Rising Shards

“Hey Lillia,” Oka said, sitting across from Lillia. She didn’t have the same reverence for Lillia’s majesty. “Did you ever have etiquette training?”

“Why do you ask?” Lillia asked as she finished a sip of tea and set her book down.

“Because you’re all polite and stuff,” I said, spotting the cover of her book. "Hey, is that Three Beams you're reading?"

"Three Beams?" Oka asked.

"It's that dystopian book series with the big love triangle." I said. "I read the first one, but I haven't read the second yet."

"Well, there's more to it than that," Lillia said. "It's a sweeping epic of a war torn world, about freedom fighters trying to take back their world from a corrupt regime, and of course the nomad pirates seeking to pick up the pieces from whatever's left of the rubble when the fighting ends."

"But the main hook of it is the love triangle." I said.

"Is the love triangle why you're reading it?" Oka asked.

"No, of course...not," Lillia said. "Definitely not anything to do with the romance aspect of it, although Giris having two potential suitors, her childhood friend Dain, and the dashing nomad pirate Miel, and the intricacies of having a main character with two people interested in her...say, we're getting a bit off track, aren't we?"

"I feel like there's a lot to unpack there," Oka said.

"And unpack it we will at some point," Lillia said, looking as flustered as someone as well kept together as her could look. "But not here and now, obviously. Did you have ettiquite training of any kind at your school?"

“My school was pretty strict,” Oka said. “But even they would have trouble in our current mission.”

Pretty strict seemed like an obscenely mild way to describe Oka’s school growing up, but she had nerves of steel about her time there.

“And what mission is that?” Lillia asked.

“Kalei wants to be less mean,” I said.

“Hm,” Lillia said. “That would be incredibly difficult. In addition to how she behaves in class, I play games with her online sometimes. I have unique experience hearing from her…more rage filled side. 

"She doesn't say anything like bad, does she?" I asked.

"Nothing hateful, don't worry there," Lillia said. "But she doesn't hold back at calling out playing skills, whether it's one of us or someone who's blatantly around twelve years old. She shows no mercy."

"Wow," Oka said.

"I hope I never play a game with her that she yells at me for..." I said.

"What have you tried so far for Kalei's isuses?” Lillia asked.

We explained the entire situation so far to her. Lillia took another sip of tea. She looked closely at the teacup she was holding. There was a small crack on the handle that made her sigh. “They checked out the good tea set again…”

“Who did?” Oka asked. “You can check out tea sets?”

“Yes, for garden parties and the like,” Lillia said. “Those three Kanibari girls, Rain, Amara, and KJ; I keep getting beaten by them when the checkout period opens. But that’s irrelevant to your situation, isn’t it?”

“A bit,” I said.

“I can give it my best shot,” Lillia said. “Teaching her, I mean. I have had a few etiquette lessons, and I imagine this could be fun.”

“I’m suddenly scared for Kalei,” I said, seeing the subdued glee in Lillia’s eyes.

“Oh, I won’t be too harsh on her,” Lillia said. “Just as much as she needs.”

“Now I’m suddenly scared for her,” Oka said.

“Could we stop at my room first?” Lillia asked. “There’s something I need to grab first.”

* * *

We somehow managed to wrangle Kalei from our room and bring her back outside. We found her moping, too bummed out to even get past the main menu of one of her games.

“So I’m just gonna say I’m immediately concerned,” Kalei said. She was positioned against one of the stone walls of the school, while Lillia, Oka and I stood across from her. Lillia had the tea set she checked out in a box near her feet, telling us she didn’t trust us enough to be too close to it.

“Whatever for?” Lillia asked.

“Because of that squirt gun you’re holding,” Kalei said.

Lillia had stopped at her room to grab a giant squirt gun rifle that she had apparently kept hidden from everyone until now.

“Why do you have that again?” I asked.

“My roommate is very annoying,” Lillia said. “So I got this Blorpo brand Ultra Annihilator squirt gun in a mutual agreement with her for the sake of my sanity. When she reaches an unacceptable level of annoyance, I squirt her with this. I feel as though the same principle can be applied here.”

Kalei gulped. “That thing isn’t like super dangerous, is it?”

“It’s a standard Blorpo brand squirt gun,” Lillia said as she pumped the squirt gun a few times.

“That doesn’t really answer my question.” Kalei said.

“She’s actually doing pretty good so far,” Oka said.

“Then give her the reward.” Lillia said.

“Oh, right!” Oka said.

“Huh?” Kalei asked. Oka ran over and gave Kalei a piece of candy.

“When you do good, you get candy,” Lillia said. “When you do bad, you get a shot from this. The three of us are going to present scenarios to you, and you have to react politely. Got it?”

Kalei nodded. Lillia’s intensity had Kalei pretty much completely under her control, which was very strange to see.

“First up,” Lillia said. “It’s the day Tyrant Rangers comes out, but the cashier tells you it’s been delayed one more day due to a shipping error. What do you say to them?”

“Screw that!” Kalei said. Lillia sprayed her in the face. “Oh, come on! Tyrant Rangers is unfair!”

Oka read off a card Lillia had prepared for her. Lillia had gotten really into the idea of this as we got set up and had come up with a whole lesson plan’s worth of material.

