too fast for freedom; sometimes it all falls down

[not_the_last]

Who: Cassandra de Rolo & OTA, especially Team Mutiny
When: January
Where: Around and about the ship
What: Trauma aftermath: wandering the halls, nonphysical self-harm of sorts, and talking to fellow would-be mutineers
Warnings: Game-typical angst; other warnings to be added as needed

a. drifting through the halls with the sunrise

Cassandra would like nothing better than to stay in her cabin for the next few days. The only trouble is, her cabin doesn't feel safe anymore. (Does this have anything to do with her roommate's conduct at the trial? Who's to say.)

She isn't sleeping terribly well, and that means a lot of wandering the ship at increasingly odd hours. Some of the time she's spending in her old hobby of trying to people-watch while staying unseen, but she doesn't seem to have much energy for that, so sometimes it's just listlessly drifting.

I can't see my way ahead, she says to Darcy sometime during this period, and it keeps echoing back to her. I can't see my way ahead.

She'll talk, if addressed. Probably.

b. i'm gonna be free and i'm gonna be fine (maybe not tonight) [for Erin]

Erin. She should talk to Erin. She read that text -- I am taking some time to not be around people. My cabin if you need me. -- when it first came in, and started a reply four or five times, and somehow never finished one.

Well, and maybe that's all right. Maybe she can take some time herself to not be around people. Or at least not be around people who don't want --

No, that's unfair. That's unjust. She knows that.

She still doesn't text Erin back, for those first five days.

c. it's a different kind of danger, and the bells are ringing out

The black binder in the library is gone when she next passes its former location, a few days after the return from the excursion. She stands for what feels like several minutes, looking at the spot where it used to rest, before she turns away and leaves the library without what she came for.

For over a week, at one point or another during the day, she'll go up to Deck Seven and head to one point or another within sight of the entrance to the bridge. Sometimes she'll turn away immediately and hurry off (trying hard not to look like she's hurrying); sometimes stand there in much the same way as she stood to stare at the place where the binder wasn't.

She's making no effort at stealth, in either place.

d. and i'm calling for my mother as i pull the pillars down [for Team Mutiny]

Reluctantly, exhaustedly, there is one duty she feels that she has to acknowledge even through the drained listlessness that seems to have overtaken her.

Matters can't stand as they were last left, at the meeting at the winter resort. Too much new information has come to them, too quickly; as a result, too many changes of mind or heart are possible, in too many different directions. It's not as though they finished the meeting with anything resembling a plan, or even a coherent goal, but nonetheless it feels dangerous to let things lie.

Cassandra begins quietly speaking to one and then another of the people she saw at the meeting, saying only I think we should meet again, gauging interest, and asking who might have a cabin suitable to hold it -- i.e., without a cabin-mate likely to be hostile or indiscreet. That's all she will start with, at least; if anyone wants to discuss further plans for the meeting, or anything else, she will not be in a hurry to leave.

She's likely to have a quiet word with Rich, even though he wasn't at the meeting; she's very unlikely to talk to Ava about it, even though she was. She's still undecided on Valdis.

[ooc note: there will most likely be a separate open post for the meeting itself, if and when it happens. see the top-level below if you want to handwave that your character talked to Cass about it.]

e. these chains never leave me; i keep dragging them around

[Wildcard! Message me here or on discord, batyatoon#2432.]

Comments

d.

[myagic]

Rita feels simultaneously worn out and brimming with restless energy since the trial.

When she spots Cassandra nearby, she'll head over if not approached first. "You haven't had a change of heart or anything ridiculous like that, then?"

Yeah, she's frustrated. Freshly simmering with anger after a especially vitriolic argument with Darcy, but she knows where she herself stands.

[not_the_last]

Cassandra turns and gazes at Rita, first with mild startlement and then with an air of patient waiting.

[myagic]

Rita waits for an answer...that doesn't seem to be coming, so she crosses her arms and frowns. "Wh...what? Why are you just staring like that?"

[not_the_last]

"I was waiting for you to realize that you began the conversation in the middle," says Cassandra mildly, "and start over."

[myagic]

"Start over?!" Rita echoes incredulously. "It's called getting straight to the point!"

[not_the_last]

"Mistress Rita," still mild, and very calm, "we are scarcely acquainted, and you are presuming on a familiarity you have not earned. I will have at the very least a civil greeting from you, if you please, and then I shall be quite happy to continue straight to the point."

Cassandra is so good ♥

[myagic]

Rita's face reddens and her mouth thins as she very clearly wages an internal struggle between doubling down versus doing as Cassandra requests. The former wins with some input from the latter, resulting in...

"Oh, sorry. Gee, nice weather, which I'm sure you've noticed because it never changes. Now are you ready to just answer the question?!"

