Woohoo for 9,000 views!
Crowd: At the time you're writing this it's only 8,994-
Me: SHUT UP!
*Clears throat*
Fast updates! Whoo! I was bored so I wrote this just all in one sitting. Actually, it's usually only one or two sittings per chapter. Does anyone else do this? Or do they write a little at a time? Anyway you get to see Keefe Scene #1 in this chapter! But first I must respond to reviews.
Sariah Olivia: Thanks!
Mallowmelt: HmMmmmmmMmmmmmm... lol. Thank you! YES I NEED TO SEE IT AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
ArrowOfTheMoonlark: Holy Mallowmelt this is long. O.o... thanks for all the birthday stuff! DEXXX! You totally got the Lazy Evil Genius bit right- don't worry, I won't kill you. AND YES THE CROWD IS/ARE PEASANTS! PEASANTS I SAY! Don't mind my insanity. pLaToNiC dExPhIe! And yes everything is trademarked ™. ASKTWIBSAWAMSSSOR™... but that actually is 100% accurate. OH MY MALLOWMELT FOSKETS FOREVER! I loved both of those scenes. I didn't even know the word "heteronormativity" existed until last year, you knew it in kindergarten? Well I probably wasn't aware of it because... HETERONORMATIVITY! WHAT THIS IS LONG!? NOOOO... YOU REALLY THINK SO!? Lol. Adios!
Cary: Yay! Happy early birthday! You too! Hmm... maybe Gigantor will eventually. Geniousness... okay. Yeah. Word. He has a lot of points. Your mind is probably right, but I tell my parents nothing, so... we're both hypocrites. Lol I just wanted to say her throat was dry but then my fancy author self had to include a simile in there so yeah. HYDRATE OR DYDRATE! *Smacks Sophie with waterbottle.* Thanks! :)
Mallowmelt (again): :) I'm planning to!
MidnightBunnyy: I shall! End of this chapter. YES EDALINE!
Sirena: (Just using nickname because your username is long): Confetti! pLaToNiC dExPhIe Is LiFe- but Shannon disagrees, evidently. I still like Oralie, I think Sophie should give her a break. Mine is in lockdown, but I video called my friends so it's all good. Hopefully, yeah. I think authors will have more time to write during quarantine! So maybe the books will come out faster! Thanks!
IShipWayTooManyShips: HETERONORMATIVITY SHALL BE AS DESTROYED AS THE FOURTH WALL! Lol. Thank you! Yay! We're so proud. And thanks again- but don't die! O.o.
FlowerGirl15: Beautiful. Dex is finally relevant! *Sniffs* And teleportation, yay! I KNOW. They totally are her real parents! Thank you! I'm actually Jewish, which means for me that my birthday falls on Passover, which kind of sucks, but oh well. If you're Christian then happy Easter! :)
all i see is sky: ME TOO. THAT'S WHY I WRITE IT SO MUCH. Okay, I've stopped. For now. Very good! AHH THE FAMILY PART! Thanks! HETERONORMATIVITY = FOURTH WALL! Lol.
Okay, so, I would personally thank the person who helped inspire this chapter, but I'm pretty sure you'd all go murder her after reading this, so... I'll just say I took your advice and added in some drama! Said person probably knows who they are, so huge thank you!
Crowd: So much for keeping this under 400 words. It's almost 500. And now it's over.
Me: SHUT UP!
Crowd: Heh heh you suck at this.
Okay so I was going to include this big speech in my A/N but this document is already almost (now over) 2,000 words so maybe next chapter.
Enjoy!
"So, the council still hasn't done anything regarding that Axel dude and the caches?" Keefe asked, meeting Sophie outside Kyknos, the new Black Swan hideout.
"No," Sophie muttered. "It's been more than two days! I get that the council has a lot to do, but really, shouldn't this be a priority? They're all such incompetent-"
Keefe cut her off before she could continue, which was probably wise- there was a good chance Forkle would lecture her about language if he heard whatever word she would have used. "I mean, most of them suck, but what about Oralie? She's cool, right?"
Sophie snorted. Once upon a time, she may have agreed, before she figured out what a liar Councillor She Who Must Not Be Named was. "No."
"Oookay... I'm not sure what changed, but I'm not going to ask," Keefe decided. "Shall we proceed with the training?"
"That is a good idea, Mr. Sencen. I'm pleasantly surprised." Sophie snorted at Mr. Forkle's comment, and Keefe looked offended. "Now, we need to be very careful when doing this. There is definitely no prior knowledge about stellarlune nor your new ability, and things could easily go very wrong. As such, we've decided to have you experiment on the ability of Miss Foster that is least vital to our success- Polyglot."
"Great. Steal Polyglot-ness from Foster. Um... how do I do that?"
"Your guess is as good as mine. Just go with your instinct. How does your Empathy work?"
Keefe shrugged. "I just touch them. Think that'll work for this one?" He poked Sophie in the shoulder.
"Hey!" she exclaimed, poking him back. That provoked a mini tickle war, during which Forkle sighed and muttered his catchphrase until Sophie and Keefe stopped to actually pay attention, still laughing their heads off. She cleared her throat, fighting the giggles. "Um... you're a super visual person, right?" When Keefe nodded, she continued "Just picture, like, reaching out and stealing that ability's respective pin, or something. Maybe that'd work?"
"Right. Here goes nothing." Keefe closed his eyes for concentration. "Ça a marché?"
"Um..." Sophie was momentarily confused as to why her Polyglot abilities weren't working before she remembered. "Keefe, I think that's French."
