Today had been a really nice day, despite being in the middle of winter. I visited Oracle as soon as I finished my chores and was able to convince her to talk a walk back to the outskirts of town with me. She seemed a little bit lost, but she gave it a chance, so it gave me a bit of hope. She must have been lonely in her house for all those years. I wanted to spend much more time with her to make up for it. And maybe she'd come to town more.

"Ohhh I'm thirsty," Oracle sighed, closing her eyes with a tired look.

"Do you want to go to Howard's cafe with me? He should be open about now. I want to get myself a drink while I'm there as well."

She went a bit pale, "You want to take me. . . to a cafe? But I don't know anyone in town."

"It's alright," I reassured her with a pat on the back, "The villagers here are really excepting. None of them bite, I swear. Come on."

I grabbed her hand since she seemed like she didn't want to move. I guess I'd have to pull her there myself. Not that I minded at all. She was a really good friend to me. I haven't known her as long as some of the other friends, but she's gotten really close to me. And that in itself makes me happy. Some of the people in town gave me weird looks, but I just ignored them. I kept an eye on Oracle the whole way there. I could see that she was slightly shaking a bit. I stopped for a bit.

"Are you going to be okay? Should we just go back?"

She just shook her head nervously.

"Hey Philip," Laney waved to me when I came in. It was good to see her looking so well after the whole frozen lake incident. I still felt a bit awkward around her because of that kiss. It was so unexpected.

"Hey Laney. The usual for me and Sponge cake for my friend here," I sat down across from Oracle, before turning myself towards the blonde, "Howard isn't working today? He seemed fine yesterday."

"He's fine. He just felt like taking a day off to visit Eileen. He kept complaining about a hole on the roof. I haven't seen your friend before," she turned to Oracle, "Welcome. I'm Laney. My, you are really adorable." She turned to bake what we ordered. When I glanced back at Oracle, she seemed very troubled.

"Something the matter?" I asked, hoping that it wasn't anything too bad.

"She thinks I'm younger than her," she put a hand to her lips in thought, but then gave a small smile, "But it was nice to go here. I've been so busy with my alchemy experiments that I haven't been able to go out very much. I wanna see LOTS of places. Will you take me to more places, Philip?"

I was a bit surprised by her request. But she had a point. She must not have gone many places for who knows how long. How could I say no to her? And I couldn't say no to that face. I didn't want to see her get sad. I couldn't help how fast my heart started beating when I realized that she wanted to visit those places with me. I blinked and realized that I was falling for her. Ignoring my beating chest, I looked her in the eyes.

"I would love to do that. We can also come here as many times as you want to."

"Really? Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. That makes me really happy Philip," I could see that a small blush was starting to form on her cheeks. It made her even more beautiful to me.

"You're welcome. I guess I should walk you home now."

It was a nice walk back to the mountain. She happily discussed her experiments with me the whole way there. I noticed that she gripped my arm the whole way there. And I loved that. It showed that she had a lot of trust in me.