Logs:Proclamation

Proclamation
Dramatis Personae Bryce, Dallen, Heavenly Host, Charles	2023-06-28 'After much tribulation come the blessings. (Later the night of angelic search & rescue.)
Location <UT> Allred Residence - Clearfield
This is a capacious raised ranch in humble yellow brick, framed by a beautiful garden and several shockingly fruitful chokecherry trees. It has a two-car garage attached and a separate outbuilding in the back yard houses an expansive professional wood shop. The interior is homey and well-kept, almost aggressively generic in an LDS sort of way, anodyne religious artwork interspersed with framed needlepoint and desert landscapes. In addition to plentiful windows letting in natural light, there is huge variety of artificial lighting options from simple soft recessed bulbs to accent lamps in the shapes of graceful angels bearing celestial orbs. Much of the mission style furniture is skillfully handmade, as many of the fixtures ranging from molding to door and window frames. The entryway inside the front entrance has a truly impressive coat closet and is connected to the garage entrance by an also impressive mudroom. There are six bedrooms of varying sizes distributed across the first and second floors, a living room on the first floor that looks barely lived in, a cozy family room taking up half the finished basement, the rest given over to meticulously organized storage, emergency and otherwise. But the heart of the house is the large dining room with its intricately inlaid table and a print of the Family Proclamation prominently displayed in a simple, elegant frame. It's almost 2am when a gray rental SUV pulls up the broad driveway to spill two Boy Scouts and an angel (who is presumably also a Scout) onto the sidewalk. Dallen still looks half asleep and should probably have waited for someone to help him instead of hopping around on one leg. While carrying a pack. Which he's half-unslinging to root (still standing on one foot) through a side pocket. The windows are dark, no sign of movement in the sleeping household. "I guess our troop didn't hike through the night." He's whispering loudly and trying not to sound as disappointed as he is. Hiking in the dark through the slot canyon would have been dangerous! He should be glad their troop didn't risk that. For them. His shadow cast by the street light undulates and distends in a deeply disturbing fashion when he accidentally sets his injured foot down, even without putting much weight on it. Dallen isn't left to hop very long -- DJ is, well, pretty quick. He's at Dallen's side shortly, kind of casual about the way he reaches to brace the pack's weight as Dallen searches it. Casual, too, in the hand he offers in support. He's looking at the house with a critical frown, but doesn't say anything, yet. Bryce, meanwhile, is starting to race ahead to the door. Then turning back to grab his own pack from the car as something of an afterthought -- his thoughts have been racing ahead, too, to just how proud and excited their parents will be about their angelic discovery. "Okay but imagine if they did and one of them got hurt and then they had to get their own angel --" He's not whispering, at least not at first, rooting his keys out of a pocket as he considers whether a second angelic visit would make this night More or Less Special. He doesn't really come to much conclusion before he's darting for the door again, key fumble-scraping at the lock a few times in the dark before he unlocks it and pushes it open. "Oh --" Now he's whispering, turning back to look at DJ with wide eyes, abruptly very unsure of the correct etiquette here. Do angels have to be invited in? He's stepping back to gesture DJ inside with a grand sweep of hand, anyway. Dallen gives up his search when Bryce finds his keys first, but he does accept DJ's hand and hobbles up to the door, slower but less likely to injure his good foot. "Would they need to be rescued by an angel if..." ...if the rest of troop didn't run off and leave another injured Scout behind? He's trying to decide if this is an uncharitable thing to say when he sets his pack down and sinks down next to it to unlace...well, one of his boots. the other is firmly held in place by Bryce's improvised splint, which he wiggles experimentally. And ill-advisedly, sending a stab of pain it through his swollen ankle. He slaps his hand over his mouth too late to stifle a high-pitched yelp, and the light dims dramatically as their shadows rear up on the walls, quivering in sympathy. DJ glances to the stretching shadows, watching their flare curiously. "We're going to have to change that out." He's saying this very quietly, with a small nod to Dallen's ankle, as he steers the boy gently towards the living room and a couch. "You did a great job," this assurance comes quick to Bryce, "but we can switch that out for sleep." He has not, presumably, actually been to this house before, but he's not actually asking after a first aid kit, just slipping away to go get it. The house was dark, when the car parked. Maybe the tire squeaked just a little too loud, maybe the door creaked just enough to be heard across the first floor in the master bedroom. Maybe Kim was up anyway, goodness knows the CPAP machine is still a trial, its burbling racket not