it's a war in there [March OTA, including memshare]

[not_the_last]

Who: Cassandra de Rolo & those visiting her memories / OTA
When: March
Where: Around the Serena Eterna; also Whitestone, at various points in the past
What: Things are beginning to crack
Warnings: Game-typical angst; in memshares, murder, torture, vampirism, mindfuckery both magical and mundane, and potentially noncon/dubcon; other warnings to be added in reply headers as needed

A. you're just like them, you're unprepared

Cassandra's noticed the cracks, of course. Before she brushes against one, they seem alarming and inexplicable; are they a trick, a trap, a sign that this whole little artificial plane is starting to come apart?

(The thought she barely lets herself contemplate: a way out?)

After her first few encounters with them, the nature of them seems more apparent -- although there's no guarantee they aren't also any of her previous thoughts. The first time her own memories double on her, with faces she knows from here appearing in them, she locks herself in her cabin's bathroom and curls up on the floor of the shower, arms wrapped around her knees, struggling not to begin screaming for fear that she might never stop.

[This prompt is for interacting with Cassandra in the present setting! Feel free to run into her anywhere on board, either before or after memshares begin, or PM/ping me on discord to discuss a more specific prompt.]

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B. cause you don't know the terrain

Several cracks about the ship, as it turns out, lead to a world called Exandria and a little city-state called Whitestone. Those who tumble into them will encounter a younger Cassandra at some point in her past.

[Specific pre-discussed prompts are below! If you would like a different one, see the plotting post here or PM/ping me to discuss.]

Comments

For Fio: Childhood

[not_the_last]

Behind the crack in the world is a large broad room, its pale stone walls draped in a rich blue fabric, its floor covered in soft carpeting. Wide arched windows look out on a gray snowy afternoon, but the room's warm and cozy, with a fire crackling in a stone hearth at one side.

The furniture in here is sturdy and well-made -- well-worn, too, but in the way of very costly things that have been used very gently for many many decades: a large couch with soft cushions gone only a little threadbare, a rocking chair covered with a knitted throw, a pair of mismatched hassocks, a scuffed but solid wooden chest with someone's initials carved into a corner, a single low shelf full of slightly battered books, a small wooden rocking horse with its bright paint only somewhat faded. The chest is standing open, and it appears to be full of dolls and other toys. Two little girls are standing near the chest, about ten and seven years old respectively, engaged in an argument of some kind.

The older of the two girls is trying to be patient, but there's a definite note of complaint in her voice. "I can't play with you right now, Cass, I have to practice."

"You're always practicing," the smaller girl pleads. "Can't it wait for later?"

"You can play with Ludwig. Or Cora or one of the other servants' children -- Cassandra, come on, I have to go."

The younger girl – Cassandra, evidently – gives a great sigh and flings herself down on the fur rug by the fireplace. "Fine," she says to the ceiling with an air of martyrdom, "go away and leave me all alone, Whitney. Someday maybe I'll be too busy for you and then you'll be sorry."

[sabigoe]

Fio observes the argument take place from the farthest wall. She has literally dreamed of being in rooms like these and seen similar in storybooks with princesses. Her biological mother was born into nobility, but as for herself, she never grew up in a life of grandeur.

She doesn't feel like she belongs here. Perhaps she should be more excited, finally seeing children close to her age and a chest full of a variety of toys. The last time she ever interacted with other children was long ago. They bullied her. And she wonders what these girls would think of her when they see her. She wonders if she should just leave. At least she no longer wears thin rags that would make her look like a peasant. But she's still a bit underdressed, in a simple black jumper dress with a long-sleeved white blouse.

As quietly as possible, she stays against the wall, trying to search for a door...

[not_the_last]

As far as being underdressed, neither of the other girls is wearing anything particularly extravagant. Whitney's in a white blouse and a calf-length skirt in dark brown, unadorned aside from just a trace of embroidery around the blouse collar; Cassandra's in a pale blue dress, with a white eyelet ruffle around the hem.

The room has two doors, both opposite the wall where Fio finds herself. As she's looking, Whitney sighs and turns to head for one of them; it opens onto a stone corridor, and then closes again behind her.

"Uuugh," declares Cassandra to the ceiling, as she kicks her feet into the air and lets them fall again in frustration. She sits up, and her eye falls on Fio.

"Hello," she says with curious interest, "when did you come in? What's your name?"

For Phil: Childhood

[not_the_last]

It's a bright spring day, with the faintest residual nip of cold in the air but with warm sunlight pouring down from a clear blue sky. The white cloud overhead isn't a cloud; it's apple blossom, laid thick and fragrant on the upper branches of the stand of trees nearby, a little orchard tucked against the white stone wall of the castle.

