The Girl Who Dreamed of a Different World Read online

  ‘Now for this “underwire” you’re wanting…’ He paused, scratching his chin through his beard. ‘Seems that you’re wanting something that won’t bend in one direction, but it has to be more flexible laterally.’

  That sounded like a really scientific definition, but it also sounded right. ‘It has to stay in the curved shape, but it has to be able to bend a bit against your body. Uh, my body. You won’t need one of these.’

  The scratching became beard stroking. ‘Not until I get old and flabby anyway.’

  ‘I can’t see you ever letting yourself go that much, Master Smith,’ Mistress Natishma remarked with another of her smirking half smiles. ‘Now, my husband gets no exercise at all, and I can see him needing one in a few years.’

  ‘Ha! Flattery will get you anything you want, Mistress Natishma.

  You’ll need to give me a template for the curve you want, then I can form some wire to that shape. And then I’ll beat it flat.

  That’ll make it hold the curve and bend as you want it. I’ve some suitable stock for that too.’

  ‘A template?’ Kana asked.

  ‘Aye. A drawing’ll do. Size and shape so I know what I’m working to.’ The blacksmith eyed Kana. ‘That’s unless you’d like to stand in the smithy with your shirt off until I’ve got the thing fitted to your shape.’

  Kana tried manfully to keep the blush off her face and was quite sure that she failed. ‘I think we can come up with a drawing.’

  ‘Thought you might.’ There was more beard stroking. ‘Seems to me that we could make them a bit like horseshoes.’ Both women stared at him, wondering what he meant. Luckily, he was not finished.

  ‘See, every horse is different, but I can make a bunch of shoes in a few sizes and, when a horse comes in for shoeing, I pick the best size and then adjust the shoe to fit better. Now, women are all different – and all men should thank Soansha for that blessing – but I bet if we took the curve for Kana here and scaled it up and down a few half-thumbs, we could cover most of the sizes in the castle that actually need something like this.

  If you’ll pardon the phrasing, a woman’s chest is more pliable than a horse’s hoof, so getting the sizing totally accurate wouldn’t be as important.’

  ‘Well, bras at home do come in a fixed set of sizes,’ Kana agreed. ‘Uh, but I don’t think we need to worry over mass production. I just find breast bands really uncomfortable. If we can make me a couple of bras, I’ll be happy.’

  The smith and the seamstress looked at each other for a second.

  Master Stoknar spoke. ‘Well, if my wife’s anything to go by, you’re not the only one that might look upon an alternative with interest. Let’s see how your prototype goes and we’ll see what comes of it.’

  29 th Pakarte.

  ‘The process of heating an object involves an understanding of the fundamental nature of matter.’ Master Mage Northon was not the most exciting teacher Kana had ever had. He was a fairly attractive man with jet-black hair and a short beard, and intelligent blue eyes. He was far from the fittest man in the world, but that could be said for most of the research mages in the castle. His voice, however, could put you to sleep without even the smallest use of magic, and Kana had found that she needed to try really hard to keep focus whenever it was him who was teaching her.

  It did not help that she knew all of this, probably better than Northon did. Atomic theory was pretty basic and Kana was pretty smart. She knew that atoms were not the smallest components in matter, and she was quite sure that Northon did not. She also knew that heat was basically atoms bouncing around, so hotter meant faster bouncing. That was about all Northon was explaining.

  Or droning on about. Droning was a good word for what Northon did.

  ‘Are there any questions?’ Northon asked and Kana put her hand up. ‘Kana?’

  ‘Where does the energy come from?’

  ‘The energy?’

  ‘The energy needed to heat the object. It takes a lot of energy to heat something up. You can melt iron with this spell, right?

  That’s a lot of energy. So, where does it come from?’

  ‘From the mage, obviously,’ said Bentin. Bentin was a know-it-all. He was a couple of years older than Kana, but he had turned up in a couple of her classes and he was always the same. He knew everything and delighted in demonstrating this at every opportunity. He was a pretty sort of teenager from Skonar, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Rumour was that he was being taught in the White Castle because the Mages’ Guild had refused to send another tutor for him. Kana could believe it.

