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bookwyrminspiration · 3 years

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aaaaa the newest chapter was great!!!! more dex and some downtime for sophie, but marella. marella. GIRL WHAT ARE YOU DOING. none of these kids are ok.

also this took me a while to get through bc i was relating to sophie HARD throughout this but not in a good way bvkfjfkf so i may find it a tad difficult to go back and reread for predictions and theories so if there's less this time then. yeah.

still wodnering what the hell those messages from last time meant....and that dragon scale like what is going on??? /pos

very good, 1000/10 (ﾉ≧▽≦)ﾉ

- pyro

pyro!! hello again! aaaaa to you, too!

As for Dex, I couldn't bring Elwin into the situation and have him not look at Dex, which just gave me a perfect opportunity for some Dex page time! There's a lot going on with his wings and him trying to build a new pair that will actually be functional, but I believe in him. Do hope he takes a nap sometime soon though. Wait I'm in charge of that. Hmm. Guess I gotta make him take a nap if I want him to get some rest.

And I also needed to skip some time, so giving Sophie a break was an excellent excuse for that. I kind of spent two chapters writing a single day's events, so I didn't want to drag on that day any more. So Sophie falling asleep for once in her life was very helpful for that.

And Marella!! What is she doing. I've been waiting to do the things I've been building up to since chapter 6 or 7, so I'm ecstatic to finally be getting into it! I think the next two or three chapters will cover all this, which will be fun!! Sophie had her chance to sneak away, so now it's Marella's turn! The question now is where she's going and why. I happen to know the answer to that question but you don't, which is why I'm letting you know! So you can ruminate on it if you wish!

also please don't feel pressured to predict or theorize anything. I enjoy seeing what you think about the story, but that is never a requirement or an expectation. I'm sorry you related to some of Sophie's internal struggles this chapter, it's definitely not a fun feeling. And a lot of what she said and how she phrased it is taken directly from my own life, so you're not alone with that. Specifically the stuff about just knowing you've said something wrong and scolding yourself for it and pursuing the wrong things too intensely, which has affected friendships. And the feeling that there's so much going on all the time that all you can think to do is put it into a list so you don't look track but then the list keeps growing and growing and everything suddenly feels monumental. if you need anything, I'm always available to talk <33. I may go a day or two without posting, but that doesn't mean I'm completely unavailable, just that I'm not posting.

and those messages!! they certainly seem to have stuck in Sophie's mind, but she hasn't figured out what they mean yet. and with the events at the end of the chapter, I don't think they're what she's worried about at the moment. but!! that doesn't mean I'm just going to ignore it until it's time to solve the riddles! what I do with them until then, though. That's up in the air. I'll probably just figure it out as I go tbh. and i'll probably think of additional double meanings on the way to solving them, making them more and more complicated.

and the dragon scale...what does it mean? what does it all mean? (to paraphrase your questions from last chapter). is it the dragon scale specifically or is it some meaning behind it? why did it spark such a strong reaction? this is something that I'll probably get to in the next few chapters, so I'm excited!! there is so much going on I'm just ahhhh!!

very good!! 1000/10!! that is a very large number!! 100 times larger than the scale "out of ten" implies! I'm incredibly pleased you enjoyed this chapter as much as you did--now I just need to write the rest of them!! hopefully I can make them better and better !!

#i have many plans for the next few chapters #whether or not I can execute them well is another question #one of the fun things with this au is that it's not just sophie and her friends against another group #there's tension and confusion between them too #which means I get to play around with their relationships and how they interact #while also having them work towards functioning as a grou #p #like tam and sophie going off on their own (something not everyone would approve of) to the human world to get supplies that benefitted the #group #very fun in my opinion #oh we haven't seen tam in a while I should bring him back #kotlc #kotlc wings au #wings au asks #shattered upside down #quil's queries #pyrokinetic-loser #nonsie love #tw caps

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a-lonely-tatertot · 4 years

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Finding Home

A/N: AAH I am so sorry this took so long to update!! And for anyone who didn’t understand the last update it was sorta Snapchat update and once again my beta for this was @bookwyrminspiration

Word count: 3607

Chapter 4: Change of Plans

There was a feeling of freedom that he used to feel every day. Tam missed that feeling as he dragged his sleepy body through the halls of Foxfire. He wanted to laugh. Why, in any world, was he here? He had been outlawed once before, seemingly too dangerous for them. And now here he was, spending day after day teaching children who didn’t understand how wrong their ways were; how to use the gifts they neglected for so long.

