#af fic

Part 2: Beryl

The fairy council met nine times over the course of the week, and Officer De’nan had to be present for every meeting which was really cut into her “me time”. She’d recently taken up pottery after being gifted a little pinch pot kit and some clay by her mother for her birthday. Her first pot was a mess, but the feel of the clay and the concentration required to make a vessel that could actually serve a function in her daily life filled her with a sense of accomplishment and purpose. Over the last week of the tribunal, De’nan spent a total of thirty minutes working on her latest creation, a tiny watering can for her plants.

“You can just buy a watering can, it’s not like they’re expensive or anything.” Stoic dug into his lunch beside her. The two of them had been frequenting a ramen shop across the street from the Police Plaza two to three times every day since the tribunal began. 

“It’s not about just having a cute watering can, I want to make a cute watering can with my own two hands! I’d think someone like you could relate.” She pierced a fishcake with her chipstick. Stoic twisted his face up in mock offense.

“Someone like you, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” She slurped her noodles between words, careful to keep the broth from spilling on her only remaining clean dress shirt, “It means that you’re a geek. You build those little models, yeah? The ones that come in the big box with all the little pieces and you’ve gotta paint it yourself and everything?”

“Hey, shh! Keep it down!” He lowered his head and hid himself behind a menu, which seemed to actually draw more attention to their booth than divert it. “Gunpla aren’t exactly eagle anymore, alright?”

“Eagle? The hell are we talking about now?” A single noodle fell from her chin into her lap, splattering a red stain on her pants leg. 

“Eagle means legal, it’s rhyming slang. Really common among the offending types, how does a cop not know this?” The elf frantically dabbed a wad of napkins on the ever growing stain in her lap.

“I’m not a cop.”

“Why the hell am I calling you ‘officer’ then?” De’nan looked up at him, her eyelashes catching the ends of her grown-out fringe.

“Because I asked you to.” The centaur huffed, crossing his arms, blushing. He changed the subject.

“Well, uhm, how about the council today, huh? Your uncle sure was making a scene. Is he always like that, with all the verbose pontificating and grandstanding? Gotta be insufferable around the holidays.”

“He’s always loved giving a good long speech, that’s for sure.”

“Does it bother you?”

“What, the speeches? No, I mean, the one he gave at my sisters first wedding was actually quite beautiful–”

“I mean does it bother you how he seems to be very very against your position on this. I can tell this isn’t just a fun little ethical debate for you anymore.”

“It never was,” She gave up trying to clean the stain and accepted that she’d have to use whatever free time she could squeeze in out that evening to finally do her laundry. “And no, it doesn’t bother me. Uncle Forge has a political position to protect, he can’t always speak his mind the way I know he wants to. He’s got constituents to answer to, and he’s trying to speak for them, you know, like a councilman should.” 

The two of them fell silent for a time, watching the afternoon rain fall on the crowded street outside. It wasn’t real natural rain of course, but above ground it was springtime, and the fairy people hadn’t felt real raindrops fall on them in centuries. Simulated rain, recycled from tunnel runoff and processed clean before it was piped into tubes on high cave ceiling, complete with rolling thunder and holographic clouds. De’nan couldn’t think why Vee would give up surface life, even if he was a fairy. Any fairy would give anything for a chance just to feel real rain for the first time.

“Today is supposed to be the last day, right? How do you think this all ends?” Stoic asked, following a drop of water as it crawled down the window into a puddle that was gradually forming on the sidewalk below.

“I dunno, but I’ll be glad when it’s finally done.”

______________________________________________________________

“So it’s done?”

“Yep. Just coming out of Atlantis now, be home soon.”

“If I’m not there when you get home give me a call, okay? Lotta folks been turning up dead lately, I worry.”

“I know you do. Love you, bye.” Beryl DeGrit slipped the cellphone back into his breast pocket, sparing a glance to the stack of milk crates full of textbooks beside him in the car. Each textbook was actually hollowed out and stuffed with a piece of name-brand human clothing. Adidas, Nike, Lululemon, the kind of stuff that sold well at the flea markets in backstreet fashion districts. Beryl worked out a deal with a pixie friend of his from Atlantis to cut him in on a small-time smuggling operation, nothing major, just a few pieces here and there that happened to fall off the wagon as it were, just enough to help him put his husband through grad school.

The operation was simple, every few months Beryl’s pixie friend would give him a call and invite him to spend the weekend in Atlantis. He would drive down on the analog lanes, keeping off the autodriving roads, meet up with his buddy at a little comedy club in the Lavender district, then drive back to Haven with some mudman fashions disguised as various school supplies. Beryl DeGrit, was after all, an elementary school teacher. Nothing suspicious about a teacher working in an under-funded school going to such lengths to acquire materials for his class. That sort of behavior was practically expected of teachers, and Beryl DeGrit was just the kind of elf who always went above and beyond.

He turned the car off of the intercity highway and onto one of the rural backroads where the checkpoints into Haven were always more relaxed. There he passed by farm after farm, hydroponics and synth-growing operations. Eventually he arrived at the parking lot where he’d planned to meet his distributor, a businessman who owned several backstreet shop stalls catering to the city’s rebellious youth. Beryll turned the car off and waited, nervously checking his watch. Sitting in a parking lot for too long would look suspicious. What if someone has already noticed? What if they’re watching the cameras? No, no, everything is fine, Beryl reassured himself, you’ve done this a dozen times before, this is fine. But with his contact still not arriving, Beryl got antsy.

He left the car, deciding that it would be a good cover if he pretended to be having engine trouble. This was a good cover, he thought, because it wasn’t even a lie. He was having engine trouble, this damn car was always having engine trouble. These three-wheeled analog abominations were built to fail, everyone knew that. Just a cheap option for people who didn’t want to have to rely on Haven’s spotty public transportation and couldn’t afford an expensive auto car. He popped the hood and leaned inside, fiddling with the coolant caps and the timing belt. And then a wire wrapped around his neck.

______________________________________________________________

When the cuffs finally fell from Vee’s wrists he felt lighter than air, as if the cold iron was all that had been tethering him to this Earth. Vee also felt that he had aged rapidly, and despite being only in his mid twenties he believed that he could feel the cold hands of death already chipping away at the joints in his shoulders and his weary spine. One entire week of debating the validity of your identity in front of a council of angry politicians would do that to anyone. Commander Kelp was the one holding the key to his freedom.

“Don’t blow this, kid, or you’re going to make a lot of nice people look like assholes.”

“Of course. Thank you, Commander.” Kelp gave the young man a clap on the arm, which was as close as the elf ever came to a public display of affection. 

“Don’t thank me yet, we still need to go over the conditions of your probationary period. De’nan will be your probation officer, you will report to her on time, every time, or you’re getting a full wipe and shipped off back where the sun shines.” Vee nodded in the affirmative, following the commander down the corridor of the LEP holding facility. So much had changed in the years since he was a consultant here. There were hundreds of new faces for one thing, new technology, new uniforms even. Vee imagined this was what it might have been like for those astronauts returning to earth after their two year mission to Mars.

Officer De’nan’s office was essentially a closet wedged between the much larger and more grandiose mailing office and the custodial suite, but at the very least she had a window. One window, one desk, three chairs, and two massive filing cabinets that lined the walls of the already cramped space. Commander Kelp entered without knocking.

“De’nan, present for you,” He said, ushering Vee inside before promptly taking his leave and closing the door behind him. De’nan was in the middle of sorting through her filing cabinets when the pair arrived and didn’t even have the chance to address the commander before he left. Like a damn lightning strike that elf, she thought. 

