Found but Lost (A KotLC Glimmer Fanfic)

The Thing

Ahhh! I can't believe we're already here!

Faye didn't know that much about what was happening, just that Tam played a big role in it.

There was a blaring siren, but it stopped after a couple seconds. Faye and Tam waited nervously on either side of Lady Gisela, exchanging anxious glances every couple seconds.

They waited behind the throne that King Enki was sitting on. Tam raised his hands and shadows in the room began seeping into them.

A stream of nostalgia and grief flowed through Faye's body, soaking into her until she felt like she couldn't breathe. Umber was a shade. One who painted her nails black because she wanted to get back at the council for allegedly killing her brother. One who was Faye's best friend before Lady Gisela let baby trolls smash her with a giant door.

She blinked away the tears before they could form and focused on the people from the Black Swan.

They suddenly dropped whatever conversation they were having and looked at Lady Gisela. "Finally!" She said, wearing a friendly face. "I wondered how long it would take you to notice us." Her smile dropped. "Now, where's my son?"

"You guys can stay right there!" A girl with chocolate-colored skin shouted. A piercing bright light came out of her hands and formed a force field around Faye, Tam, and Lady Gisela.

Gisela laughed as she clapped her hands and said, "Well, this is a surprise! And once again - bravo for your brilliant recruiting, Sophie. You found yourself a Psoniopath - those are very hard to come by! Oh, I would know. I've been looking." She glanced at Faye and Tam quickly, before turning her attention back to the girl. "Maybe someday I'll take this one..."

The girl smiled as she scoffed, "Try it."

Gisela's smile grew. "Maybe I will," she said before she turned towards Faye and then to Tam. "Then again, you might be a little too inexperienced for me."

If Tam was experienced enough for her, why wasn't this girl?

"Uh, I caught you, didn't I?" The girl said, flicking a dreadlock out of her face.

"Did you?" Gisela laughed. "Or am I just enjoying some rather convenient protection from Sophie's inflicting?"

An ugly ogre with hot pink pigtails whispered something into one of the girl's ears, but Lady Gisela stopped them front conversing anymore. "Whatever you and the princess are plotting over there, Sophie, I wouldn't recommend it. Clearly, you haven't noticed how off you Psoniopath's aim was."

So the girl with the blonde hair and purple dress was Sophie, the girl who Alvar kept telling Lady Gisela information about... Until he disappeared shortly before Umber...

"Psh, my aim was perfect!" the Psoniopath snapped.

"It was, for me." Lady Gisela agreed. "You trapped us in here with some very handy hostages." She turned towards Tam. "Show them, Tam."

Fear bubbled in Faye's stomach as she stared at Tam, wondering what would happen.

King Enki, King of the Dwarves, was also stuck in the force field with them - and Tam was holding a knife to his throat.

And that's when Faye realized that she was holding a dagger to a young Gnome's throat.

She wanted to move, but she knew she couldn't, or Gisela would kill her just like she had killed Umber and Alvar and all the other people that went missing. She also couldn't release the hold - that she just realized she had - on Tam's bonds, or she'll definitely die, too.

So she just stood there.

"I think we all understand this situation a little better now, don't we?" Lady Gisela asked Sophie.

The Psoniopath raised her arms, but Gisela caught her. "No unraveling my precious force field - not unless you want the dwarves to be without their king, or Sophie to live without her favorite little gnome." Gisela smiled. "That's how hostages work - in case you didn't realize. Now you have to do what I tell you or..." She nodded at Faye and Tam, and they glanced at each other before pressing the blades deeper into their hostages' necks.

The Psoniopath's eyes went furious.

Lady Gisela looked at another person - he had the same dark skin and facial features as the Psoniopath, but was taller and appeared more confused. "No flasher tricks, either." He was a flasher, Faye realized. "And don't look so devastated, Sophie - this is honestly a good thing for everybody." She hinted at "everybody" as if it were good for the Black Swan, too. "I'd imagined we'd be stuck fighting a big annoying battle until all of you were sufficiently subdued. This was such a time-saver! And if you feel that rage of yours brewing, perhaps you should remind yourself right now: No one's going to get hurt - and you can keep it that way if you cooperate."

"Cooperate how?" Sophie spat.

"That doesn't sound like the tone of someone ready to play nice," Lady Gisela clicked her tongue. "So let's do a quick show-and-tell to make sure you fully understand the stakes - especially you three in the silver over there!" She waved at the three people dressed in silver robes and circlets: Councillors. Then she stomped her foot in a practiced routine, one Faye had heard when eating breakfast or when Lady Gisela was in Faye's room.

Five dwarves appeared out of nowhere and stomped their feet, causing cracks in the ground until the floor was full of pits and ledges.

What was her plan?

"Is that clear enough for you?" Lady Gisela asked Sophie. "Are we ready to have a nice, calm conversation about the fact that I gave you one, very clear, very simple instruction and you thought it would be fun to disobey me?

Sophie stood her ground, which Faye liked, but also would mean this would be dragged out even longer. "See, but there isn't that much to say." Faye noticed the slight tap in Sophie's foot as she spoke - a practiced routine similar to that of Gisela's - and hoped her smile was hidden under her cloak. Faye released her grip on Flori a little.

"I don't understand why you insist on being so afraid of my son's Legacy, Sophie." There's that word again. "I'm trying to give him the best life - the best world - I can possibly give him. That's what parents do: We reach for the stars for our children."

Of course, you do. Faye thought.

Sophie snorted. "This isn't about Keefe - this is about you! You're so desperate to be right about whatever creepy thing you're planning that you'll do anything to keep it going. No matter how much it hurts your son - or how clear he makes it that he wants nothing to do with you." Sophie spat out the last words.

"He doesn't know what he's resisting!" Gisela argued.

They went back and forth for several minutes. Faye drowned them out as she stared at Tam, hoping he knew what to do. He was focused on Lady Gisela though, anger streaking through his hands, making them shake against King Enki's neck.

Faye snapped back to the conversation when Lady Gisela said, "I know my son better than you do. That's why I left him his own message."

The ugly pink-pigtailed ogre groaned and muttered several insults in multiple different languages, some Faye could understand. "I'll kill him." She said in a voice, not unlike some of the ogre bodyguards protecting the Neverseen hideout.

"I'm sure you'll try." Lady Gisela told her, stomping her foot in another practiced pattern as she said it. Two more dwarves popped out of the floor, carrying a sand-crusted, blond boy the same age as Faye.

"Couldn't let you have all the fun without me," He said.

Keefe.