A/N) welcome to my first fanfic! I should probably mention that there are spoilers from books 1-6, just in case for all you KotLC people who for some strange reason haven't finished the series by now . . . please read and review, bc I wanna know what you guys think. I love KotLC, so I'm obviously gonna write a fanfic while waiting for book #7. Bare with me when it comes to my writing. Anyway, enjoy!
Chapter 1
"Guys, we shouldn't be here," Sophie Foster told her friends for what seemed like the thousandth time.
"Relax, Foster," a very stubborn Keefe responded. "We'll only be here for a little while. Don't worry." He gave her his famous smirk before being distracted by a distant honking horn.
Sophie sighed. She regretted telling her friends about the wonders of Los Angeles. Somehow Keefe had managed to convince her to take them there—all seven of them—to give them a tour.
"Gosh, so many humans," Fitz said as he walked beside her and looked around. So many humans, indeed. Men and woman, young and old, children and adults of all shapes and sizes bustled around them, going about their business. It had been a while since Sophie had been around humans, so the sight of wrinkles, gray hairs, and walking canes took a little while to get used to again.
"Ew, what is that awful smell?" Biana asked, plugging her perfect little nose.
"Pollution," Fitz and Sophie answered at the same time. They looked at each other and smiled, which made Keefe and Dex join forces in gagging. Sophie's heart fluttered as she looked into Fitz's brilliant teal eyes, and she had to force herself to look away before Keefe could sense a change in her mood.
"Humans breathe this in every day?" Tam asked as he walked in between Biana and his twin sister Linh.
Sophie nodded sheepishly. Sometimes she was embarrassed about her human past, especially after she saw the extravagance of an Elvin one. But she brushed it off, and tried to remember whether to turn left or to go straight at the intersection. She chose straight.
"Come on, don't be scared. The cars are stopped," she assured her friends who were nervously looking at the many cars braking in the streets. Finally, Fitz nodded and led the others across the street as Sophie worked on getting Biana to cross. "Come on, Biana. Its okay. You're making a scene."
Reluctantly, Biana allowed Sophie to lead her across the street to the others.
"How much farther is this Hollywood place?" Dex asked.
"Not too far . . . ." Sophie began to assure him, but was quickly distracted by loud cry of, "get back here, brat!" She would've fallen backward if Keefe hadn't managed to catch her. A blur of a person had bumped into Sophie as they ran away from whoever was calling to them. The only thing significant about them that Sophie could catch was a black beanie on their head.
"Thanks," she mumbled as she straightened up. Her face was probably red, but the feeling quickly went away as her mind wandered to the apparent thief. A hefty man chased after the person, but wasn't nearly fast enough. Whoever it was disappeared around a corner, making the man give up. Sophie heard the man breathe out a curse as he walked past them back to his store.
"What just happened?" Linh asked quietly.
"I think that man was just robbed," Biana whispered as they continued to walk.
"Robbed?" Keefe asked. "Well, then let's go catch the culprit!"
Before Sophie could protest, Keefe already took off in the direction of the thief.
"Unbelievable," Sophie mumbled as the other boys followed him. She looked at the other girls, shared a shrug, and then chased after them. Nobody took special notice of the welly disguised teenagers running down the streets, they only moved out of the way as they passed by. Sophie's old human clothes had gotten too small for her, so the entire group took the opportunity and all bought a casual outfit for the tour.
Sophie channeled energy into her legs and caught up with Keefe. "Do you even know where you're going?" she asked him as they ran side by side.
"Nope," he responded with a smirk. "But I know that girl ran this way."
"How do you know it's a girl?" Sophie couldn't remember anything significant about the thief except for the black beanie.
"I got a good look at her after she paused when she bumped into you. Then she just took off—look! There she is!" He called back to the others to hurry, and they all continued their pursuit.
The girl probably didn't realize she was being followed as she made a sharp right turn into an alleyway that dead ended. Keefe and Sophie stopped at the corner and peeked at the other side to make sure there was no way for her to escape.
"Don't humans have police officers that can do this, or whatever?" Biana asked as she caught her breath.
