And it's Current Events!

[homeless_pard]

Who: Khem, two hosts, her escort from Rafael.
When: Just past six months into Jason's incarceration.
What: An interview.

Connor scanned the hallway then nodded, holding his hand out for Khemrys to step out of the car and through the door into the studio. "Clear."

Khem took his hand graciously, all old world grace, one hand lifting the edge of her skirt, the other in her lead security detail's as she stepped forth, "thank you Connor." Everyone, yes everyone had stressed that she must drop honorifics here. No lords, no ladies. Names or polite terms like ma'am, sir, and the like. It was about public perception, whereas her normal speech patterns might speak of brainwashing, a cult, or worse, being thrall to the very vamps she aligned herself with. They did not wish for her to seem as a 'gift' to one the high lord favored as he did Jason.

As if she couldst be gifted.

A young man with a headset on smiled at her, seeming harried and tired, "ah, Ms...Kim-rees?"

"Khemriss," she corrected easily, meeting the young man's gaze easily. "And the term is Mrs, if you would? Mrs. Khemrys Schuyler ne Rhystead." As that was how they had agreed she might add her own 'from' appellation, and allowed the children to choose once they were old enough to show any preference for such.

"Ah, okay, noted! You're due in dressing room two here though..." the man actually paused a moment, looking her over, "um. Makeup won't...ah..." be needed much. Yeah, those eyes.

"I am already dressed," she noted easily, a touch bemused.

Connor chuckled, nodding the rest of the detail to spread out as per protocol, "he means makeup, Khem. Television lights can be harsh so they often add softening effects to anyone appearing."

She eyed the aide, then Connor, then sighed, "if I must. I dislike most cosmetics."

The aide fidgeted with a clipboard a moment, a bit unsettled, "it also gives you a place to wait? You're not first interview today so it may be a few minutes..." he swallowed.

"I see," she smiled softly, "and so thank you again young man."

"Um, Tyler. I'm Tyler."

"Thank you for your kindness, Tyler," she smiled, sweeping toward the indicated dressing room with her lead security member.

Tyler swallowed then just...took a moment to balance himself. Woman was more magnetic than others he'd had to direct before and...this was going to get weird, he just knew it. "Okay, this is the pronunciation for her first name..." he finally spoke into his head set.

Khem had to stare down the bevy of artists waiting before allowing just a touch of powder to reduce glare? With her complexion, well...anything else would look garish. "I worry that any place that so focuses on appearance may not actually hear the words I speak," she admitted to Connor softly. How she wouldst prefer Requiem at her side but this was end of summer now, and so daylight dominated the sky still.

"Hey, lady?" Connor smiled, "no one can ignore the things you say. It's really not possible."

She gave him a worried smile then sighed, sipping from a water bottle, wincing at the plastic aftertaste, "your confidence is reassuring," she admitted.

"My confidence," Connor smiled, "has basis. My girlfriend is at the clinic because of you, and we are waiting on our own kid. You're hope, Khem. Anyone with a brain admits that."

She blushed slightly, offering him a 'complimentary' granola bar from the basket waiting? "You, Connor, and your own...ah...chosen woman, achieved such upon your own power." For a certain! She did nothing to increase fertility rates there! "And saying otherwise might rightfully upset her." It was teasing that, she was learning how to do such, but it was also the truth!

"True!" he laughed, grinning at her, "but still. Have some confidence okay? You just...create milestones and causes. It's just...you."

There was a knock on the door that prevented her from answering that, "hey, five minute warning!" Tyler called. "First guest is not exactly on fire so let's get you out and waiting offstage okay?"

Khem blinked at Connor, waiting for him to nod before opening the door? "As you like," she agreed.

Tyler found himself blushing for some reason and had to clear his throat, "this way. As I'm sure your contact packet spelled out, this is a show that can get political, both our anchors tend to cover both conservative and liberal viewpoints in turn..."

Khemrys honestly tuned him out after a moment as it was, indeed, as the packet described. Were people not supposed to read such? Or discuss their approach with people beforehand? Or mayhap previous 'interviewees' were...well, less than intelligent. "Thank you," she smiled, settling on a mostly canvas chair to the side of a curtain as she waited. Ah, the prior person to speak was being asked about....the reason shifters were dangerous.

How pointlessly riling of them.

She'd been warned about...sensationalism.

