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

Her gaze flicks from his face, to the bottle in his hand, to her brother lying in a heap, to the bottle, back to his eyes. There's a hardness to her face, but it's a brittle hardness, a cracking shell over a torment of doubt and grief and terrible fear.

"If you hurt my brother," she says, low and quivering, "I'll kill you. Understand?"

"I understand." He puts his hands up in a placating gesture. He admires her courage and he has no doubt she means what she says, but this isn't going to help anything if she can't trust him to do what he needs to do.

"I'm not here to hurt you or your brother. If I wanted that, I would have let him try to float down that freezing river. I'm doing everything I can to save him but I need to you understand that he's in shock right now, barely hanging on, and if we don't do something to change that I can't say for sure he'll come back out of this."

He's very slowly going to reach back down and continue bringing the vial to Percy's nose. "This is the only thing I can do to ease his pain. I need you to trust me."

Her mouth trembles; she forces it into a flat line, and nods to him without a word.

And watches, her teeth nearly meeting in her lip, as he reaches down with the vial. She's expecting him to tip the contents into Percy's mouth; her brows tug together, in an infant version of the focused frown Crichton has seen on her face before countless times.

It's strange to see her so young, a proto version of the woman he will come to call a friend. But the traces of her are here already.

He gently holds one of Percy's nostrils closed while the vial is held to the other. When the boy takes a deep breath in, there's a quick jolt, then he relaxes bonelessly. There. That should mean it worked.

"Okay. That should keep him comfortable for a while. Let's get started on cleaning him up and making a bed. You look like you're not doing all that much better. You both need sleep."

There's a pause, and then she nods and turns back to fetching the sacks.

She doesn't say another word while tugging together a makeshift bed, pushing straw into a heap and laying the sacks over it, unless asked a direct question. Her movements get slower and more stumbling, and her face looks white and scoured-out, eyes sinking into hollows of exhaustion.

Outside, the wind has picked up, hard enough to occasionally rattle the doors and windows. If Crichton looks outside, he'll see that it's started snowing heavily.

While she does that, Crichton grabs the bucket and goes out to scoop up some fresh snow. It's falling harder now, covering their footprints in the process. That part is good, but he can't help worrying over how they are going to get away from here. If the snow gets too deep, he might have to carry Percy through it. One problem at a time. The kid has to make it through the night, first.

Crichton comes back inside and stacks up some twigs and straw under the bucket. He sets his pulse pistol to low and shoots a weak plasma ball into the kindling. It ignites instantly, thankfully, without much smoke.

"Looks good. Here. Let's get Percy settled." Carefully, he scoops the boy up and deposits him gently on his makeshift straw bed. "You should lay down too, Cassandra. Get some sleep, I'll keep watch. I'll take care of everything."

The water is boiling now, so he collects the bucket and kicks dirt over the remains of their fire. He'll carry the water over next to Percy, then strip off his shirt and undershirt. He'll use the latter as a cloth, dunking it in the hot water and setting to work cleaning away the blood from Percy, head to toe.

"It's going to be okay. You're both fighters. I can tell."

It doesn't occur to her, in her exhaustion, to ask how he started the fire so fast.

She curls up on the makeshift pallet next to Percy, clinging close to him, and slowly drops into a doze as Crichton works to clean off the blood and grime. If she isn't disturbed, she'll probably fall asleep completely in the warmth and quiet and sense of relative safety.

And about three or four hours later, she'll come awake thrashing upward from the bed of straw, choking on a swallowed scream.

Crichton works as quietly as he can, hoping she will drop into a deep sleep if he lets her. Much to his relief, Percy never stirs as Crichton gently sponges away the blood and rinses those gashes all over him. The Lakah is doing its job. He wishes he had fresh bandages he could wrap these wounds in to protect them, but this will have to do for now.

Once the work is done, Crichton hangs that shirt up on a rafter to dry and sets the bucket aside. He won't pour it out yet in case the scent might be picked up by any tracking animals. Now, with both of these young kids asleep, he has nothing to do but wait. He takes up position in front of them both with his gun across his knees, facing the barn door.

That's where he is when Cassandra startles awake a few hours later. He turns to look at her in alarm. "Hey, shh, shh, it's okay. You're okay. Everything is fine. Try to get a little more sleep."

"Father," she gasps out, shaking all over, tears streaking her grubby face, mouth locked in a grimace of terror; she's staring at something that isn't in the room with them. "Julius, no -- Mother, Mama --"

She's rocking in place, hands clenched whitely in front of her. If she hears Crichton, or is aware at all of his presence, she doesn't give any sign of it.

(Somehow she's come to trust him that much, in a few short hours.)

Oh, crap. She's practically looking through him right now, looking at things that aren't here for anyone but her. He knows the signs too well.

Slowly, he slides forward until he's able to maneuver himself next to her on the cot. He doesn't know if an arm around her shoulder would be welcome right now, so he opts for pressing the side of his arm against hers instead--less restrictive that way.

"I'm sorry, Cassandra. I'm so sorry. I wish I could do more. After everything you've been through, all I can promise is that I won't abandon you. I don't know if it's enough..."

She clutches at him like she's drowning, like she's losing her balance at the edge of some precipice and afraid to fall, and bursts into wrenching sobs.

