not_the_last (Cassandra de Rolo) (
not_the_last) wrote in
come_sailaway2023-09-11 12:48 pm
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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.
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.
no subject
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.)
cw: more injury/mild gore
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.
cw suicide reference & ideation
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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"Don't try to talk," says another voice, hoarse, further away, older: Vesper. "They don't allow it --"
"Master Connors," and this one's a whisper, much closer to him: Cassandra.
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And then he turns to wherever he'd heard Cassandra, grimacing as he does when his long, limp wings are jostled to drag along the stone ground. (She can see it then: the clinking manacles flashing in the dim light, the section of feathers ripped out to make room for their clasp, and the dark blood that stains the ones that remain.)
"My lady," he whispers back, grinning. "Some real five-star service you've got down here, I gotta say. Suppose it's too much to ask if the coffee is free?"
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(She shouldn't be able to see what they've done to his wings; there's a wall between them. She can see it even so, and that doesn't seem in any way strange, lost in the buffeting currents of grief and rage and terrible fear.)
"They killed Papa," she whispers, small and shaky as the heartbeat of a mouse in the snow. "And Julius, and -- they took Mama away, and Percy --"
no subject
But if he knows anything about a cycle, it’s that it doesn’t give you a choice. Time whispers, do it again.
”Hey, hey, hey, shhh,” he whispers back, inching closer, trying not to grit his teeth. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m sorry, it’s my fault—but we’re not done here, okay? It’s not over.”
no subject
There's a distant sound, too far away for any ears but Phil's to pick up yet: two sets of heavy boots approaching down a corridor, and something dragging on the stone floor between them.
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It’s a promise he can’t be confident in, but what else is there to do?
And then— “They’re coming. I—I’m sorry. If they do anything to me, don’t be afraid, I won’t be afraid.” And another oh-so gentle lie, but more of a truth than it should be: “There’s nothing they can do to me I haven’t felt before.”
no subject
Two heavyset figures in leather and chain mail, helms concealing their faces, march down the hall between the cells. A third figure slumps supported between them, head hanging low and loose as though barely conscious, bare feet dragging on the stone. The prisoner's face isn't visible either, but it's not hard to identify her by the long dark hair that falls across it -- even with the patches that are blackened and half missing.
"Mother," says Vesper in a voice that sounds even younger than Cassandra, and with shocking suddenness bursts into tears.
cw suicide implication, self immolation, emeto ref
— (the dream blinks) (it’s funny, he didn’t think you’d feel dehydrated but it makes sense) (maybe if he goes slow this time) (fuck this, he’s not doing it more than twice) —
— was
he
pushes down the urge to retch (not in front of the kids not when there’s already) and retreats from the bars, clinking as he goes, his breath coming out white.
no subject
The unconscious Lady Johanna is dragged out of their line of sight. The door of an empty cell scrapes open, something heavy is dropped onto the floor, the door clangs shut, a key turns in a lock.
"They want the two little brothers next," says a harsh flat voice, and the exhausted weeping that's been going on all this time suddenly has words in it: no, no, no.
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Phil spent over forty years pissing everybody off. Time to see if he's still got it.
They want fear. He won't give it to them.
"For what," he grumbles from the back of his cell, "the Whitestone Little League? I gotta say, this doesn't feel like tryouts."
no subject
"Maybe he wants a turn," says another, sneering. "That's Connors, isn't it? I hear the Professor wants a word with him soon enough."
"Be careful," Cassandra whispers, no louder than the sound of her own breathing. "Please, please, be so careful --"
no subject
He shifts a bit in his cell ow ow ow ow, chains clinking, doing his very best impression of sudden repressed panic. Anticipation makes a good mimic. "Oh sure, put me in, coach. I've got a--I've got a mean track record in taking credit for doing the bare minimum."
He'll save the real wheedling for Anders. They're calling him "the Professor," god, myeh myeh myeh myeh. What was his first name? Byron?
no subject
"Shut up, Heth," says the other, with an almost audible eyeroll. "Come on, you take the smaller one, I'll get the twin."
"No," cries the voice that's been weeping; it's Whitney. "Leave us alone, leave my brothers alone --"
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"What," he almost-laughs, "am I not good enough for you big boys? Mm? What've those kids got that I don't? I've got a handsome mug, I can run and fly. I can even shine your shoes."
Phil's dehydrated. He hocks up a thick, frothy mix of saliva, blood, and whatever was in the back of his throat and spits it in Heth's face.
"Ooh, sorry," he simpers. "I missed."
If one of them starts talking he's going to do it again, aiming for the mouth.
no subject
"Funny man," and it's trying to be a sneer but it comes out closer to a snarl.
cw annoying
"Oh, patience, baby." He reaches awkwardly around his manacles and through the bars to stroke up and down Heth's arm, who did Phil the favor of getting in close by grabbing his shirt. "If you wanted me that bad, you coulda asked, a big, strong, handsome man like you. Your room's upstairs, ehn?"
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"Come out of it," says his partner, aggravated. "Or do I take the brats back myself and tell the doctor you found something better to do?"
"In a moment, Jory," Heth snaps back. "This one needs to learn some manners."
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"Heth and Jory. I'll remember that." Pauses.
"Mmmm, men like you can't just be prison guards, right? No, of course not, you're soldiers. Where'd the Briarwoods put you, ehn? With the first group that ol' Byron let in after he made Warrick kill Weisner, or were you busy running around the upper half of the castle? Maybe taking out Addisleigh and his command in the barracks?" A talon hooks into a seam in Heth's armor. "Which, what a perfectly coordinated assault, I must say. Between that and the undead giants roaming around outside..."
no subject
"Leave him," Jory says, low and flat. "See what the captain says."
"Yeah," Heth says, but reluctantly, looking back at Phil with a clear itch to do some more petty violence. "Yeah, in a moment --"
"And just what," says a new voice, sharp and drawling, from the doorway, "is keeping you two? Shall I go back and tell Dr. Ripley that a pair of little boys are just too much for you to handle?"
The newcomer is a human man, in blue and black leather armor, boyishly handsome under artfully tousled brown hair. Both guards snap to some species of attention at his appearance, Heth dropping his grip on Phil.
no subject
His eyes flick to the newcomer. Oh. The worst kind of aristocrat, yes, he sees. He wonders if he has any idea how to wear that armor.
"Dr. Ripley?" Phil drawls. "I'm afraid so. It's been a pretty humiliating display, I won't lie."
A beat. Dismissively and condescendingly: "Who're you?"
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His gaze travels down Phil and up again, with a cold assessment that has no real interest behind it, and then flicks to Jory. "Is this the one who gave old Anders such a difficult time?"
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He gives the kid a bored, vaguely baffled look. "... Congrats on the engagement. By the way, our buddy Heth here says you're an entitled brat as bad as the kids down here who doesn't even know how to wear the armor he's got, is that true?"
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cw eye trauma, gore
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