Rising Shards

Once we were back home, I had to adjust to the sudden climate shift. In the void, the weather could be anything, and generally vastly different than whatever it was outside of it. While it was a chilly, start of winter day at home, we had just left what felt like a burning summer day.

“So we probably don’t need ice cubes now, huh?” Kalei said. “Lillia, you wanna get some fire breath going to warm us up? Together, we can be the team’s thermostat.”

“I’d rather not.” Lillia said.

“Or, Zates! You do weather, make it rain to make it less cold out here!” Kalei said.

“I’m good here.” I said, nuzzling into my scarf.

“Is it wrong to be jealous of a scarf?” Oka asked.

“And there’s our newest check for ‘things Oka didn’t have to say out loud, but did anyways,’” Kalei said.

“Shut up.” Oka said. “So Kalei, what was the thing you wanted to talk about?”

“Right, I said after class,” Kalei said. “Which I guess is now? Or after we’re back? Someone stop me from talking forever here, please.”

“Maybe you should just gather your words before you try again,” Lillia said.

“Right, good plan,” Kalei said. “But before I do, like you guys will help right?”

“It’s not like you need help with something illegal, is it?” Oka asked.

“No, I just want your help talking about something.” Kalei said.

“Sure, I’ll do my best to help!” I said.

“I can as well.” Lillia said.

I expected Lillia and Oka to leave for play practice, but they continued walking with us even past the auditorium.

“You guys forget something?” Kalei asked.

“No practice this week!” Oka said. “Which seems like it’d probably be an issue after we just had a week off, and just had our rehearsal, but I personally could use a break after said rehearsal. Plus…I can spend some more time with…” Oka looked at me and started giggling again.

“You really did a number on her.” Kalei said, lightly yanking my tail.

“Hey, quit it!” I said.

“Just keeping you in the moment so you don’t get all gooey and busted like Oka here.” Kalei said.

“Luckily, we’re in the spring play.” Lillia said. “The winter group has their performances later this week, so they need the auditorium.”

“Weren’t you part of that one?” I asked. “You told me a while ago you had a performance in winter.”

“I was mostly on the crew,” Lillia said. “Once club signups began, I was able to actually join one as a main actor.”

“So they just kick you guys out for the week? How do you trade off with two plays?” I asked.

“The winter one is much smaller scale; they typically rehearse in the smaller auditorium on campus.”

“There’s a smaller auditorium?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s near the choir room,” Lillia said. “We’re allowed to observe if we’d like, but…”

“But I need some friend time!” Oka said.

“You guys are still on about theater, huh?” Kalei said.

“It’s all a distraction so I can…” Oka said. She started to reach out like she was about to attack Lillia. "Hup!"

But she held her hand out in a martial arts-like pose near Oka’s throat. “Counter. Kill shot.”

“No, you saw right through me!” Oka said. “But I won’t be defeated.” Oka smacked Lillia’s hand away and did a similar martial arts-y faux attack to Lillia. “Counter! Hup! Kill shot!”

It seemed to get Oka out of her daze about the prior night, which was bittersweet. I didn’t want to interfere with whatever they were doing, so I checked my phone. And promptly realized I had been forgetting something all day.

“Crap, it’s Stella’s first day!” I said. “Do you guys wanna go say hi?”

I had plenty of memories of libraries with Stella. I think her always working at a library made me less interested in checking out books, but I didn’t have any bad memories visiting her. For example, when I was probably seven or eight, my babysitter had a family situation they had to deal with so they took me to the library (or that was just their excuse to drop me off, I never saw them again so I couldn’t verify). I marched up to the front desk, luckily when she was stationed out there.

“Zeta, what are you doing here?” Stella asked.

I plopped my hand on the counter.

“Coin for the fountain please,” I said. At the library she worked at when I was around seven or eight there was a big fountain in the center of the main room. “I would like to make a wish.”

“Why’d the babysitter bring you…?” Stella asked.

“You should’ve gotten Pippi, she doesn’t want to go anywhere.” I said.

“And she’s a lot cheaper…” Stella muttered. “But she was busy, and…where is the babysitter, again?”

“They said they had a family situation, so they brought me here!” I said. “They said they sent you a message.”

Stella sighed, looking to the back room behind the front desk. “My phone’s…and they just dropped you off here? There’s still a lot of my shift to go…”

“Aren’t ya happy to see me?” I asked, twirling around. “And coin please. Wish! Need to make!”

“If I let you make a wish, can you please just go find a book to read, and stay in sight of me?” Stella asked, dangling a coin above me.

“Fiiiiine,” I said. “But I won’t check it out, so I’ll have to finish it here!”

Stella had a similar reaction as I approached the front desk at Rising Shards’ main library, my luck at catching her on desk shifts continuing years later. She was currently working through a pile of books she was checking in. The library wasn’t busy, so I didn’t feel like I’d be hogging the front of the line or anything if I chatted with Stella for a bit.

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” Stella said. “There’s no fountain in this library, so you can’t ask me for coins.”

“There’s a fountain outside!” I said, optimistically holding my hand out.

“No.”

“Fine,” I said. “How’s your first day going?”

“Oh, nothing I can’t handle,” Stella said. “It’s actually been quite refreshing here compared to the last one.”

I was about to ask Stella to rank all the libraries she worked at, but Oka suddenly darted towards the maze of shelves.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I told Stella I was waiting to check a book out until it was her that…” Oka kept talking as she moved further into the shelves, but I couldn’t hear her clearly.

“There’s something I was thinking of checking out as well.” Lillia said, heading towards a different section of the library.

“Now I can observe who the readers are in your friend group, and who the non-readers are.” Stella said.

"I read like. Sports autobiographies." Kalei said. "There's a beam chasers player that's writing one so you guys better have that when she finishes."

"It seems like they keep up with new releases, I could put you down for a hold early if you want," Stella said. "So that's three readers out of four then."

“I read plenty!” I said. “You know how I am about renting versus owning books.”

“Sure, sure,” Stella said.

“Hey, since your sister’s here,” Kalei said. “I think I can ask something that sets up the other things I wanna ask.”

“Hm?” I said. “Since Stella’s…?”

“You can ask her permission,” Kalei said. “Because I think I don’t wanna talk about the things I wanna talk about here. I’ll ask the others too, but do you…wanna have a sleepover or something at my house this weekend?”