Girl's Day Out

 A very long yawn came from Adelyn’s mouth, as she stretched in her bed. Teddie and Ed were asleep next to her. It seemed like she was up early.

“Morning, Adelyn!” a cheerful voice said, appearing right next to her. “Up so early?”

Adelyn turned to see Cozy, who seemed to already be dressed. She even had makeup and perfume on already.

“You’re one to talk,” Adelyn said, getting out of bed. She began to do her usual morning routine, which wasn’t that much. She still hadn’t gotten used to doing morning activities at night. So she just put on her dress and brushed her hair as she talked with Cozy.

“It’s always good to wake up early,” Cozy said. “If something happens then you’ll be ready for it.”

“How do you guys even decide when it is early?” Adelyn asked. “The sky never changes.”

“You eventually know. The common time lines up with biological clocks, so everything is based around an aggregate of that,” Cozy said. “It just stuck around.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Adelyn said.

“Are you planning on doing anything today? We need to prepare to travel to the city soon, it’s not that far off.”

At Cozy asking, Adelyn thought for a moment. They did have a bit of spare time while the others were still asleep.

“I was thinking of going shopping today. New town, so I wondered if they had anything unique,” she explained.

“Oh! Girls day out! Well, morning out, really. I’ll come with you! We haven’t been properly shopping in a while,” Cozy said excitedly.

“Sure,” Adelyn said. “I haven’t spent much time with you, after all.”

The two girls had a plan set for the day at that point, and began to head out.

***

“What should we buy for breakfast?”

Cozy asked as she and Adelyn walked through the marketplace. It was quite busy, as they had seen earlier. Many food stands, weapon stands, and others were bustling with activity. Though the main thing the two were concerned about is breakfast.

Walking through the bustling set of stalls in the morning darkness, they saw something that caught their eye.

“Oh, Joyce!” Adelyn noticed, waving her hand. She saw the girl in her cloak waiting in line at a stand. It seemed to be selling muffins.

“Oh, uh. Hey guys,” Joyce waved back, as Adelyn ran up to her. Cozy followed behind them.

“Are you buying breakfast? Are the muffins good?” Adelyn asked.

“I haven’t tried them yet,” Joyce responded awkwardly. “I just saw they were Moonberry Flavored and wanted some.”

“Moonberries?” Adelyn asked.

“Very sweet berry. They glow like many other things. If you eat one raw then your tongue will glow for a bit,” Cozy explained.

“I’ve heard the muffin has the same effect too, so I wanted to try it,” Joyce added.

“Oh really? I wanna try it too then!” Adelyn said. “Seems exciting.”

“Why not,” Cozy shrugged. The three girls walked up to the stand and bought one muffin each. After thanking the man for his services, they sat down at a nearby bench to enjoy their snack.

Adelyn took one bite, and quite instantly she felt a fruity, squishy texture within the muffin. A little bit of liquid stained the top of her tongue.

“Does it glow? Blehhh-” Adelyn said, sticking her tongue out.

“Yeah, it does. Let me try it,” Joyce responded. “Blehhh-”

Adelyn could see Joyce’s tongue, it was glowing a bright blue. She pulled back her own tongue, noting the sticky sensation as it pressed against her teeth. It eventually dissipated after a while.

“So,” Cozy said, chowing down on her meal. “What’re you planning on doing before we go to the city?”

“Well,” Joyce thought. “This place is popular because it’s so close to Pugna, so I was thinking of going to one of the training arenas to maybe sharpen myself up.”

“Ohh,” Cozy nodded. “That’s a really good idea actually. Do you mind if we come with you?”

“I don’t mind at all!” Joyce smiled. “It’s nice having a little bit of company.”

Joyce finished her muffin and took a bottle out of her belt to wash it down. It did leave a little messy red stain around her mouth, which she wiped off.

“What kind of juice is that?” Adelyn asked.

“Oh, uh, cranberry juice. Yeah.” Joyce responded.

“Wait, really?” Cozy asked. “Isn’t that really expensive, and you just have a bottle of it?”

““It is?””

Adelyn and Joyce both seemed confused by that. From her recollection, in her world, such a juice wasn’t notably expensive or anything.

“Where’d you get it? Have you travelled to the City of Ice or something?” Cozy asked.

“Uh. It was a gift,” Joyce said. “I never bothered researching it too much myself.”

“Man, I want to try it now,” Cozy then sighed. “You wouldn’t mind giving a poor little merchant girl a taste, would you?”

“Uh, sorry. But this drink is just for me, ahah. Maybe another time.”

“Ah, hmph.”

