come_sailaway | wake me up when September ends [OTA + closed prompts]

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wake me up when September ends [OTA + closed prompts]

Who: Cassandra de Rolo, OTA + closed prompts
When: September
Where: Around the Serena Eterna
What: Flowers and their curious effects
Warnings: Game-typical angst; further content warnings in headers as they come up. The prompts below are occurring in no particular order over the course of the month.

1. summer has come and passed; the innocent can never last

Vivid purple-blue and yellow pansies nod at her from where they've twined up the banister along the stairwell, almost brushing her shoulder as she hurries by.

Later -- well, Cassandra isn't in large crowds very often these days, is she? But someone at the buffet on this particular morning may overhear the murmur you don't need more than one slice; someone in just the right part of the Promenade a little later may overhear there's a clear path to the stairwell if he comes this way; someone passing by Sundries in the next five minutes may overhear still need to talk to Valdis about the gun.

2. ring out the bells again, like we did when spring began

In a corner of the library there's a spreading cluster of the tiny white flowers of baby's breath, looking sweet and harmless.

On a comfortable chair not very far from that point is a pile of cloth that might, on closer study, resolve itself into a dark grey skirt, a white blouse, a blue and grey patterned waistcoat, and a leather belt with a bag attached on one side and a sheathed rapier on the other. The pile is oddly arranged, as though the person wearing the clothes had vanished from inside them while still sitting there; as though to support this image, a pair of sturdy brown boots is on the floor in front of the chair.

On top of the pile is a two-inch-tall Cassandra, bundled in in the stiff and voluminous folds of a dainty silk handkerchief, struggling to press buttons on a phone that is now bigger than she is.

(The screen currently reads ERIN ITS CA)

[Note: this prompt is not closed to Erin! Anyone is welcome to happen upon tiny Cass while she's trying to text.]

3. drenched in my pain again, becoming who we are [closed to Phil]

A patch of poppies has sprung up on the rooftop that's one of the Serena's highest points, where few can climb. With the number of passengers that can fly, that's less a guarantee than it might be, but Cassandra still seeks solitude up there every so often -- and today, that means she falls asleep there, with vivid red petals pooled around her dark head.

In the dream she's twelve again, lined up with her brothers and sisters in their finery, excited about the visiting strangers and the welcome feast that's about to begin.

4. seven years have gone so fast

Wildcard! If you want to talk to Cassandra at a point where she is not affected by flower nonsense, feel free. Message me here or on discord if you'd like an individual prompt.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He asks Cassandra to stay, to keep vigil from where she can't be seen. Phil slips out from their hiding place to silently trail behind Anders for a moment. Only for a moment.

"Professor," he calls out. "You look hurried. Where are you going?"

The older man turns, startled and -- oh, by now Phil knows well that flicker of irritation in his face, in the split second before he smooths it over.

"Why, to my chambers, Master Connors. Is something wrong?"

“Yeah,” Phil says lowly, stepping closer. “Something’s wrong.”

He looks at him for a few pensive moments.

“You seem to be in an awful hurry for someone who’s going to retire for the night.”

The smallest hesitation, then Anders's eyes narrow in carefully measured suspicion.

"Weren't you going to retire for the night? That was quite some time ago, as I recall. What are you doing still here?"

“I was restless. I couldn’t sleep, so I took to wandering. Call me paranoid, but before I was here I spent almost a year housed with dozens of dangerous people. Ask me about my eye sometime.” His hand hasn’t moved from the hilt of his sword.

“Where are you off to, Anders?”

Anders's eyes narrow (and those eyes are both perfectly intact tonight, aren't they? surely there's no reason for one to flicker with an angry red wound, one that won't be there for years?) and slide down toward Phil's hand on his sword, and back upward.

"I should never call you any such thing," he says smoothly. "Perhaps you would care to accompany me, and see for yourself? Would that lay your concerns to rest?"

“… Sure,” he assents. (A hand over his mouth,)

“I’ll follow you then. If nothing’s really wrong, I’ll come back here and leave you be.” Back to Cassandra, he means.

"An excellent plan," Anders says, hearty and approving. "I'm sure we won't have any trouble. After all ... we're all friends here."

And his light casual gesture for Phil to accompany him turns into something else midway through, fingers crooking and wrist turning in a particular way, as he releases the spell.

The spell passes over him. For a moment it settles like a veil, settling his suspicions like a warm thing—

—but he knows better. The visage of Anders burns a hole through the shroud and it goes up in a flash—

—of his sword, as it whips out from its scabbard in the same movement as Phil grabs for the front of Anders’ shirt with no regard for the holes his talons pierce.

For all his craft and cleverness, for all the countless ways he could react to this, for a split second the look on Anders's face is one of simple shock.

Followed almost immediately by fury, as he seizes Phil's wrist and little crackles of electricity spring up around his grip.

