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

A voice speaks up under Crichton's hand, cracked and weak but still faintly dry: "Glad to hear it."

"Percy?" gasps Cassandra, turning back toward them.

With immense effort, Percy lifts his head the smallest fraction, sees his sister, and manages a touch of smile before subsiding into unconsciousness again with a sigh.

She takes a tremendously deep breath and lets it out, trembling. "Oh, he'll be all right."

It doesn't take them long to pull together their makeshift camp, and they're able to rouse Percy enough to walk by the time they're ready to leave. And as all but promised, outside the barn door is a little group of items: a sizable bulging sack, a smaller and leaner sack, and a pair of shabby boots only slightly large for Percy.

"Your brother's got brass," Crichton tells her affectionately. He's feeling like a weight has been lifted from his chest. He's going to make it. They're going to make it.

The light of hope grows brighter still when they find the supplies and shoes waiting by the door. He pauses briefly to check what's inside and pulls out two worn but warm coats that will fit the siblings. There's some provisions and a canteen as well. He makes sure to top it off before they go. Without brooking any argument, Crichton hoists the larger of the packs up onto his shoulders. He's eyeing the small pack wondering if he can handle that too, but if would mean he'd have his hands full if they got attacked.

"Cassandra, can you manage that smaller pack and still help Percy?"

Cassandra, looking smaller than ever in a shabby coat too large for her, leans down to the smaller pack and hefts it experimentally, then straightens and nods with a look of determination. "I can manage."

"I'll try to make it without too much help," Percy says, his voice still weak but steady. "If we can get as far as Turst Fields, maybe ... or downriver to Drynna ..." He winces and rubs at his temple. "South, either way. Through the Parchwood."

"Okay. Let me know if that changes. I can carry it, I'm just worried about having a hand free if I need to go for my weapon."

He turns to Percy, considering his suggestions, and also giving a few more words of caution, "You two are going to have to lead me because I'm not at all familiar with this area. But I need you to promise to speak up if you're starting to feel too ragged. You'll make it harder on yourself and us if you push too hard. Slow and steady, got it?"

Percy glances down at Cassandra, rests his hand on her shoulder, and nods to Crichton. "We're in your hands, sir," he says quietly. "I give you my word I'll tell you when I'm approaching my limit. But we need to get away from here, as quickly as possible without being seen. Slow could mean the end of us."

"We'll go as fast as is practical. I'm as anxious to get out of dodge as you are, believe me, but if we aren't smart about this it's not going to matter." If they get caught, or if one of them collapses, they are as good as dead.

"We'll get a move on now. You two can fill me in about what happened on the way. I'd like to know why they did that to you, but if it's a secret keep it to yourself."

Another swift glance between the siblings, and a shared nod, and the oddly sorted trio starts walking.

The wet ground is miserable footing, especially once they're well into the Parchwood, avoiding the roads -- but it's easier than snow would be, and doesn't show their trail anything like as obviously. By the time the sun is well into the sky, they're out of sight of the last outlying farms.

The smaller sack proves to contain primarily food: a dozen crusty bread rolls tied into a linen towel, a large screw-top jar full of sweet buttermilk, a net bag of dried apples, other things. They sit down on a fallen tree to rest and eat, and the two siblings start to tell Crichton the story: how the Briarwoods and their entourage claimed to be looking for a place to rest from their travels, how the Lord and Lady de Rolo welcomed them in and held a feast in their honor, how the guests turned on their hosts with the aid of one traitor in their midst. How the rest of the family were killed. How -- haltingly, this part -- Percy and some of the others were questioned first.

"They wanted to know things about the castle," he says, turning the remaining crust of a roll over and over in his bruised and lacerated hands, staring at it. "About something under the castle ...? I didn't know what they were talking about, I told them I didn't know. They didn't believe me."

"I hate them," whispers Cassandra, her eyes bright and burning.

Once they are away from the last signs of habitation, Crichton finally allows himself to relax just a little. It's been one hell of a slog but they've made good progress and they haven't run into any danger yet. This is going about as well as it ever could.

