Work Text:
A bolt of cloth from Xianzhou Luofu, in Xianzhou Luofu, isn’t that expensive. The people here rarely change, true, but they live long enough to wear out their favorite outfits a hundred times over. Assuming they don’t die early in the Cloud Knights, or submit themselves to the Sanctus Medicus to achieve a bestial (and quite boring) immortality.
It’s still designed to last decades, rather than a decade. So, that same bolt of cloth, on a world like Kafka’s homeworld? It’d be worth robbing a store over, in her opinion.
“That’s not our best cloth, if you’re looking to make new clothes yourself. That color won’t work for a patch job on your jacket, if that’s what you need,” the woman behind the register says, entirely unhelpfully. “Of course, we’d be happy to make or tailor what you want for a small--”
“Hmm, I’ll be fine, thank you.” Kafka drawls, drawing a measuring tape out of an inner pocket. “Just let me see if the colors you have meet my... standards.”
She grins, thin and wide, with just enough tooth to make the seller break eye contact. Easy prey.
A few quick measurements confirm her hopes. She peels a glove off with her mouth, pressing the back of her hand against the fabric-- yes, that’s perfect, too. But if she asks now, they’ll charge 200 stele for that length. If she lets the woman sweat a bit, take time to look at the other things she’d like, it’ll drop 20, possibly 30 stele.
On to the yellow. A quick brush and a tug tells her it’s too soft, too yielding, but she wasn’t expecting to find a good yellow for a coat here anyways.
Making a show of her disappointment, watching the seller squirm, that’s just a nice bonus.
“Get a move on, Kafka,” says Silver Wolf, whispering through the earpiece. “We don’t have time for you to mess around.”
Kafka grins, winking at the camera in the corner.
“If you wanted it done your way, you should’ve done it yourself, Wolfie.”
Wolfie’s reply is a long, exasperated sigh.
“Ugh. Whatever. Look, you’ve got your access codes, and you can pick up your spoof key from a box...”
Kafka rounds the corner, back into the cashier’s gaze, and makes a beeline for thread. It has to be gray, and it needs to be durable to survive the punishment its owner will subject it to. If only more places sold that-- she resolves to pick up a nice coat for herself, before this is all over. Elio’s script didn’t make it clear, but she sincerely doubted she’d be allowed to keep her coat full of bombs, tripwires, poisons, and other fun toys.
“You know what, I’ll just put the location on your map. This place uses weird names instead of a reasonable coordinate system, I’m not gonna work with this any longer. You owe me.”
Her phone vibrates, once, twice, and then plays a cheery, video-gamey ringtone.
“Aww, thanks, darling,” she drawls. “Do you like my new passwords? I picked them out just for you.”
A pause, and the sound of a gum bubble popping rings in Kafka’s ear. “Hope you kept the receipt cached.”
She chuckles, inspecting a fabric whose texture is absolutely terrible. She’ll definitely be robbing a different store on the ship when she needs a new coat, she decides; nothing here would work for her, and after all the work she’s expected to do for the script, she’d rather something quicker.
“Of course, you won’t be telling anyone what it said.” Kafka nods, withdrawing her phone from a coat pocket. “What do you think?”
“If I didn’t already know your plan, Kafka, I wouldn’t have joined the party. Just buy the fabric, and I’ll mark the drop points for those supplies. I’ve got walls to tag in the station, so get a move on.”
A good non-answer, as always. She hums, snaps a few pictures of the cloth, and puts them in a special album. “Hah, I’d hate to keep you from your fun, Wolfie.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m already getting creative.”
Kafka chuckles at that, hiding and muffling the sound behind her hand.
Once she’s done looking and picking things out, she saunters on over to the cashier, who is indeed shifting in her seat. Kafka meets the woman’s gaze and holds it, letting her lips part in a thin smile.
