Rising Shards

We continued to unwind after that Avoidant Generation display by watching a relaxing nature documentary about wildlife in void nodes in the theater with ginormous screens. While we watched shapeshifting birds fly through upside down waterfalls, Evy reached out to hold my hand.

“You doing alright?” She whispered.

“Mhm,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Surprising me, Zeta had decided to sit with her new friends, so they were all a few rows down from us, making this easier knowing my little sister wouldn’t tease me for it.

I leaned in to kiss Evy’s cheek. “I love you.”

Any lingering sadness or bad vibes I had from that exhibit about my parents’ generation faded away by the power of Evy’s face turning beet red. It was nice for as long as we’d been together that we could still have that effect on each other regularly.

When the movie wrapped, we finally arrived at our main destination.

“They really bury it in the depths of this museum, huh?” Evy said.

I couldn't deny, even though this was a museum, I was bracing for this to be very...corporate. A sanitized display just of smiling queer folks with rainbows and some positive empty phrases, not going into much more depth than that. Maybe I was just having flashbacks to my younger days where I snuck away from home to see stores decked in pride business, only for it to be pretty basic in some attempt to placate everyone, ending up saying little of note in the process.

Fortunately, this wasn't anything like that. While this was a Cani science museum, the pride exhibit was focused on queer Cani history, tracing all the way back to legends about Safe Silver. One section discussed how the holiday of Cani's origin from the void dimensions to this stable world could have queer roots, suggesting that maybe our ancestors were looking for a less bigoted place to end up in that regard. There were also sections talking up how queer and Cani communities had significant overlap.

Zeta was fairly engaged in the history lesson portion, her tail flicking about curiously. We stumbled upon a display about a trans Cani of yesteryear, a long-haired girl with a tail that Zeta stared at intently as she read about their accomplishments in activism and art for her community.

“Hey…” Zeta said quietly. “This one’s kinda like me, huh? Like in the whole vibe, not like. I mean, I dunno if I have the whole leadership...capability...but like, a braver version of me.”

"You're plenty brave," Evy said, patting Zeta on the back.

"Holy crap that scared me!" Zeta yelped.

"S-sorry," Evy said as I burst out laughing.

"You're pretty jumpy, huh?" Tiafel said.

"I was just being all introspective!" Zeta said. "This display had me, I dunno, all thinking and junk! Dr. Diast caught me off guard."

"And you're pretty jumpy." I added.

"And I'm pretty jumpy, whatever!" Zeta said. I wasn't worried I was teasing too much, as I saw Zeta trying not to smile as we all laughed together.

Zeta's eyes lit up at the artsy crafty section, which was maybe for a younger audience with a bunch of coloring book pages copied and placed all around, but around that little nook in the exhibit was a curved wall with goopy paint markers for queer folks to sign their names. The gray wall was signed with so many names that it was vibrant and alive with color.

"They really like big walls here." Evy said.

"There are so many names on it..." Zeta said.

Tiafel and Calista rushed over, taking some time to decide which color they wanted. They both exclaimed something about the colors changing as they wrote, making a cool effect on the walls.

"I read about this on the pamphlet," Cyri said. "It's art so it can mean anything, obviously, but the big intent is all of us signing it means...something about togetherness, ya know? Like no matter what, we're not alone."

"Yeah," I said, not realizing for a second that Evy yeah'd too at the exact same second I did. We both chuckled at that, then Evy offered her hand to me. I gladly took it as we searched for a good spot to sign our names.

"Ah, I think these are the kind of markers Raina Starlight uses to sign her autograph sometimes!" Zeta said. "If you see one that's sparkly purple that turns into sparkly pink, let me know."

We found a spot big enough for the three of us to get our names in. Zeta couldn't find the specific marker she was thinking of, settling for a blue to pink marker to sign her name. Evy and I signed ours close together with markers that had a more pastel color palette to them, and Evy put a big heart around our names.

"Evy, you dork," Evy said.

I snorted. "Why'd you say that?"

"Er, defense mechanism?"

"That's a dumb one," I said. "That's dorkier than putting a cute heart around our names!"

"Yeah!" Zeta said. "Show some backbone about drawing hearts, Dr. Diast!"

"Fine, fine," Evy said. "I'll put another heart to make up for it, does that work?"

"Hmmm," Zeta strummed her chin. "Potentially."

"I think two more hearts would be best." I added. "And we won't call you a dork for it."

"Thanks," Evy said. She put one more heart around our names, then another that included Zeta's name.

"Awww!" I hugged Evy's arm. "Perfect."

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