Mister Fredricson steps out of the crowd, glaring daggers at me. He doesn't even say anything. He just grabs me by the back of my neck and drags me away. I silently wave goodbye to Emily before disappearing into the swarm of other children. As we walk at a fast pace, I can feel him eyeing me. His eyes go over the clothes I'm wearing, clearly not the same robe I've been in since moving to the orphanage, then to my hair. He makes a small 'hmm' sound, but doesn't say anything. I have no idea what he's thinking.

We continue at a fast pace. It's really hard to keep up with him correctly with his hand on my neck like this, if I move a little too fast or slow, he just squeezes tighter and pulls me, which hurts especially bad so close to the claw wounds. Thankfully, we arrive at the church before the fourth bell. By then I've finished converting all of the earth mana. My legs are sore from all the walking though. I'm a bit worried how bad it will be by the end of church, but there isn't anything to do for it. We make our way over to the corner he always takes me to.

The nice woman is here again. She gives me a small smile, then frowns a little. Her eyes are locked onto the bandages covering my entire forearm. I'm not sure why, but it makes me feel bad when she looks at it like that, so I hide my arm behind my back a little. Her warm smile returns, silently saying 'it's ok.' That helps a little.

We arrive at our spot and wait. People continue to stream into the ornate building one after another. I glance to the side a bit, looking over the woman's clothing closely for the first time. I guess I'm a lot more worried about things like this after looking more closely at my robe...

I can only see it from the side, a little out of the corner of my eye. It's dark colored, like a dark blue or green, but the fabric looks pretty nice. I don't see any patches on it either. So this woman is pretty high class, isn't she? Her clothes are at least a step above what Francis and Marrianne wore, but not as fancy as the people I saw in the south end of town. So... squarely in the middle of the vulgant class then?

Wow, that's still so much higher than me. Even if you go with my faked identity as a peasant, I'm really surprised she's even willing to look at me, let alone smile and help me like she has. I guess there are some nice people wherever you go. We wait a little while longer before the speech begins.

Today, the high priest speaks about how Baro commands us not to steal. "Prosperity relies on security of property," he says. I briefly remind myself that Baro is The God of Health and Prosperity. So this lesson has to do with not stealing, so people can keep the things they earn, it seems. Like the previous weeks, he goes over stories on how thieves throughout time have been punished with bad luck, or had all of their belongings stolen in return. Or upon being caught by the guards, they were executed before the gods, and so on. Compared to the last weeks, where they covered maintaining the social order, and not squandering time, this one feels sort of unnecessary. Of course stealing is wrong and you shouldn't do it.

Wait, actually, that's what those men were doing last week, wasn't it? Rather than just stealing someone's property, they were stealing actual people. That has to be worse than regular stealing, right? Do the gods really go out of their way to punish people individually for things like that? While I'm considering this, they finish up with the lecture, moving onto the prayer part. This time I'm much more ready.

I can't say I'm going to 'pray' exactly. More I just want to ask her if she can clarify what I actually need to do. Or at least give me a hint or something. The priest comes our way, and I start to get nervous. Whether I live or die could depend on whether I get Reena to answer. I don't know if it's my nerves, but it feels like the priest is eyeing me as he approaches. That just makes me even more nervous though, small beads of sweat forming as my heart thumps hard in my chest. The nice woman prays briefly, then removes her hand, and the priest moves to me. I try to hide my gulp, then close my eyes and touch the divine totem.

I know I only have a short time, so I immediately turn my attention toward Reena, and I feel the other presences fade away. "Reena. Please tell me what I'm supposed to do. I've tried learning all that I can using your blessing, but I don't know how it's supposed to save my life. I want to survive, but I don't know how. Please, just give me a hint!" I call out to her silently. Then a thought occurs to me. I recognize it now, it's the lightning mana boosting my intuition. I've always pushed my mana across the connection. Maybe it's some kind of offering? Like it can help me gain her favor?

That's the feeling I get at least. I have nothing to lose by trusting my overactive intuition now, so I push hard. I have much better control now than I did last week, before she gave me that absolute mana. Now is no time to be stingy. I flood the connection, pushing lots of mana across. It's nothing like pushing through mollite or nuvrite. The mana flows as smoothly as water, no resistance whatsoever. If I wanted, I could probably empty every bit of my mana in moments without much difficulty. There's simply no resistance to stop me. I'm not that thoughtless though, I know what happens when something runs out of mana.