“I am ahead of you in line at the cafeteria,” Oka said. “I grab the last piece of dessert that you wanted.”

“Well, how close are you in this scenario?” Kalei said. “Cuz I’d hit you with a swift kick to the back of the knees, then steal that dessert!”

Lillia gave another squirt. “You…wouldn’t really do that, would you?” She asked.

“The water’s kind of refreshing,” Kalei said. “I just wanted another splash, you know?”

“Hmmm,” Lillia said. She turned up a dial on the squirt gun and sprayed at Kalei again.

“Ow! That hurt, what the hell!” Kalei shouted. “I didn’t even say anything!”

“You had it coming for that knee line,” Oka said.

Kalei growled but stopped herself as Lillia aimed again.

I was up next. “Hey, my card just says, ‘Zeta does something that annoys you’ in brackets. That’s not nice!”

“Kalei, what would you do in this situation?” Lillia asked. “Knowing that the squirt gun is set to pain mode if you choose poorly.”

Kalei winced. She strained to answer.

“I just grin and bear it,” Kalei said. “There are some things people do you can’t change.”

“I still think that’s kind of mean of both of you,” I said.

“I’m gonna give Kalei a candy because it was at least an improvement,” Oka said. Lillia nodded.

“We’re making incremental progress here, Zeta.” Lillia said. “It’ll be easier as we move along.”

The second wave of questions were more like natural dialogue. Kalei responded fine-ish to Lillia and got more candies from her, but was snippier with Oka and I.

“I think the problem is she’s too used to you to turn it off,” Lillia said.

“You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here.” Kalei said.

“If you’re not around her, maybe she won’t be so keen to put her rudeness at the forefront.” Lillia said.

“Again, right here,” Kalei said.

“So it’s our fault?” I asked.

“Not really,” Lillia said. “Just that it’ll be more of an uphill climb trying to change her behavior around you.”

“What are you thinking then?” Oka asked. “Solo lessons on tea set etiquette?”

“I don’t want to learn tea set etiquette, please,” Kalei said.

“I only have an hour left with this set anyways before I have to return it,” Lillia said, gesturing to the tea set. “So whatever it is, it has to be within the hour for today.

“Oh, tea set! That gives me an idea!” I said. “Do you know if the love trio is holding a garden party today?”

“Presumably, if they checked out the good tea set I can’t imagine them using it for anything else,” Lillia said.

“When are they not having a garden party?” Oka asked. “I feel like that’s all I ever hear them do. Well, that and the intense romantic tension between the three.”

“It’s perfect,” I said. “Kalei, are you ready for the ultimate test?”

“Not really,” Kalei said.

“Then let’s go!” I said.

“I said not really,” Kalei said. “If I had the squirt gun, I’d be spraying all of you right now because this is decidedly rude.”

“Kalei, she said let’s go,” Oka said.

“Yes Koridia, we don’t have a lot of time,” Lillia said.

Kalei sighed. “Fine.”

“I don’t know why I even bothered to come with,” Kalei said as we basically shoved her forward into the indoor garden.

“Because you want to learn to be less mean, right?” I said.  “So this is your ultimate test.”

“Zeta came up with this plan,” Oka said. She paused to see if Kalei was gonna make a snide comment about that, but she didn’t.

“See? She improved a bit!” Oka said. Lillia gave a slight, proud nod.

“Well, what’s this plan?” Kalei asked. “And I knew she came up with it, I was there when she came up with it!”

Kalei was a bit steamed with us, so Lillia’s theory that being away from us might help seemed to have some merit.

“Also yes, you did not tell us the plan so I’d like to hear it too,” Oka said. “You told us that one part. But I’d like to hear the others."

“I mean, we could gleam the basic premise from her conversation,” Lillia said.

“Yeah, but I wanna hear Zeta say it!” Oka said. “My girlfriend came up with a cool plan and I wanna hear her explain it!”

“Aren’t they being insufferable already?” Kalei asked Lillia.

“Quiet,” Oka said. “Zeta, go!”

“So as you heard, the love trio is hosting a garden party right now,” I said. “You’re gonna go to this and be nice to them for the whole thing.”

“I can’t do that! Do you know how annoying they are?” Kalei snapped.

“Oh, I get it,” Oka said. “That’s why this is such a big test!”

“Maia can’t even be around them that long.” I said. “If you can handle them, you can cool off, and Maia will be impressed once we tell her.”

“But we haven’t even successfully trained or anything!” Kalei said. “How are you gonna bump me up to a challenge like this when I couldn’t even do the baby easy one?”

“You did moderately well on my challenge, at least,” Lillia said.

“That’s why we’re going to try something different here,” I said. “Oka and I are gonna hang back.”

“As we’ve said before, your snappy comebacks might decrease without Oka and Zeta around,” Lillia said.

“Also, if you’re mean to Amara in particular, you not only fail but I’m gonna be extra disappointed in you.” I said. “I mainly want to grade you on how nice you are to her.”

“How come?”

“Probably because of that Elisa incident in social studies,” Oka said. “Right?”

“You know me very well,” I said.

“Alright I got it, can you two leave already?” Kalei asked.