“How Do You Ask a Slime Girl to Prom?” (62.7) (Oka)

My instinct was to go to Zeta and have a quick cry session and vent about everything I was afraid of. But after what Lillia said, I couldn’t make this about me. I had to make things right with her.

But how was I supposed to do that, exactly? 

I did need to talk to someone, and hoped my aimless wandering would give me that chance. I saw Caya and Kara chatting, and Kitty wasn't around, and figured my teachers could help. Caya also being my aunt would mean she'd have good advice too, right? I waited for an opening in their conversation about which types of firewood they prefer when camping before I made my presence known.

"Caya!" I said, inadvertently doing a kind of jumping jack as I leapt next to the two. It was maybe not the brightest move, as I didn't realize until mid jump that Kara actually had an axe and that the two were actually in the middle of chopping firewood while they were also talking their preferred chopping styles. "Do you have advice for someone who's friend broke up with her girlfriend but then the someone tried to be comforting to their friend but ended up making it about herself too much on accident and kind of made things bad even though she didn't mean to and now she feels bad?"

"Nope," Caya said.

"Wow, that was a blunt answer," I said.

"Sorry," Caya said. "I could give you pointers on how to do better in battle—good job out there today, that plant mine was great—but I will readily admit my social advice isn't as high quality."

"Huh," I said. "What about you, Kara?"

"Uh, I dunno," Kara said, playing with her axe. "Get them...grapes?"

"Grapes?"

"Yeah, do they like grapes? They're tasty." Kara said. "I'm sorry too, Mars and Tik are the softies of the team, I'm not good with this kind of advice either."

"Like...nothing?" I said.

"Nothing besides grapes," Kara said. "Tik, Mars, and me just went out to a vineyard last week and we have so many grapes, it was a really gorgeous place."

"You've seen like a hundred cases though, haven't you?" I asked.

"Like a hundred thousand," Kara said.

"Surely one of those is at least sort of similar to my situation, right?"

"Hm," Kara scratched her chin with the back of her axe. "I'm drawing a blank."

"Dang," I said.

"But hey, Caya and I are probably gonna do some extra trainings soon, you should join in," Kara said.

"That might be good, yeah," I did want to get stronger. Maybe I could have some epiphany while training with Caya and Kara that would help me make things right with Lillia? "Actually, I think that'd be really good! How soon are we talking, like fifteen minutes?"

"Slow it down there, cowpoke," Kara said.

"We're talking when we're back at school soon," Caya said.

"Oh," I said.

"No combat training while we're in chopping mode," Kara said, brandishing her axe.

"Is that your not so subtle way to tell me to beat it?" I asked.

"Pretty much, yeah," Kara said.

"Well, you two are incredibly to the point, but I respect that you get right to it," I said. "I will leave you to your chopping."

"Good luck with the friend situation," Caya said.

That didn't accomplish much, but not ever conversation had to, right? Maybe in the future I'd look back on that and have some deeper realization about wood chopping.

I didn't even ask them about that, so I probably won't retain any of that.

Where else could I go that could have a potential answer to my Lillia problem?

There was a trampoline set up where students were jumping, and then a chaperone was throwing a kickball at them for them to try and block. Another chaperone waited at the side of the trampoline with a whipped cream pie to hit the person who was jumping when they got out for some reason. I decided to not try that one.

The one after it seemed like it had more potential for some kind of contemplation time. It was a tightrope just a few feet off the ground between two wooden platforms. That seemed doable. I could practice my balance (I still had a few moments post growing a tail where my balance got a bit off) and maybe while I was walking over the wire, I'd have some idea come to me of what to say to Lillia.

There was a snag in that plan though, as the only classmates currently at the tightrope station were Charmaine, Esther, and Sai, three of the devils. Worse yet, they caught me staring.

"What do you want?" Charmaine asked.

"I, er, was just passing by," I said.

"I'm just kidding, we don't own the rope," Charmaine said. "You wanna try?"

Maybe I could help Zeta accomplish her goal of befriending the devils without her even present, that'd probably be something she'd appreciate. I pictured her doing an excited cartwheel in response, for some reason that was how my brain decided she'd react if I made some new friends that she was trying to connect with. I didn't see Caeda, Chickadee, or P.D. around either. If those three were there I might have gone back to the trampoline pie game.

"Sure, I can give it the ol' whirl, so to speak," I said.

Even though the rope was barely off the ground, I still had a moment of trepidation before crossing. What if the devils just lured me in and were gonna Penteldtam me as soon as I stepped onto the rope? That seemed less likely when I noticed that Sai wasn't even paying attention, they were turning over rocks to look at the bugs under them. Esther was reading a book, leaving only Charmaine kind of paying attention. She was too far away to push me, but maybe she'd fire a shadow bolt.

That seems like a stretch, too.

I took a step, hands firmly grasped on the wooden guardrail. It felt bouncier than I expected, which scared me off for a few seconds. My first attempt put me at about a step and a half before I had to jump down.

"Dang," I said. "You know, I'm surprised there isn't a big crowd around. Is that rude to say?"

"No, I get it," Charmaine said. "Sai scared them off with a shadow blast just close enough to get them to back off."

Sai shrugged when I glanced their way to confirm.

"Why'd you let me in then without shadow blasting?" I asked.

"Who said we won't?" Charmaine asked. "Kidding again. I dunno. You looked like you were thinking about something else when you walked by, not just trying to take pictures of us."

"Yeah, I guess I still am thinking about it," I said. "I'm wondering if I'm just procrastinating what I'm supposed to be doing."

"What are you supposed to be doing?" Charmaine asked.

"I got in a fight with a friend, and I should probably be telling her sorry," I said. "I thought I'd try to figure out what to say, but no luck so far."

"I see," Charmaine said. "Maybe it's something that will come to you in the moment, versus something you think about beforehand?"

"Hm,"

"I've had fights with friends and I didn't know what I was gonna say until I actually said it," Charmaine said. "Me and Sai have had tons of fights like that."

"How do you two make up?" I asked.

"Well, our most recent ones...Sai can't remember anything before we got here, so it's like everything between us is an empty bucket!" Charmaine said. "That probably won't work for your situation."

"Probably not," I said. "But I think you're right, maybe this is one I have to say more from the heart than the mind."

"Yeah, about like that," Charmaine said. "But if you don't want to go right away, none of us will care if you need a few more goes at the tightrope."

"Thanks," I said. I thought about trying just once more, but ended up getting three full passes from one side to the other done before I left to find Lillia.