I wanted to start the summer off right, so I met with my trainer this morning (I am woefully behind on exercise), and I spent the rest of the day in the shed (alternating with some gardening).
It took me a while to settle down to work — there was a fair bit of video gaming and Voyager-watching first. But eventually I did start dealing with some phone calls and e-mails, which was good, and around 7, I finally did some fiction writing. Yay. More tomorrow.
But for now, here’s part 5 of Nami’s story — the earlier parts you can find if you search for her name in my feed. The conclusion is yet to be written — I’m going to have a little snack first, but then I’m planning to write it, because I promised my supporters (see link below) a story on the first of the month, and it’s May 1, so this one is due.
I particularly had fun bringing back Kris and Gaurav for this — one of the nice parts of going back in time in your universe is that you can spend more time with characters that you’d previously killed off. Is that weird? Writers are weird. 
*****
A pair of campus security guards were standing outside the Fine Arts Building when Nami walked up, trying to impose order on a noisy crowd. She’d met them before, in her initial job training – oh, what were their names? Right, the human was Kris something or other, and the saurian was Gaurav, no last name. Her mother’s lessons on memorizing names – names are important, Nami! Pay attention! – must have stuck. Fragments of dialogue slid past, as Nami tried to make sense of what was going on.
“There’s never been a murder on this campus, never!”
“He’s not actually dead, you know. Just stabbed. They must have thought they were stabbing a human, or they were just wildly ignorant, because they missed all the vital organs…”
“Did you see what happened?”
“No, I just saw that girl standing over the body, covered in blood, and then the medics arrived…”
“I heard her screaming.”
“The dead heard her screaming. She’s got a good set of lungs on her, for a human.”
Then the human cop was in front of her, frowning, “Did you see anything?”
Before she could answer, his partner cut in – “Never mind her, Kris, she wasn’t even here when it happened. I saw her walking up just now. We really need to cordon off the area, and get these people out of here. We’ve gotten all the relevant statements.”
Nami asked, “I’m free to go?”
The old man grunted, and said, “Yes, yes.” He raised his voice, calling out, “You’re all free to go.” And then muttered, “Gods, there’s going to be so much paperwork…”
Nami was ready to slip away, but the crowd was starting to dissipate, and through a gap, she saw Selah huddled on the steps of the building. The poor kid was curled in on herself, with a suspiciously large gap of space surrounding her, as if no one wanted to get too close. And it looked like she was shaking – hadn’t anyone taken care of her?
Nami glanced around wildly – ah, the medics were still there, packing supplies into their flyer – the victim wasn’t anywhere in sight; they must have rushed him to the hospital already. Nami dashed over and grabbed a blanket from a stack just inside the flyer door, smiling and dropping a quick, “I’m from administration, thanks!” Which was technically true, since she worked in the administration building, and her mother always said that if you acted like you belonged somewhere, people tended to believe you. It worked this time too, and in just a few moments, Nami was at Selah’s side, wrapping the blanket around her shaking body.
“Hey. Hey, you’re okay.” The girl was still shaking, and Nami slid an arm around her too, just to steady her. That was her story, and she was sticking to it, no matter what Surinder said later. All she wanted right now was to make sure Selah was okay.
*****
(Photo of hellebores gathered from the garden to grace my writing shed, in a little mug that Anand made in pottery class.)