"I don't know what you think you know," he snarls, low and vicious, "but you will not stop me --"

He cries out as lightning cracks through his arm and his chest (and the phantom feeling of water, of god wasn’t this supposed to be fast), but he’s sturdier than he looks; he stiffens, spasms, but neither his grip on Anders’ shirt or his sword has wavered.

“You,” he rasps, “you lying, backstabbing piece of—what did they say to you—?”

Edited 2023-10-11 06:59 (UTC)

A vicious grin. "You're one to speak of backstabbing, Connors, look at you, drawing sword on a fellow liegeman -- what do you think would happen if I called for the guard right now?"

He pulls his own blade; only a dagger, but likely to be effective at this close range.

"It's not my word you'll be fighting," he growls, eyes flicking to the dagger. (Good. He knows how to defend against that.)

His lungs fill like a bellows, and when he howls, one understands the nature of sound as a disturbance, a splitting, a percussion of the air: "TRAITOR!"

And lashes out with his borrowed blade, aiming straight for the stomach--for the large artery that he knows runs right across the top of the abdomen.

Two things happen very nearly simultaneously: the blade rips into Anders's moving body, missing the artery but dealing a heavy wound.

And fairly nearby, still concealed but aware that the time for concealment is over, Cassandra gives a shrill piercing scream.

Anders swears viciously under his breath, and lashes out in return -- first feinting at Phil's throat, then striking low at his thigh, scoring a line of blood along it. In the same motion, he turns to bolt down the corridor, staggering badly until he's able to slap a quick healing spell on himself.

The feint works. Phil grunts as he’s slashed in the leg and then Anders slips out of range before he can react; and before he can even attempt to catch up, the man’s already healed himself. Fuck. God, he loathes magic. He’s never going to get him at this rate. Maybe if he flew, but these corridors would never accommodate that.

He has to turn back. It’ll be far more productive that way.

He goes staggering down the hall. ”Traitor!” he wails, again and again, utterly incandescent with rage and alarm. ”Anders is a traitor!”

Edited 2023-10-12 07:13 (UTC)

With Anders gone, Cassandra hurries up to Phil's side -- the side with his injured leg, trying to help support him.

Even before they reach the great hall, his shouts have sparked a rising commotion: guards on duty and other functionaries spilling out into the corridor, a babble of shocked outcry and denials and demands for explanations, too loud and overlapping to permit answering them. Cassandra is trying to answer anyway, insisting "It's true, I saw him, let us through!"

Just visible through the double doors, at the high table, Lord de Rolo is rising from his chair -- no one, not even he himself, really notices how he sways just slightly on his feet. Nearby, Lady Briarwood is still seated but looking out with fixed intensity, one hand half-lifted in the tiniest arcane gesture, one that neither Phil nor Cassandra is equipped to recognize as Sending.

At a side gate, one man in de Rolo livery quietly pulls another into the shadows, as Anders, teeth gritted in pain from his only partially healed wounds, releases the bolt and swings the door wide.

Phil pushes past, forces his way into the hall. "My Lord, my Lady, Anders has betrayed us, he--"

And so nearby is the Lady Briarwood, and like the hand over his mouth and the knife in his back, he remembers the ice that burst open his chest.

"--let them in," he gasps, breathless. And then picking up his volume again: "He's let them in! The Briarwoods and their soldiers!"

Glances flicker around the high table -- confusion, alarm, the very beginnings of understanding, a deep dismay. "Master Connors," says Lady Johanna, "please, slow down and tell us what's happened. Are you injured?"

"Let us in?" says Lord Briarwood in the same moment, his voice pitched to carry, frowning in practiced bemusement. "My good man, whatever can you mean by that? You let us in, Lord de Rolo," and he turns to the head of the table with a smile and a sweeping gesture, "and you have our gratitude for that, of course ..."

And the weight of his gaze bears down on his host, already off balance from the effects of the drugged wine.

"No!" screams Cassandra, and she seizes a half-full glass from the low table beside her and flings it, with all the strength in her arm, to shatter against Sylas Briarwood's head.

He crosses in front of Cassandra immediately, sword drawn defensively to defend against any possible retaliation--here, the openly bleeding wound across his leg must be evident, surely the Lady can see it from here--

"Anders let in the Briarwood soldiers! They'll kill us!" he shouts again, and then turns to find the first man who ever spoke to him here. "Captain Holbrook, please!"

Cries of shock go up around the room -- but it's more than half the shock of offended sensibilities, not that of true alarm. Gone mad, says someone in the hubbub, and has he a fever?, and what's he said to her? Cassandra shrinks back behind him, avoiding the stares of her own people as well as that of their enemies.

Vesper is on her feet, hurrying around the table toward her youngest sister -- until Lord Briarwood's hand falls on her shoulder to forestall her, as his other hand brushes away fragments of glass. He doesn't look shocked, not in the slightest.

And it may be that, or the way Lord de Rolo is putting a hand to his own head, or it may be the years in which he's come to know and trust Master Connors, that causes Captain Holbrook to nod to him firmly, draw his shortsword, and give a direct look to his two men by the doors. They nod back, stepping forward, pushing the doors shut; one reaches for the mechanism that will bar them.