The woman finally breaks eye contact, flushed and fidgeting. “A-ah! Would you like to make a purchase?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?” Kafka raises an eyebrow. She waits, lets the silence stretch before continuing, “I’ve picked out a few things.”
She lists off her two fabrics and places three spools of thread on the counter, one black, one grey, one yellow.
The cashier starts ringing her up, and she hesitates before punching in the price in. 25 stele off the list price-- not bad for a quick job. She pays with a wave of her phone, and packs everything neatly into a bag before making her to the door.
“Oh, miss?” The cashier calls, and Kafka turns around. She taps her foot against the floor.
“Hmm?”
“U-um, if you don’t mind me asking, what do you plan to use it for?”
Kafka stares for a moment, her lips curling as the cashier shuffles. “Oh, this and that. Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough.”
Kafka is lounging on a commandeered skiff when her phone pings, and she’s forced to take off her glasses and coat to snatch a passing cycrane. It leaves her hair a windblown tangle, a far cry from her artistically messy style.
“Darling.” Kafka hums, inspecting herself with her phone’s camera. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you.”
Wolfie’s response comes in the form of a rather smug-looking sticker, and the sound of a bubble popping through Kafka’s earpiece.
She smiles anyways, flicking her sunglasses back on.
"Alright, cameras off, Wolfie," Kafka chuckles, sliding her sunglasses into place. "As much as we both love a good photo..."
"I'm the opsec girl, not you," Wolfie shoots back, "And even Stelle would be better at it than you."
"Good to know you're replaceable."
Wolfie grumbles at that, sighs, and continues, "Whatever. Cameras are gonna loop or patch you out for the next hour, and the spoof key should work on all the inner doors. You won’t need that long, looks like their timeslot at the hot spring will end in fifty."
Kafka is already kneeling in front of the door as Wolfie finishes. "Mhm. Your work is amazing as usual.”
Wolfie scoffs. “It’s all normal hacking, easy stuff.”
Kafka slides two tools out of her coat's seams, fitting them into the lock. A few threads of violet light wrap themselves around the Abacus, flooding its mechanisms with electrical noise and suffocating its systems with ease.
One, two, three, four... click, back to the start, click, click, click. “Aaand, open. Mind pointing me in the right direction, Wolfie?”
The back door to the inn swings open, and Kafka shoulders her bag once more.
“The layout of this place is pretty simple. Just take a left and follow the hallway around, should be the third door on your left after that. You’ll need a card to buzz in, which is why you have the spoof key.”
“Thanks, darling.” Kafka grins, taking the path Wolfie described. “I suppose I owe you for this one.”
“Yup. How good are you with ARPGs? I need a co-op partner.”
Kafka makes a mental note to look those up as she agrees. It’d be entertaining anyways, of course.
For now, though, she had a hot spring to find.
The door clicks closed behind her just as someone rounds the corner, and Kafka takes a moment to stretch while she inspects the room.
It’s a pretty standard dressing area, with wooden benches and lockers along the edges and a drain in the middle. The towels look especially fluffy, and any other time, Kafka might be inclined borrow one and take a dip.
The hot spring is also quite obviously occupied-- there’s two piles of clothes hogging a bench, and one of the towel racks is conspicuously empty.
“Don’t even need to search the lockers,” Kafka says to the open air, “You’re just leaving it all out for me, huh? I’m not complaining.”
She sets her bag down, flips her sunglasses onto her forehead, and saunters on over to the closer pile. White shirt, black skirt, and basic underclothes, all stacked on a tattered-looking coat from the Astral Express.
“Especially when there’s so much work to be done,” Kafka finishes, reaching into the bag. “Let’s take a look at the damage you’ve done, Stelle...”
She starts by examining the skirt, a cute thing with a slit up one leg. One of Stelle’s favorite styles, and it seemed losing her memory hadn’t changed a thing.
Frayed hem, the elastic was in sore need of replacement, and even the Aeons wouldn’t be able to tell her how Stelle had messed up the button that badly without it snapping off.
