Rising Shards

My parents brought me to a storage room (there were like twelve rooms in this hotel) where they gestured to a waist high console. At its base were a bunch of cylinders with copper wires on them, and other various kinds of metal plates and machinery. There were two cylinders that were made of a thick greenish plastic that was somewhat translucent, and I could see liquid inside of them. On top of it was a small computer screen with a keyboard.

“This bad boy is how we get around in the void,” Dad said. “We had it set to keep us all together if a void storm hit, but it malfunctioned the day of the storm.”

“So you can’t just use this thing to go home?” I asked.

“Doesn’t work like that,” Dad said. “But it can take you to any of our homes in the void.”

“Huh.” I said. "Hey, I just remembered too...so that Kathron sword I used...that was a retention sprite, or part of..." I furrowed my brow in confusion as I realized I started talking without knowing what I was really about to say. "Do you still have the real one, then?"

Dad shrugged. "It's a long story, but I haven't had it for a long time. We've been looking, though. A lot of history with that blade, but unfortunately that history means a lot of people want it."

"Whoa," I said. "Are you guys on the run from bad guys or something? Wow, I sounded like a ten-year-old there, but! That's really cool!"

"Yep, when you've been around these parts as long as we have, it's easy to build a list of people who want to fight you." Dad said. "But they're nothing we can't handle, so don't worry."

"Wow..." I said, my eyes sparkling. 

"That's another thing that's good about this device," Dad said, patting the machine. "Keeps the bad guys from getting close to us."

I tried to picture the 'bad guys' that would be after my parents. In my head, I saw the drone robots that were made by Wildfire Hearts. Like a version of those by some even more evil conglomerate in the void, that my parents always outsmarted and beat in fights. "Does this like shoot out lasers that stops them from getting close?"

"Kind of!" Dad said. "Now, it may take a bit to explain exactly how it keeps them away, but the emitter fields—"

“Alright tech brain, food’s getting cold,” Mom said. “Unless you want our daughter’s first dinner back to be lukewarm food.”

“Fine fine, I’ll subject her to my techie hobbies later,” Dad said. “And you can subject her to your stories.”

We headed back to the dining room. I thought I heard the machine clang, but it was just a big vent behind it, probably the heating warming up or something.

“Hey now, Zeta always liked listening to my stories,” Mom said. “And I’m pretty sure you started falling for me when I told the group fables on those lonely nights on that dried lakebed.”

“The group?” I asked. “Dried…lakebed?”

“It’s a long story,” Dad said. “One your mother should tell, because she’s an expert on legends. As long as I’ve known her, she’s known these old stories, and she wouldn’t hesitate to tell them even when we barely knew each other.”

“That’s great!” I said. “I really like fables too. But more modern-y ones? I don’t know if you’ve heard of Raina Starlight, but she’s my favorite. Favorite writer, actor, all that stuff.”

“Can’t say I’ve heard of her,” Mom said. “But your father and I met when we were exiled from our home. Our group didn’t talk much until we reached this dried lakebed. I thought my stories would lighten the mood a bit.”

“They did.” Dad said.

“What’d you get exiled for?” I asked after taking another big bite, which was probably bad manners on my part.

“An accident,” Dad said. “One caused by horrendous event planning, but that’s neither here nor there. The important thing is that…we didn’t do it.”

Mom and Dad laughed, and I laughed with them. It was maybe the first time the three of us laughed together like that. It made me wish Stella could be here, too. The missing Faleur in this situation.

“Stella’s doing great, by the way,” I said. “I can’t believe I didn’t say that earlier.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Dad said, smiling faintly.

I hoped Stella wasn’t a sore subject. I figured that only being reunited with one of your kids may be tough to go through. I didn’t want to bring the mood down with my dumbness, so I tried to think of something happy to talk about next.

“I just remembered too; Kiki misses you!” I said. “I don’t know if you remember her, but I was at Vita Coa, and the Exumi there all were talking about you. And you were also there because of the retention sprite.”

That seemed to bring them both back from wherever their distant looks had taken them.

“Vita Coa is like our second home,” Mom said.

“You were there too, Mom?” I asked, finding a quiet elation in being able to say ‘Mom’ to her for the first time. “I didn’t see the name Octa in the cave…”

“The cave?” Mom asked.

