Chrysalis Ch5: Night Escort (pt2) (Patreon)

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Lloyd draws back in horror at the sight of his mother,  seconds slowing and stretching into the dreadful silence before bubbling and surging forward.

"Mum!"

Lloyd rushes the table, his skin crawling as he grabs his mother by the arm and shakes her.

"Mum!  MUM!!  Wake up!!
Wake up!!”

“S-say something!"

Mrs Morgan is limp,



then stiffens,
and groans.

Blearily, she pushes herself up onto her elbow.

"... D... Daniel…?
What’s going-
what time is..."

She blinks, her eyes focusing as she fumbles for her glasses.

It’s okay.
She’s okay.

Lloyd breathes out.

She’s safe.

His moment of respite is cut short. As his mother’s vision returns, her  expression shifts from exhausted confusion to sudden, terrible fury.

Her hand shoots out and grabs hold of him by the wrist.   She erupts from her chair to her full height, dragging a bewildered Lloyd along with her with crushing efficiency.

"I KNEW IT WOULD BE ONE OF YOU!"
She wails, shaking his frail, trembling body.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HIM?
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY SON?!"

“Mum it’s ME!”
Lloyd yells with a sudden, gut-wrenching realization that his mother doesn’t recognize him.

"It's me!
It's…
It’s  Lloyd!”

She blinks furiously.
“Lloyd?!"   She hisses, her bloodshot gaze shifting from outrage to confusion.

“...Lloyd?”  She repeats again, softer this time, as if she’s afraid to trust her own words.  She’s scanning him, his antenna, his hair; analyzing the iridescent veins of purple and pink in his eyes.  The longer she looks the more the anger seems to seep out of her, replaced by exhausted bewilderment.

Then she hugs him, grabs him up into an embrace like someone taking hold of the wind. She’d always been taller than him; now she practically swallows him up in her arms.  She tries to speak but instead breaks into open, heaving sobs.

Lloyd hesitates for the barest instant, wings trembling.
Then, with just as much fierceness, he hugs her back.

"W-we... they found blood, they... they thought... they told us..."
"... We thought the worst. They told us the worst."

Her voice quavers, though she’s trying to control it.
Lloyd can feel the vibration in it shiver through his antennae, like cold wind in a rainstorm.
“God, is it really you?”  She asks.

"It's really me. I promise."  He reassures, pulling her tighter. "I’m so glad you’re safe"
"Is Dad alright? Nobody's come here?"

She pulls away, looking at him incredulously.

"You...
you were worried about us?" She exclaims, breaking into a burst of exasperated laughter.

"You... you silly, impossible child." She pulls him close, kissing his head and his temples and his cheeks. "You really are our Lloyd, aren't you."

"- Mum! Geroff!" Lloyd flushes in embarrassment, pulling back. "Th-this is serious! There's people who - "

The door clicks, swinging open.

“Mum stay back!” Lloyd yells, pushing in front of his mother while Ian, who’s been standing in the entryway this whole time, whirls to face the entering figure.  He wields the tire iron like a sledge hammer and bellows

“GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE BRUV!”

Whoever was entering apparently wasn’t expecting that, and they stumble backwards dropping a corrugated tray of coffees along with an armful of flyers.

They drift to the ground like falling leaves, Lloyd’s face plastered all over them.

“...Dad?”   Lloyd asks after a tense moment.

The figure recovers.   Ian remains transfixed, before finally relaxing and stepping aside to let the figure and Lloyd make eye contact.

"...Lloyd?" The figure replies, pale as a ghost.

It IS his father.

Lloyd sags, his wings drooping as he nearly collapses with relief.
"H...hey, Dad..."

In moments his father rushes past Ian and pulls Lloyd into a bone-crushing hug, just as intense and desperate as his mother’s. Lloyd hugs back, shaking, his legs giving out as exhaustion takes him over.

They were all okay.
No one had come looking.

Not yet.

Not yet.

+++

"... and then you... jumped." Mrs. Morgan states, carefully enunciating every word. Her face has gone pale and bloodless, and her eyes are unfocused.

The group is huddled around the dining room table now.  It’s plastered with papers related to Lloyd’s disappearance; news clippings, CCTV printouts, city maps... some spotted with spilled tea, others crumpled and discarded.  Outside, the briefest hint of pink is starting to filter through the indigo clouds.

Lloyd nods, glancing around nervously. He’s pulled the hood over his head again, hiding his new hair and antennae. It’s hard for him to ignore that Ian’s the only person at the table looking directly at him.


Even still, his parents seem less shocked than he expected.


“Coming home was the right choice.” Mrs. Morgan announces.

“I… was it?”  Lloyd follows hesitantly.   “I’m glad you two are okay.    But... now that I know that... every second I stay here makes it more likely that Neith and Astraea will come after you.”