[not_the_last]

"Middling effort," says Cassandra judiciously, "I'm sure you're capable of better, but we'll go with it for now. To answer your question: no, I have not undergone a change of heart."

She meets Rita's eyes very directly, and takes a step or two closer. Her voice is still perfectly calm, but it's taken on an overtone of something like challenge. "To ask you a question in turn: what exactly do you think my heart's position is, that you were concerned that it might have changed?"

[myagic]

Rita's scowl returns as she defensively crosses her arms, meeting Cassandra's challenging stare with an irritated huff. "Hey, I'm not concerned about anything. Why are you dodging the question, anyway?"

Nevermind that Cassandra's question in turn is perfectly valid based on what Rita demanded to know; nevertheless, she eyes the other woman suspiciously. "Were you actually feeling sympathy for their little display?"

[not_the_last]

The look in Cassandra's direct gaze shifts from challenge to faint wonder: are you paying attention at all?, that look says.

"I answered your question. Directly. Do you intend to answer mine?"

[myagic]

Looks like it's time for stubbornly doubling down on this hill she's ready to die on, as Rita immediately sputters back, "You didn't answer anything! You don't answer a question by asking another question--that's not how it works!"

[not_the_last]

A stab of irritation goes right through her. Cassandra opens her mouth, with the words keep a civil tongue in your head rising, ready to be spoken.

(Or I'll have it out, murmurs the memory of Delilah's voice, and overlapping it, underlying it, is a wholly different voice saying Bow.)

She closes her teeth on her own tongue, hard enough to hurt, and there is a short sharp silence.

"To answer your question," she repeats, very slowly, very levelly, "again: no, I have not undergone a change of heart."

[myagic]

"Geez, what are you so moody about?" asks Rita with a huff as if she had absolutely no hand in it. "Was that really so hard?"

Cassandra was involved in the mutiny meeting, so that ought to mean she still wishes to fight back against the captain, then.

[not_the_last]

That certainly is the impression she's given!

"And are you going to answer my question, or will we be at this all day?"

[myagic]

Rita blanks for a second--maybe Cassandra was right to wonder whether or not she was paying attention--before remembering, oh, right-

"Oh, that--well, since you were against Captain Jerk at that last meeting, that means nothing's changed, right?"

[not_the_last]

"That hasn't changed, no."

She studies Rita for a moment. "If you were to feel sympathy for them, as you put it ... would that change your mind?"

[myagic]

"Who the hell would feel sympathy for them?!" It might not be a direct answer, but at the moment, Rita's glower says it all: right now, she can't even fathom sympathizing with them. And yet...

"But somehow, there's people who do. What's wrong with them?"

[not_the_last]

"What indeed," says Cassandra, after a pause.

Again she contemplates Rita, frowning slightly, with the air of someone trying to make up their mind.

[myagic]

All these pauses and looks are getting in her nerves, and these latest ones are no exception—-especially after such a vague answer.

“What?!” she finally demands, uncrossing her arms to plant her hands on her hips. “What’s with that look? You got something you want to say?”

[not_the_last]

"I'm wondering if you can hold your temper in order to achieve something you truly want."

There's no note of challenge this time, only a cool assessment.

[myagic]

Ugh, why is everyone always going on about her temper?! Anger is a perfectly logical reaction to recent events! All to say that Rita pretty much bristles in reaction. "Hey, who the hell wouldn't be a little angry after all that's happened?"

She certainly doesn't know Cassandra anywhere near well enough to guess at what emotions might be underneath that calm surface. But surely--surely, she has to be angry too, right?

[not_the_last]

"Of course. Keeping your temper doesn't mean not being angry." Another considering look. "Have people been telling you that's what it means? I don't mean here, I mean before this place."

[myagic]

"Don't be stupid; they're the exact same thing! You get angry, you're showing you're temper; you don't, and--you're cold, like that." She jabs a finger in Cassandra's direction, because even if she won't admit it, her temper is making her run her mouth more. She knows people don't always show exactly what they're feeling--but thinking about people lecturing her about her temper brings her back to Skulduggery, and that just gets her angry all over again, too.

[not_the_last]

"I am ... exceedingly angry right now, Rita." She sounds entirely calm, and even smiles slightly. "Holding your temper means being angry, but not letting your anger do what it wants. Usually because there's something else you want more. I don't know if you're incapable of doing that, or if you simply don't try."

A beat.

"I think it's likely you could do a great deal, if you tried."

[myagic]

An indignant flush to her cheeks, Rita scowls, silent a moment. She's half-tempted to snap back, but she doesn't want to hear even more scolding like she's a child. (Which she totally isn't, in her very unbiased opinion.)

"Ugh, enough," she huffs instead. "I barely even know you, so keep the lectures to yourself!" And unwittingly, she brings them right back around to Cassandra's earlier point.