“So,” She started when she had finally located the file she was searching for, “You’ve won a nine month probationary period. Rather generous, I think, all things considered.” She let the heavy file fall onto her desktop with a thud. It had sticky notes and colorful tabs and all manner of odd papers jutting out from the sides like some kind of eldritch tome. “This,” De’nan continued, drumming her fingers on the tome, “Is your LEP file. As you can see, It’s rather large.”

“Right, well, I was a consultant for a number of years. I actually expected it would be a bit larger.”

“Disappointed then?”

“No,” Vee waved his hand, “Just trying to see the bright side of things.”

“Ah, that’s a good attitude. Okay, well, my first task will be to help you re-integrate back into fairy society, and the best way to do that, of course, is by finding you a job.” Vee raised an eyebrow.

“You think anyone in this city is going to hire me?”

“Well,” De’nan tried to keep the apprehension in her voice at bay, “Maybe not just anyone will hire you, but I’m sure someone will. You mentioned you were an LEP consultant, for how many years were you at that position?”

“Five, I believe. Yes, it must have been five years, I remember I started out when I was ten.” De’nan paused.

“Ten? Ten years old?” Vee’s only response was a single curt nod. “Right,” the elf sighed, “Of course you were. Okay so from age ten to age fifteen, LEP consultant.”

“Consulting detective was the title, to be exact.” De’nan’s pen stopped scribbling, her perky mask of optimism falling into a dead-eyed look of incredulity.

“Consulting detective. Like Sherlock Holmes.” Vee nodded. “Right, okay, consulting detective, ten to fifteen. Anything after that?”

“Well I was moved back to the surface after that.”

“Yes? And?”

“And…” Vee wasn’t certain that he understood the question De’nan was trying to ask.

“What did you do for work up there?” She responded slowly.

“Lots of things. I wouldn’t call them jobs.”

“Help me out then, what would you call them?” Vee, somewhat embarrassed, folded his hands on the end of his crossed leg and took a deep breath.

“I was in and out of various institutions. I struggled to find any meaningful work and provide for myself. I never completed any degree and barely graduated from high school. I made music and sold it on the internet, but that hardly generated a respectable enough revenue for me to call it a job.” De’nan’s head fell onto her desktop, making impact with Vee’s LEP file.

“This is bad,” she groaned, “You get that this looks bad, right? This is, like, really really really bad.” Vee closed his eyes and nodded silently. He agreed, this all did look very bad, on paper at least. But he had five years of on-the-job LEP experience, a formative five years in fact, when his brain was still developing. The skills he honed then were still second nature to him now, he was sure of it. 

De’nan rubbed her temples. This had to go well. Her career was practically riding on Vee’s success now as a functional Haven citizen, and even beyond that she just fought very hard in a tribunal to set an enormous and possibly quite dangerous precedent for re-defining fairy kind as it had been understood for thousands of years. This was going to work. She would make this work, no matter what.

“Okay,” She said finally with her head still resting on the desk, motioning with her hands above her, “So here’s what I’m thinking. You’ve already got five years of LEP experience and what I believe to be a decent relationship with the Commander–”

“Yes, I agree, let’s do it.” De’nan’s head shot up.

“Why did you interrupt me?”

“You were going to say that you think we should ask the Commander about reinstating my position as a consulting detective.” Getting his old job back was, of course, always Vee’s intent. He was never happier, never felt more fulfilled or in his element, than he did during his time as a consulting detective for the LEP.

“I mean, yes, obviously, but you don’t have to interrupt me in the middle of a sentence.”

“Sorry. I’m terrible about that, I know.”

“Right,” De’nan rose from her desk and squeezed past the towering filing cabinets to reach the door, “Let’s get this over with.”

______________________________________________________________

Redwood Kelp’s inbox was full. It was always full, no matter how many urgent notifications he addressed or routine email security checks he confirmed. That’s why it was taking him so long to sort through everything he’d received during the tribunal week. His most trusted lieutenants were in charge of running the Lower Elements Police operations in his absence, and it seemed they’d been kept very busy. 

Just in the past 24 hours there was a major traffic collision on the auto car highway into Atlantis was under investigation, three smuggling operations out of Haven’s low street district were busted, and a massive investigation for a missing pixie child broke new ground when the little girl was discovered to have been falsely reported as missing by her parents who were seeking media acclaim and probably some book deals. The last case left a particularly sickening feeling in Kelp’s stomach. Over a century on the job and he still had a hard time pushing everything down when kids were involved. He figured that might’ve been some long buried paternal instinct worming its way out. Having children was especially difficult for fairies, not like the mudmen who seemed to breed like rabbits in any season. For fairies there were so many rules, governed by ancient magical codes, which prevented fairies from having more than one or two children every hundred years or so. Even beyond the magical limitations, Haven City’s own rule of law for its citizens required a hefty tax to be paid annually by parents for every child they chose to bear.

Kelp lit his next cigarette with the dying embers of his previous one. He’d been doing so well cutting down until Vee showed up again. Old habits dying hard, eccetera. But he was happy to see the boy again, in his way. To Kelp’s mind the world above was a slowly collapsing wasteland of ecological mayhem and pointless petty warfare, a haunting image of Haven’s possible future at the rate thighs were going. But Haven wasn’t quite there yet. Hopefully the city’s name would not remain the hilarious misnomer that it had become, and so long as Vee was underground Kelp was reassured that at least he could keep an eye on the boy. Keep him safe, or safer in any case.

And then, galloping at full speed, Stoic Young crashed through the Commander’s door with no sense of decorum at all.

“Commander! Commander!” He yelled, his hooves hardly stopping before he collided with Kelp’s antique walnut desk. “Commander, I need you to–”

“I need you to go back outside and knock on that door!” Kelp bellowed, thoroughly offended by the intrusion during a moment of very private reflection.

“But this is–”

“One.” Kelp started counting, just the way his father did when he was acting disobedient. “Two,” He continued. As hurriedly as he’d barged in, Stoic trotted back outside and slammed the door before rapping his knuckles frantically. Thank gods, thought Kelp, I don’t actually know what’s supposed to happen after three. “Come in,” he announced.

“Commander, I need you to look at this.” The centaur shoved a rather vintage looking cellphone into Kelp’s hands, scrolling through a series of text messages between himself and a contact in his phone with a name that was framed on both sides with strings of different emojis.

“What am I looking at?”

“This is my friend, the one I was going to have apply for R&D, remember? Well, he says that his husband has gone missing and the last time they spoke he was on his way home from Atlantis.”

“Atlantis…” The commander scratched his stubbly chin, “You don’t think–”

“It could be that he was one of the unidentified bodies from the crash. What the hell am I supposed to tell him?” 

“Tell him to get down to the morgue, see if he’s there.”

“Fucking hell, Commander,” Stoic sunk down onto a bench beside the commander’s desk, head in hands. “This is just, it’s just too real, you know?” Kelp took a long drag on his fungal cigarette, cursing now more than ever that he didn’t have any real tobacco. He put a hand on Stoic’s shoulder.

“These things happen, Young. Sooner or later.” The centaur looked up at him, white as a sheet, pain and fear in his eyes.

“He’s my best friend, Commander.” His voice was barely a whisper.

“Then you’re the best person to tell him. You can help him. Be there for him, you know.”

“I think,” Stoic sniffed, but his tone was lighter and more playful than before, “I think this is the most you’ve ever actually spoken to me, personally.” There we go, thought Kelp, that’s the kid I know.

“Go make the call, the sooner the better.” Stoic gathered himself up from the bench and left the office, passing De’nan and Vee on his way out. Stoic never quite looked professional, but De’nan couldn’t help but notice how wet his cheeks were.

“Is everything alright?” She offered, pausing in the hall. Stoic gave her a small but thankful grin.

“No, but I’ll catch you up later. Got a phone call to make. Thanks, Nan.” He trotted off, the rest of the Plaza Station giving way to him. De’nan shook her head and sighed, this was quite the stressful day already and it wasn’t even lunch time yet.

