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“Eda! Wait up!” Raine’s feet pounded against the ground as they ran after their best friend, letting out quick, awkward apologies to the students they narrowly avoided slamming into on the way. After a minute of running, they finally caught up with her. Eda gave them a grin, her hair sticking out in a million directions,
“I’ve gotta get to a class before the teacher, remember? So I can loosen the screw on the vent in the back.”
“Why?” Raine asked, leaning against the wall and taking a few deep breaths. Usually they had no problem keeping up with Eda. In fact, they were one of the only witches who could do so. But today, they’d woken up with an aching stomach and an exhaustion that was bone-deep. They’d considered asking to stay home, but they’d been rushed out the door by their parents before they could say anything.
“So I can release the snakes later, duh,” Eda rolled her eyes. Raine felt like they were supposed to remember this plan, but their mind was hazy from exhaustion, and they drew a blank. It must have shown on their face because Eda slung an arm around their shoulder, “the snakes, Rainestorm. The ones I’ve been training for a year now? They’re finally ready to be released. I’ve trained them to hone in on our enemies. It’ll be chaos.”
“Oh. Fun.” Raine wrapped their arms around their stomach, wincing as a ripple of pain went up their lower abdomen.
“You good?” Eda raised an eyebrow.
“Yep. Here, do you have a good map of the vent system?” They watched her twist the screw with two fingers, her eyes as set and concentrated as they ever got.
“Nope. I’ve only got half of it. I think I know the right one to put them through to start, though. This one. The snakes memorized a pattern and know how to improvise, I made sure of it.”
“You taught snakes how to improvise?” Raine let out a small laugh, summoning their violin and lightly plucking at the strings, pausing to listen after a few seconds. Eda tilted her head. “It’s a new spell I learned. It’ll get the sound to bounce back to you, and if you know what to listen for, it’ll give you a pretty good map of the place. Here, pass me that paper.” Eda did so, taking a pencil out of her hair and tossing that over to Raine as well. Raine plucked the strings again, scribbling down a small map of the vent system of the school.
“Cool! That fills in everything I didn’t know!” Eda flashed them a grin, “you gotta teach me that spell, I could do so much with it.”
“I will later,” Raine promised as Eda took the make-shift map and scanned it over, “what block is the disruption going to happen in?”
“Second.”
“I’ll be waiting somewhere,” Raine said. They always were. While they usually weren’t right next to Eda while she was bringing one of her schemes to life, they were always somewhere in the background, waiting to assist her if she needed it.
“Awesome. See you soon,” she quickly threw her arms around them, then ran off. They watched her go with a smile. A growl from their stomach brought her attention back to that particular problem. They groaned. There was nothing they could do about it right now.
They were sick a lot, to be honest, especially this year. But this felt different. They weren’t shivery, and their legs weren’t weak. Just… heavy.
They walked off to class, their arms crossed to their chest. They liked most of their classes, this one included. But when they sat down and attempted to listen, their mind wandered. The students around them were talking in hushed voices so the teacher wouldn’t hear. But Raine did. They laid their head against the desk, their stomach clenching. They swallowed, shifting around in their seat. Something was making them uncomfortable. Something other than their stomach. But they couldn’t quite pinpoint what that something was. When they were in pain, they had a tendency to disassociate from their body and keep pushing through regardless. Adults usually seemed more… concerned with that than anything, but who knew? Maybe that would come in handy in the future.
They closed their eyes, trying to get back in touch with the rest of their physical feelings. Their fingers were fine… okay. So were their hands. And their arms. Their heart felt sluggish in their chest, but that was from exhaustion. They skipped over their stomach, not wanting to feel anything that was going on in that particular area. Finally, they settled on their legs.
They were… wet between them. A number of explanations ran through their head, each more embarrassing than the next. They slowly raised their hand. The teacher didn’t call on them. Honestly, most of the time this particular one forgot they existed. Their work was graded later than everyone else’s, and they were rarely called on in general. Like they were an afterthought. Raine wished then and there for Eda’s sheer audacity. She would be willing to just walk out of the classroom without the teacher’s permission. Actually, she did that on a daily basis.
They kept their hand up still, heat rising to their cheeks as they realized their classmates were staring at them. They put their hand down for a few minutes, then raised it back up again.
“Yes, Mx…?” The teacher finally said.
“Mx. Whispers,” Raine mumbled, “can I - uh, restroom?” They got a wave of a hand in response. That was good enough for them and they hurried out, taking a few deep breaths. They leaned against the wall for a second, then ran to the nearest single-stall restroom, closing the door behind them and locking it.
They sat down. Then they groaned, upon realizing their problem. Blood. There was blood between their legs. Titan. They were entirely unprepared for this.
Their parents had mentioned it as an offhand comment a few times, but the actual situation had mostly slipped their parents minds. As had… a lot of other things involving Raine’s identity and body. They closed their eyes and leaned forward, resting their head against their palm. They didn’t have any spare clothes. They didn’t have any way to stop themself from bleeding through these clothes any further. They were stuck.