“Let me guess, she’s still terrible with clothes.” Wolfie interjects. “Did the skirt survive? ”
“Of course she is, and also yes, surprisingly enough.” Kafka remarks, pulling her sleeves back and picking out black thread from the bag. “Shouldn’t be too difficult to fix.”
She sets it aside for now, moving on to the shirt (tattered), and then to the underthings (completely different ones, from a brand even Kafka didn’t recognize).
Which leaves her to inspect the jacket.
She's laid it flat across her extended legs, front facing down, and it's obvious that Stelle has no idea how to care for a coat.
And more obvious, Kafka realizes, that she still tries anyways.
Sleeves first. Those were just a bit too big, couldn't have the lance catching on it.
Stelle's laughter cuts clear through the door, as does the splashing and giggling from the pink-haired girl that she's gotten so attached to.
"Didn't take you long to become part of the family, did it," Kafka says softly, pulling loose strands of hair back and out of her way. "Good.”
And perfect for keeping to the script. Elio didn't want her to be seen this early, not before they'd started to unravel the Sanctus Medicus on their own.
A fight inside the inn wasn't in that script at all. A conversation with Stelle wasn't going to happen, either.
She rips the worn seams easily-- they'd been loose already, far too loose-- and the little table for towels would have to do for tailoring the sleeves evenly.
More splashes, and the pink girl's voice rises, followed by a voice she doesn't quite recognize. A Xianzhou accent, though. The guide, possibly, unless Stelle's found a friend she doesn't know about.
She's pulled back to her work by the vibrating of Stelle's phone. From the brief flicker of light, it looks like Himeko is messaging them.
"I wonder if you'd rush off the train, if you knew where I was," Kafka says quietly, smiling with a bit of tooth. "But you won't. That's what Elio is counting on..."
She shakes her head, focusing now on the back of the coat, which has a hastily-stitched tear straight through the middle. She’ll have to replace entire sections of the coat to get rid of that tear..
A little more seam ripping, a few precise cuts, and all that’s left is to take the ream of fabric and stitch it in--
“-- fka. Are you AFK or something?”
“Just a little busy, darling,” Kafka replies automatically, pausing in her stitching. “Stelle’s clothes have demanded all of my attention, you know.”
“I’ve seen how she fights. No respect for durability.” Wolfie snorts. “Better hurry up, though. Their slot for the hot spring expires in ten minutes.”
She’s glad there are no cameras to catch her expression. “Time flies when you’re having fun, huh? Not the worst use of forty minutes.”
Not when Stelle would present a much cleaner figure to the Xianzhou Luofu thanks to it, Kafka adds silently, allowing herself a small smile.
She inspects her work- she might have gotten a bit too into it, fixing up a lot more than she’d planned, but that was probably for the better. Stelle’s shirt could do with some tailoring, though, which she figured she could manage. “I’ll need five at most. Got the skiff ready for me, Wolfie?”
“It’ll be there in four.”
“Excellent as always,” Kafka grins. “And then it’s time to meet up with Bladie. Think he’s calmed down at all?”
“Absolutely not,” Wolfie replies instantly, and Kafka can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “He’s racking up a bounty as we speak.”
Not three hours later, Kafka finds herself coatless, makeupless, and frankly a mess as she stands at the edge of the platform, looking back at Stelle. It had been a fruitful-- and, frankly, heartwarming-- conversation, with all the right ideas planted and plenty besides.
And that should be it, she knows. Bladie’s already growling, and if she doesn’t yank the leash soon, he’s going to get caught again, script be damned.
She pauses, though, and makes sure Stelle’s eyes are locked with hers. The curiosity burning in those yellow eyes’ll take her far, she knows. All the way to Nanook.
“How are you liking the coat, Stelle?” Kafka calls back, uncaring of the wrinkles her smile will show. “I think I did a pretty good job.”
Kafka takes a step back and off the ledge before she can hear the answer-- she already knows it, anyways.