homeless_pard

Who: Khemrys, Jason?
When: A few weeks after his incarceration.
What: The first dream.

Khemrys tucked her nose in Kirion's hair and cuddled Irias close as was her wont these days. Her children were safe and surrounded by the strongest people she knew, but she still needed the visceral reminder in order to even doze at all. She was not coping well. Her family was not whole. Her Jason was so far from safety it was laughable to think she could even describe how painful it was.

A pain she carried from waking to sleep today it seemed, harsh and sharp in her chest as she tended plants. Her greenhouse was a small, normal sanctuary, she didn't even notice that the planting beds stretched from what she now held to the gardens at the abbey before her flight. Dark trees twisted past that, dripping with moss and dampness in this season, an echoing, boulder strewn wilderness beyond. A full run of an hour until they could even find the nearest village from there.

For a long time that small place had been her safety and sanctuary, a place even a rootless child like her could be treasured by soft, elderly hands and rheumy eyes full of kindness. Was it any wonder that it spelled such now when she felt so bereft?

Granted, it wasn't without it's heartaches.

"What did you expect my little flower?" the faded memory of Dame Rimia sighed, sitting on her bench to feel the few rays of sunlight that still fell despite the nearby trees. "Such a life, starting as yours did, will ever face hardships."

She winced, a weed tearing harshly under her probing fingers, "My pains are mine to bear. The children and my lord husband shouldst not suffer for what others thought of me here..."

"Aye, that is why you left and rerooted was it not?" Rimia chuckled softly, knobbed and gnarled hands resting as comfortably as they might upon the top of her walking cane.

She settled on her heels, considering that, "No dame. I left because I was hunted and I found safety elsewhere. Safety and a future, and that I...I need and deserve."

The memory smiled, wrinkles carved deep and unending through the once sun-kissed face of the woman who had been her mentor and surrogate mother when her own gave in to madness, "now there is a truth. Such a little bloom you've become my dear," she chuckled softly. "Do you know how close Death and Dreams are in this world my dear one?"

Khemrys blinked, not understanding the change of subject? "In a medical sense mayhap? Sleep and a coma are near identical betimes, and from there..."

Rimia grinned, "a bright little blossom indeed. It was wonderful to see you again, I hope you find what you need here among your plants."

Khem froze, considering, what? What even? She looked toward the bench wanting answers but there was no shade seated there now, no memory, or wishful thinking of words she'd not heard in their entire before...

...just her and her greenhouse beds becoming a proper garden of herbs only seen in her own world.

Ah, a dream. She dusted her hands off and sighed, wondering now. "Find what I need?" Wouldst there be some nugget of truth posing as a tuber here she could then tell the lawyers mayhap? Dreams were but wandering one's own mind after all, so why not search for what might be useful?

Why not indeed?

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"This is a fair bit more than a 'little'," she pursed her lips. But if he wished to brush it off she'd allow it for now. There would be a reckoning of course, later, but it wasn't on his shoulders that particular coming storm!

And, well, he better not. "Good. I know people trapped might do drastic things," she sighed, relaxing a touch. "So I needs must say such."

"I know," he answered quietly. "I don't want you worrying about that, ok?"

He wanted to reassure her that he would hold on for her and the kids, that he'd hold out hope that he'd get out of there. But he still didn't feel that confidence that Mattil had. This was his world after all, and he knew how rabidly many humans clung to the thought that it was safer for his kind to be locked away forever.

"I miss you so much," he whispered. "Do you have help? Are...are the kids doing alright?"

"My Jason I will always worry about you." That could not, and would not, change. He didn't get to simply fade away as people 'talked her into being sensible' or the like. Always meant exactly that.

"The children are terrified," she sighed. "And cry often. They have a therapist now and we are staying with the High Lord, it is he who found them a therapist in fact. He worries near as much as we do for the children."

His face reddened and it was clear he was choking back tears. "I'm so sorry, Khem. If I'd been better...if I wasn't losing it over just kids being kids...I never wanted them to have to be scared."

"They are not scared of YOU Jason!" Ever! "You did not lose it, you were far from, you did not even do so when assaulted in front of them, I have seen the footage." How not given how hard they'd been working to get him out? "They are frightened of police. Of you never coming home. Of things being their fault no matter how oft we may say otherwise. Our children have been traumatized by those who were supposed to protect them."

Jason shook his head, his voice breaking despite his attempt to suppress the emotions. "I was supposed to protect them. And instead I was losing it: honey, I was losing it. My eyes had already turned. If I'd held it together better, there would've been nothing to freak those cops out when they came in."

'No love." Her fingers ghosted over his lips, an odd determination in her gaze, "no. They were seeking missing children in the area and you are a known shifter. From the moment our children were children you were bound for that accursed place." And that was not a lack in HIM.

He paused to wipe stubbornly at his eyes. "They were freaked out the second they saw my eyes: I could smell it on them. But it wasn't even them for being scared, it was that...motherfucker McKinnon," he spat, rage blazing from him. "And I saw his smug fucking face and I just...I snapped. I knew then that it was over and I wanted to take him out with me."

She went very, very still, eyes bubbling golden and somehow more real in this dreamscape than other things, "that...is interesting," she murmured darkly.

His lip curled in a silent snarl. "Fucker weaseled his way out of any official report of what happened, didn't he?"

"Indeed. And we do not have his footage. I believe that will have to change."

"Fuck, no!" Jason exclaimed. "He never came inside, it was after they brought me out that I saw him. But I went for him, Khem: if they show his body cam it's only gonna look worse for me."

"It is not the meeting with him I am concerned about," she admitted simply, thinking. Thinking hard enough she was actually started to get a little hazy. Waking up perhaps? "We trap people with the things they say and do when they think themselves unobserved..."

"I don't know, Khem...I just don't want them having that to point at as a reason I should be in here."

The lights suddenly flared and Jason flinched back. The shop felt hazier in the brilliant light; hazier and colder.

"Khem!" he called out, unable to see her in the bright light. "I love you so mu-"

The slab felt like it was seeping ice through his blanket as he blinked against the harsh lights. There was a loud banging from outside the cell as the SO called out for welfare check. Jason slid robotically to the cold floor and waited next to Mike, his eyes closed as he tried to hold onto the image of Khemrys for as long as possible.

"AND I YOU!" she yelped as he started to fade. No welfare check for her but certainly untangling herself to go speak with everyone about things she had gotten from Jason.

And the fact that meeting McKinnon outside their home even 'on duty' was also violating a restraining order so an additional layer of suspicion there.

Sleep

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