Hi again! I'm posting all 10 chapters of this story that I have on Quotev so far, so lucky you guys! I hope you enjoy this chapter! After this, it strays from the main plot… so be ready!
-LLF
Sophie was shaky as she grabbed Sandor and Flori's hands, and she was sure Bo could feel it as he clutched her shoulder. She held up her smooth home crystal to the light and hoped the feathery feeling it gave her would calm her anger and sorrow.
Grady and Edaline were both near the triceratops pasture when she glittered into view, and she tried her best to plaster a real-ish looking smile on her face. She would revisit the angry Mr Forkle thoughts later. After all, she'd like to think she wasn't some sulky teenager who pouted at the first sign of disappointment and rebelled against her parents. That thought made a strange ping sound in her heart. She really had thought of Mr Forkle as a father figure. She remembered how back in the human world, everyone had agreed that teenagers would have fights with their loved ones. Is that what this was? A petty fight with Mr Forkle?
"So, how'd it go?" Grady asked with a smile, startling Sophie back to the present. She gave him a half smile, but when she saw the little bundle of joy bounding around his legs, it grew into a full beam. Wynn had his adorable little blue-tipped wings up in a happy little baby alicorn dance, and Grady tried not to trip over him as Wynn bounced happily between his legs. Only then did Sophie notice the large spool of golden, luminescent wire that Grady was holding, and the large bulky burlap sack slung over Edaline's shoulders. "What's all that for?" Sophie asked, the last wisps of her anger fading into curiosity and a little bit of worry. Sophie really did love her parents, and when Grady gave her a lopsided smile, she felt her heart warm from the casual way he talked to her now, as if she really were their daughter. She knew that they had adopted her, but it was still nice to feel like part of the family, especially after all the new things they had learned about Jolie.
Grady tipped his chin toward the tiny mischievous alicorn, who was now chewing the end of the wire, which dangled from the spool. "The gnomes are helping to baby-alicorn proof the gorgodon enclosure, since this guy seems to think the gorgodon is his new best friend- and it turns out he's scrawny enough to slip through the bars." Wynn nickered in agreement. "I nearly had a heart attack when I found him in there this morning," Edaline added as Wynn trotted off to the faint shape of Luna in the background. "Is he ok?" Sophie asked, rushing over to the miracle baby to check for any signs of burns or scrapes, but the opalescent alicorn was perfectly fine. "He's fine," Edaline assured her, coming over to stroke the troublesome creature. He rubbed his nubby horn against her palm. "Don't ask me how, but he didn't get a scratch on him." Sophie was also incredulous about that fact. The gorgodon was the most vicious creature she had ever faced, and she had faced giant scorpions and hamster-zillas. Its gleaming grey feathers screamed grace and deadliness, and its barb-like tail was always poised to strike. Whenever anyone came near it, it would bare its hideous fangs and flare its bat-like wings. Sophie shuddered just thinking about it.
"Will that really be strong enough?" she asked, wondering how the thin wire could keep such a mischievous little alicorn away from the terrifying beast. It looked like a strong enough gust of wind could bend the glowing metal. "Oh yeah," Grady said, showing her the un-dented end of the wire, even though Wynn had been gnashing on it. When it moved, the metal clinked together with a sound like hundreds of high church bells ringing. "This is iron tempered with luminite. Even an angry T-rex couldn't break it." Sophie glanced at it again, and still couldn't believe that Verdi, their permanent resident (as Grady liked to call her), wouldn't be able to break through it. Especially if she was unhappy about her vegetarian diet.
"But you might want to let Silveny know about what her son's been up to," Edaline suggested with her warm, wispy laugh. "Wynn's already tried to sneak back to the gorgodon three times after I lured him out of there, and I think a nice long mama lecture will put some proper fear into him." Sophie couldn't decide if she wanted to laugh or groan. Silveny's unique way of communicating with Sophie through her advanced telepathy could get a little annoying sometimes, because the exuberant alicorn always talked in excited groups of threes, and Sophie was already drained from the Mr Forkle conversation.
A crease must have formed between her brows at the reminder of their fight, because Edaline asked only a second after, "Everything ok?" Sophie tried her best to look happy and like nothing happened, but one of Edaline's eyebrows raised anyways. "You didn't answer Grady's question about how it went with Mr Forkle," She reminded her gently. "It was Mr Forkle, how do you think it went?" Sophie couldn't help the bit of anger and frustration that leaked into the words. Grady must've picked up on it, because his next comment was, "That bad, huh? Wanna talk about it?" Sophie reeeeeally didn't want to say anything, but she figured they would need to know what he had said about Loamnore. So, with a sigh, she filled them in on everything he'd said, excluding their fight. "That's more information than he normally gives you!" Edaline said optimistically. Sophie sighed again, and it sounded more like a groan than she wanted it to. "I know... I guess I just feel like we've narrowed it down from a million possibilities to a thousand- and he's dumping all of this on us while he sits in his office at Foxfire," she said grumpily. Edaline shared a look with Grady. "Is there something you're not telling us?" Edaline asked gently. "No!" Sophie said, probably too quickly and with a squeak in her voice. Edaline sighed.
Luckily, Sophie was saved by an exuberant Wynn streaking off into the distance... blinking out of sight so fast and so far that it made Sophie's mind pause. "Did he just... teleport?" she asked incredulously. That idea had a strange prickle to it, because as far as Sophie knew, you could only teleport while free-falling. But that brought up another memory.
Once, at Everglen, while she and her friends had played base quest, she had run down a hill and jumped, somehow landing almost twenty feet away... while blinking. And now that she thought about it, it had felt an awful lot like teleporting. Could you teleport while running fast enough? That sure would simplify things. Or maybe it was something you could do only when you were learning to harness the ability? "I...I think so! How is that possible?" Edaline said, stunned. "I think if you run fast enough, you can teleport," Sophie said, still puzzled. She made a mental note to test that theory later. Grady sighed. "Well that explains how he got into the gorgodon enclosure. How do we keep him out, then?" he said, and Edaline groaned. "That definitely makes things more challenging." She conjured away the glowing wire and the lumpy sack and stared at the racing baby alicorns in the distance, and then sighed again. Sophie giggled a bit, and Edaline turned back to her. "Why don't you go take a shower and hail your friends with an update? Take a little break from being the Moonlark." Sophie smiled and nodded, then walked inside Havenfield's glistening crystal walls. She slowly trudged upstairs, too many things on her mind, but finally settling on a certain problem she couldn't figure out.
Why had Keefe's eyes shown up instead of Fitz's? She didn't... like him, did she? But while she thought about it while taking the hottest, soapiest shower yet, the possibility became more and more likely. But what would she tell Fitz? They were kinda together. Sophie sighed as she brushed her hair, dripping water all down the ruby encrusted tunic she had chosen. She set aside her boy problems as she reached for the imparter still resting on her dresser.
But right as she picked it up, it buzzed with a hail.
From Mr Forkle.
Ooh! Cliffhanger! Mwahaha!
Lucky for you guys, you won't have to wait a week, unlike my Quotev readers, haha. Anyways, next chapter things get interesting, so keep on reading! :D
Thanks!
-LLF out