ORDINARY DAY -open-

[Xanthia Fairbourne]

The sound of high heels clicking against the sidewalk were just an additive to the surrounding hubbub of the city. The owner of these immaculate, and expensive, shoes moved with all the graces and elegance of someone who had a great deal of practice wearing heels. And she did. Xanthia sometimes made a joke that she had come out of the womb kicking and screaming, a pair of baby Louboutins on her little baby feet. She had grown up in a house filled with garish flourishes, a mother who adored her, a nanny who bowed down to her every whim and desire. She had gotten everything she had ever asked for and nothing had ever been denied to her… except for the few years where she had asked for a unicorn for Christmas… That was maybe the only thing that had never shown up underneath the Christmas tree. Her mom had never really liked pets anyways and Xanthia herself realized after countless dead goldfishes that taking care of things were tiring and that didn’t just apply to pets.

As she grew older, she realized that people too were insanely hard to care for. You needed to invest time and effort into socializing with people to keep up with them, then there was remembering birthdays, social etiquette, and the general effort put into keeping up appearances. She was a businesswoman before she was anything else . She ran a high-end shop in London with even higher-end clientele! It was important that she extended herself out and made her most loyal customers keep coming back. Most of the people who came in were considerably older women, mostly wives buying intimates for special occasions, special evenings to be spent rapturously beneath high thread count sheets. The clothes she made were a little too young for them though, so when the older women didn’t come in, it was the rich young women. She didn’t upturn her nose if scragglier people came in, however stealing from her shop would result in the instant severing of one’s fingers! Well… maybe she wouldn’t actually do that… But she had thought about it once or twice. Thieves just pissed her right the hell off.

Xanthia made her way down the street, a coffee in one hand and her eyes darting around shop windows. She had just been out yesterday trying to find a skirt to wear under her new Burberry coat and while she’d gone home with four skirts, she still seemed to be looking for something specific as she passed each window. Shopping was wonderful. She absolutely adored everything there was about it. She loved the rush of adrenaline she got when she purchased something new, the jealous looks she got from some women when she was trying something on (she had a good body thanks to extremely healthy eating, yoga, Pilates and a morning run she took almost everyday), and then when you were walking down the street, when you had all your purchases in their beautifully coloured shop bags… There was just nothing better! Even if her closet had overflowed into her living room… her dining room… and the guest room…

Running a hand through her hair idly, she took a left and there it was, sparkling and glinting in the early morning light; her boutique. She opened up the door and flicked on the lights, walking in as she started going through the process of opening her store. It wouldn’t be a busy day. It was a weekday and most people didn’t come shopping in the middle of a work day unless they had some serious issues… or a lot of money. In either cases Xanthia was no one to judge.

As was promised, the store was silent until around noon, when the door finally opened and her first customers of the day walked in. “Hi! I’m Xanthia. Anything you need me for, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll be here!”

[Paige Nicholls]

It looked as though a bomb had been detonated in the small bedroom. Clothes were everywhere, with the bed being the worst hit by the figurative blast. Paige had torn through her wardrobe and its meagre contents in an endeavour that had been a long time coming. She was a frugal girl so spending money even on clothes was a rare occurrence which meant her wardrobe missed out on an update every fashion season. Why buy new clothes when the ones she already had could be altered to look trendy? Unfortunately the time had come to finally buy new clothes in the form of a hefty pay check and a range of holes and rips that she couldn't repair, not even magically.

Hands on her hips the girl surveyed the damage. Much to her disgust the 'throw out' pile was rather large which meant she would be forking out a lot for things to replace those she had culled. Unfortunately Paige's favourite coat had been among the casualties and she knew that she couldn't just get any old cheap coat to replace it. The coat's memory deserved to be paid tribute to by a decent new item of clothing and there was only one shop that sold clothes that would do. For the first time in a long time Paige would be going to the Fairbourne Boutique.

An owl from the Daily Prophet had arrived to send Paige to that part of London earlier that morning -the redhead hadn't been very appreciative when the screech owl had pecked at her window at the crack of dawn. Thinking on it as she pulled on her favourite pair of fire engine red Converse Paige realised she hadn't been to the high end boutique since the mother of the current owner had died. That had been a messy affair, Paige had been the Daily Prophet photographer at the funeral. A lot of questions had been raised by the paper over whether or not a twenty one year old was a suitable proprietor for the famous store but there was a twenty year old running the Hog's Head for God's sake so she wasn't worried about shopping there. Apparently the heir to the Fairbourne fortune was as ruthless a business woman as her mother had been.

With her camera around her neck, the Scottish girl apparated from Hogsmeade to London -there would be no point using the loo network, the hot owner of the Hog's Head was still asleep. The city bustled around her in the early afternoon, mainly muggles running to and from their office jobs in uncomfortable looking over starched shirts and meticulously matching ties. They barely registered Paige the witch with her large magical camera and mix and match outfit but she wouldn't have had it another way. Muggles were boring, how the poor things survived or at least had some excitement without magic was anyone's guess.

The walk to the shop wasn't a long one and Paige was glad when it was over; a quick glance at a clock in a shop window told her that she didn't have as long as she thought she did before she had to meet the reporter she was working with. It was a pity, Fairbourne required time to spend in there as there was so much to look at. Clothes of all kinds of fabrics assaulted her vision as she stepped from the blustery spring morning into the shop. At once she was greeted pleasantly by a voluptuous blonde with a welcoming smile.

"Thank you, I'm Paige. Nice to meet you," the redhead answered automatically through a thick Scottish accent, too preoccupied to really take any notice of the other girl. She should have recognised who the girl was just by her face alone -she'd taken enough pictures of her- but it was inexcusable to not recognise the name. If her friends in the gossip column found out she would never hear the end of it. For awhile she browsed the coats but couldn't decide on any of them. "Xanthia," she called over the coat rack, "I could use your help. I'm after a new coat but I'm not sure which one."