galagance

"Say, Bart."

"Yeah, Margie?"

"I bet you can't get Gala to laugh."

Bart almost sneered at the ridiculous thought. "Me? Not make someone laugh? Especially not Gala. This'll be cheese, just watch me."

Margie shrugged, lips pursed to one side. She and Gala were good friends - great, even! - but when they were working on the history projects, Gala would often get so wrapped up in the details, wanting them to be just right, that she'd only nod distractedly at any of Margie's cracks, and then probably apologize for it later. Not that she was very good at being serious. It was a little goofy of her, honestly. She'd scrunch up her forehead, and even her little sprout of hair that refused to be tamed down under her headband would crouch down, almost as if in deference.

And anyway, there was no reason Bart would be any funnier than his cousin. His only test audience for years now had been those guys on the Yggdrasil - and you know how guys are. Bart would open up his mouth and give his great seadog laugh, whether the situation actually deserved it or not, and they'd eat it up.

Margie didn't mind it. Not one bit. Really, she just wanted to see Gala's smile...and cash in on her own bet with Maria about who would blush first. Obviously, she knew Bart would be the one to crack. Gala, with all her forest-creature-type seriosity, would take a good while longer to really open up to something like that.

Maria just thought Bart was oblivious. And as Margie watched Bart saunter away, fiddling fidgety fingers in the fishing net scrapped to his sash, she thought that maybe her friend was right.

Only maybe. Despite being Nisan's Holy Mother, she had no intention of spending her money willy-nilly. After all, last time that had landed her Chu-Chu. Sort of a middling outcome.

If there's one thing Maria had noticed for sure about Gala, it was her peculiar elegance. She wasn't like Elly, who was...Elly, all put-together and perfect except for the specific imperfect places where Fei complemented her, and she definitely wasn't like Margie, who tried and had been trying (succeeding? in some strange way) for years to be anything but. Maria herself wasn't sure how she wanted to be, just yet, but she certainly had plenty of examples to choose among.

While thinking about this very thing, she wandered past the bar, and sure enough, there was Miss Mayes, the gal of the moment. She could just spot Old Maison readying a packet of cocoa, because Gala looked especially perturbed as she made to climb onto one of the modular stools, but when she caught sight of Maria, she shot straight up (and her ahoge, too...).

Anything Gala had been about to say in greeting was interrupted by the thin thudding sound of Gala's bag hitting the underside of the bar. Gala paled visibly, stuttering out, "Maria! Sorry about that. Ah...would you like something to drink, too?"

Old Maison, eyebrows raised, proffered his double handful of cocoa packets, the mugs in his other hand tinkling gently as their sides met. Maria took another look at Gala, and found her face flushed now an olivey-copper tone that, in some strange way, matched her hair. The corners of her eyes were crinkled and her eyebrows were relaxed; her right hand was held out in front of her in a useless gesture that was simultaneously inherently awkward and perfectly composed.

"I'd love some!" Maria returned brightly, trying on a phrase that she thought seemed appropriate. Gala seemed to think so too, and they settled down to watch the hot water pour.

When Old Maison handed them the finished drinks, topped with whipped cream and a sprinkling of cinnamon, Maria said on an unthinking whim, "You know, maybe it's Old Maison that gives the Yggdrasil its special speed. I've never seen anyone pour drinks like that. It's almost like the ingredients are levitating!"

As if, at her young age, she'd been up to watching people pour drinks, as a profession. But it was idle chatter, and no more.

No more, until a burst of white fluff hit the air and Gala began chortling markedly undignifiedly. Maria watched her with a satisfied, if slightly confused and/or concerned, smile. She was a kind person; it was good to see her forget to be nervous just as she tried to notice and help when others felt the same.

The chortling continued, however, and as time went on the flying condiments made less and less of a distraction for it. Surely Gala would be embarrassed by this, no? Perhaps she was just feeling silly. Right. That was good!

As the silly snorting sound wound down, Maria almost thought she could catch the beginnings of an exclamation, a "You're so-" that probably would have ended in something something funny, had Gala not given a little twitch of her head and swallowed down the rest of her laughter (forgetting, also, that she had a mug of cocoa to disguise her reactions with, if she so needed).

"Sorry," Gala said, when the air had become full of nothing but curling steam once more. "That was funny."

