2 Matching Rings

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~ Present Sophie's POV ~
After getting ready and all, I open the bathroom door to find Keefe just staring into the nothingness. He's just thoughtfully spaced out. I raise my eyebrow and sigh. I head over to my enormous walk-in closet (which I can tell is mine because a beautiful deep red/ burgundy velvet wedding dress with a scary long train, and sparkly clear crystals twinkling the bottom half of the flowy dress, is prominently on display. Wait...wedding dress?)
I look down at my fingers and notice something I didn't before. A sparkly wedding ring with a diamond set in the center. I turn my finger to examine it, and on the side in small writing it reads, 'Sencen'. Sencen? I'm not a Sencen! Well at least not in my world. But wherever I am I'm definitely me...just older. I must be in my future...but won't this mess up the timeline?
I stare at the band a little longer. I was paused in the doorframe and Keefe was eyeing me. I could tell out of my peripheral vision.
"Foster, you ok?"
He asks, his eyebrow raised.
I feel my cheeks heat up before I even talk.
"Keefe..."
I mumble
"Check your finger."
He does so, obediently, and when he sees a silver wedding band with the same diamond on my ring, just that there's one on every side, he, too, looks stunned.
"Foster..."
He says aloud.
I turn red.
"Look..."
I mutter, displaying my ring finger on my left hand.
"It says Sencen."
I continue quietly.
He starts to blush too.
"We're married Keefe. This is the future."
I whisper.
It's a scary thing but an amazing thing all at the same time. I love Keefe, but marriage is a terrifying concept for my current brain. However, in the future we mature and probably decide we want to be married.
He looks perplexed for a second.
"Wait but why does mine say Foster and yours says Sencen? Shouldn't we have the same last name?"
He asked sincerely.
"We should...unless we did a hyphenated last name. It's common for humans..."
I told him, playing with the beautiful ring on my finger .
"I...well..."
His voice trails off, his face turning redder.
We both stand in silence for the next few moments, until he finally speaks.
He swallows.
"Does it bother you?"
He whispers, his eyes trained on the bed sheets.
"And think about it, really think."
He adds.
I think for a moment, pondering the lifestyle. I love Keefe, and though this might be technically scary to me right now, we definitely have had to go through a lot to get to the marriage point. I don't know what I'd do without him. Honestly, I always thought the day would come too, and now that I thought about it, the thought of marrying Keefe made me more euphoric than I had ever felt before. I could feel his eyes studying me, shaky and terrified to see my response. I smiled.
"No...it'll make me the happiest and luckiest girl alive."
I say tilting my head and smiling at him.
He blushes a bit, and closes his eyes.
"I love you Foster."
"I love you too Keefe."
And with that I head into my closet.
I close the door and stand in there for a moment, examining every corner of the room. I hear Keefe get out of bed and the restroom door close.
I do a slow 360. Everything is so organized. In the front and center is my wedding dress on display, with pearl and silver jewelry surrounding it in what looks like floating glass displays. Flowery rose vines drape across each corner of the closet, the perfumed aroma scenting everything in the room.
In one section, there's dresses and sparkly clothing, for more formal events (and that part of the closet scares me.) In another section there's more practical clothing, like black leggings, tunics, and capes (some of which look somewhat worn out and well used), and in another section there's what I assume to be outfits for occasions that aren't super formal, such as get togethers, which consists of skirts and tops that were sparkly and somewhat cropped. In floating glass displays beside every section, there's jewelry, belts, pins, and accessories.
Apparently I changed quite a bit from my current moment, cause a lot of it wasn't my comfort level. Or I got more comfortable in my own skin. Either way, a change is a change. I wasn't sure what to change into, but I didn't want something that's usually me. If I changed this much over time then I wanna step out of my comfort zone and try something new.
I go over to my 'Not too fancy outerwear' section of my closet, and pick out a deep red velvet colored (same color as my wedding dress) high-waisted skirt, which wasn't too long but wasn't too short, and a black crop long sleeve turtleneck with crystals lining the hem. I then picked out a pearl choker style necklace and layered over another necklace that dropped lower, with a red gem.
