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Elke did not know what she had been thinking when she had asked Hero to come shopping with her.

Well, she knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that Grayson was busy and that her parents trusted Hero most after Grayson, for some weird reason. Personally, Elke would have thought of Mackie, but Mackie was hospitalized still and Hero, Hero was not. So Hero was what was available, so Elke had asked her. This was not a negative thought. It was a truthful one, the sort she rarely permitted herself. It explained, to anyone in the know, quite succinctly why Elke was hanging over a rack of clothing in a popular athletic store, staring with an expression best described as dumbfounded. From one hand dangled a hanger. The item of clothing on it was a skort, undeniably a skort because it looked like a skirt.

"But why not," she was asking Hero; "I'll be wearing a skirt when I use this stuff, won't I?"

They had gone through this once already. Sensible sneakers (they were gray Avias, with purple shoestrings) instead of pretty ones, even though Elke was going to be fighting in heels. She was half-resigned to the fact that she would have to have a plastic tub-thing of clothing she only wore on Saturday mornings to spar with the other Zodiacs.

Not quite all the way resigned, though; she was staring at Hero with Puppy Eyes. You could almost hear the chorus of please please please please.

With a horrified look, Elke did as told. She had not been considering that, which explained a lot about, well, everything. Instead she brought back a pair of black shorts for inspection, green eyes still reflecting Oh god thank you Hero for saving me from that faux pas. She was looking at different colors now.

"You're irritable," said Elke, resting her chin on the rack again. It held shirts. Pink ones. "You're not always this scary irritable. What's wrong? Are these okay?"

In addition to her puppy eyes, she had a sort of gormless look that tended to get people to talk. It involved the puppy eyes and head tilting and smiling a little bit in a confused way. If she was a more calculating person, the sort who wanted to use confessions, it might set you on guard, but this was Elke Arma. She wouldn't know what to do with pictures of a teacher in compromising positions with a student. "What's a cattle prod? Is it your roommate?"

It would have been impossible to miss Hero and Miriam's animosity. Even for Elke. They were in the same hallway, after all.

"But wouldn't that hurt the ox," asked Elke, as she reluctantly bypassed the pretty pink shirts for black ones. Elke didn't like black, except for winter coats. Barely for winter coats. She preferred lighter colors, really. That way, her darker hair (it had worked the same when she had ginger hair) would draw attention to her face. Elke knew clothes; it was about as artful as she got. Also: "Bloodstains?"

Elke looked queasy. She was making the D: face. It was equally obvious she was not going to puke. Not there, anyway. "How come you're whipping an ox? Wouldn't that be mean?"

She did not ask about the roommate until she had gathered up several pairs of black shorts and black shirts. "Miriam Jacobs isn't that ox-like," said Elke, "She doesn't look like an ox. I think she's pretty. Why are you calling her an ox?"

Elke blinked. She really did think Miriam Jacobs was pretty. She thought most people were pretty, though, so it might not mean anything. "When am I bleeding," asked Elke, thinking she did not want Hero to get mad. "If you tell me I can make plans around it and Papa can not try and turn himself into a bear again."

Hero had never seen Edmund Arma try and turn himself into a bear. It would probably not intimidate her, but it intimidated Elke. Which really was rather like intimidating a marshmallow, not very impressive. Elke's spine was probably made of marshmallow. It had a tendency of hardening at the weirdest times.

"Papa is a scary bear," she opined. "Kind of like you. Only Papa has a mustache." She looked at the armful of stuff she was holding. "Okay. Do I need anything else?"

Pause.

"Giselle's pretty," she agreed belatedly.

She made a face. "Jelly sandals hurt. I don't have jelly sandals." In fact, Elke did not have jelly sandals. She had multitudinous pairs of flipflops and heels, and two pairs of sneakers, but they were Keds so they didn't count, and then the one pair of cross-trainers in the box at her feet. Elke picked it up, trying to fit everything into her arms.

"Why? Does somebody have a closet full of jelly sandals? Do I know them?" Her Keds were pink. She was wearing them right now because they matched her shirt, which was also pink. "Do you have jelly sandals, Hero? That was a dumb question. Of course you don't have jelly sandals."