Lex -

Ability detecting is the worst class ever. My fellow Triplet Troupe members and I agree on that wholeheartedly.

The Triplet Troupe has three members and all of them are Dizznee children. This is because there is only one set of triplets at Foxfire (me, Bex and Rex). The three of us have founded the informal club as a way of making fun of the way people treat us. The logic behind this was that since everyone treats us like we were not members of the Elves Who Are Worthy of Something Club, why not make our own club?

We are all in agreement that ability detecting is the worst class ever. We have a fifty-fifty percent chance of becoming Talentless. As if we needed anything else to make us more outcasted.

In ability detecting, the teachers put you into the most ridiculous scenarios. They will put you in an oven and roast you alive for two hours to see if you were a Froster. If not, perhaps you will enjoy sitting in a wind tunnel, being blasted with ice cold air for another two hours until your entire body is numb. And oh joy, in the next session you will be stuck at the bottom of a lake for another one hundred and twenty minutes. Lovely.

My siblings and I meet in the courtyard every lunch. We are a club, after all, no matter how informal. Clubs meet at lunch. Rex's tray of food sits between him and Bex, who has her tray balanced on her thighs. I sit down on the bench across from them, on the other side of the narrow pathway.

"So, Rex, how were your classes?" I ask.

Rex takes a bite of his electric green food and chews thoughtfully, contemplating his answer. A lock of hair flops over his eye, and Bex moves it out of the way affectionately. Finally my dear brother answers with a shrug. Typical Rex.

"Bex?" I ask, hoping that she will have a longer and more exciting answer than a shrug.

Bex answers immediately. Her tone is bubbly and joyful, just like her personality. "Oh, they were great. I had Alchemy first off, you know my schedule. Sir Einst could not believe how good my project was, but it wasn't hard. It was simple, really. Just mixing chemicals, freezing and then melting them, and that's super easy. It was like working on a hair-and-eye tonic really. And we've been doing that for Daddy since we were what, eight?"

"Eight years and twenty-six days." murmurs Rex quietly.

"Right, thank you Rexie! Anyways, then it was the Universe. I hate my mentor so much, you have no idea. I don't even want to talk about it. Then I had Elven History, so I was all good. Lady Lorenza is the best, let me tell you. She gave me three sweets! I ate mine, but do you two want one? Well, even if you don't, you have gotta try them. They are the best!" Bex interrupts herself to give both of us a small turquoise candy, "anyways, wish me luck. I have ability detecting next."

Rex and I groan immediately.

"I know right!" exclaims Bex. Her hands reach towards the sky dramatically, fingers spread apart.

A small group of amber-clothed students walk by. They are laughing and talking among themselves. One of them glances over at us and then turns to whisper something to the rest of the group. The entire group of Level Threes erupts into laughter. My siblings and I turn bright red as the group walks away.

Bex's fists are clenched and shaking. She stands up, her tray of food falling off her lap and onto the cobblestone pathway. The multi-colored food splatters across the path and some members of the Level Three group turn around and motion to their friends to look at what Bex did. They laugh and point before leaving.

Bex's entire body shakes. Rex stands up and puts his hands on her hunched shoulders. Gently he sits back down on the bench and pulls her onto his lap. I grab her hands, which are trembling like her bottom lip, and squeeze gently. Tears are welling up in Bex's eyes and she blinks them away. Rex rocks back and forth slowly, forcing Bex to do the same by putting his arms around her torso. I hug her, not daring to speak. Bex is the one who always knows what to say if the mockery gets to be too much for me or Rex. Neither of us know what to say to Bex, so we stay silent as we comfort her.

We sit there for the rest of lunch. Rex rocking back and forth and I am hugging our sister. Bex just stares into space, tears rolling down her cheeks and clinging to her soft jawline. Finally, she sniffs and wipes the tears from her pink face. "T-thanks you two." she murmurs softly.

"It's okay. You'd do it for us." I respond quietly, and Rex nods in agreement.

Then the bell rings, and we clear the area to go to our classes.

After school is over, my fellow Triplet Troupe members and I meet at Foxfire's entrance before light leaping back to Slurps and Burps. I shout a greeting, "Father, we are back!"

I call Father Father. Bex calls him Daddy, Rex calls him Pop and Dex calls him Dad. It is the same thing with Mother. I call her Mother, Bex Mommy, Rex Mum and Dex Mom. It is a clever system, or at least that is my view on it. That way our parents can tell who is yelling for help with homework.

Father's slender form with messy strawberry blond hair appears from behind the racks. "Hello you three! How was school?"

"It was good." I say.

"Oh, it was great Daddy! Elementalism was super exciting and fun! I got to bottle a whirlwind, and then a tornado! Lady Lorenza gave me some sweets in Elvin History, and Alchemy was a breeze. Some Level Threes made fun of us at lunch, so I'm thinking of messing with their locker DNA strip or manipulating the taste with that new disgusting flavor serum we got. Anyways, it was mostly fun! Overall it was great!" responds Bex. She is always the most talkative out of the three of us. It is clear that what happened at lunch is no longer bothering her, and that makes a smile appear on my face.

Rex just shrugs in response to Father's question.

Father laughs. "Alright then. You three should go do your homework. Then why don't you come out and help me complete some orders, hmm?"

"Perhaps Father."

"Yes Daddy!"

Rex shrugs.

Father laughs again before disappearing back behind the shelves. Bex leads me and Rex to the back of the shop and through a door with a sign saying "Dizznees Only." We go up to our rooms and begin our homework. I don't have much today, only two assignments.

I finish reading and annotating chapter sixteen of my history textbook for Elven History very quickly. My homework for Multispeciesial Studies takes a bit longer. I have a paper on gnomes due in two days. I have the second draft done and everything but I have decided to revise it over and over until it is perfect. Midterms is in a month, and I do not want to have a bad grade. Finally, my brain feels numb enough that I decide to take a break.

