We headed out of the forge, and into the crafts district of town. "Is there anything you wanna check out around here, or do you wanna go towards another district?" I looked over for her response.

   "Well, the only craft I'd really be interested in learning about is yours, and you're coming with me, so let's go somewhere else. How does trying on some clothes sound?" I could see a slight blush on her face, and I happily agreed.

   "That sounds like fun. I think I know a great place. Let's go!" I pulled her hand as I led her towards one of the more popular boutiques in town. "I've heard this place has great clothes. I haven't really done anything like this before, but I think it'll be fun."

   "You haven't? I thought most people got their clothes from a boutique." She turn her head to the side and looked at me quizzically. It was pretty cute.

   "Well, most of my clothes are either bought by mama or sewed by her or me. That's how most people do things here, at least if they have any decent l skill in it."

   With that, we chatted a bit more until we got to the boutique, and went inside to try on some clothes.

   "What style do you wanna try out, Ciara? I usually go with basic work-y stuff, but if you want you can pick some stuff out for me to try too."

   "Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun too. I'll do that. Just meet me over by the changing rooms in a little bit, and we'll try eachother's picks. Sound good to you?" Her eyes lit up as she said this. And I couldn't say no to that smile.

   "Alright, see you back here with some clothes I think you'd look good in, got it." I wandered off, looking for something special to have her wear.

   It took a bit of looking, but I found two or three outfits I thought she'd look amazing in, and brought them over to the changing rooms. To my surprise, she hadn't shown up yet, so I waited for her on the bench nearby.

   Another ten or twenty minutes went by before I saw Ciara show up with an absolute mountain of clothes in her arms. My jaw dropped.

   "Is this the only thing you planned on doing the rest of the day?" I think I shocked her with that remark.

   "Oh, no, but I just thought that every one of these would look so good on you that I couldn't choose, so I didn't. I want to see you in all of them!" Ciara blew my skepticism away with pure adorable, and my heart started racing.

   "Well, I guess if you put it that way, I can't really refuse, now can I." I don't know if she realized how cute that sounded, but I folded faster than she could finish her sentence.

   "Well let's get started. How many outfits did you bring, Ciara?" I pulled out the three I had, and walked over to her.

   "Only twelve, should be plenty of time for all of them." She replied like that was a normal number of outfits to have found.

   "Well, I found these three after looking for the perfect outfit, so you can try one on, then I'll do four of yours. That sound like a plan?" We walked up to the doors of the changing rooms.

   "Alright, let's do it. See you in a minute." We walked into the rooms and set up the outfits we had. I was out in two minutes, but she took around five. Then we swapped rooms, with her going in first.

   She came out in the first outfit I picked. It was a frilly scarlet dress, with silver accents all around it, mostly in the shapes of flowers. It had a pair of dark blue tights that matched her hair, and cute red slippers that matched both the dress and my hair. She looked absolutely breathtaking in that outfit, and I was lost for words.

   She walked up to me and spoke. "Amara, are you there? Hello? Is something wrong?" She waved her hand in my face again, and I came back to my senses.

   "Oh no, nothing's wrong. You just look amazing. Like a beautiful fairie. Thanks for bringing me here, Ciara."

   "Um, you brought us here. Are you sure you're okay? But, a fairie? Really? I look that good in this?" She started blushing pretty hard at this point.

   "You looked beautiful before, but this outfit brings out more cuteness." I think my nose started bleeding a tiny bit at this point from all the blood rushing to my head.

   "It is amazing. I can't help but notice the dress matches your hair and eyes with its colors. Was that on purpose?" She stared right at me, and my face got even redder than before.

   "I didn't do it on purpose, I just thought those colors suited you best. And I was right."

   "Okay, I guess so. But now it's your turn to wear stuff that I picked out. So go on, stop staring and get changed." She smiled at me and pushed me into the changing room with her pile of outfits in it.

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   "I wasn't staring!" I shouted to her as she closed the door behind me.

   I guess it was time to try out one of her picks. And it just so happened that one of them was a mirror of the one I picked for her. Deep blue dress and shoes with golden accents, flowery again, on this dress. Along with it was a pair of bright red tights, to match my hair. I decided that, for my self esteem's sake, this would be the best thing to wear out first. I stripped out of the plain stuff I wore to work, and put on the dress.

   I came back out of the changing room and did a twirl. "See what I found? You grabbed the same outfit I did, and followed the same color scheme too." I looked at her, my face a weird mix between smug and happy.

   "Ah well, to difference is that I did pick colors that matched my hair and eyes. You're saying you didn't actually do it on purpose?" Her face was almost the color of her dress while she said this, and it dawned on me that we were wearing matching outfits, and I blushed too.

