Ravela picked up Safora and Laena Saturday morning, and Safora, in particular, was eager to catch up on the things she had missed out on. She could feel the angsty nervous energy ooze from her.
“God! I thought this week would never end! Okay, I want to compensate for lost time, so what are we doing first? Advanced fighting training? I want to throw some punches at that armor of yours.” Safora was on autopilot. She kept going, and Ravela started worrying that this would be their entire ride. “Can we start with that, actually? I need to let out some of this tension. I’ve been waking up hovering in the room all week, you know?”
Ravela glanced over to Laena, who subtly shook her head and not so subtly rolled her eyes. Safora, of course, took notice and offense.
“Oh, zip it, you! I totally was. You were just too busy snoring to notice.”
It was Laena’s turn to be offended. “I don’t snore!”
Ravela saw Safora stick out her tongue at Laena. It was time to intervene before Laena and Safora started fighting in her car. “Hey Hey! No fighting in my car. Cool it, you two. There is no need to fight.”
Laena had been about ready to climb back to Safora to discuss her snoring when Ravela talked her down. “Safora, you will get a chance to see the armor at work. You need to calm down first. If what you say is true, you are getting too worked up, so we will first work on your inner condition. The first priority with your powers is to be always in control. That is why we will probably be starting with you learning to meditate and clear your troubled head of all the overexcited chittering of your brain.”
Safora made a disappointed noise from her spot in the backseat but, to Ravela’s surprise, didn’t complain further. Probably the prospect of getting her way, soothing her usual much more headstrong self.
As they rolled up to the gate of her property, Ravela spotted someone sitting on a motorcycle. She wasn’t alone in noticing. Laena leaned in, and Safora’s head popped into her periphery, asking, “And who is that?”
Ravela narrowed her eyes, making out the dark hair and profile of his partner, Kahli Madri. “That is trouble. Girls, our plans just changed. You are just normal teenagers helping out someone you helped out in your hometown. That is my partnered fellow recruit. I will introduce you in a minute. Let’s hope she won’t stay for long.”
Safora took exception to this distraction. “Can’t you just tell her to go away?”
Ravela scoffed. “I have to work with her. So, I will teach you some handiwork instead. That, too, can be fun.” She pulled into the driveway and stopped beside Kahli, leaning on her motorcycle, while saying to the girls, “I will make it up to you later. Safora, just go with the flow of things and don’t get worked up, okay? Sometimes things just happen, and you have to be able to deal with the derailment without being obvious about it troubling you.”
Before the girls could say anything, she rolled down her window with the small hand crank on her door. “Good morning, partner. I didn’t expect to meet you out here.”
Kahli looked at him for a moment before she responded. “Good morning to you, too. When I drove out here to surprise you, I didn’t expect to be met with a big wall surrounding the entire property. Is that really yours?”
“Yes, let’s just ignore the question of how you got this address and question me. That checks out.” Ravela snidely replied.
“It’s not a state secret, is it?” Kahli dismissed the poke at the method of her acquiring this address. “I drove along the wall for a bit because I got confused. This is quite the property you got here, Ramiel.”
Ravela changed the topic. “Kahli Madri, meet Safora Pontis and Laena Stone.” She stepped out of the car and opened the gate manually, leaving the three to stare at each other awkwardly. After the gate was open, Ravela returned to Kahli’s side. “You want to join us inside? I’ve been dying to get some work done and wasn’t planning to sit in my driveway all day.”
She returned to her car seat without waiting for an answer and drove inside. Kahli got on her motorbike and drove after her.
Safora chose this moment to air her grievances. “She better not stay past lunch.”
Ravela sighed, “Patience, Safora, you act like missing out on something one day means it will never happen again. Don’t be so angsty, and just learn to swim in these waters. Someone will one day disturb your routine, and you will have to be able to maintain your cover effortlessly. In many ways, this will be your first mission. There is a cop at your door annoying you; don’t be tense about it.”
“Why does my first mission have to suck?” Safora said, crossing her arms while sitting back.
Laena looked at her friend with pity. “You remember that part where I got to jump out of a building? How much easier would it have been if you were there? You could have just flown off with me. See, if you nail this, you might just not be benched the next time something cool happens.”
Safora almost jumped up in her seat. “What do you mean, benched?!”
