“Um.”

She frets a bit to the left, then a bit more to the right. “Ah.”

Watching Abigail move around nervously on her seat is kind of funny, in the same way as watching a tentacle having a hard time opening a jar is amusing for a few moments. It quickly stops being funny when Abigail turns big, brown eyes onto you and practically begs for help.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

Just to make sure, you take a look around the cafeteria. It’s a rather large room, with rows and rows of rectangular tables all surrounded by chairs. Students with all sorts of hats are sitting and eating, though most put their headgear aside for the meal. The air is filled with thousands and thousands of smells from different foods, but mostly from the line at the far end where people are getting meals from a serving place and walking away with trays full of food.

“Ah, nothing’s wrong,” Abigail lies before taking another bite of her bread.

Lunch for you and Abigail is bread with some cheese and a bit of juice in a glass bottle. All kept fresh and cool in the vacuum of space around your bigger body.

“It’s just that,” she says after she finishes chewing. “I kind of wanted to make friends today.” With a gesture, she points to all the students and you notice that, for the most part, they’re all in groups of two or three, talking and laughing and getting to know each other. Familiars of all sorts are moving around, though most weren’t allowed into the room to begin with.

You, of course, refused to wait in the familiar babysitting area. You took one look at the room filled with hay and cushions and all sorts of potential snacks and decided that you wouldn’t step foot in there unless you were really hungry.

“Oh,” you say. “We can make you some friends.” You pat-pat Abigail’s hand to make her feel better.

“Make, or make?” she asks.

It takes you a while to understand what she means by that. “Abigail! I’m too young to be a mommy yet.”

Abigail was chewing through another bite of bread, but her eating skills aren’t what you thought they were because she chokes on it mid-bite.

“Anyway, I meant finding you some mortals to keep you company. It’s important that you learn how to boss around your lessers now while you’re still young.” You nod at your own wise words.

“Uh-huh,” Abigail agrees.

“So, what kind of friends are you looking for?” you ask before looking into the crowd. There are lots of mortals here. You might be able to find one that fits all of Abigail and your criteria.

“What kind of friend?” Abigail wonders. “Someone nice. That’s important. I don’t care about their class or richness. I’d like them to be close to my age and it would be nice if they shared some of my hobbies.”

“Hobbies?” You didn’t know that she had hobbies other than napping with you, and patting your head, and sometimes sleeping with Daphne.

“I like reading, and learning new things and spending time with Daphne. I suppose those aren’t really the best hobbies, but they’re mine. Oh, and a friend would have to want to graduate from the Academy, like I want to. Shared dreams are important.”

You’re eagerly nodding as she speaks. Sharing dreams is the most important. Or one of the most important. You would know, dreams are yours. “Is that all?”

“I, I guess?” Abigail says. “I don’t really have much experience with friends, other than Daphne, and you.”

You nod. It’s okay, Abigail will have lots of friends and lots of time to make experiences with them, you’ll make sure of it.

That’s why you stand up from your chair, climb onto it, then onto the table where you and Abigail ate her lunch. You clear your throat and ignore Abigail’s pleas for you to come down. Unfortunately, only a few people are looking your way. This small body of yours isn’t attention grabbing.

“Hey!” you call out across the room.

A few more people look your way, but they ignore you really quickly.

“W-what are you doing, Dreamer?”

You huff and with some tentacles, grab all the sounds in the room. It goes really quiet and people start looking around to find where their noise went, but the joke’s on them because you have it all. “Hey!” you say and throw all the noise into the word. This time it’s super loud, even if you let go of the sound while speaking. “I need your attention now.”

Just about everyone is staring at you from your place on the table. “This is Abigail,” you say as you point down towards Abigail. Her face is very red, and she looks a little faint, but she smiles and waves so she must be okay. “Abigail is my Summoner and she’s the best. She wants to make friends. So, if you’re close to her age, nice, like reading, learning, spending time with rich people and patting cute things on the head, then please come here and make a line so that I can decide if you’re good enough for her.”

Abigail has both hands pressed over her face and is making weird noises when you hop off the edge of the table.

“What’s wrong?” you ask her.

She just shakes her head. “Nothing Dreamer, nothing at all,” she lies.

You’re kind of hurt that she would keep the truth from you. It’s not very nice to do that, especially after you went through all that trouble to make her friends.

“I think we should go to class now,” Abigail says. She’s packing up your lunches as she speaks.

“What? But the mortals haven’t even started forming a line yet!”