Rising Shards

Worst case scenario was still the nightmare where Zeta raged at me and randomly went through a wall. As long as we avoided that when showing her the new place, I would be satisfied. I didn’t want to just stare at her and study her reaction the whole time, but I did glance back a bit. When we parked in the alley behind our place, she looked…neutral.

“What are you gonna do now about all your Dr. Diast calls?” Zeta asked.

“My what now?” I asked.

“Since you call her so much to check up on me, you know?” Zeta asked. “Now you can just bug her in person.”

Does she think I call her teacher that much? Well. I guess I did call a lot at the start.

“That’s true,” I said. “I guess we have to figure that out, huh?”

I waited for more of a reaction from Zeta before we went inside. She looked out at the backyard, then to me.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Zeta said. She handed me an envelope, and Evy looked curious. "Don't tell her, Stella." 

I opened the letter immediately, not hiding the act at all from Evy. It was my duty as a big sister to ignore light requests from my little sister such as this. “Aww. Whenever we have an argument or a fight, Zeta always makes me a handmade card, it’s so sweet.” I explained.

"I just said don't tell her!" Zeta said. "Geez."

I held up the card to Evy, happy I could show her Zeta’s adorable quirk.

"That really is precious," Evy said. "I hope it wasn't a big fight. You guys aren't like secretly constantly having big fights, are you?"

Evy showing concern about how well Zeta and I get along gave me an odd sort of butterflies. Like the kind one only gets when someone shows genuine concern for something they don’t think anyone would worry about.

"Oh no, the normal amount, I think?" I said. 

"I hope?" Zeta said.

"Not a whole lot of fights, but she's still my bratty little sister, so..." I said. I snickered as Zeta stuck her tongue out at me. "And no, not a big fight. Just me...being bad about our family stuff."

"Gotcha, gotcha." Evy said.

"I kinda...blew up a bit about it." Zeta said.

"No, you didn't," I said. I wanted to swat her with the card she gave me, just lightly, but she was out of reach now. I didn’t want her to beat herself up over my own weaknesses. "But you did make me a very nice card."

"Stop talking about the card! Let's just go inside." Zeta said, her face now beet red.

"Hang on, I still have to read it." I said.

"Not out loud, please." Zeta muttered.

 

Dear Stella,

I’m sorry I got so mad about the family thing. I shouldn’t have gotten so rude with you. You’re still the best big sister ever, don’t worry. And you’re my family, that’s the most important thing.

Love,

Zeta

 

I had to give her a big hug after that one. Evy grinned at us, and I was tempted to invite her in for a group hug. Would that be weird? That might be too soon. Or too pushy? I want to ease her into us as a family situation too.

"OK I'm gonna talk about the apartment now!" Zeta said, rushing away from me toward the apartment. “After a few minutes of thought, I have a quick judgment. And I'm only gonna say it if we stop talking about the card!"

My heartrate increased a bit. She wasn’t inside the house yet so she couldn’t randomly zip through walls at least if she hated it.

“Uh huh?” Evy asked. “Without seeing the inside of the place?”

“Preemptive judgment,” Zeta said. “Now this could change once I see the inside, but right now I’m cool with it so far. I’m getting good vibes. I just don’t want to tell Kalei because she’ll make fun of me for living with a teacher.”

“I think I’d prefer that too,” Evy said. “That girl can be brutal.”

The two of them had more time with the snarky Kalei than Evy and Zeta had, but just from the bit I spoke with her so far, I knew neither were lying. Zeta reached the house and realized she didn’t have the keys for it and fidgeted a bit as she waited for us to unlock the doors for her.

Moment of truth time. I felt like I had chugged a gallon of coffee. I did have a lot of coffee and a night of bad sleep so that all contributed to my jitteriness as well.

“So this is the kitchen,” I said. I introduced all the main rooms this way. My voice was quivering, betraying how panicked I really was about this.  “So this is the bathroom…those other doors, so they’re something we’ll come back to in a bit…”

Zeta looked over everything, taking it all in like a master detective analyzing every bit of a place to find all the clues.

“Oh!” Zeta said when she spotted one of Evy’s anime figures on a shelf. It wasn’t one from Highway Adventure Burst, so I didn’t recognize it. “Is that Irvanis from Twilbusters?” 

