Stellarlune || a Keeper fanfiction

Chapter 2

Sophie appeared in front of the sprawling Dizznee manor, with its pristine ice sculptures and frost-covered bushes scattered around the entrance. The Dizznee's owned an apothecary store in Mysterium called Slurps and Burps; one of the most popular shops in the city. Kestler Dizznee tried his best to make his shop as absurd as possible, with bright primary colours painted on the exterior and crazy elixir names like Macho Macho and Tanny Fanny.

But their actual house was definitely more low-key; it looked more like a delicate glass sculpture than the funky circus Slurps and Burps was.

Every elf got a birth fund when they were born, filled with more money than they would ever need; so even though Dex and his family weren't exactly on top of the social ladder, the Dizznees still got the same amount of money that a high-end family like the Vackers did; a fact that Sophie was still struggling to find believable.

Sophie knew that Bex and Lex had recently gained special abilities, and judging by the crashes and yells coming from inside, they were putting them to good use.

Juliene Dizznee - Dex's Mom, and part of the Black Swan collective - stepped outside and greeted Sophie with a tired smile. Juliene and Edaline were sisters, and you could definitely see the resemblance. They both had wide Turquoise eyes and auburn hair; but since Juliene was ruled a 'bad match' for marrying Kesler - who was talentless - her clothes and hair were a lot less elaborate. Juliene also had dark shadows under her eyes, the result of many sleepless nights dealing with her raucous triplets.

"Hi Sophie, the rest of your friends are in Dex's room. I'll try to keep the triplets away for a couple of hours. Just be careful walking through the entrance hall; Bex and Lex are making kind of a racket."

"Thanks," Sophie smiled. Since Edaline was her adopted mom, Juliene was technically her aunt; and she always treated Sophie like a niece whenever she came over; which, admittedly, was not often. Sophie sighed at the realisation; she should probably pay more attention to her friends.

Sophie walked cautiously through the first glass room of Rimeshire, taking care to avoid the glittering piles of snow clumped at the corners of the room, probably Lex's doing. She spotted Kesler trying to tug Bex out of a wall and waved with a faint smile. He grinned back at her and pointed to the stairs, mouthing something that looked like "they're upstairs."

Sophie nodded and walked up the elegant glass steps to Dex's room. He ran out to greet her, his strawberry blond hair disheveled and his tunic wrinkly; it was clear he'd had a couple of sleepless nights.

"Hey, Sophie," he flashed a dimpled grin, his periwinkle eyes twinkling. "You're right on time. I think Fitz was about to explode; I wanted everyone here before I broke the news. This is pretty huge."

Sophie let herself be led into Dex's room, raising her eyebrows in surprise when she saw Marella, Maruca, Wylie, and Stina among her closer friends.

" . . . it's really that big of a deal?" she asked, gesturing to the four.

"Yep." Dex rubbed his hands together in excitement. "Well . . . not really. Marella and Maruca were already at Linh's house, so I thought they should come over, too. Stina and Wylie are part of team Valiant, so . . .'' Dex shrugged. "I just figured they should know. It's about Kenric's cache."

Sophie blinked.

"Don't you need the blood, sweat and tears of the owner to open it?" She asked nervously, wondering what exactly Dex had been doing in the last few days.

Stina rolled her eyes. "Didn't you listen to Oralie? Each cache has a different method of opening, usually unique to the owner. Obviously, we don't need his bodily fluids to open it, because he's dead"

Sophie winced at Stina's blunt words, but she did feel relieved when she recalled a fuzzy memory of Oralie telling her Kenric's cache needed different methods to correctly get it to open. 

"So," Dex said, crossing the room to retrieve a tiny glass ball - a lot like a marble - that was tucked into his dresser drawer. "I was really confused at first, because what would someone need to open a cache that was personal enough, but not by using any - as Stina so gracefully puts it - bodily fluids.

"Obviously, it needs a password; every cache does, but what about after that?"

"Get to the point, Dizznee," Stina interrupted, tossing her mass of frizzy brown curls away from her face.

Dex glowered at her. "Anyway, since Kenric was prepared in case he died, though apparently not enough to tell anyone how to open his cache, I thought it would have been something that he was sure wouldn't be destroyed."

"That sounds pretty solid," Fitz chimed in. Since he and Biana had been the popular kids at Foxfire, and been kind of jerks to Dex, they were always trying to back him up, which Sophie honestly found kind of sweet. She also suspected that Fitz felt guilty about how he treated Keefe before he ran away; maybe this was a way of making up for it. Sophie felt a little twist of worry at the thought; guilt was dangerous for elves, who were highly intelligent and intensely emotional; it could literally shatter their sanity. And Sophie knew all too well how easy it was to see obvious, glaring clues after the fact, and blame yourself for not seeing them. Fitz couldn't give in to his guilt; she would check in on him later today. She had to shelve her pride; this was bigger than her.

Dex gave Fitz a half smile, and Sophie could see the tips of his ears had gone pink.

"I was kinda right," he explained, holding up the cache. "I didn't account for there being different combinations for when someone is living, versus when they're dead." Dex smirked at everyone's disbelieving expressions.

"How did you guys never think of that?" Marella demanded, narrowing her huge blue eyes and tugging on one of the tiny braids scattered through her white-blond hair.

"What do you mean, you guys?" Stina scowled. "You're part of this group, too!"

Marella shrugged. "Not really. I have a life, you know."

Sophie gritted her teeth. Marella was still kind of a lot to handle, but Sophie didn't want to fight with her, especially since Marella was prone to making huge fires when she got too emotional. Tam, who still hadn't spoken a word, sighed and gestured for Dex to continue.

"So then I thought," Dex continued, too fevered to notice the drama happening around him. "It would be the DNA of someone he knew, someone special to him, like his Mom or his sibling or his lover."

Biana covered her mouth with her hands. "Does it need Oralie's DNA? God, that's so sweet."

"Well, that would have made sense, wouldn't it? But I looked at a couple of old records of caches being opened after the death of the owner, and it didn't mention anything about family members or lovers; and besides, you could still unlock the cache with the DNA of other people even if the owner was alive, which would kind of defeat the purpose. So what's something that only shows up when someone dies, but never, if said person stays alive?"

Sophie frowned, running through a list in her head; possessions, family members, places of residence, bodyguards . . .

She gasped as it came to her. Of course . . .

"Wanderlings!"

Dex grinned and nodded, practically jumping up and down in excitement. Sophie couldn't blame him; after so many months of fruitless attempts and dead-end ideas, it must have felt really good to finally figure it out, especially when she remembered that most of Dex's time was wasted on a fake cache.

"So what are we waiting for?" Fitz asked, smiling. "Let's go."

  shannon messanger-y . I'm doing my best . . .

Hope you enjoyed! please tell me if you like the writing, or where I could improve! ;w;