I stop after just a bit, having emptied quite a lot of my mana. I still have a hard time telling, but probably a little more than half? I'll have to pull a bit from my well later, but I'm not really that concerned with the amount. I have the impression there is still a lot left in my well.

Oddly, the response I feel once I finish is... confusion? And surprise? Why is The Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom surprised? That immediately makes me worry. It feels like she doesn't know how to respond? Did I not explain well? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding something? I open my eyes, blinking in confusion a few times. What's going on? Unfortunately, the priest seems to take that to mean I'm finished, and draws the divine totem away.

My eyes go wide, but I can't move with Mister Fredricson on my neck. There's no way I can try to reach for the totem again like this. I've missed my chance. As this dawns on me, I continue looking ahead. I clamp down on my emotions while I still can. I can't start crying here. With tears threatening at the corners of my eyes, I stare ahead and wait. My legs hurt from standing here, but I try not to move at all. I don't know how long I'll be able to maintain my composure, so I stand stock still until they dismiss everyone. It vaguely registers that they mention the coming solstice, but it's hard to focus on what they're saying.

As Mister Fredricson drags me from the church, I look back at the nice lady once more. She frowns a little when she sees me, probably from my nearly crying expression, but I can't really help it. I wave anyway, trying to smile, and she returns her own small smile before we enter the crowd making their way out of the church.

Once we make it outside, Mister Fredricson releases me and walks off. As soon as he's gone, I sniffle, still trying not to cry. I look around for a bit until I find Emily, and finally let it out. I hug her and cry. "I missed my chance," I tell her.

"Missed your chance? What does that mean? There was no answer?"

"I asked for help, but she just seemed confused and surprised, then they took the totem away."

"C-confused?" She clearly doesn't know how to respond to that. "Well, you can try again next week, right?"

I sniffle a little more, then nod. "Yeah, I'll try. I just wonder if I have that long."

"I thought you still had some more time, didn't you?"

"About seventeen days, but I don't know how accurate that number is. It could be tomorrow, or next month. I have no idea," I shake my head.

Emily bites her lip before responding, "Then let's just hope you have enough time to ask again. I'm sure she'll have a response by next week, right?"

I gulp, trying to push back my tears, and agree. "Yeah, I'm sure she'll know. She has to. I'll just ask her again next week." I don't know if I really believe it though.

"Yeah, come on. Let's go home. We're going clothes shopping today, remember?" I nod, my smile returning a little, and we start walking. I push those thoughts from my mind for now. I'll think about all of that later. Today I have other things to do, I can't just cry, I have to continue doing what I need to do.

----------------------------------------

We go through the moderately wealthy section of town on our way back and I try to take a closer look at their clothes as we pass. Besides the coloring, the fabric looks... smoother. Maybe that's the thread count part I don't understand very well yet. When we reach the central market, something comes to mind.

"Hey Emily, can we stop at the barracks for a bit? There's something I want to ask about."

"Sure, about last night?" I nod, and we swing that way after passing through the outer edges of the market. I'm so glad I know how to make it here now. We walk around the back of the building as we approach, so I stop momentarily to look at the ground closely. I don't see any black fragments from last night though. Emily seems confused by me staring at the ground, but just waits a bit until I continue.

"Umm, could you just wait here? I'll be back really quick," I ask. She looks at the barracks with a slightly concerned expression and nods. I wonder what has her worried? I can ask about it later though. For now, I go in through the front door and look around. A few guards eye me suspiciously. Of course I stick out here... I try to act confident though, and walk inside. It doesn't take long to spot Frank. I walk right over to him, keeping up the act even though I'm sure someone is going to stop me. But somehow, no one does.

Of course Frank sees me coming and raises an eyebrow. "What is it?" he asks.

"I'm sorry for bothering you," I bow and apologize. Even more than the other guards, he must be much higher class than me... "I just wanted to confirm that you burned those black shards last night," I try to say it simply.

"Still worried about that?" He blinks a few times, then chuckles. I nod seriously. "You worry a lot, don't you?" he laughs.

I shake my head, "I'm sorry, it's just that I could hardly sleep at all last night, thinking about that."

That just makes him laugh more. "Getting attacked by a monster, I'm surprised a kid like you could sleep at all. Bad nightmares?" He at least sounds concerned, but he clearly isn't taking me as seriously as he was last night. I don't know why though...