“Okay, well,” She spoke to Vee, who appeared to be fixated on the tiles of the very high arch ceilings, “I guess I’ll be dealing with whatever that is later. What are you looking at?” she squinted upwards, sure that there must be a bat or something trapped in the building again.

“New tiles,” Vee stated simply, “But only on this floor. The renovations in this building are a bit sporadic, don’t you think? Quite showy, less functional. The railings on all the ramps and stairs are still the same despite most of them being only one good tug from total collapse.”

“Yeah,” De’nan agreed, “I think I see what you mean.” The two of them stood there for a moment looking upwards, the only sound between them the constant chatter and ambiance of the Plaza’s main office floor.

“Your friend is going to the morgue, by the way.”

“What?” The elf nearly choked. 

“I saw his phone, only a glimpse, but they were messages from a friend. Not a work friend, work friends don’t usually get emojis beside their names in contact lists. I also saw the word Atlantis,” He pointed to a far wall where a massive television screen broadcasted a local news network currently covering the Atlantis crash, “Seems like he knows someone who might’ve been involved in the crash.” De’nan’s eyes lingered on the television screen, but her gaze lacked focus.

“I see,” was all she could think to say, suddenly feeling a tad guilty for thinking that she was the one having a bad day.

“Do you want to go to your friend first, or should we talk to the Commander while we know he’s likely to be in a sympathetic mood?” De’nan bit her lip.

“You speak to the Commander, I’ll go catch Stoic and make sure he’s alright.” She rushed off, squeezing her way through the crowd with a chorus of excuse me’s that got quieter the further away from Vee she got.

Vee loomed large over the regular inhabitants of the police plaza, but it seemed that very few of them really took notice of his presence. Perhaps they were already used to me, I’m old news, he mused. Gnomes, elves, goblins, dwarves, fairies of all shapes and sizes bustled about the open office floor, their desks pushed together, people sneezing and talking and some even laughing. Phones buzzing, papers tearing, pencils tapping. What a nightmare, he thought, just like the human world. If only they knew how horrifyingly mundane the similarities between fairies and humans actually were.

Vee knocked in a rhythm three times on the Commander’s door until he heard the old elf grumble to come inside. The Commander stayed seated, typing away at lightning speed on his keyboard.

“Busy day, can’t handle any more interruptions.” He spoke through the corner of his mouth, the opposite corner occupied by the nub of a dead cigarette.

“I will be brief,” Vee ducked inside and closed the door quietly behind him. “I’d like my old job back.”

“No,” Said the Commander plainly. 

“Could you elaborate on that?”

“I could.”

“But you don’t care to?”

“Bingo.” 

The Commander’s attention stayed on his computer, fingers still furiously clacking away. Vee took a seat on the bench where Stoic once sat. A bench of that style was an elegant solution to the anatomical diversity of the fairy species. With so many body shapes and sizes and so many variables to account for when it came to physical mobility, a comfortable low bench was an elegant solution. Granted it was significantly too low for someone of Vee’s height, but with his ankles crossed and stretching out in front of him it was quite pleasant. Vee stayed there, fingers absently picking at one another, enjoying a comfortable silence between himself and Commander Kelp. After half an hour of answering emails, Kelp cracked.

“One case. A small one.”

“Do I get to choose?”

“No.” Kelp pressed a button and his printer produced a mostly empty police report. “Dwarf in the low streets. Her apartment caught on fire while she was sleeping. Her brothers are in Howler’s Peak for smuggling, neighbors reported seeing some unfamiliar goblins in the area that night.” Vee studied the very minimal report.

“Are there investigators already at the scene?”

“No, fire patrol was dispatched last night, but with this Atlantis business and the pixie girl thing everyone’s tied up. Her body was removed last night, should be in the morgue for processing.” Vee rose and stretched his legs, already making strides toward the door. “Not so fast,” Kelp stopped him, wheeling his chair back and pulling something from his desk drawer. “You’ll need this.”

The badge clattered on the polished walnut desktop. A single silver acorn the size of Vee’s palm that was specially made for him nearly ten years ago, printed with his name in Gnomish characters and pinned to a small wallet of weatherproof synthweave. Vee made no mention of the fact that Kelp clearly kept the badge with him all these years, a fact that Vee was certain of due to how polished the surface of the silver still was and how the synthweave wallet smelled strongly of the Commander’s favored brand of fungal cigarettes.

“Take De’nan with you,” Kelp grunted, returning to his sisyphean email crisis. “I don’t want to see your face on the news again.” Vee nodded.

“Of course, Commander.”

______________________________________________________________

De’nan arrived at the morgue before Stoic and waited for him by the entrance. Despite the noise above, this floor of the Police Plaza was quiet, too quiet for her liking. De’nan was an enjoyer of ambiance, the sounds of life, people talking or walking or laughing. Living underground, it was rare to find yourself ever in a place that was totally quiet. Everything echoed, every sound bounced, there were always signs of life around her. So she found herself flicking through social media apps on her phone. Atlantis was all anyone was talking about, it was either Atlantis or that pixie girl’s parents who apparently had her locked up in a storage unit for two weeks while they went on all the local talk shows and got flowers and lovely heartfelt cards from concerned strangers sent to them. De’nan scoffed, scrolling an article from the Haven City Herald that first broke the story, her thumbs tightening a dangerous grip on the little device.

Was life always like this, she wondered, were things always this bad and I was just too young or too stupid to get it? And how could anyone do that to their own child? They had to be insane, the both of them, or just somehow altogether a different kind of animal than she was to be capable of such an act. But that wasn’t the truth, and deep in her heart, thought it pained her to acknowledge, she knew it. Fairies, even fairies who did terrible and inexcusable things, were still fairies. They were still like her, part of her, part of the world. But it was much easier to close herself off from that truth, to isolate them, make them something else so that she could believe that if she only became good enough at spotting the signs of a wolf under the sheep’s wool that she would never be taken advantage of like that little girl. 

Is that fair to the little girl? Aren’t I then, in some way, just blaming her for not seeing the wolves? And what could I do then, if I were that little girl and I was afraid of my parents? Well, I would go to the LEP, of course, she reasoned. But the police need physical evidence, we can’t just act on hearsay, and we’re stretched thin already as it is. Maybe she did go to the police and they couldn’t help. Maybe she did see the wolves around her, or maybe she didn’t because she is a child and children shouldn’t have to suspect that their parents might take their life away at a moment's notice. De’nan chewed her lip to bits, a single bead of blood forming before a blue spark of magic sealed the wound. That’s about all her magic could do these days, about all anyone’s magic could do aside from the demon warlocks, and even they, in their small numbers, grew weaker by the year. Her ears twitched, suddenly aware of the sound of hoofsteps descending the stairs, accompanied by a murmur of two voices. 

Stoic led Lamont DeGrit, his dear friend of many years, to the morgue. Lamont, or Gritty as he was known to his loved ones, wore his short dark hair in a slicked back professional fashion, his beard trimmed to a manageable length, the tendrils bristling with nervous tension. Stoic stopped at the end of the stairs, surprised to see De’nan was waiting for him. The elf looked up from her phone, attempting to appear casual, but her eyes betrayed her.

“Nan, you didn’t have to wait for me.”

“I know.”

“Is she the one you told me about?” Asked Gritty.

“Er, yes, but maybe this isn’t the best time for an introduction.” The three of them entered the morgue together, Stoic and Gritty leading the charge, with De’nan following closely behind.