I then fussed with my hair a bit, combing it out and putting it into two intricate braids, weaved with red gems, like how Physic would do her hair.
If I was already being adventurous, why not continue, right? So I grabbed some makeup and did my best attempt, and which to my surprise actually came out pretty good. It was just mascara, concealer, foundation, highlighter, blush, and glossy red lipstick, but it was enough for me.
To finish off the look, I grabbed some pearl hanging earrings, which were held up by a red gem. I then fastened a black cape on with a Sencen crest. Clearly my future self fancied red, black, and white, and very few other colors (possibly to do with how people told me red was my color.) Maybe confidence had struck me as an adult. Or maybe I had just become a total badass. Whichever it was, I was totally going out today...with Keefe.
Speaking of him, I walked out of my closet to find him sitting on the opposite side of the bed to my closet, staring at the wall and probably thinking about something. He looked so calm and peaceful. He then whipped his around to see me. He was wearing a white button shirt (that was unbuttoned at the top), an ivory colored cape with a Sencen crest, and plain black pants. A blush arose on his cheeks, his handsome features now flustered.
"F-Foster...you-I"
He stumbled over his words.
He cleared his throat and tried again, his eyes fixed on me, twinkling in the sunlight.
"You look beautiful..."
I met his eyes and blushed.
"Thanks..."
I responded back, my cheeks warming even more without warning. My stomach was feeling all fluttery and somersault-y. He was still staring at me, his jaw open a little. But his usual adorable snarkiness and humor returned with a smirk.
"Ooh is Foster flustered?"
He asked, making my stomach feel even more fluttery and queasy.
"Says the one who was literally staring at me like five seconds ago"
I retorted, rolling my eyes.
"Fine, fair."
He responded, sighing.
"Should we go down?"
I asked.
"Sure"
He responded.
Then he followed me out the door. The whole house seemed to be mainly on one floor.
It was very widespread, but we passed several rooms. I couldn't tell what the first few were for, but then we came across some with names engraved into them from crystal.
Jolie
Aidrene
Loriya
Omith
Dimer
Five names. None were familiar except the first. I paused at the first door, running my hands along the engraving.
"Jolie"
I whispered. The name feeling heavy and incorrect on my tongue.
But Jolie was dead? So who were these people?
"Wait..."
Keefe ran his hands through his hair, retreating to and totally pulling of his signature disheveled hair look.
"These people...they'd only live with us if they were relatives. As far as I know I'm not directly related to any people with these names, and Jolie is dead, so you don't think these could be our..."
He seemed to not want to finish the sentence, so I finished it for him.
"Children?"
I asked, still trailing my fingers along the crystals, feeling their smooth edges.
"Yeah..."
He says.
I pause to think for a moment. Multiple births was uncommon, and though Im okay with five children, honestly I'd prefer, like, two or three.
So is it possible there are twins or triplets?
"Come on. Let's find out where they are."
I motioned for him to follow me down the hallway.
"I mean or they could be sleeping- but ok."
Keefe told me.
I ignored him and walked farther down a hallway, passing several more doors.
I took note of all the doors.
"Seriously, who needs this many rooms?"
"Dunno, what d'you think there for?"
Keefe asked running has hand through his hair again.
"Probably like storage or ballrooms or something. Elves are weird."
I crinkled my nose.
"You are one,"
Keefe reminded me.
"Yeah, yeah I know. Still weird"
I sighed.
We rounded a corner and reached the kitchen. Before we even fully entered the room, I saw five kids.
Two seemed to be fighting over some sort of toy. They both seemed to be about the same age. Twins, I noted. They looked around seven or eight years old (serious migraine attacks probably happened often in this household.)  One was a girl with shoulder length, dirty blonde ringlets, and twinkling ice blue eyes with specks of gold in them. The other was a boy with messy, curly blonde hair the same shade as his sister's and the same twinkling, icy eyes.