When her name was called from the main stage she stood, flowing easily forward onto camera and smiling serenely at the two hosts. A man and a woman. A one Theodore 'Ted' Cortin, and a Selena Whisket. Jean Claude had prepped her on them and why they had chosen this particular show as her 'debut' on television. Mainly it boiled down to the fact this was neither a hate filled program for exclusion, nor a sycophant program. It tried to air various angles (eve if not all) to a diverse audience.

It also had it's flaws of course.

Ted stood when she entered, offering his hand to shake, "hello Mrs. Khemrys, a pleasure to meet you."

She took his hand, drawing harshly on any medical knowledge that allowed while continuing to smile, "thank you for the invitation, Theodore."

"Heh, only my mother calls me that!" the man grinned, sitting again as she settled on the couch for guests. "Please, call me Ted.

"We are not so familiar as that, Theodore," she offered simply, as she sat.

Ted...gaped a moment, staring at her, "please, we should be! This isn't an official anything!"

"Pity," she noted calmly.

"And I"m Selena," the other host smiled, "it's rare Ted gets flustered! You're already earning points with the fan base!"

Khemrys smoothed her skirt and eyed them easily, "I am not here to 'score points' as you say," she admitted. "I am here because you asked to hear of our family's plight."

"Oh, there's a scrabble word!" Ted smiled for the camera. "Plight."

"I might spell it shouldst you wish," she offered kindly. There could be children's shows based around the smile she gave the poor host and the camera past him. "But I believe we are here to discuss greater issues and thus I will simply write it for you as I leave."

Selena had to lift a hand to her mouth to hide her amusement a moment, composing herself, "yes of course." Of course. "You're something of a figure head these days yes? Heading a steadfast demand for opening the shifter facilities to better scrutiny?"

Khemrys looked, honestly, pained, at that question. A devastated wave of emotion across her face before she composed herself, "greater than such, Ms. Selena. I ask they open at all. It has been a hundred and ninety-six days since my husband was not only wrongfully arrested and incarcerated, but also one hundred and eighty one days I have been denied access to even speaking with my husband. It is quite mind boggling that a facility might experience 'lockdown' so many days in a row and not attract public censure."

"You're saying that the facilities that help keep us safe, and protect people we know, are wrong to deny access?" Ted snorted. "Seriously? Those are wild animals, Ms. Khemrys. It's a violent zoo! No law abiding and fragile human should want to go in there!"

The look she gave now was cold and utterly devoid of compassion, "I do, Theodore. There is no, single, recorded release from said facilities. That means you, and everyone else in this country, is harboring deathcamps. No 'sugar coating' as you say. They are not 'jails' so they do not have to follow the rules of such, they are 'high security medical facilities' that have never released a single patient. In the forty plus years of such, not a single patient was released. Should not families worry?"

Ted flushed, "THEY ARE DANGEROUS! Do you really expect a home to take in a wild animal like that? A diseased, corrupting thing that hurts others arbitrarily?"

Khemrys tilted her head, considering those words, "I expect families to care for their loved ones, do you not?" she asked quietly. "My husband is a shifter, yes. But he has a wife, and two children that he has never harmed. He was taken from our home by armed forces in a man hunt seeking a killer. I do not blame the officers, they were searching for missing children and heard my toddlers in a tantrum over the wrong bowl for soup and how dinosaurs eat. A similar tantrum as is enacted in many kitchens across the world at such age. My husband was not in fur when arrested."

"BUT HE COULD HAVE BEEN!" Ted growled.

Khemrys STARED. HIM. DOWN. On camera. "And you, Theodore, could have not been in your right mind when you struck your current paramour given your own transmittable disease. Yet here we are. A man who did not shift under stress in a holding facility, and man who willfully spreads an STD amongst those he wishes with no consequence. Do you claim the world is thus fair?"

Ted stared at her, going very red, "What the hell?!"

"Syphilis causes a great deal of harm," she noted mildly.

Selena stared at Ted then covered her face a moment, "ignore him, please, we don't always see eye to eye here on this show! Your husband..."

"Yes, my Jason," she smiled warmly.

"Your husband is a shifter, and you knew this correct?"

"Well before we were wed," she agreed simply. How not?

Selena considered a moment while Ted continued to sputter, "did he ever...?"

