April 20, 2002 – 14:00
Vectan Iridian and Roberto Swanson stood on Lizzy Hudson's front porch. It was a Saturday afternoon. Before ringing the doorbell, they took the time to walk around the duplex, trying to sense any elemental energy signature lingering in the air.
"I'm not getting any read, not even a lingering scent," said Vectan.
"Me neither, so the signalment has ground. Humans live here, with the likelihood of a young female elemental who hasn't quite come into her power yet, and probably had no prior knowledge of what we are," said Roberto.
Roberto pressed on the doorbell, and Lizzy opened the door a minute later. She let them in, and the agents introduced themselves. Vectan and Roberto looked around and saw another human woman and a young elemental.
"I am Lizzy Hudson, and this is Molly, my sister. I showed her the letter and well, she was here when Coralis and Sebastian explained to us what it was, so I asked her to be here today. Is that okay?"
"The caller mentioned having to do a revelation to two unknowing humans, you must be the two humans mentioned?" said Roberto.
"Yes. My nephew was also there but he already knew. He didn't know about my daughter, but he knew about… elementals. Please take a seat," said Lizzy, motioning to her two-seater couch.
Molly sat on the single-seater chair and Audrey walked into the living room carrying two folding chairs. She gave one to her mother.
"May I offer you anything to drink or eat?" said Molly, glancing at her sister.
"No, but I appreciate the offer. Ms. Hudson, you need to tell us everything you know about Audrey Hudson's father, even the details you may think of as insignificant. We also want to look at the letter you received," said Vectan.
Lizzy handed him the letter and told him the same thing she said to Coralis and Sebastian.
"Did you meet Audrey's father?" said Roberto to Molly.
"Only once. Back then, my sister and I had an entirely different work schedule, and I was raising three children by myself, so we barely saw each other. He came once to a family Christmas party, but stayed silent nearly the entire time."
Roberto stood up and kneeled in front of Audrey.
"Pass me your hand, please."
Audrey held her right hand to him, and he grabbed it with his left hand. He looked at it and released it after a few seconds.
"You are indeed an elemental, a mage. Your aura has an earth feel to it, but it's too faint to be able to determine this part with certitude. We will need to have a deeper look at who your father is."
"What concerns me, is the type of letter you received, which leads me to believe that either the father was planning to be here, or thought he'd be the one to receive it. The enrollment is recent. You should never have received that type of letter, given your situation. That alone gives ground to capture the father," said Vectan.
"Can he take my niece away from us? My son's girlfriend is the one who spoke to us with my daughter's boyfriend. They explained it a little bit to us but couldn't elaborate because they had to go back to work. It still is a shock to me."
"You have two children seeing elemental beings?" said Roberto to Molly.
"We do not take children away from their parents, even if they're not elementals, unless we have a valid reason to do so, which isn't the case at the moment," said Vectan.
"Yes, my son has been with Coralis for about 2 years and my daughter has been seeing Sebastian for about a year, but I didn't know the truth about them until we showed them the letter and it reacted to Coralis. My kids knew about them, however."
"I think that I somehow knew that she was like me, but I don't know why, or how," said Audrey, thinking about Coralis.
Lizzy's eyes became moist, and so were Molly's. Roberto returned to his seat.
"We will have her father investigated. As per our customs and laws, when an elemental enters into a serious relationship with a human, they have to reveal the truth about what they are to their partner, to prevent this type of situation. This is a process we refer to as revealing ourselves, and can only be done when trust has been established and if the partner is considered as a potential spouse," said Roberto.
"In the meantime, we will assign to Audrey Hudson a new elemental guardian through blood override, just in case the father had appointed one. Considering he never revealed himself to you, left you before his child was born and enrolled her in an elemental school without you knowing or even having met her, causing exposure breaches, he lost any rights to his daughter, and we want to ensure that he can't take her with him. We can't trust him to teach her our ways properly," said Vectan.
"An elemental guardian is like a godparent, tasked to guide an elemental youngling up to adulthood. In a situation like yours, the elemental guardian is also there to help you navigate through the complexities of our kinds and protect your daughter if something were to happen," said Roberto.
"Could Coralis do it?" said Audrey.
Lizzy and Molly looked at her, both wiping tears down their eyes.
"I'll call Frank if she can and if you want her as such. My brother Lucian is your godfather, but he walked away from the family when you were 3 anyway," said Lizzy.
"Possibly. What can you tell us about her?" said Roberto.
"I don't know their last names, hers and Sebastian. We only found out about them on Tuesday, but from what we know, she and Sebastian work for national defence, something like that. Coralis works two full-time jobs. Her main job relates to extreme sports, and Sebastian works with her there. Her second job is dangerous, from what my kids told me and I believe it. She saved my life 2 years ago."
"Extreme sport?" said Vectan.
"After they left, Frank told us a little bit more. He said they play a sport called flyball and take down criminals as part of their second job," said Audrey.
"Coralis Golmar, known as Blue Thunder, and Sebastian Larameer," said Roberto, smiling.
"You know them?" said Molly.
"Who doesn't! I am fay, and even I know them. Outside of flyball, Sebastian is an apprentice for the CMMA, but he works for the crime and security department, and Blue, well…" said Vectan.
"If Coralis Golmar agrees to become elemental guardian to Audrey Hudson, we will not object to it," said Roberto.
Lizzy dialled Frank's number. He answered after the first ringtone. He was at work, but there was no customer in front of him. He walked to the bathroom and locked himself there as his aunt asked if he was with Coralis.
"She isn't with me at the moment, I'm at work, and so is she. Are the CMMA agents with you?"
"Yes, and they said something about appointing Audrey a new elemental guardian. She wants Coralis, and the agents told us that she could if she agrees to it. It's like a godparent."
"I'll try to reach out to her to ask, but I don't think she'll mind. I'll call you back when I hear from her?"
"Thanks, Frank, I'll owe you if she accepts."
Lizzy hung up and told Frank's answer to the CMMA agents. Roberto and Vectan got up.
"Don't worry, we have a different way to reach out to her and get a binding response. She's most likely on the flyball field. Do you mind if we use your kitchen window? We will need to send a pigeon, and too many potential onlookers by the windows here," said Vectan.
"We will also need a few drops of Audrey Hudson's blood," said Roberto as he pulled a piece of parchment and what looked like a pencil out of his cloak.
They headed to the kitchen. Roberto laid the piece of parchment on the countertop and wrote something on it using the pencil-looking tool. He stretched his left hand toward Audrey, and she raised her left hand to him. He turned to face her, grabbed it and briefly turned his right hand into a dog paw. Using a claw, he poked through her thumb and squeezed it to draw blood.
He let three drops fall on the parchment and released her hand. He opened the window and shrunk the parchment. A pigeon flew in, and Roberto handed the parchment to it. He stared at it for a moment. The pigeon took it in its beak, swallowed it and left.
While Roberto was busy preparing the binding agreement, Vectan had been looking through some documents stored in his hologram.
"I couldn't find any information on the father or if there was a guardian. BT is the caller on file for this case. Caller mentioned that another elemental was involved in the Tuesday's revelation, written as SL. I will not bother to call the office for their full names. We should know her answer in a few minutes," said Vectan as Roberto closed the window.
"She hid her energy well, and so did Sebastian. We couldn't sense any of their lingering energy when we arrived," said Roberto.
"If she accepts, you are going to either be making a lot of friends wishing to meet her, or a lot of jealous enemies," said Vectan to Audrey.