important author's note at end!! sorry this took so long

chapter thirteen

It took almost a month for it to set up, but Sophie and Keefe were able to get a free day off and convince Silveny to meet with them. Greyfell and their babies stayed back where the family had settled, but getting Silveny to meet up with them was enough. 

The two stood in a field, a few elves scattered around them wanting to be around and make sure she was safe, as she made her way down. FRIENDS! SOPHIE! KEEFE!

"Hi, girl," Sophie said once she landed, and stroked Silveny's mane with a grin etched on her face. It was impossible not to smile around Silveny, who was just all round happy to be alive and near Sophie and Keefe. 

"Hey Glitterbutt, how's the glitterbabies?" Keefe greeted the alicorn, sending a small smirk to Sophie before turning back to Silveny, who was practically demanding his attention. 

Sophie chose not to tell Keefe about Silveny's mental praises for him and instead told him, "The babies are doing well." 

SOPHIE! FLY! FLY! FLY! 

"She wants to fly," Sophie said, grinning. "It's been a while, are you up for it?" She grinned at Keefe. 

"I'm always up for it," was his short reply before the two climbed on top of the alicorn and she made her way into the air. It was no surprise to Sophie when the alicorn made the decision to go to a new scenery, and Sophie immediately recognized Greyfell when Silveny made her way to the ground once more. 

Once they landed Sophie's mind was not only filled with Silveny's transmitting, but the transmitting of her children as well. Sophie took Keefe's hand and gripped it with a large smile on her face as she watched the mother alicorn greet her children happily, and heard all of their introductions. Sophie had met each baby before, but it was the first time she was seeing all of them at once. Silveny was a strong and protective mother, she didn't risk putting any of them in danger. 

Eventually after almost three hours of just being in the alicorn family's company Keefe informed Sophie that they needed to make it back home, and the two begrudgingly made the trip back home via Silveny. 

SOPHIE! KEEFE! MISS! 

"I miss you too, Silveny," Sophie smiled. "I promise to contact you much more often." It was strange to her that it had been months since she last did, when she was younger she used to contact Silveny as much as possible. 

Soon enough they had said their goodbyes and everyone had made their ways home, Sophie and Keefe deciding to go to his apartment in Atlantis. When they first entered Sophie noticed a picture of the two of them hanging on the wall that she hadn't seen hanging there before and she also realized she didn't remember taking a picture of that. "Did you draw that?" she asked with a small gasp as he made his way towards the couch. 

He looked to where she was pointing and grinned. "Yeah, I just finished yesterday. I've been working on it for a while now. I'm pretty proud of it." 

She tore her eyes away from the detailed drawing and made her way next to him on the couch, where she cuddled into this side. "I'm so impressed. I obviously know your talents, but with each drawing and painting you seem to amaze me even more." 

"As long as I'm able to keep amazing you, that's all I need in life," Keefe replied smoothly, pressing a small kiss to her temple. She grinned, but didn't say anything in reply. Instead the two settled into a small silence, simply hugging against each other and being happy in the presence of their significant other. 

"I just remembered I have to go back to work tomorrow," Sophie sighed, a large frown on her face. She was able to get the weekend off and relaxed too easily into a no work routine. She had spent the two days before with her friends so that the last could be spent with Keefe and Silveny. 

"I thought you liked work," Keefe said, confused. 

She nodded. "I do, I really love my job. It's just that I've had an awesome weekend off, I forgot how relaxing it is to be with all of you guys."

"You should try and take more days off. You're exhausted all the time and although things have definitely changed for the better in the past month, you're definitely still stressed." 

"You're right," she agreed, "but it's what I wanted to do. I basically made the job up with Forkle and Bronte. They made this job for me because I wanted a job but not what they were offering, and it would be rude to just give up on it. They had to push hard for it to become a real thing and justify it." She shrugged. "Besides, it's mostly what's been going on within the meetings that stresses me out. Even though it's been years we're still facing after effects of everything that happened with the Neverseen. Almost everyday I hear a new story about a possible escaped prisoner or someone popping up that looks or acts almost exactly like an old member that we need to watch out for." She almost shivered. "It makes it worse knowing that a lot of these missions go to Tam and Linh." 

"I didn't realize that's what the meetings were about?" 

"What did you think I sat and listened to the Black Swan talk about all day?" She rolled her eyes. "Even without an existing enemy at the moment, the Black Swan is still very much an action packed group. Everything they do is geared towards helping society get better."