   "So. We're absolutely buying these, right?" I looked at her to see if she agreed, and she only nodded slightly.

   "Of course, if you want to." It was almost a whisper, and I nearly couldn't hear what she said.

   "Do you want me to try the rest of the stuff on now, or do you think this is enough for today?" I hoped she was okay leaving, because I didn't want our time out together to just be us sitting here getting embarrassed for hours.

   "I wanna keep going, but can we put these back on before we leave? It feels nice to match like this for some reason." She was glancing off to the side as she spoke, not wanting to make eye contact.

   "Alright, I guess so. Be back out in a minute." I went back into the dressing room and changed into another of her picks for me.

   This one was more rugged, a bit boyish even. Greens instead of dark blues, and brown that made me almost look like I was wearing a tree. At least the color was almost the same as my freckles, and brought them out a bit more. It seemed to be a more casual outfit, meant for looking like you were into camping or something, I think.

   I walked back out with the outfit and Ciara started clapping. "That looks so good on you! You almost look like a cute forest spirit. Though, I do want to see some others."

   I nodded, and went back in. I tried on another couple outfits before it was her turn to do the same. We continued until all of the outfits had been worn, and we came out with two each that we wanted to buy. The first was the pair of matching dresses. The second, was unsurprisingly, a more casual outfit in the same colors. A pair of dark blue slacks with red and gold shoes and shirt for me, and a deep blue blouse and shoes with silver accents, and a scarlet skirt for her.

   Once we were done in the store, we headed back to the smithy, but I noticed a flower stall nearby. "Wait here for a second, please."

   I rushed over and grabbed a flower, paid and brought it back to her. "This is my favorite flower, the red carnation." I put it in her hair, matching the dress, but heavily contrasting her hair. "I want you to have it, as thanks for all the fun today." I smiled at her beautiful, surprised face.

   "That's no fair, now I have to get you one too." She walked off towards the flower stand I went to but they didn't have her favorite blue lavender, so she skulked back to me.

   "It's okay, I'm perfectly happy seeing you wearing that flower. There's no reason to get down because you couldn't return the favor." I hugged her a bit, and grabbed her hand to get us back on our way.

   "I just wanted to see how pretty you'd look with it in your hair." She sounded very serious about it.

   "Pretty? Me?" I was surprised. It was the first time anyone had called me pretty before. Mama had said I was beautiful or cute, and same with a lot of adults growing up, but this is the first time someone said "pretty". As my brain fried trying to process the compliment, the only thing my body could think to do was turn and kiss her on the cheek.

   And as I did, a box showed up in my vision.

You have found your soul mate! Congratulations You and your soulmate have acquired the skill [Soul Connection]! You can now speak telepathically with them at any time! You can also feel their general direction faintly at all times! More uses will become apparent as you and your soulmate grow closer and level.

   "Uh. Did you get that message too?" My voice was a little shaky.

   "I did. I guess this means we're meant to be together? It makes some of the stuff I was feeling earlier make more sense, being so comfortable with you. But, this all happened so fast. Why did you kiss me?" Ciara looked at me, holding her cheek.

   "I didn't know what else to do. You surprised me, calling me pretty out of nowhere. So what do we do now? Since we're soulmates, does that mean we're like, a couple? I think we're a bit young for that maybe." I was fidgeting a bit. It felt great to be here with Ciara, but if she felt uncomfortable, I'd be able to wait.

   "Maybe we just stick together and see how it feels? The message said we can speak telepathically, right?" She was blushing like mad, but still making sense.

   "Oh yeah, how do we do that?" I grabbed her hand a bit tighter, and leaned on her shoulder while thinking.

   I tried thinking of something to get it working. 'Can you hear this Ciara?'

   "I heard it! How did you do it?" She leaned into me as well.

   'You just think about me, and what you want to say, I think. That's what worked for me. It makes me feel fuzzy inside too, being able to speak like this.' I think I had a silly smile on my face, as we walked back to the forge.

   'Something like this? Oh you're right. It does feel warm and fuzzy talking to you like this. Today is the first day since I gained my {System} that I feel like my high luck meant something.' She giggled, and I noticed we were almost back.

   'So, what do we tell your mom and Mr. Darius? Do we mention that we're soulmates?' This might be an awkward conversation.

   'I think it's for the best if we tell my mom. Speaking of, we should go and meet yours as well. This feels super important.' She had a very good point.

   'We'll go as soon as we're done at the forge. Well, I guess we should brace ourselves for this. You ready?' I was nervous, but a little excited.

   'Yeah. Let's go.'

   We walked into the forge together, as close as physically possible. It wasn't gonna be hard for them to figure out something happened.