“Sir! Sir, is this how you do it?” a kid in the back asked as he floated a few inches in the air. He wobbled as he got higher and tilted from side to side trying not to lose his progress. Tam looked over in approval; he smiled a small smile, and the kid broke out in a grin.

By the time the bell sounded with a shrill most of the kids had figured out how to float a few inches. Just a normal day, he thought as the next swarm of children came loudly into the clearing.

It had been a day since Sophie had gotten Linh’s number, and it had been five hours since the last time Linh texted her. She was using every bit of her self-control to not spam random comments about her classes that were so blatantly desperate cries for attention. Sophie wouldn’t be a clingy girlfriend. That wasn’t her personality. Right?

She wasn’t able to resist the urges that pulled her eyes to her phone screen or the corner of her laptop, begging for a notification to pop up. Quantum Physics was the one class she could actually pay attention to, something she was interested in to get her mind off of the girl who was probably busy working. With many glares and smacks on the arm, Amy drilled it into her head that Linh was “just busy” and Sophie herself had “done nothing wrong.” Sophie doubted both of these but played along for her sister’s sanity.

“What if her feelings have changed?” she asked at lunch, anxiously tapping her finger on the plastic table. Amy raised her eyebrow and looked seconds from dropping her head in her cheese fries.

“Then she’ll get the reward for the fastest change of heart, it’s been three days,” she said and rolled her eyes.

“My relationship with Fitz lasted for like three weeks,” Sophie said matter-of-factly. It was roughly true; even with her perfect memory, days and nights back then ran together making exact times hard to determine.

“That doesn’t count, you guys weren’t technically dating,” Amy brushed off as she slurped the last of her shake. “Plus, she wrote you a note, that’s pretty serious.” Sophie shrugged and tried not to reach for her phone again.

“I miss running,” Linh said, staring at her plate. They had been eating dinner, some new recipe that Biana had introduced Linh too. It tasted a bit bland but Tam really couldn’t care about the taste; he was too busy replaying Linh’s words. Running had been the worst years of his life. Trying to find places to stay, not knowing if he could find food, knowing that the next day would be even more brutal. “I know what you’re thinking,” Linh said with a sigh. He made a noise in response.

“I don’t mean the life or death stuff, that was horrible. I mean like the times that we found that river? Or that field with hundreds of dragonflies! And when the gnomes taught us how to bake and how to make our own clothes! I miss that! I miss it being an adventure,” she said, longing clinging to her words.

He scoffed, “Only you would see it as an adventure.”

“It was more of one than Foxfire will ever be for us.” He couldn’t deny that. The kids didn’t quite need him, and honestly, he felt too young to be teaching them. Never going to the upper levels made his oldest class only a year younger than him, even if he was ages more mature.

Linh studied her plate. “We’re too young for this. For the war we’ve been through. To be teaching children how to fight because the leaders of our world are scared. We need time to grow up.”

That was when he finally got it. “This is about Sophie leaving.”

“It is not!” she shouted. He shook his head, getting up.

“Look,” he said as he started stacking their plates. “I know you two had this weird suppressed emotions thingy that you never talked about, but seriously, it’s been a year since she left.”

Linh sighed. “I miss her but I promise this isn’t about her. I just can’t seem to walk into those halls and teach those kids and not feel like an imposter. Maybe we just don’t belong here, and we’ve never tried belonging in the Forbidden Cities.” Linh was asking for a lot, but by the look on her face, she knew it. He understood what she was saying. He didn’t seem to fit in around the others, and that was okay. He wasn’t supposed to fit. But honestly, he hadn’t talked to the rest of the group in months, and his students were only there for past mistakes, past fears. Mistakes that weren’t his. What did he have to lose?

