"All the things you listed sound fun."

"Then let's do those! Hmm, fancy clothes - I wonder if we've got something in the attic that'll fit you, there's all kinds of centuries-old junk up there and some of it is fancy dresses... could also just go clothes shopping, if you prefer..."

"Ooh, dress-up with vintage foreign attic things or shopping, that's a hard one."

"Both is a possible answer but we'd at least have to do them sequentially, as last I checked there was not a clothes market in my attic."

"What kinda lousy attic is this? Attic first I'd feel bad about spending money if there's perfect stuff up there - I don't even have local money -"

He giggles. "Sure, attic first."

Attic! It is upstairs. It is up so many stairs. Such is the nature of attics. The lighting is even worse than in the rest of the house, but luckily Peka has her pocket everything.

She does! What have we in this attic?

So many things!

Ancient melee weaponry! Ancient magical weaponry! Paintings and tapestries! A snake skull bigger than the two of them put together, with fangs as long as Ashras's arm!

Huh, the magic weapons are neat-looking.

"Oh, that reminds me," he says, looking up at the giant snake skull. "The local wildlife can be a bit terrifying to outsiders, I'm not sure if anyone's warned you. You're safe within sight of the house, or if you have a member of the family with you, but I don't recommend going on a long walk in the woods alone. Sorry I didn't say anything sooner, I forgot it wasn't obvious."

"- uh, okay. I'll be careful."

He smiles at her. "Good! I would feel terrible if you got eaten by a giant snake because I hadn't said anything!"

More attic objects! Old books! A bucket of beautifully carved wooden dice!

And, over there, a bunch of big heavy boxes in the same hard pale wood as the dice. Ashras starts opening them. Some contain fancy clothes. Vintage Aluvai fashion apparently involves a lot of intricate embroidery and tiny glass beads.

Pretty!

Ashras delightedly unpacks clothes. He shows things to Peka when he thinks they might fit her. A lot of the colours are too dark for her eyes to see clearly, but there are pale colours too, and all the shades in between.

"Ooh," he says of one dress, "matches your hair -" and he holds up a sleeve sparkling with tiny pink pearls.

Giggle!

"Want to try it on? Oh, wow, there keeps being more of it," he says, pulling a seemingly endless amount of skirt out of the box. "I'm pretty sure it'll fit you - the skirt might be a little long but you could stand on a box or something if it threatened to drag... it's not nearly as bad as it looks, this part's supposed to wrap around a bunch of times, there's buttons."

"It looks amazing, I so want to try it on."

Ashras beams. "Okay, let's find you somewhere to change - I think there's a room nearby with a really big mirror - help me carry the dress?"

There is enough dress that even when he has it folded up very carefully for transport, he still can't carry it all by himself.

"Wow, I wonder if I'll even be able to walk in this." Carry carry.

"It's a little ridiculous, isn't it? But in an amazing way."

Carry carry. Room with a giant mirror - an unused sitting room attached to an unused bedroom, it looks like, with dust covers over all the furniture.

"I think all those buttons and laces are meant to be a three-person job minimum," he says, "but I bet you can get enough of it done by yourself that I won't have to blush too much helping you with the rest..."

"You're the blushy sort?" she wonders.

"Was this an unwise admission?"

"Why would that be unwise?"

He giggles. "Some people might hear that and try to make me blush!"

"And here I thought you found pink a fetching color."