[PSL] 2016: But I'll be here 'til chaos calls

[firewatcher]

Night off, finally. Coming off a long shift like that all she should have wanted to do was sleep, but it never felt like there were enough hours in the day anymore. And sleep was more and more often an exercise in lying awake, alone with her thoughts in the dark. Just like every year around this time except worse. No thanks.

So Palmer made herself a cup of coffee and went to see if Great-Aunt Julia was what passed for awake. Weird how things changed so quickly—three months ago she would have sworn there was no such thing as ghosts, and now one was haunting her couch. Her aunt haunting her couch. She'd set a bunch of older pens on the coffee table in hopes that one of them would have enough emotional whatever imbued into it to work for Aunt Julia, but so far she'd seen nothing.

She did a quick double-take when she saw someone actually sitting on the couch, but then relaxed as she realized that it was just Danielle—who she had, she remembered, blearily, told she could come over whenever.

"'Lo, Danielle," she said, rubbing at her eyes and taking a seat next to her on the couch. "How's Aunt Julia?"

Comments

[firewatcher]

Palmer shrugged. It wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no, either. And not unexpected, true. "Well, let me know what the both of you decide. Doesn't mean you gotta stay here forever."

[beyondthisillusion]

Danielle nodded. Her eyes strayed over to the couch. "I think...I think our mom would like that."

Well, she'd like the connection to the family, at least. The ship had already sailed on whatever hopes and dreams Julia Palmer-Remington had for her children. Or, at least, that was Danielle's interpretation of the situation.

She had a tendency to project.

[firewatcher]

Palmer laughed, a little shakily. Ah, her haunted couch. This was just her life now. "Ha, well, lucky you, you can actually ask her, I guess. I know that's important to you. The point is, it's just putting a ceremonial touch on something that's already true—that you have our backs and we have yours."

[beyondthisillusion]

As a Cronie Dragon (Dragony Crone?), Danielle got the importance of ritual. Which was why she was giving the whole matter serious consideration. You never made decisions like that lightly.

But frankly, her opinions were the same either way.

This was her family.

"Always," she said, in her best Alan Rickman voice.