"Sorry," Keefe said in English. "I meant to ask 'Did it work?' So I guess it did."
"Excellent!" Mr. Forkle praised. "Now try returning it."
Keefe's eyes closed again, and then opened. "Can Foster speak French now?"
"Oui! Ça a marché!" Sophie answered.
"Um, say what now?" Keefe asked.
"Yes! It worked!" she translated. The two high-fived, but when Keefe held his hand up for Mr. Forkle, he was tragically rejected.
"Excellent job, you kids. You can go now."
Happy to get the mallowmelt out of this creepy house, Sophie speed-walked towards the door. She actually even made it outside before her foot caught on the ground, being pushed behind her by seemingly nothing. Thin air, perhaps? Whatever the reason, she was hurtling towards the ground, set to land flat on her face, until a pair of strong arms caught her and helped her regain what little balance she'd had before- though sadly not her dignity. She was sure her cheeks were heating up as she turned to look at her savior- and once she figured it out, the blush darkened. "Um, th-thanks, Keefe."
"No problem. We all know Foster's gonna trip over something every five seconds. It's only reasonable that we'd have someone within catching distance at all times.
Sophie wanted to be annoyed, but he wasn't really wrong. And she was grateful that her face hadn't been slammed against the [place] halls/floor. Why did she have to be so clumsy! This was all the Black Swan's fault! They could give her five abilities, including teleportation, they'd made her able to stuff no other elf thought it was even possible to do, they modeled her off of alicorn DNA- and they couldn't give her the gracefulness not to trip over oxygen! Really, guys?
"Did it hurt?" Keefe asked her. "When you fell?"
"What?" Sophie asked, momentarily lost in her angry mental rant. As she realized that Keefe was asking if she was okay, she blushed harder. "No, no, I'm fine. Thanks for asking," Sophie stammered.
Keefe's lips formed an obnoxiously attractive smirk- WHAT THE MALLOWMELT!?- and he winked. "No... I meant when you fell from heaven."
Although she was still blushing, Sophie rolled her eyes. "Oh my mallowmelt, did you just- that is seriously so lame."
Keefe's smirk grew wider. "That's how amazing you are, Foster, you turn even the coolest of guys lame."
Sophie was sure she ripped out half of her eyelashes before she glared at that boy- wait, was she turning into Grady? Off topic. "Can you, like, stop flirting with me?"
"Oh. Okay." As the Empath looked down, his smirk vanished and he bit his lip... Why do I keep staring at his lip? After a beat of silence, Keefe mumbled "You never seemed to mind before."
The other half of her eyelashes probably came out after that. Sophie looked down too. "That was before I knew you actually liked me. At first, it was just a little annoying, mostly confusing, but now... ugh. I don't want you to start treating me like your girlfriend when I'm still not even sure whether I like Fitz or you."
"Oh." Keefe repeated. The silence between them felt like a heavy cloud, and it wasn't made any better by his soft "I was just trying to make things seem a little more normal between us..."
"No you weren't."
Keefe didn't respond to the cold, harsh statement, but he finally lifted his head to let his ice blue eyes look at Sophie. One eyebrow raised in confusion. Sophie huffed, annoyed at him in general, and his need for her to explain only fueled the angry fire.
"It's obvious that you're using cheesy pickup lines on me as a stupid attempt to 'win' me over,'" Sophie snapped.
"What? No. Sophie, I was trying to flirt because- well, because I'm just generally a flirty person."
"So..." Sophie started, refusing to acknowledge the use of her first name. Determined to remain angry at him. If he's a flirty person, if she chose him, would he remain loyal? Vocalizing this fear, Sophie continued "Even if we were dating, you would start flirting with, say... Linh."
"Linh's gay-"
"You know what I mean!" Sophie shouted, so aggravated with this idiot boy, the one who made her uncomfortable and pressed all of her buttons, that guy who got sidetracked by the details rather than confronting the accusations directed at him, who couldn't be serious to save his life... Grady might have been right about that boy.
"Okay," Keefe sighed. "Yeah. I know. But no, I wouldn't flirt with anyone else. Even if you don't like me, flirting with anyone else feels disloyal." Although Keefe tried for a smirk, it didn't quite reach the rest of his face. Hurt lingered in his ice blue eyes. "You're the only one who could ever dream of being the object of my affections, Fo- Sophie."
"See, this is what I mean!" Sophie yelled. "You're only nice to me when you're trying to win my favor."
Keefe's volume started to climb as well. "I'm not-"
"Like, the paintings. That was really sweet, but you only did that because I was mad at you."
"I didn't-" Keefe sighed and pressed his fingers to his temples. Then he gave a rueful smile and shook his head. "What was I thinking? believing I ever had a chance with you."
"Keefe?" Sophie asked, bitterness still in her tone, but starting to seep out. "Keefe! Come back! I-"
Um... heh heh? Sorry?
hEy! bLaMe ThAt PeRsOn I mEnTiOnEd At ThE bEgInNiNg! iT wAs ThEiR iDeA tO iNcLuDe DrAmA!
Anyway, too much love triangle. Love triangle overload. ARGH! I did include some stuff with Keefe's new ability, but yeah, this chapter was still a lot of triangle. Next chapter will be some more Axel stuff and maybe some of the girls because I'm starting to dex them.
Yeah, anyway, go check out The Abyss Of Author-Hating on IStillHopeForSophex's account and MidnightBunnyy's "Pjo and Kotlc React To Stuff" on Ao3.
Please review!