  She had also developed a perverse desire to prove him wrong at every opportunity. ‘You’ve never been to Master Smith Stoknar’s forge, it seems. It takes a hot fire to heat iron just to let you work it, never mind melting it. Even allowing for the inefficiencies of the forge, neither you nor I could work hard enough to do it. The spell has to take its energy from somewhere else.’

  ‘That’s just–’ Bentin began.

  ‘Correct,’ Northon said. ‘Kana is quite correct. All energy for magic comes from the world’s magical field. The energy a caster of any kind puts into a spell is merely a catalyst. It is the effort of concentration needed to form the spell. Which is quite obvious when you think about it. A skilled caster is able to cast many spells without any effort at all. The spell has become so simple to them that they can evoke power from the world as a trivial exercise.’

  And there was that warm feeling that came from seeing Bentin’s cheeks redden. Kana stretched her back and sucked in a lungful of air, mostly to keep her inner smirk from becoming an outer smirk.

  And then…

  ‘Eep!’ Kana’s shoulders hunched and she shrank into her seat, her own cheeks reddening as she did so. Karma was swift in this world.

  ‘Kana?’ Northon asked. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  Yes! Yes, there was something wrong. The fastenings on her prototype bra had just torn out or broken. That was what was wrong. And she was going to be stuck in this class for another two hours with her boobs swinging free! Which was actually ridiculous because she was young and they were firm, but still…

  ‘No, Master Mage,’ Kana said, because she was not going to explain any of that to Northon. ‘I just… remembered a task I forgot to do.’

  ‘I’m sure that you will be able to deal with that during lunch.

  Now, having learned of the underlying theory behind the heating of matter, who can tell me why the spell utilises…’

  Kana decided to let Bentin answer this one. She was fairly sure he would get it right, and she was not going to comment if he failed. Soansha apparently had a nasty sense of humour when it came to punishing smugness and Kana wanted no more of it.

  9 th Menkarte.

  ‘And so we try again,’ Mistress Natishma said. She was holding out a second bra prototype for Kana to try.

  ‘With the fixes we talked about?’ Kana asked. She took the garment from its creator and began checking over the fastenings.

  ‘Indeed. Master Smith Stoknar has made several improvements to the metalwork. The new fastenings have loops on them which will prevent the abrasion we observed and make it easier to securely fix them to the backing. I have used heavier material to attach them too and added additional sewing to secure them. That should prevent you from suddenly having no support after a good stretch.’

  Kana’s cheeks coloured, but she refrained from further comment.

  Both Natishma and Stoknar had been amused by her recounting of the fasteners tearing free during class.

  ‘Master Stoknar has also added a loop to the ends of the underwire,’ Natishma went on. ‘That makes those ends smoother and, combined with my reinforcement of the pocket ends, that should prevent the wire poking out. I should have thought of that the first time, to be honest. However, we live and learn.’

  ‘I wasn’t exactly expecting it to be perfect the first time,’

  Kana said. ‘I mean, my description was kind of vague in a lot of p
laces. I think the “wire” is usually a piece of plastic these days, but I have no idea how to make plastic and it’s not like I’m going to have to go through an airport metal detector here.’

  Natishma smiled. ‘I have no idea what most of that meant.’

  ‘I know, but I feel like I have to make references back to my world at times. It’s like a narrative imperative or something.’

  ‘I have no idea what that means either.’

  ‘No,’ Kana replied, ‘I’m not really sure I do either.’

  13 th Menkarte.

  ‘Okay, Kana,’ Aneshti said as she sat down beside Kana for dinner, ‘what is up with your breasts?’ Orin almost dropped his bowl of stew.

  Kana looked down at her chest. She was wearing a leather vest along with a black, box-pleated skirt and tooled-leather boots.

