Khaeris Dawndancer

Down the Rabbit Hole

It was supposed to be a good week.

She had returned from wandering and camping in the Eversong woods, haven taken her ram and her sunfur panda for her only company. She’d danced between trees, walked barefoot down deer runs, fished for her supper, woven flower crowns from weeds, and laughed with a crab on the beach. She’d only left a note for the clinic and tacked up a notice at her booth. She had needed it. Needed the time wandering, as only a Traveler could.

It had all been so freeing. It was supposed to help. A reset. Surely she’d feel herself after that.

She’d come back renewed and happy, dimples fairly permanent with her smile and remembering the Tournament of Ages just in time to make it to the Wonderlight Ball. So she  dressed up and set off for the portals with a light heart intending to dance and play under colder skies.

Things had not gone the way she’d thought.

The moment she’d arrived the crowds, the noise, the presence of the whole ball overwhelmed her. And the shroud she’d thought she’d shaken off wrapped itself around her. Her smile didn’t falter, but her feet felt heavier as she made her way onto the dance floor. Dancing helped, but like she had so many times in the last six months, she danced by herself.

Someone else seemed to feel it, too: a little out of sorts, uncomfortable with the spectacle of the ball, a bit ‘outside’. Someone on the side. Valarin would likely never know how much his easy company had meant to her as Tarts laughed and played around them. She had enjoyed his enthusiasm and appreciated his simple camaraderie. There was no demand on her--she didn’t have to flirt, she didn’t have to worry that he only wanted to bed her at the end of the night. They just got along and it was light.

She had felt truly seen again for the first time in weeks. Months? She tried to make sure he felt seen, too.

Khaeris hadn’t ended the evening in his company. After the photo with the big group, his laugh and smile had wandered away, now inebriated and pleasantly relaxed with better living through chemistry. He had been drawn to other friends and shower them in affection, too. She wasn’t lonely when he’d left though; she felt more herself than she had since returning to people. She chatted with some Tarts, laughed and danced some more.

She should have known it would all turn when she confidently quipped, “I can be responsible!” Ah. The mistakes of hubris. 

It happened when Raerys had stepped away from the group, looking melancholy and a little anxious as she sat and smoked. And Khaeris had spoken too loudly. “I feel like I should talk to her. But … Awkward. And I’m not sober. And if I go over there, I’ll blurt out that her boyfriend is an asshole.” Opinions on lovers could be taken so personally!

It wasn’t Khaeris’s fault Raerys had her heart set on an asshole.

It was Khaeris’s fault that Raerys heard her talking to Dice about Ouro and the ‘complicated’ nature of some relationships. Thinking back on it, Khaeris mused that she was lucky she hadn’t spontaneously burst into flames that night.

It hadn’t ended there, though. She’d made Dice a little melancholy and starting down his own rabbit hole of ‘what ifs’. The ‘what ifs’ would eat them all alive, if they weren’t careful. Khaeris. Raerys. Ouro. Even Dicenne, it seemed. Everyone had things about their lives they wondered about.

Khaeris was pretty sure she knew why Ouro had taken her comm from her. And it was nothing she was pleased about. The temptation and longing on Dicenne’s face had been enough to convince her. The object had come from her original timeline. It had a connection to an ‘other’. Other place. Other time. Other chances.

That audacity and insult of having her property stolen rankled her deeply. It made her frown again, just thinking about it. People had always thought they could walk all over her. That what little her family had possessed could just be taken and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. That she was powerless simply by the station of her birth. It made bile and rage bubble up in her. Khaeris was sure it  was an insult no Traveler could ignore.

She could forgive being held at gunpoint. She could not abide having her belongings taken against her will.

Ouro was NOT going to be allowed to dive into his rabbit hole. Not if she could prevent it somehow.