The Urchin and The Elfspring

Trixie was surprised to see a boy follow her mom into their apartment. "Hi mom," she said warily, eyeing the stranger.

"Hey, Monkey," Mom looked nervously between the two of them. "Trixie, this is Ercan By-River, he's… um… he's going to be staying with us for a couple nights."

"Why?"

"I… your dad and I don't think Lucifer's penthouse is a good place for him right now."

"Why not?" Trixie could see Ercan tugging on his left ear and looking at the ground in embarrassment. It'd be hella cool to stay with Lucifer; he was an easy pushover and a total dork. That, in her mind, made him the perfect kind of adult supervision. Especially for a boy. Probably. Unless it was the Dad-Joke thing; the Devil could be so cringey it was fatal sometimes.

"Your dad found him sitting with Lucifer, drinking in LUX."

Eyes going wide, she stared at him. "You got caught drinking beer?!" No wonder her mom brought him back to their place. Still, something wasn't adding up. Trixie crossed her arms. "How come he's not in jail if dad arrested him?"

"I'm arrested?" the boy asked, looking at her mom. "But, Lord Lucifer said-."

"As much as I love him, Lucifer's not exactly someone you want to take legal advice from, Ercan."

"But, he's your realm's king. Doesn't he make your laws?"

Okay, what?

She couldn't stop staring at Ercan's ears. Trixie knew it was rude, but she couldn't help it. They were so pointy that she wanted to poke them. A real-life, Lord of the Rings kind of elf from another world was silent-reading one of her old books to himself as she worked through her assignment about Martin Luther King Jr.

"I wish Ella and Dad would've invited me over to play the game so I could've seen your portal thing. That would've been so cool," she muttered, trying to figure out how to word her next answer.

"The woods were on fire, so it was really hot, not cool." he said. "I just wish I knew how I even got caught up in the middle of that stupid fight in the first place."

"What d'you mean?"

"Well, Lord Aethal's astrologer had told me to pick up a specially ground piece of glass for him at the Artificer's house. When I got there, all of a sudden things started exploding, I lost my spectacles, and some really angry Orcs were running toward me from the forest."

"Did you touch something that you weren't supposed to?" Trixie asked, knowing from experience that it was never good to pick up the weird looking things that Maze and Lucifer kept, like the ginormous collars and fuzzy handcuffs. Nothing ever blew up or started on fire, but she sure did get yelled at by her mom later.

"I didn't touch anything; I know better than that." Ercan shook his head. "All I did was open the door."

"I hate when that happens." She could totally relate. "Like, last year, I went over to see Lucifer 'cause my mom said he wasn't feeling good, and all of a sudden this guy showed up to kill him and Eve for some reason. That was really scary."

Ercan gasped. "Did you get hurt?"

"No, my mom and dad arrested the bad guy before that could happen."

"It's a good thing your parents are both City Watch," he said.

"They're detectives, in the police." Trixie said, making sure to enunciate the two unfamiliar words for him. "I guess it is, but sometimes they can be really harsh."

The elf nodded. "Like when they send you to prison?"

"Huh?"

"Lord Lucifer said that humans send their children to a prison all day," Ercan said, confused, before explaining what he'd been told.

"Mom?"

Chloe turned around to the dining table. "Yeah, Monkey?"

"Can I take Ercan to school with me?"

She looked at the teens. Did the elf still count as a teenager, even if he was older than she was? That part was still a bit… confusing. "That depends, Trix."

"On what?"

"Well, um," hesitating, Chloe watched them as she tried to sort out her answer. Trixie was excited by the idea, obviously, but Ercan's curiosity had a slight terrified edge to it. What was her daughter's thought process? "Why do you want him to come with you?"

"Lucifer told him that we get sent to school if we've broken rules and made it sound like the worst punishment ever." Trixie frowned. "I can't really explain what it's actually like, unless I take him with me." She looked so hopeful and was giving her best puppy-eyes. "Please? We could say he's a cousin from a different country who came over on a vacation or something."

"Of course he said that," Chloe muttered, rolling her eyes.

Lucifer genuinely meant well, he really did, but there were a lot of human norms that he just couldn't seem to comprehend; speed limits, school, birthdays, clothes. The man – archangel – was infuriatingly endearing.

"Mom?"

"Sorry, I'm still… thinking about it. Let me talk it over with Linda and your dad first, okay?"

Trixie shrugged. "Okay."