Rising Shards

Ovie couldn’t remember the first few days of being stuck as a wolf. But when the third day hit, it was like waking up from a dream. Or coming to halfway through a nightmare when she saw her own reflection, and looked down at her transformed self. The moments after she and 09 used the Sharai Daggers on each other was foggy as well. Whatever she had done, she ended up losing. What that meant for her and Jeans, she had no idea.

She tried not to dwell on it, focusing on trying to make herself go back to normal. 

Because being stuck like this was boring. Boring beyond belief. 

Mentally telling herself to change back wasn’t working. Nothing she tried really was.

Whenever one of the doctors or staffers showed up, she hopped up, trying to get something to write with from them, but they were too moronic to understand her intent.

“Pen! A pen! Give me a pen!”

Ovie wished she could hop the gate when Zeta Faleur and Oka Ohri visited to see 09. She daydreamed about practicing her new teeth on their arms or ankles.

One day, she was bored enough that she paid more attention to 09 than she had been.

“09, if you have some kind of mental link, say something,” Ovie thought, staring at 09. “If you can hear me but can’t speak back, blink twice. Three times, maybe. Hello?”

No response.

“Ugh, of course. We go through all that and we don’t even get like a stupid mental link or something.”

“That’s rude,” 09’s voice rang way too clearly in her mind.

“So you were able to hear all of that this whole time?”

“Only what you just said to me now, actually,” 09 said. “You’re loud even in your thoughts.”

“I better not have a mental link with you when we’re back to normal. You can’t read my thoughts past what I ‘say,’ right?”

“I can just hear you, yes.”

Having someone to talk to actually did help. The next stretch as a wolf wasn’t so bad, even if 09 was generally annoying. 

“You’re lucky. At least your family visits.”

Ovie said after the latest embarrassing visit from a sobbing Principal Penteldtam. Even Chellsi and Mikeila-Keila didn’t cry as much as he did when they visited.

“I’m sorry your family doesn’t…” 09 said, her ears drooping backwards.

“It’s nothing…” Ovie scoffed and went to her corner, but 09 dopily followed.

“I wonder if we need some kind of trigger to go back to normal,” 09 said. “Or if we just need time. Maybe one of us needs to be the other’s Prince Qualdrix.”

“Prince Qualdrix is like the worst fairy tale ever conceived.” Ovie said.

“You’ve heard of it?” 

09 looked so stupidly happy that it kind of pissed Ovie off more.

“Of course I have.” Ovie said. “I had this big book of fairy tales when I was a baby.”

“What other stories did it have?”

Ovie knew that if she kept going, this was all they’d talk about for the rest of the day. But it wasn’t like she had anything better to do.