The beginning of bonds

"Well I have important business to attend to. Bye everyone." Amethyst leaves not waiting for a reply.

Alex let's out a sigh and tries to relax his shoulders. His gaze turns back to Lizzy. She is grabbing a lunch container from her bag through the gate.

"Don't think I won't put you to work just because you're Amethyst's toy. You should be wearing a uniform." Lizzy listens to Alex while she opens her lunch box and picks up a baby carrot. She gives it to Bea then starts eating away at her sandwich.

"What are you doing?" Alex tilts his head.

"I'm having lunch. Want some?" She offers her box to him.

"You! Your not going to wash your hands after petting the goat?! No! I do NOT want it!" Alex is blown away at how she has no regard to potential health hazards. "You could get worms!"

"That could happen couldn't it." Lizzy takes a bite of her sandwich.

"Does this mean I need to scan you daily for worms?" Karen asks.

"Add parasites, mites, fungal and bacteria to that list!" Alex is ferrous. "I thought Blue eyed Bob was bull headed but you take it to a whole new level! Where you raised in a barn?!"

"Now that I think of it. I think I spent more time in barns than in my house. So yes I was raised in a barn." Lizzy states matter-o-factly. She is enjoying his reactions. They are similar to Stacy's.

"I can't even right now." Alex turns to leave.

"It was nice meeting you!" Lizzy calls after him with a smirk dancing on her lips. She looks at Bea. "Well he's fun."

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Alex makes it back to the office.

"So you like the new girl?" Grandpa asks.

Alex gives his grandfather a death glare. 

"Not your type? And here I was hoping for great grand babies." Granpa pretends to be heart broken by touching his chest where his heart is.

Alex strips out of his uniform. "There is no way I would date someone that..." He gags. "Anyways, she is underage so I'm not going to touch her. Even if she was cute."

"She is a looker isn't she." Grandpa turns to the screen.

"Are you even listening you deaf old man!?" Alex raises his voice. "Was not is! There is a difference!"

"I think it will be a nice change of pace to have another person around." 

"If she lives that long." Alex mumbles.

"What was that?" Grandpa looks over his shoulder.

"Nothing Gramps." Alex sits at his metal desk. He begins fiddling with fixing the broken Soleil.

The agricultural department doesn't get a whole lot of fancy new tech. When it does it's for the guys in charge of fields to feed the masses. The animal side is more of a zoo and is focused on keeping the animal population up away from extinction. So Alex and his grandfather have to use what they have. Which is scraps from the city. When they upgrade tech at the hospitals or general public the old Soleils get parted out. Most of them go to the agricultural department. Blue eyed Bob is to blame for most repairs even though Alex programs the Soleil to keep it's distance.

Alex peaks over to his grandfather's work station. He is working on soldering wires to fix the hoovering mechanism. Alex sees that the camera feed to the goat pen is enlarged still. Lizzy is laying in the straw reading a glass book. A goat is laying down and has it's head resting on her stomach. The other goats are keeping their distance but are curious of the pair laying in their pen. 

Alex has never saw anything like that. Then again he has never spent time with the animals. He enjoyed robots and figuring out how to fix them or make them better. His grandfather inspired him since he watched him fix mangled robots after shorting out robots. If Alex went to college he might have found his way to the experimental facility. What stopped him was dealing with people. He highly dislikes people. Let's rephrase that. He dislikes entitled people which is most of the population now.

Alex keeps working on piecing a Soleil back together. But he finds his gaze looking over at the screen. Now Lizzy looks like she is sleeping and the goats are coming inside and being a little braver. She is definitely different. No one has interest in farm animals. If people have interest in animals it's the exotic ones and they move away to the other larger cities that have them.

Some time goes by. Alex sees Lizzy get up and put her book away. She starts rubbing strangely onto the side of the goat then pushes it hard. The goat pushes it's head against her hands then backs up and gets on it's back legs standing as tall as it can. Lizzy is standing funny with her hands in fists together. When it lands on all four it hits Lizzy's hands again and they are pushing back and forth. 

"Look at that. They are playing." Gramps smiles at the screen.

They're playing. Lizzy started what looked like a fight but they are playing?

Quiting time rolls around. Alex didn't get a whole lot done.

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"Well Bea. I need to get back. Stacy is not far from blowing Karen up with messages." Lizzy pets the goat.