I shake my head, trying to get through to him. "I'm used to sleeping through my nightmares every night." I don't mention that they usually wake me up if I don't have someone to sleep with though. That stops his laughing a little. Then I fix him with a dead stare. "You didn't see what it did to that animal's insides. I could feel its vines crawling around under my skin in my dreams, and it didn't go away even after I woke up. I just want to make sure it's absolutely dead." Maybe the intensity of my description finally gets through to him, because he actually gives me a straight answer this time.

"Alright, I get it," he puts his hands up in surrender. But he still comments, "You're way too serious for your age," before explaining, "no worries, we burned everything, just like you asked."

I let out a quiet sigh. "Thanks, maybe I'll be able to sleep again now."

"Well, get going, I've got work to do," he waves for me to go.

"Yes, sir. Thank you for your time." I bow and thank him, trying to keep being respectful. I think he appreciates it, but he also quirks up an eyebrow for some reason. I don't really get why, but quickly turn and leave anyway. After talking to their captain, I can feel all eyes in the barracks follow me out of the building. Emily is waiting just outside the door.

"All done?" she asks.

"Yeah," I nod, and we start walking. We quickly head back to the main road. I really don't want to spend any time in the northwest district if I don't have to. It still seriously freaks me out. We make our way north quickly. We stopped for a bit, so we'll be behind everyone else. There should still have plenty of time before lunch though, so we don't have to walk that fast. As we go, I feel like I can finally relax a little. I'm actually dressed normally, so no one is looking at me now. I feel wonderfully invisible to everyone we walk past. We arrive back home a little after the sixth bell.

Lunch should be at the seventh bell. I wonder how much time is actually between each bell? As the thought occurs to me, I stop and blink a few times. I have a vague sense of how long is between each, but have never really considered more accurate measurements of time before. Huh... Part of my mind wants to say that it's not that important. As long as we have the bells to tell by, we will know what time it is. The time between the bells really isn't all that important.

But then I shake those thoughts away. I don't want to just dismiss things as unimportant without a good reason. I already did that once with knowing the days of the year. And I'm sure there are uses for keeping time better. Like, what about when we can't hear the bells? Like when we're out in the forest? Having another way to tell time could be useful for that.

"Aria?" Emily asks. I look up, realizing I've stopped walking, right in the doorway.

"Oh, sorry. I was just thinking."

"You're always thinking," she giggles. "Tell me about it sometime, ok?"

"Yeah, sure." We don't really have time to discuss my weird thoughts at the moment, because we walk inside, into the crowded house. We make our way through to the back room where Emily's friends always wait, and they all greet us.

"Oh yeah, we all talked about our weeks earlier, but didn't you two do the most this week?" Robin asks.

"Yeah, that's right. You've been getting meat every day, what's up with that?" Tony chimes in right after.

"Umm..." Emily clearly doesn't want to speak carelessly, so she looks over at me. I cleared out the last of my earth mana earlier, so for once I have no issues speaking how I want. Of course I still don't want to lie to them about anything, but at least I won't just thoughtlessly reveal anything important.

I suppose giving them the overview is fine without talking about the details. However... I glance around. There are plenty of other kids gathered in this room. Even if I don't get into details, I'd rather not talk about this with quite so many people around. "Can we move somewhere else?" I ask. Everyone nods pretty quickly, glancing around at the kids clearly pretending they aren't listening to us. We actually end up going and sitting outside since it's always packed inside the house right before Shanaday lunch. When I look over at the well nearby, it gives me an idea. "Hey Emily, can you go get those bandages I need to wash? I'd like to work on that while we have time."

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"Oh, sure," she nods quickly, and heads back inside.

"Hold on, just a bit. I'd like to work on this while we talk," I tell everyone. Then I quickly go grab a bucket, and we meet again by the well. Everyone waits patiently for us to get back. Andy even helps me tying off the bucket since I can't reach the rope, and I start to draw the water. Since the small well plaza is unexpectedly empty, I start speaking while I work. "I figured out a way to catch hobins, but I don't have a knife, so I needed Emily's help to dress them," I explain. "Of course, I can't really talk about how we do it..." Everyone nods. Of course they understand that such a good method of making money can't be shared easily. Unlike me the other day...

"So we've been doing that the last few days, so I could make the money I needed."

"Money you needed?" Andy asks. That's right, they don't know anything about that.

"Oh, I needed money to buy metal ingots."

"Why metal ingots?" Tony asks. He scratches his head with a confused look. Everyone nods, of course it seems really strange to them.

"Well, I wanted to test out what different metals could do before church today."