“Oh, when I was at Vita Coa, there was this whole big thing with an Elka wave from…” My first thought was ‘my ex,’ but that’d take too long to explain. “I had to fight some people. And I got swept into this cave of Elka that had statues of, well it had Dad for sure, and some others. I don’t remember their names, but I don’t remember seeing an Octa there.”

Dad looked at Mom and smiled.

“What?” I asked, grinning.

“She was there with me; it was a whole thing with her name.” Dad said. “Any ‘Anastasia’ you see etched on Vita Coa is her.”

“Anastasia is my middle name,” Octa said. “The Exumi found it easier to etch that for some reason than Octa.”

“I see…” I said. “So wait, did you not take dad’s last name? That would make you Octa Anastasia Faleur, right? That phrasing sounds so weird, sorry. Sorry, Mom, ah heh…”

Mom looked like I force fed her something sour. Dad had a stone face, not giving me anything to go by. I blinked a lot, stared at my food and back to them a few times until it was clear I had to speak next.

“Isn’t Faleur your maiden name?” I asked.

Another pause.

“…Faleur?” Mom said.

“Uh.” I said.

“My maiden name is Tarian,” Mom said. “That must be a Stella…” She trailed off. “My last name is Kathron now. Yours is too, at least that’s what’s on your birth certificate.”

I suddenly felt kind of sick.

“But don’t worry about that now,” Dad said. “The important thing is that you’re here with us.”

In the last few hours, I learned that my parents actually existed and were still alive, somehow tracked them down, and now my last name was apparently a lie. I was still too proud I actually went through with going after them, and too excited to finally meet my parents to process anything deeply yet, but there was a voice in the back of my mind softly wondering how much this was going to hit when it caught up with me.

And as I just barely started to think about my name legally being Zeta Kathron, Mom asked me something that felt like getting cold water dumped down my back.

“So, do you have a boyfriend yet?”

I laughed nervously. Even though it felt like I’d just been hit in the head. I blinked as my vision felt like it lurched away from my body. It was just a simple question, why was I reacting like this? I knew why, but didn’t want to admit it.

They’re my parents. They’ll be supportive.

The small voice in the back of my head whispered again. They said the right name when I first showed up. But...how... I locked it away again. How did that pesky thought get out there, anyways? I had nothing to worry about. They knew me. They'd love me for being me.

They carried on with their dinner. I hoped my quietness as I formed an answer in my head didn’t upset them.

“I don’t,” I said. “I don’t have a boyfriend, I mean.”

They nodded. I could’ve left that there, but that didn’t feel right. Oka was one of the most important people in my life, and I couldn’t just lie about her by omitting her here.

“But I am seeing someone.” I said.

Mom and Dad stopped eating and stared at me in confusion.

“Her name’s Oka. She’s really great.” I said. “She helped me through so much, and she’s really funny and smart and…”

They both continued staring at me blankly, which felt like I just admitted to being a serial killer or something.

“And…yeah.” I said.

“Hm.” Dad said before continuing to eat.

I didn’t realize a ‘hm’ could hurt like that. That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for. Mom didn’t say anything or react in any way.

I suddenly felt very sick.

My heart pounded for the rest of the meal. My mind was a mix of fogginess and overt alertness. I may have talked more about nothings that didn’t matter to fill the air, but I was too foggy to remember.

“Here, let me get your plate,” Dad said once I finished. Mom followed him into the kitchen. I sat there, feeling like I was about to really freak out. The kitchen was fairly close, only divided by the dining room by one of those island things. My parents stood over the sink, cleaning plates. They were trying to be quiet, but I could still hear them a bit from where I sat.

“Maybe…just a phase.” Mom said. “Stella went…same thing.”

“Well, we’ve definitely…suitable bachelors on...” Dad said. “When she’s through this phase…we can start...”

“Think it’s time for…?”

I scooted my chair back, mostly on reflex. They heard my chair move and turned around before I could stand up.

“Hey, I think I have to go, actually.” I said. “It’s just getting late, and I didn’t really tell anyone I was going..."

“Oh, but you just got here,” Mom said. “Do you have a way back home?”

“I, uh, yes.” I said, cursing myself for letting 09 just leave me here without a way back. I suddenly cursed myself for a lot of things, because in rushing my way to this moment, I felt like I had sunk into boiling water without realizing it. Boiling water that was already at my shoulders, and now steadily rising.