He stared her in the eye and nodded. “Okay.”

Packing was simple; he still had his old duffle. Dex gave them a harddrive identical to Sophie’s and stole a leaping crystal from the Council for them. “What they don’t know won’t hurt them,” he said with a wink. He was the only one they told; it was easier that way. That way once they were gone Dex could simply say they’d left and reassure everyone that they weren’t dead.

The night they chose was cold, very cold. Snow fell around them in slow motion. It covered the hills, the house, the bushes, everything. The only thing colder than the snow was the icy determination on her face, but he knew underneath she was ecstatic. He reached into his pocket and grabbed the small crystal, Here we go, he thought. This was no time for going back, for second thoughts, for last-minute grabs. This was Tam, this was the way he made the decision to follow his sister because he didn’t have second thoughts when it was Linh.

Linh picked her up from school, making her heart skip a beat and anxiety settle itself into a solid in her stomach. A huge grin, bright eyes, and a beanie holding her chaotic hair in place greeted her. The sun’s rays fell in her eyes as she jogged blindly to the dirty white truck. “Didn’t take you for the truck type,” Sophie remarked as she reached Linh.

“It’s actually Chris’s—my boss—he thought picking up my girlfriend was a valid enough reason to take the afternoon off and use his truck. Especially since I got Beth to take my shift,” she threw a smirk over her shoulder and crossed to the driver’s side.

Sophie switched the music twelve times until Linh grabbed her hand to stop her. She focused on the warmth of the hand covering hers to distract herself from the thoughts in the back of her mind, questions that wouldn’t go away, but if she asked them they would sound ridiculous. Linh didn’t need to know about the crazy anxiety underneath. Not yet, not for a while, so Sophie focused on Linh’s hand, her callouses, the lines, her fingers laced between Sophie’s.

“So do I call you Amilia?” Linh asked through the crippling silence.

That made her think. At home, she could be Sophie, and in her head, she was Sophie, sometimes to Amy she was Sophie. To the rest of the world she was Amilia, but maybe it would make sense for Linh to know her how she always had. Shaking her head she responded, “No, to you, I don’t think I’ll ever really be Amilia.”

That was that, Linh only nodded and started dancing to the song that was playing. Sophie watched her and laughed, singing along in her own horrible voice, and forgetting about the emotions that had risen with her own words.

The afternoon carried on, window shopping and debating if frozen custard was better than ice cream. Half the time Sophie’s face was burning and her heart almost beat its way out of her chest every time Linh laughed. It was normal, completely and utterly normal. If it was a movie Sophie would’ve fallen asleep and Amy would’ve been acting like the action had only just begun. Part of her mind wanted to know if Amy had ever felt like this. Part of her wanted to know if the feeling ever went away.

“What is this place?” Tam asked her. There were hundreds of towering buildings staring down at them, watching. The glass, the lights, the cameras on street corners and shops; it was overwhelming. On the other hand, Linh looked completely in her element. She looked like herself for the first time. He still resisted the urge to put himself in front of her and this new world. This wasn’t his place, but it was Linh’s and because of that he would make it.

“It’s called Denver,” she responded, and there was a look in her eyes that Tam didn’t like.

He didn’t like any of this. “Come on dear brother, Dex gave us the address for a ‘hotel’ to stay in.” The look on her face suggested that there was more to do than just find the hotel.

They headed west, trying to tell the building apart from the others. Tower after tower went by and crowds of people trapped them. Swarmed on every side, talking, moving, crashing into one another. Colors, sounds, shapes, things he had never seen. It took everything in him not to jump every time a person bumped him, to not take a friendly smile as a threat. This, this is what he'll always remember of running. How when they got to the dwarven cities he clutched Linh's hand just to know she was still there. When their parents kicked them out and everyone they knew suddenly turned against them. He'll always remember the blood pounding in his ears, the buzz of his veins, the thoughts like arrows in his head.

