Swan Song

Chapter Eighteen

Okay, so I don't really have anything interesting to say up here...

Um...

Oh! I redesigned the cover, if you haven't noticed yet. 

And, um... yeah, that's it.

Just enjoy the chapter!

Sophie wasn't entirely sure who opened their mouth first, but pretty much everyone in the group said Jensi's name with shock filling their voice.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's Jensi. Congratulations- you figured it out!" Jensi said, grinning.

"I guess... I guess all my friends are part of the group now." Sophie said, already pulling the eyelashes. "You- you know this is... like... dangerous, right? Like, people almost die. And then some of us actually die. And it's just very fun over here, constantly worrying for the lives of everyone I care about and also almost dying every five minutes-"

"You know I may have actually tied your record for near death experiences, right?" Keefe smirked. "Wait- do we keep count?"

"Okay, so my life and my- um, my life and Keefe's life almost end every five minutes or so, and pretty much everyone else here has almost died at least once, so... I'm just making sure you know the risks. This isn't a game, you know. It's not some fun activity. It's not 'cool." It's life and death."

"I know." Jensi's voice may have been more serious than Sophie had heard it before. "My brother is in a jail cell as of right now- you think I don't know this is serious? This whole... for lack of a better word... thing has started screwing up my life already, so I think that once I'm involved, it's only fair that I should help, right? And I probably won't die... you guys have amazing luck, you know that, right? Like, honestly, if your luck was worse... Sophie would probably be dead by now, so would Keefe, most likely Biana, and actually, probably the entire world. I know there's a risk, but it's seriously not as bad as you're making it seem. The key word is near-death experiences."

"You have to admit he makes a point," Marella conceded.

"So, wait, did you, like... manifest?" Fitz asked.

"Actually, no. And we should probably stop kidding ourselves- I doubt it's ever going to happen."

"So how do you expect to-"

Jensi glared at Wonderboy. "I don't have a special ability, but my skills are actually better than most of yours. Well- probably not Sophie's, and probably not anyone who went to Exillium-"

"We all went to Exillium," Fitz argued.

"Yeah, for like, three days." Biana pointed out. "And we kind of sucked."

"Yeah, I meant those three," Jensi said, pointing at Tam, Linh, and Glimmer. "My point is, I'm good at skill stuff, and that's probably more useful than being Sophie's-" he put on a mockingly lovesick look. "Cognate."

Keefe snorted while Fitz glared.

"Plus, if this is a group trying to rid the elves of discrimination against the Talentless, I really don't think an effective way to do that is by discriminating against the Talentless."

Dex started a slow clap. Soon enough, the rest of the group joined in- Mr. Forkle included.

"He has a point," Sophie said when the applause died down. "We've been so caught up in the Neverseen stuff-"

"Which is kind of important," Tam pointed out.

"Right. Duh," Sophie agreed. "But we've been so caught up in the Neverseen stuff that we pretty much forgot about the Black Swan's actual goals."

"Wait, you have goals other than defeating the Neverseen?" Glimmer asked.

"That's my point!" Sophie exclaimed. "The Black Swan was created because elves are stupid and judgemental, and we wanted to make Elven society less stupid and judgy."

"I'm pretty sure those weren't our exact words," Mr. Forkle pointed out.

"Yeah, but they're better than our actual words," said Keefe.

"Sure. Okay, Miss Foster, you have a point. But for now, the meeting is dismissed."

As they began walking out of the house, Biana nudged Sophie- making sure that they were far behind the boys. The boys meaning Fitz and Keefe.

"So..." Biana started. "I hear you have a boy problem."

"I- what?" Sophie squawked.

"Well... I kind of heard and then deduced. So, right after you guys fixed Keefe's memory, Fitz came home- and like, he was super happy, but later he told me-"

Biana cleared her throat and adopted a whiny voice that in no way resembled Fitz's. Actually, now that she thought about it... but that wasn't important. "'When we were in Keefe's memories, Sophie found the one of Keefe figuring out he liked her. So now she knows. And they're gonna start dating. Congratulations- insert eye roll here- your ship has sailed.' But the ship has not sailed- you were ignoring Keefe, and then he went over to your house- I found that one out from Ro- and now you guys are acting normalish but still kind of weird- definitely not how you'd be acting if you were dating! And, no offense, but you're very obvious about your crushes, so I could tell that you have at least some feelings for him. But I could also kind of tell that you still like my brother- which is gross- so you're in a love triangle."

"I guess?" Sophie said, still kind of in awe of Biana's deduction skills. "Did you seriously figure all that out?"

"Marella helped," Biana admitted.

"Still..."

"So, do you have any idea how to resolve said triangle?" Biana asked.

"No," Sophie admitted. "Do you?"

"I mean, I read a lot of cheesy romance stuff, but not really, no."

"Helpful," Sophie muttered."

"Well... you've already talked to Keefe, right?" Sophie nodded. "Try talking to Fitz. And the benefit to that one is, I'm just down the hall if it goes badly."

Sophie released a shaky breath. "Okay. Okay. I need to hail Mom and Dad, and then I'll come over to Everglen with you. And talk to Fitz. About my love triangle."

Ergh, so that chapter was very... dialogue heavy. Blargh. I generally try to avoid that- my old writing was like 95% dialogue and it sucked. Hopefully this chapter did not suck.

Crowd: Um, sure. Keep telling yourself that.

Me: What the- now you guys are in the outros too!?

Anyway, yay for the fast update! And oooooh! Sophie's going to go talk to Fitz about the love triangle? How's that going to go?

No, really. How is that going to go? I have no idea. HELP!

Seriously, I've never written a love triangle before. THIS IS HARD! If anybody has had experience writing a (good) love triangle, please help me!

*Starts playing "Does Anybody Have a Map"*

Family: ARE YOU LISTENING TO DEAR EVAN HANSEN AGAIN!?

Me: Yes. I will be listening to Dear Evan Hansen for forever.

Ugh, I've rambled long enough. PLEASE HELP ME WITH THE LOVE TRIANGLE! SERIOUSLY!

Btw, I WILL update before I figure this whole thing out- I was planning on dragging out the love triangle anyway, so...

Anyway, please vote and comment! --->