Rising Shards

A Friday meeting is never a great time, especially an all staff one first thing in the morning. It was a two hour late start for the students, but I was really hoping this wouldn't go that long. We were all spread out in the auditorium.

I sat with the other IT folks, but Alix could see me where I sat, and we made faces at each other, until Alix made a really goofy one that made me snort laugh and got her looks from the teachers next to her.

Kitty was up at the front on stage, with Caya beside her, and another woman I hadn't seen before. The woman had a pants suit on and graying blonde hair.

"Alright, let's get this over with," Kitty said. "Uh, what's the agenda for this?"

"Just let me handle it," Caya said.

"No, I want to talk to my subordinates!" Kitty said. "Hi subordinates, are you enjoying having a famous pop star like me as your boss? Tee hee!"

The faculty responded with some forced laughs.

"You're supposed to cheer at that, but whatever," Kitty said.

"We're here to just go over some things, and get a feel for how everyone is doing with this transition period the school is in," Caya said.

"And hopefully nobody will portal in, beat us up, and then someone from the school announces that we're fired," Kitty said. "Don't worry folks, I'd win in a fight against even the strongest foe."

Caya looked like she was struggling to not punt Kitty off the stage.

"We sincerely apologize for that incident as well, I know that was a rough day that we're still recuperating from," Caya said.

That was met with shrugs and murmurs. Everyone here had been working at Cani schools long enough that the school board higher ups having some new students portal in to beat up the former principal to send him home packing wasn't exactly the biggest deal. I was still relatively new here, but I got the sense that if it happened to any other principal than Penteldtam, it'd be a bigger deal, but the way he ran things left him unpopular enough that I heard at least two staffers say something along the lines of "If I was handling that, I would've had them beat him up longer." After the IT incidents he personally caused that put me through some hellish work, I couldn't say I disagreed.

"And if it bears repeating, we weren't involved in the decision-making there," Caya said.

"I was," Kitty said devilishly. "Or, not really, they just told me they were gonna do that."

"I will do my best to prevent certain school board members from having any major input in future events such as that, but some things are our of our hands," Caya said.

I wasn't sure how well Caya would do as principal in the long term. She seemed disciplined and had the demeanor of someone who could command a big group of folks like us, but she also had Kitty as co-principal to deal with. I imagined she had spent a lot of time babysitting her sister-in-law so far, as well as dealing with the various Cani and void incidents that happened seemingly every few minutes.

"I also know it's been a lot to deal with the general switches between Rising Shards, Falling Shards, and Wildfire Hearts. With all the moves between schools finally settling, we hope we can really begin to move forward now," Caya said. "To that end, I'm very excited to introduce you to Miss Efrasia Officinalis, our new vice principal!"

From my experience, the principal at a high school was a nicer sort of boss, while the vice principal was the stern one who doled out punishment. But with Caya and Kitty as the new principals, I couldn't guess how Efrasia would fit in that dynamic.

"I'm honored to work here," she said.

"Miss Officinalis has an incredibly impressive resume, and is a longtime friend in the field, you're in good hands with her," Caya said.

"That makes it sound like we're leaving," Kitty said. "We're not, you're stuck with me, sorry."

Caya rolled her eyes. "Not what I meant. But let's move on."

Miss Officinalis introduced herself and talked about all the schools she worked at. She gave off a kind demeanor, kind of like an elementary school teacher, but just from her brief stories about herself she clearly knew the ropes of a Cani school.

After she finished, someone from the school board's HR came up and gave an incredibly long and droning speech going over very boring details about working at the school that none of us needed reiterated. Though I did perk up when she mentioned workplace relationships.

"Make sure you are not too focused on fraternizing. Ideally, um, maybe don't do that?" The rep said. "Or, you know, refer to the employee handbook for matters regarding this. Just have to say this stuff because we've had a couple reports of workplace couples, please refer to the employee handbook about that, alright?"

Alix and I winked at each other. I looked over to Kitty too. I felt like I was being greedy with such a wonderful partner already, but I couldn't help but wonder what it'd be like to add Kitty and make this a polycule, and maybe "fraternize" with her too. I kept reminding myself to not rush into that, and to seriously enjoy how lovely Alix was, but this meeting was so boring I thought I could indulge myself by imagining Kitty in our sweet little mix.

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