His throat went dry, and his voice broke when he spoke, "Linh, Linh I don't like this."

"Come on, it's not far!" She didn't even look back. So Tam kept going even as his mind began to scream danger and begged to turn back. She needs this, Tam thought.

But why? a part of him asked, and he quickly tuned it out. He didn't have second thoughts with Linh.

They pulled into the apartment complex as the sun started to set below the city line. Sophie laughed when Linh ended up getting lost three times. She didn’t say that she knew it was on purpose. She didn’t say that she, too, wasn’t ready for the night to end. Only laughed and gave her the right directions again and again.

The big black numbers on the side of her building came into view and for a split second she thought about not pointing them out, but Linh had already seen them. The steering wheel turned too fast for Sophie’s liking as they pulled into a parking spot next to the stairs. Doors shut softly in the dark silence of the night, and the stairs seemed shorter than she remembered. She wished there was a way to slow down time to make this moment at her door last a bit longer just so she could look at Linh one more time.

“So, I guess this is it,” Linh said softly, barely audible over the wind.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Sophie looked up at her eyes, they were bright in the dark of night. They glistened and held something behind them like she was waiting for permission. It gave Sophie a burst of confidence and she asked, “Or you could stay the night?”

Linh’s eyes widened and for a beautiful, heart-stopping second Sophie thought she would say yes. She laughed nervously and said, “I think that there’s an unspoken rule about not staying the night after a first date.”

Sophie opened her mouth to respond when the door swung open loudly behind her to reveal Amy in fuzzy socks and some form of mismatched pajamas. “Yes! There is! It’s called: Sibling Gossip Time so get-“ Amy said hurriedly and out of breath.

“Amy!” Sophie exclaimed, Amy only rolled her eyes. “I am so sorry about her, but yeah she’ll probably kill me if she doesn’t get an update. Tam would probably be worried if you didn't come home, I'd rather he not kill me." For a moment Sophie thought that Linh’s eyes widened in surprise, thrown off by the mention of Tam. She pushed the thought out of her head trying not to think what it meant.

With an easy smile, Linh pecked her on the cheek, momentarily freezing Sophie’s brain, and gave a small wave to Amy and made her way down the stairs. Sophie could only stare after, words in her throat but not getting any farther.

A month later, they had found a place to stay outside of hotels and motels. Tam was able to find a job at a grocery store while Linh worked afternoons at a restaurant down the street. The moon was high in the sky and Tam was finally falling asleep when Linh stumbled through the door. A small crashing sound followed the door closing. "Linh?" he called out hesitantly, "Are you okay?"

A ray of light revealed her disheveled face. Makeup ran down her cheeks and her hair was disheveled. "Clearly not," she said, a bite in her words.

"What happened to you?" he asked, throwing off the covers.

"Go back to bed."

Tam stared at her, eyebrows furrowed, eyes wide, "No I'm not leaving you alone."

"I’m telling you to leave me alone. I am fine."

"Did I do something?"

Linh groaned. “Well yeah, you weren’t supposed to see this.

“But I did, now what?”

Linh whirled on him, “Now, you stop asking questions and forget about it, got it? I don’t need your help.”

Her nostrils flared and she stared at him with a fury he’d seen before but always directed at other people; for once he was scared of his baby sister. He had so many more questions and concerns but he’d never seen her so angry before, so reckless. For once he was scared of what she’d do. “Okay,” he said simply. He wished he hadn’t.

The moment the door closed Amy dragged her to the couch and forcibly sat Sophie down. “Tell me everything,” Amy said, eyes narrowing.

“Well she picked me up from school,” Sophie started, trying not to laugh.

“Well yeah; I already knew that but it does give her some bonuses for being classic,” Amy nodded.

Sophie halted, staring at her sister quizzically. "I'm sorry are you testing my girlfriend?"

"Oh sweetie, what else did you expect me to do?"

"Be normal?" Sophie raised her eyebrow, but Amy only laughed. So, Sophie continued and recollected the night. Only a few times Amy butted in with comments.

When she finished Amy hesitated and asked, “Did you guys talk about Tam at all?”

