Moonlark Turned Evil

Inktober Special: Fortune

I managed it guys-

It's here-

Happy reading, and if anyone has ideas for "Wander" tomorrow please let me know

Amy and Jin came to visit Inia over the weekend, which introduced the elves to a lot of human things. They all got roped into playing truth or dare once, which had Fintan and Gethen dressing up as two cartons of milk and Sophie burning a few tables. Pixel ended up smashing a watermelon at one point, too.

Tales of that horrific game aside, today was apparently the day for pass the phone.

Amy started. "I'm passing the phone to . . . the most oblivious girl I've ever met."

Sophie was mildly offended as the phone was thrust in her direction. "I don't think I'm oblivious? Anyway. I'm passing the phone to the person who made me translate all of MXTX's books into the enlightened language so she could reread them without stumbling over the words and didn't warn me about the Bichen scene."

Glimmer shrugged as she accepted the phone without shame. "I wanted to traumatize you. I'm passing the phone to the person who screamed while watching a horror movie after stating that he would never be scared by some fictional moving pictures."

"I—" Ruy pouted as everyone laughed. "I'm passing the phone to the kid who once tried to buy a smoothie in a human store with a bar of gold."

"I was a child," Alvar protested. "I didn't know anything about the Forbidden Cities."

The phone was shoved into his hands despite his excuses.

"I am passing the phone," he began, staring straight at Sophie, "to the person who once distracted me mid-backflip by belting out the lyrics to MARINA's Teen Idle."

"It was funny," Fintan defended Sophie as the phone was passed to her.

"But imagine it from my perspective," Alvar said, waving his hands around. "You're turning a backflip, super concentrated, and then from the corner of the room comes this wildly out of tune, I wAnNa DrINk uNtIL i aChE—"

Sophie gave the phone to Jin. "I'm passing the phone to the boy who will not break my sister's heart. I will break your legs if she cries."

Jin gulped. "Yes ma'am." He scanned the room. "I'm passing the phone to the esteemed time traveling technician."

Elen looked delightfully flattered. "I'm passing the phone to the ogre who refuses to accept her arranged marriage because she's worried it will reveal that she has a crush on Botross." She narrowly avoided being flicked in the forehead as the phone moved on to Ro.

"I'm passing the phone to the world's greatest adoptive mother," Ro said, becoming the second person to play the game without insulting someone as she dropped the phone into Edaline's hands.

"When did you two become close?" Alice asked curiously. She wasn't playing—neither was Emmy—but she'd decided to sit in and observe the game. Irily was sitting beside her, quietly sketching something in a notebook. The Elys wasn't playing, either.

"Edaline is scary with a dagger," Ro said with a satisfied smirk.

"You exaggerate," Edaline blushed. "I'm passing the phone to one of the men who raised my daughter into the brilliant person she is today"—Sophie's heart warmed—"and somehow manages to be the most childish grownup I've ever met."

Fintan grinned, taking the second part as a compliment, too. "Thank you." He took a moment to scan the room for a good candidate.

"I'm passing the phone to the person who once set up a fortune telling stall in the Forbidden Cities and somehow managed to convince a whole bunch of Christians that Japanese mythology was the one true creation story and that they should convert their faith and become monks," Fintan snickered, shoving the phone into Gethen's hands.

The Telepath punched him.

Gethen got rid of the phone by passing it to "the most stylish among all of us" (Biana), and she passed it to "the good guy who's so good that he refuses to tell his crush that he likes her because he wants to give her time" (Keefe, and Sophie was still confused about that one, but she mentally wished him luck with whoever he wanted to pursue romantically).

"Dimples," Keefe said simply, and Dex showed off those dimples as he laughed, accepting the phone.

"I'm passing the phone to our calmest member," Dex said, turning to Linh.

"I'm passing the phone to the girl who has a perfectly fiery special ability to match her temper," Linh said, and coming from anyone else, Marella would've seen that as an insult—but it was Linh.

"I'm passing the phone to the emo bangs," Marella smirked.

Tam glared at her. "I'm not emo."

"Totally," Keefe said sarcastically, sharing a look with Marella.

Surprisingly, the amount of roasts dwindled from then on, and the game turned into a sappy blushing match as everyone started dishing out compliments.

There was a lot of hugging.

The old Sophie would've never partaken in something like this. Maybe she would've agreed with the insults and made a few of her own, but hugs and heartfelt words were things that used to make her uncomfortable. It wasn't like she was used to them now, either—a few times she found herself squirming as someone complimented her to the moon and back—but it was easier. She could tell someone she appreciated their presence and actually mean it.

So much had changed since Gisela had sent her to the Lost Cities, enough that it was jarring and honestly freaked her out more than she wanted to admit, but there were parts of it that made her glad the mission had been assigned to her.

Maybe Gisela had finally done something for her, under the guise of . . .

She jerked the thought to a halt.

Gisela now was different from the Gisela who had been by her side for that first year in the Neverseen, too. Like Sophie, she had changed, in different ways and for different things. It was just setting herself up for disappointment to believe that the woman who had taken her in from the streets and brushed her hair and revealed to her the elvin world in all of its glittering glory was still somewhere under the cold facade of the Neverseen commander.

Sophie blocked out Gisela from her mind and watched the phone being passed between the smiling people in the room.

So much had changed—and she could only thank her good fortune, really.