Kaia the Argent Wing

Ollie lent me a pair of jeans and a shirt, and I wore my old shoes which surprisingly fit me. As for my… uh… pokies, I covered them with the big woollen jumper I liberated from the house right before I went into that transformation coma. It was enough to make me look passingly presentable, but… we really needed to sort out the clothing situation. Using random bits and pieces just didn’t feel great.

She also came with me when I decided to make a trip down to the workshop. The others, after I voiced my concerns about the clothing situation, decided they'd go do something about it.

They couldn't go too far from the school, though. Edgewood, for all intents and purposes, was under siege.

Cynath's zone of protection around the school worked exceptionally well at keeping away monsters, mainly by causing even the most homicidal squirrel, scorpion, or redcap to run away in fear. It meant that there was actually a fairly large zone of soft control around the border, because monsters didn't understand that there was a hard line. They just knew to keep away from the school.

It was that fear effect that'd saved everyone during the battle—by instantly turning the scorpions away. Since then, however, the cold weather hadn't let up, and out amongst the cold, dead suburb, all kinds of creepy crawlies had taken up residence. That was why we were under siege. Nobody could go more than two or three blocks from the school without getting swamped.

On a more positive note, the new safe zone had allowed the Captain to leave just a skeleton crew on watch while larger groups went out to scavenge for resources.

The civilians in the gym had been spread out into the school, two or three families to a classroom, along with as many amenities as could be provided. Morale was good… if a little heavy on anxiety. People knew we were running out of food, and with the unnatural cold we couldn't cultivate any crops on the fields.

On the topic of planting crops, Ollie and I were about to leave the main building of the school when I noticed a series of planters set up at a window in the foyer. Approaching them, I saw all sorts of little herbs and stuff had been planted with an adorable level of care and attention.

Outside, the sky was cloudy but enough sunlight was making it in that I imagined the little plants were getting enough. Honestly, it was the cold that, despite the double glazed windows, was more worrying. Heating was a problem throughout the school, since although it used a radiator network for the old building we were in, the heating itself down in the basement was still electrical. Apparently some folks were burning a stock of firewood under the hot water tank… but it wasn’t enough.

“Hey!” a voice called angrily, and it was one I recognised.

Turning, I gave her a smile. “Chloe. Hey.”

Her expression went from angry to confused in an instant, and staring at me, she asked, “Who are… you?”

“Thanks for saving me from… well, my own stupidity, again,” I said, feeling supremely awkward. My initial reaction to seeing her had been based on how she’d treated Silver, but now I was realising that she was seeing Kaia for the first time… and realising I used to be Kai.

“Wow,” she breathed, looking me up and down quite… thoroughly. “I heard you’d… but this is…”

“I um, I go by Kaia now… it’s just easier since I look like this,” I said, then continued in a rush, “I’m really sorry about the part I played in all the bullying and shit you’ve gone through.”

She kept staring at me, then shook herself and frowned. “Okay… but like… fuck, I don't know. You're a girl now. I mean, you have the body of one, anyway…”

“I… yes?” This was so awkward!

Finally, she seemed to work through the concept of Kaia, because she narrowed her eyes at me, “An apology is nice, but why? Why now? Am I supposed to just accept it and suddenly be all smiles?”

“No,” I shrugged, and shared a look with Ollie. She was just standing there, baffled by the whole exchange.

“Why were you such a dick to Estelle?” my friend asked out of the blue. “It wasn't just the tripping thing. From a certain perspective, it was you who bullied her. You were a total bitch to her…”

Suddenly, the mildly annoyed but calm expression on Chloe's face was transformed into a storm of anger. “She's the one who started it! She's the one who decided to shove a knife into my heart and twist it!”

“Hey, hey!” I exclaimed, stepping between them. “Not the time, Ollie. Be chill. There's no point digging up old drama when we're all trying to survive. Chloe, I don't know what went down between you and Estelle, but I'm sorry it happened. It would help if we did know, but I'm not going to force you to talk about it.”

“What… why are you taking her side?” Ollie demanded, taken aback.

I groaned. “Because let's face it, Chloe was already getting bullied by like two other groups of assholes, and Estelle decided to join the dogpile. We never even questioned the idea that Chloe was somehow a bad person. It was stupid and mean, and we should stop.”

“We were just defending our friend!” Ollie exclaimed, throwing her hands up.

“She hurt me!” Chloe hissed, baring her teeth.

Ollie stood her ground. “So fucking what, Chloe? Sounds like it was a one off emotional thing, not any targeted bullying. It’s not like she was conspiring with Jake and his crew, but in typical Chloe fashion, you went with the nuclear option. Unlike you, she had friends who defended her.”

There was dead silence as Ollie’s words hit home, and I felt my stomach sink as Chloe’s demeanour froze solid.

“Ollie,” I said softly. “That’s not very nice. Please say sorry.”

Ollie, to her credit, took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m sorry. That was… vicious of me.”

“Oh, don’t worry you were defending your friend,” Chloe said sarcastically, but the fight had left her. Now she just looked… small.

My friend softened as she saw Chloe give up, and her tone became gentle and quiet. “If it’s any consolation, Jake and his friends got eaten by redcaps. I saw the scene myself. It was messy as fuck.”

“They were messy dudes, so I’m not surprised,” Chloe said woodenly. “They put their own shit in the engine of my car once.”

Both Ollie and I recoiled, and I blurted, “What the fuck?”

“Yup,” Chloe nodded, staring down at her plants. “It probably makes me a worse person than I already am, but I’m glad they died horribly.”

“Nah,” I said, patting her on the forearm. She stared down at the contact, and I quickly drew back. “Sorry. But um, I don’t think you’re a bad person for being happy about that. Goddess, but those guys were assholes.”

