“Yummy, yummy Western stew. Filled with love. Filled Southern meats. Filled with Northern beets. A concoction made by you guessed it, me Oho pheli aaaa Akachi.” I hum taking in another spoonful of amazingly seared med-raw southern meat.

I’m sure Kyrie said something in response, but I couldn’t hear her because, I mean, who could possibly talk when a delectable, fragrant divine meal is in front of you? Meat so tastily gamey made all those years of learning how to butcher them fresh seem so worth it. I have to thank Papa later for that.

As I take my last spoonful of the hearty juicy mouthwatering cut of meat, I notice Kyrie giggling to herself after finishing a while ago after those other two guys left.

W-were they here the whole time? Please tell me they didn’t see me humming.

Kyrie finally digs into her portion and less than a minute later, she’s done. I don’t know how Papa and her taste anything the way they just shove everything down like that, and I mean everything, even the bones. If I hadn’t warned them, I’m sure they’d eat the box it came in.

“What’s up Kyrie?”

Suddenly Kyrie pauses. The look on her cut harder than my knives. The seriousness of whatever on her mind must be taken with my full attention.

“Don’t like it.”

“Was it really that bad?”

“No, I dunno how ya do it, but yer food keeps gettin’ better. I dunno how, but trust me, it does.”

That’s a relief. I really like this attempt, so if she thought it was bad then I dunno what I would say.

“But I don’ like ya callin’ me by my name.” Kyrie leans back, balancing on the two back legs of her chair.

“I’m sorry…should I call you Miss Testi- Testo…what was it again?”

“Testament and also absolutely not! It makes me sound so old, er, older. What I mean is all my friends call me a cool nickname. Ani calls me Kii, Oli calls me Lord and Mimi calls me Teach or infallible. Don’t know what that one means but it sounds super cool, and I want Ophi to give me one too. Everyone else I know does, so ya should, too.”

Oh, thank goodness that’s what she meant, and I am not telling her the irony of being called infallible.

A nickname, huh? How hard could it be to come up with a nickname? All I have to do is use something about Kyrie that I know about and use that…

Several minutes passed of waiting with my mind running rampant on what, if any, names would fit Kyrie.

Kyrie likes food.

Has an imaginary or real, really important friend named Ani whose is an elf and likes food.

Lost her stick in the sky and…uh. Likes fightin’ and has two siblings.

Devours food and…

And?

Wait… what do I know about her, really?

We usually chat about a lot of things, but most of them were just random things and most of it was about Ani.

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The bell rings, and class starts up again and I still couldn’t think of a name for her. What bothered me the most was the person sitting next to me giddily rocking back and forth in her seat, waiting for my response.

Gah. This pressure is nerve wracking.

“Um.” I began, not sure where I was going with it. “So, tell me more about yourself? I don’t know what Ky—” Before I could finish, Kyrie lost balance, toppling over and slamming against the ground, catching the attention of the rest of the class. “Ki!”

“Oh!! I like that.”

I’m glad she’s excited, but she’s completely ignoring the fact her head had just skull smooched the floor.

“Like what?”

“Kiki. I like that. Call me that from now on.”

“Are you okay? You hit your head pretty hard.”

“Nah, this is nothin’. You shoulda saw when Sasha threw me inta the mountain. Now that was fun.”

“Kyr—”

“Nope!”

“Ky-Kyki, what do you mean threw you across a mountain and Gammy did that?”

“Gammy?”

“Y-yeah. Gammy is Gammy.”

“Well alright then. Anyways I mean, it’s as it sounds. She grabbed me by the leg and tossed me into a mountain. That and when I punched her then she stabbed me with her sword. Y’know just the usual.”

“What’s a sword?”

“It’s like a really long knife used for cutting monsters and people.”

“Why do they need to cut people with it?”

“Same reason you use a knife fo—” Suddenly Kyr-, Kyki, dang it. Kiki stops mid-sentence while looking at the board. That’s strange because even though I anxiously told her to pay attention on the first day, we both came to an unspoken agreement that neither of us could focus long enough to learn anything, so we gave up and played games.

I turned forward to see what could get her attention, and what I saw sent shivers down my spine.

The entire class, including mister, um, uh, baldy, included with eyes wide open, focusing on our discussion. In the last couple days Kyr, ugh this is hard, Kyki, Kiki and I mostly whisper to not draw any attention. My instincts grab my jacket and cover my head to hide away.

It was not cowardly; I was just readying myself to converse. Yep. I refuse to think otherwise.

“Did we bother ya, class? Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Um, yes, but keep discussing. I am sure we would all like to hear more.” Mister baldy said. Sorry Mister Baldy.

“I mean, I guess I don’ mind but like it’s kinda private, y’know.”

“Um yes. Miss,” I took a peek and saw Mister baldy look at his I.S.D only to be stunned, “I never believe we met.”

“Yeah, I guess, but why does that matter?”

“Miss.”

“Yep, that is me, I guess. For now oooooo.” She tickles me with her fingers.

“This is only an assumption, but from what I can infer from your discussion, did you perhaps travel outside Progressia.”

Despite him being the teacher, anyone in the room could tell that Ki-Ki, I think I got it now, had all the control of the conversation. That’s one thing I like about Kiki is she always knew how to talk to people even if she just met them, something I wasn’t good at.

“I mean, it’s not like it’s a secret or anything that I traveled all over. Why?”

The air was silent, yet it felt intense like my blender with ice right before I turned it on, like I could physically feel all their collective intrigue fuel gaze through my jacket, luckily all of their attention was onto Kiki instead of me, so it wasn’t as bad as my first day and in typical Kiki fashion she wasn’t bothered by them at all with just a confused ‘ain’ that obvious’ look on her face. Her arms crossed unflinching from anything that came her way. It all just made her so cool. I mean, at least compared to me, who still couldn’t bring myself to come out of hiding.

“Remarkable. Will you tell us more about the world outside?”

“Nah, I only talk my family or friends,” She wraps her arms around my shoulders putting all their prying eyes onto me, “Like this cute little one.”

“Kiki…um.” I barely squeak out boiling red and eyes darting violently for a place to look. My powers activating in full force didn’t help with a rainbow of emotions flickering in front of me, like the barrier.

Red Anger.

Blue Sadness.

Green Jealousy.

Black Disgust.

Orange Curiosity.

Yellow Excitement.

Yellower Happy.

All flashing in front of me simultaneously in my eyes, making me feel sick to my stomach.

“What’s wrong.” Kyrie put her hand on my head.

“W-w-well I-I.” I fumble about as my vision starts distorting and blending together like a smoothie.

“Ah! Impatient on aintcha Ophi. Kiki gets it. Don’ worry. Hey Kiddo, Iron lets go.”

“Um mah gah.”

Yep, that was it.

My brain completely fried spinning my head back and forth trying to process, but all it did was make me dizzier until, finally, I blacked out. After that, I had no memory other than the faint murmurs around me.