Verse

 

"You are one and all tasked with each claiming something of value."

"Keep it close."

"Keep it dry."

 

Despite the Chorus making a show of things with distinct voices issuing from differing shadows, their instruction sounded easy enough.

 

"Go forth."

"Support each other."

"You are not alone in this."

 

I stepped away from Ruin and Citrine. Verity had stood apart from the groups of students gathered around their Instructors. The newest students were those most encouraged to attend. At the time, I had not recognized the Librarian that accompanied Verity's entrance.

Verity seated herself atop a marble stone, one of the few to share the Hall's namesake. Most of the expansive chamber had been flooded with a layer of sand. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble in order to make create a tiny seaside settlement, complete with a body of water at the far end.

"I'm not intruding am I?"

The smile Verity gave me was not convincing. "It's fine. I'm just trying to process some things."

She looked like she was made of glass. Something felt off. "I just wanted to touch base is all."

"Okay."

"Let me know if I'm ever crossing a line."

"I am unsure if I could draw a boundary even if I wanted to."

"Well, you've gone from freezing the air around you to turning yourself into an ice sculpture. I just want to make sure you're not hurting yourself instead of others." I paused a moment, gauging her blank expression. "Just push back, and I'll drop whatever we're talking about. Okay?"

Verity nodded, and a moment later the jagged edges of her sculpted features softened. Setting her book aside, Verity smacked her cheeks before smoothing them out. "We should probably start looking for something of value. Whatever that means."

"Can you keep an eye out for a shiny blue stone?"

"Like the hair pin you lost in the Storm?"

"I know it's silly, but if someone went to the trouble of bringing a sea side town back for the students here, maybe I'll get something out of this too?"

Verity stopped to give me an appraising look. "When did you get further along than me?"

"Hm?" It was my turn to stop in my tracks. Our eyes met.

"It just isn't fair. I can fake the hair when I'm well rested, but I've never been satisfied with makeup. I locked myself in my room for days!"

"Oh, Ruin did mine. And while I am wearing one of Whisper's wigs, I cut it myself. They are really soft." Seeing Verity without her long billowing cloud hair didn't feel right.

"Even the way you walk is different. I feel fragile, but you look intentionally delicate. What's the word I'm looking for? Articulated?"

"Okay, I will admit the last thing is me. But I've been thinking about this for a while. What I think I needed, more than anything else, was just to get others to see and treat me as as a girl. With each piece in place and the support of my friends, I grew more at ease."

Verity looked like she had been stunned into silence.

"Hey, I would kill for the flesh sculpting you have just been casually doing since you got here. Please give yourself a little credit."

 

A voice called to us from one of the hut windows. "Hey! I know this is a fake beach and all, but are there any sea shells over there?"

"What's a sea shell?" I said aloud, more quietly to Verity than the voice's owner. A shell from the sea sounded like something Verity might wear or use.

A giggle won out against Verity's weariness. "Hey Felicia. I don't see any, but there is driftwood and other baubles further down the beach."

I waited patiently as Verity and this Felicia shared some familiarity from afar.

"I met Felicia and Elly when I first came here. Instructor Feinne's class. They're Catfolk in the same way we're Stormfolk. Something different on our own terms."

"Friends of yours?"

This sigh was wistful. Like Verity was longing for things she could not have. "Not as much in common as I would like. They're too... nice."

I lifted an eyebrow. Verity squinted at the strings manipulating them into place.

She hook her head. "Without the threat of something hanging over me, I just wasn't willing to listen. You know?"

"I wish I didn't. But it already feels like something that happened to someone else."

"The Chorus had enough presence of mind to show me how much I've changed. However superficially, it never feels like enough. I can't stop seeing the Storm as a part of me."

That got me to wince a little. I understood that. "Yeah. The Chorus helped me see myself in a... new light."

Verity clutched at the white furred robe. "I just... cannot make myself available to Whisper or Tourmaline."

"What's stopping you?"

"I don't know! There's nothing in my head that tells me I'm getting it right or wrong. But I struggle to sleep anymore. And whenever I do open up, I get hurt and close myself off all over again."

"Okay. Is there anything you want to do about it?"

"I'm... not sure. I've turned away help more than once now. But Whisper and Tourmaline still seem determined."

"You don't feel like you deserve it."

"No."

There was something there.

Should I push? Would she want me to? Or is this something she would be grateful if I was determined to help her to the other side of whatever it was?

"But you aren't doing that thing with the temperature anymore. You kept it up for days in isolation. Why not now?"

I watched Verity struggle and fail to find the right words, growing more frustrated with each attempt.

 

Whisper told me that some things need to be broken.

I had come undone in Amari's arms before.

And Ruin was tired of hiding her scars behind layers of armor.

 

Looking closer, the jagged parts of Verity's outer shell came from where it had cracked and split.

There was tension written all over her. A  fragile outer shell with a delicate beauty hidden just underneath.

Something rumbled inside me. The memory of the sound of distant thunder echoed in my thoughts.

 

"Verity..."

I had caused Verity so much pain when I couldn't keep it together.

Was I right to read this as such? Or was this something else?

 

She stepped back, away.

When Verity turned to go, she looked like she could not will herself away fast enough.

If I had something to say, I had to make it count.

 

"This might be crossing a line. But whenever you finish falling apart, don't be alone if you can help it."

"Okay."

