The next day Grady and Edaline had taken us shopping for presents for our friends. I just picked something I thought Marella and Dex would like and got Keefe some prank supplies. For Fitz, I got a glitter bomb that I later would set up to explode when he opened the box and also not only cover him in glitter that would stick because I'm adding glue to the mix but also let out a stink. Grady and Edaline tried to convince me to get him something else but I was stubborn obviously. I did take a while looking for a gift for Bianna and Jay though, I know what you would say just get her some makeup and him some random thing or something and be done with it, but no. I want to get them something good.

We walked into a jewelry store and I noticed the two adults next to us tense up a bit. It didn't take my empathy to know why with the looks the shopkeepers were giving them. I took my glove off and softly took Edaline's hand in my own, this was one of the situations where direct contact comfort was needed. Edaline flinched, thinking I did something wrong I was about to pull away when she tightened her grip on my hand. Sophie proceeded to pull off my other glove and hold my other bare hand while Grady took hers and we spent the rest of the shopping spree like that. 

When we got back Grady stopped us on our way up the stairs to our room. "I'm glad you girls came to live with us. It's . . ." His mouth formed a word, then changed to a different one. "It's nice."

"I'm glad I live here too," Sophie whispered and I just stared, this was getting a little deep.

"Yeah, it's really great," I said in a low voice but they still heard me.

Grady cleared his throat. "Big day tomorrow. Better get some sleep."

"Good night, Grady," Sophie said and we went upstairs.

~The Next Day~

'Well this is different.' was my first thought when we glittered into the view of foxfire the next morning. I wasn't really surprised though, elves were extravagant and I was expecting something like this for something as simple as back-to-school night, err I guess day for them. Whatever.

Grady and Edaline immediately went straight to our first conferences, one for each since there were two of us. Me and Soph went to put our gifts in our friend's lockers and when we got to Fitz and Keefe we got a bunch of glares from the girls. I just grinned and seeing a few hot girls in the mix - I hoped for dear life they were into girls so this wasn't embarrassing- I let my oversized jean jacket slide off one of my shoulders revealing that I only had a tang top on, I usually had a t-shirt on over the tang top for either fashion or weather reasons but today it was just the tang top because I woke up late, so it showed a bit of my cleavage. Enough to make people who like girls blush but not enough to be sexual, obviously we are minors. I swayed my hips a bit as I placed the last gift down and then glanced back I saw a few girls blushing a bit. YES!! There are bi or pan girls here!!!

As me and Sophie walked away and out of sight of the girls she gave me a deadpan look while I fixed my jacket. I just gave her innocent eyes.

"Was that necessary?" She asked and I shrugged.

"Testing if there were any lesbians, sis," I said and she raised an eyebrow at me.

"The way you were flaunting yourself I'm sure there are now." She said and I gasped dramatically.

"I was not-" I was cut off as we hit something in front of us, I guess we weren't watching where we were going. I looked up and saw it was Sophie's telepathy teacher, Sir Tiergan.

"Sorry."

"Yo, old man," I said as Sophie apologized but she quickly took a 180 on me realizing how I had addressed her mentor.

"(Y/N)! You can call someone that!" She said.

"Why not? For all, we know he's hundreds of years old. I'm also betting he won't tell us how old he is even to stop me from calling him that. Watch, how old are you?" I said turning back to the straight-faced man but he stayed silent. "See?"

"Still, that's rude." She said.

"Since when have I cared," I said with a shrug and Sophie gave up and turned to talk to the old man.

"Well, well, who do we have here?"

I turned around, expecting to find Keefe with lots of prying questions and one of his trademark smirks. And he was there. But his grin was gone, and he wasn't the one who had spoke. Hmm, suspicious. I turned to the man next to him that looked like an older version of him but with slicked back hair and fancy put-together clothes. He also had an arrogant aura around him that just ticked me off.

"These must be the girls who were raised by humans," he said, in a loud voice, and as I saw my sister get uncomfortable I felt the urge to punch this guy. Seriously, this guy only said two sentences and I already wanted to shut him up. "How curious to find them in the Level Four wing, talking to Foxfire's most infamous Mentor."

"Infamous?" Sophie asked. I glanced at Keefe and seeing the effect his dad was having on him really pissed me off. I balled my fist but Sophie grabbed it and squeezed while giving me a look.

Keefe's father grinned, an oily sort of smile that dripped with insincerity. "Few Mentors have resigned, then returned years later—out of the blue—to train a mystery prodigy." He winked with the last two words like he knew exactly who the prodigy was.

Sophie's cheeks flamed and I searched for some sort of lie. But Tiergan beat me to it.

"Interesting theory, Cassius—"

"Lord Cassius," he corrected.

"More like Lord Pompous Ass," I muttered and the man just glared at me, without any hesitance I glared right back. He was about two heads taller than me but I didn't care, Sophie had to physically hold me back by pulling my arm before I got up into his face screaming at him. Keefe stared at me with pleading eyes begging me to let it go and stop.