Startled, Sophie said, “No, why?”

A look crossed Amy’s face that she didn’t quite like, “I just think you should ask her about him.”

And that was that; Tam didn’t get brought up, and neither did Linh. Shoveling oven pizza in their mouths in between words, Amy hopped from topic to topic like their conversation never happened. Avoidance, Sophie knew the strategy all too well; she played along anyway. It was easier that way.

Linh wasn't talking to him. No matter how many times he tried, through notes, through shadows, through everything he could think of. She pretended he didn't exist, spending nights out more often or avoiding him completely when they ended up home together. Tam was lost. This was who they were, they didn't fight, they tried not to argue, and when they did Linh always came to him to talk it out. That's what he did. He waited for her to come to him.

He took as many shifts as he could, some days he watched the sunrise and set through the dirty glass. He didn't talk to coworkers as much as they tried, he didn't need new attachments. It happened slowly, realizing that he didn't see Linh anymore. She was either out doing something when he got home or passed out on the couch. Tam didn't know how he could help if she wouldn't let him.

The first thing he noticed was that she wasn't sleeping. At night he started to pretend to be asleep and see if she would get up. Every night, after thirty minutes of laying there, she'd get up and go out. She didn't sleep, the bags under her eyes grew. So did the hole in his stomach.

Then she stopped coming home at all. She'd leave a note saying she was gone, at this party or another, taking one more shift so they could pay for rent. There was always a reason. The only sign of his sister was the laundry basket that would sometimes appear by the door while he slept.

"Where's my work clothes dammit!" It was the first time she spoke to him in two weeks.

"What?" Tam asked the air, still bewildered by the fact that she was talking.

"My work clothes! I've gotta take Wyatt's shift and mine tonight which means I'll be like the only person there and I need my work clothes! Wyatt's gonna kill me if I'm late I can’t be demoted- they were right here I swear!" she threw up her hands and paced.

"Calm down calm down-"

"Don't you tell me to calm down-"

"Oh, I'm sorry the first time you've talked to me you're losing your shit over something simple-"

"Well I for one would like to pay for rent and I need my freaking work clothes to do it!" she glared at him with fury he hadn't seen before.

"Well if you actually talked to me you'd realize I got promoted so you don't need to worry about rent right now!" Tam yelled back, throwing his arms out.

"I'm not talking to you? I never see you to talk to you anymore!"

"That’s because you're always out making some other mistake that I am not going to join in on!"

"This would've never happened if you just stayed HOME!" she yelled and her voice cracked a bit, "You were happy doing the same damn thing over and over again. You would've thrived there."

"You asked me to come, you asked me for Sophie, for adventure. I said yes because I didn't want to fix our world's problems but this isn't better," Tam’s eyebrows furrowed and his tone implored.

"Yeah well, maybe you should just go home because clearly being here isn't doing anything for you. I should've never told you I was leaving, that was my only mistake," she said her voice calm.

Somehow that hurt more than when she was yelling. Linh gave him a final, pitying look before she closed the door behind her with a final slam.

The door closed, and he could hear her feet receding and he made his decision. He didn’t belong here, but maybe Linh did, and he had to trust she’d be okay without him.

Laying alone in her bed Sophie studied the ceiling. Why hadn’t Linh talked about Tam? Or at least mentioned him? She tried not to think about it. It wasn’t her business anyway. Why would she hide it though? her brain asked.

Sophie could think of a thousand reasons.

But what if she doesn’t trust you?

Chilling air brushed against her toes and she pulled them back under the fluffy blanket and curled herself in a ball. The fan on the ceiling still made noise every time she turned it on, a soft, tick, tick, tick. The wind was loud. Her distrust was louder. It ticked through her thoughts as she drifted, still, she couldn’t shake the cold dread coming over her.

Tam left. He cleaned up his stuff, washing his clothes in the meager washer and dryer and throwing them into a duffle bag. By the time the moon had risen he was all packed. He grabbed the elven crystal from under his pillow and held it up to the moon. With a flash, he was back in the clearing they had left in a half a year earlier. This time, Fitz was standing there, startled like a scared deer, staring at him like he had seen a ghost.

