Ranvir was searching through his regular clothes when Kirs knocked quickly followed by her opening the door, which wasn’t locked cause he knew she was coming.

“Hey,” he called over his shoulder to which she nodded in return, though, she stopped by the cradle before greeting him.

“Hello, wello,” she babytalked to Frija and wiggled her fingers at the child. “Is auntie Kirs going to take care of you tonight?”

Frija, of course, didn’t reply other than kicking her legs a bit. Kirs continued to fuss over the red-headed baby for a few more moments before stepping over to Ranvir and looking at the clothes he’d set aside.

“This is what you’re going to wear tonight?” she asked. “You do know you’re going out with nobles, right?”

Ranvir looked over his shoulder from where he was digging through his chest for the hundredth time, “I have an inkling.”

“Oh, of course, it’s just when I’m looking at this it’s hard to tell.”

“Thank you very much,” Ranvir straightened from the chest, “I’ve run into an issue of clothes that fit me.”

“And from that you picked these shirts? The pants are fine, I guess, but aren’t these a little…” she shrugged instead of finishing her sentence.

“It’s all I have that fits me still,” Ranvir replied, “Even these pants are a stretch.”

“Oh, you should’ve bought some new ones then, didn’t you think to look before now?”

Ranvir bit back a sharp remark about her boyfriend. Instead, he took a deep breath to center himself, “I didn’t, no.”

Kirs made a clicking noise with her mouth and slapped him on the shoulder, “I would suggest the gray-white shirt and the black pants.”

Ranvir cleared his throat as he looked at the bed where he’d put out the clothes. The gray shirt that had once been white but repeated washes had tarnished the color to a faded gray instead, and a pair of black pants of a slightly finer cut than most of his other clothes.

He’d been wearing that exact same outfit during the ceremony celebrations after he first became a space tethered. He hadn’t actually tried them on before putting the clothes on the bed, his innate sense of spatial relations told him they would ‘fit’.

“Right,” he muttered picking up the combination. Stepping into the meditation room, he swiftly changed. Wearing something that wasn’t an uniform and didn’t fit like one was weird. Ranvir ran a hand through his hair, having grown used to the short cut over his months at the academy. It still somehow felt a little odd in these clothes so far removed from the militaristic setting.

The shirt felt too tight and restrictive in a fight and the pants were definitely a little too short, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. Ranvir stepped out of the meditation room to find Kirs, Frija, and Pashar waiting for him.

Ranvir cleared his throat tumultuous green-yellow discomfort in his stomach at Pashar seeing him outside of his uniform, “Hey.”

Pashar stepped closer, ‘tsk-ing’ loudly as she adjusted the shoulders of his shirt, “Is that the best one you have?” she continued adjusting it slightly, “Kirs filled me in on your situation,” she looked over her shoulder, “It’s not the best, is it?”

Kirs shook her head.

“What’s wrong with it?” Ranvir asked glancing from woman to woman.

“It’s a little tight over the… um, body,”

“Little?” Pashar interrupted with a snort, “It’s noticeably tight,” she fingered the edges of his collar sitting just above his collar bone. “How do you not have any tunics? It’s the current fashion, it’s been the current fashion for a decade.”

“I don’t—“ Ranvir stuttered, “In— back home, there wasn’t— This is what I have.”

Pashar let out an explosive breath, “Then you better get on your way.”

Ranvir nodded and hurried out and down the stairs, he met a few of his fellow residents at the Parentage and got weird looks, though, he chose to believe that was because he wasn’t wearing a uniform.

He jogged to the administration building where he met with the others. “There he is!” Grev exclaimed as they saw Ranvir come running. Ranvir nodded in greeting and stopped next to them.

Grev was dressed in a light gray tunic that ended at mid-thigh with a pair of navy pants underneath. The tunic was a of a cut Ranvir hadn’t seen before—not that he’d paid much attention to such things—with a slit up the side to the hip allowing Grev to reach his pockets without bunching the fabric up. He’d also worn a few armbands and some intricately made gold and silver rings.