The Police Plaza’s morgue was not designed to hold more than twenty cadavers at a time. Even twenty was, thousands of years ago when the Plaza was constructed, considered to be a considerable overestimation. In the current day, chief forensic pathologist Sameth Ba’kor had a caseload of thirty six cadavers. Some were overflow from other precincts, putting the Plaza’s cold storage infrastructure to the test as the aging goblin struggled to find physical space in the deep freeze locker to store every cot while still leaving enough room to navigate the space and do his job, like a massive morbid slide puzzle. Luckily, Doctor Ba’kor had a lot of patience for puzzles. Most fairies couldn’t even stand to be in the deep freeze locker for more than a few seconds, but goblins were uniquely suited to withstand the freezing temperatures. Whenever his fingers got a bit nippy, Doctor Ba’kor simply breathed a low, steady stream of fire into his hands to warm them back up.

Backing out of the deep freeze after a long half hour or so of puzzling cadavers into place, Doctor Ba’kor was surprised to see that he had guests, thought he already suspected he knew why they were there. Still, he asked the question out of courtesy.

“What can I do for you, officers?”

“I’m, er, that is, we’re here to, uhm–” Stoic struggled to find the professional way to say we need to look at all the dead bodies and see if one of them is this guy’s spouse. Luckily, Gritty interjected.

“My husband may have been a victim of the Atlantis autohighway crash, I’m here to try and identify his body.”

“Yes,” Stoic added, “That.” The doctor ushered the two of them into the cold deep freeze where what remained of the unidentified bodies were draped over by clear vinyl sheets. De’nan couldn’t help but take notice of the fact that Lamont DeGrit seemed to be very much in control of his emotions, which struck her as odd given the severity of the situation. But perhaps, she thought, I’m wrong. I never met the man, maybe he’s just… odd. Like Vee.

The doctor led Gritty and Stoic around the room. Gritty stopped at each slab, some mangled and missing identifying features like limbs or bruised badly in the face, but with each elf body he passed over Gritty was utterly confident that none of them belonged to his husband.

“He’s not here,” the dwarf said finally after he’d seen every elf in the room. “He’s not here, thank gods he’s not here.” He breathed, deeply and for a long time, as if he’d been holding his breath for the entire process. “Get me out of here, It’s fucking cold as a witch’s tit in here.”

“You’re sure? Totally sure?” Stoic asked.

“Positive. Now I need a drink.”

The two men departed with few words, just a thank you to the doctor and an offer to De’nan to perhaps meet up for dinner later that evening. Once again, Vee saw the two of them only in passing, this time on his way down the steps to the morgue. De’nan leaned against a wall, arms crossed, brown knitted in concentration.

“He wasn’t in there.” Vee nodded to the morgue.

“Go on,” De’nan urged, “Tell me how you know, Sherlock.” He shrugged.

“People who’ve just seen their spouse’s dead body usually cry about it for a while. Coming to a conclusion like that hardly requires a Sherlock Holmes level of deductive reasoning.”

“Yeah, well, doesn’t stop you from bragging about it apparently.” Vee tucked his hands into his pockets and leaned against the wall beside her.

“Sorry, I wasn’t trying to brag. I just talk like... this. I know it can be grating, but I hope you don’t think I’m being callous on purpose.”

“No, I don’t think that,” De’nan sighed, her shoulders dropping, arms unfolding. “Sorry, I’m just feeling a bit snippy at the moment. Rough day.”

“In that case, I’m not sure if this will improve your mood or make it worse.” He produced the police file given to him by the commander, one single slip of paper with a brief description of the apartment fire and the single sentence statement that the fire patrol took down from a neighbor. Suspicious goblins spotted just before the sister of two known smugglers dies in a fire? Clearly an open and shut case, but it was a case.

“So this means the Commander had you reinstated?”

Part One: Winnie

He’d seen this room before, but only from the outside. Now he was the one sitting in the chair under the single halogen bulb that swung noose-like from a short chain on the low ceiling. Three grey walls and one wall made of tinted black glass. On the other side any number of eyes could be watching him, judging him, but he would have to get used to that. He straightened his back, kept facing forward, and refused to fidget. For this plan to work he would have to really sell them on his confidence, something that his ordinary behavior did not regularly inspire.

The door opened with a quiet pneumatic hiss. In stepped a figure nearly half his height, elven and cloaked in the familiar dark green suit adorned with the golden badge of an LEP officer.

“Not hungry, I take it.” She indicated the complementary bowl of hydroponically grown fruits on the interrogation table between them, none of which Vee had even so much as glanced at over the past forty minutes of his isolation. “Unless there’s something else you would prefer to eat. I understand you were surviving in those caves for quite awhile, by the time our patrol squad found you it seems you were already quite low on rations.” She swept the choppy fringe of her non-regulation blonde bob away from her face and pulled a delicate pair of reading glasses from her jacket pocket before leafing through a small folder. “Yes. Yes, here it is. This report says you had only two bottles of water and a small package of granola with you. And just how long did you think you could survive on that, Artemis?”

He didn’t recognize her, and her demeanor was… strange for an LEP officer. She was almost cordial with him. A criminal psychologist, maybe? A profiler? No, the LEP didn’t have profilers. They didn’t need them. The petty officers did their own profiling. That was the whole problem. 

And then there was the matter of his name. Anyone who knew anything about Vee knew that he would never respond to Artemis. No, this was an intentional ploy to break the ice, get him talking. He didn’t appreciate mind games or trickery, but if that was what the LEP expected of him then he would just have to play ball.

“Actually,” He started, clearing his throat, “If you don’t mind, please call me Vee.”

“My apologies then, Vee. You can call me Officer De’nan.”

“In answer to your question, officer, I didn’t plan on surviving in that cave for much longer. I knew a patrol would pick me up.”

“You knew?” She raised an eyebrow and clicked her pen, jotting something down in Gnomish on a legal pad.

“I suspected,” Vee corrected himself. “To say that I knew with 100% certainty would be inaccurate. I was guessing. And, for the sake of honesty, I think you should be aware that I can read and speak Gnomish fluently.” Her pen stopped mid-scribble. She sighed.

“Of course you can. You’re a clever human, aren’t you?” Vee bit the inside of his cheek reflexively. This was a much more difficult conversation to have than he had anticipated. In his mind, all of this went so differently, but he realized that was all wishful thinking. Of course this was going to be difficult. He was an intruder, after all. 

“I’m not all that clever,” He insisted, “and I’m not human.” Her ears twitched. She put down her pen and folded two small manicured hands under her chin, looking him in the eye for the first time since entering the interrogation room.

“What are you then, Vee? What exactly are we doing here?” Vee tried his best to meet her eyes, but he was never the best with eye contact. Fighting his urge to look away, he tried focusing on the space between her eyes, the bridge of her nose, the way her dark skin reflected the silvery light of the halogen bulb above them.

“I don’t belong up there. I never did. I’m just trying to come home.” She took on a softer, more patronizing expression. 

“This world isn’t for you, Mister Fowl. It’s not yours to take.”

“That’s not what I mean,” He bristled defensively, “ That’s not what I was trying to say.” 

“Tell me then,” She spoke slowly, with a tinge of magic, testing his limits. “Tell me exactly why you’re here.” Vee could feel the mesmer’s influence on his thoughts. People had a lot of misconceptions about that particular fairy talent, he found. It was not a forceful touch pulling the truth out of you, hand over hand, like hauling the rope line of a bucket trapped deep inside of a well. No, the trick of a good mesmer was making the magic feel like it came from inside of you. This was your idea, this is what you wanted to say. Piece by piece, the truth floats up to the surface on its own, the magic just keeps it all buoyant. Vee didn’t fight it. He didn’t need to.

“I’ve told you the truth. I’m here because I don’t belong on the surface. I’m not a human.”

