Page 21 of Cassian
“Now that they’re on the shelf, I might try and read more of them.I was putting it off in favor of not having to do anything more than I had to.You’ve made it easier for me to get to some of the books I’ve been thinking of.”He smiled at Brave, who seemed to be in charge of the faeries overall.“I just wanted to thank you and see if there is anything that I can do for you.I’d do just about anything.”
“Can we have the scraps of yarn left over at the nursery?”He had to find out what nursery they were talking about, and it was the garden variety, not the baby one.Brenin didn’t even know there was one on the land.“Oh, the other faeries have been making it work for you.There are some things that we can do magically, and we didn’t think you’d mind if we made sure that it was in working order.They’ve planted seeds that will be ready in the fall for flowers around the house, as well as herbs for the cook you have.”
“Good, yes.That’s great.And so long as there is no use for the yarn, go ahead and take all you want.”That seemed to excite them, and he was then worried that he should have checked out the yarn situation before agreeing that they could have it.But if he had to, how much could yarn cost?He didn’t know but it would be worth it to have his shelves filled with books and the dust gone.He’d invest if he had to.
Brenin decided that he was going to have a look over the land that he’d gotten with the house.There were plenty of acers for things like greenhouses to hide, he thought with a grin.When he’d purchased the land, it came with two hundred acres.Surely there were other things around the place that he could explore.
Gathering up what he’d need to travel around the estate, he took some water bottles as well as some snacks to get him by in the event that he was gone longer than he thought.He also told his brother what he was doing in the event that something happened to him and he didn’t make it back in a reasonable hour.Of course, his brother had to make fun of him.
“Yes, because I’m sure a big, bad dragon that knocks down buildings with just his tail is going to get into a situation that will have his big brother come and rescue him.”He didn’t get angry but did tell Cassian that he was going to get lost just because he could now.“Just be careful.Really.You don’t know what you’ll run into while out and about by yourself.I’d go with you, but Raven and I have plans for the day.We’re going to go shower curtain hunting.And believe it or not, I’m excited.”
“You’re an idiot, is what you are.”He teased him a bit more before closing the connection.Christ, he loved his family, but there were times when he didn’t like them all that much.Getting going, he had everything he needed for a long walk with a couple of faeries.They’d been exploring the land before him and knew everything that was there.Apparently, there were a couple of buildings on the land, as well as the greenhouse that he was excited to be able to look into.
By noon, he’d found one of the barns that were on his land.It was falling down and in need of being torn down the rest of the way before too much longer.He did wonder if it had anything in it, but thought that the damage had been too great to go inside.Even sending in the faeries had been scary for him, and he decided to let it fall on its own rather than waste the money on having it torn down.There wasn’t anything around it that could be hurt by it falling in, so that’s what he decided to do with it.
The greenhouse was up and running.It was just as Brave had said, it was filled with herbs and even a few hundred plants for the fall.He didn’t know where they were going to plant all of the foliage, but if he had to, he’d give it to his cousins and brother if it came to that.He wasn’t the least bit surprised to find fruit trees in the building as well.Now he knew how he was getting all the fruit for the house.They’d been growing it for him.Then there were the herbs.
“They smell so good.I can even smell the ones that Margaret has been using in the house for my meals.”Brave told him that she was most pleased with the gardens that she had and was happy that they’d be there year-round, too.“I am as well.While I can cook, I don’t enjoy it, but I do love to eat.And using fresh is always better than the dried stuff you can get in the store.”
He watched the workers working on replanting some of the things that had been left behind by the previous owners.Using their magic, they were able to get the items replanted in no time and helped them along so that they’d live too.He loved the smell of the roses that were in the greenhouse, and that was when he saw the yarn they’d been talking about.It was used to tie up the roses to train them into certain shapes for the house.There was plenty of it to go around, and he decided that he was going to look into other colors of the stuff so that they’d have more than just green to work with.He made a note on his phone to see what he could find.
He found the second building just before he was ready to call it quits for the day.It was in much better shape than the first one, and he could easily walk into it without being nervous.There wasn’t much in the barn: an old tractor with metal wheels that had seen better days.As well as a few crates of things that had been stored there and forgotten, he supposed.He figured that he’d go through them at a later date when it wasn’t so hot and see what he could find.Today, he’d had enough and was headed home when Tucker contacted him.
“The couple, the Madisons, who were in the building that you knocked down, have children.They’re contacting them now.I’m sure that they’re going to want to talk to you and Cassian about what had happened.”He said that he could do that so long as he left out the part about his dragon.“As you might well have heard, they’re going on about the big dragon that tried to eat them.No one is paying them any mind, but I didn’t know if you know that or not.”
