Tristan, whom she’d initially taken for a skinny and somewhat theatrical girl, had long hair that flopped over one eye. His black cloak covered a colorful ensemble rather like a kilt, only made of innumerable squares of shiny stuff, and cinched with an elaborate tool belt that sprouted innumerable pouches and little boxes and metal things on chains. When Tristan walked, he clanked. 

Gunnhild favored layers of trailing draperies, from rich velvets reminiscent of theater curtains, to diaphanous floating chiffons, all in reds and golds and purples, belted with an old-fashioned corset ornamented with a profusion of mechanical devices, including at least three different dangling clocks, none of whose faces counted to twelve. 

Her sister Griselda favored an eclectic mad-inventor look. Her duster might have looked noirish had it been black, rather than glowing purple with little colorful bits of embroidery along all the hems and sparkly facings.

***

Annie Brown and the Superhero Blues is currently being revised for publication.