They walked back to their classroom, approaching the teacher at the front of the room, their eyes trained on the ground.
“Mx…” the teacher paused, trying to remember who they were, “Whyatt? Sit down.”
“Uh…” Raine tugged on the edge of their uniform, “I need to -”
“Sit down.”
Somebody from across the room laughed. Raine’s face went red. They swallowed a whimper, turning around and fleeing from the room. They knew where to go. There was a small room that they and Eda had found about a month ago by poking around near the library and opening random doors. It had likely originally been made by bards, as a sharp whistle was all that was required for the bricks on the wall to rearrange and show the door.
They opened said door after whistling, slouching down on the floor, their knees pulled to their chest. They weren’t going to cry. They were fourteen years old now. They could deal with it.
Their definition of dealing with it was hiding in a room that was basically a closet for the rest of the school day. Their stomach shifted anxiously and they laid their chin against their knees, closing their eyes. Without realizing it, they fell into a shallow sleep. Their skin was buzzing. It was wrong.
Their whole body was wrong.
“Raine? Raiiiiiine?” A finger poked their cheek. “Rainestorm?” They slowly opened their eyes at that, letting out a sigh of relief as they saw Eda’s face. “Hey,” the girl in question said, a snake just barely poking out of her hair.
“What time is it?” They asked, rubbing their eyes.
“Just after second block. I let the snakes loose and everyone went crazy. It was awesome. Then I couldn’t find you, so I came here,” Eda brushed her fingers against their cheek again, concern in her eyes, “why are you here? Are you sick? Do I need to hex someone? Did -”
“Have - have you ever had your, uh, moon-cycle?” Raine’s face went red and they avoided meeting her eyes as they spoke.
“Yep,” Eda said without a moment of hesitation. Raine had never had a friend like her before. They could tell each other everything.
“I got mine. Today.”
“Oh. Oh, okay,” Eda put a hand on their shoulder, “do you have the stuff you need?” They shook their head. “I don’t. But I bet Lilith does. Hang on, I’ll ask her for some, okay?” She waited for their nod, then ran off, leaving Raine alone in the dark again.
They dug their nails into their arms while they waited, leaning their head forward. They just wanted to go back to sleep and forget about their existence for a few hours. Eda came barreling back in within minutes, though,
“Here you go! Did you bleed through your pants at all?”
“Kind of.”
“Okay. Lilith gave me a jacket too, so you can cover it up by tying it around your waist, see?” She held it up for them. “You could go home, if you wanted, you know. They won’t let you out of school for a dislocated bone or a missing limb, but they will let you out for a painful moon-cycle. Trust me.”
“I shouldn’t go home. I have seven little brothers, Eda, my parents have bigger things to worry about.” Eda shrugged in response, walking out of the room with Raine and waiting outside of the bathroom while they went in, properly cleaning themself up.
“Hey, Raine!” Eda said as they exited, “look, I found another one of the snakes. This one’s named Richard. Think we could find a potion that’d make her breathe fire?”
“Maybe,” Raine said with a smile. Eda was good at distracting them when things were uncomfortable. She had a seemingly unlimited supply of energy, and for the most part, Raine was glad to just be near her and listen to her talk.
“I’ll look into it after school. Oh, right, wanna come over to my place after? My mom likes you. She says you’re very polite.”
“I’d like to,” Raine nodded, wrapping their arms around their stomach again as they walked back to the room they had been in before, Raine whistling to make the door reappear. They sat down once more once they were inside, Eda sitting beside them.
She didn’t say anything more, just wrapped an arm around them, letting their head rest in the crook of it. The two of them were in this position a lot, often switching who was resting against who. Raine let out a small hum of contentment.
“You can always come find me when something’s wrong, y’know?” Eda said, resting her chin against their head, “we’re best friends, right?”
“Yeah,” Raine said, “you can find me too. I don’t know how I’d find you, though. You’re never in your actual potion classes, Lord Calamity.”
“Just use that cool thing you used this morning. You know the shape of my body, right? I bet you’d be able to find me really fast. Oh, we could spy on Lilith with that! I bet she goes at least one place she doesn’t want us to know about.”
“Maybe,” Raine laughed, snuggling closer to their friend, “I’ll always find you eventually, though. Ahhhh, wait, no, that sounds wrong -” they hid their face with their hands as their cheeks grew red. They weren’t usually easily embarrassed in front of Eda. But lately things had been… odd.
“I get what you mean,” Eda lightly elbowed them, “I’ll always find you too, Rainestorm. Anyway, wanna hear about the look on Bump’s face when he saw the snakes coming out of the vents?”
“Yeah,” Raine smiled, their thoughts calming as Eda began to rapidly speak. They still had a few problems to deal with once the school day was over. But for now, they could let themself decompress.