Rising Shards

I had to really rush to get to Dr. Diast's office. I hoped she wouldn't be mad if I was late. As I arrived there, Laenie was leaving the teacher's area of the school.

"Hi Zeta!" Laenie said. 

"Hi Laenie," I said. "Did you just get done with your meeting with Dr. Diast?"

"Oh, are you meeting with Diast too? Oh...hm." Laenie suddenly looked concerned.

"What?" I asked.

"N-nothing!" Laenie said and ran past me.

Putting that weirdness aside, I knocked on Dr. Diast’s office door, which was opened a crack. My knock pushed it open, and I could see Diast working on her computer. The floor was covered in empty energy drinks and Hogrus Snak Pak wrappers in just about every variety possible.

“Uh, Dr. Diast?” I asked.

“Oh, hold on, let me clear a path for you.” Diast said.

Diast waved her hand, and the pile of cans spread to the sides, leaving a neat (if a little sticky) path for me to make it to her desk. As soon as I stepped forward, the pile of cans went back, avalanching together again. Diast directed me to the comfy chair near her desk. It kinda felt like how I imagined going to a therapist would be like.

“What’s new, Zates?” Dr. Diast asked.

“I dunno,” I said. “Everything kind of feels like a lot right now.”

“Yeah, you’ve been keeping busy,” Diast said. “How’d that fight with Laenie go?”

“You heard about that?” I asked.

“I got my eyes on you,” Diast said. “Anything you do…I’m watching. Well, not really. Laenie told me everything just now. She was very specific about the parts she was conscious for. You almost fought Ovie too, huh?”

“Yeah…” I said. “I’m not in trouble for that, am I?”

“School protocol for non-raging-Exa-Cani fights is a day of in school suspension,” Diast said. “But since your fight never really started, I’ll let this one slide.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I know Ovie’s a pain to you, but try to not let her get in your head.” Diast said. “I assume that’s not what’s got you so mopey though.” She had my school account up on her computer. “Your void training’s going good, you’re on track with the Benta, Fang Fair is coming up, but you turned in your concept draft already…”

I gripped my arms.

“I don’t really get anything right now,” I said. “And I think it’s throwing off my school focus.”

“What aren’t you getting?” Diast asked. “I mean that in a like, inquisitive ‘what can I help teach you’ rather than a more accusatory ‘what you don’t get it?’ jerk teacher kind of thing.”

“I can barely use any powers," I said. "I don’t think I really have any special Cani gifts or whatever. I suck at fighting so I’m gonna suck at this void monster fighting thing in the temple. I'm scared about all these jump fifteens I still have to watch, too. Also, is it just me, or are there a lot of spots in the school where the floor is super sticky all of a sudden? Like, movie theater sticky. This is what I keep thinking about when I’m supposed to be doing homework or catching up on readings about Cani fonts…”

“That’s a lot,” Diast said. “Lemme see if I can break it down.”

Diast put a little whiteboard up that she had been listing things on.

“Let’s start with the void,” Diast said. “We’re through half of the pod's memory trials now so we’re doing really good there. I am working on fixing whatever the Wildfire Hearts jerks messed up making your temple so the burden isn't so much on you to be there for the rest of those memory trial/jump fifteen deals. You’re gonna do fine when the real big fights start. I know it doesn’t always seem like it, but this void stuff is pretty regulated. Once those training wheels come off and you start really discovering that place, you’ll be feeling a lot better about your own skills. I can’t help you with the stickiness, that could be a Cani with sticky powers and I don’t want to think about what those would be." Diast exhaled. "I know that

“OK…” I said.

To be honest, I wasn’t particularly feeling too stressed about the Benta that day. It was all the crush, and the Benta stress and class stress were just scapegoats.

“I know that look,” Diast said. “What did I ask last time we met?”

“I should be focusing on things I can control,” I said.

“So what should you focus on then?” Diast asked.

“My classwork, probably,” I said. “The Benta…”

“And?”

“And…nothing else?” I said.

“Nope.” I lied.

“How about like your social life, or some hobbies?” Diast said. “You sound like you could maybe use some friend time that isn’t school related.”

“R-right.” I said, nodding a bit too eagerly to hide a gulp that practically betrayed my reaction to her saying ‘friend time’. It was a stretch to think she’d piece together me reacting weird to that to ‘Zeta has a crush on her best friend and roommate and is really scared,’ but crushes didn’t operate in that kind of logic.

“Take it easy, alright?” Diast said. “If anything else comes up, you can talk to me.”

I felt bad about not telling Diast about the big stressor, I could tell she was basically telling me when I was ready to talk about it I could go to her. But I wasn’t even ready to think about it.

I felt very drained at the end of the day, and hoped I wasn’t coming down with a cold. I had a theory that my emotional state during Phase One of a crush made me more susceptible to colds and my warm face had me thinking a cold was next.

I expected to wake up with a stuffy nose and a fever, but I felt fine. I did however enter the land of the waking with that feeling of something fuzzy tickling against my forehead again. Using the reflex typically reserved only for doctors trying to swab my throat when I had a throat infection, my arms shot forward and grabbed ahead. My hands gripped something fuzzy, and stranger yet, something that I could feel. Groggily, I blinked, trying to comprehend what I was looking at. I pulled on it, and it hurt. I yelled loud enough that Kalei and Oka woke up screaming too. 

They stared at me with shocked looks on their faces, and it was like my fangs coming in all over again. Except this time, we all stared in varying states of confusion at what I held as I traced it down to my lower back. Instead of fangs coming in, this time I woke up with a tail.