Rising Shards

Our pod tended to adventure together for the in-void class. We had a recon mission that day, so we had to walk around the field of flowers in the main place we trained and fought monsters and had to note any really strong looking ones we found. Dr. Diast was with us, leading us along a dirt path. I kept sneaking glances over to Zeta, watching intently as she tied her hair up. The blue sky and rolling clouds were the background to her hair styling, and it was a lovely sight. Even better when she turned my way and smiled.

Alright, I know I said enough diary entries, but there was another one that came to mind seeing that smile. I wrote it the day prior, actually, because we were doing similar void work in the same spot, with the same sky illuminating Zeta.

Heart soaring, happy as the sky

I dunno what that means. But it’s what I’m feeling right now. Dr. Sier kept reminding me that I’m allowed to be happy. He really wants to help me unlearn pretty much everything I learned at Tesata, starting with the negative and toxic mental health business they inflicted on me.

Sometimes it’s embarrassing. I don’t know like, anything. All the textbooks they had were really out of date (even being raised there for so long, I figured as much and could tell when they were trying to keep modern advancements away from us, even if I had little idea of what those advancements were). 

Well, anyways. Instead of talking about Tesata crap right now, I want to talk about why my heart is soaring, happy as the sky. I’m really fond of Zeta’s smile. I’m not sure why exactly. I really like her fangs, I think. But the mouth part of the smile is nice too. The way her whole face lights up. I really like when I make her smile, because that smile that makes me really happy is almost connected to me, then. Like I caused that smile. Is that egotistical to think?

I felt that soaring heart as I walked with Zeta. The rest of our pod (Kalei, Laenie, Aira, Lillia, and the aforementioned Dr. Diast, to be specific) was all there, but I mainly focused on Zeta. This could be my chance to satisfy my craving to get to know more about this girl. Classmates didn’t have anything, but surely Zeta herself would! I just had to think of something dang good to ask. And something that she didn’t think was really weird. I had to ask something about her subtly, to not make it seem like I was interrogating her or something.

“Hi,” I said. This was not a question at all. This was a greeting, which was likely very weird to do toward the end of a school day.

“Uh, hi!” Zeta said.

“I…hi.” This wasn’t going well. Making things worse, I was utterly failing at starting a conversation with the rest of our pod nearby. Kalei had her hands clasped behind her head, stretching with her elbows out. Keeping that pose, she turned around, and I braced for another Kalei Koridia zinger about what a dork I was, which would be a damper on my soaring feeling. She looked back and forth between us, like a shark deciding on which prey would be tastier first. Kalei’s funny, don’t get me wrong, she’s maybe the funniest person I’ve ever met, but when she’s in roast mode, it can be tough to handle.

“It’s interesting,” Kalei said. I was doomed already. If she didn’t say anything I had a chance. But if she started a joke verbally, especially with some baiting sentence starter like "It's interesting," it was over for me.

“What is?” Zeta asked.

“Watching two alien lifeforms attempt communication.” Kalei said.

“Hey, shut up!” Zeta said. She pouted.

Kalei licked her fangs and grinned before whirling back around, feeling satisfied with her zinger. I wanted to turn this around. Surely we could do better than just saying hi to each other conversation wise. I had a whole “how to converse” class at Tesata, after all. That mostly consisted of trying to teach me 'to be obedient to people who were more important than me' in a conversation, but I digress.

“We’re totally not aliens trying to…yeah.” I said.

“Totally not!” Zeta agreed.

“Which…hang on.” I said. “I mean, we’re capable…of…”

“We can communicate just fine!” Zeta said.

“Keep telling yourselves that.” Kalei said.

“Whatever,” Zeta said. “We’re gonna have such good communication right now, you won’t even believe it!”

I got excited hearing that. Maybe like way too excited. My stomach did a flip but like an excited flip? It was awesome. Zeta’s awesome. She turned back to me, her mouth slightly open and her brow furrowed, as if she were silently asking me to talk next.

“Yeah!” I said. “I’ll start! I’ve been thinking…”

It was up to me now to start this communication and prove that we weren’t aliens trying desperately to communicate good. Or communicate well? I had taken center stage, and it was time for me to give my lines. For some reason, my first thought was to say, “I want to pet your hair.”

Now, Zeta’s hair is very pretty, and one could not blame me for wanting to pet it. She has long, pretty hair that in just my few weeks at Rising Shards, I’d seen how much care she put into making sure her hair was the proper amount of pretty. She had a long brushing routine that seemed to be the bulk of the effort. I almost asked her if I could feel her hair, but held my tongue. Something prevented me from telling Zeta I wanted to pet her gorgeous long hair. Ugh, I bet it’s so soft too. I blurted out the next thing that entered my thoughts.

“What do you like?” I asked. “I mean, like what stuff? Do you like?”

This was not my best work as far as speaking went.

“What do I like?” Zeta said, basically repeating what I said in question form. Which I guess wasn’t much of an answer? But it was something. We were communicating! And I would surely learn things about her from my question! Maybe I was a genius after all!

“Cute first date going on here.” Kalei turned back, slightly grinning. I hated being in her line of sight. Couldn’t she goof on anyone else for just two seconds?

“Shut up!” Zeta said, kicking dirt from the path kind of Kalei’s way. She immediately kicked up too much dirt accidentally, making a poofy cloud of red dust blowing around us. “Oh crap. Sorry.”

“Way to go, Zates,” Kalei snickered, the dirt floating around completely missing her. "I'm sure these sediment samples will be appreciated when you guys are back on the spaceship reporting to the alien base."

“Whatever!” Zeta said. “Maybe I wanted to do that! To, uh, put space between us! So there!”

“Suuuuure you did.” Kalei said.

“Kalei, can you shut up a bit?” Dr. Diast suggested. “I have a killer headache, and I’m not in the mood for your snark today.”

“Oh?” Kalei said, her shark-like senses shifting to a new target. If it were any other teacher, I’d assume they were inadvertently becoming the target of the snark-shark herself. But I’d been in regular contact with Dr. Diast since I left Tesata, and I knew already she was pretty crafty and aware of her students. I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but there was a good chance she was taking the heat on this so Kalei would leave me and Zeta alone. Thank you for your sacrifice, Dr. Diast, I thought to myself. As Kalei immediately started goofing on Diast, I knew I had to make the most of this opportunity.