The Tales of the Hidden Heir

It’s Morgan’s bedtime, and part of our ritual is selecting a story for me to read to her. I’m not surprised when I see which book she’s selected, I guess it"s her way of connecting with the parents she never knew but desperately wants to. I plan to ask her more about this soon, but I haven’t worked up the courage to do it yet. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to handle her answer tonight, because I’m a bit emotionally fragile about this topic at the moment. We don’t know what’s happened to her parents yet, even all these years later. They could be dead for all we know and usually, I’m better at dealing with the uncertainty, but tonight it"s just getting to me. Noa and I are the only parents that Morgan has ever known, and while we’re huge fans of being transparent with her, tonight I keep my thoughts to myself. I want her to just enjoy being a child for as long as possible and not worry about me. It’s my job to protect her after all. After I’m finished reading, I do a snuggle check and make sure she’s nice and cozy in her pink princess bed around her teddy bears. I turn her dolphin side table light on and switch the room light off and kiss her goodnight and make my way downstairs. This house is old and creaks, but after being here for almost a year, it has started to feel like a home away from home. I go to the kitchen and pour myself a whisky, and make myself comfortable in the lounge as I sip it. I don’t usually drink so I can remain alert, but I make an exception tonight because I’m in a dark reflective mood. It"s hard to reconcile all the events that got us here. I’ve had to give up the most amazing family life and my best friend to go into hiding. I don’t regret a single choice and if presented with the chance to do it all over again, I would make the same choices because I love this little girl with all that I have and I will gladly give up my life for her. But tonight, I just miss everyone that I left behind. My thoughts go back to Morgan’s parents, I know that if they’re alive they won’t make contact until they think it"s safe. I just wish I knew what happened to them so that we had some closure. I turn my thoughts to the concept of growth, and how much I’ve grown. I used to be a bit of a brat, but I’ve grown and become part of a new family, one I’ve chosen. But I would give anything to have one last phone call with my mom, one last hug from my dad, one last family meal, or even one last playfight with my brother. But I can’t risk it, it"s just too dangerous for me, for them, and for Morgan to try any of those things so I hold onto my memories and pour myself another drink in an attempt to distract myself. I can’t ever be remotely tipsy, so I finish my second drink off and cut myself off here as I look over the dark forest that makes up our backyard. I begin the nightly lock-up routine as I get ready for bed and check that the patio doors are locked before I check the kitchen windows and then the door. I don’t need to do this manually, but I do anyway as it gives me the sense of control that I need in this situation. Satisfied, I make my way up to the second floor and pause by Morgan’s bedroom door. I peek my head in and confirm that she’s still sound asleep and I smile to myself. I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t do for this girl, she is the light of my life. I’m about to turn around and go to bed, but I notice the glare of a puddle of water on the floor which is out of place. I look around the room to find the source and see the water leaking from Morgan’s hands. I remain calm, because this is way too early for this to happen but thank the goddess that it"s my element so I know how to navigate this. After a few minutes of observing her, I see the puddles remain consistently small so her body is just adjusting to the new power that she’s coming into. That"s good, we can manage this. I wave my hands in the air and place an alert on her room so that if the water starts expanding past ankle length, the spell will wake me up to come to deal with it. Happy with my problem-solving skills, I go to bed. Once in bed, I think back to what we learned as young Fae about our emerging powers. Don’t ever attempt to stop it, you need to adjust to the situation, adapt, and see where it ends up. It"s the only way to deal with it. But there has never been anyone like Morgan either, so I also feel like I’m winging this most of the time. I wonder if I should experiment with her school load and start to introduce some Fae schooling into her normal human schooling. I’m trying to give her a good balance between both worlds, and again, I feel like it"s way too early to do this, but my instinct tells me she’s ready for it. I want to tell Noa about this new development, but then I remember it"s two more days until she’s home. Sighing sadly to myself, because I miss her too, I raise my hands to check if the intruder spell is still active, and getting the confirmation I need, I get into bed and try and fall asleep. The next day is a Saturday and since it"s a weekend, I let Morgan sleep in. Adjusting to a change in your magic can be exhausting, especially on her tiny body. I start a load of washing and make breakfast, I settle on pancakes because it"s one of her favorites. While they’re cooking away, I pack a picnic basket, because today is a beach day and a