yet the promised relief from Keith's snoring but just some new headache. Whatever the case, it's not very long after Dallen's yelp that a hallway light flickers to life from somewhere deeper in the house. "Izzy?" is Kim's first guess when she calls down the hallway to the living room, slow thoughts cycling through why her son might have bailed on his sleepover, reasons ranging from the reasonable to the paranoid and back again. "Is…" When she comes into view she falls silent, processing which of her children are in the living room. "Bryce?" Kim calls out first when she spots him, then, more frantic when her gaze slides to the couch, "Dallen?" She rushes in, wrapping her arms around Dallen as if this might protect him from – what happened to his foot?. "Why are you – you're supposed to be – we haven't heard a thing from your leaders!" Keith trails behind, one hand tucked into the flannel pajama pants pulled over his garments, turning on lights as he follows his wife, squinting with Project Dad Concern as several of them seem to waver. Flickering shadows notwithstanding, Bryce is brightening under the praise. He drops his bag with a thump and trails the others to the couch. He's plopping down next to Dallen as DJ goes in search of Less Makeshift Splinting (the several first aid kits around the house are extremely well stocked), but is hopping right back up when their parents arrive. "Dallen got hurt so the troop left us to get help," he's explaining right away, hushed and a little breathless when he continues on to: "But it was okay because an angel heard our prayers and brought us home." Dallen sinks obediently onto the couch and looks briefly tempted to fuss at the splint again but thinks better of it. He sits up straighter when their parents enter, remembering just in time not to jump up along with his brother. "I'm okay Mom." His face being mooshed against her shoulder kind of messes with his attempt at sounding confident and mature, here. "Bryce splinted it for me and built a fire and everything. It doesn't even really hurt anymore. Mostly." Unless he moves it or touches it or puts any weight on it, but that's a problem for Dallen in the hypothetical future where he needs to do those things. "Oh! The angel swept us up out of the canyon in a whirlwind it was so cool!" He's leaving out the part where it made him queasy. It's probably blasphemous to complain about divine assistance. There is not much sound when DJ returns. Just a faint flickering beyond the doorway, and then he stops, in direct sightline of the kids but behind their parents' backs. The slight paling of his expression, the slight bowing of his head, pass quickly. He's holding a proper stirrup splint in his (white-feather-painted) arm, and clutches it just a little closer to his chest. His other hand comes up to drag slowly at his cheek, not that there is currently any beard to rub there. Kim’s eyes are widening as Bryce explains that the troop left us, reaching briefly for her phone as though surely there are missed calls on it but drawing back, rubbing Dallen’s back comfortingly instead. “Oh, honey,” she says, moving to give Bryce a grateful hug as well. Kim seems to think they are speaking about the angels on this side of the veil – “I’m so proud of you boys for putting your faith in Heavenly Father, He will always send angels to help you – where is he, can we thank him –” It's Keith, who’s frowning at the unfamiliar SUV in his driveway that does not belong to anyone in their neighborhood, who turns and notices DJ first. He pulls his hands from the pockets of his pajama pants, flexing them by his sides. "You brought them --" Keith blinks at the stranger(?), the relief in his mind bleeding away as he takes 'in' the figure, implacable face going stiller than usual as he stares, dread settling deep into his gut. His gruff voice doesn't change much in intonation, "-- what is going on?" Only then does Kim turn, raising her hands to her mouth as she gasps. "Oh! You totally can," Bryce agrees readily, "he drove us home!" As DJ returns he's suddenly struck by some uncertainty. Should they have offered him some juice? A Snack? Does he need a bed for the night, it's late, are they properly expressing Christlike hospitality? He doesn't have time to stress about this much when Keith is asking What's Going On. In his mind he's replaying the evening -- Dallen's injury, the terrifying shadows that had sprouted up, the wariness and fear from their troop. He opens his mouth to answer (honestly) but then some nameless anxiety (silly it's silly these are their parents) stalls him. Instead he's shifting just a little with an odd uncertain protectiveness -- he doesn't actually put himself between Dallen and their parents but he does move closer to his brother. "Well --" Under his sleeves there's the beginning of a prickle that's rippling out of his skin and this, too, comes with a defensiveness he hasn't quite identified. "Like I said, he twisted his ankle and..." His brows scrunch and he looks to Dallen, biting down on his lip. "You totally can --" Dallen says almost simultaneously as Bryce. Where this is bright and excited he's suddenly paling as his brother starts to explain what happened in Buckskin Gulch. The shadows in the room shiver with his growing anxiety. Even as