Tess had suggested that they play the human game truth or dare. Keefe loved the sound of it, and as soon as she realized why he wanted to play, she immediately regretted suggesting it. 

"Okay, so who's going to spill their secrets first?" Keefe asked. Tess rolled her eyes which had quickly become her own nervous habit. Keefe was looking directly at her. "How about Fitz?" he said. He turned his head to face his best friend. "Truth or Dare?" he asked. Fitz looked skeptical.

"Truth" Fitz said. Tess noticed that he looked nervously at her. Ew, she thought.

"Okay. Have you ever pulled your own prank? Without my help?" Keefe asked.

"Do the ones I've pulled on Biana count?" Fitz asked. Keefe shook his head. "Then... no" he confessed. Everyone laughed. It was nice to know that the supposedly perfect elf wasn't so perfect.

"Okay, okay, enough. Dex, it's your turn. Truth or dare?" Fitz said. Dex chose dare. "Okay, I dare you to kiss the pillow" Fitz said. Dex's ears turned red. Tess giggled. Giggled? Since when does she giggle? Oh gods. Whatever. Dex reluctantly picked up the pillow and stuffed his face into it. Tess and the others fell over laughing, red faced. Dex looked like he was going to bolt out the door. Tess decided to transmit to him and make him feel better.

Hey, don't be embarrassed about this. That could have been worse

Dex looked up at her and his cheeks flushed red. Tess was sure that she blushed, too.

"Okay, Sophie, truth or dare?" Dex asked. Sophie chose truth. "Have you ever kissed anyone besides Keefe?" Dex asked. Sophie shook her head. Then they kissed again. Everyone fake gagged, but Tess couldn't stop smiling. This was going to be a very long night.

"So, do you guys do this often?" Tess asked. "I mean, the sleepovers?" she added. They all nodded their heads. "Oh, am I crashing this then? Because I can go..." she started getting up, but Keefe grabbed her back down onto her mattress. She sighed.

"Okay, Biana, truth or dare?" Sophie asked. Biana was about to answer when Sandor appeared in the room.

"Hi Sandor. What brings you here?" Fitz asked.

"Miss. Foster still needs her protection"  Sandor said. Sophie rolled her eyes.

"I thought I was allowed to be here without you" she said. Sandor shook his head.

"I'm not here for you. I wanted to meet Miss. Keegan" he said. Could this night get any worse? Now the Goblin bodyguard wants to meet her. Probably for potential danger, which is understandable, but tonight? Really? She's already going to be interrogated by Keefe. 

"Hi Sandor. I'm Tess" she said with a cheesy salute.

"Hello Miss. Keegan. I figure I'll be seeing you again soon" he said. Tess nodded her head and rolled her eyes. She was not looking forward to the problems she would probably cause. 

"Okay, you met her. Can you please leave us alone now?" Sophie asked. 

"Yes Miss. Foster. I need to speak with Alden about Miss. Keegan anyways" he said, then he walked away. 

"Sorry about him. He's just as over protective as Elwin" Sophie said. 

"I like Gigantor. Especially as an old lady. Now that was funny" Keefe said, laughing.

Everyone laughed, including Tess. She was there, just not with them. She wondered how long it would be like this. How long they were going to reminisce on moments that Tess was reading until they created her own memories. She moved schools a lot and was always the one left out of the memories. She didn't want that to happen again. It's a neglecting feeling. She was scared of being the outcast again. The one with the weird hair, the one with the weird eyes, the one with the human backround, the one with all of the abilities. This "elf" thing is not going to be easy. It was a lot easier being a human with all of these abilities where she could cheat life. She realized that this sounds extremely terrible so she decided to never say that. She passed every test she's ever taken with flying colors. She was sure that elvin curriculum would be a lot harder. 

"So, Tess, what kinds of things do you like to do for fun?" Fitz asked. He tilted his head to the side.

"Oh, well I'm very into music. I brought my clarinet here as well. I can probably build a piano" Tess said, thinking out loud. 

"What's a piano? And a clarinet?" Keefe asked. 

"Well, a piano is an acoustic instrument with 88 keys and each key makes a different note. A clarinet is almost the same except for the fact that the clarinet is long and and a woodwind. It has silver keys and you blow into it. I'll show you tomorrow" Tess said. She's never had to explain a clarinet to someone. People just knew. This was going to be extremely hard.

"And you can play both of those?" Keefe asked. "As well as singing which I experienced vividly" he added, shooting a playful glare at her. She laughed and said "That was an accident. Well, sort of. I just wanted to show you what I can do. I can sing without going all 'control freak' on someone. The truth is, I just like to sing. And I don't think I've ever used my ability on anyone. Other than Keefe, of course" 

"Yeah, well, I'd appreciate it if you didn't do it again. I don't like having my emotions tampered with" Keefe said. 

"This coming from the empath" Biana said. 

"Reading emotions is completely different from changing someones emotions"

"Wow, I feel so much better about trying to fit in" Tess said, rolling her eyes. 

