Rising Shards

Kalei and I stood behind Oka, who was hesitating in front of her door in the void vision temple. Oka’s statue above her door had changed to a young girl.

“Is that you?” I asked.

“Yes,” Oka said.

“Well, are we gonna…do this?” Kalei asked.

Oka kicked at the ground.

“Sorry, I’m being so weird,” Oka said. “This must be really weird for you guys too since I never say anything about where I’m from or my past or anything. And now we’re gonna have to see it all in a weird vision after we go through the weird door under the weird kid me statue. And now I can’t stop saying weird.”

Oka knelt down for a second but composed herself.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “No matter what, we're here for you. Maybe they won’t even show anything bad and it’ll just be like a happy memory.”

“Thanks,” Oka said. “It seriously means the world to me. If I can I’ll try to explain all this when we go in…if I can. I know it’s weird.”

“You’re fine, Oka,” Kalei said. “We just saw mine and that was a complete mess.”

“Is there anything you feel OK talking about now?” I asked.

“Well,” Oka said. “It’s probably going to show my old school. Tesata. Which was torn down.”

“You can see the stars, touch them even, at paradise.” I said.

“Yeah!” Oka said. “Wait, how do you know that?”

“I uh,” I said. “Wait, how do I know that?”

Then I remembered. It was a summer night a few months ago. I was walking around LE, which Stella hated having me do at night but only tolerated because it was a date with Jeans. She walked on the concrete blocks as we wandered through a mostly empty parking lot. Every time a car passed by, Jeans glared at it, standing still as the bright lights sped past us.

“This reminds me of one part in Raina’s first book,” I said. “She’d just stand around outside and stare at the stars, hoping one day she’d get to be up there.”

Jeans didn’t look back.

“Is Raina Starlight all you ever talk about?” Jeans asked.

I didn’t answer.

“I’m joking,” Jeans said. “Come on.”

Jeans took me to a lookout spot at the edge of the city and plunked some coins in. She pointed out at the natural islands at the edge of the sea.

“See that island out there?” Jeans asked.

It took a minute for me to find the one she wanted in the viewfinder.

“That’s Tesata Elementary,” Jeans said. “Cani school. If you had your fangs when you were young you’d be there.”

“Wow,” I said. Jeans would catch me staring at her fangs a lot, and that night was no exception. I tried to look the other way but she still gave me a look.

“Paradise,” Jeans said, looking ahead at the distant coast. “You can see the stars, touch them even, at paradise. Just as the two giants did. The chirality of our world is in us all, everything comes in two, red and blue. Their footsteps came before ours.”

“Huh?” I asked.

“That’s the slogan of the school,” Jeans said. “Pretty weird, huh?”

“Very,” I said.

“I’m not surprised you didn’t know that,” Jeans said. “It’s from a very old legend.”

“Oh,” I said.

Sometimes Jeans would do that, tell me something super smart that I couldn’t keep up with, and I know she knew I never had an idea of what to say.

“I didn’t know a school like that was so close.” I said.

“So close, yet so far away,” Jeans said. “They wouldn’t have let you in without fangs, but I heard that school is really tough. So it’s for the best that you didn’t go there.”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Do you think it’d be worth the skill if you came out from it with some scars?” Jeans asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You could be great at using Cani gifts, but would going through hell be worth it for that?” Jeans asked.

I didn’t know what to say, and Jeans just patted me on the head.

“It’s OK if you don’t get it,” Jeans said. “Come on, let’s go back.”

I forgot about that incident until I told it to Oka and Kalei. She thought about it for a second.

“So she brought you there just to point at a school and trash on you?” Oka asked.

“I mean…” I said. “Wow, she did, huh?”

“Jeans sounds like she sucks,” Kalei said.

“Yeah. But this isn’t about me today,” I said, not wanting to have another Jeans related pity party. “Are you ready?”

Oka nodded. “As long as you’re both right by me.”

I held my hand out to Oka, wondering if that might help going through her door go easier. Kalei did the same. She grabbed our hands tightly, and we walked through the door together. It wasn’t quite side by side by side because the door wasn’t wide enough, but we managed.