Standing behind them trying to break up the argument was a figure turned away. From behind though, she had paler blonde hair that was similar to mine. It was straight and long, reaching down to her chest. She seemed to be the eldest. When she turned a bit outwards, I noticed that she had gold-flecked brown eyes, like mine. Well that's what I thought at first, until she turned her head a little more, and her other eye was ice blue. She had heterochromia. She looked to be about sixteen.
Sitting on a kitchen stool across from the argument, was a boy with messy Keefe-styled hair. He had brown eyes like mine, and was hunched over his imparter, smiling at it, and completely oblivious to the situation occurring directly across from him. He looked probably about sixteen as well.
Finally, there was another boy, with ice blue eyes and pale blonde curly hair. He looked between ten or twelve. He was scribbling away on a peace of paper with a smirk plastered on his face that screamed 'Keefe'.
Ugh honestly, how did anyone take care of five kids. Especially since three of them were boys. Apparently dealing with a husband and a jealous ex-but-not-cause-I-didn't-technically-date-him wasn't enough.
The one smirking at his paper looked up for just a moment and saw us. His smirk turned into a pout.
"Mommmm! Can you pleaseeee tell Omith and Loriya to stop fighting over that stupid toy! They've been at it for the last hour and it's driving me nuts! Jolie literally can't make them stop with her stupid 'sharing is caring!' garbage!"
The boy whined, his voice pitching up a bit at the last few emphasized words.
The girl with heterochromia, Jolie I assumed, turned around and retorted,
"Hey! Well if Dimer wasn't always texting his girlfriend and actually paid attention for once, it would be easier to quiet these two!"
She had the same voice the boy had imitated, he must be a polyglot, I thought to myself. Or, like Keefe, he was just really good at imitations.
The boy with curly hair and brown eyes blushed a deep crimson.
"Shut up Jolie! At least I'm in a relationship!"
He snapped.
"Yeah well, I value education over petty little relationships. So please, excruciatingly continue with your girlfriend and I'll be in the nobility while you're at it!"
Jolie retaliated, rolling her eyes.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, wondering if I could stuff them all into the laundry and turn the machine on high setting, or better suck them up in a vacuum. It had really come to this, huh? Children are so hard to deal with. How did future me have five? I musta been crazy or had a lil too much of that fizzleberry wine Oralie mentioned way more than a subtle amount of times (girl had a problem I swear.)
"LORIYA! ITS MY TOY! STOP TRYING TO TAKE IT!"
The boy twin, I assume is named Omith, yelled.
"IT WAS IN MY ROOM! THAT MAKES IT MY TOY!"
The girl twin, I assume is named Loriya, shrieked.
I sighed and clenched my teeth.
Kids.
Was this how Mr. Forkle ever saw us? How we would argue? Yeah hopefully not- but it would make sense since he starts literally like every sentence with 'you kids'.
"MOM! TELL LORIYA ITS MINE!! OR IM GONNA RECREATE THE LAST PRANK THAT AIDRENE PULLED, EXCEPT ON ALL OF FOXFIRE, NOT JUST MAGNATE LETO'S OFFICE!!"
Omith screeched, turning to me.
"HEY! Don't bring me into this!!"
Snapped the boy who was scribbling away furiously on paper.
I heard Keefe behind me cough a little to cover his laugh.
"Maybe tell Jolie to stop being the good elite level kid she is and pushing Leto to add more about botany and interspecial history into the Foxfire curriculum! I can only sit through Elvin history so many times, and I do not wanna learn about the ogre's long history!"
Aidrene complained.
"You ditch half the time Aidrene! I do not wanna hear it!"
Jolie snapped back.
"Oh yeah? What're you gonna do about it? Go inflictor rage mode on me?"
Aidrene countered.
"No, but maybe you could make it easier on mom and dad so they aren't meeting with Magnate Leto every week to fix your pranking messes!"
