall on the Mexican border.
It's one of the things which one shouldn't bring up with Rafael, lest her dad go on an hour-long rant.
Turning off the news during a segment on another Twitter scandal, Jennifer scarfs down the last of her toast, and heads upstairs to answer nature's call and get dressed.
It's both daunting and thrilling to be a woman --- even the little things. Especially the little things. She accidentally spends at least five minutes just looking in the mirror.
Once she manages to tear herself away from the mirror, she finds the notebook and adds:
- Makeup!
It's a twenty minute bus ride to the mall, so Jennifer cheats and uses her scissors.
The outfit Janna has lent her is serviceable, but very Janna: Earthen colors and a knee-length skirt. To date, apart from the pink beanie, Jennifer has never seen the witch girl in anything but earthen colors.
Jennifer is more of a scarlet/Prussian blue/plum/black kind of girl.
The red hoodies became a theme because red was a distracting color and hoodies were baggy --- it hid away all the parts Jennifer didn't like about herself as Marco, and also made the process of deciding what to wear a lot easier. The tunics was a continuation of that theme. Baggy, no choices.
With six-fifty in her wallet, she buys underwear first, and discovers the frustrations of shopping for bras.
All of them have outrageous price tags for the amount of fabric in them.
Selecting a few cheaper ones and heading to the changing room, Jennifer gets to spend two minutes trying to figure out how to even clasp them. Once clasped, she finds that the size is wrong.
A trip back into the store later, for wider selection of sizes, Jennifer finds one that fits --- only now that it isn't constricting she finds the under-wire digging into her ribcage. Not painful, but she has enough knowledge of how minimal discomfort amplifies over time to know it is unworkable.
Not only that, but the padding is just asking for problems with sweating. Sweaty boobs --- now there's a novel thought.
Standing in the bra aisle and looking sullen, Jennifer finds herself approached by a sales assistant. A heavy-set woman with short pink hair.
"Can I help you with something?" she asks.
Jennifer sighs. "Do you have any bras that don't suck?"
She takes a moment to size Jennifer up. "Have you looked at the barrettes and sports bras?"
It's the next aisle over. They have no padding, no under-wires, and no clasps. They are cheaper too, even.
"I'd say you're a B-cup --- do you know your measurements?" the sales assistant asks. Her name tag reads 'Rinette.'
Jennifer doesn't. Going by Rinette's intuition and trained eye, she gets settle with a racerback sports bra with maximum support, and three bralettes with ordinary over-shoulder straps for less athletic activities; all in sensible black. There's matching panties too --- hipsters.
With the essentials out of the way and over five hundred dollars to go, Jennifer sets her sights on everything a Californian girl might need for summer.
The women's wear department is a cornucopia of sensible fusion, and Jennifer heads to the sundresses first. Especially the blood orange ones. Giving it a twirl in the dressing room sets her heart aflutter.
She finds pleated skirts (which don't twirl quite as well,) and tight blouses to show off her waist and bust (it's not that impressive, but it's there,) and babydoll tees to show off her guns.
Marco was cut --- training like a maniac to catch up to sixteen years of muscle-memory, and channelling dark power to enhance her strength every day had built some modest bulk. Or rather, modest if it had sat on a grown man like her father.
It was one of the things she was proud of, and it is still there to her delight. And despite everything she has noticed so far, she has failed to notice that she has girl abs.
This leads her to the shorts and jeans where she finds the ones that are short enough to show thigh and the ones that are so much spandex she might as well paint her legs with indigo. (She also goes back to the skirts and finds some even shorter ones.)
And all of it is incomplete without that little extra: the black leather jacket. The symbol of vitality, youth, and sexual liberation (if Wikipedia is to be believed.) Her old one is too wide across the shoulders, but it's available in her new size. Double breasted, of course, so the lapels are extra large.
Lastly, as she heads to the shoe aisle, she realises she has no socks and takes a detour to the wonderful land of nylon and elastic cotton blends. Thing-high socks to go with the shorts and skirts, pantyhose, and ankle socks for getting that bare-legged look with sneakers.
Speaking of; back to the shoe aisle. This is less exciting; shoes are shoes. Except the heels, but Jennifer very quickly concludes that while heels look dashing they are really, really impractical. How does Brittney even wear those every day? Sneakers and flat sandals are much more sensible.
Shopping alone isn't as much fun as shopping together with someone, and the cashier looks a little pale when Jennifer comes up to the counter with a shopping cart full of clothes --- there was a point where it just became sensible to take a detour out into the parking lot and find a cart.