Sansir was less dressed up, but in a similar cut. Where Grev’s thread count was so dense, Ranvir doubted most of the people count that high, Sansir’s was of a more standard type. He’d dressed in simple black pants with a white tunic.

Esmund had, much like Ranvir, dressed in his ceremony celebration clothes, though, his appeared to be more forgiving than Ranvir’s were.

“That’s definitely a look,” Grev said with a grin as he saw Ranvir.

“Is it that bad?” Ranvir asked.

“Oh right,” Sansir said. “You don’t have a mirror.”

Ranvir just nodded.

“It’s not that bad,” Grev assured. “The chest, with how it’s cut, has a slightly unusual feel to it,” he winked at Ranvir, “but we’re going to over shadow that, don’t worry about it.”

“Let’s just get a move on,” Ranvir muttered trying to pull the shirt together, but it had been a good fit before his growth at the academy.

Together they walked to the capital, opting not to take a carriage. On the way, Ranvir learned a few more things about the evening ahead of him.

“I was wondering if we should yell surprise, or something, when we show up,” Sansir said as they were passed by a carriage with a pair of massive work horses strapped in front of it, causing Ranvir to shy slightly off the road.

“Surprise?” Ranvir asked.

“Yeah… to explain that we’re surprising him,” Grev said. “Is that shirt cutting off circulation to your head?”

Ranvir shook his head, “Uh, no. I don’t know what we’re doing really. I was just curious.”

Grev paused in his step before turning to Es with a grin, “Was that why you bolted out of the door this morning?” he’d barely finished the sentence and his face was already splitting with a smile from ear to ear and chuckle low in his throat. Es didn’t reply instead just looked sheepishly at Ranvir, which caused Grev to burst into full belly laughter.

“Esmund…” Sansir groaned. “Come on.”

###

Making it through the city gate was easy with Grev’s credentials. Especially since all but one of them had their haircut according to military specifications, just like the people who checked them.

Soon, they were let through and Grev led them into a richer quarter of the city. It started with small yards appearing around the houses, as they grew from containing multiple families, or family and business to just a single family house. Then they started getting an extra story and the yards grew bigger. Finally, the snow was disappearing from the lawns despite plainly spending most of their time in the shadow of the home.

Then they hit the mansions and Ranvir was finally able to fill in the gap between rich merchant and Queen in his mind.

Dovar’s mansion, the Sworden mansion, was a whole estate. They entered through a iron gate—Ranvir’d never seen so much of the metal in one place—unto a lush garden, green grass and blooming bushes surrounding them on all sides. Ranvir saw a few men in workers clothes bearing stick of copper. One of them was pushing huge portions of snow off the grass and into a bin.

“Glyph-tools,” Es muttered watching them work. Ranvir nodded in agreement. Every kid back home, Rime’s Shadow Ranvir reminded himself, had at one point or another been forced to help clear the main square of snow and eventually every kid learned to make themselves scarce when the topic came up. This man could’ve done in less than an hour what took full group of five adults, and however many children they could scavenge together, two hours.

“Guys,” Grev said, “Did you just forget that we’re the ones powering those tools? We could do that.”

“Yeah,” Ranvir replied, “I guess, you’re right. Kirs could probably make something similar as well now.”

“That would be huge,” Sansir said.

“Should we be talking about this here?” Es asked suddenly causing all of them to start.

“You must be Dovar’s friends!” Someone called from the mansion at the center of the gardens. Looking over, Ranvir found a tall woman with straight black hair and pale skin standing in the doorway wearing a fine dress with intricate embroidery at the hem depicting some sort mythical tale Ranvir didn’t immediately recognize.

“Yes we are,” Grev said with a huge smile striding over. “Yrsa! This is Sansir and the rest are—“

“What!” Grev’s comment was somewhat interrupted by a yell from somewhere else in the house, but he continued the introductions non-plussed.

“Guys, this is Yrsa. She’s—”

Dovar suddenly appeared in the doorway behind the woman wide-eyed with slightly windblown hair, “What are you doing here? Also don’t answer him.”

“Surprise!” Es exclaimed

“I’m his fiancée.” The woman said. “Call me Yrsa.”