"Cool, that'll work. Thanks," Dandelion says as she takes the cup of sugar and scoops a bit out on her finger and-!

MOMENT OF TRUTH!

Licks it.

She makes a sour face, like she just tasted something pretty rank.

"Gross. But tolerable gross. Not I'm going to puke gross," Dandelion reports, glaring at the sugar in the bottom of the cup. "Bad but not as bad. So sugar gets made out of other stuff, yeah? And then the sugar and other things get made into candy. That's two steps instead of just one. Second step makes it worse I bet."

She glares at the cup of sugar some more, thinking. Now she's wondering about other things...

"Lambslaural touched iron before and it burned her pretty bad. It was this old folding multi-tool we had. Now I'm wondering if, like, an iron ingot would just feel gross to hold instead of hurting like a pair of scissors or whatever."

Same idea.

Fewer steps of refinement.

Dandelion is doing science here. "Hey, thanks again," she'll say to Sakura, handing the cup back. "So yeah, I'm thinking the less refined something is the more okay it is to eat it. That or we need to find someone who makes food out of stuff from the Dreamlands. That would probably work, yeah? You still got your phone, Hector? We're doing elfish take-out."

MEANWHILE!

OOF!

Additional hug acquired!

"I... yes?" Aries replies a bit hesitantly at first. But then he rallies his confidence and he doubles down! "Yes. I'm asking you out. Jade, do you want to go out with me?"

There.

He did it.

He asked a girl to go out with him. And his heart is thundering so hard he's worried it might leap out of his chest.