"No!" Keefe shouted, blocking Mr. Forkle from Sophie. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sophie's heart quickened. Mr. Forkle wouldn't drug her, would he? Unless he thought her to be a flight risk...
Mr. Forkle let out a sigh before glancing down to the vial. "You kids always rush to conclusions," he told Keefe before setting his eyes on Sophie. Sophie couldn't tell if his eyes hardened or softened. Maybe a mixture of both. A paradox.
Biana helped Sophie straighten up as Mr. Forkle stepped around Keefe. Or at least, tried to. "Give me that," Keefe almost-snarled, poison in his tone. Mr. Forkle looked inclined to argue, but Tiergan stepped between them.
"Keefe, we we're going to give the sedative to her without her permission. I swear on it. But if it makes you feel better..." He looked expectantly at Mr. Forkle.
The wrinkled man let out a sigh before pressing the glass bottle into Keefe's hands. Keefe considered the liquid, as if he wanted to smash it across the wall. Dex saved him from the decision, and took it gently out of his hands and put it on Biana's marble dresser.
Tiergan approached Sophie, sinking down to a knee in front of her. "Are you ok?" He asked plainly. "Are you hurt?"
"No," Sophie shook her head. "I'm fine." A couple of tears threatened to spill at the sight of her favorite mentor, but Sophie blinked them down.
"She's lying," said Fitz. "You've always been an awful liar, Sophie."
"Hey!" Keefe exclaimed. "Back off!" He took a step toward his best friend, staring him down. Fitz let out a half-laugh.
"I see what's going on. Always trying to be on her good side, aren't you? Sophie can do no wrong, right?"
"That's not what I'm doing!" Keefe retorted. "She needs her friends, don't you see that? And in case you've been MIA for the past couple weeks, we need her too. And getting all pissy at Foster isn't going to solve anything, much less your unresolved anger and entitlement issues."
Fitz's face was growing redder by the second, and the adults prepared to throw themselves between the two teenagers.
"She lied to us, Keefe. I think I have a right to be angry about that."
"It doesn't matter! It. Doesn't. Matter right now. We have bigger things on our hands than what you're feeling or what I should be feeling, ok?"
"Enough!" Sophie erupted, shooting to her feet. The momentum almost sent her back to the bed, but Biana stood with her and steadied her. "I'm not justifying anything I've done. I-I try my best to make sure who I am or what I've uncovered not hurt the people I care about. The people I love. But I end up hurting them more. It's a pattern, really." Sophie let out a huff of a laugh. "I thought by leaving that I was preventing you all from being hurt by me. But I'm realizing now that I was just scared. I was so scared." Sophie directed this last part at Fitz.
"I've been unstable all my life. Not just with my abilities, or emotionally, but with my thoughts. I psych myself out of everything. I always feel as if I'm too comfortable with who I am or nowhere comfortable enough. And this, this, new power... I was terrified. I became something I didn't want to face."
"So I ran. And I justified it by telling myself that it was for you guys. For my family. But it was really just for me. So Fitz, you have every right to be upset. I was selfish. I wanted to start over, become someone that even I didn't recognize." Sophie tugged at her ponytail, the short length threatening to come out of the binding.
"So I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, everyone." Sophie finished her monologue, slumping back onto the bed. She wouldn't cry; it wasn't fair to cry after that speech.
No one knew what to say, and an uncomfortable silence settled over them.
Mr. Forkle sat besides Sophie, creating a large dip in the bed. "Miss Foster, finding your identity is never an easy thing, and I can't imagine how I would feel if I was in your shoes."
"But..." Sophie prompted.
"But... this action was reckless. We just need to hope that the consequences weren't lasting."
Sophie's heart sank. "With the Councillors and Fintan." Because of her, they agreed to hear out the terrorist and possible implement a plan to kill off billions of humans. If they liked what they heard, then there would be no stopping them. Sophie's allies on the Council would object, though. Oralie, Terik. Maybe even Bronte.
But the others... Sophie started to become very nervous.
"Yes," Mr. Forkle conceded. "But also with your own head, Miss Foster. Mr. Vacker tells me you've been practicing mental suppression?"
Sophie hung her head, avoiding their judgmental gazes, especially Tiergan's. He'd assigned a paper over the very topic, and Sophie wrote about why it was toxic and abusive.
"What do you mean, lasting consequences?" Dex asked hesitantly from his place near the dresser. Keefe echoed his sentiments.
