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 Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 2:45 pm
Kyndall spent a lot of time worrying about her daughter these days. Even more time than she spent when Harmony was missing. To have her daughter home was like a miracle but when she looked at Harmony she knew it wasn't her little girl. She knew this as certainly as she knew anything else in this world. She could see and note all of the changes inside of her and knew that things were not the same.
It took Benitoite to point it out to her but once he did it rapidly started to make sense. Too rapidly for her to do more with it in a few days afterward but to cry and wonder how she approached the subject or why she hadn’t been able to protect her little girl? She knew, though, and saw it in Harmony’s eyes and the sunken way they appeared even when she was smiling. The light was gone from them, haunted. She’d often check on her sleeping child and see her tossing with nightmares. She’d wake and collapse against her mother only to forget about them with daybreak. She no longer fought her mother about anything and Kyndall was not woman enough to think that this was because she was grateful to be home or accepted her mother’s authority. Oh, no. The nature of a teenager is to challenge their parents. She was trying to prepare to think for herself and be an adult.
Kyndall was leaning against the door frame, watching her daughter as she slept as was her habit lately. In exchange for the relief of her being home was the paranoia that she could, and would, be taken again. It was unthinkable to imagine, ghastly to a mother who loved her child. As Harmony began to moan in her sleep, the telltale sign that she was seeing things better unseen, the older Rosen moved to her side and sat on the edge of her bed, stroking her hair and whispering soothing words. She wanted nothing more than to take the burden from her is she could but Harm hadn’t even trusted her enough to confide that she’d died up there, wherever it was, and she was scared by it.
“Shhh. It’s ok, love. Let them go.” She whispered, “just let them go.”
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Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:33 pm
Harmony wwas dreaming of death. Her and several other civilians, a few of whom she recognized, floating in space helpless and glowing in death. She dreamed it a lot, fuming over the loss of her body and the ability to do ANYTHING to help people. She'd hover around in angry futility and then, slowly, everything would go black and she'd be unable to do anything at all. She couldn't see or hover or scream or move and by then she'd know she was dreaming and would try to wake up, finding her body uncooperative and unresponsive.
In sleep her body would mimic death, drawing out for long anguished minutes the inability to -be-. She was neither dreaming nor asleep. Not awake or moving. She was nothing and everything, conscious and comatose all in one. If this was how victims of coma and permanent vegetative states felt she hoped never to be trapped in such a hell. In the end her body finally gave up and allowed her to wake and she'd do it, thrashing and struggling to breathe as if that, too, had been cut off by her dreaming.
Somehow, her mother was almost always there and comforted her while she cried, reassuring Harmony that she was real and alive and very dearly loved. They never spoke of it and she tried to pretend as if it didn't exist but it was wearing on the young girl. She wasn't sleeping properly. She was afraid of going to sleep because of the inevitability of her terror. She'd fight sleep every step of the way, jerking herself awake just as she'd start to fade. She was suffering for it and didn't feel like she could tell anyone.
She couldn't tell her mother and cause her more worry and guilt. Such was her need to protect her mother that she stayed silent about her ordeal. She couldn't tell any therapist on the planet because they'd lock her up in a heartbeat for describing what she'd witnessed and been through. The senshi weren't around to talk to and she didn't know any of the others from up there. She saw a few of them at school but she wasn't sure they were as affected by this as she was. She didn't want to appear weak. The senshi weren't around waving flag to be identified and Camelot...in this instance maybe he was out of helpful advice.
She woke again in her mother's arms and cried long and hard, shaking full body with her sobs.
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Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 4:01 pm
Kyndall couldn't stand seeing her little girl suffering like this. She was helpless against whatever it was and if there's one thing a parent cannot abide it's seeing their children suffer. She hugged the mint haired teen and soothed her with quiet words, her own heart breaking.
"You know, Harm, I'm here for you to talk to, love."
She certainly didn't want to go back to fighting like cats and dogs though that seemed to be nature taking its course. What she wanted for her daughter was some sense of normal back and didn't think Harmony had that or could have that with so much left unsaid. She didn't expect her to be alright overnight but something...some sign. It was what she hoped for, what she wanted for her only child.
There was certainly nothing about this in the handbook. You hear about cases where missing children are reunited with their families but no one speaks of the aftermath where the families try to pick up the pieces with a traumatized child and an equally broken family. All that weight of the fear and worry weighs down and buries good people. That’s how Kyndall felt now. She was out of the frying pan and into the fire. The weight of worry hadn’t been lessened, only refocused.
She sighed and kept rocking her child. She knew the routine and eventually Harm would cry herself to sleep. She whispered something to reassure her daughter from another book she’d read once in a store when she was browsing. The words stuck with her now and hit a special chord inside.
“I’ll love you forever. I’ll keep you for always. As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be.”
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