he struggles to keep them still he's admonishing himself for being afraid of -- what? Telling his wonderful, generous, loving parents about himself, as God made him? << Stop being a wimp there's nothing to be afraid of I just need to man up. >> He still feels a guilty relief when Bryce shifts closer, relieved enough to pick up the explanation. "...it was really scary." Oh, that definitely sounded too wimpy. "Well, not scary, it was just one of those narrow parts in the canyon. You know, with the walls like..." He makes a wavy gesture with his hands that probably looks to an adult (or possibly a Gentile tween) like a description of a curvy woman. "...so the shadows looked really big and..." As if to supplement his failing words, his power slips his inexpert control and the shadows in the room start expanding. Slowly at first, they darken as they stretch clawlike tendrils across the floor and walls, dimming the warm and plentiful light. "Oh no," Dallen whispers. He tries to pull the shadows back, frantically casting around for faculties he does not know how to use. It only makes the darkness quiver and distort like tortured souls. "Oh no oh no sorry I'm not doing it on purpose but that's why they -- they --" << -- abadoned us. >> The stretching shadows that wreath DJ probably do not help the K's dawning realization. DJ's head bows further, and then he steps forward out of the patch of darkness that has briefly ensconced him. "Your sons told you what's going on," he answers, quiet and calm. His eyes are tracking one particularly sharp-looking shadow as it curls towards Keith. "He was hurt, and the people who should have taken care of him abandoned them. They were incredibly brave, though." He isn't actually looking at the adults, here, though he does step closer now to kneel in front of Dallen, very careful as he starts to remove the makeshift splint and loosen the boot as much as possible before taking that off, too. "You have nothing to be sorry for. A shadow is just a shadow. It's faith and it's kindness that we use to light the world. Do those things go away at night?" Neither Kim nor Keith can stop the horror with which they react to those flickering shadows. Keith takes a step back from that jagged edge; Kim is trying not to look at them at all, trying to focus on her youngest son << (not you too) >>, the one that was meant to absolve her. Still, the fearful words slip out: "Dallen, please, can you stop it –" "Kim." It's not admonishment yet, it's not a defense of the darkness, but it is calling a time-out. Keith is slow to work his way through DJ's words, slow to thread them through that long leaden twist of regret that has never really gone away. His expression still isn't changing, but he's thinking about his children – – Dallen, apologizing here and now but his plea (<< "I'm not doing it on purpose" >>) echoing from here to a hotel room over a decade ago, Lily's mutated multilayered voice scared and spiteful all at once through her tears – – the protective shift in Maddie's posture at their kitchen table, pulling closer to Gracie as Bryce does now to his brother when she demures away his concern << "It’s not a big deal, I know I don’t have to act on it" >> – – to Dawson Joel himself, a lifetime ago, eyes glassy in face of his parents' admonishments, his voice so small when he asks << "Are you saying I have to leave?" >> At her husband's interruption, in his quiet contemplation, Kim is praying – trying to pray, but the blessing for their family that is unspooling in Kim’s mind is interrupted by another proclamation– The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. She's thinking now, too, of the last time she saw her eldest son, the fear in her heart, the pain that's followed – trying to balance it against these shadows from her youngest son in awful calculus she never wanted to revisit. As one, Kim and Keith drag their eyes over to this man they’ve heard about in all his living reproof. Can they see the Dawson they raised in this face, weathered and sharpened? The white swoop of his prosthetic arm, ghostly in the shadows? Keith swallows, reaches for the thing he can say. “Thank you,” he says, his throat dry amidst sixteen years of guilt. "For bringing them home." Despite his evident gratitude, the gazes the Allreds turn back towards their youngest children are still uncertain. That nameless anxiety swells in Bryce at the horror in their parents' faces. He takes a step forward, chin tipped a little higher and his jaw set in a defiance. "It's not just him." He's turning his hands up, spread as if in supplication, but along his skin there's brilliant plumage sprouting -- deep red and purple-blue in familiar echo of the boys' talkative pet parrot that ripples out to coat his arms. "It's not just him and you can't --" This sentence stalls as somewhere in the back of his mind a firmly convicted they would never is warring with Dawson's very solid presence here. His weight shifts, one of his ankles rolling slowly to the side and back. Dallen's dark eyes, wide with fear, track from DJ to their parents and back. He shakes his head a few too many times and kind of starts to shake his shoulders too, before catching himself and fixing his gaze very seriously on DJ's hands. "No," he answers quietly. Then, in a stronger