Rising Shards

I felt a bit stupid as I led Stella through the school. She took a nasty hit from a mat ball, and I kind of completely freaked out and ran over to her and dragged her to safety only to realize she wasn't in immediate danger. And now we were out of the gym and I wasn't really sure where to go.

"Do you want to go to the nurse's office?" I asked.

"It's just a nosebleed, I'll be alright," Stella said. "Faleur family tradition, I suppose."

Stel could tell how embarrassed I was. "Evy. I'm really happy you did that."

"You sure?" I asked.

"Very sure. That was amazing. I've never had anyone shout my name and run to protect me before," Stella said.

"Even if the person running to protect you was completely overreacting?" I said.

"Yeah, that's great! Shows how much you care about me."

We didn't want to go back to the game til Stella's nosebleed went away, so she cleaned up in the locker room. Even after she was all set, we didn't really want to go back right away. Stella answered about five hundred frantic texts from Zeta asking about her condition, and once Stella was somehow able to reassure her younger sister that she was alright but needed a few before getting back to the game, we had some time to ourselves.

"I feel like we're cutting class now," Stella said. "What's a good hangout spot when one is playing hooky at Rising Shards?"

"Hm," I thought back to my high school days. "I'd usually sneak off to the library, or hang out leaning against the outside of the dorms trying to look cool." I said.

"But you are cool," Stella said. "And I'd go to the library now, but I'd rather not go to work while I'm cutting."

"We could go to my office, maybe?" I suggested. "It wouldn't really feel like work for me with you there."

I was glad I hadn't made a complete mess of my office since Stella helped me clean it up a while back. It was bad to the point I couldn't believe she wanted to stay with me when she saw it, but she took the mess as a challenge. She told me she felt more secondhand embarrassment about it considering I had students meet with me there, which reflected back and made me embarrassed about all the times I had students see what a disaster my cleanliness situation was.

Stella rubbed her hands together as we stepped into my office.

"Say Evy..." She said, leaning back and forth on her feet. "I know we have a rule, but...I kind of want to break it right now." She locked the door.

"Oh?" I asked, not immediately opposed. Rather excited, if she was talking about breaking the rule I thought she was talking about. She approached me like a cat slinking toward mischief.

"I'm just a bit excited by all that sporting, you know?" Stella said. "And I think you could use a reward for being my hero."

We both agreed that we didn't want to get up to any friskiness on campus. It seemed too risky. But I couldn't deny that seeing an eager Stella Faleur looking up to me excitedly shook through some of my reservations about it.

"Maybe a rule we can break on special occasions?" I said.

It wasn't as risky as any of our museum escapades, at least.

"And hopefully this is a special occasion?" Stella said.

“Could give me the bit of confidence I need to talk to Caya about us later.” I said. "I mean, obviously I wouldn't tell her this part."

"Obviously," Stella said. "Just a bit of sneaky fun between us."

I took Stella by her hands and led her to my desk, having her sit down on top of it. I had an idea where I wanted to start, but I was willing to let Stella take the lead for how far we'd go on our little class cutting adventure.

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