The Valiant Little Tailors
Past present...static frenzy of bees weaving filled the cluttered back room, coming to a crescendo in buzz and machine hum, the valiant little tailors were like maestros conducting an orchestra, a low chirp of spinning silks wormed in the ear. She could feel it in the atmosphere the two gentlemen tailors following her instructions, her pattern; hanging on her every whim. Astria sat there sucking on a sweet honeycomb rocking her legs to and fro in a soothing infantile way, trying to answer a barrage of questions, she bellowed, “it’s what it takes to pass through”. Astria held the remaining pieces of her gold environmental protection suit, part of the helmet, the scorched sulfuric smell still lingering in the melted fibers, “without the suit you would be burned alive.” Without a replica of her suit, she would be stuck forever in the past.
Astria was not supposed to have stopped in 2017, she was travelling back much further to witness the solving of an important equation hoping it could help her in her current work but one proton entangled outside the field and as soon as she observed it an electric surge passed through her suit a charging powerful static electricity that lingered and ran all over her skin. Appearing out of thin air in the bespoke house of Gieves & Weatherhill, right before the two Savile Row tailors’ eyes she thundered in like a dagger. Astonished, Mr. Gieves reacted cloaking the smoking half naked girl in the cloth he was working with at that moment. Weatherhill grabbed an extinguisher frantically putting out blue flames of spot fires before a loud sucking noise turned the black hole in on itself pulling a corner of the room with it. A writhing dark haired beauty collapsed into Mr. Gieves’ arms as they all shuffled to the back of the chamber.
Fast forward...a little prick left his thumb bleeding, Mr. Gieves could not believe his eyes!
It was working. The honeybees were taking the pure melted gold bars into their hexagon honeycombs. It had been easy to get gold bars in London, but Astria was unsure of the other metals, titanium perhaps would work. The silicon and indeed the naphthalene which is just mothballs were easy to acquire, but could it be done? She seemed to have the know how and all the knowledge of future forward; but had they not seen her melt into the room with their own eyes they would have thought she was a mental patient or street addict. "Tell us more", Gieves commanded as the most beautiful diaphanous fabric cascaded to the cutting room floor. Casually throwing his standard yellow tape measure around his neck Gieves threw his proboscis into the air in his signature move he repeated a thousand times a day. It disturbed Weatherhill. It was the one thing about his partner that truly irritated him. "Gieves, Do you have to stand there like that? Give the lady some room and stop bombarding her with all your questions." Weatherhill sat off to the side sewing away like some mad weaver from a fairy tale. His bulging eyes thrilled in the touch of this newly spun fabric. It felt alive like it had a life force all its own. When he first saw Astria, he thought she was a cosplayer, and this was some trick Gieves was playing on him for his birthday. Until she took the rest of her environmental protection suit off and he could see she had been burned. Some of her flesh scalded to second degree.
Mr. Weatherill was not used to working under these conditions after all, he thought, they were not Cad & Dandy. This job was way beyond being rushed, What Astria required was not just bespoke, this was some solid gold high tech from the future. All he could imagine was Astria putting on their suit trying to pass through then hearing only the sound of her screaming that scream just like the day she came into their world. Astria had repaired the control watch testing it repeatedly. It was disconcerting to see the field pop up out of thin air. She had given them a glimpse but declared it impossible for them to go forward, only those from the future could go back and forth. In fact, strangely it seemed from this exact timeframe. They had stuck close to the shop for the last few weeks, the closed sign in the window of Gieves & Weatherhill. Astria had enjoyed the streets of London with her two cloaks she was their dagger. Hearing all the conversations of the day had made her sensitive to their coming plights. It was time! The day before she was to leave the three walked from Sotheby's Cafe to the Royal Academy; She told them none of this existed in her time, in her day there was no London, cities were seasteads or under the ocean floor.
Future forward... it was traveling time for Astria. With a kiss on the cheek, they bid their sweet appreciations. Astria told the two of them they had invented the environmental protection suit and with minimal alterations, the future models are still being used for time travel in the 26th Century, although all the gold was now mined on other planets. She gave them one precious gift leaving her helmet and telling them she would make sure that Gieves & Weatherhill Bespoke labels would be sewn into every suit. Holding both the valiant little tailors’ hands, she disappeared without a trace in a power snap. Just then they both picked the gold helmet up at once and turned it inside out to notice sewn into the back their label, Gieves & Weatherhill Bespoke...