chance to have some fun. Because of my affinity for water, the beach has always been one of my favorite places and by the way it"s going, it looks like it"s becoming Morgan’s too. Noa doesn’t like it when I leave the house on my own normally, but since it"s been so quiet for so long, I decide it’s a calculated risk we can take. Morgan comes down the stairs wiping sleep from her eyes and squeals with happiness and a clap when she sees breakfast waiting for her. After it, she helps me with cleaning up and we make our way to the beach. The beach is deserted as far as the eyes can see, and being on the beach again makes me think back to my childhood. I’m a Seelie Fae, but I look human. We all do actually. Short version? The Fae (which is a race, there are loads of subsets of us) got banished to Earth as punishment for our poor behavior. I wasn’t alive when this happened, but we all get taught about these events as we grow up. While I don’t know Faerie as my parents did, they talked about it all the time when we were growing up, so in a way, I feel like a part of me knows it. I grew up in California in the most perfect slice of Suburbia, and our home was this bright cheery yellow, that always made me smile. My best friend Grace lived a few houses down from us. She’s the sister I always hoped I would have. Grace was the Seelie Princess of Faerie. They had tons of money, people waiting on them and she never wanted anything. Despite this, she was the most humble, kind, and incredible person. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, we weren’t poor or anything like that, but if I wanted the latest tech device, I needed to get a job to save for it. While we may not have had a lot of money, we did have a lot of love. It sounds corny when I say it out loud, but looking back on it now, it was the best environment for us to grow up in. I’m trying to give Morgan something similar. My parents worked for Grace’s mom, the Queen of Seelie, Camilla. While she’s still our Queen and well-loved, she’s taken a human job as well and become a Politician. She’s a damn good one at that, and it seems like she’s now running for our Town Mayor. I won’t be surprised if she wins. To help us integrate with humans when we came to Earth, she encouraged us to take on human jobs and align with their ways as much as possible without compromising our own. She led by example obviously, so the rest of us followed suit. The only real differences these days are she still keeps her Seelie Court advisors in place and they meet monthly to review the state of the Court, and the Queen has kept a watered-down version of her Royal Guard, led by my dad. I don’t say watered down to diminish their capability but to show they’re a lot smaller in size than they used to be. They just need less protection than they used to when they were back in Faerie from what I understand. Beth, the Queen’s twin lives with her to help raise Grace and manage any general day-to-day stuff. Sadly, the King died when Grace was a newborn and while neither of us knew him, the Court still talks about how much he was loved. Some people even say that Grace has inherited her goodness from him. My Dad is Head of Security, and my Mom is the Royal Chef. I think this is partly what contributed to Grace and I being so close from such a young age. My brother and I were always around her as we grew up together. While she would never admit it, I also think my dad was the male father figure she missed so much in her life. I was 10 when I discovered that water was my element. We were at the beach with my parents, and I just randomly spoke to a seal like it was a person without even realizing I was doing something different. After some very cute puppy behavior from Betty (what I called the seal), I convinced her to go home even though I had no idea what I was doing. Control of your element at that age is not easy. Grace admitted that she had realized hers was fire the week before by showing a flame in her hand to me. She said that she just didn’t want to tell me before mine had developed because we always had done everything together. We promised to never keep secrets from each other again. When we were 14, Grace told me she had made out with my brother. While I was completely grossed out by this, she was worried about what this would do to our friendship so she was honest with me about it. We spoke through it and I reassured her that if she was serious about my brother, she had my blessing. It didn’t work out, but we told each other the truth and that’s what counted. Around the same time, I realized I liked girls more than boys and Grace had my back about this too. I’m watching Morgan build her sand castle under my umbrella, and instinctively, she calls from some water from the ocean to build her castle’s moat. Impressed, I put my book down and continue watching trying to decide how I can contribute. It appears she has a natural gift for control that most older Fae older struggle with. I’m not sure how many powers she"s going to develop, but each time it happens, I will be here to help her figure it out. I call some foam from some of the waves at the beachfront and add to her moat on her castle and I get a giggle out of her. Throwing down a challenge, we set to build the most epic sand castle that we’ve ever seen and end up having the most perfect beach day any of us have had in a long time.