Crichton is already planning to take less of the food than either of them in an effort to ration it out, but he doesn't find that hard as he listens to their story, to what they've already endured and lost. It turns his stomach sour.

"Your family's hospitality and generosity were betrayed. You were all betrayed. I know it doesn't help, but I'm sorry. That was an act of pure evil."

He pops the last bite of bread into his mouth and chews it down quickly so he can use both free hands to reach for one of theirs each to hold while he tells them, "Those people weren't there for the truth. They only had one thing they wanted to hear and it wasn't your fault you couldn't give it to them. I know from... personal experience." He meets eyes with Percy for just a moment longer, to communicate without saying it aloud that if he needs someone who's been through it to talk to, Crichton is willing to listen.

"You're right to hate them. I'm not about to tell you not to. Just be careful not to let them steal the goodness from you. Hate has a way of rotting a person from the inside."

Percy shudders at that, all over, all at once, and shuts his eyes. In a thin voice, as though he can't quite get enough air, he says "It's not the only thing."

Cassandra looks up at him in uncertain alarm, and then over at Crichton. And says shakily: "We should move on."

The list of reasons why Percy would shudder like that is too scary for Crichton to look directly at, but a noticeable shudder runs through him too. "You don't have to talk about it until you're ready," Crichton says, coming up to brace a gentle hand on that poor kid's shoulders. "But I promise you that whatever it was, whatever they made you do, it wasn't your fault."

He sighs and brushes the crumbs from his hands before picking the pack up from the patch of grass he'd set it on in an attempt to keep it from getting too wet or muddy.

"You're right. We should. Everyone up for it?"

Percy doesn't lean into the hand Crichton rests on his shoulder, but he doesn't pull away either, and after a moment he opens his eyes and nods.

They continue walking, without speaking much. Cassandra calls for stops to rest a few times; Percy only once, reluctant but resigned. At one point they all flatten to the forest floor for nearly twenty minutes, concealed in the underbrush, until the sound of a hunting party fades into the distance: horses' hooves, and the snarling of something that ought to be a pack of hounds but isn't, quite.

In the afternoon they find the river, and turn to begin following its course south and east. The weather starts to turn colder again, the sky clouding over, but there's no more snow yet.

The best shelter they can find that evening, before the last of the chilly daylight bleeds out of the sky, is a piece of a massive fallen tree. A great deal of the internal wood has crumbled away, but an overhanging arch of the trunk remains, almost like a little cave. It might make enough shelter to risk a small fire.

Crichton is used to being on his feet for hours, but tromping through thick woods is still exhausting work. He can only imagine how much harder it is on these two. That heart stopping twenty minutes where they lay prone waiting for the hunting party to move on was a nice rest for his feet if not for is blood pressure.

As the clouds crowd in overhead, Crichton lifts his hands to his mouth to blow hot air across them. He can see his own breath in puffs of steam as he does so. Damn, he was not built for this cold nonsense.

By the time the last of their light is draining away from the sky, he's shivering so hard his teeth clatter together. Huddling up to this fallen tree alone doesn't make much of a difference other than to cut out some of the wind.

"I don't know about you two, but I don't think I'm going to make it through the night without a little heat. Are you okay with me starting a fire."

"I think we have to," says Percy, shivering as well. "We're down low enough that it might not show from a distance, and ... it should help keep wild animals away, as well."

Cassandra's been stumbling along silently for some time now before they halted, and seems barely awake now. She doesn't respond to the question, even when Percy says her name, only rousing when he takes her bag off her shoulder and nudges her to sit down.

There's plenty of dead wood that's stayed dry in the shelter of the overhang; it shouldn't be too difficult to get a fire going.

"Yeah. I think so too. Cassandra... are you--?" Once he gets a better look at her, he's quickly at her other side, helping guide her to a sitting position.

"Hey, Cassandra, I need you to stay with me. Can you answer me?"

She slumps down into a sitting position, crumpled like a dropped doll. "Mh," she says, and then, blinking, visibly dragging herself back awake: "Yes."

Percy sinks down cross-legged beside her and starts rummaging through the bag. "If they gave us flint and tinder," he says, "then maybe ... unless you have?" This to Crichton, in some hope.