“I didn’t, but I can well imagine.What do I say happened?”Tucker told him just like he’d written in the report.That the building was in bad repair and that it had taken that moment to fall into itself.No point in making trouble where there is no need to have any.“I agree with you.I’ll be around if they need to talk to me, but I’m not going to be able to tell them much more than the police does.”
“Whatever is needed, I know you can handle it.”He was glad for the confidence in him.“That’s all I had to tell you, and I thought that you should know about it.”
After thanking him, they closed the connection after agreeing to meet up for lunch sometime.He wondered if there could ever be a meeting between him and his family where it didn’t involve food.But really didn’t care, it was a good way to hang out.
~*~
Jaden was terrified that the man who’d been in the barn, her barn, was going to be making more trips out to where she was staying.It had been a nice place to stay, and she had been able to make it work for her while she was homeless.
She’d been homeless before, but never for this long.She supposed she could get a job, but that wouldn’t be any fun, and she sort of liked being on her own.As she opened the next crate of things that had been left behind, she found it was full of books, too.It bothered her that the mice had gotten to them, but she didn’t think about them when she was laying in the hay to sleep.That would give her the willies, and she didn’t need that in her life.
The next crate held some old ornaments.She could take them to get a price for them, as she’d been doing with the other things in the barn.So far, she’d been able to get enough money for her to have a car that she needed, as well as some food that she had stored in the big barn.She looked around her new home and decided that this was one of the better places that she’d stayed in a while and might not burn it to the ground when she left.Maybe.
Jaden hadn’t always been homeless.When she was about twenty, she decided that her parents had too many rules for her taste and she moved out, taking enough of their things to hock her way into an apartment.But that didn’t last long.Not only had they changed the locks on the house, but they’d put a guard at the gate that wouldn’t allow her to enter, no matter how much she threatened him.There were no more things that she could take out and sell after that, and she’d lost her apartment.She didn’t much care for it either.
There were rules there as well.Bills to pay so that she’d have electricity on.Then there was the stupid rent that she had to pay monthly.They expected her to be on time with it as well.That was a bummer for her as she never could remember that it was due.She had better things to do with her life than work around someone else’s schedule.So she’d moved out in the middle of the night, leaving all her pretty things behind.
She’d been going from place to place for the last ten years or so.Usually, it was abandoned places like buildings around town.But that hadn’t worked out so well either.There was forever someone trying to get her to move on, and she didn’t much care for that.So what she did to get back to them was burn the place down.
That had been what she’d been doing when the police got involved.She usually got bored with the place and would simply leave.But she missed the fire and the pretty colors that were there.So she’d been setting fire to the places she’d been lately just so she could have a show just for herself.
She was getting pretty good at it, too.By the time the fire department had arrived, the places would be too far gone for them to be able to save them.Sometimes she’d get a treat, and it would be too close to other buildings, and they’d burn too.It wasn’t anything that she planned, but she loved it all the same.Looking around to see what else she could get into, she found a stack of crates that she couldn’t get to.Someone had stacked them much too high for her to get them down to explore.
“Probably full of gold blocks or something.”Smiling, she knew that it was going to be more of the same stuff.Useless things that probably meant the world to whoever had packed them away.“People are stupid about keeping treasures when they could just sell them and have the cash.”
Jaden didn’t like talking to herself, but she knew that if she wanted to have the answers that she wanted, that was the only way to get them.People just didn’t understand her, and that was another reason that she spoke to herself.She understood herself better than anyone else did, and she liked it that way.
Gathering up what she could carry, she made her way into town.There was one pawn shop in the next town over, so she had to put things in her car and drive them over.The car had been sitting in a parking lot for the last year or so, and no one ever bothered it.Moving it around when she had to make trips was probably what saved her, but she didn’t care so long as she could use it when she needed.And today was one of those days.The pawn shop was open for business when she got there.
“Finding more treasures, have you?Let’s take a look at what you got and see what we can haggle about.”She didn’t care much for the man knowing her face now and would have to find someplace else to hock her wears.Things were getting too personal for her tastes, and she didn’t care that she’d have to travel a bit further than before.“These are some nice pieces.With it being summer and all, I can hold onto them until fall comes up and sell them then.I’ll give you a hundred bucks for all of them.”
The ornaments were useless to her, so she took the money offered; instead of hocking the things she brought in, she was selling them to him.There was less money involved for her, but it wasn’t like she had anything invested in the things that she brought in anyway.She rarely haggled, as he called it, because she didn’t want him to remember her.Well, that was water under the bridge, she thought the saying went, and decided that this would be the last time she came in here.
