Rising Shards

"I should've brought my jacket," I said as I shivered.

Our group was on a sidewalk leading to the third dorm on campus, where all the Wildfire Hearts students were staying. The entire campus was buzzing, so it wasn't just contained to the girls' dorm.

"Here, I'll be your jacket," Oka said, hugging me. We waddled along a bit with her acting as my jacket. She leaned over my shoulder. "You know, I heard a pretty interesting rumor myself."

"What's that?" I said.

"I heard Oka Ohri is dating this super cute girl," Oka said.

"Oh, dang, I was gonna ask Oka out," I said.

"Yep, too late, Oka's got a really sweet girlfriend and I hear they're doing really well so you should be soooo jealous of them."

"I really am! I've had a crush on Oka forever," I said.

"Yeah, well, you missed your chance!" Oka said. She abruptly let go of me. "Ow, hey! What the heck!"

We turned to see Kalei readying another snowball.

"That snowball was all fluff, no way that hurt," Kalei said. "You had that coming for the flirting jokes."

"Flirting jokes?" Marmalade asked.

"I wasn't flirting!" Kalei said, quickly throwing another snowball (my way this time, it was indeed very poofy snow). "I was just talking! And these two were all 'oooh why were you flirting Kalei,' it was so annoying!"

For some reason, Kalei's inability to take jokes back when she dished them out was kind of comforting that night. Marmalade had a surprising amount of questions for what I thought was a pretty mild bit, but luckily for her Kalei had a less surprising amount of defensive statements.

Those two kind of dominated the conversation for the rest of the walk between dorms, shifting away from Kalei defending herself from a bit way longer than necessary to...

"So when you say like. Look! That's your eyes," Kalei said.

"Mhm," Marmalade said.

Kalei pointed at a rock on the side of the path. "Like, look! There's a rock."

"I'm following," Marmalade said.

"But when you want someone to smell something, all you got is eye based verbiage," Kalei said. "When I'm walking Marshy, that's my dog Marshy, and I want him to smell something, I'm like, 'look!' But that doesn't make sense! You don't go smell. So I propose a new word to command others to smell. I don't know what the word would be, but I'm open to suggestions."

"If telling someone to see something is look, then telling someone to smell something should be...sneek?"

"Yeah, something like that!" Kalei said. "You get it!"

"I get it!"

"Then what for hearing? Hee? As in hear?" Marmalade said.

"Hee," Kalei nodded. "Hee hee."

"You could also say 'listen.'" Oka said.

"Oh yeah, forgot about listen," Kalei said.

"Hey, look at this!" Aira said.

I thought it was just a little trash can at first, but on closer inspection, Aira had stumbled onto a strange appliance half buried in the snow.

"A funky little device," Aira said. "Just left out here on its lonesome." She tapped the top of it. It had some buttons on it and a clear part, but the clear part was a dark color so you couldn't see inside of it.

"Maybe we shouldn't be playing around with something before we know what it is," I said.

"This feels like a scenario from Make-Good-Decisions School," Michi said.

"For real," Kalei said. "Where's Byval when you need him?"

Aira didn't have any luck with the device. "Say, this reminds me of how we found 09. You think there's an 09 in here?"

"It seems kinda small for a person to be in," Oka said.

"Like a baby clybrid Cani maybe? 04.5 perhaps?" Aira said.

Kalei brushed some snow off the back of it and fiddled with something. "There's a lever." The top of the device opened, and I flinched and hid. Kalei shrugged as she looked inside. "It's got pasta in it." I yelped as she reached inside. "Cold pasta."

"I guess if anyone hears a rumor about a pasta maker left outside, we'll know where to send them," Oka said.

"I was really hoping for a mini 09," Aira said.

"Did someone say my name?"

A group I didn't particularly want to see on this night approached, with 09 and Ovie at the front. Ovie's longtime cronies Chellsi and Mikeila-Keila following behind.

"Oh, we just found this strange pastamaker and it reminded me of your pod," Aira said.

"I see," 09 said. "What are you all doing around these parts?"

The awkward vibes were heavy in the air like a thick fog. Oka and 09 weren't getting along much lately, none of us got along with Ovie, and Chellsi and Mikeila-Keila were making noises.

"Something exceptionally stupid, I'm sure," Ovie said.

"There's a lot of weirdness about, and we're investigating," Kalei said.

"Pfft," Ovie said.

"What...does investigating mean?" Chellsi asked.

"I think that's when the baby is growing," Mikeila-Keila said.

"It means they think they're being special," Ovie said. "I guess whatever gets you through the day."

"What are you doing out at night, then?" I asked.

"I'm...simply admiring the night..." Ovie blushed for some reason as she trailed off.

"Ovie's chasing down rumors too, ha," Kalei said. "Too proud to admit it."

"It's fine to say it, it's not like it's the worst thing ever to be joining the fad of the night," Oka shrugged.

"You lot can stop talking any time and it would be terrific," Ovie said.

"You see Chickadee around?" Kalei asked. "We're betting she started all of it."

Ovie squinted like she hadn't considered that. "No, I haven't seen her. Why am I bothering entertaining you? I have better things to do. Unless you want me to show off a new trick with my acid powers."

Before things could escalate (Ovie seemed ready to actually fight, and so did Kalei), someone stepped between the two groups.

"Can you all go five seconds without an incident?" Roux asked. "I was making authentic Novu style cold pasta and I'd like to enjoy it without seeing Koridia get her ass kicked."

"Nah, it'd be Chirhart you'd be seeing get taken down," Kalei said.

"Well, in that case," Roux pointed at Ovie. "You should probably leave."

Ovie scoffed. I thought she was going to deck Roux, but she just nodded at her friends and left.

"That was awesome, Roux," Marmalade said.

"Ovie doesn't frighten me," Roux said. "She's all bark and unresolved trauma and very little bite."

"She's got some bite," I said, thinking of how she was when she fought me.

"I have more bite than her, though," Oka said. "Right?"

I giggled. "Well, that's a different kind of bite."

"Readying another snowball," Kalei announced.

Roux asked what we were up to as they picked up their pasta maker, and we explained the situation.

"Oh, that's what you're after?" Roux said. "Then you should follow me. I know a rumor that's definitely true."

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