Rising Shards

Berin still checked in on me regularly, which was nice as Lillia still did not want to catch this bug (is bug the right word for a cold that turns you into a cat?) so she spent a majority of time away from our dorm room, either hanging out on campus or going to her family’s house at night. I think I liked full cat mode the best; with Kanibari mode I had a tail and that was great, but I was also way more congested and irritable, and the claw situation as a Kanibari had me getting my hand stuck in all the furniture I came into contact with. As the cold was winding down and my form was getting more stable, I was hanging out with Zeta, who by the way is very comforting in a situation like this!

“How’s the scuttlebutt about the Kilander business?” I asked. “Is anyone goofing on me about it while I’m away?”

“I didn’t hear anyone bring you up,” Zeta said. “It’s mostly been making fun of Kitty and Penteldtam. Nobody even remembered Caya was one of them until Kalei asked her about it.”

“Heck, I forget Caya’s on that stupid show,” I said. “How’d she take it?”

“She was very chill about it,” Zeta said.

“Unsurprisingly.”

“Caya said something about some Kilanders would go on the same as always, and the others would be more…Kitty about it.” Zeta said.

“That’s about what Reit said too,” I said. “It’s kinda weird that there are like two factions of the family? I hate putting Reit on the cool side, but he’s cooler than the other half. And Penteldtam isn’t very cool, but. What am I even saying?”

“I think I get what you mean,” Zeta said. “We both are learning a lot about our families this year, huh?”

“Yeah…” I was glad on the timing of my next transformation cycle because we needed a few to sit and think about our family situations. I figured Zeta’s was a lot more dramatic than mine, but in giving mutual comfort she made me think about how there was plenty of drama in my family. She was also very gentle with me when I went full cat, letting me sit on her lap as she petted me and scratched my ears, all my stress washing away as I relaxed and purred. Purring, by the way, is an amazing feeling when you are in the form of a lil kitty cat. It’s like there are waves of calmness that rumble around you.

I didn’t stay chill the whole time; I kept getting super hyper when I was a cat. Zeta attempted to play with me, but I ignored the string she brought and really wanted to gnaw on her arm. Zeta, sweetheart that she is, obliged this demand, even when my full cat time was done and I shifted back to a Kanibari. They were love bites so I wasn’t gnawing that hard, and again, I was in my void class gear, which could shift similarly to me, so it wasn’t like I switched to a cat, started biting my girlfriend’s forearm, then shifted back and was all naked or whatever.

“It kinda tickles,” Zeta giggled. With her free hand, she gave me soft headpats, which maybe weren’t earned by me biting her, but like the purring time, it was also a wonderful experience that made up for me being too sick to go to class with the congestion and weakness and such.

Once I had gotten the biting out of my system for the moment, we ended up pulling up an episode of the Kilander show. It was pretty awful and every time I put it on I was a bit embarrassed at the part of me that wanted to be on it to try and be on TV. According to Berin, it was mostly fake, and it kinda showed. Things happened a bit too conveniently all the time.

“Uh, did someone forget they were supposed to pay me my allowance?” Aki Kilander said, holding his hands out to my grandma.

“Have you met Aki yet?” Zeta asked.

“You know, I haven’t,” I said.

“Cha ching ba bling!” Aki said, pumping his arms after getting a wad of cash.

“It’s weird that Caya’s married to this guy,” Zeta mused. “Like. Unbelievably weird.”

“Maybe he’s really different offscreen.” I suggested.

“That could be,” Zeta said. “Also weird to go from Dr. Diast to that? Just saying?”

“Definitely,” I said.

We came up with some theories about Aki and Caya that descended into silliness pretty quickly. At the end of our little hangout, shortly before Zeta went back to her room for bed, she noticed something different about me a bit after one of my cycles of transforming.

“Hey…” A sly grin crossed her face as she picked up my tail.

“Oh, I’m just in Kanibari mode, I’m not getting my hopes up.” I said.

“You sure? You don’t look very fuzzy at the moment,” Zeta said.

And that was when it hit me that I maybe had lucked into finally getting a tail of my own.