Gulons, Glitter, and Other Disasters (Sophie/Keefe)
Chapter 1 of 2: The Glitter Fiasco

Notes: I originally planned for this to be a one-shot, but it was getting a little long, so I have decided to split it into chapters. I have also done my best to comply with canon, but there are some elements I had to ignore for the sake of the story (it is very difficult to sneak around pulling pranks if you have an goblin/ogre bodyguard). I also can't remember if you can teleport into Foxfire, or if there is some magic preventing that. This is also un-beta'd, so apologies for any mistakes. Anyway, let me know what you think!

"Psst. Foster."

Sophie did not look up from the curdleroot she was carefully peeling, her back unyieldingly straight.

"Foster."

Sophie remained unmoved, slowly gliding her knife up the skin of the squishy vegetable.

"Sophie." Keefe said urgently.

Sophie waited until Lady Cadence was across the room assisting a Level 1 prodigy before turning around in her seat to face Keefe. "What?"

Keefe looked around conspiratorially before leaning across his desk. "I have a new idea for a prank. One that may surpass the Great Gulon Incident."

Sophie raised an eyebrow, suspicious. "I thought you have nothing to do with that?"

"Oh, I certainly didn't," Keefe said dismissively. "Which is why I need to pull this new prank off and establish myself as a force of mischief greater than the mastermind behind the Great Gulon Incident. I've been too soft these past few years, too busy being heroic and manly, helping you save the Lost Cities and all that. It's time to get back in the prank game."

"You pulled a prank this morning." Sophie said mindfully. "That's why we're in detention."

Keefe looked briefly pained. "Yeah, sorry about that. I should have figured they'd realize you were the only person who could have given me glitter."

"It's okay," Sophie said. "When Lady Nissa told me I had detention, she said I should have known better then to give you the glitter in the first place. She's right."

Sophie had found a several vials of multicoloured craft glitter when emptying out the detritus of the backpack she had used when fleeing the human world. The glitter had been the remnants of some school project she couldn't quite remember. She had brought the vials to Foxfire the next day, hoping Biana would determine some cosmetic purpose the glitter course serve (eyeshadow, maybe? Sophie recalled seeing glittery eyeshadow in a human fashion magazine) and agree to take the the vials off Sophie's hands.

But Keefe had swooped in the moment Sophie had told Biana glitter stuck to anything and everything and could become a huge nuisance if she wasn't careful, and requested the glitter for "artistic purposes".

And against her better judgement, Sophie had given Keefe the glitter. She had been finding it increasingly difficult to say 'no' to him these days.

And of course, Keefe had immediately went and dumped all the glitter down the wall slot that served as the Tutoring Center's book return.

"I shouldn't have done it in the first place." Keefe said regretfully. "I really did want the glitter for art. But I saw the book return, and my impulses just took over. The entire idea was too simple, no real craftsmanship behind it. And worst of all, you got in trouble when you didn't do anything."

"Really, it's fine, Keefe." Sophie said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Lady Cadence was still occupied. "What's this new prank?"

Keefe smiled in that wide, unabashed way that always made Sophie's heart beat a little bit faster. "Let's just say it involves gulons…and the Silver Tower."

"…Which I have access to."

Keefe nodded. "Yep. My plan hinges upon getting inside. Which is why I need your help."

Sophie considered. There was something that had been bothering her in the four years she'd been at Foxfire. Something she'd struggled to discover the truth about. But this — this might be her chance.

"I will help you," Sophie said slowly. "On two conditions."

"Of course. Anything for you." Keefe grinned.

"One," Sophie said, holding up her left index finger. "I want to know all the details about what you have planned, so I know what I'm getting into."

"That's only fair." Keefe agreed.

"And two…no one has ever told me what the Great Gulon Incident was, or who was involved. If you tell me, I'll help."

Keefe froze and blanched. Sophie crossed her arms and smiled at him.

He exhaled noisy after a long, silent moment. "Okay. Obviously, I was the mastermind behind that operation. And I would be insulted if you ever thought otherwise. I released about twenty gulons into the main building, and they made the entire place reek. They had to evacuate the school to air it out, and midterms had to be rescheduled. The mentors don't like it being brought up in case it gives anyone ideas about how to get out of exams. Happy?"

Sophie shook her head. "No. When I started Level 1, I was told it had happened three years earlier. You skipped Level 1, so you wouldn't have been a Foxfire prodigy yet. You must have had help. Who was your accomplice?"

Keefe leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I work alone."

"And yet you're asking me to help you break into the Silver Tower?" Sophie challenged, enjoying this immensely. "Tell me who it was, and I'll help you."

Keefe fiddled anxiously with his peeling knife, flicking the curdleroot on his desk with his index finger and thumb so the root spun around in a lazy arc. "If you help me, and we pull this off, I promise I will tell you. I just…I have to ask the other person first if it's alright to tell you they were involved."

Sophie didn't say anything. Keefe looked up from the curdleroot and met her eyes.

"Look, I told you that I was behind it and that someone else was involved. Is that enough for now?" Keefe asked, hesitant.

"…okay." Sophie said, watching as Keefe's face lit up. "I'll help you."

"You won't regret this, Foster." Keefe said, leaning back in his chair and putting his arms behind his head.

"You will regret not having peeled your curdleroot, Mr. Sencen." Lady Cadence said from behind Keefe. Keefe jumped in his seat and grabbed for his curdleroot and peeling knife.

Sophie smiled sweetly at Lady Cadence and gestured to her perfectly peeled curdleroot.

