Chapter 1 New British Prime Mininster's POV

While we were waiting for everyone to arrive for our first proper cabinet meeting I sat down and tried to practice my approachable relaxed posture.

“Sir.”

“You can still call me David, Carmine.”

“OK, David, how was the visit with the Queen?”

“Interesting. She all but admitted that she had asked my predecessor to resign, but had no desire to interfere again. She did bring up something else that we have to wait until everybody is here to discuss.”

“She was probably worried that we would take away her ability to intervene.” Said Carmine.

“Her actions have potentially saved our country. After a week of demonstrations, the public view was clear and yet it took the Queen to put us back on track. I have no intention of taking away a part of our democracy that can save it from itself.” I replied.

The table was full and everyone was waiting. A lot of us were new at this job with no real experience. I had been a back bencher who abstained on the Elf vote and then resigned when it was passed. Forming a new Party called Britain First and gathering in all those who had voted against the bill or had abstained like me had been easy. Working out an Elf friendly agenda had been a bit more difficult, still, it had worked and we had been voted in with an overwhelming majority. Now we had to deliver.

“OK, good morning everyone. Let's start with the Minister for Elf Affairs, Steven.”

“Most of you may know some of this, but, some don't, so please be patient. It has been four weeks since the previous administration abducted Mrs Tia Dione. We believe she escaped the next day and has not been seen since, apart from that TV appearance. We are pretty sure that all our men we had there were killed. We know the incinerator on site was used and the remains are consistent with human bodies. All electronic evidence, besides that which was posted online, has been unrecoverable.

“There are rumours that she has been seen in Europe, but there has been no confirmation. A female elf who looks identical, but has short hair, and is claiming to be her mother, has established herself as the acting head of the Elven Nation. She is residing in a large fortified compound in Fiji.”

“What is her name?” I asked.

“She calls herself Mia Dione. If we want any dealings with the Elven Nation, we will have to go through her. Onto our election promises. Repealing the bill shouldn't be that difficult, there are even grounds to dismiss it in high court, but we want to be seen to have done the work. The difficult one is giving up the Isle of Wight. The population is almost 150,000. It will have to be discussed with Mrs Mia Dione. I'm hoping that she would be alright with anyone staying who wished to. Moving that many people is going to be problematic.”

“If we can hand Hong Kong over to the Chinese, I'm sure we can hand the Isle of Wight over to the Elven Nation. If they even want it, what is happening with them in Fiji?” I asked Steven.

“They have an American Elf in charge of that. At the moment they are dredging and creating a sea port. The Island has been renamed New Amilyf, but will take some time to become habitable. It does give us a chance if we can convince them to try the Isle of Wight. Infrastructure is already in place. They can become either a free nation state or a Crown dependency like the Isle of Man.”

“So, you think they will accept?”

“I am hopeful. There are a lot of advantages to the Isle of Wight as a base for them. There are plentiful supplies and easy access to more. They wouldn't have to create their own currency and there would be easy travel to the rest of the world. They can make the island as secure as they wish. The only disadvantages are the population that already exists there and if a subsequent government tried to change its mind. We can make that difficult but not impossible and, to be honest, that is not a bad thing. They will have to keep good relations with us as we will be a close neighbour.”

“While we start the legislation, I think you will need to arrange to travel to Fiji and talk to Mia Dione directly. See what kind of agreement you can come up with. Now, I have another bit of news for us to discuss. As you know the Queen is not as young as she used to be. Her husband has now passed on and she wondered how would the country take it, if she applied for Elfhood. She is not enjoying the ageing process and is unsure whether she would need to abdicate her throne if she managed to convince Tia Dione to treat her. Of course, that can't happen unless we manage to remove the exclusion that is presently in place.”

“The only way to find out if the country would like it or not would be to do some kind of poll. Either an official one or an unofficial one, depending on what you want to do with the results. The Queen might get some backlash by getting ahead of the queue, on the other hand, she is very popular, especially after intervening recently.” Steven said.

“Let's start with an unofficial one. Steven, a lot rests on your shoulders. OK, anyone else with something to add?” I asked.

