2017-08-07: To Take Arms Against A Sea of Troubles
- Cutscene: To Take Arms Against A Sea of Troubles
- Cast: Cassidy Cain
- Where: Somewhere in Hilton, Lacour
- Date: August 8, 2017
- Summary: In the end, sentiment may prove to be Cassidy Cain's undoing.
The mountain ranges in this particular part of the Badlands, even without the memories associated with them, have always been distinct. The distant conical silhouettes dipped precariously in the middle, as if cleaved by a giant cosmic blade; a crevice in which the bloody-gold sun slowly nestled itself at the end of the day, and where the two moons of Filgaia climbed to reach the heavens. The skies and the dunes stretched on for miles, a dry, arid sea of sand where the heat was unbearable and the cold was deadly.
She didn't feel the cold. Even deep within this landscape, brought there, finally, by satisfaction and exhaustion, she knew precisely where she was.
Strong tanned limbs and their wirey ropes of muscle wrapped around her torso, their tattooed runes ringed with blue and black light, luminescent in spite of the surrounding shadows. A warm, familiar mouth buried itself in the tender hinge where her neck and shoulder met, slowly roaming there, savoring the salt of her skin and whatever particles of dust clung to it, somehow finding its way past the barrier of her ever-present string of bloodstained pearls, as if in defiance of them. As if he knew.
Anyone who shared the history she did with this man would either be shuddering with revulsion, quaking with fear, or exploding in rage; perhaps all of the above and were this actually real, she wasn't discounting the possibility that all of that could happen. But from what Jonathan Maurier had told her in the past, dreams were where the subconscious didn't fear to tread, and spilled its truths like candy from a broken jar.
One of these truths was apparent from the start; here, in his arms, she felt absolutely nothing.
Wake up.
He seemed to sense it. His arms fell away from her and he took several steps, reclaiming some degree of distance; shoulder to shoulder, a few feet apart. The evening breeze stirred through his dark hair, and the dim light made his visible blue eye look black.
"I'm impressed," he told her, a hand bracing on a hip, a foot pressing onto the craggy surface of a half-submerged rock. "Even while sleeping, you know what this is."
Cassidy inclined her head at him, lashes lowering over green eyes shot with scattered gold. The corner of her mouth lifted in a half-smirk; her bravado was irrepressible, no matter what was happening.
"I'm fond of telling others that if they wanted tae hurt me, they would nae go for the head." She tilts her head back to look at the stars. "Grew up too capable of dealing with nonsense like that. S'pose I cannae blame the lot of you. It's nae like I spend my days being absolutely honest about most anything, but I like tae switch it up now and then."
After a pause, she continued: "How did you find me, Jerry?"
A throb of something gleeful and malicious lanced through her ribcage at the shard of displeasure visible in that blue eye, though the glimpse of it was brief. Jerry lifted a hand, nails raking through three days' worth of stubble along one cheek.
"You always sleep next to a glass of water," he replied. "And it's not as if we're not connected."
The hand on his far-side lifted, a rough thumb flicking the top of a glinting silver object. Within the sharpening glance of her stare, the engraved lighter burned like a beacon, its delicately detailed ouroboros caressed by moonlight, darkness shifting over it as if alive and causing the red pinpricks of its ruby eyes to stand out further. She felt the laden weight of an identical object in her back pocket. Her fingers clenched tightly in a fist.
Wake up.
"I know you, remember?"
"That dinnae belong tae you."
Jerry slipped the lighter back into his jacket. "I'm a thief, too, Cassie. Didn't you tell me before? In this line of work, you get to keep what you take."
She slowly forced herself to relax her fist. Her lips pressed together in a thin smile. "If you can."
The dark-haired man returned it, his smile was full of acknowledgment. "If you can," he echoed in concession.
"You learned your lessons verra well."
"I had a good teacher." He stared out into the horizon. "Once upon a time, I was determined to be her equal."
Wake up.
