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

[ss_buttcrack]

"I won't stop you from looking for work, but I understand if you both need a little time." Especially Percy. He still needs to heal from those injuries fully.

He peers at the pearls with a mixture of gratitude and sorrow. "Yeah. I reckon those would buy us room and board while we're getting settled. If you're willing to part with them."

[not_the_last]

She nods, only a little unsteadily.

(It's one of the few fine dresses she's ever had that wasn’t made over from something that used to belong to an older sister. But it's ruined now, and even if it weren't, it's no good to her or any of them here.)

They find a dealer in secondhand clothes who looks dubious at first, but seems to believe their story and agrees to buy the dress for what can be salvaged from it. For the value of the seed pearls they get a change of clothes for each of them, shabby and much-mended but serviceable, and a handful of silver -- less than they'd hoped, but not enough less to risk arguing. They also get directions to an inn belonging to the dealer's cousin; you tell her I sent you there, she'll look after you.

The innkeeper, in a brisk and hard but fair manner, does look after them: for one silver a day and the two young ones working in the kitchen, she'll give all three of them a room and one meal a day. That'll give their 'uncle' a chance to find some honest work of his own, she says, and if the other two are good hard workers and get enough done, maybe she'll charge them only a silver every other day.

The room is a windowless storage space in the attic, unfurnished but for three hasty pallets. The daily meal is as generous as the room is stingy, and she doesn't object to them putting away a little of their supper bread to save for breakfast. The two de Rolos learn to scrub pots, and peel vegetables, and clean out fireplaces.

Days stretch into weeks, and they quietly discuss whether Drynna is far enough from Whitestone for them to stay longer.

[ss_buttcrack]

He nods in return, his expression full of understanding. She's sacrificing something very precious for them and she deserves respect for that.

Despite the silver being less than an ideal amount, and their accommodations being pretty lackluster by usual standards, it's a relief to have someplace to anchor himself. He makes a point, daily, of trying to remind them both in small ways of how proud he is of the way they're coping. Their worlds have been turned completely upside-down and they are having to learn so many things at breakneck speed. It would be humbling for anyone, but they're facing it like heroes.

Not that he's leaving them to do all the heavy lifting. The change of clothes makes him far less conspicuous and a lot more believable as a potential farmhand. He's gotten his start in odd jobs, but good word has spread about the strength of his back and the quality of his work ethic--especially after he single-handedly took a bull by the horns and redirected it away from a broken fence. That got maybe a little too much attention but, as a result, he's begun to amass a small sum for them along with his reputation. Enough that they could risk moving on to a further village. But the question of if that will be a better situation weighs heavy on them all.

"I don't know. The people here are good people. It's a risk to stay, but we don't know how we'll be treated in the next place, either. Either way, this is your decision to make. I'll stay with you no matter which you pick."

[not_the_last]

They decide to stay a little longer, to have a little to save, so they won't reach the next town penniless. Weeks stretch into a month.

Then comes the day Percy spots a man in the Briarwoods' livery in the marketplace, speaking quietly to one seller after another in turn, and leaves his errand unfinished to run back to the inn -- and then, with Cassandra and their meager belongings, to the farm just outside of town for Crichton. They've stayed too long, and the only decisions are whether or not to kill the man before they leave, and whether or not to try bribing or begging the innkeeper to say she hasn't seen them. Without much time to debate, they decide on no and yes; as an extra precaution, shameful but necessary, along with the bribe of a week's worth of silver, they give the innkeeper the impression that they're going west instead of south.

South from Drynna to a nameless fishing village on Mooren Lake; from there they find work on a riverboat heading down to the Lucidian Coast; from there, a larger trading ship called the Big Mama heading down the coast to Stilben, then round the hook of Owlset Bay and up into the Foramere Basin. Whitestone is further away every day.

Cassandra -- Cass to everybody, now -- grows quieter and more watchful all the time, and talks to no one but her brother and 'uncle' if she can help it. Percy never asks to look at Crichton's pistol again, but he starts to make sketches on scraps of paper that look vaguely like it, sometimes surrounded by doodles that look like wisps and curls of smoke. No one brings up the subject of revenge, not even some far future revenge, but it's there, hovering around the two siblings like that scribbled smoke, like clouds on the horizon, like a red sky at morning.

It's nearly five months since the massacre, a bright spring on the verge of shifting into a hot and hazy summer, the afternoon that Crichton feels the aft rail of the Big Mama grow insubstantial under his hands.

He doesn't have time to react before the memory spits him out, back into the unending summer of the Serena Eterna.