"That's a good point.  ...did a lot of girls - need a lot of convincing?  When you were starting off?"

"So far I've mostly been relying on Kyubey to direct interested girls my way - haven't been at this for long, so far. Sophie took a bit of convincing, but mostly that logistics would work out. Otherwise, I've been very lucky. I suspect that some girls will be more - leery - of following someone closer to their own age, though."

"Yeah, that's a good point."

The conversation drifts off to other topics - mostly people's plans for New Years (Lianne's resigned to getting dragged to a boring party, Alex is going to watch fireworks with her family, Mallory has a non boring party lined up) - then they head out to hunt, a bit earlier than usual.

They find, and tidily slay, a sewing-kit witch full of stuffed animal familiars.

Lianne isn't quite sure whether the familiars are creepy or cute. She's leaning towards creepy, though (she decides to sketch a few in her brand new sketchbook).

As usual, Alex takes off in her own car after wishing them luck with their expedition, and Mallory drives Kaylee and Lianne home.

"I'll call you after I've talked to my mom about the trip," Lianne says when it's her stop. "How's that sound?"

"Works for me!" Kaylee says.  "Fingers crossed!  See you soon!"

"See you!"

-

Lianne's conversation with her mom goes well, mostly because she catches her mom at a busy time. Her mom offers to pay for the hotel for them both, as well as Lianne's registration and transportation (Lianne claims she's taking a bus, and that it's in a nearby city), and distractedly tells her to have fun.

Lianne calls Kaylee with the news, then starts preparing for the trip.

Kaylee's dad goes for it pretty easily too.  After Lianne calls they manage to get it straightened out between them who's paying for what, and then Kaylee packs.

Soon, it's time to leave.

Lianne meets her at the intercity bus station.

"Hey Kaylee!" she greets, then sends a silent, 'I'm a bit nervous, but it's nice to be finally doing something.'

"Hi Lianne!"  'Yeah, I know what you mean.'

'So what's our plan for when we get there? Like, obviously get a hotel and tell our parents we got there safe, but as far as finding other girls goes.'

'Hmm... well, if we hunt in another girl's territory enough we're bound to run into her eventually.  It could take a while, but if we don't have any better ideas... I wonder if there's something conspicuous we could do that could draw a magical girl's attention but that no one else would look twice at.'

'No clue. Hunting might work, though, especially if there aren't a lot of witches.'

She nods.

'So, do you know anything about the city we're heading to?'

'I've been here a few times, so I can maybe recommend somewhere to eat? Never came here on my own, though, this is just where the airport is so we were driving through. I looked up some decent hotels in the price range my mom gave me, though, so we'll have a choice of where to stay.'

'That's something.'

Soon, the inter-city bus pulls up, and they embark.

The city's a bit over an hour and a half away by bus, of a reasonable size to host a fictitious con (and probably plenty of witches).

Lianne lists the options she found for hotels; they're mostly similar, though she's favoring the one with the most convenient access to downtown and public transportation.

"Yeah, let's go with that one."  'Wanna check in now or do some hunting first?'

'It'd probably be best to have somewhere to put our luggage away,' she points out wryly. "Let's check in then get something to eat; there's supposed to be some good restaurants within a block."

'Oh, good point.'  She blushes a little.  "Yeah, sounds good."

She makes the booking online, then leads the way to the hotel - though admittedly it's more of a large motel - which luckily just requires the credit card rather than a photo ID to check their ages (most places won't rent to a sixteen-year-old, annoyingly enough).

The room's small, and somewhat nice for how cheaply the room came. They each have their own double bed; Lianne claims the one closest to the door, if Kaylee doesn't mind. There's a tiny bathroom, and wifi for an extra charge. No fridge or microwave, but they were planning on eating out anyways.

"So what were you thinking for food?"

Kaylee's fine with the window bed.

"Whatever's good around here.  I trust you."  She shoots Lianne a grin.

"Haven't exactly been anywhere right around here, but, hmm... Pizza? There's a place that does custom small pizzas, they have a pretty wide variety of ingredients."

"Sounds good to me!"