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Elke made friends fast. This was something that no one would have really been surprised by if they'd known her for more than a week, because it wasn't always that you wanted to be friends with Elke, it was that Elke saw you, decided she wanted to be your friend, and then you were screwed.

(Not literally. Elke had to extract a promise from Mackenzie to define the word "hooker" for her when she was eighteen. The bluenette looked forward to her eighteenth birthday, because she did not think "hooker" meant "an implement used for fishing", Grayson's opinion aside.)

That was why she was waiting outside the gates at Hillworth like a tiny blue-haired sentinel, expression her Most Serious Expression Ever. Ever, not including the whole Barren Pines crap. Elke had pretty much had the Most Serious Serious Expression Ever for that whole thing, while this expression only deserved one Serious.

You see, she had recently decided Simon Ferris was her new friend. This was an opinion founded on a much stronger idea that her normal ideas, which were usually 'She has pretty hair!' or 'He's really tall, I want to be friends with him.' Okay, so the last one was one of her reasons for wanting to be friends with Simon, but she also thought that he was nice (he had saved her from Serandite after all) and really, really shy. It was her duty to make him cheer up! Life was good! Life was to be lived!

That was why she was sneaking him into Crystal. They were going to bake, and not pizza and apple cake. All they had to do was not tell anyone where he went to school.

(Which totally confused Elke, by the way, as she saw nothing wrong with Hillworth. Supposedly bad people went there, but if Simon went there, it couldn't be all bad. Simon was really, really nice.)

Urgh. It was cold! Elke leaned around the pillar she was leaning against and peered at the door that led into Hillworth's main building. If Simon was not out here soon, she would just go in herself, gosh darn it.

Hrm. A giant heart? Someone burned a giant heart into the driveway. Elke was giggling over this. Crystal Academy didn't have a giant heart in the driveway, but Hillworth did. That was silly. But then, maybe it hadn't been done on purpose by the school?...

It bore contemplation.

"Simon," Elke said cheerfully; she shouldered her bag and practically threw herself at him. "Sure I didn't, but I wanted to, because I wanted to make sure you didn't forget and I didn't know what Hillworth looked like anyway so it's sort of like tourism, right? Plus my roommate's not at school right now and I missed you."

Then, she paused for a moment, looking at the two new boys. "Who are they," she asked, glancing up at Simon. (Gosh, he was tall. Good friend material, you know.) "Hi," she said, holding out one hand to the ginger-haired one; "My name's Elke Arma! It's nice to meet you."

When in doubt, be really nice.

Elke tipped her head a bit, looking utterly flummoxed as to what she was supposed to do with Simon's... friends? Roommates? Well, they knew Simon, which made them friends of her friend, she supposed, which meant she should be polite. "Samson and Seymour, it's nice to meet you," she said.

...Boys were so confusing sometimes, thought Elke as she watched the back-and-forth. The language was both obscene and confusing--a f** was a cigarette, wasn't it??--and who would want jello, it was made out of horses! The "D:" was strong with this one; she frowned at practically the whole exchange.

"You bet on whether Simon likes girl or boys?" She seemed a little shocked, and disapproving, like... well, that sort of thing was personal, wasn't it? Sigh. They were pretty open about stuff like that in France, but poor Simon looked like he was going to have a stroke. "Whether he has a girlfriend or a boyfriend is his own business... and if you bet on it, you should handle it in private."

Plus she didn't like people cursing around her! It made her antsy. And unhappy. She looped one arm through Simon's and started to walk away as she said, "Well, it was nice meeting you! C'mon, Simon, you promised." Hrmm. Why in the world would you bet on what kind of people other people liked? (Nevermind Elke was quite a gossip hound herself, she didn't bet on anything! Hmph!)

"It's all right," she said. Hmph. That had been downright mean to their friend. Heaven forbid they catch her as Virgo, because--who was she kidding, she'd probably say hi and follow them to make sure they didn't get hurt or something. They were jerks, but they were Simon's jerks, which made them beyond her authority to dangle off a building by their ankles.

No matter how much she wanted to dangle them off a building by their ankles.

Elke slowed down and glanced up at Simon through her bangs. Poor Simon. She wouldn't bring up the whole smuggling him into Crystal thing yet. Like, he knew about it, right, but she wasn't going to remind him of it when he already looked like he was gonna stroke.

What was a safe subject to talk about around a boy? Oh! "So," she said brightly, "I learned how to make pineapple upside down cake in a coffee mug! I tried it, it tasted really good. It didn't even take that long, you just put pineapples in the bottom--but anyway isn't that silly? In a coffee mug, of all places! You like cooking, right?" Elke was smiling, doing her best to look encouraging--which she was good at, being a 5'3" ball of joyful optimism with a side of dumb as a stick.