"Sorry. We did that to Sophie at first too. Didn't help her much either" Biana said. 

"I didn't do anything" Dex said.

"How about the first time we met? You wouldn't stop talking about how different my eyes were!" Sophie said. Dex turned red. "Sorry" Dex mumbled while laughing. 

Tess now just wanted to sleep. Her eyes were getting really heavy and it was really hard to think about anything. She contemplated going upstairs and sleeping in the spare room. She didn't want to do that though. Thankfully she didn't have to.

"Hey guys, I think we should go to sleep. I'm exhausted" Fitz said. Of course, he was the oldest and supposedly the most responsible. She was kinda grateful for that, as she was also exhausted. Everyone nodded their agreement. Fitz clapped his hands and the lights went out. Out of instinct, Tess reached into her back and grabbed her phone and earbuds. She started going to her music library and turned on her favorite playlist of Panic! at the Disco, Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance. 

"You have one of those too?" Dex asked. Tess nodded. "Sophie has one of those. Except it's smaller" he added. 

"Yeah every night I usually use it to help me fall asleep. I've hacked it to make it hold more music than it originally could" Tess said

"Well, maybe we can teach each other some things. You can teach me about human technology and I can teach you about elvin technology?" he said. Tess smiled and nodded. "That sounds really fun" she said. Although inside she was freaking out and her heart was beating extremely fast and loud. She decided to just put her earbuds in and play the music so she wouldn't accidentally say anything stupid. She was thinking about Dex and before she knew it, she was dreaming. She dreamed about going to school and weird scenarios that she always dreamed about her old boyfriend, Christian, before they started going out. She had no clue what he was doing right now, but she could probably ask to use Sophie's Spyball tomorrow. Her dream was about Dex and what would happen during their technology banter when it happened. Then she heard voices and was being shaken awake. She slowly opened her eyes, expecting to see blinding lights and her mother waking her up for school. When she came back to reality, or what now was reality, and saw the smiling face of Biana. 

"Wake up. There's a surprise for you" Biana said. Tess expected the worst and a bunch of colorful clothing, but when she looked around she saw colors that she wore most of the time. Black, green, dark purple, gray, white, and dark blue. You could say that she was a stereotypical "emo" as the humans put it. She was completely fine with that. She loved being different. 

"Wha- how did you know that I like dark colors? How did you do this?" Tess asked. She got up and walked over to the kitchen with Biana. Alden and Della were there, too.

"We've been keeping track of you and your personality to know what kinds of clothes to buy you. Things that you would actually wear" Della said. Tess was stunned. She would wear all of this. 

"Thank you guys. So much" she said. She was handed a bowl of orange mushy stuff that tasted like bacon and maple syrup. Della and Biana started folding all of the clothes and putting them into boxes. Tess joined them and had all of the clothes in boxes after a few minutes. Then Della brought a tunic and pants upstairs for her.

"So, we are going shopping today. No arguments. You need to pick out some of your own clothes and knickknacks and anything else you want. We're going to Atlantis. So, we should all go change. Sophie come on!" Biana said. She did talk a lot. And shop a lot. 

"Here Tess. I think you'll need this. It's five million lusters" Alden said, handing her a small green cube. Tess thankfully took it and followed Biana and Sophie upstairs to Biana's room. When they got there, the room was huge. It was way too intimidating and fancy for someone like her. 

"There's your outfit on the bed" Biana said. Tess picked up the tunic and the fabric was soft. Nothing any human could ever achieve. She saw that Sophie and Biana were starting to change, so Tess did too. She always hated changing in front of other girls, but she'd been in enough locker rooms to know not to look at anyone, or they'll get mad at you. Tess changed her pants and the leggings were extremely soft. She normally didn't like to wear leggings, but these weren't like human leggings. There was no way to explain how they were different, but they were. Next she changed her shirt and went to look in the mirror. She grabbed her pale lip gloss from her bag and put it on. She never wore a lot of makeup. Just eyeliner and subtle lip gloss most of the time. 

"See Sophie? Tess wears makeup" Biana said. Sophie rolled her eyes while she brushed her hair.  

"I wouldn't say that I wear makeup. I just put on eyeliner and lip gloss. I don't like to be that significant" Tess said. 

"And yet you dyed your hair" Biana said. Tess rolled her eyes. Her dad had said the same thing. 

"I just wanted to be different. I don't like being like everyone else" Tess said. She ran her fingers through her hair and admired how elvin she looks in the mirror. The writing on her bracelets that was usually backwards in the mirror was completely readable and, well, not backwards. She walked back over to the bed where she set her luster cube and picked it up. She put it in her wrist pocket and zipped it up. "You guys ready to go?" she asked. Biana and Sophie nodded. This would be her first day out in the open. She's just hoping that her pyrokinesis doesn't go berserk and fire accidentally shoots out her nose. It's happened before. 

"Come on. Let's go"