The Elf on the Soccer Team And the Girl Hidden in Shadow

Chatper 6- Girl isn't Human

Mother wheeled her immaculate BMW out of the parking lot, thumping her finger against the steering wheel. Chaaya recognized this as another form of self-expression for her mother; one that signaled Do not disturb until I am ready to speak. And so she did not. They were on the road for roughly five minutes when mother opened the conversation.

"How much do you already know?"

Chaaya took a moment to think, "Well, nothing really. Except what Auris told me earlier."

Mother nodded, "Good. Well, Chaaya, I have the blood of what is known as a 'shade' within me. You carry that same blood within you, albeit diluted."

"Diluted? How so? And what does having this blood even mean to me as a person?"

"Because your father is a full-blooded human. That second question of yours is where things start to get... interesting."

"It affects the way people perceive me, doesn't it? The way I fade into the background,"

Mother smiled, eyes turning across the open road, "Quite right, Chacha. That is just where it begins. As you begin to get ahold of your ability to fade, you can actually shift through dimensions."

Chaaya found this annoying, "Why wouldn't you tell me about this sooner?"

But mother took it in stride, "Because in early years, you can neither control it, nor have a high enough amount of the qualities that come with being a shade to pose an actual threat to anyone. All that I could seek to accomplish with telling you the information was make you feel different' from everyone else."

"But I DO feel different! I just never knew why! This isn't fair that you left me to wonder for so long."

"What difference would the knowledge have made, except to make you feel even further alienated? All it could have caused was damage."

Chaaya groaned, folding her arms and sitting back into her chair. Mom eased the car over onto the side of the road, sliding the gear into park, giving Chaaya her full attention.

"Look at me," Mom announced, even and smooth, like a pleasant breath of air with traces of mint.

Chaaya glanced over, leaving her arms in place, and only giving her the benefit of one eye that didn't require her to turn her head. 

"I didn't tell you because I wanted you to first understand that, despite your differences, your similarities to humans are innumerable." Mother rested a calming hand on Chaaya's knee. The gentle squeeze it gave signaled to Chaaya that, despite how it seemed, her best interests were constantly in her mother's head. But, as we've all been before, Chaaya was inconsolable. 

"Yeah, I sure got that feeling while I spent all those years sitting alone."

Mother gave her knee one last squeeze, before removing it and pushing the car back into drive. "It is not your experience that matters, only your observation. Did you not see the worth in the lives that surrounded you?"

"What do you even mean? Are you asking if I think less of them because I know they're different?" Chaaya scoffed, rolling her eyes, "Of course not. Stupid question."

"It appears stupid to you because you recognize our equality. Too many of our kind, too many of the self-proclaimed 'elevated' in general, humans are inferior. Like second-hand citizens of the planet." Mother replied, and Chaaya contemplated this. She realized her mother was right. When she saw what Auris was capable of, she inadvertently put him atop a pedestal, like he was better than their schoolmates. If she'd grown up knowing she had abilities like him, how differently would she see the world now?