This leaves no money for accessories or something more utilitarian like a pair of cargo pants. So back home she goes with four paper bags in each hand, and plunders her savings jar.
Then she goes right back and hits up the accessories aisle. There's round sunglasses to match Janna, bangles to show off her slender wrists and how they contrast with her defined forearms, and hair-ties for the ponytail-in-the-making. Her blue stud earrings get some larger cousins.
Then, reluctantly, she finds a pair of cargo-pants, and a red sweatshirt with reinforced elbows. Something practical for fighting. It reminds her a lot of all the years as Marco, though. The steel-toed shoes are a nice and novel addition though.
But there's one last thing to perk her up: swimwear. Oh boy, swimwear. One piece swimsuits are of course the most convenient, but she can't help but be drawn to the two-piece.
It's all fun and games until she reaches the dressing room and looks herself in the mirror wearing only a black two-piece (with underwear, of course, she's not a barbarian.)
Star and Jackie never wear two-pieces, she thinks. I can't wear this.
Quickly she removes the offending garment, gets dressed again, settles for the red-and-Prussian blue star-spangled one-piece, pays, and heads to the hairdresser to forget she ever thought a two-piece was a good idea for a fourteen year old girl.
It is fairly convenient to suddenly have all your clothes no longer fit you, because it makes cleaning up so much easier. Although the Keep/Sell/Burn sorting sounded funny on paper, Jennifer decides to box up all her boy clothes and send it off to goodwill or something.
Downstairs, the washing machine is churning through part of her new clothes on a cold quick-wash program (to get the worst of the chemical smell out,) and she starts thinking up what sort of laundry imbuement infusion might be applicable to integrate into her new wardrobe. Definitely something for added durability and self-cleaning, but if capes can be made flow-y, why not dresses too?
They are expensive, sure, but any reasonable expenses she can pin on Star's tab, on account of being a knight.
She begins looking for her signet ring so she can send a letter of requestion to the Mewni Royal Treasury, and trying to remember where in Quest Buy they have the laundry imbuement infusion aisle, before she realises that she has virtually never been to Quest Buy, and never even knew there was such a thing as imbuement infusion. Or rather, Marco didn't.
"Rasticore," she mutters. And it stands out to her that it's just another memory --- it's not like Rasticore is grafted on; in fact Rasticore is in some ways no more alien than the Marco she was once. Of course it is that she's indisputably a girl now, but also Marco lacks the litte fragment of Rasticore that makes her Jennifer; and Rasticore is a hollow shell without the kindness of Marco. Two halves--- or rather, 90%-10%, of a whole.
She spends a few minutes mulling on it while selecting any overtly 'macho' posters and trinkets, which are definitely going in the 'burn' pile. It is certainly useful that she can remember tidbits like that --- someone like Rasticore took it for granted that such was the way the world worked, and Marco would have never thought to ask.
That's when her stomach decides to remind her that it has been five hours since her light breakfast, and enough is enough.
It's mid afternoon when her clothes are all freshly rinsed, and what can be tumbled has been.
Jennifer suits up in her sports bra, a set of her own panties, a black tee with 'sun's out guns out' written on the chest, thigh-high black cotton socks, the red sweatshirt and the cargo pants.
Fortunately, the stab-vest still fits; as does the ballistics helmet. Both are spoils from the sixty hours they spent in time-stop preparing to face Toffee!Ludo. She straps a big knife in a holster to her forearm, and takes one last look in the mirror before slipping into her steel-toed boots.
So clothed, although missing a proper pelvis protector --- the cup she used to wear as Marco is obviously unsuitable to the task --- she takes a combat stance and throws a punch, segueing into a short combo of kicks and punches from a kata. There's no real problem until she goes for the high kick and loses her balance.
Not bothering to get up from the floor, she grabs her mirror compact and calls up Jackie.
"Hey babe," Jackie says. There's a sound of water and wind and waves crashing in the background.
"Hi," Jennifer says. "I'm about to head out, and I can't fight. Do... Do you think you could be my escort?"
"Gimme ten," Jackie replies, and holds up her scissors.
"And... Where are you?" Jennifer asks.
"Out surfing," Jackie says and holds the mirror out at arms length to show her standing on a surfboard on the open sea, and notably wearing a turquoise swimsuit that leaves very little to Jennifer's imagination regarding Jackie's... Abs.
"S-See you in ten," Jennifer stutters, blushing furiously.