"Ever what?" Khemrys asked simply. "Offer me harm? Ask to convert me?" Feh, such silly questions. "You ask such as if people with any manner of disease are somehow less than human. He is far from, my Jason."

Ted finally gathered his wits, glaring a moment, "bullshit. he holds your green card, right?"

Khem gave him a disdainful glance, "pardon?"

"Just listen to you! You're not American!" Ted offered with a smirk. "So you're what, a mail order?"

She sighed, truly, this was...yeeeaaah. "My life here was never dependent on marriage, Theodore, though you are not the first to wrongfully assume such. I am a proper resident outside my marriage, as I'm sure your own aides have researched, shouldst you wish to actually review such notes assembled by those you consider inferior." She had faith in the background her High Lord had assembled after all!

"So what?" Ted snorted, leaning forward to glare at her, "you're just some coffin bait girl from Europe and they gave you to a shifter. You even bred."

Khemrys watched him silently, dead air on a live feed was telling after all, then smiled softly, "and you might see such marks...where?" she asked simply. "I came as I needed and despite myself I met a young man who was desperate to date me. My husband, as many here, feels that he must prove himself and takes time every day to show me I am loved and cherished. And while yes, I may know many amongst the Circus as you seem to intimate, it is not in a carnal manner nor wouldst it ever be. I am not a feeder, I am not an entertainer. I am a mere shop owner in these lands, where in my own I was a what you would term a doctor. Hence my knowledge of your own...issues."

Selene laughed outright, deeply amused, "I bet you have a lot of people going to get tested after tonight, Ted, just saying. Hey, for the viewing audience? Always get tested if you have multiple partners or don't trust the one you have..."

Ted shifted his glare to his co-host, not amused by the PSA at all, "but you have kids!"

Khem blinked, "and?"

"THEY'RE MONGRELS! Some full moon they'll shift and never be your cute kids again!"

Khemrys chuckled, "no, Theodore, my children will ever, and always be, themselves. If that includes fur so be it. It is far from a deadly disease and has more support than such as you might ever imagine. I believe they wouldst be gorgeous in fur even as my Jason is."

Both hosts gaped a moment at that. It wasn't...delusion such as they knew it honestly. Hard to simple wave off, "you have doomed your kids," Ted growled finally.

"You have doomed humanity in such a judgement," Khem offered kindly. "Humanity is ever the base and you wish to deny that they were people in your rhetoric. And thus I sit outside the concrete block that holds the other adult in my own family and request entry. I see now that my time here was a waste in that I could have requested to see my husband yet again."

Selena swallowed, eyeing the vein throbbing at Ted's temple, "but you have to admit..."

"Have to admit what?" Khem asked simply. "People submit to these facilities when accidentally infected, believing that it is right and can aid them. Others are shipped as criminals with the ability to shift. All housed together and none released, from good citizen to criminal. You, and those you influence, allow them to be ignored. Places where 'problems disappear'. I see no reason to admit anything."

"That..."

"That is all the time we have today!" Selena squeaked softly. "This program is drawing to an end..."

Khemrys chuckled softly. "I see. You'd not care for a proper perspective on such. My apology, I but spoke to truth and wished people wouldst listen. After all, my husband and those like him have been willfully abandoned to harsh treatment and with no 'end of sentence term' even though actual criminals are allowed visitation, review, and contact."

"...for what it's worth," Selena admitted, "I agree with you."

"And I'm calling CPS on your ass," Ted growled.

Khemrys stood, calm and cool. "As you like, both of you. Truth will out, always, and I shall not waver. I am grateful you asked my attendance, but this has been a waste." Devestating words given how both hosts watched her as she left!

Connor met her past the curtain, nodding, "do you need to rest?"

"No, I need to see my children," she admitted softly. "It's not home but..."

Connor nodded, waving the detail into escort mode instead of premises mode, "of course. Live feeds are fun huh?"

"Live feeds?" she blinked.

"Means that this wasn't recorded to edit, it was sent to the world the moment you spoke." he nodded. "You did good."

"...oh," she smiled wanly, "there is likely many such events to come."

"Yeeeeah," Connor admitted, glad he wasn't an alpha now. "Get in the car."

She chuckled and obediently sat, musing. She could almost sort the pieces in her head now, and the politics...

"I miss him Connor."

The rat closed the car door and winced, "I know."