Percy's deeply enough asleep that he barely stirs, even as the storm of grief and anguish and terror and rage shakes his sister's small body, even as the days of silence give way to a howl of pain.

He's considering that permission granted. He gathers her to his chest, holds her, and rocks ever-so-gently while she sobs. How long has she been holding it all in? Days? This feels like it.

"Let it all out," he coos to her encouragingly, rubbing her back in soothing circles. "I got you. I'm right here."

One of her hands fists in his shirt; her body's rigid and shaking in his arms.

"They killed them," she manages in between sobs, "they killed them, they're all dead."

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." His own voice shakes on the edge of breaking. "Nothing's ever going to make it right. I know. But look at you. Look how far you've come. Percy is here because of your bravery. Your love kept him alive. I know it's not enough. But I think your family would be proud to see it."

It's not enough. Of course it's not enough.

"I want my mother," she chokes out, and then there's nothing but the weeping, for some time.

Gradually, very gradually, she subsides into something close to sleep again.

"Me too..." he says it under his breath. He knows this particular heartache. But it's not about him. And he got more time than she did.

For as long as she cries, he continues to hold her close, rubbing those circles on her back until his hand cramps and not stopping even then. When she finally exhausts herself enough to drift almost to sleep, he doesn't dare move. He won't until the first light starts to peek in through the cracks in the wood.

When it first comes it isn't fully light, just a faint thinning of the darkness suggesting that the night is all but over. One of the cows starts to make a lowing noise, and the other joins in after a little while; it's a quiet gentle sort of sound, and doesn't wake either Percy or Cassandra. She's deeply enough asleep, by now, for him to shift her back to the pallet, and stand up to stretch his legs.

Fairly soon, the first glimpse of actual daylight -- or at least dawnlight -- comes in. It's still chilly, but the wind has died down.

There's still a cold draft, though, when the door to the barn opens. A cold draft and a gasp.

The man standing in the doorway in shabby work clothes stares at Crichton for the space of about two heartbeats, then drops the milk pail he's holding and seizes a pitchfork leaning against the wall, brandishing it like a weapon. "Ohhhh, you shouldn'ta come in here on your own, y'bastard," he snarls. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't spit you where you stand."

He started to get anxious as the very first hints of predawn started to show, so he had gently laid her back down on the straw bed. He's glad about that now because it means that when the door opens and a cold gust blows in, he's free to shoot to his feet and step protectively in front of the sleeping children.

The farmer (he assumes) wants a good reason? The first thing that springs to his lips is, "Because these kids will die without me."

He's got both hands up in the classic 'don't spit me' position, but he uses one to point down at the beds behind him.

"I'm sorry for using your barn without asking but we had nowhere else to go. Give me a little time and we'll leave. We don't want any trouble."

The farmer's eyes shift from Crichton to the two prone figures and back to Crichton; the hot wrath in his eyes doesn't go away, but doubt slowly joins it.

"You ain't with -- them," he says slowly, half a question. "Never seen you before, but ... you ain't with them murdering foreigners up at the castle?"

"Hell no. Not in a hundred years would I be working with them."

Okay. This is a gamble. But... if he could any kind of help, anything at all, it might be worth it.

"Actually... we're the ones they are looking for. You know what they'll do if they find us. They've already... they hurt that boy real bad. I'm begging you, please, don't tell them we're here. We'll go. I'll carry them both if I have to, but please. Please."

As Crichton takes his gamble, the farmer's eyes widen in a complicated set of reactions: alarm, surmise, unease.

"That boy," he says slowly, and then presses his lips together and shakes his head. And gives Crichton a very narrow look. "How do I know it wasn't you what did him that way? And that you won't take the pair of them straight back to the castle the moment I take eyes off you?"

Behind Crichton comes a small voice, low but vehement: "It wasn't. He won't. He helped us get away." And Cassandra, who has been awake for some minutes now, sits up in the straw and pushes her hair out of her face.

Crichton is opening his mouth to argue back but Cassandra beats him to it. He turns in surprise to see her awake. How long was she listening?

"Happy now?" he says, rounding back to the farmer. "Will you just give me enough time to figure out how I'm getting them away from here safely? The boy doesn't even have any shoes. Neither of them are dressed for the cold and we don't have any supplies."

The man looks at Cassandra for a long silent moment, his face increasingly hard to read.

Then he looks back at Crichton. "Cows got to be milked, whatever else goes on. Reckon I'll be back to milk em in ... say, an hour's time. If there's anything outside the barn door in half an hour's time, no one'll mind who might pick it up. If I don't see you here when I get back, then I never saw you. We clear?"

Crichton's eyes close momentarily as relief washes over him. Then he nods and emphatically thanks the man. "Thank you. Thank you."

He won't waste any time once the farmer has left again. He'll coax Cassandra up and ask her to go get some fresh snow to melt for water. They need to gather whatever they can so they can be ready to move in an hour. eventually, that's going to mean waking Percy up, too. But he's putting that off as long as possible.

The man shakes his head, with a smile that's grim and lopsided but genuine for all that. "Don't be a damn fool. Can't thank a man you never saw." And he turns and leaves, firmly closing the barn door behind him.

Cassandra lets out a shuddering breath, and gets to her feet. She goes to follow Crichton's directions, only to find that most of the snow has been rained down to muddy slush overnight; the good news is, there's plenty of water in a rain barrel just outside the barn.

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