"Dex said you weren’t coming back," Fitz finally said barely above a whisper.

"Plans change," Tam said simply. "Where are you going?"

"Following your lead I guess, hoping I last a bit longer," he responded, staring at the crystal in his hand. There was a look in his eyes that Tam wanted to understand and in a split second of impulsiveness, he made a decision.

"Mind if I hitch a ride?" he asked, Fitz gave him a crooked smile.

"Thought you'd never ask."

Finally, drifting off, Sophie’s mind was still on Linh, on Tam. Questions that she didn’t know how to ask. Without her control, her mind searched for them. That night, her dreams were filled with memories that were not hers.

#Sophie foster #kotlc #tam song #fitz vacker #keepers of the lost cities #dex dizznee #kotlc fic #finding home #solinh #linh song #tater writes

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girlofmanyfandoms · 4 years

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The Awesome Saucers Pt 6

A/n: I finally did it! Let me know if you like the idea of me making a poor attempt to write a song for the Awesome Saucers. I think it would be cool, we’ll see how it goes! Anyways, enjoy!

Word count: 1,305

Warnings: Chaos. That’s it.

“Stina, where do you think you’re going?” Vika confronted. Upon realizing what Stina was holding, her eyes widened in disgust and fear. “And what is THAT?”

Stina froze, eyes shut, cursing herself under her breath. She should’ve known her mother would be in this part of the house. Where else would she get supplies for the unicorns?

“I can explain,” she started, trying to hide her guitar behind her thin, tall frame. Vika loomed over her menacingly as much as she could without falling, awaiting a response.

“Forkle got it for Sophie, and Team Valiant voted that I should be the one to hold onto it. I was just about to return it to Forkle, he asked to have it today,” Stina fibbed.

“A human guitar? For the Black Swan? With you leaving the house through the back?”

“I don’t know why they want it either. And I was leaving through the back gateway because I didn’t want to alert you. I didn’t want you to be worried about me since I’m expecting to be back within an hour or so.”

“And where are you to meet Forkle,” Vika demanded, crossing her arms. She was suspicious, but not overwhelmingly so.

Stina had already gone this far, there was no turning back. “Our first meetup is at Foxfire, I don’t know where he’s taking us from there. I really need to go now, I might be late.”

Stina ran without a word, rushing to her Leapmaster and travelling to Foxfire. She sprinted into the building, and when she bursted into the pastel classroom of Sir Astin with her hair giving off the impression that she got electrocuted, heaving for breath and slamming her acoustic guitar onto the table near Jensi’s keyboard, everyone was full of questions. A death glare from her shut them all up.

Biana was quite used to occurrences such as these. A secret band that only the leader of the Black Swan, a genetically-modified super elf, and a family of flying sparkly horses know about causes close calls and desperate measures. As the elected leader of the group, she’d grown indifferent to this type of behaviour, though she had to admit, seeing Stina look miserable was great payback. Glancing at Dex, she could tell he agreed.

This was their 30th group practice. Everyone had practiced on their own, of course, usually in secluded areas. Dex and Jensi had taken to practicing with each other via Imparter calls, as their instruments often complemented each other in songs Sophie played. Biana, quite proud of the progress the group had made, decided to enter into the next two phases of her master plan.

Brushing her hair off of her shoulders, she cleared her throat and called for the band’s attention. “Awesome Saucers! You’ve all come a long way since the beginning of this band. You have each grown in your own ways, not only in musical talent, but as a person. You bonded with music in a way no elves ever had. And we did this all without piquing negative interest from any authority figures. Heck, Leto even supports it!”

“Why do I feel like this inspirational speech is leading to you pitching a horrible idea,” Tam asked, sighing exhaustedly.

“It’s not a horrible idea,” Biana assured, not losing any momentum from the interruption. “It’s the next step of our musical careers.”

