Rising Shards

Stella hadn’t fully processed seeing the picture Zeta brought back from their parents of the sisters when they were younger. The idea of the picture had brought Zeta slight comfort during the ordeal with their parents, but it was just another part of their scheme, and the photo was some kind of fabrication. So to cope with the complicated feelings from that, she was looking through a photo album with some genuinely real pictures. 

Stella zoned out on the living room recliner as she stared at a picture of herself and Zeta together when their parents were around, a rare find in her collection that she kept well hidden, until Evy sat on one of the armrests.

“I cannot believe how adorable you were back then,” Evy said. “Still cute now, but what a precious little behbeh.”

Stella snorted. Evy put an arm around Stella and started rocking the chair with a foot.

“I hope I’m not interrupting a nice flashback or something,” Evy said. “I always hate when that happens.”

“Nah, you’re fine,” Stella said. “I’m a lot happier now.”

“Here, one second.” Evy said, getting up before Stella could say anything besides a disappointed whimper that Evy wasn’t as close. She went into their room, and Stella could hear her searching through one of the closets.

“Evy?” Stella called out after her partner hadn’t returned for a few minutes.

“Ah ha! Knew I still had this.” Evy grinned as she brought out a plastic tub. “I was wondering why I didn’t see it with all the junk when I cleaned out the basement.”

“Was someone moving your things around?” Stella asked.

“No, just forgetful,” Evy said. “You’ve seen my office at school now, you know how I am.”

“Yeah…” After seeing the disastrously messy state of Evy’s office at school, the two agreed on a rule that the apartment could never reach that level of mess or even start to approach it. In return, Stella would give no further judgment on the state of Evy's school office.

Stella smiled inquisitively as Evy set the tub down in front of the recliner. Evy sneezed after brushing some dust off of its lid before she opened it. “I present to you…Dr. Diast’s box of mementos that she tolerated enough to keep! I imagine you’ll want to see this first.”

Evy handed Stella a photo album. She grunted with glee just from the first few pages, seeing baby photos of Evy.

“My family still has a lot of the albums, but I figured I’d snag one before leaving because…that’s a whole mess we don’t need to get into, right?” Evy asked.

“Yeah, whenever you want to talk about them, I’m here though,” Stella said. She laughed deeply after turning the page to be greeted by another precious photo of Evy as a baby. “You were such a chunkster, Evy.”

Stella giggled as she paged through more of the pictures. Evy seemed to be more of a tomboy in elementary school, which fit pretty well.

“Oh, hey, empty space!” Evy said, pointing at the plastic page. “You wanna keep your picture there?”

“Yussss.” Stella said, immediately getting the real picture of herself and Zeta in the photo album. It felt immediately right having her own photo with Evy’s. She handed Evy the photo album and sat down beside her on the carpet. “What else is in this memento bin?”

“Let’s see…” Evy said, sorting through the bin. “Got some Fang Fair ribbons…some form letters from famous people I tried writing to…a nurse’s note from the first time I got Feral Flu…oh!” She held up a small jar that had a single broken tooth inside.

“Uh…” Stella said. “Baby tooth?”

“Nope, I got in a fistfight when one classmate on a void trip through some not cool verbiage about my way about my romantic preferences. Which was stupid because obviously the cruelty of what she said, but stupid for trying it at one of the gayer schools in the…yeah. Not a lot of people on her side there, but we still went at it. She knocked this fang off, hurt like hell, but I made her regret it.”

Stella whistled. “How long did it take to grow back?”

“Like my whole sophomore year.” Evy said. “Worth it, though.”

“That seems like a sad memory to keep.” Stella said.

“Well, the thing with it is, I got into a couple fights, and this was the first one I won.” Evy said. “Probably stupid to keep it around, but I dunno. Makes me feel tough. And the pride aspect as well. If you’re wondering what I looked like then…” Evy shifted some of the bin’s contents around before she found a yearbook from Rising Shards. She paged through it. “Here.”

“Oh, wow,” Stella said, laughing immediately at the picture of Evy. Not in a making fun of her kind of way, but in a way that put Stella back in her high school mindset. Evy had longer hair by a bit, but it was spikier, and she had much more of a punk look.

“I know, it’s pretty bad.” Evy said. “Who wears a leather jacket to their sophomore picture day? A young Evy Diast, apparently.”

“No, no,” Stella said. “If we went to the same school, I would have been swooning.”

“Yeah, that jacket has a big anime art print on the back so maybe you wouldn’t have swooned that hard.”

“Still,” Stella said. “Damn, you rock a jacket like that. You still have it?”

“It might be in a different bin somewhere. A bin of shameful mementos.”

“Aw, but Evy, you really do look good in it.” I said. “Were you a big troublemaker?”

“I was president of the anime club, so yeah. Real badass.” Evy said. “I did get into my fair share of problems at Rising Shards, though. It’s kind of a miracle I ended up working there.”

Stella paged through the old yearbook some more. Evy only had the main picture of herself and one of her grinning for the anime club photo.

“What were you like in high school, Stel?” Evy asked.

“I was…well, very theater kid. Not super popular or anything, but fashionable, I think? I flew under the radar for stretches when the home life was very…” She scratched her nose. “Yeah. Just didn’t have the energy to stand out much at school when home was crumbling.”

“Gotcha, gotcha,” Evy said. She rubbed at the carpet, maybe unsure of what to say.

“Now I kinda wish I went to Rising Shards,” Stella said. “Again, I would have been all over you.”

“I wouldn’t have known what to do with you.” Evy said.

“Hmm…” Stella said. She scooted closer to Evy. “I wonder…”

Evy grinned. “Wondering about what specifically?”

“Maybe you could help me picture it a little clearer.” Stella said.

“So…roleplaying us meeting in high school?” Evy asked.

“I am an actor, after all.” Stella said, brushing her right hand through her hair dramatically. “I think it might be good for our self-care weekend. For me, at least.”

“I think it’d be very good for me, too.” Evy said.