and steadier voice, he quotes, "'God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.'" Though he says it only once, in his mind he's turning the verse over and over, as if he hasn't been at least mildly obsessing over it for weeks. "Is that also talking about kindness?" He sucks in a quick breath that isn't quite a gasp when Bryce steps forward, at once hopeful and fearful. For all the discomfort and disquiet, he breaks into a delighted smile at the richly colored feathers covering his brother's arms. << He's a Moabite now! >> He thinks this is pretty funny, but doesn't say it for fear their parents would disapprove of the joke. But if they disapprove of Bryce... << (they would never) >> Not both of them, anyway, he's sure of it. Still, his voice is a little flatter when he finishes Bryce's truncated sentence. "-- can't kick us both out." "God is light." DJ's eyes have gone slightly wider at the rippling of bold feathers. His affirmation comes soft but sure. He's checking the circulation in Dallen's toes, then fitting the brace carefully into place. Checking again. "It means everything that comes from Him is pure. You are a beloved child of heavenly parents who created you just as you are. There will always be people in the world who try to make you feel like less than that." His hand squeezes gently against Dallen's knee, and then drops. "But maybe they aren't listening to God quite the way they should." He pushes himself to his feet, and as his gaze ticks toward Kim and Keith his arm starts to wrap around his chest. It's just as quickly lowering again, eyes shifting back to the boys and his words still addressed very much to them and not their parents. "Nobody is kicking you out. You two should get to bed, okay? It's been a really long day." The Allreds senior blanch – << you too?! >> comes simultaneously at that sudden burst of feathers, but the emphasis is slightly different in each mind – you 'too' in Keith's, 'you' too in Kim's. "Nobody is getting kicked out," is just a touch too slow in its echo but it is genuine below Keith's shame, "at all, for anything." Kim agrees, but doesn't trust her voice to not betray her hesitancies. She skips ahead to a sincere “We love you,” but just what that subtly emphasized you entails is fuzzier, some shades of << (this is not who they are) >> << ( we are not given trials we cannot overcome) >> colouring her care. "We will figure…this out." Maybe those feathers aren’t Bryce's, like his eldest sister; maybe those shadows can be brought to heel like those of Dallen’s middle ones; maybe Lily has found a cure like she always said she would…but even as Kim is shoving that thought down her eyes are lifting to DJ again, this man who looks just like the pictures, like during her darkest nights she imagined Dawson might one day, but jarringly different all the same. Maybe that’s finally a prayer for forgiveness and strength that she’s mustering. "In the morning," Keith adds firmly. He's looking at Dallen's foot, wondering if his son is too old to be carried (or if he's too old to lift him). He bends to offer him his shoulders and a steadying hand, instead, ready to accompany them to their room(s, finally). Kim sways like she yearns to collapse into the couch, but catches herself. “Can I get you some water.” she asks instead, not daring to meet DJ’s eyes, now. “Warm milk?” << (silly he's all grown up) (like I always made for you– for him – >> The swell of relief that accompanies these reassurances is at once immediate and a little self-conscious, a quiet prayer of gratitude in Bryce's mind overlapping with a chiding reproach to himself (of course they aren't getting kicked out why would he think that.) There is definite reluctance in Bryce's mind (too excited to sleep) (SO many angel questions to ask) but, guiltily, he is inwardly acknowledging that probably you should not argue with a command from an angel and he's puffing himself up tall when Keith bends -- "I can help!", stepping in to offer one feathered arm to his brother. "... are you going to stay," he can't help asking, before they go, with a hasty clarification: "Tonight, I mean, are --" The jumble in his mind is more feeling than concrete imagery, a ghost of ache defined over his short years by the flickering shadows cast by a brother he never knew and conversations the family never had. He blinks, swallows, gives DJ a determined smile: "Sorry. I mean, thank you. For -- for. Thank you. Um. Good -- night." Dallen wiggles his toes carefully but does not try to move his ankle. "Thank you," he murmurs, still mulling over << "pure" >> and << "just as you are" >> with a kind of reverent wonder, and does not notice the shadows receding back (more or less) into their natural boundaries. He resists the urge to fidget while his parents speak, resists the stronger urge to cross his arms. A prayer finds its way through anyhow in vivid grateful snippets of his brother's -- brothers'! -- courage and care, their parents' love and acceptance. He's trying hard not to compare these things. It's hardly fair to compare anyone to an angel -- or Bryce -- and dad said they wouldn't get kicked out for anything. Still, he refrains from asking if he could have some warm milk. They're dealing with a lot and he shouldn't be demanding more. He takes his