Our guests helped with the cleanup before departing, leaving me with little to do besides figure out the outfits I wanted to wear while away. After much deliberation and some time spent doing unrelated hexmage work on my scryer, I decided my existing wardrobe was a lost cause. Instead I turned to other options: borrowing from neighbours and ordering custom items to be rapidly fabricated and delivered. Borrowing was so common among mages that a listing of readily available items could be immediately scryed. Filtering the options according to specific criteria was simple, though using a single hand at a gentle speed made it slow. Finding anything that I felt suited my needs was far more challenging.
In the weeks since Rainbow Rage, I'd used my inexplicable connection to my scryer to varying degrees of success. I couldn't do it while I was relaxed, and using it was tiring in addition to the effort of stressing myself sufficiently. It had become marginally easier as I became more familiar with the process, but that had taken weeks. I'd tried configuring my scryer to respond to foot movements, with Skids' help, but that proved more difficult and less effective than wide arm movements. The situation had gradually improved as my wrist healed, and mage medicine had expedited that process. This however put me in the paradoxical position of needing to practice with my fingers more as I became more skilled at using my brain. Finger control proved more important and less draining, so that was what I settled on as my main method of scryer control. I still tried out my spooky talent for a few minutes on occasion, just to stay practiced, but researching clothing options wasn't an optimal time for that.
"You done packing yet? Nope, you're on your scryer. What's got you distracted?"
I didn't look up. "Clothes shopping."
"For dresses?" asked the persistent source of interruption.
"Yeah, I miss them."
"Maybe I do too. Even though I don't remember them. But I like them, so that has to mean something, right?"
I had no answers for Skids. "That's for you to figure out. We have no idea whether Titans wear dresses. But I've decided that I do. Though the fashion conjurers have come up with some very different styles to anything I saw above ground. So now there's a lot of options I'm excited to try. Far too many options. Just looking through them is overwhelming and..." I ran out of words without figuring out where that sentence was headed.
"I'm sure they're all great. Just pick a few you like without thinking too hard. You don't need the 'best' options if there is such a thing, and you certainly don't have time to hunt for them."
"You're right. But it seems a pity not to evaluate every option."
"If you do that you'll still be here next year, and half the styles you like will be discontinued."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," I drawled.
"Do you at least have everything else packed?"
"What else do I need besides clothes, my scryer and emergency snacks?"
"Oh, right, guess you don't need any weapons or tools. How about pen and paper, in case you want to record something outside of your scryer?"
Pen and paper. It came as a shock to hear Skids mentioning those. I hadn't thought about writing in months. "My handwriting's gonna be awful," I realised.
"Then you should get back in practice. You never know when it'll be useful."
"Um..." Where had I left my writing supplies?
"Don't you keep that stuff in the handbag you took with you everywhere? I haven't seen that in ages, Drift."
"Oh! Bottom drawer by my bed." I hadn't opened it in several months. It held everything important from my old life, and I'd forgotten it in a drawer. "You know..." I ventured.
"Hmm?" Skids handed me the light brown leather handbag.
I considered opening the bag and looking through the contents, but I admitted to myself that I didn't have time now. Instead I dropped it into my backpack. "I was thinking, maybe once we're on our way, you can start calling me Charity again."
"Not 'Miss Wilison'?" Skids smirked as sa said it.
I barked out a sound that was something between a laugh and a snort. "No, Maker forbid I go back to that!" We shared a chuckle at the ridiculous image of me demanding to be addressed 'properly'.
"Well, I better leave you to pick out those dresses. Unless...?"
"Nah, I'm fine. Thanks, though."
"Just don't get too many," sa said, eying my backpack. "And nothing that doesn't have immediate delivery. We're not delaying our departure and you need a reasonable amount of sleep so you don't fall off the back of the spinnerbike."
"No danger of that. Remember, I can lock my arm in place."
"If you start snoring in my ear or drooling on my back, you're going to be falling off, arm or no arm."
I looked down at my scryer so Skids couldn't see my silly grin. "You wouldn't."
"Maybe I'd slow down before tossing you."
"Safety first!"
"Always."
"Wonders never cease," Swipe said with an air of exaggerated awe. "Yall're here on time, with your packs."
'Here' was Wonambi Central trolley station. We'd be taking the next available trip to the northernmost surface exit. From there, we would take an overland track east to within sight of the coast. We could easily make it in three hours at a relatively leisurely pace.
Swipe's congratulatory speech wasn't over. "And you're all properly dressed in riding gear. Well done."
"We're not children," Scaff muttered audibly.
Punnt began to respond. "Then why did I have to—"
"Hey! There's time for backchat after we're on the trolley. And look, here it is!"
The orange and grey trolley's safety bars disengaged, allowing a pair of dayshift workers to disembark. A familiar recorded message reminded thall to take the correct items.
"Wells! How's it going, pal?" asked Punnt, who'd spotted a friend.
"A good day's mining, but I'm glad it's over," said Wells, a very tired looking drone. "This is Lotus jur," dro said, indicating dro's companion. Dro had the higher muscle mass of the two by a long way, while jur was taller and met our nods of greeting with deeply observant eyes. They were brown, the most common colour.
"Wells was a mentor to me during my training," Punnt explained. "Lotus, I haven't met before."
"I specialise in gardens for augmenting mine air quality," Lotus began to explain. "While the capacity of magic-based air treatm—"
"Sorry to interrupt," Swipe interrupted, not sounding at all sorry. "We need to board our trolley now." She started organising us into seats.
Lotus looked offended at being interrupted. "Who—"
"That's Cheesey Goodness," Wells said in a hissing whisper.
"Cheese what now?"
"Only Wonambi's top chroma team! Thall knocked Dead Drop out of Rainbow Rage, remember?"
"You know I don't follow sports. I told you this three times!"
Thankfully the trolley announced its imminent departure and we didn't have to listen to that conversation any longer. Thanks to Swipe's management we were all aboard. Less thankfully, Swipe's management had left us with our bags wedged uncomfortably at our feet.
While I'd finished my packing at a mostly reasonable hour, I had been filled with too much anticipation to sleep soundly. I tried dozing throughout the trip to the surface instead of participating in the friendly banter. The attempt did not help, and I hardly felt awake at all as we stowed our luggage on our touring spinnerbikes. These were not as fast as the ones on which Cards and Spire had accompanied Skids and I back to Forrester's Crossing. Instead they were designed for high carrying capacity. That suited our needs perfectly, as Swipe unnecessarily explained again.
"Hey Charity, are you with us?" Skids asked, making me realised I was supposed to be mounting our bike. Punnt and Scaff were already on thall's, while Swipe and Broth were checking that the luggage was properly balanced on a third.
"Yeah, sorry. Slept badly."
"Are you worried?"
"About what?"
Skids pointed at the elevator that would soon lift us to the surface. "Going out. Meeting new people. What we might learn. The team breaking up. What the price of a new eye and arm might be. Probably some other things I haven't thought of yet."
I rolled my eye at the suggestion. "Of course I'm worried. You?"
"All that and more. Now get on or our biggest worry will be Swipe."