“Rather tall for an elf though, right? C’mon, there must be something else. You can tell me, Vee.” There was something else, of course, but the odds were already so stacked against him. No, he would have to wait, have to hold it down, push it far beneath the surface, send that little nugget of truth back into the depths until the time was right. He breathed deeply, diverting the magic in his mind away from that particular crevice. That was the trouble with magic; like any other force of nature, it couldn’t be stopped, only temporarily diverted. To cover one truth, another one had to come out.

“I… I needed to talk to him again. I needed to talk to Soul. I missed him, I missed him very much.” Tears began to well up in Vee’s eyes. He let them fall without shame. Officer De’nan recalled her mesmer.

“I see,” Was all she said after a long moment of silence between them. “Excuse me.” De’nan left the room, to confer with the figures behind the glass, Vee concluded. He wished that he could be confident about this, but he was afraid. If this plan didn’t work he likely would never get a second chance. He needed to build his case, a strong case, one that could be presented to the Council with complete confidence, and the only way to do that was to be down here, where he belonged in Haven City.

Vee expected to be left to his own devices for at least another hour. They’ll want to sweat me out, he thought, hoping that I’ll get nervous and slip up. They want to believe that I’m playing some kind of long game, some stupid gambit for power or money. Why is it so hard for people to just believe me? Am I really that suspicious? Am I that abhorrent? Or is all this distrust earned entirely by my name?  He took a deep breath to clear his head. The legacy of the Fowl family was a gordian knot of theft and deception, a fine inheritance indeed. Nevermind that Vee was a Fowl in name only, yet another title thrust upon him unwillingly. Fowl and Human, two terrible things to be, two terrible and cumbersome labels that seemed to require an endless debate. 

For Vee, the truth residing within himself was far simpler. He was a man with a name that he did not choose and had no connection to, and he was a changeling. Not a human, not entirely fae. Vee was himself, and that truth was concordant with his whole being. Now the trouble was getting everyone else on the same page so that he could get on with his damn life.

______________________________________________________________

“Well we can’t just let him live here!” Officer De’nan settled back into her custom faux-leather armchair that was so much more comfortable than the cold metal chairs in LEP interrogation boxes. The voice bleating in her ear belonged to Stoic Young, the LEP’s latest in a long line of research and development heads, a position that had become a perpetual revolving door in recent years. “I mean,” Continued the centaur, “He’ll just be lumbering around the city, scaring the living daylights out of old women and children, and it’s not like anyone is going to give him any work.” Stoic clopped back and forth in front of the observation window, his chestnut brown maine curling off manically in all directions. “And Nan, seriously, don’t tell me you buy that sob story about Soul.”

“Why wouldn't I buy it? He was mesmerized. And call me Officer De’nan,” the elf crossed her legs and smoothed the collar of her suit jacket, taking care to straighten the badge on her lapel. “And stop pacing about like that, you’re giving me a headache.”

“It just feels weird Nan– sorry, Officer De’nan. It feels really weird. I mean, even you must find him at least a little creepy. What kind of a human squeezes himself into a dangerous cave and lives there for almost two weeks voluntarily.”

“They used to live in caves,” she countered, “maybe it's an instinct.” Stoic stopped pacing for a moment to consider this before shaking his head and resuming his nervous canter.

“Nah. He said it himself, he was waiting for a patrol squad to come along. He knows the routes, how could he know the routes? There’s two possibilities, either we’ve got a mole or he’s bugged us.” De’nan rubbed her temples, already dreading the amount of paperwork an organized investigation into either possibility would create for her. She was the recently appointed LEP human cultural advisor, a position for which she felt woefully unqualified. Her degree was in media studies and she minored in pre-Frond religious studies, not exactly the ideal portfolio for a human cultural expert, but she was starting to realize that might have been exactly the point.

She leapt at the chance for the job; a full-time salaried position offered to her with amazing benefits straight out of school? Only an idiot would pass up an opportunity like that. The first few months on the job she considered herself so lucky to be the favorite niece of Forge Verity, the council member who essentially demanded that this specific position be created within the LEP, but soon she understood that she might actually be his least favorite niece. There was a rising concern among The People that the influence of humanity and the cultural impact that their movies and music, often illegally smuggled into the fairy world, was making on the youth. The rate of violent crimes had skyrocketed in Haven in the past ten years, and with it, or perhaps because of it, came a tidal wave of human media crazes. 

Every teenager had a phone with human apps on it, participating in human social media, watching human movies and learning human dances and listening to human music. The council first pushed fairy directors and musicians to create works in the style of popular human media, even bankrolling entire franchises before a single movie hit test audiences, but nothing could compete with the constant and unending stream of mudman content leaking into the subterranean city. So then there was the smuggling crackdown, but that only got teenagers and otherwise harmless offenders thrown into already overcrowded jails and diverted resources away from the real problem: the unprecedented rise in violent crime.

Fairies weren’t inherently malicious creatures. They were beings wholy and unequivocally connected to the earth, to nature. Yes, nature could be violent, fickle, dangerous, and unforgiving, but malice was considered to be a creation of mankind. It was men who killed men for no other reason than malice, and men who killed animals with no care for the lives they could have lived, and men who burned the ground behind them just to keep other men from surviving on it. Fairies weren’t capable of such things, not unless they were forced to, made to by some outside influence, or such was the belief of The People.

And so, to appeal to a voting bloc, Councilman Verity petitioned the sitting LEP commander to create a position within the Lower Elements Police force to analyze and address the issue of the corrupting human influence on fairy kind, and he just so happened to have a niece with some qualifications that, if you squint, might fit the bill. Problem solved. Fairy culture was saved, all thanks to Serena De’nan. The cases that found their way to her desk mostly involved first time offenders found to be in possession of human paraphernalia at the time of their arrest for petty crimes, usually teenagers with jailbroken phones or name-brand clothing from human manufacturers. At first, she didn’t understand what exactly she was meant to do with these kids. Was she supposed to… deprogram them? Did the council think they were brainwashed? She interviewed them, tried to understand their connection to human culture and how it might have influenced their criminal behavior, and kept thorough notes on each interview from which to create a report.

Technically she was her own independent department operating inside of the LEP with all of their resources but none of their oversight. She didn’t answer directly to anyone, which meant she had no one to deliver her findings or reports to, which meant she might as well chuck them in the bin and call it a day. Finally, after months of interviews and hours of reporting, it dawned on her: this wasn’t a broken bureaucratic system creating a redundant job on accident, this was a well oiled machine that was designed to create redundant jobs like this to assist in manufacturing confirmation bias. She had no power to do anything, to change anything, and that was the whole point. The citizens of Haven and their council had already decided that the human influence was strangling what remained of the fairy culture to death, she was just there to confirm what they already believed. 

Yet, despite all this, De’nan still found the will to press her work shirts and be at her desk on time every day, despite the fact she was certain nobody would notice if she came in late or not at all. No one except maybe Stoic, who was making a lot of excuses to barge into her office lately. 

“Shouldn’t you, I dunno, be in your lab? Designing a new widget or contraption or whatever?” Stoic huffed.

“Oh please, like I could concentrate on anything like that when there’s this seven foot tall abominable mudman hanging around the office.”

“He’s only, like, five foot eight.” De’nan rubbed her eyes. The commander was supposed to be here by now, he was the one who was supposed to be taking point on this, so where the hell was he? 

“Kelp’s sure taking his sweet time getting here,” Stoic grumbled, as if reading her thoughts. “When he does get here I’ll bet he orders a mind wipe and sends him back up, quick and easy.”

“I don’t know.” De’nan squinted, watching Vee through the tinted glass. There were features about him that she found questionable. The tips of his ears did have a familiar point to them, his teeth were almost sharp like a pixies, a wide elven brow that cascaded into a hooked nose. All traits that, in isolation, could be associated with a fairy, but that’s just what they were, isolated traits. 