Bex and Rex are already downstairs, mixing formulas. Bex is chatting quietly, pouring a steaming silver compound into a vial that contains a red juice. The vial is filled to the three-quarters mark and it begins to rattle. Rex, who is the one holding the vial, drops it and the glass shatters when it hits the floor. Both Rex and Bex jump back against the wall. Rex climbs onto the nearest table and Bex stands on her tiptoes and steps delicately around the mixture.

"Did you two seriously forget that when combining acidic mixtures you need to put the vial in a rack?" I ask, my tone of voice coming out to be a bit more obnoxious that I intended.

Rex shakes his head. Bex responds with an embarrassed smile on her face. "It is not an acidic mixture, Lexie. It's a truth serum."

"Truth serums don't fizzle."

"It is a, er, Rex can you explain?"

Rex shakes his head again, strawberry blond hair falling over his periwinkle eyes. Bex sighs and murmurs something softly while staring at the floor.

"Sorry, what did you say?" I ask.

I can see Bex's lips move in response, but I neither lip read nor can I hear her. "Could you say that louder?"

"We wanted to see if we could prolong the effects by adding ruckleberry juice!" says Bex with a slightly frustrated tone of voice.

"You added ruckleberry juice."

"Well we didn't know it would be that… spectacular."

"It shouldn't be. I mean, it should be a little dramatic but not this showy. Maybe someone switched the labels around?"

"Maybe. Rexie, can you check? You're so good at figuring out formulas and whatnot. I'll find a bag and clean up this glass."

"I'll go see if I can find a mop," I say.

Rex nods and runs off to the storage room. I follow. He turns and walks into the red section, which is where we keep all the red liquids and compounds and the like. What else would we keep there? Purple stuff? All the rows are the various shades and colors and the columns are alphabetized. Funny how that works out, but who am I to argue with science and Father's supreme chaotic organization?

The shop may look terribly organized but that is just the product of a bet from years ago. Father was out with one of his friends and they had a bet that Father could not find a single mixture in his shop that would make mallowmelt taste bad. Unfortunately, he put in the wrong mixture in by mistake and made it taste even better. Since Father lost he had to make the shop unorganized and keep it that way for a month. He did and then he kept it like that after the month was up. I think it is because the nobles get uncomfortable in any place that is not perfectly organized. It is fun watching them squirm as they weave through the shelves.

I go to the cleaning supplies closet, where I pick up a mop. I am thinking about funny moments involving nobles and disorganization when I come back to the place where the vial broke. Bex is holding a bag in her hands and stares at the glass. As I mop up the spilled serum, the glass floats off the ground and into the bag.

"Showoff," I murmur.

Bex smiles gleefully, the last pieces of the vial floating into the bag. "Aww, thanks Lexie," she responds, "I didn't think it was very impressive."

I chuckle. "Why wouldn't it be?"

My sister's expression darkens. Her smile turns sad, and she turns her head away from me. Her strawberry blond hair falls over her face, hiding it. It takes her a while to respond, and when she does her voice is full of sadness and remorse.

"It seems like nothing we do comes out to be right. We're triplets, why should it be? Unnatural, bizarre triplets who don't deserve anything. Everyone laughs at us and pokes fun at us and there is nothing we can do about it. We don't deserve it, Lexie. What did we ever do? I'm probably never going to manifest. All three of us have a fifty-fifty chance of being Talentless. That means that there is a very good chance that at least one of us will be denied a proper education just because we don't have a talent. I want all of us to be able to become nobles, Lexie. I want to have as much respect as everyone else. I don't want to be judged just because I may be Talentless, or just because I was born on the same day as two of my brothers."

I walk over to Bex and hug her. I wish that Bex did not have to go through this. She is normally so bubbly and joyful, and it breaks my heart to see her in this state. I can feel a teardrop land on my arm, followed by another and another. Bex collapses on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. The bag in her hands is released and it falls to the floor, the glass spilling out everywhere. I sit next to Bex and pull her up into a kneeling position, away from the glass. We sit there for a long time, neither of us daring to move.

Bex sniffs, and leans into me and starts shaking. "I just want to be normal Lexie. I don't want to be laughed at anymore. I don't want to be seen as unnatural or weird just because I am a triplet. So what if I shared a womb with you and Rexie? That doesn't make me stupid. It doesn't make my opinions invalid, or make me worthy of teasing or laughing or whatever. So what if I am a triplet?"

I nod, my throat tightening like it always does when I get upset. "It doesn't matter. You are still an amazing elf, Bex."

Bex shakes her head. She looks up at me, and between sniffles, she manages to say, "But that's the worst part Lexie. You can be amazing and brilliant and a master of Conjuring or whatever, but you will never be acknowledged for any of that. We will always be known as the triplets, or the children of a bad match, or the children of a Talentless or the sibling of one."

As we sit on the ground, I think about what Bex said. It made her so heartbroken, so fragile. Bex is normally the happiest out of all of us. The most bubbly and the most joyful elf that I know is Bex. I can barely remember Bex ever crying, much less twice in one day. And the worst part is, her sadness is entirely justified. We will never be acknowledged for anything we do. We will always be seen as the unnatural triplets.

I wish that we could be seen as ourselves. I wish that our identities were not summarized by the word "triplet." I wish that Bex had no reason to cry.

AN: Thank you for taking the time to read/skim through this. I hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to review to your heart's content. Disclaimer, as I am positive you all know, I do not own these characters or the KOTLC universe and whatnot. The entire KOTLC universe belongs to the amazing Shannon Messenger. Thank you.