“Girls! Girls!” Ravela tried to maintain the peace. “Nobody’s been benched. Safora was caring for her brother. Laena, stop lording it over Safora’s head, or you’re getting benched. Now, please, can you not do this with an audience?”
She parked and took a deep breath before exiting the car. Kahli stopped right next to her and said. “Who are those girls?”
“I already introduced you. They are from Gradjia and helped me out a lot. I am returning the favor by showing them some crafting tricks to save them a fortune later in life.” Ravela said with a smile.
“Crafting?” Kahli asked, puzzled.
“What do you think I’ve been doing every day after work? Not everybody can go on their private little mission and dig through the life of their fellow recruits, find their addresses, dive through their garbage, find old yearbook photos of them with their braces and prescription glasses.”
Kahli laughed at that. For once, it seemed to Ravela genuine and not somehow hampered by the pressure of performing her best as a recruit.
“I didn’t have to work hard to find you here. As for diving through dumpsters, that is the work for the partner who doesn’t do all the research. So you best start practicing somewhere, hotshot. Because this future cop,” She showed herself off with presenting hands, “Will definitely be watching the dumpster diving from outside of the splash zone.”
Ravela made a face. “Can’t wait for the first dip in all the evidence to be found there. But what brings you out here, Kahli? Don’t you have friends to annoy, dinner parties to attend, or I don’t know what a Kahli does on her weekends? What is it you aren’t doing by visiting me?”
She turned to the girls, motioning for them to go inside already, and then refocused on Kahli. “I hope you don’t mind the chaos. This is a huge construction site.”
“You’re renovating this place? All on your own?” Kahli said sceptically.
“I got all the help I could ever need. Don’t you worry; before the summer is over, this place will be unrecognizable. All while maintaining my comfortable first place in the academy.” Ravela said with a grin.
“You’re only third place in fitness still.” Kahli pointed out a minor flaw in her statement.
“Say you wouldn’t care for a wager, would you?” She offered slyly.
“Depends, what are we betting on? And what are the stakes?” Kahli inquired.
Ravela nodded in understanding. “Let’s see. I say next week's fitness test I will win first place. Now you tell me you’re gonna bet against me.”
“Hmmmm, betting on Jocul, but betting against you. That’s a tough call. Let’s do the math here.” Kahli wiggled her head a bit from side to side. “Alright, why not? And what are the stakes?”
She waited a second before responding. “If I win, which of course I will, you’ll let me off the hook with these driving courses.”
Kahli made a face. “You’re bailing on me already, partner?”
“I see, it’s too high risk for you. Fine, I’ll make it more milk toast for you, partner. I win, and you don’t stand guard outside my home on weekends. What say you?”
Kahli narrowed her eyes but stretched out her hand. When Ravela shook it, she said, “And if you lose, you will have to spend every Saturday on the driving course till I break your record.”
Ravela didn’t flinch, but instead of letting go and sealing their deal, she held on and added playfully. “That would be every Saturday until graduation because there is no way you will drag me back to the course till I retire.”
“Sure, if it takes me too long to break your record, that commitment ends with us graduating from the academy.”
She smiled and responded with one last barb. “Uh, the confidence. Good thing I won’t lose then.” Ending their handshake, Ravela added. “Not that I don’t want you to break my record, but once you see the inside of the house, you will understand that I got my extracurriculars cut out for me.”
Ravela made her way to her house, followed by Kahli. Safora and Laena stood at one of the windows, observing their approach.
Safora stood alongside Laena, looking out the window, watching Ramiel and his partner talk to each other. It irked her a lot. “That’s some luck I have, huh?”
“I don’t know, Safora. Maybe she’ll leave in an hour or so. Don’t be all doom and gloom.” Laena tried to alleviate her friend’s worries.
“Oh, I don’t like her already,” Safora said as they watched them talk.
Ramiel turned and walked toward the house. Kahli Madri pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear before following him.
“Um, you just saw that too, right?” Laena said, startled.
“Uh, yeah. You know what that means? She’s gonna stick around here all day if she can find an excuse to stay, isn’t she?” Safora gritted her teeth. “Which is totally fine. There’s always next weekend, after all.”
Laena looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Safora, why are you so stressed by missing one weekend.”
“Because everything happened while I was gone. Now, shush, here they come. I need to concentrate on not flying through the ceiling.”