“Careers,” Jensi scoffed in disbelief, reclining in Sir Astin’s vacant chair. “At most, this is a side gig, and that’s stretching it really far.”

“That’s all it is right now,” Biana corrected, “And the next step for us will take it farther.”

Marella stopped braiding Linh’s hair for a moment to pay attention. “And what would that next step look like?”

“Producing songs.”

Maruca laughed bitterly. “Are you kidding me right now? Actual songs? We can barely play at the same time without Leto rushing in to see what exploded.”

“Hey, we’ve gotten better at instrumentals,” Dex defended, frowning slightly at Maruca’s underestimation of the band.

“Sure,” she rolled her eyes. “We should probably get an audience to judge that. And besides, who would even write the songs?”

“I’ll take the lead with that,” Biana reasoned. “Dex and Linh can help, and you guys will have to approve of it before we finalize.”

“While I’m open to writing the songs, I think I’d get nervous in front of an audience,” Linh added quietly. “And Maruca’s right. We can’t dive in headfirst without any coordination.”

“Looks like you’ve been overruled, Princess,” Stina smirked.

“Stina, let’s hear her out. Besides, an audience doesn’t mean the entire elven race, it could be just one person.”

“Oh, good, we’ll only have to ruin one person’s ear drums,” Tam remarked grimly. Arguments filled the room, each snarky comment making Biana exceedingly more hopeless. Dex pulled out his Imparter and walked out into the hall, leaning against the wall in a relaxed position. He talked quietly into the device, and no one noticed him walk out.

“Hello?” Keefe called from the other end of the line. “Is something wrong, Dex?”

“I guess you could say that,” Dex mumbled, his frown tilted. “Do you know of anyone who wouldn’t mind a group of very loud teenagers practicing music by them so they can get feedback?”

“My dad could do it?”

Dex was dumbfounded. “Why would you want Cassius with us? Why would WE want Cassius with us?”

Keefe wrinkled his nose. “Not HIM. Elwin. He gets pretty lonely in the Healing Center, and I’m not always around.”

Dex sighed in relief, his dimples finally resurfacing. “That’s perfect. I’ll tell the others. Thanks, Keefe.”

“No problem, Dexinator.”

________

Dex returned to the room and instantly had an urge to run away as fast as he could. You know, survival’s instinct. Maruca was on top of Sir Astin’s table, yelling at Biana, with Stina backing her up. Jensi had taken Biana’s side, and Tam was trying to get the two sides to calm down. Marella made occasional retorts towards Stina, but mostly kept to making tiny braids in Linh’s hair. And the music sheets. They were all over the floor, and had seemingly been used as weapons. Dex knew he was treading on dangerous grounds, and handled the situation accordingly.

“EVERYONE SHUT UP!”

Ah, yes, the classical route when trying to diffuse an argument. But everyone did stop, though more out of shock that Dex could reach those volumes than out of obedience and civility.

“We’re relocating to the empty room by the Healing Center. Elwin will be there, for constructive criticism and so that he can get some entertainment and company. Keefe might drop by from time to time.”

Biana blew out a breath of relief. She knew she could always count on Dex. Maruca and Stina looked at each other, really wanting to say something, but even they couldn’t deny Elwin.

Jensi, however, wasn’t in the loop. “Why would Keefe suggest Elwin? Wouldn’t he tell us to go to Sophie’s parents or something?”

Dex and Biana shared a look. “Should we-”

“Nah, that’s Keefe’s story to tell,” Dex said nonchalantly.

The comment just made Jensi even more confused, but Biana saved Dex the effort to explain by clapping her hands together loudly. “Alright, everyone, you heard Dex. Relocation time.”

“And what about the instrumental issues and the song writing,” Maruca inquired, still on the fence with this whole issue. “We don’t even have the inspiration for a song.”

“Sure we do, and if not, we’ll make a cover for a song,” Biana encouraged. “But we’ll handle that once we’re in our new location. Plus, it should be safe to leave our instruments in that room. No classes take place there.”

Everyone, no matter how reluctant, shuffled out of the room with their instruments and began the trek to Elwin’s Healing Center.

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