YOOOOOOOOOO, I just had parent-teacher conferences and my English teacher said that my writing style isn't for literature analysis and that I should do more creative writing so I sat through my conference with this fic in my head like 'if u want creative writing, a bunch of random strangers on the internet are getting creative writing' if you don't like it then blame him not me. Also, I've never written a fic like this or a fic with this ending, so feel free to give me constructive criticism.

Linh remembers the first call. She doesn't remember meeting or befriending Marella, she wasn't there, and then she was, but she remembers the first call. Marella had hailed her first because Linh was a coward and she was young and confused and more or less alone. Linh didn't hail first because she was scared of herself.

And she wasn't talking about her hydrokinesis.

Linh was scared because of the way she looked more at Sophie Foster than Keefe Sencen. She was scared because every time she did something cool with her Hydrokinesis she got "Woah"s and "wow"s from Fitz and Dex and she didn't like it. She was scared because her eyes followed Biana when she walked around the room, her skirt swishing. She didn't call first because she never did.

Marella remembers that first call. She remembers her heart pumping in her throat as she thought about the new girl. The pretty girl. The magic girl. The one who seems to cool that thing burning inside her. She remembers sitting there, working up the courage to say the three words. It took ten minutes. Ten minutes of bouncing her imparter back and forth between her hands.

"Show me Linh," she watched, half in a daze, as the girl showed up on the screen. Linh looked confused. This freaked Marella out.

"Hi Linh, how are you?" The girl seemed to melt at the warmth of her words.

"Good, and you?"

Marella remembers the day they came out to each other. A year into their friendship. She didn't go into the phone call knowing it was going to spill out of her, but in retrospect, she should've seen it coming. It's not good to keep feelings like that pent up inside of you for that long. It was halfway through a conversation about how Murcats loved mallowmelt when she blurted it out.

"I like girls," this made Linh freeze. Looking back on it, Marella has never thought 'I fucked up' more times in a minute than she did in that minute.

"Like, like like, girls, or like girls?" Her last out. The last time she could be like, Nah Linh, Like as a friend. Girls who like girls? When did I say I was one of those? But she needed not the out, but to be out.

"Like, Like like Linh. I like like girls. I like like like like like like like girls. You don't have to be friends with me anymore," Marella says. It's amazing Linh even understood her. Marella had a tendency to talk fast when she was nervous, and nervous was an understatement in this scenario. But instead of the look of hatred, Marella was expecting, instead of the disgust, the indifference, Marella's brave words were met with possibly the two best words one would ever want and a face of the utmost relief.

"Me too," it was not monumental. It was not poetic, it was not a giant declaration, but it was perfect. There is nothing better that could've come from that moment.

Marella remembers the day she asked Linh out. Two years into their friendship, the Neverseen high on the rise. It was planned this time. Planned perfectly. Almost every day for the past six months they've stayed up unhealthily late talking. About nothing. Everything. The vast expanse between everything and nothing. She would do it when they were in the expanse. When the conversation is halfway between airy and deep. So late into the night that if it went badly she could claim it was a dream. A nightmare. So halfway through a conversation about late nights, halfway into a late-night, she does it.

"You know sometimes I hate sleep but most of the-"

"Hey, Linh?"

"Mhm?" She looked gorgeous. Her eyelids most of the way shut, her eyelashes long and curling upwards to the small screen.

"Date me?" Her eyelids opened all the way, her sliver-blue eyes wide. A smile quirked at the sides of her mouth.

"Of course,"

She better not be dreaming.

Marella remembers their first I love you. Another unprepared thing. Three years into friendship and one year into a relationship. It was a morning call. Before they had to go do Saving The Elvin World stuff. Marella was half awake. Linh was three-quarters of the way asleep.

"I don't want to get up,"

"You gotta Linh, Sophie wants us for some cool elemental thing,"

"Elemental schelemental. I am a sleepemental. All I need is sleep. My power is my unrivaled ability to sleep," this made Marella laugh. Half because it was funny and half because everything Linh said was adorable. Possibly because her brain was foggy, and definitely because it needed to be said, Marella said the three words,

"I love you," and to give Linh credit, an eye was not blinked. Granted, they were closed, but Marella was grateful all the same.

"I love you too. Now, call me back in ten minutes, I'm going back to sleep,"

Linh remembers these things too. She remembers the phone call, the coming out, the asking out, the I love you. She remembers the first kiss, meeting Marella's parents, moving in together, defeating the Neverseen, all of which didn't translate as well over an imparter call. She remembers these things, as she feels the box in her pocket, and as she hails Marella from the other side of the house, nine years into their relationship, ten into their friendship. Exactly ten years since the first phone call. She climbs onto the counter, setting up her guise.

"Um, hi," she says, into the box. Doing her best to act panicked.

"Hello," Marella says back. "What's wrong? Why are you standing on the counter?"

"Spider. On the floor. Come kill it?" Marella rolls her eyes, but Linh can see she's smiling.

"Fine. Give me a minute," Linh can see Marella about to hang up.

"Wait!" Marella pauses, "stay on the call. In case it eats me, you need to have my last words," this makes Marella chuckle.

"Whatever you say, love," the nickname makes Linh giddy, even though Marella's been using it for ages. Linh does her best to hide what she's doing as she hops off the counter and onto the ground.

"So I was thinking,"

"Mhm,"

"You did all the asking. When we were teenagers, you did all the firsts,"

"I did, didn't I?" Marella says, like she didn't know it before. Linh can see Marella rounding the counter to the kitchen of their house.

"So I decided it was my turn, and I thought it best to do it over the Imparter because that's how it started,"

"I don't know what you're saying, I've killed spiders for you before," she sees Marella enter the room, both through the door and through the imparter. Holding a heavy-looking book, with which she intends to kill the "spider." Shakily, so shakily she almost drops the imparter, Linh gets down on one knee. "What are you doing? Why'd you call me over here if you were going to kill it your- wait," Marella, getting what's about to happen, sets the book down on the counter as she walks over to Linh. With one hand Linh pulls the box from her pocket and snaps it open. With the other hand, she brings the imparter closer to her mouth, speaking into it clearly as she meets Marella's eyes.

"Marella Adene Redek, will you marry me?"

"Yes."