Rising Shards

Maia watched as her friend Iris finally met up with her partners. From their body language, it was clear Zeta, Kalei, and Oka hadn’t done their work on the presentation either. One of Maia’s partners, Lillia Cadence, had her usual glare as she watched.

“Are you concerned about her?” Lillia asked.

“A bit,” Maia said. “But Iris has that innate ability to get by in class even putting in zero effort.”

“Ah,” Lillia said. “What an ability.”

“So they’ll figure something out,” Maia said.

“You’ve known her for a long time, then?” Lillia asked.

“Uh huh,” Maia said. “We’ve been friends for a while now.”

Lillia didn’t answer, which was pretty awkward.

“Do…do you have anyone at school you’ve been friends with for a long time?” Maia asked.

“Not particularly,” Lillia said. “The only students I had any prior classes with were Aira Orbis and Laenie Aadris.”

“Ah,” Maia said. “Your favorites.”

“Exactly,” Lillia said.

As another awkward pause set in, Maia thought back to a year ago when she and Iris were working on a science fair project in Sky Clay High’s computer lab.

Iris was lazily tapping away at the translucent orange keyboard as Maia struggled to fill a page of text on her translucent green station. Their project was on the differences between Kanibari and Cani, which Maia was hoping they’d have an advantage with the teachers on. After all, they could do a presentation about the differences without even writing about it, given how different a pre-fangs Cani looked in Iris compared to Maia’s full on Kanibari-ness.

“Isn’t it weird that like Cani get the whole main focus of the schools?” Iris asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, they get fangs or whatever and everyone’s like ‘ohhh you gotta go to this school now that you’re sixteen and have fangs.’ But Kanibari, like, you just have to live with it until all the other Cani catch up to you.”

“It’s not like I don’t get special treatment now, though,” Maia said. “I still get monitored pretty heavily in case I go all, y’know.”

“But that’s the thing too," Iris said. "Outside of you having a cute fuzzy face, I’ve never seen you go berserk or anything. I’ve never even seen you use a power."

“Don’t call my face that again please,” Maia said, happy Iris couldn’t see how much she was blushing. “And that’s because they gave me a stronger power blocker.”

“I’m jealous that next year you’ll get two rooms, too,” Iris said.

“Come again?”

“Next year, at Rising Shards,” Iris said. “They have a Kanibari dorm and a regular one. I heard you have to stay in both.”

“It’s kinda just a precaution,” Maia said. “The Kanibari dorms are always for Kanibari who are pretty constantly feral. Or Kanibari with Feral Flu, they’re pretty rough.”

“OK, good,” Iris said. “Because I wanna be your roommate! And I don’t want anything interfering with my Maia time.”

“Of course,” Maia said.

In that moment, Maia was split between some really gushy feelings she tried to keep down and the bittersweet sadness Iris’ words brought to her. Usually whenever Iris talked like that, she’d promptly get a text or a call from her girlfriend Olive, or she’d actually show up in person. Maia didn’t hate Olive, but it was hard to hide her jealousy whenever Olive butted her way into a conversation between Iris and herself.

“Would you mind taking the lead for a bit?” Iris asked. “And by take the lead, I mean do all of the project for a bit.”

“Naturally,” Maia said. “How come, though?”

“I’m really trying to win this sweepstakes. It’s all the haven fight video cart sets for AB-813, it’s a box set that has a little cardboard championship belt on it! I have to win this but the daily entry window is only like right now.”

“Sure,” Maia said.

Back then, Maia was just happy she could have little moments like that with Iris. If their friendship never became anything more than that, it’d hurt, but it’d be alright.