Rising Shards

Facing the first day of a brand-new semester without Zeta didn’t seem right. A new semester wasn't as world shaking as my first day at Rising Shards, but I still wanted her near me as much as I could. The crushing blow of missing Zeta for at least the first day of class was eased a bit when her older sister sent me pictures of her.

“Look at this. Look.” I demanded, holding my phone up to Kalei and Lillia while we ate breakfast.

“It’s…a cat?” Kalei asked.

“Not just any cat. My cat.”

“You got a cat?” Kalei asked.

“No, it’s Zeta!” I said. “She has common shift sickness, so she’s staying home today. And she’s presently an adorable kitty cat and I’m stuck here because life isn’t fair.”

Zeta in full cat form was almost too much cute to process. She had fur that matched her tail and hair when she was her regular self. Her eyes seemed even more blue than before. She looked very timid, but also sleepy. I wanted to scream every second I gazed upon the majesty of Zeta as a cat.

“That’s Zeta?” Kalei started laughing. “We should get her tons of cat treats for when she’s back.”

My giggle quickly gave way to a deeper laugh. “We must. Anything to help with the fact that cat Zeta is real and we’re missing it.”

“Cat Zeta’s been real for a long time, you saw how she devoured that whole bag of cat treats.” Kalei said.

“She had like three.” I said.

“Three that she really enjoyed,” Kalei said.

“They weren’t bad! Cat Oka is real too.” I said. “Maybe she can give me her shift sickness.”

“And if we all get it, we get time off of class, and—” Kalei blinked. “Hold on, does this mean cat governor is real…?” She whispered in awe. “Did we predict this?”

“I would rather not contract it,” Lillia said, ignoring Kalei’s cat governor thing for the third or fourth time. “This week of classes is vital to make a good first impression on our new teachers.”

“Hopefully we don’t have any like Soleri or Poppi this go round,” Kalei said. “You know what, though?”

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t think I’d be a cat if I got that shift sickness,” Kalei said. “I’d probably be like a badass wolf. We probably could have found this out a while ago with the pet food challenge, but they don’t make wolf treats, now do they?”

She tilted her head as Lillia rolled her eyes. Sometimes Kalei did a thing where she’d go on a tangent and not know where to end it, defaulting on either making fun of someone nearby or saying something like it was our fault, as though I were somehow in charge of wolf treats not being sold in stores.

“Well?” Kalei asked.

“Well what?” I asked.

Lillia checked her phone for the time. “We should probably be headed to class.”

Pretty frequently, our principal gave speeches at assemblies at school. Most of the time Principal Penteldtam had nothing of note to say, rambling on and on about what he was excited about and having meltdowns. They were just a source of secondhand embarrassment for me, more so because of him being my uncle. Curiously, the winter and spring semester did not start with a speech from him, or from anyone. I expected another joint Penteldtam and Kitty speech where they reminded us the Recreant Protocol games against our rival school Wildfire Hearts would be starting soon. We simply headed to class, which felt suspiciously normal.

“I was expecting some kind of dopey speech from Penteldtam like we get every five minutes at this school.” Kalei said.

First up was void practice. It was strange to start the day with our usual day finish-upper, but I was looking forward to getting it over with, and having a few less gym classes per week. Void class wasn’t always running around and fighting, but it was enough that having that and gym in the same day was a bit much.

Once we had finished a typical go round of the field of flowers, our class was summoned back to our starting point, where I sighed loudly seeing who waited for us.

Kitty Kilander had her hands on her hips and a smug look on her face.

“Here we go, we’re getting a dumb Kilander speech,” Kalei said quietly. “Now the semester feels normal.”

“Hello? Is everyone listening?” Kitty yelled. “Howdy! Greetings or whatever! I have proposed—hold your gasps, not a marriage proposal, tee hee…” (I have to note that no one gasped.) “There were all these boring plans people were bringing to me for approval for the recreant games. Lists, brackets, rosters. It was dumb and boring! So I torched all that. Instead of a bunch of stupid little teams, I have decreed my proposal that each class will face another class!”

“Literally what is she saying?” Kalei asked.

“I think it was gonna be pod vs. pod, but now it’s gonna be class vs. class? So bigger groups?” I said.

Kitty got off track immediately and started talking about how mad she as that her Kitty World project was smashed up (the smashing was done partially by me, oops…) and didn’t say much else of note.

She closed by saying, “And if you lot think you’re special, I’m giving this speech to every class. That’s right, Kitty Kilander on repeat! Yawn! But a necessary boredom and yuck to get to fun stuff real soon.”

When we went back home from the void, Kitty pointed to a group of Wildfire Hearts students and said that would be the class we’d be up against. “I think. I’m pretty sure that’s the one. There are a few vacancies that need to be filled though!”

I recognized a few folks in there. Chickadee was that strange girl who was trying to spy on us for her spy class (which still had me baffled about Wildfire Hearts’ academic quality if they have what sounds like an eavesdropping class) who was thankfully in the Wildfire Hearts robes now and not a maid outfit. Laenie was currently trying to act tough with her gang of bicyclists, and didn’t even acknowledge our presence, but maybe she couldn’t see us while wearing such dark sunglasses. Kalei scowled, looking ready to storm off. I scanned the group and saw why, a triple threat of bummer times for my friend. Number 1: Risa, Kalei’s former bestie who was currently on shaky terms with her. Number 2: Nikki, Kalei’s crush who broke her heart by dating Number 3: P.D., a girl who wore a fancy looking helmet.

“You alright?” I asked.

“Yeah. Just peachy.” Kalei said.

Before we left for our next class, we checked in with Diast, who was being uncharacteristically quiet as she walked around the void entry building. She rubbed her chin, eyebrows raised like someone who was either desperately trying to stay awake, or someone who was straining to keep a neutral expression.

“You look like someone spat in your coffee.” Kalei said. “Then farted like directly in your face.”

“Real charming,” I said.

“I spent so long figuring out teams for you guys,” Diast said. “And she just. Threw it all away. And they let her.”

“Ah.” I said.

“So apologies in advance if you’re up against some people you have beef with or drama.”

Kalei didn’t say anything, also uncharacteristic of her.

“We’ll figure something out.” I said. “Thanks for trying.”

I felt bad for Kalei, and also kinda guilty that there were no apparent folks in the rival class that would cause drama for me. Ovie was currently wolf-ified, Jeans was probably still in a castle somewhere playing evil princess. Laenie was probably the closest thing drama wise, but that just made me jot a mental note down to check on Aira about it, so I was more worried about how Aira would react than any feud I had with Laenie.

I tried to cheer Kalei up as we headed to our next class, but I was also feeling anxious. About the Recreant Protocol stuff, about Kalei going through rough times, about my family, about Zeta. A lot was on my mind as we trekked through busy hallways. The wind may have been taken out of our sails, but Kalei’s mood would be greatly changed after our second class.

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