Steven groaned. The prospect of spending her morning clothes shopping did not appeal to her, especially when she was still trying to come to grips with being stuck like this indefinitely. "Can't I just-" she began, but her mother shushed her.
"No, dear," she said. "You know darn well your clothes aren't going to fit you any more. I won't make you wear anything girly if you don't want to, but you can't just wear that same outfit 24/7. Now please go put on whatever you have that fits best; if you go into town in that, it's going to draw a lot of attention that I would bet you don't want."
Steven agreed with that, at least. It was going to be bad enough having people staring at her head. She went up to her room and began to rummage through her clothing, looking for something she could still wear. It took a while, but she finally found a shirt and pair of jeans that weren't too ill-fitting. She got dressed and headed downstairs. For a brief moment, she pondered trying to hide her hair and horns, but all they had in the way of hats were some blaze-orange stocking caps, which were designed to draw attention. Best just to let them rationalize me as a kid with dyed hair, she thought.
Steven's mother was waiting for her by the car, and they got in and began the drive. For a while, neither of them said anything, but not far from the start of the blacktop, they passed a field where the unmarked black car from earlier was parked; off near the treeline, Steven could see Agents Fields and Thomson operating some piece of detection equipment. Realizing that this was the field where she had been abducted, Steven whimpered and clutched her mother's hand, trying to fight off panic. Her mother put one arm around her shoulder and held her tight, and by the time they hit the asphalt Steven was feeling better. "Looks like we should find a new route home," her mother muttered.
The rest of the drive was uneventful, and neither of them said anything. After a drive of about half an hour, they arrived at the larger town where Steven's mother did most of their shopping, and pulled up in front of the department store. Steeling her nerve, Steven followed her mother inside.
It actually wasn't as bad as she'd feared; she didn't even get many strange looks. Steven's mother was true to her word and didn't try to get her to wear anything especially feminine, so most of the trip consisted of figuring out what fit her and then finding it in colors Steven found acceptable. The only really embarassing parts were figuring out her bra size and finding panties that weren't especially feminine, since the store didn't seem to have women's briefs. (Somewhat less embarassing was when Steven had to ask to get a couple other bikinis, since she couldn't remember if clothing impaired Oni flight abilities or not.)
After they had picked out a decent supply of T-shirts and jeans and bought a pair of sneakers and sandals to fit Steven's now smaller feet, she and her mother packed up and returned home. They got her new clothing put away, and Steven returned to her attempts to tune out thiswhole mess with music and a book.