Rising Shards

I had gotten about two hours of sleep before a nightmare woke me up. In the dream, I showed Zeta the apartment, and she was so disappointed that she used her thunderstorm powers to absolutely wreck the place, screaming at me that she was leaving forever before walking through a wall. I was sobbing and clawing at the wall and had to force myself awake. I wasn’t able to fall back asleep, so I snuck out of bed and quietly cleaned our apartment for a while. I was also stressing about my orientation at Rising Shards, not looking forward to going into that on zombie bad sleep mode. After I cleaned over everything I could for a third time, I sighed, flopping down on one of the recently moved over kitchen chairs and leaning onto the recently moved dining room table.

Evy placed a hot mug of coffee in front of me. I told her I didn’t sleep well, but I didn’t go into particulars about the nightmare. I think she could pretty much figure it out though.

“How are you feeling?” She asked as she massaged my shoulders. “Very tense, got it.”

“I think I’m ready.” I said. “I’m just a little…ah…ow!”

“You want me to stop?” Evy asked, stopping right away.

“No, just…can you use your elbow on that spot?” I asked.

“You got it,” Evy said. I felt her elbow on a knot in my shoulder. "I owe you after all for your back rubs lately."

"You earned them moving all that furniture!" I said, amazed I could form words and not just incoherently moan as Evy obliterated the knot. "I don't know how I could've gotten that dresser in here without a mover."

"In hindsight we probably could've hired movers," Evy said. "It would have helped with the basement, at least."

“Thank you again for going overtime with all that by the way.” I said.

I was thrilled with Evy’s solution for Zeta’s place. I would have been fine if she got what would now be the guest room/office, but I much preferred her getting her own space.

“And thank you for clearing it with the landlord! I hate asking them for stuff.” Evy said. “I think Zeta will feel better with her little basement den situation than being right next to us.”

“We’re lucky that room down there has an egress window,” I said. I spent a fair bit of time during the week ensuring that Zeta’s new space would be safe for her/legal, which involved a lot of internet searching about basement bedrooms. "How's your back, by the way?"

"A lot better," Evy said. "I don't regret it or anything though. I talked a big game about how good I am at moving furniture, so I had to live up to that for you. Probably shouldn't have tried that...wall-assisted maneuver...with you that night so soon after moving furniture too."

"I'd say the attempt was worth it," I said. I felt like a princess for the brief bit Evy lifted me up as she ate me out. It was incredible.

"Pretty great fifteen seconds there?" Evy asked.

"Pretty great, yeah." I smiled.

Evy continued the massage as thoughts of the nightmare crept back into my head. Zeta screaming at me about how terrible she found the new place.

"You don't think she'll hate it, right?" I asked.

"Nah, I think she'll like it," Evy said. "Your old place was pretty sleek, but she likes the dorms I think and they don't have the LE skyline, you know?"

"True..." I said. "I'm just a bit worried about...you know, too. It's gonna be a lot for her."

“Let’s just ease her into this whole thing," Evy said, pressing her elbow a bit more firmly into my back. That move got a slight moan out of me for how well she kneaded my very stressed muscles. "Doesn’t have to be at all stressful for her. We don't have to drop it on her all at once. Start off with us as roommates.”

“Right. Rightrightright.” I said. “The apartment itself will be enough new for her right now. Can you do me one more maybe big favor today?”

“Is it getting rid of this knot? Because this is a big knot.” Evy said.

I worried I’d be asking a lot of her with this. But it was something I had to ask her, it was vitally important for us moving forward with what we had going on.

“My orientation is in the afternoon, so I was thinking today would be a good time for you and Zeta to spend some time together.” I said.

“Hmm,” Evy said, stopping her elbow which made my stomach drop a bit until she switched to using her hands to continue rubbing my back. “Are you testing me to see how well I can handle Zeta?”

“Maybe…” I said, impressed she figured me out so well.

“And also giving me time to practice handling Zeta?” Evy said.

“More that,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t think you can do it, it’s just, it’s practice to like. Get her used to you too. In a more. Directly guardian-ly role.”

“To ease her into it!”

“Exactly.” I said. “Oh, and can you handle dinner, too?”

“Yeah, for sure.” Evy said.

“Just don’t get her something completely horrible,” I said, trying to hold back my urge to give a list of Zeta approved meals. “She likes Ultra Taco. Not as big on Treesburger.”

“So you’re saying fast food is fine?” Evy said.

“Yep.”

“What’s completely horrible then?”

“I dunno,” I said. “Like. Drugs?”

“I promise I won’t get your little sister drugs for dinner.” Evy said. “I’m kind of surprised you’re the type to test like this.”

“Are you? At least I somewhat tell you upfront it’s a test.” I said. “You think you can handle it?”

“Oh yeah.” Evy flexed. After she moved that bookshelf, I could watch her flex all day.

“If you don’t want to, don’t worry,” I said. “Just call me if she gets too wild.”

“Zeta? Getting wild?” Evy thought about it for a second. “Alright, yeah, I’ll let you know. But don’t worry about that, I got it. You just focus on getting a boring tour of the school. Or a weird tour of the school if it’s Penteldtam.”

“Alright, well I told Zeta I was picking her up soon,” I said, seeing the time approaching for an alarm I set on my phone. “So we should probably go.”

“Should we take my car? That might…help somehow?” Evy asked.

“Sure.” I said.

It was going to be a long day, and I was going in exhausted, but Evy had already helped me a great deal. Before I could get to the door, she grabbed my wrist.

"Hey, before we go..." Evy said.

"Hm?" I asked. "Is there something you need?"

"Yeah," Evy said before pulling me to her. She kissed me deeply, and I loved getting kisses when we were both standing. The height difference between us really made it special. Like she was dominating me and protecting me in one.

"Just wanted to get a bit of that out of my system now..." Evy breathed as she pulled away.

I giggled in response, her kiss recharging me.