The girls were thirty minutes into the drive. Lily was awake, for once, and somewhat inspired by Kat’s need to hide her wings, Lily was attempting to do the same in her cat form. Well, that and her horns, though she was having no success with the latter. Lily managed to hide her wings with a bit of effort in about twenty minutes worth of attempts. The problem was Lily couldn’t keep them hidden for more than a few seconds at a time. Definitely something to practice in the future.

On Kat’s end of things, she was confident Sylvie had enough time to calm down from the event and would be open to discussing things, "So Sylvie, do you think Alice and Penny can be your friends?"

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"Yes," said Sylvie.

*Hmm, seems she was a bit more overwhelmed then I thought.* "So you think they’re good people?" asked Kat, trying to softly prompt Sylvie again.

"Yes," said Sylvie.

*Right.* "Were you excited with your third place win?" asked Kat.

"Yes," said Sylvie.

Kat rolled her eyes, "Sylvie, I understand there was a lot of people there and it was pretty overwhelming, but thirty minutes should be enough time to calm down, and at least put it off to the side to deal with later. I’m interested in your new friends and I’d like to hear from you what they’re like, and if you think it will be worth sticking with them in the future,"

Sylvie frowned but Kat just pulled her deeper into a hug. "Come on Sylvie, I had to play model for HOURS and you were missing for much of that time. I only had Lily for company, but while she is lovely, she also lives in my head 24/7 so I’m never missing her. You’ve been hiding away working on secret projects since I came back from a long contract. I want to hear you use your words Sylvie,"

Sylvie didn’t say anything for a few moments so Kat just rearranged how she was holding Sylvie a bit, letting her tail snake out to hug Sylvie so her hands were free to pat Sylvie on the head. Eventually, the girl was relaxed enough to talk, "It was very loud. I am not sure we really got to talk properly because it was loud and we spent a lot of time looking at the stalls, but especially the second time through that was mostly an excuse.

"Alice… no I will get to Alice second despite meeting her first. Penny is a genius… but only for math. She seems to be able to find math in basically anything and her skill with it is above mine… but her abilities in just about everything else are much lower. Her social skills are even worse then you might think, she is horrendously blunt about almost anything, but I suspect her guardians told her not to say certain things… _{Google search 𝗳𝙧𝘦𝒆𝑤𝙚𝘣𝙣𝘰𝘃ℯ𝑙. 𝐜𝐨𝑚}

"So she doesn’t. But only those very specific things. Penny is perfectly willing to talk around her restrictions, but once again, only in the most blunt and technical way possible. Callisto told me about what she said to you, and that does sound very like Penny. She’s not being mean about it, just stating what she considers to be fact. I am not sure if she doesn’t understand that other people have feelings, or perhaps she simply believes that you should not take offence to the truth, I don’t know.

"Her aunt and uncle probably don’t help matters. They don’t really care about her. Well… that’s a bit rude, they are not so terrible people that they neglect her after her parents died, but they also don’t really take the time to explain things in ways Penny can understand and never try to impress empathy upon her. Perhaps it’s just an issue with child geniuses,

"I know you had to work hard to help me understand that other people aren’t as smart as I am, and that is both ok, and something to keep in mind. Penny seems to think that while not everyone is like her, we aren’t that different, which obviously is not true. Perhaps her aunt and uncle are like her, perhaps not. I don’t think they treat her well… but as I said before it’s more neglect, but not for a normal child? If that makes sense. I suppose it might still be neglect, but I cannot really say for certain.

"Still, Penny is interesting to talk to, and I like that I feel she is my intellectual equal. Perhaps her knowledge is not as broad as my own but I appreciate the dedication she has to maths, alongside her tremendous ability in the subject. I do wish to challenge her to a match of chess, but I am unsure if she will actually be any good. I give it even odds she’s excellent or terrible," Sylvie paused and smiled for a few moments thinking of her first new friend.

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Taking a breath, Sylvie continued "As for Alice, while it might be rude to say it, she’s the more normal of the group. Smart she may be, but genius she is not. Despite that, her skill in her chosen fields, architecture and demolitions are quite impressive. Neither are things I’ve invested time into learning properly, and thus, despite her only somewhat above average intellect, she knows many things both Penny and I do not.

"What I truly appreciate her for though, is her social skill. Even if it seems she does not have close friends like you and Lily were, she does have a number of acquaintances. Alice is both easy to listen to, and a great listener herself. Alice was even better then myself at explaining certain nuances of things to Penny. I’m envious of Alice’s ability to simply be heard and understood, something I know I can struggle with at times when speaking with children my own age,"

"And here you were disparaging Penny’s social skills when you’ve just said Alice is ’only somewhat above average intellect’" said Kat with a giggle.

Sylvie looked affronted, "I would never say something like that to Alice’s face, unlike Penny. It also does not stop it from being the truth. I suspect her to be just slightly less intelligent then Lily but my estimation could be wrong," defended Sylvie.

Kat raised an eyebrow at that "I feel like I should defend my girlfriend here, she’s a bit more than ’somewhat above average’ when it comes to intelligence,"

Lily, deciding to test out a new trick, spoke while still in Memphis form. It was rough, and uncomfortable for Lily but she did manage it, "Kat, compared to Sylvie I am only somewhat above average, she’s just at the very end of the bell curve for intelligence, the 1% of the 1% while I might only be top 5. I look smarter because of my research anyway,"

Kat sighed, "Well I’ve been outvoted it seems. Sylvie, please continue with your story,"

Sylvie nodded as if it was completely expected she’d be correct about her intelligence rating. Kat rolled her eyes at that, but let Sylvie speak without further interruption. "Well, from what I have seen Alice is very handy, her construction is great and she’s a bit of an artist because of how much time she spends drawing plans. It is not a completely transferrable skill, but some does carry over from what I saw of her diagrams in the booth.

"Alice insisted she was not any good, but I used either Callisto’s or Vivian’s fancy drawing tools for my own diagrams, relying most heavily on rules and compasses to keep things uniform and prevent my own hand from causing imperfections. Writing I may do well, but art is not something I put time into. Alice seems to have picked up the skill incidentally, perhaps that is why she disparages her skill at it so much?

"Anyway, I think that if I can keep in contact with Alice and Penny I will have achieved a nice core friend group I can maintain until I reach adulthood and potentially revaluate how they have turned out and if it is worth maintaining friendships past that point as I will likely have drastically different amounts of free time,"

"That’s a somewhat clinical way of looking at what could potentially be the end of your friendship," said Kat.

"It is simply realistic. Most friendships do not survive past the end of high school, likely due to the lack of free time and outside pressure forcing you together. Two close friends should be sustainable, but if one or both of them prove to be disappointments it would be best to invest in different friends at whatever workplace I end up at," said Sylvie.

"I mean… yeah I suppose so, but you guys don’t go to school together anyway, so if you stay friends you’ll likely build up good habits… or something?" said Kat.

Sylvie gave Kat a deadpan look. "Kat, you have one friend on earth who later became your girlfriend. Depending on how you count Vivian, Callisto and Gramps you might have no friends on earth, I will take no attacks from you in this arena,"

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