Rising Shards

Marmalade huffed as she looked around the classroom, waiting for Ms. Letoh to arrive. Michi sat next to her, sketching away at a big notepad with a charcoal pencil.

“It’s weird,” Marmalade said. “And don’t answer if you’re really focused on that, just ignore me, I’m rambling.”

“I’m listening,” Michi said.

“It’s just kinda strange, you know? I’m seeing a lot of new people, not just Wildfire Hearts,” Marmalade said.

“Uh huh,” Michi said.

“So we’re not the newest newbies anymore,” Marmalade said.

“Guess not,” Michi shrugged.

“But I’m also like, why’d they have us come to class so late in the semester?” Marmalade asked.

“Because our fangs came in earlier than theirs,” Michi said. “But late enough that we had class elsewhere. And I’m sure some people had families that moved mid semester or other big life events like that.”

“Oh yeah,” Marmalade blushed at forgetting the fang timing thing. “I’m…pretty stupid.”

“You’re not,” Michi said. “And putting yourself down doesn’t help anyone. Except for maybe bullies, but I figure they want to use their own material, not ours.”

“Huh,” Marmalade said. “Thanks.”

“And speaking of bullies…” Michi muttered as they flipped their notepad up for a second, opening it so it could prop up and be a makeshift shield of sorts. Through the spiral binding in the center, Marmalade could see the floofy tail of Caeda Firae walking nearby.

“Is Caeda a bully?” Marmalade whispered.

“Maybe not, but her friend definitely is,” Michi nodded to their left, where Caeda was being closely followed by her companion, Clover.

“You don’t have to follow me to class, I’m fine,” Caeda said as she sat down in the row in front of Marmalade and Michi. Clover stood near her with her hands on her hips. “You don’t want to be late to yours, do you?”

“I’ll be alright,” Clover said. “I just wanted to make sure I read your text right. That you’re seriously thinking of doing your memory trial with them?”

“Yeah, so?” Caeda asked.

The two had some hushed, harsh whispers at each other. Marmalade couldn’t make much of it out, but it sounded pretty tense.

“Let’s just talk about it later,” Caeda said.

“Fine,” Clover said. She sighed deeply, then turned to Marmalade and Michi.

“What are you two looking at?” Clover asked. She left the room before they could say anything, scoffing as she passed by Oka, who looked like Clover’s presence had a stasis inducing effect.

“What’s her deal?” Marmalade asked quietly. “Caeda too, but…yeah.”

“I’ve heard some rumors,” Michi said. “Even if they’re only half true, it makes me want to stay away from them.”

“Yeah, Kalei told me Clover gave her and her group a hard time recently,” Marmalade said, as Oka only just began to unfreeze. “I bet you’re pretty good at staying out of things.”

“It’s one of my specialties,” Michi said as they flicked at their notepad to plop it down and continued drawing.

After the classroom filled up, and Letoh finally arrived and started teaching, Marmalade looked out at her fellow students, a mix of familiar and unfamiliar. It might be a bit sad that her new student status might be wearing off already, but it was cool to think that she’d made friends already. She stared at Kalei a lot as she thought about that, glad she had some extra time to make her acquaintance in particular. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t grateful to her other new friends like Michi, Zeta, Roux…just that Kalei was on her mind a lot. For some reason. Let’s not worry about that reason right now. It was easy to think that, but less easy to put it into practice, with Marmalade missing half of the lecture primarily worrying about what that reason could be as she stared at Kalei.