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

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."

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.)

Crabb loosens up a bit and scratches at her neck. "Uh, yeah, I'm— fine, y'know, as much as fine goes for around here at the moment. Just uh— well I ain't staying in that one," she points back at the crack with her thumb, "since I could help it. Nothin' bad happened this time, just... awkward."

That explains absolutely nothing, well done Crabb.

"...you holdin' up alright, with all of this?"

"Oh," and something that might be a sigh or a breath of dry laughter trembles on the edge of the syllable, "I suppose so. This all feels a little more like going mad than usual, but -- well, we have to hold up, don't we?"

She brushes a strand of hair back from her face. "I'm sorry. I'm terribly tired."

Crabb's face softens a bit and she sighs, "We, you, don't have to do anything, with how things have been since— well I s'pose it's forever, around here, but the last month or so especially. I ain't surprised you're tired with... all of this, what they are."

She hasn't necessarily had anyone poking around her memories yet but she's heard about enough on top of her own forays into them. She knows about the effects.

"It's not that I feel obligated to hold up," she says, "so much as that I find I don't care for the alternative."

Unconsciously, she rubs the side of her neck, where there are no scars.

"I thought of trying to map the rifts, but ... I don't know where to begin."

Crabb's brow furrows, but she doesn't have an argument for that—no one wants to go falling apart—so she doesn't try to give one. Just breathes a, "Right. Fair enough, that. Yeah, I ain't sure where you'd even begin with mapping any of this. Think mapping it at all would require a kinda logic that I just ain't seeing. 'specially depending on what kinda mapping. They come and go and, I mean—"

She jerks her thumb back at the rift behind her again.

"That's one 'a Daisy's, far as I can tell. But if I walked away from it and came back that might not be true anymore, for all we know."

"Daisy's?" Her brows rise a little. "... It feels oddly intrusive to ask what you saw there. I don't know if that makes any sense."

Crabb sighs and shrugs a shoulder. "Nah, I hear you. Though I didn't see much of anything except that it was her, mind. Pretty sure she'd kill me if I stuck around. Which is bleedin' cheap coming from someone who had access to all my memories for a month, but y'know."

Daisy is how Daisy is and Crabb isn't eager to cause further conflict there, even if she's tired of having to be the bigger person.

Perhaps a measure of how tired she is: Cassandra nods with a small sigh of agreement, and another moment goes by before she blinks.

"Wait, what?"

The thing is, Crabb has been assuming this entire time that Cassandra already knew the details of Daisy's time aboard in October. Erin hasn't been particularly shy about it, and the ire between herself and Daisy feels like an indicator in itself. Even now, Crabb just looks confused by Cassandra's confusion. "Uh, y'know, during October? The ghosts that got us seemed to have access to all our memories, she sure knew enough about me to fake it and decide she hated me right off."

Cassandra stares for a moment.

"I," she says, and visibly gets control over her face to compose it. "I see. Erin told me she was a former passenger, but I don't think I realized ..."

Crabb's eyes go wide. Her mouth open and closes like a fish several times before she just: "...well, shit."

Not even any of her usual curses, right to shit.

"Uh. Really thought you already knew about all this, I gotta say. That's about half the reason we don't get on, 'sides us just having very different ideas about some things."

"I thought --"

A faint, helpless huff of painful laughter. "I honestly thought you didn't get on because of what happened between her and Erin. She possessed you?"

Crabb rubs at her neck a bit. "Well, now, see, that's part of it, sure, I wasn't happy about their original tryst, but— nah, it's always been more about the possession thing. And how she acted while she was possessin' me."

Cassandra runs a hand over her face. "Gods. I -- do you want to tell me about it or would you rather not? I didn't meet you until after it was over, I don't think we've ever talked about it at all."

"Don't mind telling you, it's gettin' more distant by now. Well, besides Daisy bein' around, 'course, but— uh, maybe we go find somewhere to sit for this, though."

Rather than standing around talking about it. At least they likely won't have to go far, and, well... "Might want a drink in my hand, to be honest."

"One of the bars, then?"

A drink feels like a terrible idea right now, but a persuasively attractive terrible idea.

"Mm, yeah. Tauva's my usual, if that's alright with you." Either way she'll nod her head in the direction they need to go toward the bars so they can start heading that way.

She nods, and falls into step beside her.

On the way she ducks briefly into the Drunken Sailor to snag something to eat off one of the tables; drinking on an empty stomach is probably the even worse version of the idea, and she doesn't think Tauva offers snacks. She emerges with a bacon roll and a folded paper cone full of the fried potato sticks they usually offer with fish, and carries her ill-gotten gains into Tauva's smoky quiet.

Crabb goes ahead and pulls Cassandra out a seat when she takes her own, and has already ordered from the bar when she does join her. Idly swirling the liquid in her glass, Crabb eyes the food curiously, "Huh, not a bad idea."

"I'm happy to share," says Cassandra, sliding the paper cone into the middle of the table. "It just occurred to me that I'm not sure when I last ate, and if we're going to drink ..."

Which it seems they are. She orders one of her own, over ice to spread it further.

"Sensible, yeah. Probably won't pinch a lot, but..." A little shrug. She does take a couple chips, then leans back in her chair, one elbow propped behind her. She's a generally sensible person with her alcohol, but there's been more than a few conversations she's had while here that she just... can't sit through without something. "Christ, where do I even start..."

Cassandra takes a very small sip of her whiskey, swallows, feels the thin burn on the way down.

"I don't know. How far back do you want to go?"

"Guess there's only so far to go. Most of October— it just wasn't, for me, y'know? I was stuck in the Nothing and she was out here, running around in my skin. Lyin' to people I care about. Christ, Erin kissed her thinking she was me—as a test, mind, we weren't together back then and she thought I'd react bad, but..."

Crabb waves a hand loosely and takes a swig from her glass. Sighs.

"Far as I've gathered, who ended up in who's body was chance. She didn't pick me, I can't blame her for that part, just everything else. But there's plenty of 'everything else'."

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