And she was gone.

 

***

 

I could feel an energy in the air.

A storm was gathering. Or something like it.

Spectators trickled into raised platforms that lined the sides of Marble Hall. Colorful banners depicting the silhouettes of insects and other entities I had no reference for drew my eye, but for now they held no significance to me.

What were they here to spectate?

Whatever it was, it was high time I decided what finding something of value to protect meant to me.

The desire to rejoin Ruin and Citrine was strong, but I had an opportunity to get insight from other students.

Felicia was it? Verity said she was nice enough.

Finding a pair of colorful catfolk along a beach was easy. I got a good glimpse of Felicia's pink hair earlier.

Her taller cream colored companion would have been harder to spot had she not been perching atop another marble rock.

"How is the sea shell hunt going?"

"Swimmingly!"

"It could be better."

I looked between the two. Felicia abandoned the hunt the moment I said something. The other, Elly, looked out towards the water.

"We don't have much time, do we?" I suggested.

"What? Nonsense. This is as much about making friends as it is supplemental to our lessons!"

"Felicia, I admire your optimism, but I would say the timer just started."

I did not need to look.

The wind billowing in from the far side of the chamber over the water told me everything I needed.

Watching Felicia go from being a ball of sunshine at meeting someone new to a sense of fear causing her whole body to tense up was an alarming experience.

I'd seen it before, again, on a beach no less. But I think I was starting to understand it better.

The clouds were not even all that big. But the black paint the fell from them and into the water painted a surreal picture. The Chorus really liked presenting things in a new light, didn't they?

"That seaside village. Was that your home?" I turned find Felicia hiding behind Elly, clinging to her for support.

"Yeah. I don't believe we have met. This here scaredy cat is Felicia, and I'm Ellerete. Although my friends call me Elly, and any friend of Verity's is a friend of mine. That girl needs all the help she can get."

My friendly smile twisted at that. "How do you know?"

"Everyone does when a Storm passes through. Losing everything is common enough." Suddenly Elly's gaze lost focus. I got the sense she was not quite seeing me so much as whatever it was Ruin and her saw when they gazed into the distance like that.

It was Felicia that pulled her back to the waking world with a tug of the arm. "Can we get our shells and go?"

"Right, right. Sorry, you would be hard pressed to find someone who hates rain more than cats."

Felicia gave me an apologetic smile. "Getting paint out of most things takes some effort. You should find what you're looking for soon. I'd hate to see that makeup of yours go to waste."

"Thanks." I said. "A friend did it for me."

Felicia's eyes grew to the size of the Moon in the night sky, black slits cutting through the middle looked me over. "Oh. You've the makings of two bonds. Keep them close, Verse."

I blinked. "Yeah. I'll uh, do that. They make it easy."

The pink cat girl bounded away to gather up a few dozen of the so called sea shells, leaving Elly to handle the parting words.

"Sorry about that. Storms are bad, but I don't think I've met anyone touched by the Wood who don't carry the Wood with them. If it seems like a forest critter is seeing through you, don't pay it much mind. Everyone is from somewhere. The way our Instructor explains it, we see different things in the same environment. That somewhere colors our perspectives."

Something in her words struck a chord within me. I clutched at my chest. The strings running through my body grew taut as the blade at my core ached.

I got the sense that Elly saw it too.

"I'm not sure I'm okay being seen like that."

"Take it from me sister, no one is less okay with it than we are. Anyway, I hope you and yours find what you're looking for."

Elly waved me goodbye before joining Felicia in seeking shelter.

 There was not much to the small collection of huts. But someone had taken the time to build them. What would be left by the end of the exercise? Would they still be recognizable as homes by the end of this?

Behind me, the water pressing up against the beach began to turn black.

Unafraid, I let it swell and submerge my feet.

When the paint infused waves receded, they left something behind.

A little stone, no, a whole hairpin.

"The worst that shall come to pass is getting covered in a little paint."

I nearly jumped from the sudden mixture of surprise and delight.  I hurried to pluck the hair pin from the water before losing it again. "Chorus, I don't know what to say. Is this cheating?"

"With the time allotted to you, yours was spent supporting another. This is not something to punish, but reward."

"When asked, you clearly defined what it was you were looking for and why."

"There was an intent in bringing you all here together to show each other the world through another's eyes. Really, Verse. You are doing better than we could have hoped for."

I looked up at the three shadows and masks that shared the beach with me. "Thank you. All of you."

They inclined their masks, before departing to check in with other students. I found a seat on the rocks, content at first to see what paint I could scrape off the hair pin. It was not long until the False Storm began to close in. Now was as good a time as any to seek shelter.

With the recovered hairpin in hand, I made my own way towards the huts at the center of Marble Hall.

 

I underestimated the Storm's pace. We reached the town at nearly the same time.

The feeling of wind carrying the heavier paint in at an angle was as real as any moderately severe storm got. I had to hand whoever made this possible some credit. False as it was, this Storm was convincing.

Something struck me then.

The cries coming from open windows were in excess of what a little paint and wind warranted.

A cursory glance confirmed that anyone who was hurting had someone there to console and support them.

I turned a corner looking for a hut that contained an Amari, Whisper, or Ruin.

Instead I found Verity, alone.

She sat still in a slowly expanding pool of black.

It took kneeling beside her to realize it was not paint that spilled out and around the two of us.