Tiergan's jaw tightened. "Lord Cassius. Do you really think I could be tempted back by a little girl? Especially one performing so unremarkably in her sessions?" He said steering our attention back to the conversation.

"Come on, Dad," Keefe said, looking at us, not his father. His eyes radiated the apologies he couldn't say. "I'm sure Fos—err—Sophie and (Y/N) have somewhere they need to be."

Cassius glared at Keefe and my anger increased. "Yes, of course. And I need to meet with your Mentors. See how disappointing your scores will be this time."

Keefe rolled his eyes as his father turned to us with another fake smile. "Fascinating to meet you. I look very forward to seeing what you can do."

Sophie nodded and took off down the hall without saying goodbye but I stayed back. As Cassius and Keefe walked away I caught Keefe's eye and made a look of disgust while waving my fist as if to punch his dad and I saw a hint of a smile brighten his face with his eyes filling with warmth. I smiled back but unfortunately, his dad noticed the looks and he grabbed Keefe and walked faster down the hall.

I caught up with Sophie in the hall, I saw Dex reach for a bubble but miss it. Stina popped out of nowhere and pooped the bubble Dex was going for and caught the bottle. She waved it in Dex's face and made a remark. "Must be hard being shorter than the average dwarf." She said and before I could but in Sophie spoke.

"This coming from someone who looks like a giant lollipop. If your head gets any bigger, you'll topper over." MY BABY!! She's finally growing some snark. At last, I'm rubbing off on her! I watched as Stina gained a look of anger.

"Awfully brave words coming from a girl who's going to flunk out of here today." She said and when Sophie stayed silent she giggled. "Enjoy your last day of foxfire, loser." She said and turned around only to be met with me. Me being only a few inches taller than Marella was like one foot smaller than her but was still terrifying apparently. I had a sickly sweet smile on my face but don't get fooled, when my eyes held nothing but anger and mischievousness. Stina paled and ran away.

We went on to speak for a bit when Sophie mentioned putting her gift for Bianna in her hat and Dex scowled.

"Why did you get her a gift?" He asked annoyance clear on his face.

"She's my friend, and besides (Y/N) likes her."

"Yeah and a month ago you hated each other, and we already know (Y/N) likes her so she has a free pass until she gets over her crush."

"Hey!" I said at his remark but they ignored me.

"That was a misunderstanding." They continued to talk but stopped when Bianna walked into the room. She was arguing with Maruca and I planned to wait for them to stop but Sophie dragged me over.

Biana bit her lip. "Oh, hey, guys."

Maruca glared at Biana but shot me a small smile, we had warmed up to each other over the last few months. So currently you could label us as friends but we don't really hang out that much.

Sophie cleared her throat. "Sorry. I just wanted to drop this off." She handed Biana a pink box—the charm bracelet she'd bought her—and turned to me and I stammered as I rushed to get out my own gift. It was in a purple box and was a necklace. It was on a silver chain and had a simple loopy charm carved out of diamond. I blushed slightly as she took it and put Sophie's gift in her bag so that she could open mine. I shut my eyes waiting for a grunt of disappointment, after all, she was from the Vacker family, she must be used to fancy stuff. It had to be too simple.

I heard her gasp and peeked my eyes open to see her holding it in her hand with a smile on her face. I smiled at her reaction as she asked Maruca to help her put it on and the charm laid softly against her chest. It reached just below her collar bone and the long chain was embedded with tiny silver diamonds and the design had intricate swerves inside the already loopy design. She smiled and pulled me into a hug.

"Thank you, (Y/N)." She said as she pulled away and I could have sworn her cheeks were red for a second before Sophie pulled me away to leave.

"Wait." Biana pulled out a slim purple parcel and handed it to Sophie. "You guys coming over for dinner tonight, right?"

"Of course. I can't wait! Well . . . I'll see you later," I said with a closed eye smile. When we went back over to Dex he was glaring at us, I just ignored him and melted against the lockers on the wall. Soon the bells rang and we went to the cafeteria, although I was thinking about Bianna's reaction there was that hum of a voice at the back of my head worrying about the results of the midterms but I just pushed it away.

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2173 words

Hello guys, so I just wanted to explain why this chapter was shorter. So when I started this book I was intending for it to be a Tam x Reader fic because their aren't many of those out there, but as I wrote it I realized this was progressing and so I changed it a bit. I was making the chapters long because I wanted to skip to when Tam and Linh were introduced yet still show you what kind of character (Y/N) was like but I changed it. So since this is no longer a tam x reader (although he is still a love interest for the future, she basically has a lot of coming a going love interests, but it would most likely end in a triangle of tam vs Bianna still don't know) I will stop forcing everything into big chapters and slow down so that you don't have to worry about the size and too much info without much details.

So the point is the chapters will be shorter now.

Well goodbye people who come to this app so that they can live a life they can only dream about.

~Sahiko