The Silk Shop

There was a hint of a pleased smile to go along with that green blushing, which, by the way, went quite well with the color of the dress, although T'Pren seemed completely confused at the idea that the dress was wearing her. She frowned down at her body to see how that could be physically possible and then back up at Val with her brows raised.

"Do I have an attitude?" she wondered, perplexed.

As the mirror was offered to her, she stepped in front of it and studied herself in a way that made it obvious she just about never looked at her own reflection beyond making sure she was presentable for duty.

"I feel..." T'Pren thought carefully about the answer. "...like someone else."

"Well.. you're not. You're just you in a dress. But you look nice. Lorelei will be so pleased when you wear it to her opening night." Val nodded to the worm. "It doesn't even need any altering, does it, Wheezy?"

True to his -- its? -- name, Wheezy made a noise like wet, stepped on bagpipes.

T'Pren continued to consider herself in the mirror, twisting her lips at the figure there. She was trying to decide how she felt about the girl in the dress and the jury was definitely still out.

"But what about my attitude?" she wondered of her reflection.

"I think you may have to figure that out on your own," Val sad. "But my mother used to say that nothing is more attractive than confidence. That's shouldn't be too hard for you as a starfleet officer. They're always so confident..." He trailed off with a touch of bitterness.
"Well, lieutenant, I'll leave you to it. I'm already going to be late for my next date."

The hint of bitterness from Val pulled T'Pren's attention away from the mirror and directly to him. With her thoughts on the Bajoran instead of on her own neuroses, the half-Vulcan did, in fact, slide fairly easily into her Starfleet confidence, which was tinged with curious concern. Or concerned curiosity. They were hard to tell apart sometimes.

She didn't pry, though. Instead, she gave him a particularly sweet smile. "What do you prefer I call you? Val? Etilen?"

"Val is my family name," he said with a smile. "You can call me Etilen if we're on friendly terms - which I think we are, no?" He drew aside the curtain to the main shop.
"Thanks so much for the scarf.." His instinct was of course to kiss the person who's just bought him a present, but he halted and turned the gesture into a very airy hug - barely a touch at all. It didn't seem right, but what could he do?

"If we're on friendly terms," T'Pren mused, her confidence bolstered even more by the fact that Val thought they were on such terms, "then when I'm off duty, I'd like it if you called me Pren."

As for the scarf, the half-Vulcan grinned. "I'm sorry I blew up your other one."

The confusion about touching leads to a certain amount of rigidity from the lieutenant, mostly because she wasn't sure where it was going and was trying to brace herself for the contact and the ensuing mental intrusion. But when Val actually respected her boundaries, she was so relieved that she reached out and squeezed his hand for just a few seconds.

Val squeezed her hand back with a smile.
"See you soon, then."
He breezed out of the shop, on his way to the habitat ring for an intimate lunch with a client - hopefully this session wouldn't end in attempted murder of any kind.