FAST(ish) UPDATE, WOOHOO!
ANONYMOUS: Yeah, no. Sorry!
Pit-and-Chase: Okay! It seems like it's worked! Anyway thank you so much! :)
Lilac: Thanks!
Princess Book: Thank you! (Not to worry, I'm hardcore Team Foster-Keefe!)
Sirena: I'm sorry! Wow, congratulations! You'll never figure it out, haha! Thanks! I don't celebrate, but happy very late Easter to you!
all i see is sky: It's totally a verb! *Shoves Sophie and Keefe together* You both made mistakes NOW KISS ALREADY! Lol. It made me laugh too! Thanks!
FlowerGirl15: I know... she definitely overreacted, so they both made mistakes and I think it just escalated. I haven't 100% figured out a plot for his ability, but it's totally cool! Thank you!
MidnightBunnyy: It's totally a verb. And calm down, he's in practically every chapter.
Princess Book (Ch 24) Aw, thank you! The crowd is stealing all of my credit. I don't ship Dexphie either, but platonic Dexphie is amazing.
Lilac (24): Glad you liked it! Too much conflict... and internal debate is hard, but great advice! Thanks!
Sariah Olivia: Thanks!
Okay, ready for the giant speech? Course you are. Here we go...
Chapter 25! Whoo! As of last chapter, Swan Song exceeds the length of Legacy, What Is A Legacy! And in terms of word count, probably exceeded somewhere around chapter fifteen. As of right now, it's over 30,000! (! ! !) That officially makes it my longest content story (React to ships doesn't count) on this site! I just went back and reread my version of Legacy, and I can't believe how bad it is! There are almost no paragraphs- it's almost entirely dialogue. Since Legacy What Is A Legacy was published at the beginning of March 2019, it's been a little over a year- and it's incredible how much my writing skills developed in that year. So I'd really like to thank everyone who supported me and helped give me the opportunity to become a better writer? Like seriously, I never would have gotten close to being a halfway decent writer if I'd never gotten a fanfiction account, and I'll rant more about how amazing this site is when my anniversary comes up (July). Okay, I'm done talking now, you can go read the chapter!
Enjoy!
"What's going on with you and Keefe?"
Sophie groaned. Internally, she couldn't decide if she wanted to scream, cry, murder Dex, murder Keefe, or all of the above. Truly, it was an interesting mix of feelings. Three days had passed since her fight with Lord Hunkyhair, and she was getting pretty good at avoiding him like the plague. It was probably only a matter of time before he showed up at her house again. This time, she hadn't told her parents to keep Keefe outside. Grady would probably murder Keefe once she explained why, and as mad as she was, she still didn't want him to die... a little annoying part of her thought she might still choose him. All of her other friends had taken to interrogating Sophie (probably also Keefe) about this, especially Fitz, who asked Sophie at least five times every day, and had insisted "But we're cognates!" every time she refused. So, the center of the love triangle was also pretty annoyed with Wonderboy.
Boys were confusing, and Sophie had been trying to think about this as minimally as possible, which was why she was so annoyed with her best friend for setting her train of thought on that track.
"Dex. Please. I hailed you to ask about caches. Stop grilling me about my love life."
"You said lo-"
Sophie's over-analytical mind had started to dissect her own usage of the term "love life" the second Dex pointed it out. That was way more stress than she could deal with right now, and eventually she decided that she had proclaimed it a love life because that was just the more commonly recognized term for "romantic life."
Seriously, she needed to stop thinking about this.
"Dex, I swear to mallowmelt, if you don't shut up right now, I will-" her mind searched for an appropriate punishment. "-I'll bottle an Iggy fart and give it to the triplets!"
Dex's dimples faded. "You wouldn't."
"I totally would," Sophie argued. "Now, shut up and tell and me about the conversation you had with... a certain councillor who I don't want to say the name of."
Dex sighed. "You would already know if you actually managed to have a short conversation with her, and it was even about something completely unrelated to your shared DNA!" In response, Sophie stuck out her tongue. Her best friend sighed. "Look, Sophie, I get that you're mad at her for not telling you, but this is getting a bit excessive. Maybe you don't want to talk with her in your free time, but is talking to her about Black Swan stuff really that terrible? Eventually you're going to have to get over this... grudge you have against Oralie."
Oh, great, the other topic she wanted to avoid. Honestly, her best friend was amazing, but sometimes he could really be awful. Can we, like, stop discussing everything I am trying to stop thinking about!?
"Dex, I didn't come here for therapy!" Sophie snapped. "I came to ask about Fintan's cache."
"Fine, but did you at least tell your parents?"
