Hello, children! You may rejoice! Gone are your days and days of endless pain, just waiting for your favorite author ever to-
Wait, have I done this intro already? I think I've done this intro already.
Or maybe it was one that I used for a prewritten chapter.
Idk. The perils of being disorganized.
Woah, fast update! Probably because I received a death threat. *Shrugs* Whatever works.
Anyway, guess what? I've reached 2,000 views! *Confetti*
Crowd: Those poor 2,000 people.
Me: Oh shut up.
Anyway, respond to reviews!
Eva L: Sir Salty Shadows Saga XD. Just tell me what color you want! Anyway, thanks!
Mallowmelt: Thank you! Humor is one of my many great talents.
Crowd~ HAHAHAHAHAHAHA sureeee.
Me~ See? I just made them laugh!
Crowd~ No no no, we were laughing because it's funny in a sad way to see something as pathetic as you.
Me~ ...at least I made them laugh.
Anyway, thank you Mallowmelt!
A River Of Ink: All lies, but... fine. Definitely mine isn't any better than yours! Oh no... writer's block. I'm sorry it has plagued you. Anyway (I say it a lot too!) there is a chance! I'm actually undecided on the ships so far, other than Sokeefe (duh) and Marellinh. Tiana is my ship, but I think Diana and Glam is more likely, so... AHH! MULTISHIPPING! Thank you! :D Lol I love ranting.
BigBookBoi: Um... do you actually? Or are you just kidding? Sorry for being paranoid!
MeeIsFarrow101: Yes, the sparkles! Thank you! Ugh, probably what I'll do. I'm thinking about it... I actually have a ~1,200 word document for planning! Lol, plots are hard. :D
FlowerGirl15: Somewhat decent... high praise right there. It actually was shorter, nice job noticing that! 1,000 words is usually my minimum, but that one was only 800 or so. Whoops. Lol, telling me to stop doubting my writing is like telling me to not procrastinate- impossible! But thank you so much!
Eventually, Sophie's friends left her house one by one. First Marella and Linh decided to go get ice cream in Atlantis together (which brought a lot of fangirl squealing from Biana), then Tam left with Glimmer for "no particular reason," meaning, to stalk the new couple (dubbed Marellinh by Dex on Keefe's behalf) out of overprotective-brotherly obligations. Biana and Fitz left pretty soon after that. Biana's explanation was "Mom and Dad want us back," and Fitz's explanation was "She's going to write fanfiction about Marella and Linh." By then, Dex was the only one left.
"Want to go up to my room?" Sophie asked.
Dex shrugged and agreed.
The two friends made their way up the staircase to Sophie's bedroom.
"Keep the door open!" Grady called as they passed him.
"Grady!" Edaline scolded, but she was laughing. "You know Dex and Sophie are only friends. Besides, Sophie likes K-"
"MOM!" Sophie shrieked, her face burning like Fintan's everblaze. "DAD! STOP! PLEASE!"
Dex laughed as well, his face a little pink from Grady's comment but he seemed to enjoy watching Sophie's embarrassment. Offering her a kind-of-sympathetic-but-mostly-amused smile, he told her "That's how you know your parents love you; They tease you endlessly about crushes and stuff. And-" He nudged her shoulder as Sophie rolled her eyes at her annoying parents and they continued up the stairs, "-At least you don't live with the triplets like I do. That's like dealing with a million Uncle Gradys, a few hundred Aunt Edalines, and we'll throw in a few Sandors."
Sophie's slightly cooler face grinned at her best friend. "Oh, you poor thing. What have they done to you now?"
"Besides the usual embarrassing comments, stealing my stuff, trying to read all my journals, et cetera? Last week they dyed my Foxfire uniforms bright pink. And whatever I do to try and change it back doesn't work!" Dex wailed melodramatically. He heaved a long sigh. "It's going to be awful once Foxfire reopens."
Sophie gave a little laugh, but tried to act like she was being sympathetic. By then, the two had reached Sophie's bedroom and sat down on Sophie's bed.
"Custard burst?" she offered, grabbing her Very Secret Elvin Sweets Stash out from under her bed and holding it out to Dex.
"Didn't you just have, like, fifteen pieces of mallowmelt?" Dex asked incredulously.
Sophie shrugged. "Something like that, so?"
"How do you... like... eat all that? That should be almost impossible." Despite his incredulity over Sophie's enormous appetite for Elvin desserts, Dex did take a few and shove them in his mouth. Over on the other side of the room, Iggy let out a loud burp.
Dex studied Iggy, head tilted to the side. "Ice blue, huh? When did you dye him? Ooh, and was it because you're in lo-"
"Um, a while ago." Sophie interrupted loudly, refusing to acknowledge what she knew Dex was implying- because she wasn't even the one who dyed Iggy! Desperate to make that clear to Dex, she acted like her face wasn't bright red when she told him "And actually, Ro dyed him not me. Something about how she was going to use teal because of Fitz, but her teal dye elixirs have flesh eating bacteria, while her ice blue elixirs were perfect for dyeing imps."
"Riiiiiiiiiiiight," Dex said, stretching out the word way too much. "But..."
Sophie braced herself.
"You haven't asked me to re-dye Iggy yet, which makes me think that, subconsciously-"
Sophie shoved him. "Honestly, Dex! You're almost as bad as Grady!"
"Only almost, huh? I need to work harder." Dex grinned maliciously. (No, not deliciously, like I initially typed accidentally. Whoops. What a yummy smile.)
