"So who're they?" Cuprite asked Ammolite, gesturing to the new Elemental at their lunch table.

    It was about noon on Leafly, and at Golden Oak High, three regular students were sitting at their lunch table outside, while a new Elemental had joined them. They had tables outside, but not outside the courtyard, because they didn't want students to be able to get away. Most Elementals can fly with a running start in their anthro forms, but they're generally assisted by their own magical field, the same one that gives them their elemental powers, the one they all have from birth, and of course, the ones their ancestors were given by the Deities.

    You've already met the new Elemental, Lapis, and Ammolite, the strangely patterned one, but the two new ones were only mentioned in the last chapter. Peridot was the plant Dranda, and her plant type was simply Fluff Grass, a type of grass that grows deep in the jungles of Leafly. Her inner ears and eyebrow dots are blondish, her eyes and nose are bright green with her fur pale light green, grassy green. She didn't have any special traits, making her quite plain and even physically unattractive by Elemental standards. No natural defenses, other than tiny claws and teeth, either. Her tail also has blonde rings with a darker green tip.

    Cuprite is a fire Dranda. Her fur is dark red and she has slightly brighter, ram-like horns, and red eyes. She also has scales on the top of her muzzle above her nose, going to just above the middle of her eyes and above her nose, gradually getting darker as you get closer to her nose, with eyebrow dots slightly darker than her fur. Her tail is long, fluffy, and has red rings with a near-black tip. She was born male, but prefers female pronouns, and given that the bible, the thing that some people on Earth like to hide behind for their bigotry, doesn't exist, it's not usually a problem on Zanzus.

    "That's Lapis," Ammolite said, taking a bite out of her Alple fruit, which are like dragon-fruits, but more mango-y in flavor. "She uh... She just came here yesterday, actually, while you two were gone."

    "No friends?" Peridot asked the water Dranda.

    "Not yet..." She replied, glancing at Ammolite before taking a bite of her Scallen. Scallens are like eels, but with large sacs in their stomach full of boiling water. These are drained when eaten, and the meat of their stomach sac is quite tasty.

    "Would you like to be friends?" Cuprite asked. Lapis looked at Ammolite again, before going back to Cuprite.

    "I-I mean it'd be nice..." She said quietly.

    "We'll be your friends! We love meeting new people! You seem nice enough!" She said with a small squeak.

    Now, Lapis was put-off. She seemed overly cheerful, for a Fire Elemental, at least. Fire Elementals are generally aggressive, angry all the time, assholes. Not only that, but Lapis was a Water Elemental, and she was a Fire Elemental. Either these Elementals were all fake and trying to befriend her for reasons other than that, or she was just an oddity. Either way, she was gonna keep her guard up.

    "Alright..." She murmured, taking another bite of her Scallen. Peridot and Cuprite looked over to Ammolite,

    "So did you two talk much?" Peridot asked.

    "Well, no, but I figured nobody else would at all, or they would get to her first." Ammolite answered with a small glance at Lapis.

    "They?" Lapis asked, looking up from her fish.

    "Yeah... They're this group of girls and they're pretty mean to everyone, but they're popular for whatever reason. Maybe because they get good grades, maybe because they're pretty, or... Actually, I don't know of anything else they could be popular for. Maybe they have blackmail on everyone or something so Elementals pretend to like them."

    "Sounds like something they'd do..." Peridot mumbled.

    "Have any of you interacted with them?"

    "Peridot was 'friends' with them for a bit," Cuprite said,

    "Then they showed their true colors and I... I told them we couldn't be friends anymore, like the prey that I am." Prey is a derogatory term on Zanzus, usually standing for weak, mentally or physically, or sometimes as a scare-tactic from fire Elementals which basically says 'hey I know we're supposed to be civilized and shit but if you piss me off I will kill you.' In Peridot's case, she's using the former.

    "Oh, you are not," Cuprite said. "I think you're pretty brave for that. You could've just gone along with it because you were scared, right?"

    "Yeah..."

    "But you didn't. I'd say you've got more guts than all of them combined, and considering you don't have a stomach, that's pretty damn impressive."

    Peridot's cheeks turned a pale shade of yellow and she turned away, shifting in her seat.

    "Th-thanks..." She said quietly.

    "So what were they like?" Lapis asked the flustered plant Dranda.

    "W-well, they were pretty nice to me, for some reason. I'm sure they didn't realize I... Know how to work with electronics as well as I do, and I'm not particularly attractive, so they had to have some other reason to try to befriend me. Whatever it was, they bought me stuff with their parent's money and were... Overly nice. You know how you can tell when someone's had a shitty day and they're just trying to be nice? Like when you contact customer service after they've had a shitty customer but they've gotta be nice because they're being recorded? That's, that was them."

    "Do you plan to work in customer service, Peri?" Ammolite asked.

    "Pff, no. I'm going to make my own brand of Shells, hire Elementals to work for me."

    "Starting a business is hard, Peridot," Lapis said.

    "Well, so are a lot of things in life. You'll never know unless you try!" She squeaked enthusiastically. That was much more appropriate behavior for an Elemental, Lapis thought.

    "Do you think you'll do well?" Ammolite asked her.

    "I can only hope!" She squeaked again.

    "Right..." Lapis said, staring down at the table. Ammolite tilted her head a bit,

    "Something wrong, Lapis?" She asked.

    "Something's always wrong, Ammolite, but I'm not looking for sympathy."

    "... D-do you not want to talk about it?"

    "You don't want to hear about it."

    "If it makes you feel better, sure we do!" Peridot said.

    "Well..." She was about to open up, but the lunch bell went off. "It's like the universe wants me to fucking kill myself."

    "We could hang out after school? Peridot and Cup's parents are pretty chill and I'm sure my mom wouldn't mind either." Ammolite offered.

    "... I've gotta be home by five to make dinner, but yeah..." She said as she stood up.

    "You deserve to be happy, Lapis. I hope that gets you through the rest of the day," She picked up her things and the four headed off to their next classes.