“Did you know him when he was younger?” De’nan asked suddenly, halting Stoic’s stride.

“No,” He answered. “But I heard stories. People said he had some kind of psychic powers, that he could tell if someone was lying just by looking at them and read people’s minds. All bogus claims, obviously. He’s just a regular mudman.”

“Is he though?” Stoic turned to face the elf, searching her expression, hoping desperately that she wasn’t seriously considering the possibility. 

“Nan, don’t. I’m serious now, that’s not a road we want to go down.”

“I believe him.” She kept her eyes forward, focused on Vee. This wasn’t entirely true. In truth, she wasn’t sure what she believed, but she knew Vee’s belief in who he was to be sincere, and shouldn’t that be enough? 

“I believe this is insane,” Stoic whinnied. De’nan looked up at him from beneath her manicured fringe. “So you think I’m insane?” The centaur’s cheeks flushed. Stoic grumbled and made a big show of re-adjusting his tie and sucking in his gut.

“No, I didn’t mean, uh, I was just suggesting that maybe this isn’t, you know, the sort of thing you go along with on a hunch is all. We should run some genetic tests first, that will tell us right away if he’s a fairy.” If he’s a fairy, that means he’s already considering the possibility valid, she thought. That was too easy. Kelp will be a harder sell for sure. And, as if on cue, the man of the hour arrived.

Commander Redwood Kelp was one of the oldest still working members of the LEP and he was famously an elf of few words. In the year and a half that Den’an had been working inside of the Police Plaza offices she could count the total number of words that Commander Kelp spoke to her on one hand and none of them had more than two syllables. Kelp and Vee had a history already, so perhaps that would be a point in De’nan’s favor when she inevitably must debate the ethics of even indulging an idea like this. When the commander stepped through the threshold of the observation room door De’nan and Stoic both stood at attention.

“What’s the verdict?” Asked the commander in his usual gruff tone. De’nan was taken aback, she never expected that the commander would look to her for the final say in a matter like this, or maybe she misunderstood his question?

“I, uhm, I believe that he’s telling us the truth sir. I believe that he, somehow despite appearances, may not be entirely human.”

“Hm,” the commander nodded. He leaned against the tinted glass and taped lightly on the surface, so lightly that De’nan and Stoic could hardly hear. In the other room, Vee’s head turned suddenly toward the sound. The commander nodded once more, seemingly satisfied.

“Okay,” he said simply, “Run the tests.” No, she hadn’t misunderstood the commander. Somehow, De’nan suspected, Kelp had drawn his own conclusion on this matter years ago.

______________________________________________________________

“I believe you know what this is for,” The officer presented Vee with a cotton swab and a tube.

“For my mouth, I suspect?” 

“One for your mouth and  I have one for your nose, and I’ll be taking a hair sample as well.” Vee couldn’t be sure if this was a good sign. Obviously genetic testing would have to be the next step, but tests like that were far more fallible than most people knew. For one thing, the lab processing these samples could have a political agenda against his case and flub the results, or else throw out his sample entirely and bury the evidence. Or someone could simply interpret the data in such a way as to support whatever claims about him that they wanted to make. It was a mistake to believe that science and math existed on their own, coldly devoid of emotion or intent or politics. Everything is interpretive, everything requires context. Vee swabbed the inside of his cheek carefully, then his nose, then allowed officer De’nan to pluck a dark hair from the top of his head. Whatever the results may be, he thought, they cannot change what I already know, all they can do is change how I’ll need to frame my argument.

“Commander Kelp ordered the tests, you know.” De’nan spoke, shaking Vee from his intense concentration. “He almost seemed happy to see you, not that it’s easy to tell with him. I just thought you’d like to know.” 

“Oh,” Said Vee, unsure of what to make of this sudden display of hospitality. Was she hoping to trick him into revealing something about his past work with the LEP? Was this a ploy? “That’s good. Will I have a chance to speak with him?” The officer sealed the last of her samples into their vials and secured them inside of a temperature-controlled pouch.

“I’m not sure. It depends, I suppose.”

“Depends on what?” Vee kept his eyes trained on the table, specifically the corner where De’nan’s shadow fell. The officer considered his question for a moment.

“Not sure,” She concluded, “Probably just his mood. I heard the two of you used to work together, so I’m sure you remember how temperamental he can be.” A small smile tugged at the corners of Vee’s mouth, fond childhood memories bubbling up inside of him like a spring. For the first time since returning to Haven, he did not feel cold.

“Yes, I remember.”

Stoic squinted at the holographic screen in front of him waiting very impatient for the test results. Whoever’s big stupid idea it was to make all the screens in the Police Plaza nothing more than fancy flickering light was an idiot. Blasting blue light directly into your eyeballs all day was terrible for your sleep cycle, not to mention dangerous for anyone who might be particularly photosensitive, you know, like all dwarves? When he was brought onboard to head the R&D department, Stoic wanted so badly to recommend that a friend of his from school apply for one of the junior positions, but couldn’t in good conscious convince a dwarf that a workplace designed entirely and exclusively around the accessibility needs of elves and centaurs would be a healthy environment for him. Such a shame too, he thought, Gritty is just the kind of fairy this place needs. Decisive, responsible, with a moral bedrock of solid and unbreakable diamond. Gritty would pursue the truth, the whole truth, the truth that might challenge and even terrify him. Not like me, Stoic continued, pacing once more. I think I might seriously be a coward, he thought.

The truth was, it didn’t matter what the results of the genetic testing said, really. All humans in fact, shared common ancestral fairy DNA. This was such a commonly known fact that it was printed in every fairy elementary school’s biology textbooks. But, as the textbooks would go on to explain, the true difference between man and fairy is that fairies have thaumatic nerves which allow their nervous system to not only carry electric current through their bodies  but also allow magic to flow into and out of them. And what was the fundamental difference between thaumatic and athaumatic nerves? Perceptibly, nothing. No scientist, no warlock, no independent researcher with a trashy podcast could ever conclusively, with solid physical evidence, determine just what the difference between a thaumatic and an athaumatic nervous system was, and anyone who claimed otherwise was usually trying to sell some kind of protein powder or cultish self-help book.

But there must be a difference between us and them, Stoic fretted, chewing his fingernails to bits, there has to be. Absolutely everything, the foundations of both fairy and human societies, were built on that idea. A truth that everyone seemed to know but no one could prove. The flickering holographic screen lit up green. The tests were finished. Now it was all up to Stoic. Before he clicked on the confirmation button, he paused.

What do I believe, right now in my gut, without even looking at these results. Shouldn’t I know already? Shouldn’t I feel confident that this… thing is a human? If I don’t seriously think that there is a possibility that he’s a fairy, why am I so concerned? His shoulders fell, a new wave of dread falling over him. He knew why he was so afraid to see these results. It had nothing to do with this one particular human. One human being proven to actually be some kind of fairy was just an odd blip in the grand scheme of things, a medical curiosity for daytime talk show hosts to blather about for a couple weeks before returning to the goblin crime wave crisis. No, Stoic was afraid for the precedent this would set for the future. What if other humans discovered that they could claim fairy lineage and come seeking some stolen birthright? Fairies were already losing their culture to the mudmen, they could not stand to lose the only home that they had left on this Earth. He would be involved in this now, forever. They would write about him in a textbook one day, maybe he would even get his own chapter.

And then his mind turned to Gritty once more. As a child, Stoic fought hard to be recognized as a man when he was designated female at birth. Gritty was the only friend who stayed with him after he transitioned, even his own family still had trouble getting his pronouns right. Centuries ago, as Stoic understood it, binary gender designations didn’t even exist in Centaur or Dwarven cultures. Perhaps this was no different, he mused. Maybe I can’t solve every damn problem in this world, but I can make a difference for one person. Maybe that’s enough.

