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

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

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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."

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.

"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.

Be a pet... Those words jolt through Max, filling him with powerful dread. This girl is doing such a poor job of masking her fear. He wants to scream at her to stop shaking! Stop letting them see! If he could take her place...

Could he? What would they do if he stepped out of the shadows and offered himself as a replacement? Only his doubt keeps him hidden for now. He doesn't want to make this worse.

With leisurely movements he steps over, takes the bottle from the tray, pours red wine into a glass, hands it to Delilah. The serving girl stands like a piece of furniture, holding the tray. Trembling.

"There now," says Sylas in a soothing tone, "don't fret, my dear. You're doing well. Everything is fine."

As he says it, he turns to rest a hand on her shoulder and gaze into her eyes. She inhales sharply, and slowly her face loses its careful formal blankness to a softer, dazed look.

"That's better," he murmurs, and moves behind her. She continues to stare straight ahead, almost dreamily, as his hands come up to begin unfastening the buttons at the back of her high-collared dress.

A knock sounds at the door, sharper than the serving girl's hesitant tap, and Delilah smiles. "Come in, dear," she calls.

Again the door opens, and this time it's Cassandra who steps in. She stops just over the threshold, her expression freezing.

What did he just do to her? She's suddenly so calm. Too calm. Like he drugged her? Max didn't see any needles or... did she drink something just now? No. She didn't. He just looked at her and, what? Put her under a spell?

Max is about to throw himself out of his hiding place to stop this man from unbuttoning any more of that dress, but the knock at the door distracts him along with everyone else.

He takes a sharp gasping breath when he sees Cassandra walk through the door. No...

"Yes, Cassandra?" says Delilah, at the same moment as Max's gasp; perhaps that's why no one seems to hear it. Sylas only smiles, and unfastens another button.

"I," says Cassandra, and draws herself up a little, and continues in a carefully calm tone. "I wanted to say good night, and to ask if you'd like me to accompany you into town tomorrow." That last to Delilah directly, rather than to both of them.

"Oh," Delilah muses, "possibly. Sylas, what do you think? Will you be bored here all on your own if the two of us go out?"

He chuckles. "Oh, I suspect I'll find some way to amuse myself." Another button, and the demure gray dress slips off the serving girl's shoulder, its folds eclipsing the sun symbol.

Max's stomach twists at his words coupled with the falling of that girl's dress from her shoulder. He doesn't need to guess what that means. He can't do this. He can't just stand here. He's mentally pleading with Cassandra to please, please stop this. If she doesn't, he's going to speak up. He has to.

Cassandra is pale, paler; even her lips are almost colorless. "Of course," she says, and her tone is quite calm. "I'll say good night, then."

Delilah's smile goes sweeter still, and she pats the chair beside her. "Why don't you come sit down for a moment, dear girl? And have a glass of wine with me before bed?"

Already stepping back toward the threshold, Cassandra goes still and tense. Sylas smiles as well, and runs a finger lightly over the serving girl's bare shoulder, up the side of her neck.

Max is quivering in place, hands balled into fists at his sides. His teeth grind against each other so hard he can hear them squeaking. That's it. Screw it!

"Leave them alone!" He cries out from his hidden corner.

Before the last word is out of his mouth, all eyes in the room are on him. (Except those of the serving girl; she's still gazing blankly into the middle distance, still placidly almost-smiling.)

Sylas's eyes flash, but Delilah is faster; she shouts a handful of syllables in no language anyone else in the room can understand, fingers flickering, and the Hold spell closes down on Max.

He doesn't really know what he expected, but not a magic attack. He really hadn't thought that far ahead. He grunts in startled shock when he's suddenly immobilized. Eyes wide, he tries to struggle, but his muscles won't listen. Nothing works. Fuck!

There's another moment of shocked silence, and both of the Briarwoods study him with piercing intensity. Cassandra's staring at him too, but far more blankly.

"You don't look at all familiar," says Delilah, at length. "Where did you come from? You can speak."

The paralysis slacks off from his jaw and tongue, freeing them.

Max is being very careful not to look at Cassandra right now, not to give away that he knows her. That could be very bad for her.

It's so strange to suddenly be able to move his jaw again. Now that he can speak, he's afraid to. What can he even say?

"I don't know. I don't know where I am."

"You don't know where you are," repeats Sylas, in the tones of one examining a wholly new and intriguing idea. "And yet you felt compelled to speak out in defense of ... whom, exactly?"

He's smiling again now, and he steps away to circle around the still-dazed serving girl and approach the newcomer to the scene.

"I'm sorry; we seem to have skipped introductions. You are?"

Max's cheeks turn pink with embarrassment because he doesn't know that poor servant's name either. But does that really matter? He couldn't just stand there and watch no matter what.

"My name is Max," he answers, specifically excluding the last name as long as he can get away with it. Just in case. "I just couldn't watch you do that to that girl. Why is she like that? Did you drug her?"

"Drug her?" Sylas's affront is so theatrical as to be comedic. "What a sordid thing to suggest. Dear girl, tell the man the truth, have you been drugged?"

The serving girl's gaze wanders in Max's direction. "No, sir," she says clearly, obediently, "I haven't been drugged. I'm only here to serve, sir."

"You, on the other hand," Delilah muses, "I wonder if you haven't been drugged or something similar yourself, if you don't know where you are or where you came from."

So she hasn't been drugged, but she's been something. Hypnotized? Gotta be.

"Me? No. I haven't been drugged. I just... can't explain how I got here..." Not technically a lie. Just not the entire truth, either. "I don't even know who you are."

She narrows her eyes at him, still smiling. "Cassandra," she says without looking away, "why don't you tell the boy where he is and who we are?"

Cassandra's chin comes up, though her face is still pale. "You're in Castle Whitestone," she says steadily, "in the city of the same name. These are the rulers here, Lord Sylas Briarwood, Lady Delilah Briarwood."

A beat.

"And Adela, a recent addition to the household staff."

They're... in her home? The shock in Max's eyes flashes across too fast for him to even try to hide it. But isn't she supposed to be the one in charge? No. No... she'd hinted at a time when... oh. This is so much worse than he realized.

He can't think of anything intelligent to say, so what comes out is just the unadulterated truth, "I had no idea."

Delilah's smile brightens and warms. "Well, no wonder you were dismayed, dear boy. But I'm sure you can see now that everything's ... quite all right."

She gazes into his eyes and a great force of will presses against his, soft and heavy like a weighted blanket, urging him to believe it: everything clearly is all right, she's beautiful and wise and all things admirable, he should trust her.

The push of the spell happens before Max even has a chance to be wary of her eye contact. Suddenly, all the anxiety leaves him at once. He's wrapped in warm reassurance as he looks into her perfect face. Nothing to worry about at all. What was he so afraid of? He's safe here with her.

"Yes..." he says dreamily. "It's all right."

Cassandra's face is perfectly impassive now, hands folded in a perfect ladylike clasp, outwardly serene, with no sign of how tight her grip is growing.

Delilah smiles fondly at Max. "Why don't you tell me the rest of it now, pretty thing? How you came here, and why?"

That fond smile makes him feel warm and fuzzy and eager to answer. "I came here through a memory crack. I didn't mean to. It just happened. It's been happening a lot on the ship."

Her brows rise. "A memory crack? And a ship, you say?"

"Well, this sounds like a terribly intriguing story." Sylas has stopped stroking the serving girl's shoulder, and casts a speculative look at Max and then at his wife.

For Max: Interregnum

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