A Thousand Auras

I thought it was time to start exploring some of the thousand Auras. The Aura of our world had tiny magical gold stud earrings that read her mind and take her to worlds she's interested in visiting. Most Auras that she runs across don't have the earrings, but those aren't the only differences. Here are some versions of Aura that we'll  probably meet in A Thousand Auras (the novel) if we ever get around to writing it.

Our Aura's full name is Aurora Borealis Hamptington, will change to Hampington-Hale in any universe where Britney marries Colin. In our universe, Britney and Colin are not married yet, not sure when/if they will be.

Britney is Aura's adoptive mother in most universes. She's a little person, fashion designer, not naturally maternal, but her kids would not guess that.

Darcy is Aura's birth mother, only keeps her in one universe. (Darcy is a mermaid and Aura was born with legs instead of a tail and no gills at all, so raising her is difficult, especially since Darcy was a teen mom and already kind of on her own.)

Califaura -- This Aura was still adopted by Britney but in a universe where Britney stayed in California. Goes by "Rora". Is a gentle-spirited, yoga practicing, zen gardening vegan. Her mother is a very successful fashion designer whose home base is Malibu, but they travel to Europe often. She's very centered and sophisticated. She tends to get her own way, but can let it go when she doesn't. Believes in karma in a California way, not the original meaning. Very culturally appreciative, bordering on appropriative.

Blackmere Aura -- She is from a world where Britney never went to California, so when Darcy left the baby on a fancy yacht and then waited to make sure the baby was discovered. She was, but was turned into the police station and grew up in the foster care system. Pretty grim.

This version of Aura is named Cat. She's obsessed with Steampunk, so when she meets our Aura, Aura agrees to find her a steampunk world to live in. Aura drops her off at a steampunk school called Blackmere Academy. (This is another story of mine that I hadn't initially considered having an Aura in, but since I had a steampunk Aura in mind, I figured out she could hang here. I already have main characters for the book I'm writing but Cat can maybe be a secondary or tertiary character and maybe even eventually get her own story.)

Darcy's Aura -- Our only Aura who Darcy tried to raise herself. Aurora helps her mom scavenge sunken ships, is incredibly independent, almost abrasive. She needs more equipment than Darcy in order to help scavenge, obviously, but since she has legs, she can bargain with the landlubbers.

When approaching the time of The Rift, our Aura finally allows herself to wonder if her birth mother kept her in any universe. This is her last version of herself that she meets before The Rift. 

In a lot of worlds, Aura will trade places with her alternate version so that they can experience each others' lives but Aura didn't want to break it to Aurora that Darcy had ever thought of giving her up. But Aurora spots Aura, is familiar with lush and has her own earrings (although has only ever travelled within her own universe. It didn't occur to her to go to other universes because she grew up a bit isolated and Darcy isn't much of a storyteller, so her imagination was never sparked in the same way as Aura's).

Anyway, Aurora is the one who figures out who Aura is. Darcy has often remarked that she almost gave Aurora up for adoption, which she she is so accustomed to that she doesn't take it personally. Her mother's not a hugger but she is charming in her own way and they are more colleagues than mother-daughter.

So, Aurora and Aura switch places and Aura gets to know Darcy. Darcy wonders if her daughter is sick because she's quieter and less forceful than usual. She also has zero experience with scavenging sunken ships, so Aura plays sick. It's weird. Maybe Aurora is accustomed to Darcy's lack of affection, but Aura is so accustomed to hugs and hair strokes that she finds Darcy intimidating. She asked Darcy if she regrets keeping her, and Darcy says "often", but she says it in a way that reminds Aura of Britney's wry sense of humor, so Aura relaxes a bit.

Darcy talks about how she almost didn't. She swam up on the beach and spotted someone there, but couldn't bring herself to go through with waving the person down. Aura wonders what held Darcy back, since in every other universe she did give Aura up. Darcy had her own yacht that floated and had a working engine (other Darcys lived in the same yacht but it was sunken). This meant that she was more mobile and could cover up her tail and gills if she needed to boat up to land to interact with humans.

Darcy only meant to keep Aurora until she couldn't anymore, and that day never came. Sixteen years went by in a blink.

For her part, Aurora likes Britney but finds her a bit touchy-feely. She is kind of academically interested in Britney, knowing that it was some version of Britney who adopted her in 90% of other universes, and acknowledges that if she couldn't have her own mom, Britney might be okay. But she's glad to go back to her own universe. 

Dead Aura -- This is a sad one. There's a universe where Aura got hit by a car and died. Britney spots Aura and bursts into tears. Aura gets to let Britney know what a great mother she is and that she's alive and well in most other universes. She continues to visit this Britney occasionally until it's time for The Rift.

Fat Aura -- This is a universe where Britney never made it to California. Unlike Blackmere Aura, she does get adopted by loving parents at around age nine or ten but an early life of hunger has messed with her metabolism and given her some food issues, so they can't trade places seamlessly, but they can trade notes and hang out.

Britney's Dozen Aura -- This is a fun one. My original version of Aura's story had Britney adopting/fostering a dozen kids, including Aura (named Verlee in that version). I ended up making the cast smaller because I thought it would be easier to write, yet here we are another decade later, lol. Anyway, this version of Britney is a lot softer than Aura's Britney, less career-focused (she has to be, she has so many damned kids) and designs and tailors prom dresses for local high school girls, rather than having a larger business focused entirely on fashion designs for little people.

This is the only version of Aura who can travel to different universes (that I've developed, anyway) and does so, often. The difference is that she takes her family members with her. So, if her little sister, Tita, wants to go somewhere for fun, instead of the park, they go to the world where the clouds are like trampolines and it rains lollipops and there are pegasi and fairies flying around everywhere.

The Auras get to take each other to universes that the other has never been to. This is a version of Aura that Aura visits a lot.

Okay, that's six alternate Auras to start with. I mostly made up Auras around different outfits, like Artist Aura and Horror Film Aura and Butterfly Hunter Aura. It would be fun to explore their actual stories and personalities in another post. I've been meaning to get some of these down since I started this blog back up.

In case it wasn't obvious, I like to keep Britney as Aura's mother as a mostly positive thing. My initial idea for Britney the Dwarf Queen was meant to explore a middle grade story from an adult's POV. And Aura's life changes drastically depending on which version of Britney she gets. If Britney never gets together with Colin (her childhood sweetheart), if she marries someone else, if she stays single, if she adopts another kid or has her own birth children, if she stayed in California or went back to Connecticut after adopting Aura, if they ended up living somewhere else, if Britney continued her dream of fashion design to some degree or if she gave up on it and does something else.

I also have different nicknames for each Aura, so that their stories don't get too confusing. A lot of the ones that Aura visits ARE named Aura, but the ones who feature heavily in her story will have names like Rory, Roar, Rora, Or, or Ra (other nicknames for Aurora) or incorporate her middle name in some way. Borealis could yield Bory, Alis, Real. She can also just be named after her initials: Ay, Bea, AB, or after her last name (I haven't really thought of any, but I can). I might actually change her last name so that I can get some more good nicknames for her initials and stuff.

I had to actually go through several files to even find Britney's last name and had never given Colin a surname until today, so I'm not attached to any of that. I may explore some new surnames in a different post.