______________________________________________________________

Commander Kelp took his seat across from Vee in the interrogation box. The “hot box” they used to call it, until some LEP higher ups became aware of a very different use of that term and banned it outright. 

“Mind if I smoke?” Kelp grunted, already lighting a cigarette.

“Be my guest.” 

The commander studied Vee from below his heavy brow, his green eyes falling on the details of Vee’s hollow pallid features. Vee’s fingernails were dirty, his knuckles bruised, fingers chapped. It must have been driving him crazy, the commander was sure of it. The Vee he remembered was utterly militant about removing dirt from under his nails.

“You need a toothpick or something?” Kelp nodded to Vee’s hands folded neatly on the table in front of them. It took Vee a moment to process just what the Commander was actually implying.

“No, thank you. I can take care of them later.”

“Why not now?”

“Well, to be honest, I don’t want to look vain. Or callous. Or fidgety. Anything I do when I’m in this room will be scrutinized one way or another, so it’s best not to do anything I feel.” Kelp nodded along, taking a long drag on his fungal cigarette before blowing a perfect ring towards the tinted glass.

“I used to have the real thing,” He said, rolling the cigarette between his fingers, “Real tobacco, till some idiot decided that he could make a lot of money from the mushroom farmer barrons by convincing everyone that smoking tobacco was a human tradition.” He scoffed. “Can you believe that? Humans own tobacco now, ‘cause we let them. Cause someone made money off the idea.”

“That kind of thing has been happening down here a lot, I see.”

“Happens up there a lot, too,” Kelp jerked his thumb to the sky. 

“It does. You’re right.”

“Funny how that is, huh?” The commander was a hard read. Even knowing him for some years and working side by side, Vee could never quite place Kelp’s true intentions. But he needed this now, needed to feel like he was just talking to an old friend, so he let himself believe that’s all this was. I have to trust that there are people on my side, people who care about me, he decided. If I don’t make myself believe that, then what’s the damn point of it all? I want to feel like I’m home. I need to feel like I belong here. I’ll take comfort where I can find it.

“It’s good to see you, commander.” Kelp reached into his coat pocket and drew out a small silver tin. Vee recognized it, engraved with an eagle on the lid. The commander’s old tobacco tin. He flicked open the lid, and a dozen rows of toothpicks were inside.

“Been trying to quit smoking for years. Sometimes these help, just to chew on ‘em.” Vee carefully took a toothpick from the tin and got to work digging the dirt out from under his nails.

“Thank you, commander.”

“Don’t mention it.”

______________________________________________________________

“Anatomically and physiologically he appears human, but he has several genetic markers that indicate fairy heritage, however the same could be said of the entire human race.”

“Do we know who his mother is or not?”

“Well…” Stoic trailed off, rolling back and forth between various holographic screens in the lab office. De’nan and Commander Kelp stood around the lab table scattered with testing materials and printed results. “On the books it says his mother was a jazz musician from America, but Vee’s father divorced her just three months after he was born, which I’m sure our resident mudman expert can tell you is rather uncommon.”

“So maybe she had an affair, dad finds out it’s not his kid, cuts her off.” The commander took another satisfying puff of his cigarette.

“That’s what I thought, but Vee is genetically Artemis Fowl the 4th’s son, we know that for sure, his DNA is already on file.”

“Wait, let me make sure I’m following this correctly; so mom is human and dad is human, right?” De’nan interrupted, consulting her own notebook by frantically flipping through the pages.

“Yes,” Replied Stoic, pulling up the digital LEP profile on Artemis Fowl the 4th. The computer conjured an image of the man, a slender pale figure in a dark suit with sharp brown eyes and raven black hair, practically the spitting image of the man sitting in their interrogation room. “But that’s just the genetic side of things. Like I said, anatomically speaking he appears  human. He doesn’t have wings like a pixie, or the prehensile hairs of a dwarf, his ears are too short to be considered elven, and he’s obviously no centaur.”

“My ears are on the shorter side,” De’nan interjected, “I was teased about it constantly in school, that doesn’t mean I’m not an elf.”

“Right–” Stoic continued, clopping over to the lab table and rifling through the papers until he produced a particular stapled packet. “These are the current criteria for determining the racial classifications of newborns. Legally, at the moment, when a mixed-race child is born the doctors have to declare on their birth records, based on this set of criteria, what the child will be designated as for their future. Obviously there’s some, er, political bent to it.” The centaur tugged at the collar of his shirt, unsure of how to tactfully broach such a complicated subject, and so he stayed silent as the two officers leafed through the packet.

“What exactly are you getting at here, Young?”

“Well,” Stoic continued, wringing his hands, “This criteria is very old, thousands of years old at this point, and it’s never been revised. As you can see there is obvious racial bias favoring an elven or pixie designation over a goblin, dwarf, or even gnome. There’s even verbiage specifying that the financial status of the parents be considered part of the child’s racial designation. What the hell does being rich or poor have to do with whether or not your kid is more pixie or goblin?”

“Why is there not just… a third option?” De’nan interjected, musing aloud. “Or we could just drop the designation all together, I mean, why does something so personal even need to be involved in government paperwork? We’re all fairies, nothing else should matter, right?”

“Right, and these are just physical features. Plastic surgery is so common these days, if little Jimmy the pixie-goblin decides one day that he’d rather have his mom’s little nose or even a set of wings he can just buy them.”

“So, in other words, none of this shit actually matters,” the commander grumbled, falling cross-legged into a nearby armchair. “Anybody can be anything. Humans can be fairies if they want to.”

“That’s a bit of an oversimplification–” Stoic started before realizing who he was talking to, “Uhm, what I mean to say is, sir, that I don’t think humans can just decide that they’re fairies, I think we decided that they weren’t.”

“We had good reasons, of course. The legions of men ravaged the earth, slaughtered the men, killed thousands of fairies. That kind of brutality is just… not natural,” De’nan reassured herself, still hunched over the research table.

“Fairies waged wars, too. Before we were united under one banner, the clans didn’t exactly get along. And, I mean, until about a century ago Officer De’nan wouldn’t have even been allowed to work in an LEP office.” The centaur put on a mock old-timey radio announcer voice “A girl police officer? Next they’ll start wanting to wear pants, and vote!” 

“He’s a changeling then,” Kelp snubbed the ember of his cigarette, the long trail of pungent smoke still rising from the ash in the little glass bowl. “Like the old stories. We kidnapped him and made him one of us.” De’nan and Stoic looked to one another, unsure of whether or not the commander was speaking seriously. 

“I… suppose?” Stoic offered. Kelp let this idea roll around in his head for a moment, his expression ever-inscrutable. Eventually he rose from his chair, plucking a toothpick from his tin and made for the exit door. “I’ll call the council. You two get all this paperwork straightened out. It’s going to be a long meeting.”

______________________________________________________________

Vee was placed in a holding cell designed for trolls. He wasn’t sure whether this decision was made to enforce the image that he was a ferocious and untrustworthy beast, or if it was simply a decision made on the basis that he was rather tall compared to other fairies and would need the headroom. By now he was certain that the news story had broken to the major networks. The LEP was notoriously bad at upholding media blackouts, especially when it came to people with his family name. Perhaps that meant by now that Soul was waiting for him, anticipating him, maybe even hoping to see him through some grainy low-definition news clip footage. 

