30 Days of Inkopolis Drabbles!

Day 9: Festival

"So, have you guys ever been to one of these before?" Dia turned around to face her friends. She grinned from ear to ear with anticipation.

"I think I've been once or twice. " Alice replied, her grin matching her friend's.

"I haven't!" Chili responded. "Have you, Dia?"

The baby blue Inkling shoved her hands in her pockets and started walking backwards to keep up the conversation.

"More times than I can count! Ever since I moved here, I've always been going to these food truck festivals~!"

"Lemme guess, you know all the best deals by heart, don't you?" Alice teased, getting a laugh out of the other two girls.

"Maybe!" Dia snickered. "But anyways, we're here! Let's hurry up and get a table!"

The three girls raced into Inkopolis Square, which was abuzz with bright lights, the rowdy conversations of a huge crowd of cephalopods, the purring of the food trucks' engines, and most importantly- the blaring of kawaii future bass blasting over loudspeakers.

Remembering from past experiences, Dia claimed the first empty table in sight and sat on the edge. She sighed with relief and watched as her two friends split off to go and wait in line at different trucks.

"Let's hope that they don't mess up their orders- or mine!" She giggled to herself. She took out her phone to snap a few pics for Coralgram. Before long, the two girls came back with their hands full of paper plates stacked with delicious smelling food.

"Here's yours!" Alice handed Dia's plate to her, which was still steaming hot.

"Lobster grilled cheese~! Thanks, homegirl!" Dia beamed. "What did you guys get?"

"I got a burger! And Alice got steak, obviously!" Chili giggled. She glanced over at the Inkling in question, who was already working on her steak skewers.

"Obviously!" Dia grinned, and took a massive bite of her sandwich.

The three cephalopods enjoyed each others' company as the night roared on, not showing any signs of slowing down. Eventually, there was only so much snacking that could be done before the girls grew tired of it. They strolled around the Square lazily, looking for any kind of fun to be had.

"So, what do you usually do after all that eating?" Chili yawned.

"Well usually, there's like, live music or something. But you can tell they cheaped out this time and just put on a playlist from somebody's phone it seems like. " Dia sighed. "Other than that, there's usually the skaters who come by and do tricks, and then there's..." Her voice trailed off as a crowd of cephalopods caught her eye. "What are they up to?"

"Wanna go see?" Alice suggested. The other two girls agreed, and the three of them curiously headed over.

Initially, Dia suspected that it could've been a dance battle brewing, much to her surprise, the crowd of Inklings and Octolings were all holding markers and pens while huddling around a large white sheet of paper stuck to the wall.

"What's going on here? " Dia asked the closest Octoling to her, her expression lighting up with curiosity.

"We're actually making like a... positivity mural!" The aqua Octoling explained. "Everybody takes a marker and writes something nice on the sheet, then we'll display it somewhere in Inkopolis, and then add to it again the next time we have this festival!"

"I love that!" Chili exclaimed. "I already know what I'm gonna write. Wait, is it cool if I draw something, too?"

The aqua Octoling nodded in agreement, and with that, Chili grabbed a few different colored markers and got right to work. Alice followed suit and also began filling in some of the empty space. Dia, blessed with her height, grabbed a blue marker and stretched up to start writing in the topmost corner of the sheet.

"So~~ let's see what we all wrote!" Dia smiled. She pointed at hers with her marker and read it off. " 'Blessed is the one who is needed by someone else' !"

Alice snickered as she recognized the familiar quote. "Didn't you caption one of your pictures on Coralgram with that line the other day?"

"Yeah, " Dia laughed awkwardly. "I'm recycling old content- you got me! What did you write?"

The strawberry pink Inkling smiled and dramatically gestured to her side of the sheet. " 'Friends and family are number one!'" Alice announced proudly. "And Chilli-"

Dia and Alice glanced over at their friend's handiwork to be greeted with a precious drawing of the three girls. Chilli's signature chibi style stood out among the other scribbles sprawled out on the mural, attracting a ton of attention from the others crowding around.

"That was fast!" Dia and Alice exclaimed together.

"It was nothing!" Chili beamed with a flip of her tentacles

Overjoyed, Dia stood between her two friends and rested her arms on both of their shoulders.

"It's official- we brought the fresh to this fest!"