"I mean..." Mr. Forkle let out a breath before gesturing to Tiergan to take over the topic.
Tiergan cleared his throat, and had to look out Biana's window at the moon larks floating in the lake. The day was still sunny, but dark clouds started to dot the sky, casting shadows on the manor.
"Mental suppression is very dangerous. The mental balance of an elf isn't meant to hold down manifested abilities, or the skills and advanced intelligence. It's like this:" Tiergan strode across the room to Biana's desk and picked up a pen. He placed his finger under the pen in the exact middle, and held it out for the room to see.
"This is what our minds should look like. Not perfect, but balanced. One side holds everything that makes us elves: abilities, skills, appearances. The other holds our thoughts, our emotions. Things that make us sentient. Now, with what Sophie's been doing..." He adjusted his finger towards one side of the pen only a millimeter, barely enough for the other side of the pen to lift towards the ceiling. "Mental suppression creates the initial imbalance. But then time creates each movement afterwards." He moved his finger once more. Twice. Three times, until one more millimeter threatened to send the pen to the ground.
"So each day, each minute that Sophie's mind is under mental suppression, it continues on this path, even if it's a minuscule amount of distance. The average elf couldn't last more than a couple weeks. Sophie's spent more than a month doing this."
"So... she's been virtually human for the past month?" Biana voiced. "If she's been suppressing everything that makes her an elf... she's human?"
Sophie whipped her head back to Tiergan. That was what she wanted, right? To be human? Yes. No. No, she didn't want that.
"Yes," Tiergan said. "She's been human."
"Wait, so what happens when the pen tips?" Keefe asked. "What happens when the mental suppression carries on for too long?"
Tiergan, in answer, pushed his finger until the pen through the air, clinking against the floor.
"What happens, Mr. Sencen, is not just a complete mental break. It's something that Sophie is already experiencing symptoms of."
Tiergan fixed his stare on Sophie. "Pure insanity."
I don't deserve any of you. Seriously. I hate it when my favorite stories aren't updated regularly, and then I go and make you guys wait months for an update. I'm such a hypocrite. Sometimes I still can't believe the comments that you guys leave, giving me love and telling me that this is one of your favorite stories. I love you all, so, so much, and I'm sorry I can't reward that love as often as I wish to.
I really liked this chapter, and I hope you guys understand the weight of what Sophie has been doing to herself. I also kind of poured a little bit of myself into Sophie's monologue, if you couldn't tell.
Some of you know that I'm dealing with some things right now, and you deserve to hear the the bare excuses: I'm a senior in high school, and I'm under a lot of stress. With AP classes, my own novel I'm rushing to get done before the end of senior year, scholarships I have to write, I'm trying to keep my own head afloat. I have figured out where I'm going to college, which is a huge relief, but I still have to do work for specific scholarships through that college. I'm also the senior editor of the school newspaper, and I always have work to do, and same with yearbook. I'm also a senior on the dance team, and we perform at basketball games.
Speech is over though, and my group got straight ones at State. I'm not doing individual speech, which is really disappointing my parents. I've actually done a lot of that recently, too, since I've come out as agnostic/omnist to them, and they are not happy. My mother more so than my father, but it's been really tense around her surrounding anything religious for the past four months. I have a tremendous amount of respect to Christianity, and I still have many amazing Christian friends, but I've decided it's best for me to explore my own spiritual path for now. Plus, only five people know (parents, brother, friend, teacher) because I'm worried about how my small rural community would react. So I'm stressed about keeping that a secret, among other secrets.
And last but not least, Covid worries. My governor is a POS (sorry not sorry) and has decided to reopen everything even though more people are dying everyday. I haven't gotten it yet, but I'm worried for my dad. He's elderly and has other underlying health conditions, and I want to do everything in my power to make sure he doesn't get it. That means I'm stressed at school (because my school decided to go back full time too) and at basketball games and really anytime I'm in public. I'm sure that a lot of you have experienced these feelings too. Who wants to move to New Zealand with me?
There are other things regarding my mental health, but I've laid down too much on you guys. I'm sorry for this, but I feel that I can talk to you guys more comfortably than I can to people in real life. Maybe it's because I'm sitting behind a computer screen and might never meet you guys in actual life.
I'm half-inclined to delete my AN, but I won't. If anyone has any advice for me, let me know.
And I promise, I'll do my absolute best to update again soon.