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

“We will, I promise, just give it time. There’s a clock ticking somewhere. A loop is all patience—”

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.”

A heavy door swings open; the heavy air stirs. More smoke in the air, and the mingled stink of burnt hair and burnt meat.

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.

It takes so much for him not to gag. The last time he smelled that was—

— (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.

In the cell beside his, Cassandra's breath sucks inward with a tiny sharp sound, barely to be heard.

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.

No, god, no. He has to end this right now. No more. His talons are--blunt, too blunt, but right outside his door are two heavily armed men, and maybe they can do him a favor.

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 talking," says that same flat voice, sounding ... more bored than anything else. There's a metallic rattling; more keys being picked through.

"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 --"

(If only he could tell her how sorry he is for what he's about to do.)

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?

"Not to worry," sneers the more talkative guard, "you'll get your turn, bird-man. Bet Doctor Ripley would love to see how those wings go on --"

"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 --"

There's a great clang as Phil all but throws himself against the bars, manacles beating metal to metal, sound ringing dully off the stone walls. Pain is a visitor, he tells himself, pain is transient. Pain means nothing.

"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.

Edited 2023-12-02 04:46 (UTC)

There's a torrent of muffled swearing as Heth swipes at his face with his sleeve. He looks up with murder in his eye, and then stomps toward Phil's cell, reaching in through the bars to grab him by the ragged remains of his shirt and yank hard. If Phil doesn't resist (or doesn't pull back hard enough), the tug will smack his face into the bars.

"Funny man," and it's trying to be a sneer but it comes out closer to a snarl.

He's all give, no resistance. Phil grimaces when he feels his nose crack across the metal, but all he does is grin up at Heth while the blood starts to run down his face.

"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?"

Heth's lip curls further. "If I wanted you, funny man, this cell would do just fine --"

"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."

"He thinks I'm funny," he smirks to Jory, all teeth. Somehow his eyes are even sharper.

"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..."

Heth grabs at the talon hooked into his armor, gets his thumb under and bends it back, not quite with enough force to break the bone but definitely hard enough to hurt. He and Jory exchange a quick glance, with some unease in it.

"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.

Phil bites back a hiss, and just grins at Heth with his teeth. The pain is nothing compared to what he's already feeling; to what he's done to himself, willingly.

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?"

"Captain Kerrion Stonefell," says the new arrival, and smirks. "Sir Kerrion Stonefell, after this night's work. And what do they call you, bird-man?"

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?"

It's really unfortunate he can't just go thanks for the name, now I know whose mom to fuck later with Cass around.

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?"

Heth splutters an incoherent denial mingled with an equally incoherent slur on Phil's immediate ancestry, and makes to reach for him through the bars again.

Jory rolls his eyes and answers an equally unconcerned-seeming Stonefell. "Yes, that's him. Connors. Some outlander scholar they took on a few years ago. Anders didn't figure him for a fighting man."

"Curious." Stonefell studies him, the tail end of that smirk still playing about his face. "You wouldn't know anything about the history of this castle, would you, Connors?"

Phil grins from where he's smushed against the jail bars while Heth tries to... honestly he's not really sure, strangle him with his own shirt? It hurts, but not enough for him to care.

"Sure. The land was peacefully occupied by Bartledannians, famed for their literature of exactly a hundred thousand words long, and Betelgeusians, who don't understand sarcasm. Fast forward a few hundred years and a couple of humans and elves come along and decide to build a big castle and plant a big tree, and they wrote so many books only a couple thousand words long and spoke so much sarcasm that they decided to rise up in literary rebellion, causing the castle to reveal its secret and transform into a giant robot that gently placed all the Bartledannians' and the Betelgeusians' houses and businesses somewhere else."

... In a low voice: "But why would I tell you that?"

A tiny hysterical giggle comes from one of the two young boys, quickly cut off.

"That's a foul lie," says another voice abruptly -- Vesper, leaning up against the bars of her cell. "The Bartledannians never set foot in these mountains until at least four years after Whitestone Castle was built, and everyone knows the Betelgeusians are native to the Feywild. Master Connors, truly, I thought better of you."

The look she throws him across the corridor is desperate, but doesn't convey much beyond that desperation.

Oh--

--no, shit--no no no no, if Vesper gets hauled up with him, if they end up the same room, he's not going to be able to--

--professional, Phil, professional.

He just barely skips a beat when he picks up with, "Well, it was your royal secret history records that the Lady de Rolo entitled to me personally that said as much; you mean to tell me that was a lie? What else is a lie in your records? Why, next you're going to tell me that the Jatravartids actually believe in the Prime Deities like the rest of us, instead of thinking that life on Exandria was made by a giant sneeze from the Great Green Arkleseizure. Mngh--" ow fuck, "--hey, Heth, take me out to dinner first."

"You know," says Stonefell aloud, thoughtfully, "I'm starting to be curious about this broken wing you're flapping so earnestly in front of me, Connors. Well. Not literally." His smirk returns. "Not yet. Maybe we should see what the good doctor can get out of you, before we move on to the brats."

A pause. "Or," slowly, "maybe we should stick with our original orders," this with great emphasis and a hard glare aimed at Heth and Jory, "instead of letting you distract us from it. I think perhaps we'll leave the de Rolos to Dr. Ripley, and see what Anders can get out of you."

At a jerk of his head, the two guards move toward the cell with the younger boys in it, and he advances on Phil's cell himself.

Shit.

Okay. Fine. He's not in their place, but he's getting out of here anyway, plopped in a separate room with someone who probably wants to kill him to boot. He can work with this. The gate to his cell opens with the deathly rattle of opportunity.

"I'll fix this," he murmurs to Vesper as he's dragged upstairs. He can't quite look at Cassandra.

Any hearing less sharp than his own wouldn't be able to hear Vesper's response: "I'm sorry," she whispers, "I'm so sorry," as he's pulled past her cell.

Stonefell keeps one hand locked around Phil's arm as he maneuvers him up the narrow stone stairs, emerging into another stone corridor only slightly less fetid than the one below. A few yards down the corridor, he shoves him through another door, into a stark officelike room; seated at a desk and poring through a box of papers is Anders, who looks up in annoyance at the interruption -- and then startlement as he sees who it is.

"Anders," Stonefell announces, "here's a treat for you, what do you say?"

Anders.

Right. How does he get the crap kicked out of him the fastest? Refuse information, obviously. Tick him off. Make sure he either feels in control or desperate to regain it. How he's supposed to do that much social manipulation on the fly, he's not sure, but he's sure he'll figure out. He's got to. As long as Anders doesn't tie him down to one spot, he only needs him to do half of the work, the rest he can take from there...

Make him feel in control. Phil stares at him quietly, guarded, shoulders square and tense.

"Nice place," he grumbles lowly. "Where'd you get it?"

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cw suicide implication, self immolation, emeto ref

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cw annoying

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