"Thank you for sparing me from Stacy." Praises Karen.

(Stacy sitting in her dorm sneezes multiple times.)

Lizzy packs her back and begins the walk to the wall where she will board a train to the dorm.

"I got permission to have live feeds of your animal's pens so checking in on them won't be a problem." Karen informs Lizzy.

"Thank you Karen."

"I only did it so I wasn't dragged from the dorm all the time."

"Of course."

"It's a bother but it's custom here to give gifts to people you will be seeing often."

"So you're saying I need to get something for cranky pants I saw earlier?"

(Somewhere in the distance a sneeze is heard.)

"That one and his grandfather. I suggest store bought cookies." Says Karen.

(Somewhere a wife is telling her husband bless you.)

"That sounds pretty easy. Any specific place?" 

"There are a few. You can pre-order to guarantee them or hope for the best when you get out of school." Karen informs Lizzy.

"Huh. Maybe I should pre-order. But what do they have?" Asks Lizzy.

"The one has a specific box for meeting people. It has a variety to help stimulate people talking about their favorite cookie and what not." Karen explains.

"Sounds kinda not personal but we can go that route. Can you place the order?" 

Karen sighs. "Yaaaa. I guess."

"Let me guess it took five whole seconds for you to place that order." Lizzy teases Karen.

"3.9 seconds to be precise." 

"Maybe I made you a little too moody."

Lizzy makes it to the dorms just for Stacy to ambush her with a makeup brush. Stacy tries to hold Lizzy down but her strength doesn't match Lizzy's years working on the farm. Lizzy stands up holding onto Stacy slim thighs. Stacy has her arms loosely around Lizzy's neck and legs around Lizzy's hips.

"One day my ambush will work!" Stacy declares. Lizzy's heart flutters a little. Could it be from the declaration or the fact Lizzy is touching a lot of skin thanks to a mini skirt?

"Maybe." Lizzy flops Stacy onto the new couch in her room. Bea's pen is gone and has been replaced with a tan couch. Lizzy sits down a little ways from Stacy. "Alright have at."

"You admit defeat like that?" Asks Stacy.

"Yea I'm hungry and you will nag the whole time. Now get it over with." Lizzy closes her eyes and tries to act natural on the couch.

Stacy does what she does best and makes Lizzy look older but in a young mature way.

"All done!" Stacy is proud of her work. She hands Lizzy a pocket mirror.

"Wow! I don't even recognize myself... Alright time for a shower." Lizzy states.

"Oh no you don't! We are going to go eat so people can see what kind of work I can do! Hold still. I found straw in your hair." Stacy leans in close to Lizzy. She closes her eyes to try to calm her heart. "Alright let's go."

Lizzy gets dragged around for the evening. Along with her heart ever time Stacy finds a piece of straw in her hair.

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Cookies in hand Lizzy finds herself standing on the grated second floor stair platform infront of the office Alex and his grandfather work at. Knocking and saying hello isn't hard. Yet Lizzy can't find the courage today.

"Oh for crying out loud." Karen says and starts pounding on the door.

"Karen!" Lizzy hisses.

"Come on in!" Yells a voice.

Lizzy pokes her head in. On older guy dressed in a faded worn green jumpsuit is sitting in a chair. He is waving her in. His short wild tuffs of white hair poking everywhere. His white mustash and beard trimmed so it circles his mouth before coming to a point at his chin.

"Come on in! You must be the new girl! Here pull up that chair. Burta, get us some tea please." The older gentleman had quite a bit of energy. Lizzy pulls up the chair he pointed to. It felt warm to the touch.

"My name is Lizzy Miller and this is Karen. I brought some cookies. I wasn't sure on what you liked so I got the variety pack." Lizzy holds out the box.

"Oh the variety pack is the best! You get the salty, sweet and savory. Life's too short to only like one cookie. My name is Tenyou Sho but call me Gramps. I hear you met my grandson Alex. I'm sorry he is a bit harsh sometimes. My wife and I tried our best." Burta, his Soleil came back with some tea for the two of them.

"I can tell he is good at heart. Thank you for the tea." Lizzy bows her head to Burta.

"Really now?" Asks Gramps.

"Yea I can see it in his eyes." Lizzy blows on her tea.

The door clicks behind her.

"Why is she in my seat?" Asks Alex.