“Definitely. Did you hear about what Estelle did to them after the Chair Incident with Jasmine?” Ollie asked.

Chloe looked up and met her eyes. “No? That was after we broke… after we stopped talking.”

I could tell Ollie caught the slip up, but the only indication she gave was a slight raising of her eyebrows. “She threw a brick through Jake’s car window. Nobody ever figured out who did it, but yeah, it was her.”

To our surprise, Chloe laughed. “Oh geez. That sounds like her. She did a lot of stuff like that defending me when… yeah.”

“She’s kinda crazy,” Ollie grinned… until her expression fell when she realised that Estelle was now past tense. We all stood in solemn silence for a long moment, until my friend cleared her throat and said in a subdued, emotional rasp, “She… was kinda crazy. I miss her.”

“Same,” Chloe and I said in the same instant. My heart hurt, thinking about how she and George weren’t here anymore.

Okay, nah… the vibes were getting too sombre in here, and plus, I had a chance. Looking up at Chloe, I asked, “About the beef between us all. Peace? Can we be chill?”

“Sure,” she shrugged, blinking rapidly. Wait, was she close to crying? Goddess, I wished I could give her a hug.

“Yay,” I said, smiling despite the previous conversation. I was going to lift the mood up out of the sadness bath, and shower her in good happy vibes. That way, maybe things between us could move past the grumpy, depressing stage. Plus, her interactions with Silver had shown me she wasn't an asshole, she was just very bad at social cues and pricklier than a cactus. I had a feeling that most of the problems between her and my friends had not just been about the Estelle thing, but also the way we all consistently misinterpreted things.

It was time to change things! It was time to see just what our late friend had seen in the Hot Angry Goth girl standing beside us. I was going to make it past the barbs and tough outer skin to the juicy wet interior! Wait. Wait no, oh gosh… that was really horny! Although… no! Bad Kaia! Be an outrageously excitable bisexual in your own time.

Leaning closer in towards the plants, I asked, “So what are these for? Are they for your hex bags?”

“Hex bags…? Right, yeah. It’s for my hex bags. Why?” Chloe gave me a quizzical, suspicious look. “Oh! I had a question. When you were out in the snow, did you see Silver?”

Oh god, when she gave me that look, my heart stopped. The term ‘hex bag’ was coined by the show Supernatural—the show that she was a fan of, and that she knew Silver was a fan of. If she hadn’t remembered she’d wanted to ask me a question about Silver, that would’ve been bad.

“No… not that I remember…” I said, desperately trying to recall if I said anything while I was delirious. “Wait! I did see her! She was wounded and escaping into the blizzard. She said some stuff… it’s difficult to remember. I don't know where she went, though.”

“Damn, I’d hoped… nevermind,” she murmured, then crossed her arms and glared at her herbs. “Anyway, I decided to try growing these stupid plants to see if I could find any with interesting crafting properties.”

“Have you thought about using normal plants and bonemeal from monsters as fertiliser?” I asked, continuing to use a tone that was kind and sweet, but not overwhelmingly so.

“Of course I have,” she said defensively, but then she glanced down and away. “But I don't have anything that can crush the bones very well.”

“Ah, that’s a problem…” I nodded. “But, one that I can solve!”

Oh boy, the look she was giving me. It was obvious that little friendly ol’ Kaia was making her extremely suspicious. I couldn't really blame her. If someone who was associated with bad things happening to me were to suddenly be super nice, I'd be looking for the catch, too.

“How?” She asked.

“I can make you a little grinder. Probably cast out of squiron, but with some forged grinding teeth fitted in,” I said, thinking through the idea as I described it. “A hand cranked thing, obviously.”

Playing with the cuff of her sleeve, she considered my offer, drilling me with her gaze. It was like I was being interrogated on the truth of my words, but entirely via eye-contact.

Finally, she appeared to see that I was being genuine, and looked away bashfully. “If… if you could? That would be amazing. I want to see if I can make health potions…”

“I'll go and do it once I've spoken to Charles about…” I hesitated and gestured up and down my body. “This.”

Her eyes flickered up and down my body. “Um yes, thank you,” she said, giving me a small, conservative smile… that became a menacing frown. “Unless you're planning to screw with me, in which case you can go fuck yourself.”

“Not going to do that…” I pouted, placing my hands on my hips.

Her glare melted as she watched me, and I swear I heard a little snort of amusement. “You’re not really very scary like that. Maybe when you were a million feet tall, but now it’s just…”

“I know right?” Ollie exclaimed. “Isn’t she cute?”

Chloe’s cheeks reddened, and she swallowed. “Um. I… yes. Cute.”

“Well,” I blurted, breaking the awkward silence with a clap of my hands. “I think we should go to the workshop, Ollie. Nice chat, Chloe…”

“Like fuck it was,” Chloe muttered, but nodded all the same when I edged towards the door outside. “Have fun.”

Ollie followed me silently as I pushed out through the main door, and the whole time I could feel her eyeing me.

“What?” I asked.

“Since when did you want to be nice to Chloe?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “I admit… I’m less wary of her after what she accidentally admitted… but still…”

Gods, there was a lot of snow. It was almost waist deep, except where a path had been cleared to get to the workshops. Wrapping my cardigan around myself against the chill gave me a moment to think.

“Because our crew’s beef with her is pointless high school drama, and we have way bigger problems than that. Plus, like you said, I think that in the end it was all just relationship drama. Not worth the sort of bad blood we had between us.”

“Makes sense,” Ollie mused, scuffing a foot on the pavement. “I never understood why Estelle was so upset at her. Now… I think I have a slightly clearer picture.”

I had to agree, but also I think we had a long way to go before we understood exactly what’d happened between those two. Maybe someday we’d befriend Chloe enough that she’d tell us.