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Why did she only ever lose her cool around this man? she wondered to herself, and if the words were aloud they would have been a rare growl. Strelein didn't care at all about the smudges, but she felt a great urgency to remove them from the fawn-glove fur hands which had been pristine moments before. It took her a second because of her flustered countenance to realise that she really wasn't helping, at which point her hand retreated like a shot, like his hand had stung hers. He laughed at this - no, not at this, he'd already been laughing. What was the joke? Her dark eyebrows slanted inwards, puzzled and almost annoyed - but only by her own lack of understanding. He gestured towards his face, and now her brows rose almost into her plaits. Was he laughing at her face? Had he only just noticed her strange domestic features and decided to make a joke out of them? Caspa had no idea what was going on, but found a mirror being shoved into her hands, in suave substitution for the charred-up rag. She glanced bemusedly from it to the tailor, hoping desperately for some kind of hint as to what he was getting at. Did he want her to look at herself, to acknowledge the oddity of her own visage - did he think she'd never looked into a dark window, puddle or mirror before? But as she slowly and rather ominously raised the reflective glass to eye level, she saw the line of charcoal on her lower jaw and all became rather more clear. She gave a slow silent sigh, staring at herself: it seemed she had two new scars now, one on each side of the jaw. The one on the left side was a vicious and deeply-etched thing, black skin showing through white fur, extending right over her lip. The entire side of her chin had been split, and she was sure the bone had fractured too. If it wasn't for that, she would have gained weight this month, with her new determination to achieve some kind of physical size. Alas this aim seemed never to be realised, for chewing had become a nightmare and she still hardly dared to try it. So, she had retained her scarecrow figure, which was unfortunate, although luckily she had her longer fur to hide some of the jagged contours. The other 'scar' on the right side of her mouth, though, that was only charcoal and so impermanent, and she removed it now by licking her palm and rubbing it away. Turning the mirror a few times - it was a shame the other scar wasn't so easily erased - Caspa felt a jolt as her own sharp black eyes met their own gaze, and wondered if it was because of the strangeness of the sensation of looking into her own sightline, or whether everybody felt a similar sharpness from her glare. She supposed she would never know.
Strelein remarked they needed a new rag, and she turned to him, sweeping her eyes over the table, paper and rag as she realised what had happened. Then she noticed that there was even a black streak upon the fabric of the purple coat. She placed one of her less-stained fingers against it, white on black. "I am sorry for the mess, but look, the black makes a striking border for the white. Perhaps that could be a way to make the colours stand out even more..." She brought her hand back once more, feeling out of her depth now. "I will trust you to make all these decisions, though, for my taste is questionable." The hand which had attempted to clean his was still tingling, and refused to let her forget what had happened. Caspa was never embarrassed, not caring about how her manners came across, except when they ran contrary to her strict personal code, which was never. Except that now there was a discrepancy on the horizon, and she suddenly couldn't believe that she'd made it this far without panicking as she had before. Another girl would have longed - ached, even - to join in the laughter of the tailor, to cement their tentative bond as packmates and friends. Caspa, though, recoiled from the relaxed atmosphere, and suddenly wished only to leave, though a deep and animal part of her hated herself for this. "How long do you think the decorations will take?" she asked abruptly.
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