Very maturely, Sophie stuck her tongue out at him. "Focus on tormenting the triplets, not me! I'm innocent!"
Dex stuck his tongue out back. "Innocent. Sure."
Retracting her tongue back into her mouth, Sophie flopped back on her bed and laughed. Despite her annoyance at Dex, she was glad to be just spending time with her best friend, talking about nothing really important and laughing and having fun. Almost like a normal teenager.
Nothing about their lives were normal, but at least Sophie was reminded that she had the most amazing friends ever to get her through it all.
Eventually, Dex received a hail on his imparter from his mom, telling him to come home. Since he was in the middle of watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,- Yes! I'm finally introducing these poor elves to true art! Sophie thought,- (couldn't resist) Dex ignored her. Pretty soon after, he got another hail. This time, his mom threatened to send the triplets over to Havenfield and have them drag him home/ embarrass him until he left out of shame. Muttering about how unfair that evil genius move was, Dex said goodbye to Sophie and left.
The next day was relatively uneventful. Sophie visited Keefe in the Healing Center again, of course. Nothing had changed in the last day for him, to Sophie's immense disappointment but not really surprise. Out of curiosity, she decided to check on his dreams again- and no, what are you talking about, there's no way she entered his mind because a little tiny part of her secretly deep down hoped that he was dreaming about her again. Even if she did hope he was dreaming about her, which she didn't, her nonexistent hopes would have been crushed. Keefe was dreaming about forming a pranking alliance with the E. L. Fudges, and together they had already dyed Tam's bangs bright pink, and then sung "The Ballad Of Bo And Ro" as a full choir, with Keefe conducting. Keefe was just about to explain to the elf-shaped cookies how they would recreate the Great Gulon Incident, when she was interrupted by someone forcefully saying her name.
"That was the fifth time I tried to get your attention!" said a certain pink-haired ogre princess. "You were staring at him pretty intensely. Don't tell me- did his tragic comatose state awaken some hidden feelings inside of you? Because if so, a kiss might work. Go ahead and try it."
Sophie, who most definitely was not the color of a tomato right now, sputtered indignantly. "What- that- no- that is not what I was doing," she said, composing herself. "I was checking on his mental state telepathically, and I just needed a lot of concentration for that. I am not going to recreate Sleeping Beauty with him."
Her mind flashed to the Keefe Sencen response to that: Well, I am sleeping, and I definitely am a beauty.
Ro gave her a knowing smirk. "Okay. So how is his mental state? Was he dreaming about you?"
"No!" Sophie snapped, glad (and definitely not at all disappointed) that it wasn't a lie. "He was actually dreaming about elf-shaped cookies pulling pranks with him. They were about to recreate the Great Gulon Incident."
"I see..." Ro's attention turned to the comatose elf boy on the bed. "So, Lord Funkyhair. I've got some brand new bacteria, and... let's just say if I release them on your head, your hair really will be quite funky."
Keefe didn't move.
Ro huffed. "Fine. What if I threatened to shave your head? Would that motivate you to get up? Huh?" Sophie could tell Ro was trying to keep her tone lighthearted and snarky, but even the professionally sarcastic ogre princess couldn't hide the pleading desperation that had seeped into her voice. While Ro continued with the threats, and even made good on the one to dump a bucket of ice water on him, Sophie just sat on the other side of Keefe and transmitted pleas for him to wake up. Neither Sophie's nor Ro's attempts worked.
At some point later, Sophie got a hail from Biana asking her to come play base quest with her, Chandelier Head (Biana's words), and Dex. Since she didn't really have anything better to do (being here at the Healing Center was only depressing her), she agreed.
After playing Girls vs Boys for a while, girls winning every time, the boys declared it unfair and they switched to Vacker siblings vs Foster/Dizznee cousins. Then Fitz said it was still unfair, so they played a few rounds of Fitzphie vs Diana. During those rounds, her EBWSATBJFWBMSLSNS kept trying to apologize for all the arguing they had been doing yesterday, but Sophie didn't want to talk things out until she could better sort through her feelings, so she told him to "just play the game, we can talk about this later."
Once Grady and Edaline hailed her to come home for dinner, Sophie left Everglen, ate, and then had an imparter discussion with Biana about matchmaking. Biana admitted to Sophie that she was actually starting to have second thoughts about signing up for the match in a few months, but she didn't know how her parents would feel about that, and she wanted Sophie's input.
"Besides," Biana told her mysteriously. "I probably wouldn't be matched with the person I like anyway."
When Sophie pressed further, Biana refused to disclose the identity of this elf- only that no, it wasn't Keefe, there was no reason for Sophie to be jealous.
"Why would I be jealous?"
"Never mind."
They chatted for a while longer, until Biana said she had to go and hung up. At about nine o' clock, Sophie received a hail from Councillor She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (maybe the Harry Potter movie was messing with her mind.)
Avoiding eye contact, You-Know-Who informed Sophie that the tribunal for Jaxx Babblos would take place in two days time.
Over 2,000 words! Only 'cause I had a long A/N, though- the chapter itself is about 1600 words. Anyway, this one isn't so bad! Again, please vote on the Iggy poll- I've only gotten 5 votes so far. Gold and rainbow are tied!
And, as always, please review! I'm almost at 50! It seems like just yesterday that I was first publishing the story...
I'll shut up now.