Wedding Preparations (Otherwise Untitled)
#88 of Short Stories
A gryphon picks up a dress from a seamstress.
~ Rachelle checked her wristwatch once again as she entered the bridal store. Ears and feathers and a bit of wings perked with excitement at the confirmation that today was the day the dress was scheduled to be complete. She held her beak closed with her hands to muffle the squeal.
~ And old doe hobbled out from the back office, hanging a tape measure from one of her antlers along the way. "Ah, yes." The seamstress' blank expression softened somewhat to a smile. "It's ready, but I'd like to see it on you before I call it entirely finished." She shrugged a bit, "It's hanging in the second booth."
~ The gryphon's plumage looked fit to burst with excitement, only just containing her composure to a skipping gait off into the booth. Out of the sight of the doe, and anyone who decided to wander in, the gryphon rapidly rendered herself down to undergarments to reckon the dress resting firmly upon the hanger. She called out to the seamstress, "Anything I gotta do, for putting this on?"
~ "Nah, just treat it like a bird dress. The parts what're different don't make a different until it's being worn.", settling down onto a stool for the assistance to patience it could provide. "I got the message from the bride, and it's already updated with the trim for bein' a Maid of Honor's dress." The gryphon squealed again, out of sight.
~ "I don't want to be glad for someone's misfortune, but I'm so glad that she had to be out of town for something work at the last minute and now I get to be the Maid of Honor and I'll be in charge of some small prettiness things and I even have my own dress and it's the first time I've actually had a dress `cuz when I was young it was all just bird dresses five sizes too big and taken in about the waists and shoulders and it looked like I was wearing a formal potato sack and I get to be the one who picks out a color for the cake and makes sure that it's the right size and who sits at the long table and round table and that one table over near the...", the gryphon's torrent of emotions unraveling into a stream of sentence enabled by the lack of a suffocating squeeze about her bust from the dress she donned.
~ As she stepped out from the booth and into the wider room, the doe rose from her stool to greet her. "Turn about and stretch each wing in turn, please. I want to make sure the dress flows well as your center of balance shifts." A collection of fabric and feathers seemed to drift across the floor with dignity unheard of, "It looks to fit you; I'm glad to have had the matching pair on hand to make it from." The doe's smile was an earnest one, pleased with the success of her efforts and their appearance on the Maid of Honor.
~ The hen struggled to contain a series of additional squeals as the doe assembled the dress' box for transport.