"Aria, I think you're skipping a lot. Some of it is kind of... important..." Emily mutters to me quietly. By 'important', she must mean how I'm skipping over all sorts of information I can't tell them about.

I consider it briefly while finishing getting the bucket of water. How should I explain it so I don't go into things I can't talk about? Andy unties the bucket, and we move from the plaza to the alley near the orphanage. I pour water over the bandages, rubbing them against the stones on the ground to work the sticky lele fruit off while thinking.

Of course I can't tell them directly about mana, but they're Emily's friends and I do want to tell them about what I've been doing lately. I did tell them I'd let them know if I learned anything about Reena's blessing last week, so I should be able to talk about it without being specific without much trouble. Though, I will be lying to them a little won't I...?

"Does this have to do with..." Andy glances around just in case, then speaks quietly anyway. "Reena's blessing?"

He just brought up what I was about to talk about, so I nod. "Pretty much. Like I said, it's kind of complicated, but I've managed to use it to figure out a bunch of interesting things this week." I frown inwardly, that's not exactly true.

"Interesting things? Like what? Did you learn more about the blessing?" Jess asks with shining eyes.

"Yeah, I did I guess." How to word this... "I figured out I could use it to do a bunch of different things. When I talked to Frank, he called it 'magic.'" That makes everyone's eyes go wide, even Emily, who should realize I'm basically lying here. "Though, he said that's when a magical creature gives you some sort of powers. Would you call something given as a blessing magic, I wonder?" No one really says anything, so I just shrug. I squirm a little, uncomfortable with telling them about it like this.

"Anyway, it's basically like magic I guess. I used it to find a bunch of interesting things metals can do. I haven't figured out if it works for anything other than metal yet though..." Now that I think about it, I do need to test some other materials as well. There's no reason that metals should be the only things mana fields affect. Well, unless there is a reason. I still have no idea why any of these things work like they do. But I can think about all that some other time. "Uh, so I found that metals can do all sorts of things this week."

"Different things? Like what?" Jess prods, clearly not satisfied by such a vague explanation. At least I can be honest about this, so I perk up a little as I speak.

"Well, for instance, ignium gets hot and nickel gets cold. And tin glows. Stuff like that."

"Woah, that sounds amazing," Andy whistles.

"Hey... who's Frank?" Emily asks. I freeze a little. It figures she would pick out the one part of that story that both isn't actually a lie, and I don't want to talk about.

"Umm, I'll talk to you about that later. I... didn't have a chance to mention it earlier..." Everyone else looks interested, but I just dodge the question for now. I still need to tell her what happened with the guards. Her advice really saved me. But way too much of that I can't talk about in front of anyone but Emily.

"Oh sure, later." Emily just keeps quiet after that. The conversation hits a lull, and I'm almost finished washing off the bandages. Finally, Jess speaks up again.

"Hey Aria, I don't mean to pry too much, but you keep saying it's complicated and hard to explain... It's not just that you don't want to tell us, is it?" she frowns a little as she asks.

I gulp, already feeling bad that I'm twisting things and sort of lying to them. Obviously it's not Reena's blessing that I'm actually using, so telling them that's it isn't fair to them, but I can't tell them about mana. I really don't like lying, it just feels wrong...

I angrily rub my head with my hands. I feel terrible for lying, even though I can't tell the whole truth. "Ahh!" I groan. "I'm sorry. I'm not really being entirely honest about everything, but there are some things I just can't talk about..." Everyone frowns.

"Which parts... aren't true?" Jess asks with a guarded expression. It feels like I'm losing all of their trust here...

I just hang my head while I explain. "I can't tell you the specifics about the magic-like way I can make metals do unique things. I really don't want to lie to you guys... It's not specifically Reena's blessing though. It just makes a really good excuse since I can't tell anyone how I actually do it..." I hang my head briefly as I explain, but then look back up. "But I wasn't lying about using her blessing to learn about all of these things! I also wasn't lying when I said it's complicated, it actually really is. I... have been using it as an excuse not to go into details on some things, but it really is complicated actually," I keep assuring them.

It's hard to tell what everyone's thinking. They're looking at me with unclear expressions. Then Andy asks, "You can't tell anyone? Not even Emily?" All eyes turn to her, and she jumps a little. Clearly, they want answers from her.

Emily waves her hands frantically. "I can't talk about this now right, I'll just end up telling you guys way too much that I shouldn't talk-" she begins rambling before I jump up and clamp a hand over her mouth." Everyone eyes us with extreme suspicion.