brother's arm and stands up, delighted all over again at his glossy-bright plumage. "Yeah, if you don't have like...other ministries to do? We have so much space, and this is your --" He shuts his mouth and bites his lip hard. That's their parents' decision, and he shouldn't be ungrateful to them or to their heavenly parents. So he just tags along with Bryce's "thank you" and "good night". As they hobble out into the hallway, he's telling his brother in a hushed (but not hushed enough) voice, "You'll need way more than that to fly, and maybe a tail, too..." "Good night," is all DJ says at first, quiet as the boys make their way out. His gaze follows them out and then turns up to the ceiling. He doesn't answer about the milk, and his eyes are a little too glistening-bright when he finally does look back towards (his/not his) parents. "Children are an heritage of the Lord," is what he says then, quiet, and though the Family Proclamation is on the wall in the other room the words come smooth and familiar without having to read it: "Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives - mothers and fathers - will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations." His eyes shift away and now he is drifting -- slow, curious -- through the room, stopping before the mantelpiece to examine its contents thoughtfully. "Do you have a testimony of the eternal family?" His white-feathered fingers are unfurling in the direction the boys departed. "They certainly do." Keith’s arm falls to his side as he straightens; he nods to Bryce, watches the boys go with a mixture of pride and twin pangs of redundancy and unfamiliarity. Kim, too, feels a sting of rejection. Neither of them expand on their sons' offers of hospitality, though Kim calls out a “Good night!” The mantel is covered in framed photos – two sets of identical twins, posed to bookend the shelf; Ivy and her husband, an infant in her arms; Madelyn and Grace mid-painting their newest ceramic creation; here is Bryce on Isaiah's shoulders, and here is Naomi winning a geography bee, and here is Lily in graduation robes with Dallen perched on her hip. The largest photo is in the center – all fourteen of them in a field, smiling, perfectly complete. There is nothing from before 2008 here. No newborn pictures of anyone but Bryce. Hardly any toddlers. The history of the Allred family begins, these pictures say, after Dawson Joel disappeared from their lives. It’s the words of the Family Proclamation that shatter the uneasy tension in both parents. “How dare you,” breathes Kim, tears in her eyes. “You have no idea what our family has been through since– since–” She doesn’t speak it out loud – how can she? She has been practicing silence for sixteen years – “Our sons have testimonies because we have raised them to!” Keith bristles as DJ inspects the photos, as he rebukes them, a sense of intrusion piercing his previous gratitude. Whatever guilt he carries for the severed bond he shared with his eldest son, however that has gentled his attitude towards his youngest ones, it is not finding an easy resting place on this stranger now that they are gone. "We have been sealed together by our Heavenly Father for time and all eternity. Our son," comes slow and full of deliberately constructed conviction, hammered together by the (relative) flourishing of his living mutant children, "will have forgiven us when he sees that we have not made the same mistakes again." DJ half-turns, one eyebrow raising when Kim fails to finish her sentence. There's a brief twitch that clenches at his jaw, and then he's turning back towards the photos of these familiar strangers. There's a tension, still, set hard into his shoulders, but his voice is oddly calm. "Bryce and Dallen were both scared they would be next. Will he forgive you for his siblings growing up terrified that being born wrong could cost them their family?" He's turning, leaning back against the mantel, the family photo framing him like a sunny-smiling halo. "Will your other children forgive you for what you did to your family? Will Lily forgive you from tearing her from her twin? Will he forgive you for the scars you've left her?" His arms cross over his chest -- defensive or praying, it's hard to tell. "They need acceptance. Understanding. They need parents who stand up for them when the world tries to tear them down." DJ's voice hasn't raised this whole time but now, as his mouth closes there's another voice entirely. << We heard their prayers. >> It rustles manylayered over itself like so many leaves in the wind, like so many feathers fluttering over each other. There's a very keen sense that it is watching with too many eyes to count. When it speaks it's not one voice but an entire host, a susurrus of thousands upon thousands of souls joined in grief and righteous fury whipping through the K's minds: << If those boys spend so much as one single night worried for their place in this family, I promise you we'll be listening. >> Now it's Keith's turn for outrage at someone else telling him how to preside over his family, while Kim sputters on the tip of half a dozen retorts << if they’d talked to their sisters, they would know we’ve known, it’s been fine” you don’t know them (don't know us) >> Both of them are opening their mouths to object (to remove this Dawson Joel from their home?) when that unearthly voice(s) snap through their minds. Both of them shrink; the effect is striking on Keith, solid as he always seems. This is not the quiet Spirit they have professed to knowing, but something so much more, awe-some and awe-ful and absolutely terrifying. The forming protests falter on their lips, in their minds, as that voice wraps their words in that grief, brings more attention to DJ's words. What do they know about how their children have lived? Have they ever heard such urgency in Bryce’s voice? Why did Gracie stop telling stories about her friends in ninth grade? What was the choice Lily made when she insisted they bury Dawson so far away, and when she stayed (so far away)? A fist of judgment constricts around their hearts as they look at DJ, who has put their family’s missing piece into stark visual relief; Kim bursts into tears. For a moment they struggle to speak, Kim’s uncontrolled sobs the only sound in the room. Eventually Kim licks her lips. “I – They will not.” Keith adds, “Yes. We will defend them, if – when. The time comes.” Though her voice is tremulous and his regretful, both their words have the air of covenants. Neither of them can bring themselves to promise understanding, aloud, but for whatever their reasons, a resolve to try is beginning to form in their hearts. Whether that is enough for this angel? apparition? arbiter? remains to be seen. DJ's expression doesn't change, just a calm and steady appraisal through their shifts in emotions. But after these promises, after this resolve, his head bows in a single nod of acceptance. "You should get Dallen that warm milk," he offers, gentler, now. "He's had a very long night." And then, with a quiet flicker, he is gone. Not quite without a trace -- found later, tucked into the most well-used copy of The Book of Mormon in the K's bedroom, a glossy pamphlet from the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. The handwriting hasn't changed much from Dawson's teenage years, identifiable in the note left at the top of the brochure in fine-tipped Sharpie: After much tribulation come the blessings. You aren't in this alone. --- October 19, 2023. The Ks have put a spread of snacks in front of their guest, have rearranged the living room (thoughtfully) (clumsily) to accommodate a wheelchair, have settled into giving Professor Xavier an earnest explanation of their situation and earnestly questioning him. Well, mostly Kim has been questioning. She's finally abandoning her litany of academic concerns to pursue her faith ones, and getting a little distracted on the way – "How close is the school to the nearest – " << oh no but just the two of them? Will they be the only mutants there, will that be worse? >> "-- maybe it would be easier for them to stay with their sisters on the weekends, go to church with them in New York City – " << – at least Gracie will take them, maybe the three of them can bring back – >> " – have you met our eldest, Lily, she's a geneticist, she's read all your work – " << (should have put the NYT article about her on the mantel) (Kimberly you can't just ask every geneticist if they know each other) (oh no what if he brings up Prometheus) >> Keith is quieter, thinking of arguments with the second counselor and the Sunday School teachers and the sister who decried mutants during last month’s fast and testimony meeting; thinking of the multiple meetings with the school administration, already this year; thinking of his youngest sons with fierce protectiveness and deep fear for them (trying not to think of his eldest son, his scarred face in the news and the empty sleeve in the Frontline footage). "We are trying to understand them, to accept them, to keep them safe from those who would tear them down," he repeats like a mantra in a lull while Kim takes notes, "but we can't make the schools here into something they're not." He glances up to the Family Proclamation, clinging to the words other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation to ask for the reassurance he needs –"If we send them to your school, will they be protected?" Charles is usually accompanied on these visits -- not that the Allreds would know -- but here he is alone. He's been unfailingly polite, but hasn't availed himself of the refreshments more than politeness requires. "There is reliable public transit into the City for them to attend services, and they can certainly visit with their sisters as their studies allow." It seems all very natural that his eyes should drift to the mantel with this, and though there's no change in his expression of neutral engagement at Keith's words, he's rolling over to look up at the family photographs now. "I am going to speak plainly, so that you understand. My school...my faculty and staff, alumni and community, we take care of our own. The world is a dangerous place for people like your eldest and youngest. We should have taken better care of Dawson, but I have learned from the ways we failed him." He pivots his chair back to face the Allreds. His expression is placid and his voice is steady, the fiery conviction behind his words impossible to doubt. "If you send your sons to my school, we will protect them. I will protect them, with my very life if I must."