Rising Shards

“Visiting 09”

“Man, you guys are really keeping to this, huh?” Kalei said as we approached the Kanibari dorms.

“Twice a day!” Oka said. “I told Zeta she only had to come with to one of them. But because I have an awesome girlfriend, she’s been coming with me to both visits.”

As part of the messy situation with the Sharai Daggers, 09 had been transformed into a wolflike creature. If I told myself at the start of the semester that I’d eventually be meeting with my girlfriend’s clybrid cousin twice a day because she got herself turned into a werewolf, I probably would have handled hearing a lot of that poorly. But even just a few months at Rising Shards had me more prepared for out there premises.

“Zates, are you getting all proud of yourself for not freaking out about this?” Kalei asked.

“Are you…a mind reader?” I asked.

“You just make really obvious expressions.” Kalei shrugged. “Wait, damn, could I have convinced you I actually could read minds?”

“Probably.” I admitted.

“I am immediately regretting telling the truth.” Kalei said. “Anyways, I was gonna say don’t get too prideful about this, I saw you getting ready to run away from that new sign they put up. A sign, Zates.”

“The font was really weird, OK? It was unsettling!” I said.

A large section of the Kanibari wing was dedicated to students whose animal sides got the better of them. Apparently when Oka, Kalei, and I got Feral Flu, we didn’t have it bad enough to end up in this wing. 09 and Ovie were in the area for Cani who transformed fully into an animal and couldn’t turn back yet. I got major pet store vibes, with the added creepy factor knowing that all the animals either staring at us or running around in their pens were classmates. Visiting twice a day didn’t make the creep factor go away.

Seeing 09 and Ovie transformed into wolfish animals was better than seeing them as the monstrosities the Sharai Daggers turned them into. Their wolf forms had lean bodies and bright, long fur. I wasn’t sure if they were capable of recognizing us in this form, but Ovie refused to get close to us, opting to stay sitting in her dog bed.

“Hey Ovie.” Kalei said, leaning over the clear guardrail separating us from them. “You know what I could call you now and it’d fit even better? A bi—” She stopped herself, as though her own voice tasted sour. “Eh…I’m not feeling it. Get back to normal soon, I guess.”

09 always rushed over to see Oka, and I had to try not to cry each time, because there was something so deeply sad about all of this. Oka gave 09 head pats, and I stood there never sure of what to do.

“It’s kinda strange,” Oka said, scratching 09 behind her ear. “I only kinda felt like 09 was family before. But when she ended up like this, I feel like I have to be here to support my family.”

“I’m glad you are, Oka!” Principal Penteldtam said, snapping his suspenders to announce his presence.

“Oh…hi, Principal Penteldtam,” Oka asked. “How are you holding up with all this?”

“To be honest, pretty gosh dang poorly,” Penteldtam said. “I’m pretty stressed about the whole Recreant whatever planning. Wildfire Hearts kids will be here, Kitty...we gotta move stuff around in these dorms…oh, you were probably asking about 09, huh?”

“What clued you off there?” Oka asked.

“Just a hunch,” Penteldtam said. “I can’t help but feel I was maybe slightly, like maybe at least a teaspoon, maybe more, irresponsible in relation to this whole 09 situation here and perhaps I maybe should have worried a little bit instead of just assuming it’d work out fine. Because she’s a wolf right now and that’s. Probably bad, you think? That reflects rather poorly on me, huh? Ah, heh…” He rolled his sleeves up to scratch his forearms, which had bite marks on them.

“Was that from 09?” I asked.

“Oh no I snuck into a puzzle zoo, that one’s on me.” Penteldtam said.

“’A’ puzzle zoo?” Kalei said.

“Yeppers. That puzzle zoo that had a few more guard dogs than I was anticipating.”

Sensing our time with 09 would end up a discussion about whatever the heck a puzzle zoo was, we kept this meeting short.

“Marmalade's Apologies”

Right before a workout in gym class as we waited for Krangel to get the speakers working to play the class picked playlist, I had a brief moment of panic as I looked at the ribbon on my ring finger, which for a second looked like it might be swelling.

“These ribbons aren’t gonna like significantly cut off circulation in our fingies, are they?” I asked.

“I don’t think they’re tied tight enough,” Oka said. “If they fall off, maybe pocket em?”

“Do we have to recharge the spell each time we put them on?” I asked.

“Probably not,” Oka said. “But I wanna.”

“Wanna take them off and put em on again right now so we can do the interlock our ring fingers deal again?” I suggested.

“Very much so.” Oka said.

After we did that, I noticed Marmalade stood near us with her fingers clasped.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I dunno if now’s the best time,” Marmalade said. “But I’m really sorry. Again. Thank you for convincing me not to ruin everything with the daggers and junk.”

This was about the fourth or fifth time Marmalade had apologized to me about the Sharai Daggers. She even apologized to Kalei two or three times in there, since one of the apologizes was back in the dorms.

“It was pretty dumb of you yeah,” Kalei said, coming up behind her and patting her back. “But the way I see it is we all have dumbass things we do regularly. I average, hm, say about two real dumb as bricks moments a week. Zates gets about three a day.”

“Hey!” I said.

“Oh, but what about that thing on your shirt?” Oka said. “That’s pretty dumb.”

“Huh?” Kalei said, looking down. We all had our gym uniforms on, that had plain white shirts with green bands on the collar and sleeves. “There isn’t anything on my—” Oka flicked her nose.

“Heh.” Oka smirked. “Gotcha!”

Kalei started cackling once she realized she’d been had. “Oh my god. I guess that’s one for me this week. See Marms? We all get dumb sometimes. Just part of growing up. Or whatever.”

Marmalade sighed, looking relieved.

“Now I know Zates and Oaks won’t be able to keep up, but once Krangel gets the music going and we can start our laps, I bet you can’t match me in how many times around we uh, we go. To do laps.”

“You’re on.” Marmalade said.