"I thought Emily was being too quiet today..." Andy says warily. "What's going on?" I gulp, they know Emily too well, it's clear to them that there's something wrong with her, and the most obvious cause is me. My mind spins over what to say. I'll avoid telling them specifically about mana, but if I've already mentioned a vague concept of energy, I can just expand on that to explain Emily's current state.

"You know when I told you Reena's blessing felt like some sort of formless energy or something?" Everyone nods slowly. "When I started looking into things more, I discovered that there is a system of a bunch of different types of energy. Like I said, I... don't actually use her blessing to interact with them. Jess, you asked me to tell you if I learned anything about Reena's blessing." I take a breath, then tell her. "I figured out that the blessing is one of the types of energy." Her eyes go wide when I tell exactly what it is. "I figured it out when I discovered that type of energy can be created by nickel under circumstances."

"Nickel?" the blacksmith brothers mutter.

"Why nickel?" Andy asks.

I shake my head. "I don't know. All I can say is that I tested a lot of different metals, and nickel wound up producing the same type of energy."

"How does all of this relate to what we were talking about though?" Andy asks. "What's wrong with Emily?"

I look to the side a little. "I can't talk about the details, but one of the types of energy promotes healing. Emily has a lot of that energy right now because she got hurt by that monster.

"Wait, wait," Andy violently shakes his head, "you said you kept it from attacking her!" I blink a few times. Did I misspeak earlier?

"I did? I think I didn't explain it well enough then." I quickly try to correct what I said earlier. "It tackled her and its claws cut into her shoulders, but I stopped it before it could actually start biting her or anything." Then I frown. "Though it did get past me a few times after that when it was attacking me..."

"What do you mean by that? Get past you?" Tony asks.

"Its fur formed into sharp spines that it used to stab me. I blocked most of them for her, but a few got past." Just like that, our conversation completely derails. Everyone goes over to Emily, fussing over her and getting her to show them her injuries. She goes bright red with embarrassment, completely at odds with the huge grin on her face, but ends up showing everyone. They all crowd around, asking questions, poking around the injuries, looking for signs of infection, and generally just worrying over her. I sigh a little, leaving them to it while I finish scrubbing the last of the bandages I need to clean.

By the time I've finished the last couple, everyone has mostly calmed down. "Still, these ones should be treated better," Andy sounds like he's scolding her over the untreated bandages wrapping her puncture wounds. "I have everything we need in my room, let's-"

"Wait, that's on purpose!" Emily flails as he practically starts to pull her away. "Aria told me to change the bandages so they'd heal better."

"You did what?" he turns to me, looking angry and confused.

I just sigh, standing up after finishing my work. "That's what I was trying to tell you. Those puncture wounds looked bad enough that I was worried they wouldn't heal properly. She has a lot of energy for healing wounds right now. Bandages treated with lele fruit mess that up, so I asked her to change them."

"Wh-wha..." he just sputters in response. I know it's so far outside of what he's used to, it must be hard to believe. Then he shakes his head. "You said she has energy for healing wounds? What does that mean? Why does she have it anyway?"

"Like I said, I can't really go into details on how... But the energy is created by iron," I try to at least offer some sort of explanation, even if it doesn't address his actual question.

"And it heals wounds?" he asks skeptically.

"Yes, but it has other effects as well. That's what I was trying to tell you earlier." Somehow, this conversation has gotten a bit annoying. No one ever believes me, and it's troublesome to have to explain things to them... "Besides healing, it will also make her happy, worry more easily, and speak overly honestly. That's why she's been so quiet today."

"That's... a really random assortment of effects..." he mutters after I list them off. He glances over at her, still with a big grin plastered across her face, even as she looks back and forth between us nervously.

I just offer a pained smile."It's a useful type of energy, but it's really troublesome."

"Useful how?" Jess asks.

"Like I said, for healing wounds. Some other things too, but those aren't really important." I think back on how it was sturdy enough to make up the core of that mana arm thing I used earlier. And how it strengthened my body when I was using it. Of course I can't talk about those, the information isn't even useful to anyone else anyway.

"That's right, you do get hurt a lot, don't you..." Andy mutters. "Speaking of, what about you?" He looks a embarrassed all of a sudden. "Sorry, I was so worried about Emily. Are your injuries alright?"

I just wave him off. "Yeah, I'm fine. I didn't get hurt that bad."