In among the trunks of the trees, a little dark-haired girl of about eight or nine is playing with a long stick, swishing it back and forth and then thrusting it forward.

There doesn't seem to be anyone else around, at least not close by.

[goodweather]

Oh… dear.

This is someone’s memory. Either it’s for the child he can see or someone else, and, like, a stranger suddenly appearing to a lone kid near—is that a fucking castle???—does not make him look good at all. He’s not going anywhere if he doesn’t do something, though. Unless he sits here for six hours or something, maybe? Not bad weather to be doing that.

He hates these fucking things.

Okay. He’s not going to approach her, rather let her approach him. His wings should be more than enough to garner curiosity. (Unless she runs screaming or something.)

He stands up from the foot of the tree he landed at, brushes off his pants, and starts taking a walk.

[not_the_last]

"You there," calls a peremptory voice -- not the child's, by the sound of it; it sounds like a young man.

A young man who's approaching Phil at a brisk walk, his expression one of alert suspicion. He's in dark leather-and-chain-mail armor, under a dark gray cloak pinned at the shoulder with a sunburst emblem, helmet tucked beneath one arm.

"State your business here," he says, coming to a stop a few paces away.

(Over by the trees, the little girl has stopped her game and is watching curiously.)

For Crichton: Massacre

[not_the_last]

Castles built of stone, especially their underground rooms and hallways, will always have a certain dank chill about them. One might think for a moment that that's all this is ... but that would be before noticing the filthy straw underfoot, the layers of soot never scrubbed from the walls, the smoky torches providing the only light there is. Certainly before noticing the stench, or the distant sounds of clanking chains or muffled moaning or weeping, or the fact that some of the filth in that straw is very definitely blood.

This is a dungeon.

[ss_buttcrack]

He tumbles into this memory wearing the same leather clothes and leather duster as usual. He's thankful for that when the chill of this dismal place hits him. And then, when he notices the blood, his hand goes to the gun still on his thigh and he's extra grateful. Quietly as he can, he unclips it from the holster and holds it at the ready. He knows a dungeon when he sees one... and nothing good ever happens there.

[not_the_last]

There are doors set in the corridor wall, at wide intervals; heavy dark wood almost as hard as the stone, with tiny barred slots set at roughly eye level and massive metal bolts. Further ahead, the corridor opens out into a broader area, somewhat better lit.

From somewhere further off still, the sound of sobbing rises and dies away again. It's hard to make out in the blurred echoes, but there might be words in it: please no, please no.

Somewhere much closer, there's the very faintest sound of metal scraping on metal, and an irregularly shaped section of the wall shifts.

For Natsuno: Interregnum

[not_the_last]

The room on the other side of the crack in the world might be a small parlor or waiting room; the furniture is opulent, polished wood and leather and fine fabrics, and the floor is carpeted in something soft that silences footfalls. A well-dressed man and woman are seated by a fireplace, with a tea service on a little table between them. In front of them, facing them both, is a young girl -- fifteen or sixteen years old, perhaps -- in equally well-made clothing, her dark hair held back from her face with a slate-blue ribbon.

"Is your report ready, sweet girl?" The woman pours tea, takes a delicate sip, sets the cup aside. The man sits without reaching for anything on the tea-table, leans back in the heavy armchair, hands lightly steepled in front of him.

"Yes, Delilah." The younger Cassandra remains standing, hands folded in front of her, back straight. "The resistance is planning another direct assault on the castle, at the end of the summer. Two strike teams, one at the main gate, one through the stables. They're caching weapons in a hay-drying shed on the Hagerman farm --"

The man lifts a finger, and Cassandra falls silent immediately. "Did you see the cache yourself?"

"No, Sylas." Subdued. "Hagerman's oldest daughter was there and made the offer, and the others accepted it. They're planning to cache weapons there, I ought to have said."

He nods, and Delilah smiles approvingly. "Very good. Continue."

Cassandra takes a deep breath. "I think ... I have the impression," slowly, carefully, "that the kitchen boy who carries messages between myself and Desnay is beginning to suspect something. I don't know that anything needs to be done about it yet."

"But that's not yours to decide, my dear, now is it?" Delilah says it gently, almost sympathetically. "It's good that you told us so quickly. We'll take care of it."

She bows her head in acknowledgment, and says nothing.

[neverleave]

Natsuno ducks behind a cabinet, hoping no one noticed him. Confrontation is often inevitable in the rifts, but he should at least get his bearings.

Even without peeking outside, hearing and scent tell him plenty. This is Cassandra's memory and the man - Sylas - smells like a vampire. The woman must be the necromancer, then, and Cassandra...

...is selling out the resistance she claimed to be part of.

