Aurabelle stared at the lawyer. They hadn’t said a word in, like, ages—so probably about thirty seconds. With every breath they took, their arms seemed to get tighter and tighter across their chest. Their face felt hot, and they were trembling all over. The world seemed to be spinning out of control while simultaneously contracting into a single, tiny space that contained only Aura, the lawyer, and the desk between them.The little Elf had never been so furious in their entire life.
Aura had been living in Below for about a year now, and their life had changed in many different ways. They had friends for the first time ever; they’d lived without their parents, and they’d had to earn everything they got. When Aura had arrived in Below, they’d had only one toy in her possession, a gift from the Academy. They’d had none of their many pets with them, either—their pets, along with their toys, had had to stay behind in Above. Everything Aura had now they’d had to win at events or buy with a small allowance (except clothes, of course—their parents had let them keep that much, at least). And now, after a year with very little contact, and all of that vague at best, Aura’s parents hadn’t even had the decency to tell them all this in person. No, they had sent a lawyer instead. Not their lawyer, even—a different one! It was all so impersonal!
Of course, he’d explained to them why he was here instead of one of the other lawyers—this needed to be handled by a neutral third party. He was a mediator or whatever, sent by Aura’s absentee parents to handle their child instead of having the guts to stand up to Aura themselves.
Aura could just scream right now.
“I wonder if you understood?” the lawyer said tentatively.
“I understood alright,” Aura spat. “My parents hate each other, and they’re getting a divorce. They banished me to another universe just so that they could have a big snitfest with each other in courts. Now they’re courting me like a dog. Here, boy! Here, girl! Here, child of ambiguous gender! Come to me, I’ll give you walkies every day and I’ll give you a new bone!”
Aura was screaming now and they didn’t even care. “No letters for weeks! It’s like they’ve forgotten I exist! What am I, a trophy? A status symbol? You know, that’s what other races think of us elves! They think we’re all lazy, money-hungry jerks who will screw anyone over just for a couple bucks, and after this whole stupid parade, I’m starting to see why!”
They took a deep breath, but before they could continue, the lawyer cut in. “Misc DeNaigne, your parents want nothing more to do with each other, it’s true, but they all love you very much, and they all want you to be happy. They all want to be able to see you, even if they never want to see each other again. Shared custody is out of the question—but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to see you again. They want you back with them, they all miss you terribly. Your mother can’t even sleep at night, she misses you so much. They all want you home so that they can see you grow. But their relationship with each other is…not good. That’s why I’m here.” He pushed the letters back towards Aura. “They want you to decide which of them will have sole custody of you.”
Aura glared at him. “I’ve already read the notes,” they snapped. “It’s the same thing with all of them. ‘Come live with me, and you’ll get aaaaaaaaall of the toys and pets that I confiscated from you! Which I did! I confiscated them so that I could blackmail you into choosing me when the time came!’” Aura glared at the letters as though they were their parents themselves. “That’s the worst part. They’ve been planning this all along. They just didn’t have the guts to tell me.”
The lawyer sighed. “Misc DeNaigne, you have to make a decision.”
Aura glared at him again. Their glare muscles were getting a mighty fine workout today. “What if I don’t want to choose any of them?”
The lawyer gave them a look that could charitably be described as “cool.” “That is not possible, Misc DeNaigne. A child must have a guardian. Unless you would like to sue to be a guardian of the state, you must pick one of your parents.”
Aura gave him one last mulish look, then snatched the letters off of his desk. They perused them briefly, but they knew what was in them already. They slapped two of the letters back on the desk and held up the third one. “My cennend,” they said. Benson Carralt was an office drone, but Aura had good memories of the time they’d spent together. Zey were funnier than Aura’s other parents, but there was something else about zem that Aura was attracted to.
The lawyer rose an eyebrow. “Msr. Carralt? You’re sure? My colleagues would want me to remind you, on behalf of their clients, that Msr. Carralt’s offers do not include either your cats or your fennekits.”
Aura nodded. “I know that,” they said. “But Cenny’s got a steady job, unlike Mum or Dad.” Ever since being separated from their parents, a steady job had gone up in Aura’s list of priorities over exciting ones. Ironic, that, actually… “I intend to be an astronomer someday, and I need a good example of hard work ethic in my life if I want to get that far. Cenny’s got a better work ethic than either of my other parents.”
The lawyer nodded. “You make a good point, Misc DeNaigne.” He smiled. “Or Misc Carralt, I suppose I should call you.”
Aura shook their head. “It’s Miss Carralt, actually,” she said. The decision had been boiling in her head for some time—did she tell her parents? Or not? Cenny would be disappointed with her decision, but in the end, she was more comfortable as a girl than as an androgyne. She liked being a girl. She was comfortable as a girl. “I don’t suppose Cenny will be happy about that, but zey’ll get over that—after all, I chose zem, didn’t I?”
The lawyer nodded and gathered up his papers. “Thank you, Miss Carralt. I will relay the news to my colleagues’ clients.”
Aura nodded. She was still trembling, but the reason for it now was different. She felt a pain in her heart for the funny commentary on relatives from her mother, or her father’s good cooking. She’d never see the way Mum tended her flowers, or how Dad made up new scripts for the commercials on TV. She’d closed a door—two doors—behind her forever. She’d never get them back.
Aura closed her eyes. No, she said to herself. I didn’t close those doors. They did. They told me that there were three doors and I could only go through one of them. I made my choice. Cenny was the only one who would approve of her new friends, and her decision to stay in Below to continue her education; zey were the only one who would agree with her decision to be an astronomer instead of a businesswoman, and zey were the only one who would go on long bike rides with her, or play funny games.
Aura Carralt waited until she was in private to hang her head and cry.