“Yeah, dude!” Evy said. “I keep my better figures here; I brought a more expensive one to the school I was interning at once to put it in my office and it got jacked immediately. I dunno if it was a student or a teacher and that will always haunt me. So I only bring my figures I’m OK with the idea of someone stealing, and…” She looked at me and blushed. “I’m rambling. Continue the tour!” Evy gestured toward the bedrooms. “The room on the left is mine, right’s is—”

“So the one on the right is my room.” I said, nodding too much in too short a time. The gears turned in Zeta’s mind, and I knew what she was going to ask next.

“So…where’s my room?”

“Right!” I said. “So that’s probably an important thing, huh?”

“Do I…sleep in the living room?” Zeta asked.

“You can thank Evy for this,” I said. “She put a lot of work getting this ready.”

I brought Zeta to the kitchen and revealed the way down to the basement. Well, it wasn’t much of a reveal, I just pushed a big spice rack over, but I hoped it was a little exciting. As we headed downstairs, I kicked myself for not cleaning up the steps more; it was kind of ratty and dusty. But I knew how the basement den itself looked and I’d be surprised if she didn’t like what Evy set up for her.

Zeta’s eyes lit up as she saw that all her furniture was there, set up in a cool new space. I especially liked the Colablu light as Evy told me that she had it since she was a kid.

“You brought our couch down here!” Zeta said. “And our TV!”

“I figured you’d rather use the one you know how to use for your space,” I said.

"How'd you get the couch down those stairs?" Zeta asked.

"That part was not pleasant," Evy said. "I almost got to the point where I thought about spending hours and hours plotting out a path to move the couch from upstairs to the void, then from there to this basement. But then I just used my powers to mush the metal in it up for a sec and pretty much rolled it down, but that shouldn't mess with its sturdiness or anything."

"Wow..." Zeta said. She plopped down and patted the couch. "It feels sturdy to me?"

“You can watch new Tower eps with us upstairs, if you want.” Evy said. “Or down here is cool too, whatever works for you.”

Zeta gasped. “I forgot you watch Tower! As long as you abide by the Faleur New Episode Watching Rules, alright?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve briefed her on them.” I said.

“Only talking during commercials, no spoiler talk, chew quietly.” Evy said.

“Right, good,” Zeta did some excited twirls. “Wow. This whole basement is mine?”

“I figured you could use a pad of your own, yeah?” Evy said. “Wow, that sounded painfully dweeby, sorry. I hope the neon light makes up for it, I thought it was the coolest thing when I was your age, and it still works!”

“I am more of a ColaBlu girl, so I do appreciate it!” Zeta said. “Is the couch my bed now, or…?” I pointed to her bedroom nearby, and Zeta quickly investigated. “You brought my bed down too!” She called out.

“Yep,” I said. “You can handle the rest of your stuff, I know you don’t like it messed with.”

“Well, thanks!” Zeta said. “I feel kind of bad you guys moved all this stuff without me.”

“Nah, don’t worry bud,” Evy said. “I got a lot of it out of preemptive guilt about dropping the ‘me as your roommate’ news on you like this so that energy powered a lot of the big furniture moves.”

“You don’t have to feel bad about that,” Zeta said. She got her phone out and took a bunch of pictures. While she did that, I knew it was time for the next bit of news.

“And now…I have to drop one more teensy thing on you, Zeta.” I said.

“Is it the rare Cani dise—” Zeta started.

“Not that,” I said, silently cursing the website that made her anxious about her health at times. “I have my orientation today. So for a bit I asked Evy if she could hang out with you.”

“Oh. Sure, yeah!” Zeta answered easily.

“Great,” I hugged her again, relieved it had gone this well so far. I still wanted to ask. Maybe I just wanted to hear it out loud to fully relieve my worries. “So what do you think?”

“It’s cool!” Zeta said. “I’m gonna have to spend a night here to judge it but I already have way more space down here than I did before.”

“Awesome,” I said. I checked the time. “Crap, I better get going.” As I headed upstairs, I instinctively moved to kiss Evy on the cheek, but froze, it hitting me like a brick dropped on my toes that Zeta was right there and would see that kiss. And I didn’t want her to have so much dropped on her at once. Zeta, of course, saw me make an odd motion, so I hugged her again, hoping that would be a bit of a distraction and I also wanted a good luck hug from my little sister before heading to orientation.