2020-01-09 - A Knight in Shining Paperback

August comes back from his trip downtown to get his medical records from the post office covered with...gold dust. Well, it's a look. The dust is fading fast, so maybe this isn't something they can keep. He's got his records, manilla envelopes all neatly packed into a priority box, and the book he apparently found in the Asylum. He's resisted the urge to try and remember anything else, if only to not mess with his upcoming MRI. He sets both on the counter, pulls out his medical records to check them over.

The book's average enough, a four hundred odd page bodice ripper: clean shaven, muscular, dark haired man on the cover, naked save for a broadsword held point down in front of him in a strategic spot. The title is in an overly ornate font and only just readable: A KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR

Ellie nevertheless tries to sweep a little of the dust off him into a tiny ziplock bag for further study. It may or may not vanish later, but she has to try. "So what sprinkled you with fairy dust?" she asks in amusement as she takes her samples. Her eyes flit to the book cover now and then because, come on, that's hilarious.

She seals up the little plastic bag and labels it with the date, waiting for him to tell her what it came from so she can add it to the label.

August submits to being dusted. "Mothra," he says, dead serious. "Was a little kid's Dream, Godzilla and..." He narrows his eyes, gestures, "Some sort of, mechanical, Godzilla thing? It had sickles for arms." He gives her an apoogetic look for still being a monster movie neophyte. "Maybe the kid's first time with the Art--he's real bright, a lot of mind Glimmer. He was okay, I got a little banged up but someone healed me." He makes a face about that. He's trying to use the Glimmer less, but that doesn't mean anyone else is going to.

Trying, but not too hard, because he taps on the book. "And this is the one from the Asylum." He folds back the front cover and reveals, as Alexander had said there might be, 'PROPERTY OF ALICE WHITEHOUSE'.

Sickles for arms. "I...think that is the one that hung out with...Megalon? I saw Godzilla versus Megalon when I was a kid and I remember that one, because it had the robot that could become monster-sized. Jet-something? Mothra though? Love her. Did you get to see Godzilla? I am kind of jealous to be honest. Is the kid ok?" Oh sure, the kid gets Kaiju dreams, she got Modr. So unfair.

"Alice Whitehouse? Violet's sister?" she asks in surprise at the revelation of the ownership of the book.

"Mothra saved us, so, she's okay in my book." August will not complain about being rescued from a dream, not even by a giant moth. "I couldn't really see the other two--I was too focused on getting the kid out of there." He's not going to say he regrets that. "They were tearing up the city, so staying there wasn't an option." Also, city being torn apart, not something he's going to stick around for, given Bosnia.

He nods in confirmation, sets his medical records aside. He reaches out, rests a hand on the book. "Shall I?"

Eleanor grimaces at the fact he was stuck in yet another city being destroyed scenario. "I'm guessing you were pulled in for that reason. I'm starting to think many of these Dreams are being tailored to the people they pull in. Who else was there besides you and the child?" she asks, making a point to start writing down the Dream scenarios and their participants and start tracking them by people's abilities and what she knows of their personal histories.

She slides into a chair when he reaches for the book and there is some trepidation in her expression. "All right. Be careful ok?" she pleads. She goes into watchdog mode, monitoring his physical health through her glimmer.

August considers Eleanor for s spell, turning that over in his mind. As much as he hated finding himself in that same place, the idea had merit. Unlike last time, he'd felt spurred to action, rather than frozen in place. Maybe because he was finally more used to these things, and could separate them from his own memories?

Or maybe the sheer ludicrous nature of it had been a factor. It was hard to say. "Could be," he says. "It was me, Joe Cavanaugh," the one he mentioned yesterday to Alexander, who'd floated the idea of the memories being 'corrupting', "Ignacio, Finch, and a woman I saw downtown in another Dream. When the elves tried to eat our gifts. Joe was in the Navy, not sure what might have tied him otherwise. I guess Finch likes Godzilla stuff. And well, where Finch is, usually there's Ignacio. The other one, not sure." And he still doesn't know her name, which feels awkward.

He nods at her warning, runs his hand over the book, tracing the relief of the embossed title, running a thumb over the pages. He blinks, surprised at first, maybe even amused. That gradually shifts to something less enjoyable, degree by degree, until his eyes are wide and staring. His features tighten, and he starts to cry. A faint tremor runs through the kitchen counter, and he jerks his hand away from the book, staggering back to the sink. "Son of a, bitch," he gasps, leaning over it.

Eleanor makes note of who was there, and to jot that data down somewhere after this. Then she watches August like a hawk. Monitors his heartrate and pulse, his physical body, with that bit of Spirit Gift she has. She also uses her little bit of mental to project her calming emotions towards him when he starts to seem disturbed. The tears though, they throw her. What on earth could spark those from reading the psychic residue on a book?

She gets up and moves to him, reaching a hand to his shoulder. "What is it? What did you see?" she whispers, the concern in her voice making it waver slightly.

There's the smallest spike of anger in him, drowned out almost immediately by grief. He leans against Eleanor, taking a second to just hover there. The nausea begins to subside. "She's dead." It's the only thing he says for a few seconds. Then, "Violet. Violet Whitehouse. She was...there was blood everywhere. And...someone startled Alice. She picked her body up and ran." His voice is barely above a whisper.

He trembles. All that blood, the sightless stare. Markale hammers in his head. The hospital was what really tore him open, but Markale, that had been the foreshock of what was to come.

"I think they were there. Together, in the Asylum." He blinks a few times, turns on the faucet to clean his face.

Eleanor holds him, wrapping her arms around him gently, just being a comforting presence. "Violet is dead? And Alice may still be alive on the Other Side somewhere? She got out of the Asylum?" She asks in a quiet tone, not wanting to push too hard. "What killed Violet?"

August scrubs off his face, dries it with a paper towel. He leans into Eleanor, sighs. "Not sure," he murmurs. The grief lingers, clinging to him. The wound which was Markale throbs in resonance. He closes his eyes against both.

"Couldn't tell--it was a lot of blood, like..." Like a major veine or artery had been severed. He can't bring himself to say that, because only two things come to mind: the shaping power, and suicide. "Alice was asking her to wake up. Maybe she was pulled into a construct, killed herself to get out?" Christ, what a thought, but there it was.

He slips his arms around Eleanor, buries his face in her hair.

Eleanor sighs and holds him, stroking his hair and his back. "Or maybe she couldn't see another way out of that place. You need to let Alexander know. He has been searching a long time, I think, for answers. Now he has some of them at least. As terrible as they are."

"Yeah." August grips Eleanor tight. "I think he knew, it would be this. I think that's why he didn't--he wanted to be the first one to know. So he'd be the one breaking it to others." A holds her securely a few more seconds, finally lets go. He's got crying face, but rests his forehead against hers. "It's okay to bust out 'I told you so' at this point." A smile lurks in his voice, morbid but there.

"How about I bust out one of those bath bombs instead, and we take a nice hot soak in the tub. Then you can call Alexander and let him know what you saw?" Eleanor offers, with a kiss to his forehead.

August nods. "Yeah. Okay." He clears his throat, gives her a look. "Care to join me?"

"What kind of a silly question is that?" Eleanor asks with a quirk of a smile, already unbuttoning her blouse and sliding it off, before tossing it over her head as she sashays towards the bathroom. She turns around to give him the 'come-hither' finger curl and a wink.

August watches her walk away, blouse coming off, with an amazed expression. "I am the luckiest damned man in this town," he says and he moves to follow where she leads.