I figured we'd ask someone at the labs for permission and a ride, or maybe we'd take the train to LE, but the store Sai wanted to go to was in town, so not too far away from campus. At least that's what they said. Even with winter nearing its end, it was still a cold day, and walking through the snow that fell the night before was annoying as we walked down a winding trail through the forest opposite the beach side of the school. Only some of it had been plowed or shoveled, which meant some slips on ice and some awkward steps that made me wish I brought my boots.

"You all have a very different definition of within walking distance than me," I said.

"Please, this is nothing," Myles said. She walked on top of a wooden fence, a ravine to her right. "Back home, we had to walk pretty much everywhere. Well, if you had a plane or a ship you were good, but I only was lucky enough a few times to—whoa!" She waved her arms, almost losing her balance.

"If you fall in, I'm not coming to get you," Ash said.

"Thanks Ash, sure do love having such a caring sister," Myles said.

"I do care, I just don't want to get blamed when I pull you out of some idiotic thing again," Ash said. "Did you tell them about the beach thing?"

"What beach thing?" I asked.

"Oh, I saw that one," Sai said.

"We don't need to bring that up!" Myles said. "I didn't even walk that far out into the ice, they were way overreacting."

"I almost got suspended for it," Ash said. "Said I really need to keep my sister in line. Well, not making the mistake of trying to help her again when she gets some daredevil thing in her head."

"That's what they told you," Myles said. "If we didn't get suspended for Penteldtam, we're golden."

I tried to suppress a grumble as the winding trail went far longer than I expected.

"If you think this is bad, I hear there's a Cani school way south of here in Jiru," Charmaine said. "Where they have to do this like, ten mile long walk through a forest to start."

"What for?" I asked.

Charmaine shrugged. "My friend said that in this world they have Cani that are more magic focused, whatever that means. There's a couple of em on our campus, but schools with the full mage focus are all in the same region in this...country or whatever."

"You sound so confident in your answers that I gotta believe every word," Sai said.

"Well! My friend said it like a week ago, so it's hard to remember all the details," Charmaine said.

"The lesson I'm learning today is to not follow Myles when she wants to put her life in danger for no reason, and to not ask Charmaine about anything I really need to know that she heard about longer than a week ago," I said.

"You know, fair," Charmaine said.

"I think that's wise," Sai said.

"Agreed," Ash said. "Right, Myles?" She squinted at her sister. While Myles was still on the fence, she had stopped moving, stroking her chin. "What now?"

"I'm just wondering if I can do a handstand across this," Myles said.

The rest of the walk was filled with breezy chats like that. I was very relieved when we finally got to sidewalks, heading to a street in Sky Clay with lots of local shops. Sai zeroed in on the art store, the main reason they wanted to go out today.

Sai had a list they wanted to get to, but once we were in the store we were quickly distracted by bags of glitter that were hung on the shelves with plastic hooks that were the perfect size to hang on Sai's horns.

"How many is this now?" Sai asked as I added another.

"Number eight by my count," Ash said.

"This is a deadly game, Sai," I said. "One wrong move could result in glitter falling everywhere. Not only will we have to pay for it, but this isn't getting out of our clothes for weeks. Months, even."

"So we better hope my horns can hold all these up." Sai said.

Unfortunately our game was interrupted shortly after when a worker asked what we were doing, and our excuse that Sai was merely advertising the store's wares didn't convince them.

So we went down Sai's shopping list instead. Charmaine and the Althea sisters decided to look for something called "sea foam sand clay," which they'd heard was sold in the smaller local shops in Sky Clay. It made me wonder if this town had some kind of clay specialists, but I hadn't heard much about the town's history or culture since I started going to school here.

"I'm low on all my junk, so I need pens, notepads, the works," Sai said. They gave a longing stare to a specific pen brand, one that looked very sleek and professional grade.

"Are these like...special pens or something?" I asked.

"B-Deluxe-Sci pens look so good, but they're such a scam, they draw terribly," Sai said.

"I see," I said.

Sai immediately put a package with them in their basket.

"So don't buy them? Why are you getting more?" I said.

"You wouldn't understand," Sai said.

"I guess not," I said.

For some reason a bunch of tiny plastic toys were on the stacks next to the pens, and a set of miniature rock band instruments caught my eye. I pictured Nikki laughing at them, and for a second thought about getting them as a gift, my subconscious needing a second to remember we'd broken up. I tried to push the thoughts away. I wanted to do something for Sai and the others today, not wallow in self-loathing.

Just as I looked away from the tiny guitar sets, I saw someone familiar across the store. They were framed almost perfectly between Sai's horns from my perspective, letting me imagine Sai with a tiny person walking on their head. Sai of course caught my gaze and gave me a weird look.

"What?" Sai asked.

"No, don't move," I said. "I'm looking between your horns."

"Is there something on my head?" Sai asked.

"No!" I said. "Lillia from school is over there, if you stand right there it's like...a tiny...mini Lillia..." I trailed off.

"Are you actually stupid or is this a reference I'm not getting?" Sai asked.

"I mean, I probably am, but haven't you ever pictured someone that's far away as being small? Like holding them on your palm, squishing em, that kind of thing? I am so not alone in this, don't look at me that way." I said.

"Well, whatever," Sai said. "Do you want to talk to her or something?"

I shrugged. "Do you? We're doing what you want today, right?"

"Me and the others, yeah," Sai said.

"The others who are busy looking for foam clay or whatever," I said. "So what do you want?"

"You're being very combative for this random conversation," Sai said.

"Randomly combative is a specialty of mine," I said. "And that combativeness is telling me that you want to talk to her. So go talk to her."

"She looks busy, I don't wanna annoy her,"

Lillia was idly paging through craft books, not hearing anything we were saying.

"She does not look busy, do you want me to call her over first?" I asked.

"That might actually scare her off," Sai said. "Ugh, what would I even say?"

"You two hit it off during the Falling Shards thing, talk about that,"

"We didn't hit it off, shut up," Sai said. "And I don't wanna talk about anything Falling Shards related ever again."

"Then go ask what she's shopping for," I said.

"Now it sounds like you want to talk to her," Sai said.

"As if, she's an ally of Faleur," I said. "But now I'm on team 'make you talk to her,' and you're on team 'don't talk to her,' and I have to win."

"You sound so bizarrely proud that you're turning this into a weird competition," Sai said.

I huffed. "I wouldn't say bizarrely proud. Like, regular proud."

"Bizarrely proud, randomly combative, and actually stupid," Sai said.

I snickered, kind of liking how that sounded. "Gonna play it that way, huh?"

"Sure am," Sai said.

"On the day I'll do anything for you?"

"Mhm," Sai said.

"Kay, how about this then?" I said. "Oh my god, is that Lillia Cadence from school?" I said as loudly as I could, elbowing Sai. "Didn't you just say you wanted to see her?"

Lillia looked up like a deer lost on a highway. She visibly debated if she should respond and come over. After some deliberation, she approached, but was clearly cautious.

"Now you get to talk to her!" I said.

Sai shoved me. "I'm gonna go buy one of those glitter bags and dump it all over you the second your guard is down."