Okay. Maybe she's only tired and not... quietly about to dissociate like he was afraid of.

"I have a shortcut," Crichton answers, bringing his gun around in front of him. "This will light it. Here, can you go through the pack and find us something to eat while I get this going?" He looks at Cassandra again, not-so-subtly also trying to signal that Percy should check in on her too while he's at it.

Crichton uses the last of their dying light to guide him while he sets up shards of bark and twigs into a small triangle. Then, after setting the gun to low, he fires one shot into the middle and a fire immediately sparks to life.

"Oh, that's already better."

Percy nods, apparently catching the signal, and sits down next to Cassandra to coax her into helping him look through the pack. More bread, an irregular hunk of cheese, half of a long sausage that will probably look and smell to Crichton rather like hard salami; a small tin pot, badly dented but not cracked, with a little cloth pouch in it that proves to contain tea. "Oh, gods bless that man," Percy says fervently at that last, and immediately takes the pot the few yards down to the river to fill it with water.

He's back in time to see Crichton light the fire, and his eyes go very round behind his cracked spectacles. "That thing isn't magic, is it? How does it work?"

Crichton nods along with that sentiment. That old farmer was a saint. He wishes it would have been safe to at least get his name.

Oops. He's been caught using his future tech. He should have seen that coming. Oh well, he's changed enough already, is this really going to hurt?

"It's not magic," he confirms. "But I can't tell you exactly how it works either. I didn't build it."

"May I ... look at it? For a moment?" The growing firelight has turned Percy's spectacles into opaque circles of orange light; there's a strange note in his voice, fascination along with a touch of something almost like recognition.

Cassandra looks up from rummaging further through the bag, and glances from Percy to Crichton and back.

Crichton considers that seriously for a moment. "Okay, but I need you to listen carefully before I let you see it. It doesn't have an off switch, but this dial here?" He points to a dial on the side. "You can't turn this. If you do it wrong, you'll blow us all up. You understand? I'm setting it down to stun now, just to be safe."

Percy nods. "I won't even handle it, if you would prefer not. I'd just like to ... study it, if I might."

And study it he does, with an odd dreamy intensity, as they're eating their scanty-but-welcome dinner. There's no cup, only the little tin pot to both brew the tea in and drink from; they pass it hand to hand, holding it by the stubby pot-handle, alternating with the remains of the jar of buttermilk. Cassandra falls asleep sitting up, with the crust of her bread squashed in one hand, and very slowly slumps sideways against Crichton.

"All right, here, I'll hold it and give you the tour." He'll proceed to point out the various features of the weapon, including the oil cartridge and and the strength dial.

Still with a mouth full of bread, he ends by explaining, "I call her Winona. I've owned other pistols like her, but she's the most reliable."

He goes to swallow and the bread sticks in his throat. Thankfully, one last swig of the tea helps unstick it. But it's then that he notices Cassandra has fallen asleep. He decides not to move her yet. Maybe now would be a good time to talk to Percy privately.

"Hey," he nudges the boy gently, "I know you're probably trying to keep a brave face for your sister, but if you need to talk about what they did to you, make sure you do. Don't hold it in. Find someone to confide in. Take it from me, ignoring the pain won't make it go away. It will pop up when you least expect it."

Percy gives a bare shadow of a smile on hearing the weapon's name, but otherwise only listens.

When Crichton makes his overture, Percy looks away from the gun for the first time, gazing into the fire.

"If she weren't here," he says, almost inaudibly. "If you weren't here. I don't know ... "

"Don't," he warns gently. "Don't torture yourself thinking about all the could haves. All you'll do is wind yourself up in knots. If it will give you some peace of mind, I can tell you that your sister was always going to rescue you. Even if I wasn't there, she would have."

Percy starts to say something, stops. Breathes out, slowly, maintaining his fragile self-control.

"How did you ..." He looks up at Crichton, blinking behind his glasses. "How did you come to be there? You're not from here, I know that much, but I don't think you came with them either."

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apparently I just didn't get any notifs on 7/1 :/

code push ate it

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