"Yes! Now start telling me about stuff that actually matters!" Not that Sophie's situation with Oralie didn't matter or anything... it was more like it mattered too much, so she was shoving it out of her head to deal with later. Or never, never sounded quite good. Even if "never" wasn't possible... maybe she could ignore the problem until it stopped hurting. But then again... she probably did have to get Team Valiant together at some point, and she hadn't yet come up with an excuse to switch Councillors. Oh, alicorn poo!
"Okay, so, Councillor 'She Who Must Not Be Named' is going to keep Kenric's cache, because the only reason she gave it to us was as a bargaining chip against the Council, and they're mostly on our side now. The last forbidden secret we found didn't really help all that much, so Oralie doesn't see a reason to look at Kenric's- it would probably do more harm than good. Fintan's cache, however, the Council wants me to try to open. So I guess I still won't be sleeping. Man, when I said I wanted to be more important, I didn't mean give me every single job there is! Is there no in-between? Seriously! Okay, anyway, I'll be working on Fintan's cache. The council is dealing with Axel privately, and they're trying to make sure all of the stuff he designed is safe. Blur's prison was actually designed by Axel- so the council needs security done by someone else. Guess who they asked?"
"You?" Sophie guessed.
"Exactly! Well, and Tinker. But yeah, goodbye to sleep! And free time! Maybe I'll have an excuse not to do homework... hmm. That would be nice."
"Sleep? What's sleep?" Sophie joked. "Anyway, how about we not have a repeat of last time you were designing stuff for the council?"
Dex's periwinkle eyes darkened. "Ugh, yeah. I still feel really bad about that. But don't worry, if I have to design an ability restrictor, I'll make sure to put it on Alina."
Sophie laughed. "Is that it?"
"Yeah. Now, to enter a state of technopathic constant wakefulness with lots and lots of caffeine!" Dex declared. "See you later!"
"Bye!"
Sophie flopped backwards onto her bed. Too much was happening. All of the drama with Fitz and Keefe, especially her fight with Keefe- after which all logic told her that Fitz was her choice now... but her heart still didn't want to let go of Keefe. Lord Pretentious- um, Cassius- was definitely right about the head versus heart theory, but while he was at it, he couldn't have added an instruction manual on how to listen to your heart? Or get your heart and head to both shut up, because now is not the time to get distracted by feelings?
A close second to the boy drama was everything with A Certain Councillor. It was definitely the heart's fault for feeling so betrayed by finding out- but no matter how many times Sophie told herself to move past it, (which, admittedly, was not much, it was usually other people telling her,) she still found it impossible to look into Oralie's azure eyes, or look at the face that suddenly resembled her own, far too closely. Although Sophie now realized that she had definitely been neglecting Team Valiant, she still wanted to avoid having to work with that councillor. The one she had been happy to have been assigned, until she really really wasn't. Still, Team Valiant went on Sophie's mental to-do list.
Concerningly enough, the Neverseen only got third place in Sophie's "I Am Freaking Out About This Right Now" list. She wasn't sure if that said more about herself as a person, that she was letting herself get distracted, or that the Neverseen was being so quiet because something big was about to happen. Either way, she hoped Fintan's cache would reveal more about the Neverseen's plans, along with asking the former members Glimmer, Blur, and Axel.
Oh, and schoolwork. She was being assigned extra schoolwork because of the long break. (Typing this, realizing that I've been on break for over a month.)
If there was ever a right time to bury your head in a soft, fluffy pillow and scream your lungs out, it was now.
Iggy seemed to share Sophie's frustration, as demonstrated by the loud burp. Although Sophie wasn't reading the imp's mind, it sounded a little bit like he was trying to lecture her.
"Fine, Iggy," Sophie said, feeling a little bit ridiculous for talking to an animal who probably couldn't understand her, but hey, what about her life wasn't ridiculous? "No, I'm not going to deal with the love triangle right now- but I guess I will assemble a meeting of Team Valiant."
Yay! That means- that means we'll get to see some Biana! And some Wylie! And some Stina, even though I don't really like her.
Okay, so I completely changed the course of this chapter as I was writing it, which means that the Axel stuff is happening behind the scenes- we're probably done with him- and I didn't include the girls, but again, Biana next chapter! Maybe a "girls' night" coming up soon, I don't know. (Disclaimer: Not as crazy as the Diana or Bam girls' night.)
Um, yeah, so I'm kind of just making this up as I go, but you know, it's all good. I'll figure it out. I figure the rest of the fanfiction will be like: Mild plot stuff, boy drama, plot stuff, boy drama, love triangle resolution, PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT PLOT CLIMAX RESOLUTION. Or something like that, I may change my mind halfway through, you never know!
I actually might be starting to overuse Dex, though I actually didn't know that was possible. But hey, it's not my fault that all of the important stuff has to be done by a technopath!
Anyway, please review! :)