Lady Cadence scooped the peels into a small basket and held out a cloth bag for Sophie to place the remainder of the root in. "Good work, Miss Foster. Perhaps if Mr. Sencen spent less time flirting with you, he too could be productive."

Keefe winked at Lady Cadence, who let out a sigh of something long suffering.

That afternoon Sophie and Keefe sat in the tall grass surrounding Havenfield, having been politely informed by Edaline that she would prefer they work outside until the smell of curdleroot no longer lingered on their clothes and hands.

Keefe unfurled a sheet of paper on which he had sketched the Silver Tower. "So, here's the plan: we need to arrive at Foxfire very early, before anyone else is there. But the Silver Tower has dormitories, so we can't arrive too early that the Level 8s will think something is wrong if we make any noise trying to get in."

"So around dawn?" Sophie suggested. "That would give us enough time to light leap, get into the Tower, leave the gulons, leave the Tower, light leap back home, and then arrive at Foxfire at the normal time like nothing is wrong."

Keefe leaned back on his hands and smiled. "Good thinking, Foster. If we pull this off, they wouldn't be able to prove if the gulons had been in the Tower all night, or if someone put them there in the morning."

"How many gulons are we going to need?" Sophie asked. Other than Mrs. Stinkbottom (who didn't really count), she had never seen a gulon. "And how are we going to get them?"

"I figure we won't need more than two, maybe three gulons to stink the place up." Keefe replied. "To get the ideal stink factor, you usually want one on each floor, but the Tower is small, and stink rises, so I don't think we need to bother. We'll just enter and release them on the ground floor and then get out. And don't worry, I can get my hands on two or three, easy."

He gestured to the sketch of the Tower. "Could you describe the layout of the first floor to me?"

"There are scones with balefire in the entryway." Sophie said, as Keefe began adding to the sketch with a piece of charcoal. "The ceiling is very low, and there is a statute with a unicorn in the middle. There's a cabinet of silver cloaks, but I don't think we'll be inside long enough to need them —"

"Which side of the wall?" Keefe asked, charcoal poised to add the cabinet to the floor plan he was drawing. "That could be a good place to put one of the gulons."

"It's on the far side, past the statute of the unicorn. It only opens for the Beacon." Sophie said. "There aren't any doors, just panels in the wall that open when the Beacon presses their palm to it. Well, actually I don't know if they only open for the Beacon, or if they only open for anyone with access to the Tower."

"They have to, right?" Keefe mused, but then his brows narrowed. "How have you been finding your way around if you can't open the panels?"

"Master Leto would always have to let me in because I wasn't tall enough to reach the DNA panel, and then he would press the panel in the wall to let me into the rest of the Tower." Sophie explained.

Sophie was certain she had grown in the time she'd been away from Foxfire, but when she had turned up to her Linguistics session a few weeks back, she still hadn't been able to reach the panel without straining on her toes. It had been humiliating to admit that to Lady Cadence when she'd shown up ten minutes late and flustered to their session. Lady Cadence had (begrudgingly) let her into the Tower for all their sessions since.

"And now?" Keefe said, an eyebrow raised in obvious amusement.

"…I'm still not tall enough and Lady Cadence has to let me in." Sophie grumbled.

"Am I tall enough to reach it?" Keefe asked. Sophie nodded.

"If I gave you a boost, you'd be able to reach it, right?"

Sophie's cheeks felt hot. "What do you mean?"

Keefe interlocked his fingers together. "You know, give you a boost. I crouch down, you put your foot on my hands like a ladder."

Sophie considered. "Yeah, probably."

"Okay, then that's the plan. And as for the panels, can you try and open one during your next session?"

Sophie shook her head. "Lady Cadence walks me to and from the entryway. It would look suspicious. When we're there, we'll see if I can open the panels. If I can't, we'll just have to put the gulons in the entryway. That might actually help us stay under the radar, maybe they'll assume the gulons got in because someone didn't close the door behind them all the way."

"That would strike fear into the hearts of the mentors." Keefe said. "That they didn't rid the campus of gulons seven years ago like they thought…"

"So, when can you get the gulons?" Sophie asked. She was beginning to see why Keefe enjoyed pranks. You got to exert some control over the world, got to decide how mischief was unleashed upon the masses. It was a little like being a dictator, but more light-hearted and with less malice. And Sophie was grateful for the chance to be in control of something for once.

"I already have them. The Shores of Solace is so boring, I needed something to do when I was recovering."

"So you picked raising little green stink machines?"

"Of course." Keefe said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Something dawned on Sophie then. "I just realized. We're going to have to teleport in. There won't be any sunlight to use a pathfinder, and if we use a Leapmaster, we'll end up in the main building, and who knows if we'll be able to get outside to the Silver Tower."

Keefe paused, and met Sophie's eyes. "You still on board? If not, it's alright. I don't want you to do something you don't want to."

Sophie shook her head. "No, I'm still on board. You'll leap from the Shores of Solace to Havenfield, and I will teleport us to Foxfire, right in front of the Silver Tower. We'll sneak in, leave the gulons, teleport back to Havenfield, then leap back to Foxfire at the usual time. We're going to have to figure out how to teleport out of Foxfire, though. There isn't any place we could jump from to get enough speed."

"We should do a test-run." Keefe suggested. "We'll do everything except break into the Tower, to see if it's possible to get in and out without someone noticing."

Sophie nodded. "Sure. Tomorrow night?"

"Tomorrow night."