Girls' Day Out [Alex, Nelliel]

Alex was, roughly speaking, overjoyed to be able to spend some time with her mom here in the City of Lights. She'd found all sorts of neat things to show her, after all! There was the candy shop, the beach with all the prettiest shells, and there was even a bridge over one of the lagoons where she'd met new fish! There was so much in her mind to pick from that it took a little bit for her to decide what she wanted to do first, and she was clearly thinking deeply about it as they walked, her tongue sticking out a bit as it tended to do when she focused intensely.

"Well I really wanna show you the fish, they're really pretty, but they're usually not there until later, they don't like all the noise during the day I don't think. Um...hm... Oh! One of the cafes started selling milkshakes again now that it's getting hot! They're really good!"

It wasn't as if Alex was an especially complex girl, and the things she enjoyed were just as simple as she was. But one could hardly say she was unhappy in life, and she walked alongside her mom with the biggest smile one could ever imagine.

"Oh, I have! There's a lot of them, so it took a while to come up with names, but I think I've got a name for pretty much all of them by now. There's Gregory, Tiki, Marcia, Harry, Ernest, Linda..."

Alex continued listing off names more or less the entire time they walked, a number so large that it was quite immediately obvious she couldn't possibly actually be remembering every single fish and the name that had been ostensibly given to it. Even so, she went on cheerful as ever, wholly ignorant of the truth of the situation. Her list only stopped when they finally made it to the cafe, and a large smile came across her face.

"We're here! What're you gonna get, mom? They have a really good peach milkshake! I've heard they get the peaches all the way from Japan, that's pretty far, isn't it?"

"Well, I bet they can fly them down on a plane, right? A boat would take too long though, I think the peaches would probably go bad if you tried to sail them in from far away."

The idea of long-range refridgeration technology wasn't one that crossed Alex's mind, and it likely wasn't going to, either. Her attention was squarely on the list of flavors, which was fairly extensive. She'd already decided on peach, but she wanted to help mom decide, too.

"Nanna likes the lychee one, the watermelon one, the banana one, the pineapple one... Oh, she really likes double chocolate! I like mangosteen, and peach, and guava... I thought passion fruit would be good, but it was too sour for me."

She made a face at that one, clearly having no fond memories of that particular milkshake.

"Okay, that sounds good!"

Alex was obviously excited at the prospect of sharing, and she practically bounced to the table they sat down at. The questions mom had asked took a little bit for her to think about, though, and she did look away a little bit sheepishly as she answered.

"Nanna is good, mhm. Her mom is really really nice, and we've been having a lot of fun here. I, um... I haven't really talked to her about...you know, what we talked about..."

It wasn't necessarily that she sounded ashamed, but more that she was embarrassed to be talking about it in the first place. Alex knew it'd be good for her to just say it, but any time she felt like it might be a good time, something came up, or she just got too nervous.

"Yeah...she has..."

Alex's eyes darted away again, her hands fiddling about as her face turned a faint shade of pink. She certainly wasn't going to say anything on that particular topic, but all things considered, she really didn't have to, either. Instead, she simply thought about what her mom had said, trying to figure out how she wanted to word this.

"I just don't wanna say it wrong and make everything weird."