If You Trust Me - An Onward Fan-Novel

◊ Chapter 9 ◊

Previously on Onward...

Ian gathers the courage to meet with Mr. Vance without the S.S. Medallion in hand, and asks if they can study the talisman together without it in person. However, the teacher convinces Ian that Barley is being too controlling of the research and pushes him to take the medallion back from his brother. But what is this bespectacled elf really up to?

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◊ Distractions ◊

"I'll never get that medallion back!" Ian complained to himself as he plopped down on his bedroom desk chair in frustration.

It was now after dinner, and up until this point, the younger Lightfoot felt like he'd tried everything he could imagine to get the S.S. Medallion back from Barley.

But after trying for what seemed like the entire afternoon, the young wizard was now convinced that he'd only made things worse.

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Ian's first attempt at getting the talisman back was right when he came home from school. He slipped through the front door and noticed right away that Barley's bedroom door wasn't shut. The older elf never usually left it open unless he wasn't in there. But the younger Lightfoot decided to go and take a peek inside just to be sure. Looking through the crack of his brother's door, he didn't see anyone in there. This seemed to him like the perfect opportunity to get in and get out with what he wanted right then and there!

But just as Ian was about to walk in, he heard a voice right behind him.

"What are you doing?"

The younger elf flinched. He turned around, and there was his older brother standing before him with his hands on his hips.

Shaken, Ian said, "oh, I, uh...nothing!" Then he looked to his right. "Just, uh...going to get a snack."

He laughed nervously, then did as he said he was going to do and walked over to the kitchen.

Barley could've sworn Ian was about to walk into his bedroom or something. But he shrugged it off, then went inside and closed the door.

As soon as Barley wasn't in the hall anymore, Ian grimaced. All he could think about right then was how easy that could've been. But now, the younger Lightfoot had to think of a way to get his older brother to leave the basement room. The only question was how.

As he ate from a bag of almonds at the kitchen counter, Ian tried to come up with a plan. At one point, his finger slipped and he accidentally dropped one of the seeds on the floor. Blazey, having heard it instantly, came running over. She couldn't resist any food that happened to drop down from above. So she tried to grab the almond before Ian could.

"Blazey, no! Don't eat that, girl!" the teenage elf said as he swiftly picked up the piece from the ground. Then he went over and grabbed one of the dragon's favorite toys. "Here's something much better, your fireball!" 

He put the rounded toy into Blazey's mouth, and once the dragon gave it a squeak, she happily started playing with it.

"Good girl," Ian said as he knelt down to pet her for a bit. Afterwards, he went back to eating his almonds and thinking.

But as he got up from the floor, Ian noticed Barley's Quests of Yore game set up on the dining room table. He figured his brother must've led a campaign while he was at school today. As the teenage elf chewed on more almonds, his eyes focused back and forth from watching Blazey chew on her ball to the unique figurines placed in Barley's game. Putting two and two together, an idea began to form in Ian's head.