Sophie put her finger up to her lips to signal for the others to be quiet. She watched the girl a moment longer as she sank into a sitting position against the wall and grabbed her head, shaking it vigorously. She seemed like she was in . . . pain. The girl took the beanie off her head and out of it came a pair of earphones. She took a cell phone out of her pocket and plugged them in.
"That must be what she stole," Fitz said, making Sophie realize how close she was standing to both him and Keefe. She nodded to hide her blush.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Keefe asked Sophie. "Go confront her!"
"Me?" she asked in disbelief. "Why me?"
"Uh, 'cause you're the only one here who speaks fluent English."
"Hey, that's not true," Fitz said, defending himself.
"Fine. The only one of us who can speak fluent English without a lame accent."
"Okay, okay. Enough," Sophie said before it went on any further. "There's strength in numbers, so all of you come with me." Sophie threw her shoulders back and entered the alleyway. The girl had her eyes closed and was most likely listening to music, so she didn't notice when the group entered. As Sophie got closer, she got a good look at the girls features.
Tangled long brown hair fell down from underneath her black beanie. Sophie couldn't tell what color her eyes were, but she had noticeably long eyelashes. She appeared to be fourteen years old and would have been exceptionally pretty if it hadn't been for her worn out clothes and dirty hands and face. She had fair skin, or, would have if it didn't appear like she hadn't showered in days. Suddenly, the girl's eyes—which Sophie now saw were a vibrant sapphire blue—fluttered open and widened with shock as she saw the group before her. She scrambled to get on her feet, clutching her phone in her hand and staring at them like a deer in headlights.
No one said anything for a while, just stared. Finally, the girl stammered, "what do you want?" in a low, cautionary voice.
Sophie looked around at her friends, ending on Keefe, who nodded at her, telling her to go on.
"Um, well, we saw what happened and we know that you stole something," Sophie told her, switching to English. "We felt that . . . we should take you back to that guy and make you return what you stole."
The girl blinked, then laughed darkly. "Are you serious? You want me to return this?" she held up her phone and earbuds. Sophie nodded. "Yeah, right. These are rightfully mine. He took them from me, and I just took them back. Its none of your business anyway." She shot Sophie an annoyed glare and then brushed past to leave.
But Fitz said, "hey, don't talk to her like that!" in perfect English, and his accent was even more noticeable when he spoke in English.
The girl stopped, and when she looked back at them, she seemed a little shocked. Sophie saw her lips move as she mumbled something to herself, the shook her head.
"Then I'll just talk to you that way," she spat. "Its none of your business, so leave me alone." And she ran away.
"That went well," Biana said after a few moments of silence.
The others mumbled their agreement—or, rather, disagreement.
"I can't believe she talked to you that way," Dex told Sophie. She spun around to face her friends, but before she could ask, Fitz said,
"I transmitted what she was saying to them in the Enlightened Language, so they would understand what she was saying."
"Oh," was all she could think of to say. Her mind was wandering back to the girl as the others continued to discuss what had just happened. There was something about her that just seemed off. Perhaps it was the feeling that she lived alone, with no one to take care of her. Or maybe it was the way she stared at them—although, that was probably just because of the fact that elves looked one hundred times better than humans, and she was just dumbfounded. But . . . none of that seemed like the right answer.
"What's on your mind?" Fitz asked, coming up to her as the others continued talking.
She shook her head. "It's just, there was something about that girl . . . I can't put my finger on it."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," he agreed. Sophie sighed.
"I think we should just go home," she said loud enough for the others to hear. The conversation immediately stopped.
"What? No!" Keefe protested. "You're taking us to Follywood, remember?"
Sophie smiled. "It's actually Hollywood."
Keefe rolled his eyes. "Hollywood, Follywood, same thing. Let's go," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her out of the alleyway with the others close behind.
A/N) and there you have it! chapter 1. I wonder what might happen in Follywood-ahem, I mean, Hollywood. There are gonna be a lot of different POVs, so be prepared. And be patient with the ships, bc if my username is Undecided13, then what else did you think was gonna happen *maniacal laugh* Also, I have no definite schedule for when I post, but if I had to have one, it would be every Saturday. Might be early, might be late. Until next time *leaves dramatically*