  Mistress Natishma had made the skirt especially for her, after Kana had explained what a box pleat was. There was also a fairly wide leather belt holding the skirt on Kana’s hips; she had discovered the belt with its carved-bronze buckle in the castle and her allowance had been enough to buy it. Of course, she was also wearing her prototype bra.

  Looking back up at Aneshti, Kana asked, ‘What about them?’

  Aneshti put her food down and bit her lower lip as she studied the reddening Kana. ‘They’re…’ Aneshti lifted her hands under her own, slightly smaller, breasts and moved them about in a vague manner. In, out, up, down. She settled on up after a couple of seconds. ‘They’re higher and a bit bigger. I’ve been jealous of them for six months, but I’ve never seen them grow overnight.’

  ‘They haven’t. I don’t think I’ve grown much in the last couple of months. I just…’ Frowning, Kana reached up and looped a thumb through the strap of her bra, which was visible thanks to the vest, if you bothered to look anyway. She tugged on the elastic fabric. ‘I got some new underwear. Mistress Natishma and Master Smith Stoknar helped. Well, I told them what I wanted and they came up with this between them.’

  ‘Wait,’ Orin said. ‘You got the smith to make underwear for you?’

  ‘No. Well, he makes the fastenings and some, uh, structural elements. I’ve been testing it out for about three weeks.’

  Myshta shook her head. ‘They weren’t that shape a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘I got the second prototype a couple of days ago. Mistress Natishma used stiffer fabric in the cup and it’s, um, giving me more uplift. We talked about it and, uh, it does seem to work quite well. This is really embarrassing. Can we change the subject?’

  ‘Nope,’ Aneshti said. ‘Not until I’ve got one.’

  ‘Same here,’ Myshta added.

  Kana groaned. ‘We can talk to Mistress Natishma tomorrow.’

  14 th Menkarte.

  ‘And I told you I’d be making them like horseshoes,’ Master Stoknar said, a broad grin half hidden by his beard.

  ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that,’ Aneshti said. She looked a little uncomfortable in the forge. Whether that was because –

  even on the weekly rest day – the place was hotter than average

  or because she simply did not like spending time in a grimy forge, Kana was not sure.

  ‘The master smith just means he’ll be mass producing them,’ Kana said. ‘The same shape in a variety of sizes. I don’t think he’ll need to because I can’t see bras being that popular.’

  Aneshti reached out a hand to grip Kana’s shoulder. There was a compassionate sort of look on her elven features. ‘Oh, you poor, sweet, innocent thing.’

  Stoknar and Myshta were nodding in sympathy. Mistress Natishma said, ‘She just hasn’t been wearing a breast band for long enough to know.’

  ‘I think these “bras” are going to be big. Really big.’

  ‘Oh,’ Kana said. ‘This is where I realise I should’ve invented the patent system first.’

  18 th Hankarte.

  At this time of year in Japan, Kana would have probably been looking forward to the end of the rainy season and the long summer break in a couple of weeks. Orin claimed that there was more of a summer wet season in the south, but the White Castle had been seeing rising temperatures and lowering rainfall for a couple of weeks. It was looking like it would be a scorching summer, and the sun had decided to shine today. Aneshti took this as a sign of good things to come, especially since she was graduating today.

  This was something of a relief to Kana. Having got her title, Aneshti would likely feel herself more Kana’s equal and the rivalry might die down. Not that the one-sided rivalry between them was much of an issue; Aneshti only got hot under the collar about once a fortnight, maybe every ten days. Today, she was…

  fluctuating.

  ‘I’m still annoyed that you received rank before I did,’ Aneshti commented as she waited for the Master to call her to the high table in the dining hall.

  ‘You had to do more work to get your rank,’ Kana said, as she did every time Aneshti brought that quibble up.

  ‘That is true…’ Aneshti flashed Kana an uncharacteristically self-deprecating smile. ‘But you are more talented. You learn spells faster. It’s an annoyance I’ll have to put up with.’

  ‘Did Aneshti just admit someone’s better than she is?’ Orin asked, affecting a mock tone of shock.

  ‘I will set fire to your pants, Orin.’

