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

[not_the_last]

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.

Comments

[goodweather]

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?"

[not_the_last]

"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?"

[goodweather]

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?"

[not_the_last]

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?"

[goodweather]

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?"

[not_the_last]

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.

[goodweather]

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."

[not_the_last]

"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.

[goodweather]

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.

[not_the_last]

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?"

[goodweather]

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?"

[not_the_last]

In a moment Anders has gotten over his initial shock, and he begins to smile at Phil's truculence. "By force of arms, Master Connors," he says, in pleasant didactic tones. "And superior strategy."

Stonewell smirks yet again, and leans one shoulder against the wall with the air of a man settling in to watch something entertaining.

[goodweather]

That kid's still there. He's not leaving either, by the sound of it. It occurs to Phil a moment later to make a show of noticing that he has an audience, and glances uneasily behind him.

"Won't be for long," he says, and says nothing else, like there's nothing else he can think of to say. He shifts, chains clinking.

[not_the_last]

Stonefell's eyebrows go up when Phil glances at him, and he smiles. At this close distance it may become clearer that he isn't so young as all that; it's something about the bones of his face and the set of his eyes that gives him that youthful look, and perhaps something about the way he wears his hair that enhances it. But he's old enough for the skin around his eyes to have weathered a little, possibly old enough for gray to start showing in his hair sometime in the next few years.

(A flicker shows him with that graying at his temples, incongruous in those boyish curls: Cassandra's memory, no more than five years later than this.)

"No?" Anders tilts his head in performative curiosity. "Do tell, Master Connors. What great change in our fortunes do you imagine is imminent?"

[goodweather]

He huffs irritably. Licks his dry lips. He’s obviously not gonna tell them about the loop; they won’t kill him if he does.

“God, you’re fucking presumptuous. You think just because you took one castle, it’s done? Pack it up boys, nothing else after this, absolutely zilch, doors only open and close when you’re looking at them?”

[not_the_last]

"Oh, not at all," says Anders, smiling. "It's only just beginning. This castle, and what lies beneath it, will be the key to a greater undertaking than you can comprehend. A magnificent destiny. Presumptuous!" He laughs. "You're one to speak of presumption, after so long living here on sufferance."

[goodweather]

Phil growls, stepping forward. Let him get to you. Interrogate him and let him gloat.

“Okay, then what? What do you think you’ll find? What do you think is actually under this castle—what destiny is there for the Briarwoods?”

[not_the_last]

"Oh, no," says Anders softly. "None of that. You weren't brought here to ask questions, and if you don't know what's under the castle then you're of very limited use to us."

A pause, and a cruel smile. "Though young Percival has grown quite attached to you ... but I don't think more so than to his own mother and siblings, do you?"

[goodweather]

Okay, well.

Phil lunges for him with his teeth.

[not_the_last]

All he gets for his trouble is a glancing blow of his forehead to Anders's cheekbone -- and the comical look of complete surprise on the older man's face as he barely dodges.

Stonefell, over at the door, bursts out laughing and gives a smatter of only slightly ironic applause.

[goodweather]

Phil doesn’t let up; he follows and lunges again, hoping for purchase on something, even as his restraints weigh him down and pull at his wounds.

[not_the_last]

This time he gets a lucky angle, and his teeth fasten in Anders's ear, resulting in a bellow so close to his own ear that it makes his head ring. Anders flails, thrusting out a hand at him with threads of lightning crackling around it, but his blow lacks force and only shoves ineffectively at his shoulder.

The second blow, from behind, lands on the chain binding his wings and tightens in a punishing grip.

"Now you can open your teeth and turn loose, old boy," says Stonefell, in a tone that would sound wholly kind and reasonable if it weren't for the ugly undertone of amusement, "or I can pull just as hard as I can on this chain, and we can all find out whether your wings or Anders's ear gives way first. What d'you say?"

[goodweather]

It's a brutal satisfaction, his teeth finding purchase and Anders' cry beneath him, one that stands its ground even as his body seizes with that lightning trick--even as shock and pain explodes from his wings as the chain piercing them is violently struck. Phil's knees buckle slightly with a wail, but he does it around clenched teeth.

He can't turn to look at Stonefell, so glaring into the side of Anders' head will have to do. "Try me," he growls, and grinds his teeth.

[not_the_last]

"Don't," rasps Anders, and his hand comes up to grip Phil's jaw from beneath, fingers digging in relentlessly and working to pry his teeth apart.

"You sure, Anders? It's no trouble." Stonefell's voice is just short of snickering by now.

"I will turn -- your next meal -- into live scorpions," Anders grits out as he squeezes tighter.

[goodweather]

"Try me," he snarls again, and swiftly jabs the several pounds of iron around his wrists upwards towards Anders' face, with all intention of throwing his own head in the opposite direction.