He narrows his eyes skeptically at the large bandage covering my entire forearm. I just sigh and pull it off so he can see the bite wound for himself. They all reel back. "It's not that bad," I say it again. "It'll heal in a few days."

"...Because of this healing energy?" he asks, still looking skeptical. Maybe even more than before.

"Yes..." I say, but trail off when I realize I converted all of the earth mana I had earlier. I guess I don't actually have any now. I hadn't thought of that before, maybe I should have left a little, I do need to heal my injuries quickly in case I'm called to battle early. Well, I need to pull the earth mana from Emily, so I'll have that soon enough. He just squints at me, his eyes telling me to explain myself after trailing off uncertainly like that.

I sigh, feeling a pang of irritation again. "Like I said, there's a complicated system of different energy types, which each have different effects. That one is particularly good for healing, but I don't have any now, so not exactly, but I'll get more later anyway, so it is still a yes, I guess." I roll through the explanation so quickly, it looks like no one understands. Except Emily of course, since she actually knows the details of what I'm talking about.

"Ok ok," Andy puts up his hands to calm me. I might have let my irritation out a bit too much there... "We're all just really worried about Emily and you. We've never heard about any of this before, so of course we're going to be careful about it, you know?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry. It's just, there's a lot I can't tell you, even though I don't want to lie. But having to explain everything in little pieces and no one believing what I say is really annoying, you know?"

He scratches his head. "Aahh, yeah, I didn't think about it that way... I just don't want you taking any chances with your health. Tell me, are you sure this... healing energy will work?" I nod seriously to confirm.

"I-I'll believe what you say..." Jess adds in with a kind of nervous look, clasping her hands together in front of her chest.

"Thanks, Jess." I smile a little.

"Well? Was there anything else you wanted to tell us about?" Robin jumps in and asks.

"I really just wanted to straighten out the things I'd told you that weren't completely true, I guess. I'm really sorry I lied." I lower my head briefly. "I also really wanted to tell Jess what Reena's blessing actually was, since she asked me to tell her if I learned anything. I'm really sorry that I can't just tell you everything. I have my reasons... do you understand?"

"Sure, everyone has secrets," Tony laughs. Everyone else nods.

"It definitely seems that you have more secrets than most, it looks like you've told Emily about them though," he glances at her, and she just looks away nervously. "Even though we'll all get split up one day, friends like that are important. Hold on to each other for as long as you can." Andy suddenly speaks with what seems like a surprising amount of wisdom. Well, he is a big kid, he must know a lot more about that than we do. I just nod. No reason to tell him that even with what I have told her, I'm still holding some things back. And holding onto her... isn't going to happen once I do tell her.

"Thanks for understanding, everyone. All of this is sort of weird, could you try not to mention it to anyone else?" I ask. I doubt they won't mention it at all, but at least if I ask, they should be more careful about telling people.

"Sure," they all agree.

"Well, I'm finished here, so let's go inside. How long do you think it'll be until they serve lunch?"

"Should be pretty soon," Andy says, and we all start walking.

"Yeah, soon," Tony and Robin agree. Now that I've realized knowing what day it is can be important, I'm reminded of my thoughts earlier. I feel like knowing the time could be good too... But like the days, no one else seems to think so. I sigh a little when I think about it. Maybe it's just because I'm coming from such a different place than everyone else? I just don't think the same way they do because I don't understand things like they do...

Suddenly feeling dejected, like I'll never manage to fit in, Emily taps me while we're walking in the front door. "Are you alright? That got a little tense before, didn't it? I'm sorry I got everyone mad at you..." she seems to be floundering, so I quickly try to correct her.

"Ah, no! It's not about that at all. I'm just thinking about weird things again!"

"Weird things?" she tilts her head a little.

"Y-yeah, my mind wanders a lot, so I wind up thinking about all sorts of weird things. I just... kind of made myself a bit sad thinking about something..." I trail off into a mutter as I realize that I seem to be the cause of all my problems... But that just makes me sad again.

"Ahh!" Emily exclaims, grabbing my shoulders. "It'll be fine! Don't be sad!"

I snap back to attention, flailing in response. "No no no, umm..." But I can't even say anything at this point. Her friends all wind up laughing as we stand in the dining room.

"You two get along so well!" Tony laughs. Robin is holding his sides and leaning over the table. Even Andy and Jess have their hands over their mouths to try and contain their laughter.

We both end up turning bright red and sitting down quietly.