He was sprawled out on a metal bench covered in knicks and dents from bull trolls fighting their confinement after being detained for causing trouble in some tunnel or another. In that sense, Vee figured he was rather like a troll. If this is my last night in Haven, he thought, if this is my last night aware that Haven even exists, shouldn’t I find some way to appreciate it all? Should I scratch my name into the bench and hope at least that little piece of me stays here forever? No, they’ll replace the bench eventually. That kind of mark doesn’t matter, that’s just proof that I was here physically. What I really need is to prove that I belong here, that I always belonged here, that I’m part of Haven city no matter what anyone else might think. That is the undeniable truth of my soul. That’s the mark I need to make. He was tired, flopping over onto his side, pulling his knees to his chest for warmth. His final thought as he drifted off to a restless sleep was I’ll just have to have faith that when I wake up this won’t all be a dream to me.

______________________________________________________________

Inside of her dingey little low-street apartment, Winnie Mason basked in the warm glow of her nightly apple cider. Ever since she’d landed her first legitimate job she’d treated herself to the little luxury of buying some authentic teas and ciders from the local farmers market every weekend. Never in her life had she been able to afford the real thing before: real apple cider made with actual apples, not the synth-fruits they grew in labs and handed out in withered brown bags at the shelters or to the public school children for their lunches. Authenticity mattered to Winnie, she valued it above all things, and that’s why she was so disturbed by what she’d just seen on the news. Apparently some fancy mudman was caught trying to kidnap an LEP tunnel patrol team and now he’s claiming that he’s actually an elf or something. Ridiculous! 

The dwarf settled into her beanbag, the only piece of furniture besides the television and the stiff foam mattress that she owned at the moment, sipping thoughtfully from her warm mug. I mean, this is just insane, she thought. Nobody is going to stand for this, certainly not the LEP. 

“Just what has the world come to these days?” She tutted. She’d been struggling ever since her smuggling operation was slammed by the LEP. She and her two older brothers had been caught with two truckloads of micro video discs full of human films, a kind of media that was increasingly hard to come by with all the digital censorship and device tracking implemented throughout Haven City. People still needed to know what happened on the latest season of their favorite human soap opera. Those days were behind her, she reassured herself, she was working straight now. Landed a part-time custodial gig at an eel farm. Not glamorous work, but it beats rotting in Howler’s Peak like her brothers. They’d saved her life that day when the LEP patrol squad car blocked their trucks into a concrete ally. As soon as the blue and white headlights flashed, they all knew what would happen next.

“Go,” Chisel, her oldest brother, commanded her, “Hit the escape tunnel, cave it in behind you.”

“But I can’t leave you two!” With tears welling up in her eyes, Winnie reached for the battery powered laser pistol under the driver’s seat. Chisel stopped her.

“It’s not worth it, we’ll be out soon enough, just get the hell out of here, now!” And she did, because she’d always done what Chisel told her to. Chisel and Brock took the fall that day, even though it was Winnie at the wheel, Whinnie who took the risk making contact with their surface dwarf uncle, and Winnie who had convinced her two precious brothers that this was their ticket out of the slums.

Guilt gurgled in her stomach, the acid eating away at her. No, she had to tell herself, I’m doing good now. This is what they wanted for me, and while they’re stuck in Howler’s Peak I’m going to make a real, authentic life for myself. No shortcuts, no tricks, everything totally legit, and by the time my brothers are released I’ll be able to give them the life that they deserve. 

It was a beautiful dream, a dream that she clung to in the nights when her hands and feet were rubbed raw and sore from scrubbing eel tanks for six hours every day. A dream that kept her strong, kept her going. A dream that would never come to be. 

Cisco loses balance, but luckily he doesn’t fall onto the other students. He’s able to, with less grace than he’d hoped, fold back into child’s pose. This time, eyes closed and forehead pressed to the mat, he’s really not looking at Harry. He’s just wondering fervently if Harry is still looking at him.

All Cisco can hear, however, is the pounding of his heartbeat, so it’s a bit of a shock when he feels a tap to his shoulder.

“Class’s over,” and it’s Harry, of course.

Cisco lifts his head, realizes Harry is crouched in front of him, drops his head back down, and quickly shuffles to his feet. Or tries to. In the process, he knocks into Harry and then he falls over.

On top of Harry.

Cisco is going to die...but maybe dying on top of his--okay, okay, he has to admit it--hot yoga instructor isn’t the worst way to go.

“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.” It seems like the only word he knows. Maybe it is, because he says it again.

And Harry laughs that charming, kinda goofy laugh of his and Cisco realizes that he’s still on top of him.

Yep. He might crush Harry a little bit in his haste to get off of him, but at least he gets off. Not...not like that. He doesn’t get off with Harry, he just--

“Perhaps you need more work on your balance.”

Cisco nods. “Yeah. Totally. That’s, uh. That’s part of why I’m here.” He has enough sense to offer Harry a hand even though he feels like he should stop touching his instructor right now immediately. “Again, sorry, Harry.”

“It’s alright. Don’t go into physical fitness if you can’t accept falling down every once in a while.”

“God, you’re so weird.”

“What was that now?”

Cisco squeezes his eyes shut. “I meant. Like. You’re weird. Uh. No! No, I mean. That’s...that’s such a weird thing to say?”

Harry laughs again, lighter this time, and not nearly as incredulous as it ought to be. “Then what would be a normal thing to say?”

Cisco’s brain fries for a moment and he tries to think of something. What do normal people say? “Like...like, ‘Hey, wanna go out for coffee?’” Oh, god. What just came out of his mouth. That was just supposed to be an example of things normal people say. Cisco is not normal people, Cisco is--

“Love to,” Harry says, and Cisco manages to look at him.

Mouth gaping, Cisco tries to find his way back to the talking thing. “Oh-- Oka-- Yeah. Uh. Jitters?”

“Are you sure you’re not too jittery already?”

“Touché.” Cisco glances around. People have begun filing in for the next class and loud, high-energy music starts playing from the speakers. “Now?” he says-shouts to be heard over the music.

“Sounds great.”

One of Nyssa’s arms is tucked under Thea’s neck, supporting her, while her other comes around Thea’s side.

Oliver isn’t sure what to think when he sees where her hand goes, tucked into the waistband of Thea’s pajama bottoms.

It looks so…innocent, despite the circumstances.

“Thea,” Oliver whispers, and his sister makes a little noise of annoyance at being woken up, peeks open an eye.

“Ollie?” she answers, voice rough with sleep. She blinks, then gestures at him lazily.

Oliver smiles at her, shaking his head, and Thea frowns at him.

Meanwhile, Nyssa lifts her head from where her face had been shoved into the back of Thea’s hair, assessing the situation. She gives Thea a squeeze, presses a lazy kiss to the girl’s neck, then settles back down.

“Come on,” Thea whispers, and this time she reaches out to tug Oliver towards her and Nyssa.

With a long-suffering sigh, he turns, letting Thea tug him closer, his back to her chest.

Thea makes a pleased sound, though, and Oliver doesn’t even care that his sister is sleeping with his wife.

Cisco knows he shouldn’t lean into it, but he does. It makes Wells smile and it’s soft and warm and there’s something so comforting there that Cisco does feel better, believes the truth–believes something positive about himself–only when it comes from that mouth. It’s not right. He knows that, but… “You killed me,” he says, as if to defend himself, as if to pretend he doesn’t want to be here, with this man, now.

Wells nods, his face falling. “I know,” he agrees. “But I’m not going to now. You’re not going to give me reason to.” He says it not as a threat, but as a fact, and Cisco is caught up in the care Wells is showing for him.

When Wells leans in, Cisco finds himself doing the same, despite that part of his brain screaming at him for being so naïve as to think Eobard Thawne could really not be playing someone as insignificant as he is. It’s Cisco who takes innocence from the kiss, replaces it with need and that terribly, horribly perfect amount of wrong-right that comes with discovered truths. He winds his arms around Wells’s neck, crushes their bodies together.

Wells lifts him and Cisco wraps his legs around Wells’s waist, lets Wells press him to the wall.

He can cry about this later.