Natsuno peers out carefully, searching the room for another exit.

[not_the_last]

Sylas's voice: "Is there anything else of note?"

"No, Sylas." When Natsuno peers out, Cassandra is still standing in place, her posture unchanged, rigid as a soldier on review.

... And Delilah is looking across the room, straight at him.

For Max: Interregnum

[not_the_last]

It's late at night, in a room full of shadows. A candelabra on an end table sheds a warm pool of light around a canopied bed and an armchair beside it, but the rest of the room is difficult to see, beyond a suggestion of an armoire, a bookshelf, sweeping curtains looming in the dimness.

The armchair is occupied by a woman in an evening gown of midnight blue and black, her auburn hair pinned up in an ornate twist. She's currently occupied in removing her jewelry -- jet earrings, a choker necklace of black pearls, a silver brooch, a matching hairpin -- and leaving it in a little glittering pile on the night-table. A tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit stands behind the chair, undoing his cuffs, smiling down at her tenderly.

There's a hesitant tap on the door, and the woman looks up at it -- and then up over her shoulder at the man, with an amused smile. "Already, Sylas?" she asks him, in an undertone of fond teasing.

"A treat for us both, my love," he murmurs, and leans down to brush a kiss over her temple. "Unless you'd prefer I send her away?"

"Oh, no," she chuckles, "by all means, let's have it. Come in," she adds, raising her voice to carry.

The door opens and a pale girl of about seventeen or eighteen steps through, carrying a tray bearing a dark bottle and two long-stemmed glasses. She's clad in the house servants' livery, dark gray with the de Rolo sunburst in gold on one shoulder; her dark hair is tied back and coiled at the nape of her neck, and her face is set in a formal nonsmile. Only her eyes -- blue-gray, and too wide -- betray her unease.

(This is not Cassandra. It's not hard to see the cursory resemblance, though.)

"My lord," she says, and bobs in the closest thing to a curtsey she can manage while holding the tray, "m-my lady. The wine my lord called for, please."

[maximumcake]

Max looks on from a dark corner of this room. The set-up isn't familiar except for all the ways it is. There's a dark sense of foreboding he can't name, but when that servant comes with the wine he knows with visceral certainty that the hairs on the back of his neck aren't standing at full attention for no reason. Right now, he barely dares to let himself breathe. Any wrong move could spell disaster... and not just for him. So he watches, and wills the frantic beating of his heart to slow--unsuccessfully.

[not_the_last]

"Very good, dear girl," says Sylas heartily. "Bring it over here."

She approaches with the tray, eyes downcast, moving with the kind of jittery caution that comes of wanting to move faster and desperately intent not to move any faster. As she nears the two of them, he gestures her toward Delilah.

"Be a pet and stay here a little while, why don't you? I'll pour the wine; you hold the tray for me."

The serving girl nods, whispers "Yes, m'lord," and moves where he points her.

For Erin: Restoration, Interrupted

[not_the_last]

This is not Whitestone.

One wouldn't necessarily be able to tell that without having lived in Whitestone all one's life, but it decidedly isn't. This is somewhere underground, and there are plenty of places underground in Whitestone; however, the colors of the earth floor and rock walls are wrong, the smell and feel of the air is wrong -- and there's the slightest sway to the space, the faintest occasional distant thump that feels like it's jarring the floor underfoot. Like some heavy machinery working close by, perhaps. Or ... a fanciful mind might think of it as the sound of gigantic footfalls, far below.

Standing against the far left wall are two immobile figures. One is a handsome older man with an immaculate beard and a slight paunch, the gold at his ears and the bronze circlet at his brow gleaming against his dark skin. The other is paler, and much smaller, such that an onlooker unfamiliar with gnomes might be forgiven for thinking they must be looking at a child. She too wears a similar bronze band on her head, and both are staring blankly ahead.

At the other end of the room is another tableau of two figures of varying heights, this one in motion. And, after a moment, in conversation -- though another moment or two will reveal that all of the movement and speech is coming from one of the two.

The figure in motion is the taller, robed in dusty black, reddish-brown hair caught back in a twist. She appears to be engaged in unbuckling and removing segments of leather armor from the other, one at a time, and discarding them in a heap.

The smaller, still figure is Cassandra de Rolo. And while she stands as immobile as the other two across the room, her eyes are aware and agonized.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin immediately kills her Mantle (Spring protests, with bitter resignation) before shrinking down as small as she goes. From her place on the floor, about the size of an American quarter, she observes.

Cass is in trouble. That much is beyond doubt, and this woman touching her is going to die in agony for that. But she might have friends, so Erin will take a moment to listen, and observe.

