Rising Shards

I shivered in the cold, sensing a threat ahead. I braced myself looking out into the snowstorm as a shadowy figure approached, only becoming clear as they stepped out of the falling snow.

“We don’t have to do this…” I said, trying to ready my powers as Kalei clenched her fists, looking mournful.

“It always had to be this way, Zates.” Kalei said, energy crackling in her hands.

“Cut!” Lillia said.

“Dude, what?” Kalei said. “That was perfect!”

“You said ‘Zates.’ Zeta isn’t playing herself.” Lillia said.

“We can just dub it later, right?” I said.

“And this is just a test! We’re just doing test footage; we don’t even know our characters yet!” Kalei said.

“Hypothetically, my character could end up being named Zates.” I said.

“Yes, but that would be annoying.” Lillia said.

“Maybe we should regroup inside?” Oka suggested. “It’s awfully chilly out.”

Once we went back on campus, we checked out a study room, then huddled around Lillia’s phone to watch the footage she recorded.

“I look so awesome!” Kalei said, making us play the clip of her walking out through the snow five times. “I wish we could have bloodsabers for this, though.”

“I doubt they’ll let us use them outside of the void,” Lillia said. “But we may be able to find some prop ones around.”

“We also have to be careful with the powers,” Oka said. “That teacher looked ready to scold us just for kinda looking like we’re about to fight even in a pretend video making sense.”

Lillia connected her phone to the study room’s monitor, having the sample footage ready to play for our auditions of sorts. This whole endeavor was her idea, and she was taking leadership of it seriously, wanting recruitment for some kind of video project (I still wanted to make a show, the group was split between show and movie) to look as professional as we could.

“Who are we meeting with again?” Oka asked.

“Today, we have Marmalade, Iris, and Maia for those who’ve agreed to meet with us.” Lillia said.

“So just friends to start this out?” I asked.

“Yes,” Lillia said. “I’m thinking close friends for now, but I would be open to extending this to more people in the play who have the same aching need to act, or more of the crew from the Spirit Betterment Club if we need them.”

“And who all is game already?” Kalei asked. “Us, obviously.”

“Yes, and Ko as well,” Lillia said. “She’s going to ask Kai if she wants to join soon.”

“That’s a pretty healthy starting group, I’d say!” Oka said. “Next thing is…what exactly do we ask for the people we're talking to?"

“Figure out if they’d want to act or be in the production side,” Lillia said.

“And if they can act.” Kalei said.

“I’ve prepared some sample lines as well that we can try with the candidates,” Lillia said. “Admittedly, I’ve always wanted to run an audition like this, so apologies if I’m a bit over excited.”

“Lillia, we’re around Zeta all the time, you being ‘a bit over excited’ is still nothing compared to sugar rush Zates.”

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?” I said.

“That you get really hyper.” Kalei said.

"I don't get really hyper..." I said.

"You do, but it's really cute!" Oka said.

Our first potential client for our video making project was Marmalade, who was right on time.

“Greetings, Marmalade,” Lillia said when Marmalade sat down. “We appreciate you joining us.”

“No…problem?” Marmalade said. “This feels like a job interview.”

“Lillia’s very into this.” Kalei said. “But I’m digging it too.”

“And you guys are doing a…video? Thing?” Marmalade asked.

“That is the plan,” Lillia said. “Things are in very early stages, so we’re gathering interest.”

“And since you’re our friend, we thought we’d ask you right away!” I said.

“Awww,” Marmalade said.

“Do you have any experience acting or with a creative endeavor like this?” Lillia asked.

“At Staverius, I walked by these guys making a movie about this bog dwelling mutant,” Marmalade said. “They went all out on the costume.”

“Damn, swamp monster would be kinda sweet,” Kalei said.

“Would you be interested in acting or helping out with this?" I asked.

“I’d probably be more comfortable not being on camera,” Marmalade said. “But it’d probably be good for my self esteem to work on that comfort level, so…”

“What, like you think you’re not good looking enough to be on camera?” Kalei asked.

“I mean…” Marmalade said.

“You look great, I wouldn’t worry at all there,” Kalei said.

“Me? Are you talking about someone else in the room?” Marmalade asked.

“I’m talking about you, dude, you’re cute,” Kalei said. “I’m not one to say someone’s cute often, either.”

Kalei’s praise seemed to hit Marmalade pretty hard, as Marmalade blushed very hard and gave short answers for a while after hearing that. Kalei didn’t seem to notice the effect she had.

“Heads up in advance, I probably am not good at acting.” Marmalade said.

“Don’t worry about that, the only pros in here are Lillia and Oka,” Kalei said.

“I really thought you were gonna say something like ‘don’t worry, we have Zeta here so it won’t be hard to act better than her.’” I said.

“I could’ve, but I gotta pace out my Zeta burns, you know?” Kalei said.

“Do you guys know what kind of thing you’re going to make yet?” Marmalade asked.

“We have a lot of ideas,” Lillia said. She reached into her bag. “I believe this may be a great starting point.” She held up a notebook.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Oka said. “Where’d you get that? Hang on, that wasn’t part of the pitch you gave us, give that back!”

“In a second,” Lillia said. “You weren’t here for this, Marmalade, but we did brainstorm some character work a while ago that Oka took excellent notes on.”

Lillia handed the notebook over to Marmalade, who paged through as we continued talking.

“I don’t remember this,” Kalei said. “Was I there when we did that?”

“Oh, this was during that blizzard!” I said. “Kalei, that was just a few weeks ago.”

“I don’t remember things!” Kalei said.

“Remember when we came up with all that stuff about us working at a book publisher?" I asked. "Where they made Raina Starlight books?”

“Ohhh, and I was the one that fires people, I’m pretty sure.” Kalei said. “I remember that part. And you and Oka got all slowburn.”

“Whatever we do, I want that slowburn romance with Zeta.” Oka said. “Or, with my character and Zeta’s character.”

“If it’s a movie, we won’t have a lot of time for slowburn,” Kalei said.

“We could have it be a love story that takes place over a very long stretch of time,” Oka said. “Like we could be entwined souls that keep finding each other over decades.”

“While we’re working in an office?” Kalei said.

“It could be a magic office where people keep reincarnating into the new workers!” Oka said. “Use your imagination!”

“I think the reincarnation angle could be something,” Lillia said. “But it may be best to keep things a bit simpler for our first production.”

“Wow,” I said. Something about ‘our first production’ gave me goosebumps.”

“Right?” Kalei said.