“Wait, really!?” Laena blurted out as Ramiel and Kahli entered the room.
Safora acted like she had not just said what she had said. “Yes, dummy. That homework is not due till Wednesday. Can you please stop worrying so much about it?”
Laena looked impressed with the effortlessness with which Safora came up with a whole different dialogue on the spot.
Safora smiled broadly. She would be on her best behavior. Somehow, she’d get through this day, Safora told herself.
Ramiel looked Safora up and down. Something was off here, and her instinct told her it wasn’t Laena being weird.
“Always, with the school talk, you two.” Ravela tried to just gloss over the awkwardness of the girls. “Let’s get to work. This weekend, we’ll go over how to repair stairs and build railings. You already saw me lay out new floorboards. Stairs aren’t so different, but there is the added difficulty of verticality.”
She turned to Kahli. “Do you have any hidden talent in craftsmanship?”
Kahli gave her a shrug, “Not really, but sounds fun. Would you care to show a third person how it’s done?”
Ravela smiled politely. “Sure, the more people know how to fix things, the better.” Before her inner eye, she saw a weekend wasted working slow as a snail. If she had Kahli come over too often, the house wouldn’t be fixed for the next few years.
“Great, what do you have planned for Sunday,” Kahli said, a mischievous glint in her eyes. Ravela might be imagining things, but she could swear she was winding up the two teenagers because she sensed their annoyance. She kept smiling. Her partner was a bit of a character. Ravela sensed there was a story there.
There was no doubt in her mind that these three would become the best of friends. Unless, of course, Safora exploded in a furious ball of pent-up energy.
Now, that was a concerning prospect.
Kahli stayed the entire afternoon, and though the girls listened to her lessons on building and repairing stairs and rails properly, she did some minor work under her supervision. Ravela could tell that their heart wasn’t in it. They had come here to do ‘superpower’ activities and blow off some steam after walking on eggshells all week, and Kahli ruined their Saturday. Her partner, for her part, made no secret out of her presence and participated in their practice of craftsmanship. Ravela seemed to notice a mischievous enjoyment in Kahli’s interactions with the girls. It wouldn’t surprise her if she had realized the girls minded her continued presence.
Ravela sat back and just observed the three interact silently while they put into practice what they had learned.
That was a new side to her partner, Ravela had not expected to find there. Enjoying annoying others seemed much too childish a trait for the usually so serious and rather prude Kahli. For the first time, she understood it to be the woman's peculiar way of affection, a rather strange revelation.
On the other hand, Safora and Laena disliked Kahli for no other reason than her meeting them at an inopportune time. It made her wonder how different their interaction could have gone because of a factor entirely outside her control. She felt that this knowledge wasn’t new to her, but in this alien body, the inconsistency of even human-to-human contact was fascinating and disturbing to her on a much deeper level.
Lost in thought, Ravela looked down at her hands, and the ring on her hand felt just the tiniest bit heavier.
Humans were such a chaotic and confusing species.
Kahli pulled her out of her contemplation, and it took Ravela a second to refocus back into the here and now.
“I am sorry, what did you say?” Ravela said while smiling apologetically.
“I said goodbye, and see you tomorrow,” Kahli repeated herself.
Ravela nodded. “I see. Till tomorrow then.”
As she stood with Safora and Laena on the driveway, watching Kahli get on her motorcycle and drive off, Ravela noticed that Safora’s hair began to raise as though under static. The forced smile on her face was betrayed by her hair having a life of its own.
“Calm yourself, Safora. Your hair is beginning to fly away. You really need to work on taking things in stride.” She addressed the obvious problem.
The motorcycle vanished off the property behind the wall, and Safora visibly puffed up. Now, her bad mood was showing on her face. “Well, that’s just great. You know you could have said she shouldn’t come over tomorrow!”
“I am working on it. Stop being such a baby.” Ravela said bluntly.
Safora's mouth fell open, and she looked at Laena for support, who just shrugged and said, “He’s right, you look like your head has been rubbed against a balloon.”
Safora looked over to the car and checked herself out in the mirror. “Seriously, why is this happening to me? This is stupid! It’s unfair!”
Ravela looked at the girl with superpowers incredulously. “Yes, being able to fly like a bird or airplane is such a burden. However, do you cope with such hardships?”