[not_the_last]

"I don't know why we ever let you keep this," the woman sighs, turning over a leather bracer in her hands. "It wasn't at all good for you, in the long run. I suppose Sylas and I really did indulge you in some ways we shouldn't have. Ah, well."

She tosses the bracer aside, to clatter across the floor and fetch up against the growing heap of armor components, and begins unfastening the lower straps of the breastplate. And continues speaking.

“I want you to know, I have tried my best not to hold it against you, dear girl. Really I have. But I won't deny it, I was quite hurt by your behavior when we last spoke. To be perfectly honest, Sylas doesn't want to see you at all right now."

There's a decorative pattern on the discarded armor that Erin should be able to recognize; she's seen it before, in Cassandra's cabin.

"Well, you always were fickle and willful," the woman continues, her voice gone cool and faintly sharp. “I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that you changed sides when your worthless brother and his friends looked like winning. But don't worry; it seems you'll have a chance to make it up to us. More than you deserve, really, but ..." She sighs, and the surface resignation doesn't quite hide the deep, vindictive satisfaction below. "You do still belong to the Whispered One, darling girl. And He seems to think you can be of use."

The tiniest despairing whimper sounds deep in Cassandra's throat, and tears spill from her motionless eyes.

as discussed

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb's forays into memory cracks aren't all entirely unintentional. Too curious for her own good, and all. Some part of her is already wondering if they have something to do with everything that she and Ava and who knows who else has done lately, which you'd think would make her more cautious, but... well. She is who she is.

The latest crack she ends up in, however, she doesn't stay long. It seems innocuous enough, just a young blonde girl in a park, but the thing is there aren't actually that many blonde women on the boat. And when the kid calls out someone's name, it's in a distinctly Welsh accent.

Nothing good is going to come of her poking around a memory of Daisy's, not for either of them. And the crack's still there, this time, so... Crabb turns right around and leaves.

And pops out almost right in front of Cassandra. Crabb freezes and blinks a couple times. "—uh, hi."

[not_the_last]

Cassandra freezes in turn, one foot hovering before she sets it down again.

"Crabb," she says after a moment. "Hello. Are you ... I hope you're well?"

(For her part, Cassandra looks more tired and strained than anything else.)

aftermath

[neverleave]

He didn't seek Cassandra out immediately after reviving. First he had to stop shaking. Spiteful anger served him well at the moment, but once he sat up in bed all that was left were the phantom pains of being tortured.

His other deaths have all been quick.

Once he settles down enough to put the stoic mask back in place, he heads off to find Cassandra.

"So," he says when he does, without as much as a hi. "Did my head really answer?"

[not_the_last]

It's in the library that he's caught up to her, curled in a corner armchair with a book and staring into the middle distance over its pages. At his approach she glances up, and lets the book fall shut.

"Oh, yes." Distantly. "And didn't bother to lie to them. Not that they could make any sense of it. I rather think they would have questioned me next, but the memory ends with your last answer."

For César: Childhood

[not_the_last]

On the other side of the rift is a broad town square, over which towers a massive, broadly spreading tree. Late afternoon sunbeams strike down through its leafy branches, falling gold and green over the square, as though deliberately matching the gold and green streamers and banners strung about. A bustling, cheerful crowd is gathered here for what's evidently some kind of celebration: there's music coming from a little raised platform at one end of the square, and an area being cleared for dancing, and a steady stream of people laying out food and drinks on a long row of tables.

A group of small children runs past, darting through the crowd like little fish between larger ones, shrieking with excitement. "They're coming, they're coming --"

[pineapplesalmon]

César comes prepared for trauma and arrives to a celebration. He's wearing one of his usual buttoned vests over a good shirt with nice pants, his wide leather belt with hip packs, and riding boots. The colors don't really matter (unless they do). The only thing out of place is his Tommy Bahama bag filled of things. Which he's going to ditch quickly in an alley for the moment, because this seems like a good memory so far. He can afford to lose everything in that bag.

Children run past him, and César dodges out of the way automatically (big brother instincts), then laughs himself. He follows them to see what's got them all so excited, careful not to push anyone.

For Vance: Interregnum

[not_the_last]

On the other side of the rift is an attic room, long and shabby and dusty and full of a jumble of things, the ceiling slanting with the eaves of the roof. The only light is the weak gray daylight of a heavy autumn overcast, dulled further by filtering in through the thick grimy glass of a pair of tiny windows.

The space is crowded with chests and crates, pieces of broken furniture, irregular shapes draped in sheets that are probably intact furniture, other less-identifiable things. There are tiny shifts and movements that might be mice, or might be drafts stirring the lighter objects.

Or might be the figure visible some ways down the length of the room, sitting on the floor with its back against a tall sheet-shrouded bookshelf or wardrobe, head down on its folded arms.