Rising Shards

I tried to look as chill as possible. I’d hung out with Zeta plenty as her teacher, we’d had heart to heart chats. Taking care of her outside of school shouldn’t be a big deal.  

“Are you nervous, Dr. Diast?” Zeta asked, seeing through my attempts to look as chill as possible.

“A bit, yeah.” I said.

“It’s kind of weird to see you nervous like this.” Zeta said. “Sorry, that doesn’t really help things.”

“You’re fine,” I said. “I just…haven’t come up with a good game plan for the rest of the day?”

“I’m sure whatever we figure out will be fun,” Zeta said. “I thought I had some rare Cani illness so while this is a lot, it’s a lot of…fun? Potentially? I think?”

“I’ll try to be better than a rare Cani illness for you at least.” I said.

“Pfft, you’re way better than that.” Zeta said. “Are we just gonna be here, or…?”

“Whatever you wanna do,” I said. “If you just wanna hang out in your new den and watch TV, or hang out up here, whatever is cool with me.”

“Alright…” I said.

I paced between the rooms, trying to look busy. I figured worst case Zeta would want to just hang out in her new den. I could say I tried but Zeta wasn’t feeling it. Stella would be mad and disappointed, and that would suck. I pictured her reaction way too clearly until Zeta shouted for me.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Dr. Diast, this is an emergency,” Zeta said, holding up her phone that had a mall’s website on it. “Well, not an emergency. But it’s urgent. They’re doing a giveaway for a limited-edition Raina Starlight hair clip. Well, there’s other stuff too, but that’s obviously not what I care about. Can you take me to LE so we can get it? It’s at the Twin Wolves mall!”

The event’s name threw me off a bit.

“Uh, this says it’s a Parent and Kid contest? Why is that trademarked?” I asked.

“Who knows?” Zeta said. “You just have to pretend to be my guardian! You’re guardian-ing right now, yeah? It won’t even be pretend! Then we can win! I’ll split my winnings with you, Dr. Diast. I’m keeping the Raina hair clip, obviously, but you can get the other stuff! It’s a prize pack!”

Zeta was quick to scheme when she wanted to, especially when Raina Starlight’s involved.

“I wouldn’t be opposed,” I said. “Your sister did show me the quickest road to LE that I somehow hadn’t figured out the whole time I’ve lived in this area.”

“Alright, we should probably go soon. Like now soon, if we can.” Zeta said. “They’re only giving away one hundred and fifty of these. So it’s either this or pay a super way-too-high rate online later.”

“Sure, yeah, we can go now.” I said.

This was actually perfect. Zeta had something she wanted, we had someplace to go, and an added super cool bonus of me getting to show off my guardian skills. Zeta told me all about the hair clip and the contest.

“Alright, just to make sure…” Zeta said, her voice deathly serious. “You’re the kind of Tower fan that’s cool with Arlit, right?”

“Arlit is probably the best character,” I said. I knew Arlit was Zeta’s favorite and was played by her beloved Raina Starlight, but even if I didn’t I’d still say that. Arlit was from a parallel future where her world was ruined and travels through all the timelines of the show no matter how many times they reset the universe and other dimensional shenanigans. “She always gets the best fights. She is a bit underused by the showrunners, though.”

“She is!” Zeta said. “But in a way, that adds to her cool factor.”

“Right! She’s not overexposed, so every time she shows up it’s always a big deal.” I said.

Zeta nodded, smirking.

We went to a store called Shafey’s at the mall. Shafey’s was a good place to go if you needed like name brand big brand nerdy junk. I spent a lot of money at Shafey’s in my teen years. I even got my prized jacket there, an incredibly dorky leather jacket with an anime print on the back that I thought was just the most badass thing imaginable. I wore that through most of my senior year.

There was a fairly large line outside Shafey’s.

“I really thought a bigger crowd would have formed already,” Zeta said. “This could work out greatly in our favor.”

“What do we have to do here?” I asked.

“We just have to get to the front and be parent and kid and we get two prize packs!” Zeta said, holding up two fingers to emphasize the amount of prize packs we’d be getting. “Oh, can I trade you the rest of my prize pack for the other Raina clip? I don’t want to sell it, I want Oka to have one, too.”

“Right, but…are they going to ask questions? Or something?” I asked. “Do they have to prove the whole parent thing? Like we're not gonna have to really prove that, are we?”

“Maybe?” Zeta said. “We got this, though.”

“Alright bud, let’s do this.” I said.

“Say bud a lot, or buddy when we get up there!” Zeta said. “That’s a total parent/guardian thing, right?”

“Sure.” I said.

“Sure, and?” I said. She put her hands on her hips.

“Sure, buddy.” I said.

"Yes!" Zeta said.

Right as we got our tickets, someone I desperately did not want to see in public passed by us.

“Oh, great,” I said.

“Huh? What’s wrong?” Zeta asked. “Is it bad to have the forty-seventh and forty-eighth spots?”

“Not that,” I said, trying to subtly hide myself. “Crap, he saw me.”