“Err.. did you know about the court case in America?” Andrew, head of foreign affairs, asked me.

“No. What court case?”

“Veronica Dione, Tia's wife, has a large inheritance due her on her 25th Birthday, however her Aunt, Emily Styles, whose son is splitting that inheritance, has filed a case in court. She is claiming that if Veronica Dione is not considered human, she does not have any right to the inheritance. How can she be a great granddaughter and yet be a different species? At the moment, both Tia and Veronica Dione are uncontactable and their location is unknown. Her parents have resurfaced after our election win, but are not willing to travel to America to fight the case. An Elf lawyer is representing Veronica and has signed documents to say that she can.”

“Should we do anything about this?”

“Veronica is still a British citizen, but this is a civil court case, so I'm not sure there is much we can do.”

“Who is this lawyer representing her?”

“Ms. Rutberb was an excellent lawyer with a great reputation who was going to retire due to advanced breast cancer. This will be a landmark case. If an Elf is considered unable to inherit, that will open up the floodgates. There seems to be a lot of religious extremists supporting the case, protests and I suspect providing the money.”

“Keep an eye on it, it could blow up in all sorts of ways.” If they weren't careful they could be next on the exclusion list. That could benefit us, but I wasn't going to encourage it.

Matteo/ Wendy's POV

My front door rang. I live in a one bed flat in Bruges and like my privacy. It was nearly nine pm at night, so I certainly wasn't expecting anybody. I was dressed in jeans and a T shirt, but had put makeup on as soon as I had got home after work, since I expected to be undisturbed.

The doorbell rang again. I sighed and went to the bathroom to quickly wash my makeup off. It wasn't going to be one of my few friends, they would have rung first and my family had kicked me out. If it rings again, I will answer it, I thought.

It rang a third time. I sighed again and went to answer it. I left the chain on so the door could only open a fraction. There in front of me was a beautiful woman. Tall and very curvy, dressed in dark jeans and a black top, she rocked this dark almost assassin type vibe.

“Hello, do you speak English?” She asked.

It wasn't my first language, but when you are obsessed with transgender issues and stories which is mostly written in English, your English tends to improve. “Er, yes. How may I help you?”

“Are you Matteo also known as Wendy?”

I gasped in fear. No one here should know my Wendy identity.

“It is alright, Wendy. I am here to help.” She smiled at me, took her hat off, moved her hair behind her ears and I could immediately see that she had slightly pointed ears. She was an Elf. “You applied to join the Elf Nation, I am here to offer you that chance. I need you to go and turn off everything you need to turn off and come with me. Don't call anybody, grab your keys but leave your phone and wallet behind.”

I shut the door to take the chain off and then opened it again. I didn't want to leave her in front of a shut door. I would need to take a risk. Going off with a complete stranger without even my identity was scary, but no way was I missing this opportunity. I rushed around turning off all the lights and unplugging the television and then down to the front door, picking up my keys on the way.

The Elf led me to a parked van and I got in the back. There were three other candidates in there with me. Two of them were transgender like me and the third was ill with some kind of disease. There were no windows so we couldn't see where we were going. We chatted a bit, all excited. The drive took about an hour and we seemed to go back on ourselves several times, so I really had no idea where we were.

When we got out it was too dark to see much, but I could tell we were in a forest and there was a large tent in front of me, the Elf led us inside where there were eight blow up mattresses laid out on the floor. There were two girls already lying down on a mattress with a headset on. They both had a blanket covering their lower half and I suspected they were paraplegic.

A voice that sounded like it was coming from a phone, so probably in the Elf's pocket, announced five minutes. Two of the mattresses were left separate. We all laid down on the others, put on a headset that they gave us and waited patiently. After a few minutes we heard two people enter and move to the two available mattresses.

“Everyone ready?” Tia called out. I knew it was her, because I recognized the voice.

We all said yes.

“Alright, we are going for a three day trip to Lagbit's World. Anyone who doesn't want to, please say now.”

There was a deafening silence. “OK, here we go.” Tia said and I drifted off to sleep.