Depressing story or not, Elke seemed happy enough; she tucked his arm closer to her, crossing her arms for good measure. Not only could he not escape now, she also was warmer! Double points for cleverness, clearly. "I suppose he probably didn't do too well in Chemistry, either?" Weirdly, considering how perfectly craptastic she was at history and mathematics, Elke tended to be pretty good at chem. The experiments, anyway--it was almost like she turned her brain off when they were learning formulas.

"Don't worry," said Elke, "I can make Greek pizza almost perfectly, so we're not gonna be blowing anything up at all."

Then she was off to another topic: "I wish I went to Meadowview, the shirts are so cute! Grayson is all embarrassed by his uniform, he says that it's got really short shorts and all, but I think they're cute. I would wear a Meadowview boy's uniform." Elke pursed her lips, bumping her head against Simon's arm as she thought. "Hmm. Oh! I saved a kitty. Only... Well, I can't tell you about it." Only poor Simon might take that badly, like she didn't trust him! Which wasn't so, she totally trusted Simon. With a serious look, she explained further. "I made a pinky swear, you see, and you can't break pinky swears."

In case he doubted the sanctity of the pinky swear, Elke added, "If you do, you break your pinky too."

Hmmm. Boys were so weird. "It was a pretty kitty," said Elke, "I wanted to keep it but they don't allow pets at Crystal but horses. I don't like horses, they're kind of bitey and stompy, don't you think?"

Horseback riding brought up a different sort of riding; her memory of the battle they had fought together (sort of) was fuzzy, particularly near the end, but she did remember... Elke stopped walking, bringing Simon to a halt by virtue of his arm wrapped in hers. (How come everyone was so much taller than her? It was like being a forest. A forest of tall people she had to crane her neck to look at properly.)

It looked, for a moment, like she was going to ask some kind of life-changing question. Her expression was of the incredibly serious variety, which looked a little silly on her face. Then she broke into a smile and asked, "Hey Simon, can I have a piggyback ride?"

Hey. In her defense, she could walk all the way to Crystal. But she hadn't had a piggyback ride in forever, except the one when she'd been practically unconscious because of--

Right. New subject.

Yes! Simon had just rocketed up Elke's list of favorite people so hard. She clambered up onto Simon's back, settling herself carefully so she wouldn't fall off. "Thank you," she said. Best friend ever. (Grayson was a brother, not a friend.)

Thinking on the pet issue, she nodded. "I guess it makes sense, because what if someone was allergic to a kitty? Then the kitty might get them sick. I'd feel bad if my kitty got someone sick, so it's probably for the best. What if somebody wanted a spider. My brother wants a spider, but Eton won't let him have it. Which makes sense. Spiders are also scary. And poisonous!" She shuddered and then, that idea presented, looked around.

"You're tall," she informed Simon, as if he didn't know. "Everything looks really different from up here."

"It's okay," said Elke, patting his shoulder; "I won't let anybody get spiders near you." She didn't know anything about Seymour or tarantulas, but she knew it was the spider topic that had made her friend shiver. So, clearly, it was her duty as a friend to let him know she wouldn't let any spiders get to him. Clearly. Also, she would never bring up spiders again. She thought that they were creepy, too.

When he stopped walking, she almost wiggled down; maybe he was tired, or she was getting all heavy. She was working really hard in Saturday morning fight club, and somewhere she had read that muscle was heavier than fat, which surely meant she was getting heavier. (Elke was terrified of crossing the 100-pound barrier; she'd been around ninety pounds when recovered from Barren Pines, and was certain that one hundred and forty pounds was not that far away. She could take one twenty, she was sure, but one forty was out of the question.) Then Simon was talking, and she settled herself again and said, "Crystal, remember? We're going to cook, and Grayson's parents are home and they would give you the third degree. You have never had the third degree until you have had it from Grayson's parents. They would stare at you all level-headed and then Dad would ask you questions like--" here she tried to make her voice deep and manly like her Dad "--What are your intentions with my daughter and that's only fun if you're, like, dating, or something. Which we are not. We are friends."

Weirdly for Elke, who seemed to have no filter between thought and word or deed, there was a hesitation. A small one, that was accompanied by a question in a small voice: "We are friends, right?" She rested her head on Simon's shoulder. This was a senshi she totally trusted, in sailor form or out of it, and while it had always been easy to keep her trust, after Barren Pines it was proving a little difficult to gain it.

She blew her bangs out of her face. "Don't worry. Everything will be okay! Pinky promise."