Jolie retorted.
"You're lucky they know him personally or you would've been suspended by now!"
She added.
"You're just mad I'm dads favorite"
Aidrene sneered.
The room fell silent and every child's head seemed to snap up at that sentence.
"Well I'm moms favorite. I'm the oldest, and the only one in the elite levels, even though Dimer is old enough to participate! And, we all know that she actually values the smart things that will get you through life, unlike silly little pranks and mischievous deeds, like dad does!"
Jolie countered, her face fuming with anger.
God hope she has better inflicting control than me.
"Hey!"
Keefe responded back looking playfully hurt, though I could still see the amusement creeping onto his face.
Everyone ignored him.
"No I'm mom's favorite! I'm little and cute!"
Loriya yelled back.
"And I'm dad's favorite! I have pulled more pranks than you have in your entire lifetime!"
Omith roared.
"We're only four years apart! It's not a big difference! Plus I pull smarter and more elaborate pranks!"
Aidrene snapped back
"Actually... I'm mom's favorite. I've caused no significant trouble and have been the first to pull together my life and get in a relationship. I'm also not relatively horrible at any of my school subjects and have her strong telepathy. Plus Jolie is older than me by one minute so no severe age difference there."
Dimer said coolly, smoothing back his hair.
Every kid glared at him.
"What? You know I'm right."
He told them all smoothly.
"You're so wrong it's hilarious! It's obvious I'm her favorite!"
Jolie snapped with a bitter laugh.
And round and around it went, until I was fed up.
Finally I decided it was time to take control over my apparent children, who all seemed to have a talent for annoying me.
"ENOUGH!"
I yelled, my eyes squeezed shut.
I opened them to find a room full of stunned children and Keefe (who I'm still not convinced isn't a child based on the way he acts), who too looked slightly taken aback.
I breathed out, rubbing the knot under my ribs to control my emotions.
"Here is what is going to happen. Your father and I will be going to Atlantis for the day to run some errands-"
"We are?"
Keefe whispered in my ear, cutting me off.
A glare was my response to him. He shriveled under the stare.
"As I was saying, your father and I will be spending the day in Atlantis. Which means that Jolie will be in charge of you all,"
The blonde haired girl smirked at Dimer, who glared back at her.
"For no other reason than her being the eldest! I don't want to hear another argument out of any of you about who is the favorite! Loriya and Omith, stop fighting over that toy and share it, and I'll consider getting you some more if I come back and hear from Jolie that no arguments broke out. Dimer, get off your imparter and do some actually productive work! Jolie, the same goes for you. Aidrene, stop planning pranks right now and please go do something else! I don't care what it is, as long as it doesn't involve mischief, pranking, or arguing. Do you hear me?"
I waited for them all to nod, still holding my stare stern.
"Good. If I hear any more arguing out of any of you, you will all be grounded, despite who actually did it. Jolie, you will make them all dinner, or eat leftovers. Now, that this is finished, I don't want to hear the slightest peep of an argument out of any of you. Your father and I will be leaving now. Don't ruin the house and stay safe. And especially don't do anything stupid!"
I finished strictly, glaring at all of them.
And without hesitation, I grabbed Keefe's wrist and held up a crystal that light leaped to the whirlpool that traveled to Atlantis.

~ Phew! Your author here again! That was a stressful one. I'd been writing this for around three days now, taking every opportunity I could (though I have been kinda busy.) This chapter is pretty long, so strap in. I just needed (more like wanted) a segment between Sophie's future and present, since I'm alternating between the two of them. I also wanted to introduce children, and I was toying with names, unsure of which to use, and I just eventually settled on using five instead of narrowing it down. Also I know I shouldn't start sentences with 'and' often, but I didn't know what else to do to achieve what I was trying to say both emotionally and within the text- sorry English teachers of the world! Anyway, now that we have completed this completely unnecessary note, I hope you enjoyed! Thank you and have a lovely day! 💕 ~

Word Count: 3133 •

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