Well I know that, Maria thought to herself, you told me so when you laughed. She found herself swallowing her words too, though, keeping back the gentle statement that "It's okay to laugh. I don't think anyone will mind it."

Instead, she remembered her last conversation with Margie, and ventured, "It seems pretty easy to be funny around here. Everyone laughs at Bart's jokes, after all."

All of Gala's trepidation vanished in an instant, as did the steam when her neck turtled its way forward in interest.

"Well of course they do! Bart's so funny!"

"He's not that funny," Maria murmured into the lip of her mug, and then made a show of pretending to burn herself slightly, so Gala couldn't ask what it was that she had said. Indeed, the other girl just smiled uncomfortably, retracting back into her sweater. Maria felt much more confused but also much more endeared to Gala than she had been just a few minutes prior.

They spent the remainder of the bar visit in relative silence, listening to the ambient noise of the sandship - wildly different, it was, to the sounds of the forests and the skies.

This was it. The moment of truth. Maria had wandered into the Yggdrasil's dining room and found Margie there, cape smartly snapped.

"Did you ask him?"

"I hardly had to say two words and he was jumping at the chance."

"He's not even the one betting!"

"He never would be."

And then, they entered. Gala from the right, Bart from the left.

"Hey, Gala!"

"O-oh, hi, Bart."

There was a small, except very large and obvious, silence. Probably a normal person would have asked, "Is everything alright today?" or something harmless like that.

Margie shook her head. "She's already going wobbly on us."

"I thought you were betting on her!" Maria exclaimed in as soft a tone as she could manage. She was starting to feel a little bit out of her depth, much more than she had at the bar. At least there Old Maison could offer indulgent, understanding smiles, and nothing really mattered. This was...well, this didn't matter either. So there.

"Maria," Margie began, planting hands on hips and sparing only a sidelong victorious (or perhaps only smug) glance at her companion, "I'm betting on happiness."

Maria didn't try to come up with an answer for that, choosing instead to bounce once or twice on the balls of her feet with one finger looped around the inside of one of her curls.

Bart and Gala, meanwhile, had more or less just continued standing there grinning at each other. Gala's fingers were creeping towards the latch on her satchel, perhaps to produce some relevant or irrelevant bit of discovery for topical conversation. Bart was stretching, already mirroring Margie's general self-satisfied affect.

And then, he dropped it: "Say, did you hear about the lime that got really excited?"

"Limes?" Gala's ahoge jumped. "Can limes get excited? ...is that real?" Bart's question had effected a curious sort of inward-looking-ness upon her, but one that was observably different from her usual: she didn't usually look like she was about to subsequently turn it inside out.

"Well, sure!" Bart's arms were crossed, and his forearms rippled with triumphance. "This one did, anyway. They said it had a real zest for life."

Even if Gala had not been generally such a quiet, mousy person, her ensuing laugh would be comparable only to a scream. Not only that, but it was also effortlessly conversational. She was, in a word, glowing. Perfect.

"That was such a stupid joke. Why not a lemon? No one thinks about limes."

Ignoring the very obvious implication of greenness, Margie replied, "Stupid, but effective."

"I don't get it! Around us, she's all goofy and nervous. Around him..."

"Listen, Maria. I think Bart's just as silly as the next guy. But we all have to admit that he's really a great friend."

Their hushed aside conversation broke just in time for the viewing of Gala, oblivious in her own tittering, tripping over Bart's leg, stuck out in emblematic exultation, and his careful hands catching her arms to pull her back up straight. And there was that odd little blush again...

"Gala doesn't need a friend. She needs a keeper!"

The bemused pair of spectators swiveled their heads around, then down, to locate the speaker. The statement would sound odd to anyone, but Margie in particular screwed up a brow. Gala was a little bit like a strange wild animal, or plant, she had to admit, but you didn't just...say things like that. Who would ever think Gala would want anything more than a friend?

Chu-Chu blinked. "Chu disagree?"

Maria scratched her head, then set about tightening her bow beneath the goggles.

"I mean, I guess..."

Meanwhile, Margie whipped back around and began bounding out of the room in pursuit of the giggling, chattering couple, calling out, "Bart! Bart!! Get back here! We're docking soon!"