Rising Shards

Zeta was in an incredibly annoying mood. I was trying to restrain myself from going full angry guardian mode, as I didn’t want Evy to think I was a maniac. Even though Zeta is pretty easy to take care of, when she got in hyper mode she could be a lot to handle.

As we got signed in for the exhibit, she was still saying “snowed in” and “snowding” over and over. It reminded me of a time where she was in a similar mood, buzzing around our old apartment in spite of the assignment she flaked out on. I cornered her when she was playing Ancient Pinball Warriors on our desktop computer.

“Ancient Pinball Warriors…” Zeta said, imitating the game’s voiceover on its start screen.

“Isn’t there something else you should be working on?” I asked.

“No?” Zeta said. “I think something happens if I get the pinball into the catapult in the corner, I’m trying to do that. Ancient Pinball Warriors…”

“Isn’t there a big assignment that’s due this week?” I asked. “One big enough that I had to sign a permission form so you could see that play at the Burger?”

“Oh, that,” Zeta said. “The teacher said Raina Starlight looks like she’s a bit stuck up, so I’m protesting by not doing that.”

“That only hurts you, Zeta, she probably forgot she said it already,” She was already pushing my buttons with the hyperactivity, but getting to see a terrific play performed by an excellent Litus Empirica production group at the historic Cylindrical Burger Theater and not immediately writing down all the amazing things about it was too far. That time resulted in me getting a bit too harsh, making her handwrite the essay before she could use the computer again.

This time, as her, Evy, and I entered an exhibit of a local artist, Zeta still had a notepad to hand write her assignment, but I couldn’t exactly ban her from a computer here. I knew I could be harsh sometimes, and I wasn’t the best at figuring out when to go easy on Zeta or when to punish (that sounds harsher than it was, obviously nothing worse than her getting grounded). Evy had seen that firsthand when I grounded Zeta after one of her void mishaps. It was more to protect her than anything, keep her home instead of risking her getting taken again, but I still feared Evy thought I went too far.

“What do you think this one means?” Zeta asked at the first painting that caught her eye,

“You’re actually—wow!” I said, cutting myself off from being too excited that she actually paid attention to a single thing here while in hyper mode. “Hm.”

The art was a detailed painting of a comet hitting a planet. In the distant space at the comet’s tail was a figure in motion, a giant throwing the comet like a ball. There was something enticing about it in spite of the bleak image.

“Maybe something like…” I cut myself off with a sigh this time as Zeta had already wandered away, completely hidden by the crowd. When she gets hyper, her attention span is like five minutes tops. I bit the inside of my cheek instead of shouting out for her immediately. “Did you see where she went?”

Evy nodded, her eyeline tracing past me. “Not taking my eyes off her.”

“As long as we have one of us on ‘keep Zeta in sight’ duty we should be alright,” I said.

If Zeta kept this up I was in trouble, because Evy would imminently see me in super-duper angry mode, and I desperately wanted to avoid that.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!