Rising Shards

“Playdate Planning”

Stella summoned me to the library, but when I got there, she was busy talking to Roux. I waited for them to finish, checking my phone and doing generally an awkward job of standing around.

“Oh! Perfect.” Stella said when she spotted me. She waved me over.

“Huh?”

“Who else would I be telling to come over?” Stella said.

“I dunno!” I said. “Maybe someone who had a hold come in or something.”

“OK, that is possible,” Stella said. “Anyways! I was talking to your classmate Roux here, and I thought you two had something interesting in common.”

“Us?” I asked.

Roux nodded excitedly. “Mrs. Faleur said that since you’re transgender we should hang out.”

“It’s just ‘miss,” Stella said. “You can just call me Stella, too. And yes, Roux’s been exploring things and figuring out their business and asked me for some help, and I thought, well I know someone who knows gender better than I do, and she’s in your grade!”

“I think I’m one of them nonbinaries,” Roux said proudly.

“Awesome!” I said. ‘Yeah, I could…what do you…” I was flattered Stella thought of me here, but wasn’t sure what she wanted me to do exactly.

“Just have Roux’s back!” Stella said, reading my mind apparently.

“Yeah! Have my back!” Roux said.

“I can do that,” I said.

“Maybe you two can have a hangout sometime.” Stella said.

“I promise I won’t make fun of your lack of video game skills too much.” Roux said. “As long as you they/them me the whole time, we’ll be good. Cuz they/them is feeling really good for me right now.”

“I’m glad to hear it!” I said, always happy to hear stories of people finding themselves. I wasn’t sure what a hang out with Roux would be like, but I wanted to offer whatever help I could for their journey.

“Clique Lessons”

“You ever wonder how many people in the other classes we haven’t met?” I thought out loud one morning before class as we waited for Dr. Diast. “Like our grade’s probably somewhat decently sized, yeah?”

“That’s real rich coming from the girl who barely wants to talk to anyone outside of like, three people.” Kalei said.

“I didn’t say I wanted to,” I said. “Just that it’s interesting that there’s so many people we could meet.”

“I’ve met everyone,” Tay said, interjecting herself into the conversation. “It was important for my research. If you really want to meet them, just go travel to the other classes and converse.”

“I’m still stuck on this East Valataran being in the west thing,” Kalei said. “I don’t want to meet any people right now. It’ll just complicate my brain.”

“I wonder how many I’ve met, there’s a lot in choir and the play that aren’t in our regular classes,” Oka said. “And it’s not like Zeta’s in a big rush to leave mid-class to talk to these BC and BA and C whatever students.”

“You’re in BA.” Tay said. “So we wouldn’t have to leave class to talk to ourselves.”

“I don’t even want to talk about this stupid ABCD classes thing, and we wouldn’t be if Diast would get her lazy ass here on time for once.” Kalei said.

“I heard that.” Diast called out from just outside in the hallway. “I’ve been here, I’ve been getting something ready.”

As Diast tried to wheel in an old looking overhead projector that had tangled wires that slowed her progress, we all kept chatting.

“So you seem pretty knowledgeable about classmates and such,” Marmalade asked Tay. “Is there any like…tips you got for someone like me?”

“Ahhh, I get this a lot,” Tay said. “I assume you want in on the popular cliques and wish to start your journey to them gathering intel?”

“I, uh…what?” Marmalade asked. “I was more thinking like who to avoid maybe? Or like cool people you think I should know?”

“Hold on, there are popular cliques in one of the classes?” I asked, finding it odd I didn’t know that yet. “Is it this one? I mean…like, are we…heh, you know…”

“The popular cliques are in class CD, and no.” Tay said.

“Did you assume you were in the popular clique, Zates?” Kalei asked. “I mean, I get it, I’m a badass, and Lillia’s cool.”

“And me as well!” Oka said. 

“Lillia rates well in the looks department and her confidence is a winner, and Kalei is generally well liked, though some vehemently oppose her constant japes.” Tay said.

“Uh. Can you give me a list of those people?” Kalei asked.

“No.” Tay said.

“And what the hell is a jape?” Kalei said.

“A joke.”

“Then just say joke!”

“No.” Tay said. “Anyways, regardless of those factors, as well as Oka’s technical famousness being a Kilander, you all rank on the average tier, or ‘normie’ sector among the popularity rankings. The normie tier is the biggest so you shouldn’t feel bad. I’m technically in the normie sector per my calculations.”

“I dunno if I agree that I’m normie tier,” Kalei said. “Do normies fight and defeat giant monsters that are made of like constantly transforming parts because of some Endoran crap?”

“People fight giant monsters made of Endoran crap like every week here, it’s not a big deal,” Tay said, losing many points for Kalei’s estimation of her. “Oh, Zeta does have some notoriety due to the Ovie Chirhart drama, but since that settled, she’s firmly in the normie camp, of that I am certain.”

“Zeta doesn’t strike me as a drama type,” Marmalade said. “I guess I could be wrong. What was the deal with Ovie? I’m assuming something different than her being a giant monster?”

“Do you really want to know?” I asked, hoping she didn’t.

Marmalade shrugged. “I’m kind of curious about this. I missed out on like two months of drama apparently.”

“It wasn’t that dramatic.” Oka said.

“If you wanted drama recaps, you’ve come to the right girl.” Tay said. “But I’m…left-handed.” She raised her eyebrows like that was the coolest line ever. “Anyways, most of the class obviously didn’t care or notice, unless it’s drama with the major popular cliques, most people are in their own little worlds. But there was a camp of Ovie Chirhart fans that desperately wanted to be in her clique that bought into the ‘Zeta is a tramp that cheats on her partners and tried to break up Ovie and her girlfriend’ story.”

“Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing.” I blushed and wanted to burrow underground to escape this conversation.

“You don’t have to be here, you can leave,” Tay said.

“We’re in class, where would I go?” I asked.

“Zates doesn’t know what skipping class is.” Kalei said.

“But then you’d miss out on hearing about the even smaller camp of non-Ovie fans who could tell you were head over heels for Oka.” Tay said.

“Awww!” Oka said. “Well, I wanna hear this part.”

“Yes, many a debate was halted betwixt the two camps when the non-Ovie team simply pointed onward and said to observe Zeta Faleur.”

“How did ‘observing’ Zeta make the debates stop?” Marmalade asked.

“Because Zeta’s always checking me out!” Oka said proudly. I was blushing so hard I thought my vision was going to turn red at this point, but I couldn’t deny I did stare at Oka a lot.

“They were some pretty lustful gazes made by Zeta towards Oka,” Tay said.

“I wouldn’t describe them that way.” I said.

“I’d describe some of them that way,” Oka said. “Please?”

“Fair…it’s just weird to talk about this with other people, I guess.” I said.

“It’s hard to think she’s a homewrecker trying to steal Ovie’s girl when she spends a whole class staring at Oka’s butt.” Tay said.

“I think we can move onto another topic now, please.” I said.

“The funny thing is that Ovie’s popularity stock has dropped so much the Ovie fans would likely not admit they were ever fond of the poor lass.” Tay said. “Once that debate died down, most attention went towards the popular cliques in class CD.”

“I’m a little curious,” I said. “For the me and Ovie debate, which team were you on?”

“I am a neutral observer, a collector of gossip, not a contributor.” Tay said. “But it’s pretty obvious that Ovie’s story was bunk and that you were very into Oka.”

“Aw.” I said.

Oka’s grin hearing that made all the blushing worth it.