Zeta was on high alert as, well, a loser wizard approached us. Razmus Marne, technically employed at Rising Shards to teach some classes for the Cani students that would prefer their power lessons to be taught “magic style,” a dubious term for a brand of Cani that I beefed with mainly because of Marne. I didn’t have a problem with the whole wizard thing, but the Cani wizard-y schools of teaching cut a lot of corners and put kids in needless risky scenarios (which is saying something considering what most Cani students go through). And Marne’s a jerkass and a half so again, a lot of my disdain for that style of education was out of spite. Marne was with Arielle Roux, one of his pupils at school. They had matching t-shirts on. Roux I didn’t have a problem with, but Marne was doing the video game Tyrant Rangers a disservice by wearing an official shirt of it.

“Guh, should’ve looked away, sorry.” I said.

“Teacher, can you believe it?” Roux said after she finished counting.

“You did predict the numbers we needed would be familiar faces,” Razmus said. “Excellent use of your forseeing abilities, Arielle.”

I groaned. This was already miserable.

“You have the forty-seventh and forty-eighth spots in line.” Roux said, pointing at Zeta.

“Uh huh.” Zeta said.

“Give it to me.” Roux said.

“Give what to you?” Zeta said.

“Yeah, like we’re gonna give our spots up to you.” I said, realizing I sounded like a twelve-year-old, but Marne brought that out in me.

“There’s a Tyrant Rangers keychain in the prize pack.” Roux said.

“How does getting my spot in line affect you getting the keychain? Just go to the back?” Zeta asked. “It’s the same thing for all of them, right?”

“Mayhaps,” Razmus said. “But Arielle’s predictive powers have pontificated that we need to pursue the particular places in pl—"

“God, stop.” I said.

“There’s also a Raina Starlight hair clip.” Roux said.

“You think I don’t know that?” Zeta said, sounding more smug than I’d ever heard her. Using that kind of smugness against Marne had my approval. “Roux, do you even like Raina Starlight?”

“I tolerate her. She’s a mediocre actress but her books are good toilet reads.” Roux said.

I knew I should probably hold Zeta back after a dig about her favorite actor/novelist, but part of me wanted a tag team fight where we both took down Marne and his cohort.

“Listen Diast, we’re supposed to be the adults in the room here—” Marne said.

“Like you’ve done anything adultlike in the last, like, your whole life.” I said.

“Real mature, doctor,” Marne said. “I’d prefer if you could try to be a little more mature than the faculty event at that golf course a few years back.”

“How do you know about…?” I said, flashing back to the time someone spiked the lemonade at a teacher’s golf event and I got a little wild. OK, more than a little, it was humiliating. “Right, crap, you’re kind of staff…damn it.”

“Excellent,” Marne said. “I savor the flavor of your unfavorable memories.”

“I hate the way you’re talking even more than usual somehow,” I said. “But they’re only giving away fifty of these hairpins or whatever and because I’m such a great teacher I’m helping my student get one, so can you just go to the back, maybe?”

“It’s a hundred and fifty,” Zeta said. “Wait, did you two get ticket things?”

“Yeah.” Roux said.

“What numbers are yours?” Zeta asked.

“One hundred and thirteen, and one hundred and fourteen.” Roux said. “The Tyrant Rangers keychain is only in the first fifty.”

“Alright,” Zeta sighed. “Dr. Diast, let’s trade.”

“What?” I hissed. We couldn’t cave in now. “But…”

“We might lose out…but there’s a better chance of us still getting the Raina clips than them getting the keychains.” Zeta said. “And if we trade, they’ll leave us alone.”

I was ready to be angry, but Zeta was right. “You’re freaking lucky, Marne.”

After a trade, we were free of Marne at least. But we were a bit back.

“So that’s a good sign,” I said, seeing some parents and their kids leaving with big prize bags. “They must not need a lot for this parent and kid test if this line’s going this quick.”

I got a bit jittery as we approached the line. Part of me was like, if some random Shafey’s person doesn’t see me as Zeta’s guardian, what hope did I have? Another part of me was like: are you a fucking idiot? That’s so stupid. If Shafey’s employees don’t see it, then I would just have to take even better care of Zeta. We reached the front of the line.

“So, you two parent and kid?” An employee asked as they took our tickets.

“Yep!” Zeta said.

“This here’s my girl.” I said, unsure why my voice came out in a weird accent. “Right, buddy?” Zeta responded in the affirmative.

“Cool, here you go,” they handed us two prize packs.

“We won!” Zeta cheered as we left. I was powerwalking a bit because I didn’t want to run into Marne again. “Well, there wasn’t much to win, but. Still! Congrats to us!”

“And that was just free?” I asked. “Is Shafey’s owned by people from Haven?” Haven’s bizarre economy made no sense to anyone, but they were big fans of big giveaways so it was nice when I was able to take advantage of that.

“Maybe,” Zeta said. She squealed when she found her beloved Raina Starlight merch. “The hair clips! What else is in there…?”

I dug through my prize bag to give Zeta her other Raina hair clip. Then I noticed something strange.

“We also won…tickets to a mat ball game?” I said.

“Oh.” Zeta said.

“It’s actually for today,” I said, reading the ticket that felt like it had been very recently printed. “In an hour or so. Do…you wanna go to it?”

“We did…win it?” Zeta said.

Marne and Roux were up ahead. I very much did not want to talk to them again, so I told Zeta to hang tight as I got some water bottles from a vending machine. I wasn’t sure what we’d do next, so I left it up to Zeta.

“So, what’s the game plan, buddy?” I asked when I got back.

“Let’s…” Zeta said, tilting her head to the side. “Go to a mat ball game?”