“Regardless,” Joyce began to get up from the bench. “Did you guys want to go to the arena?”

“Oh, sure. I’d also like to see other cool people, there seemed to be a lot of them in this town!” Adelyn nodded.

“Plus, sizing up the competition,” Cozy added.

***

The girls stood in front of a large building. It was probably the biggest one in the entire town. The stone it was made of looked worn but sturdy, and they could hear the clash of swords inside.

This seemed like the place.

“Moving inside!” Cozy immediately said, pushing open the door. It was quite the spectacle for them to walk into. There were dummies, rather durable ones too, that were being used to train all sorts of powers. Adelyn could see flames, ice, even some stranger ones that she couldn’t really explain. Boys and girls of all ages seemed to be testing out their abilities.

“Wow, this tournament thing must be huge,” Adelyn thought out loud. “I wasn’t expecting this many people.”

“This town probably gets a lot of good tourism from being so close to the main city,” Cozy explained. “I’d take advantage of it too.”

“Hey!” Another girl shouted from the side. “Do any of you mind being my sparring partner? There’s an open arena.”

The three looked to the voice, seeing a girl around their age with a knife and some pretty basic leather armor. She had red hair, tied in two twintails around her head, and she herself looked relatively nimble and unassuming.

“Sure!” Cozy walked over with a smile. Adelyn and Joyce followed behind her to watch Cozy take on the challenge, while also greeting the girl.

“My name is Adelyn,” she raised her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m Cozy too,” the merchant also added. “And this one is Joyce!”

“I’m Elaina,” the girl responded. “Are you guys heading to the tournament too?”

“Yup!” Cozy said. “I could use some practice. Cozy’s wings manifested and spread before she landed in the fenced ring. Elaina followed shortly after.

Adelyn and Joyce watched from the side. Adelyn in particular was quite curious, she wanted to get a good look at the competition they had to face.

“Oh, by the way,” Elaina said. “You can’t use those wings to fly above your opponent’s head. That’s cheating.”

“What? That’s so lame,” Cozy complained.

“It’s because aerial combat isn’t really demonstrative of the skill that the governor is looking for,” Elaina said. “It’s useful but they want the best of the best. Speaking of which-”

Adelyn’s eyes almost couldn’t track what happened next. It was like a bolt of electricity dashed across one side of the field to the other. The next thing she could see was a crystal wall forming next to Cozy, blocking the girl’s strike.

“That was dirty,” Cozy said.

“Anything to win!” Elaina responded, before jumping backwards and immediately dashing forwards again, forcing Cozy to be on the defensive with her crystal walls while her opponent constantly attacked her.

While they were watching, Joyce turned to Adelyn and asked a question.

“Do you think you’re strong enough?”

Adelyn thought for a moment, looking at Cozy currently on the backfoot against her current opponent.

Despite that, she still felt confident.

“Yeah, we are,” Adelyn said.

“Fighting people is a whole lot different than fighting monsters, you know?” Joyce said. “They’re a lot… smarter?”

“Well, that’s true. But if the best heroes never stopped just because of one person.”

Adelyn thought for a moment, she was trying to remember a story she read. One great story in her library.

“I wasn’t expecting Pugna to be easy, but I thought it was necessary. Not only to get approval, but to also test myself,” Adelyn said. “A good hero always had a proper test of their worth right? I need to know if I’m strong enough to help my friends when they need it.”

“What happens if you aren’t?” Joyce asked.

“Then I’ll try again until I am.”

As they spoke, they heard a crashing noise from the stadium. One of the two girls within hit the ground and landed on the floor. It was Cozy.

“Agh…” The merchant girl groaned, as she laid on the ground.

“Good try,” Elaina responded. “But your defenses are a little bit sloppy. You’re gonna need to work on it next time if you want to make it in the tournament.”

“Tch,” Cozy rolled her eyes and stood up. “We’ll see about that.”

Adelyn and Joyce walked up to her as she got out of the arena.

“You did great!” Adelyn tried to be encouraging, though Cozy seemed to brush her off.

“I’m not used to having my wings restricted like that. I could barely move, it’s not fair,” Cozy said. “Next time, I know what to do to win.”

“Is your entire group this confident?” Joyce asked.

“Confidence is key to success,” Cozy responded. “I’ll just need to work on my magic a little more, and I’ll breeze through the bracket.”

“Well,” Adelyn asked. “You, me, and Ed could work on it together. That would probably be the best training you could get.”

“Oh, can I join too?” Joyce said. “I could practice some swordsman skills here.”

“Sure, let’s just grab Ed. He should be awake by now,” Adelyn nodded. “We should always be striving for our best, after all.”