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

[pointofhonoria]

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."

[not_the_last]

"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.

[pointofhonoria]

"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..."

[not_the_last]

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?"

[pointofhonoria]

"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'."

[not_the_last]

"Did you ... remember anything she did, when you came back? Or did you have to find it out by asking?"

She takes a bite of the roll, barely tasting it.

[pointofhonoria]

"Had to ask around. That's the thing about bein' shunted to the Nothing, we weren't in our bodies to remember. It's like... I dunno, our memories here are attached to our souls, not just our brains? Or something? I dunno, I dunno how to explain it, just that when I woke back up in my own body again all I remembered was the Nothing."

It still bothers her. Abstractly she understands that being forced to watch or remember would have been terrible in an entirely new way, but there's nothing Crabb hates more than not knowing things.

"She helped Johnny and Watson out, when the kid who possessed their kid killed César. To keep her cover. Which ain't so bad in itself, not more than the whole act of pretending to be me was at all, but... ugh," she pinches and rubs at her brow.

[not_the_last]

"Part of the same bad," she offers, quietly.

[pointofhonoria]

"...yeah, and uh. Look the thing was she had this conversation, with Watson, about something personal to him I ain't gonna go into. A conversation she didn't have to have, but she did anyway for some— bloody reason."

She takes another swig of her drink and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, grumbling.

"And it's stupid, really, but that bit bothers me more than the faking it in the first place. Sure, she was hiding, pretending to be me, but she didn't have to go prodding at something personal that no one woulda questioned me not saying anything about. Reminded me too much of—"

She makes another grumbling noise.

[not_the_last]

Cassandra pauses, to see if she's going to finish that sentence.

"... Of something else unpleasant?" she suggests when it doesn't seem Crabb will. "I won't pry, if that's something you'd rather not go into."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb presses her lips together and considers, for a moment, before sighing and sitting forward, leaning her elbows on the table. She keeps hold of her glass, loosely gesturing with the hand it's in, whilst the other tucks into her inner elbow.

"It's— fine. Few people know about this, already. Sorta alluded to it with you, once, actually, but uh— I ain't got the whole context in me right now, ask me about the story that led me here another time, but there was this bloke. Person of interest in a case we were working that I ruled out, and— hhhh," she rubs her brow with the knuckle of her thumb, "kinda fell a bit in love with? Fed me all these lines about things I understood, looked after me the night our villain collapsed a bridge and I couldn't save no one, the whole works. I trusted him. Opened up to him."

A gesture with her glass ends with her bringing it to her lips and downing half of what remains in one go.

"And then it turned out he was the guy we were looking for after all, and he'd been using a fake face and identity to worm his way into my bleedin' life."

[not_the_last]

Cassandra straightens in her seat, her face intent and sober -- and, if one knows what to look for, angry on Crabb's behalf.

"Were you able to catch him, in the end?"

[pointofhonoria]

"Not exactly, he died in a cave-in of his own making." She thinks. She hopes. But she's not certain. Even Bastrop hadn't been certain. It's not like they could check for a body. Her only reassurance is he didn't spring up anywhere over the last two years at home. "So we figured him out, sure, but..."

No justice. No closure.

[not_the_last]

She breathes out, shaking her head.

"That's ... appalling. I'm so sorry. I've experienced something roughly similar, but that individual wasn't trying to gain my trust on quite such a personal level."

[pointofhonoria]

"Y'know the worst of it is I'm not sure it's what he set out to do? It's... I dunno." Sometimes it really is worse realising he might have genuinely been in love with her in his own messed up way. She can't make herself say that aloud, right now. "Sorry to hear you've gone through anything at all similar, it... it messes with your damn head, this kinda crap."

[not_the_last]

"Oh, yes." A touch grimly. "In my case it was ... I suppose 'political' is the word. Someone came to Whitestone during a time of war, purporting to be a member of the recently fallen government of Emon, to both seek refuge and offer assistance. And after he'd been there for weeks, he turned out to be one of the enemy, who had changed her shape to infiltrate us. It was only our luck that she was doing it in order to sell out her commander, rather than in his service."

[pointofhonoria]

"...God's teeth, hadn't even thought about how a world like yours might make a trick like that even more hard to spot. I mean, Erin showed me her shapeshifting when I told her this way back, but—" She's still not wired to think magically, like she assumes 'changed her shape' means here. "Christ."

[not_the_last]

"Exactly. And it's not common for people to be able to do such things, so ... most people don't have a way to spot it. We only found out because she decided to show her hand."

A beat. "How did you discover this fellow, if you don't mind me asking?"

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb stares at her drink for a long moment, considering finishing the rest, but ultimately just sighs. "We uh. We found one of his hideouts. Where the freaky facial prosthesis he was usin' to make himself look like someone else was stored when he weren't using it. Saw the bloke's face staring back at me from a dresser. Bloody creepy."

[not_the_last]

"Good gods." She takes a swallow of her own drink. "Talking of things that mess with your head. I ... can just about imagine it, I think. I'd rather not."

[pointofhonoria]

"Yeah. Shook me somethin' rotten, that. Made some things make sense, the way he never let me touch his face and... yeah. Friends took care 'a me while I was feeling all sick about it." And then they were taking action within a day. That was... a tumultuous twenty-four hours. In hindsight it's no wonder she barely processed all of it before deciding... not to. "But that's why I was so hesitant with Erin, at first. Most 'a the time it don't bother me so much, but sometimes it gets you, y'know? And the way Daisy got Watson talking about somethin' as personal as she did, when she didn't have to..."

She shudders just a little.

"Don't even think it's usually her game, she's not exactly subtle now she's herself, y'know? But I hated the thought of her usin' my face like that."

[not_the_last]

"As who wouldn't. No wonder she ..."

A pause, and a look of further realization comes into her eyes. "Ah."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb tilts her head a little. "What's just gone through your head?"

[not_the_last]

"I was about to say: no wonder she felt she was unforgivable." Cassandra studies her glass. "And then I realized why Erin must have felt that her forgiveness, in particular, might mean something."

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb sighs, and this is when she throws back the last of her glass. "...yeah. It's— I get why Erin is so determined to see the good in her, y'know? And it ain't that I don't think there can be any good in Daisy, but I ain't the person who's gonna go digging for it. I'm just... not stopping Erin from being that person. Even if it feels weird sometimes."