"I thought you guys talked about more mundane things, especially since you also relay the messages to the council." 

She shook her head. "No, I inform the council if there is or isn't threats to the Black Swan, whether we need help or not, and if any old threats have vanished."

"And that stuff used to take up to fifty sheets of paper a day?" Keefe's eyes widened. 

"It's a lot more technicalities than that," she told him. "I just gave you the basics. It's confusing to say what I actually do, especially since we made it up so there's nothing to compare it to. Just know it's more work than it sounds, but less work than I probably needed to stress over." 

"Just don't overwork yourself, I don't want to marry the first elf to actually age due to stress."

That caught her attention. "Marry?" she questioned him in a teasing tone. "Now who talked about marriage in this?"

He rolled his eyes. "Props for the subject change, first of all." He mock nodded his head at her. "Second of all, it's no secret we're both in it for the long haul. We've talked about it a thousand times. Even my name change and everything. Don't pretend to be shocked." 

She sat up, rolling her eyes. "It's just weird talking about it so seriously but nothings actually happening, you know?" She shrugged. 

"We haven't been together that long," he replied. "But you know that if it wasn't for normalities-"

"Formalities," she tried to cut in, correcting. 

He looked her dead straight in the eyes. "Normalities, I totally would've been up for proposing by now. Just know, that I do plan to eventually. It's going to be awesome. Just you wait, Foster, I'm gonna charm the socks off you." 

She rolled her eyes. "It really won't take too much effort, you've already got me." 

"Just because I have you doesn't mean I don't have to appreciate you." He leaned forward and kissed her. "I love you too much not to make it special."

"I love you too, you goof," she replied. Her heart was all the flutter while he talked, her friends mentioned how strange it was they talked about the future so often and were basically a married couple despite having only been together for less than a year. But to them it just seemed natural. Neither saw a life without the other, and they didn't feel the need to hide that thought. 

"What time do you have to go? I know you told your parents we were going to have dinner together here, but I also don't want to keep you later than you need to."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "You do know I'm a full grown adult, right?" She questioned, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I can be home a little late."

He nodded. "Well, I also know you have work and don't want to be a grumpy pants there tomorrow with no sleep." She nodded along with his words, knowing they were true. "So we'll get you out of here quick. I just have to actually start the food." 

She laughed and they spent the rest of their time together laughing, attempting to make food and realizing they were both mediocre at best, and they found themselves making jokes about how they were going to need one of their future children to somehow be the first ever prodigy to manifest in a cooking ability so that child could help them out. By the end of the night they had laughed themselves out so much so that Sophie's stomach and face hurt, but she went home completely happy and it took her a bit longer than usual to fall asleep because for the first time in a while she realized how happy she was to be awake.

---

hey y'all it's been like a whole week whoops. my exams start tomorrow and i'm kinda stressed about it but it's fine lmao. i get to skip two of them and one of them is supposed to be hella easy but i'm still gonna get worried over nothing :):):)

so anyways the important part of my author's note i mentioned above is that i'm changing my update schedule. i've sort of realized that thinking that i have to update makes me not want to and i don't wanna keep giving out crappy chapters (like this one i actually really hate it). so basically i'm setting up a new goal: two chapters a week + extra scatters. (it was four a week so that's the change). basically the plan is i'm going to update this book twice a week and whatever days these two updates are on will vary. it'll be like a nice little pop up surprise for you guys. and because i always have random moments of inspo and there'll be times where i'll definitely want to update more than twice a week, there will be times where i'll update more than twice a week. it's all fun and stuff. 

now, chapter questions:

1. do you believe in ghosts and demons? for the past idk few months i've been being haunted by my own personal ghost and i'm creating a storytime about it for my yt channel but it's really scary and i'm genuinely afraid for my life but everyone in my life thinks i'm joking about it so it's fine :):):)

2. is there any youtubers you really like and would recommend? I like any of the ballingers, shane dawson, gabbie hanna, elle mills, and jacksfilms and there's a good 75% chance if you recommend a yter i'm subscribed to them, but just in case hmu with some yters because i'm always up for watching more. 

3. what chapter do you think i'm going to have keefe propose??? (or sophie c;) i already know in my brain what exact chapter but i wanna hear your guesses. y'all already know our pals are gonna get married so don't be shocked by this proposal question lmao

here's to me passing my exam tomorrow.