"Well," sighs Lady Briarwood, rising from her chair, "this has turned into rather a mess already, hasn't it. Very well --"

This gesture is different from the one that's leapt up in Phil's memory, and the result is different too. Instead of ice, a tiny mote of fire leaps from her hand and streaks for the door.

Where it explodes, a ball of fire demolishing the entire doorframe and hurling the two guards in opposite directions, leaving the room open to the corridor -- down which the sound of double-time marching boots is rapidly growing closer.

Well.

Now they simply have to believe him, won't they.

"Go," he says to Cassandra, and with one wing-beat sends himself up towards the high table where he puts himself and his blade as much between the Briarwoods and the de Rolos--especially the children--as he can. What else can he possibly do?

Go, he says -- and she might correctly interpret that as run, as get away, but there's nowhere to run to. Fleeing out of the ruined front doors will send her directly into the arms of the Briarwoods' soldiers. Fleeing out of either of the servants' entrances means going past the high table, where Lady Briarwood is still on her feet with one hand raised for another spell, and Lord Briarwood is drawing an enormous greatsword as the illusion concealing it dissipates.

Everything seems to be happening at once. Lord Frederick de Rolo has started to his feet and now lurches forward, eyes wide with two distinct levels of horror, catching himself on the table. His hand knocks against his green-stemmed wineglass and it topples, shattering with a pure ringing sound; pale dessert wine splatters on the floor, carrying the faintest trail of something darker.

Lady Johanna, fumbling for her dress rapier with one hand, braces on the back of her heavy chair with the other. Percy pulls back from the table, falls to one knee and clutches at his head. Vesper screams for her father as he struggles to rise. Whitney freezes in her chair; Oliver pulls at her arm futilely. Julius lifts the heavy fruit platter and throws it at Lord Briarwood's face, and a contemptuous sweep of that greatsword sends it spinning aside, slices of citrus and melon and berries scattering over the floor.

And Cassandra is running, not away but toward the high table, screaming high-pitched terror and rage.

Noise and chaos cascades across the room. Phil does not flinch. Phil looks, for all purposes, utterly unsurprised; this is the first time he’s been up at the table during all this, and he has none of the grace he earns from having done this no less than a hundred times, but there’s no surprise, and in fact he seems to find his footing in the rhythm of it.

Cassandra’s approach is startling though, but only for a shred of a second; at more or less the same time Phil feints towards the Lord Briarwood before he swings for the Lady. (It’s become so easy to die.)

With two all-out attacks at the same time, even if one is only a shrieking child, Lady Briarwood seems ever so briefly caught off guard.

Only briefly, though. The hand she stretches out isn't casting a killing spell, this time; it catches Cassandra in midair, lifting her off the floor like a struggling kitten in a mastiff's jaws.

"Cass!" screams Vesper, and "Stand down, all of you," shouts Lady Briarwood, "or --"

Phil never hears what comes after or this time around; it's lost in the blinding boom of Lord Briarwood's greatsword pommel meeting his temple.

It's so easy to die. Waking is harder.

There's cold damp stone under his cheek, and pain in his head and wrists and shoulders, and the smells of smoke and blood and vomit and worse, and the sound of exhausted sobbing somewhere nearby. And the sound of metal scraping on stone, if he tries to move.

His wrists are manacled together, weighted down too heavily to tell just yet if they're fastened to anything else. It may take him some time to realize that in addition, his wings have been hobbled: wrenched backward and chained together, cuffs somehow forced through the webbing of each wing to close around the limb.

Pain layers on pain layers on nausea layers on pain. It's just everywhere, a mire he lies in, so it isn't until he tries to move and all of his wing nerves try to shoot themselves that he notices that anything's been done.

His mouth is dry and metallic-tasting. Phil just lies there as he tries to shore up the strength to even so much as sit up, which is a much more difficult task when you have two massive, wounded limbs of dead weight dragging behind your back, there's something in his wings, there's something in his fucking wings and the clank of metal means chains they, well, okay, that's expected actually. But it still sucks. Familiarity with pain (and the dream rings potently with his familiarity) doesn't make it suck any less.

Lying on stone did nothing for his joints either. It's a Herculean effort to drag himself to sitting, which he does mostly by slowly rolling over and then pushing off of the floor (hands only chained together and not to a wall, count your blessings). Phil reaches out with his senses. Tries to see what his hearing can pick up.

This is new.

He hopes this is the same day, but something tells him it's not. But it's not over. It can't be over. This can't be where they're let out, where their stop is. Maybe he has to die for it to roll back.

Don't panic, Phil. All you have to do is die.

... His talons are blunt.

Better look for something to sharpen them on.

"Look at you, Connors," he rasps to the air. "Moving up in the world. Big step up from a two-cop jail."

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cw allusion to suicide

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cw: more injury/mild gore

cw suicide reference & ideation