“They haven’t found us yet.”   Lloyd’s dad intones.   “We have a moment.   Let’s take stock of the situation before doing anything hasty.”

"We should go to the police."  Mrs Morgan announces, more of a statement than a suggestion.

“T-the police?”   Lloyd stammers.   “I… mum…. I don’t know-”
The thought was so far outside of his range of possibilities it felt absurd.

Mr. Morgan scoffs.
"What exactly do you want to tell them? That fairies took our son?”

He looks less pale than his wife...more like he’s been hit by a bus. The dark circles have only grown more pronounced, and he leans heavily against the table.
“The police aren't going to help us with this. They can't possibly."

"Then what, Daniel?” She snaps, leaning up in her seat. “We can't just... those two, the vampire and the tree woman… they’re going to come here. They'll come looking for him."

“Sara”   Mr. Morgan says reassuringly, grounding her.
Mrs. Morgan sucks in a breath, steadying her voice again.

"Well we have to do something." She continues, exasperated. "I'm sure if we... they can't... they have to take us seriously once they see him. Once they..."

"...get a good look at me?"

Lloyd mumbles, folding his hands and looking down at the table. He pulls in against himself, swathed in the hoodie. His antennae have been covered so long that the texture and taste of soft, well-worn cloth has embedded itself into his mind. It’s growing uncomfortable, but he keeps it in place anyway.

"Mum, I... don't want to go to the police."

Lloyd’s dad nods in approval.  “That’s-”

"She'll just kill them."  Lloyd cuts his father off, his voice flat.
An icey silence falls over the table.

“We don’t know that.”  Mrs. Morgan begins, faltering.

Lloyd looks up.
“Neith can summon giant vipers and Astraea can vaporize people.  What are the cops going to do? Arrest them?”

Saying it out loud, the idea of it felt more and more absurd.

Lloyd shakes his head “No.  If the police intervene, Neith will just kill them and use that to find her way here.”

“We can’t go to the cops."

Ians hand slams his tire iron down on the table, loud enough to make everyone else jump. Lloyd’s antennae squirm back from it, almost tucking themselves into his hair.

“I see what you’re sayin’ Lloyd.  But maybe we could give ‘em a few pointers, yeah?”   Ian says matter of factly.   “After all, I’m sure fae ain’t hidin’ their existence for the funovvit.  Got some pretty severe allergies if you catch me.”

"Well, the police don't KNOW that, Ian!" Lloyd explodes, yanking his hood back off. It’s suffocating. Stifling. His antennae lash angrily at the air, and Mrs. Morgan’s eyes drop to the side as Lloyd gets to his feet.

"How many people even think about the - about us? It's just stupid story stuff! For children! They're literally called fairy tales!"

Ian shifts back, startled. Lloyd slams his own hands on the table, his skin prickling and the hair on his arms standing on end from the cold radiating from the metal tool.

"We can't just go chasing after them.  A length of rebar and some spare chainlink from the depot?   You think that’s all it’ll take?”

“Y-you haven't seen what they can do!”

“It’s NOT.  ENOUGH.  We would need MORE.   We would need to know so much more.  About how they work and what they’re capable of.   Weaknesses, strengths, loopholes, all that.  But we DON’T.  We don’t have time, or information, or any way to get that information.”

“Iron. Isn’t. Enough.”

“...Lloyd…”

“WHAT?!”

Lloyd stops at the sound of his mother’s soft voice, startled out of his rant. She’s finally looking at him, a spark in her eyes.

"Lloyd, you're absolutely right.”

"What…”  His face screws up in confusion.
“I… am?"

“You are.”  She reiterates, growing more excited.

Lloyd blinks. He still had so much fight in him.  He wasn’t prepared for his mother to just agree.

But she is, and she’s moving with sudden energy. Hurrying to a nearby shelf in the hallway, she pulls out a heavy, well-worn book with an embossed golden spine.   He knows this book well.   He’s read it over a hundred different times ever since he was a child.

The title read:
A Children’s Guide to Fairy Lore and Folktales

Lloyd looks at it skeptically as she comes back, holding it up like a flag.
“My old book of fairy stories?”

She nods, smiling. There’s a triumphant, almost vicious edge to the expression.

"Stories, yes. We have stories. And from those we can figure out the rules."
She looks up, straightening her glasses, and sets the book down in front of them with a heavy thump. "YOU can figure them out."

Lloyd scoffs, flipping through the pages. He’s seen them so many times that he almost knows them by heart.

"Mum, these - these are for children. How am I supposed to figure out what's real or not? This is too dangerous to guess at. Anyone could have made anything up, we'd have to find a way to test...it..."

He looks down at his hand. The way it's slowly reddening, even half a foot away from the tire iron. Lloyd draws it back, his eyes wide.

"...do...

the neighbors still have that rowan tree in the garden?"

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