  ‘She probably means it,’ Myshta informed her boyfriend. ‘I’d abase myself now to avoid the burns.’

  ‘I’ll risk it,’ Orin countered. ‘She’ll be able to pull rank on me in a few minutes. That should appease her.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Aneshti admitted.

  ‘Aneshti, please come to the high table.’ The Master’s voice rang out across the hall and Aneshti started to grin.

  ‘It’s time,’ she said. Then she got to her feet, fixed a suitably solemn expression on her face, and set off toward the Master.

  21 st Hankarte.

  ‘Aneshti’s continued education has been determined?’ the Master asked.

  ‘For the next year,’ Sharassa replied. ‘We’ll need to consider her progress next summer. I believe that her continued relationship with Kana is having a positive effect. She has been far more diligent in her studies since Kana gained rank.’

  ‘Let’s hope that her own elevation doesn’t result in her backsliding.’

  ‘Yes. Though I don’t think it will.’

  The Master nodded, examining the rest of Sharassa’s latest status report. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to draw attention to?’

  ‘No, Master. Things are quiet currently. Uh, we may need to keep an eye on our water supply if this hot weather continues.’

  ‘Task someone with that, if you would.’ The Master raised his eyes and put the paper he was holding on his desk. He frowned. ‘I feel that there is something about you I should be noticing, but for the life of me, I cannot determine what it is. Have you changed your hair?’ Sharassa’s hair was long, straight, and blonde, as always. ‘No. No, not that…’

  Sharassa, standing beside the Master’s desk in her usual cropped top and long skirt, all in pink today, suppressed a smirk. Men.

  They were terrible at noticing changes in a woman’s appearance.

  Elves were generally more perceptive than humans, and still their perception of women seemed lacking. It was rather comical, really.

  Still, the Master had noticed something was different, if rather late in the day… ‘I believe that you are referring to a change in my figure. It’s the result of a new undergarment Mistress Natishma has created.’

  The Master was old, far older than he looked in fact, and he had seen a lot in his time, but he was still a male and the subject of a lady’s underwear brought a slight blush to his cheeks. That was comical too, but Sharassa decided laughing would not be an especially good idea. ‘I see,’ he said.

  ‘It replaces the breast bands we used to wear with something a little more… supportive. And comfortable. Kana is responsible for the design, I understand. It’
s something the women of her home wear.’

  ‘More supportive…’ The Master’s eyes settled on Sharassa’s chest briefly. Then he looked away. ‘Yes. Yes they do look…’

  ‘Bigger?’ Sharassa suggested. ‘Breast bands tend to squash–’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that Kana’s arrival has provided the women of the castle with more comfortable foundationwear.’

  Sharassa nodded. ‘Indeed. There’s a quite lengthy waiting list. I had to ruthlessly pull rank to get my bra early.’

  ‘That could be considered abuse of power, Sharassa.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sharassa agreed, ‘but it was so worth it.’

  ~~~

  ‘This is a good time to be alive,’ Orin said. He was leaning back, hands braced behind his head, and a huge grin on his face.

  ‘It’s a veritable sea of cleavage around here.’

  Myshta swatted him. ‘My cleavage is the only cleavage you should be interested in.’

  ‘Men are predisposed to stare at breasts from birth,’ Aneshti said. She sipped at her not-tea. ‘It’s my belief that Soansha came up with it as a way to stop them getting too full of themselves. All a woman has to do is show off her chest and men become dribbling idiots.’

  ‘I think they’re there for feeding babies.’

  ‘Total waste,’ Orin said. ‘Babies can’t appreciate them.’

  ‘It does make you wonder what else Kana can import from her world to ours,’ Myshta said. Apparently, she had decided to change the subject, at least toward a less breast-oriented theme. Everyone looked at Kana, who was quietly eating her lunch.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kana said, at least partially to stop the staring. ‘Not that much, I’d imagine. I mean, I was just in high school. It’s not like I was working on an engineering degree or something. I only thought of the bras because I hated what you already had.’