Swan Song

Chapter Nine

Fast update? O.o What is this sorcery? Consider it a (late) Valentine's Day gift! AKA I had a lot of math homework, so I procrastinated it by writing fanfiction.

Over on fanfiction.net Swan Song made fifty reviews, so yay!!!

Crowd: Were all the reviews flames?

Me: ...no

Crowd: Huh, guess they were all just lying then.

Me: Hey, don't call my fans liars!

Crowd: Um... that's an oxymoron.

Me: YOU'RE AN OXYMORON!

Anyway...

Enjoy the chapter guys!

Two days passed by. They were that odd combination of "wait, that felt like... five minutes or something! Was that seriously two days?" and "Ugggggghhhhhh. It's been 1:30 for the past two hours." Some parts of the day, like the time she spent staring up at the ceiling as she tried to fall asleep, or the ten minutes she spent watching Dex yell "OPEN SESAME!" at Councillor Not-Her-Mom's cache before she got bored and left to go visit Keefe, seemed to drag on forever. The time she spent baking mallowmelt with Edaline or bingeing the remainder of the Harry Potter movies (because come on, you can't just watch The Sorcerer's Stone and then stop!) seemed to fly by. But no matter how it felt, the day of the tribunal was finally here.

Sophie put on something nice-ish for the semi-formal occasion- a red dress with a fluffy skirt that Biana said looked really pretty, and Keefe agreed (The thought of which brought a warm blush to Sophie's cheeks, but he was probably just teasing her. Or, he zoned out from Biana's fashion-talk as was just pretending he heard the question. More likely). This time, she drew the line at makeup. Vertina tried to offer advice on a new hairstyle, but Sophie ignored her and put her hair in a simple ponytail.

(And phew, I can stop talking about fashion!)

Arriving at tribunal hall reminded her of the last time she came. Keefe had teased her about how often she had been the one on trial... and then, Sophie remembered with perfect clarity (not just because of the photographic memory) her asking if she'd smudged her makeup and him telling her, with a slight catch in his voice, that she looked... perfect. A strange mix of emotions hit her at once. Come on Sophie, you're better than this, she told herself, and continued remembering how Keefe and Ro had made bets on how long the tribunal would take. The two of them certainly made an amusing pair...

... And, she was sad again. Missing the aggravating antics of Keefe and Ro, of all things.

Keefe's absence really had turned her into a complete mess.

"Hey," said a distinctly accented voice behind her. The owner of which would not be happy to know she was thinking about Keefe just now- thankfully, Sophie had confidence that EBWSATBJFWMSLSNS wouldn't bend the rules of telepathy like that.

"Fitz! Hi!" That odd squeak in her voice... cringe.

Fitz opened his mouth to say something else, but before he did another boy came over, one with a striking resemblance to the one on trial. Sophie had rarely seen Jensi's face not smiling, but his face was noticeably empty of one right now.

"Hey," he said, none of his usual enthusiasm in his voice. "Haven't seen you guys in a while."

"Yeah," Sophie agreed awkwardly.