"You've grown far and beyond me, lad," Cassidy remarked, sliding her hands in her pockets. "Arson, murder, plunder, profit. Looks like you've improved your Symbology, too. Dinnae even have a small army of guns and business suits neither tae make necessary investments. I'm just a wee, lost lass in comparison." Her eyes slid to their corners. "If only your da could see you now."
Jerry's jaw set, a small tic at where the hinge of it met his neck. Heavy, stony silence settled between them.
When he finally spoke up at last, his baritone was deliberately level, and patient. "You have something that belongs to me, Cassie," he said at last. "I'd like you to give it up before I'm forced to get involved."
Cassidy laughed; it sounded bright and pleasant, still, though the sentiments behind it were anything but. Lips parted over her teeth, flashing him that knifelike smile. "It's too late for that, luv," she said. "Three years too late. Are you going tae keep me waiting for longer? You took from me, Jerry."
Sand crunched under heavy boots as her companion looked towards her, turning the black band covering his lost eye and a quarter of his face to slip under the light of the twin moons.
"You took from me, too," he murmured. As soft as the reminder was, it carried strangely over the sand and wind.
"Ay," the blonde replied, her eyes wandering over to the covered part of his face and lingering there. "But I dinnae take enough." Her voice lowered, quiet, dangerous. "Nae nearly enough."
After a pause, she moved, crossing the distance. Standing directly underneath his shadow, she tilted her head back to meet the look within that single, visible eye, her stare roaming over the changes wrought over his person over the last few years. His hair was longer now, shorn unevenly by the edge of a blade, hard features bronzed by the sun. His infamous ARM was nowhere on his person, but then again, he didn't need it here.
"Do you ken why I keep coming back here?" she asked him quietly.
He watched her face under the shadows cast by his own, expression inscrutable. "Because this is where they died."
Despite herself, she smiled. Her hand reached up to cradle the side of his face, a thumb stroking over the cheek of a boy she knew. There had been a time when they were so similar, it had been difficult to tell them apart despite the difference in gender. There had been a time when all she had wanted was for him to seize for himself the same thing she had, to set himself free and claim the life that had been denied him.
There had been a time when she looked at him and saw herself. Even now, it still felt like looking in the mirror.
"Nae."
There was a fine line between fondness and loathing also, she decided, as she stared at the features of a monster she had created.
"Because this is where I'm going tae kill you."
Wake up.
~*~
This wasn't the first time she had woken herself up from a deep sleep, an old technique bred from the pages of a well-researched manual devoted to mental conditioning. The sudden bout of wakefulness shattered through whatever sleep fog had been there, clouding her brain like cotton stuffed between her ears. And while she was perfectly cognizant of where she had been just a few moments ago, in the rapidly dissipating haze, it took her a few minutes to remember just where she was and that she wasn't alone.
That she wasn't in her room.
A heavy, but welcome arm remained in an idle drape over her waist, the weight of it crumpling the fabric of her borrowed shirt. It was only when she shifted her legs and recognized the dizzying tangle of disheveled sheets that reality finally reasserted itself, and put the dream and its unexpected invader in the background. She lifted a hand to rub one side of her face, extending it across the way, over the solid shape her body had been pressed against, and towards the glass of water waiting for her on the bedstand. She drained it in a few gulps; a temporary fix for a lingering problem.
The glass emptied, deft, lazy fingers slipped over the wooden surface until cold metal bit against her skin, the lighter she was looking for resting against an ashtray they spent the last few hours filling. Fitting it in her grasp, she turned the well-loved object over, the caress of her thumb tracing over the scratches left on the thick silver plate. The engraving of the ouroboros and its sapphire eyes burned blue in the darkness, reminding her of its identical red-eyed half, and where it ended up.
I have to get rid of it.
It was a thought that was just as pragmatic as it was necessary. She was already incensed, a hot surge of temper percolating in her stomach, at how easily he found her from a distance, and in avenues that would render a lesser mind vulnerable, while she was having difficulty tracking him down to deliver her deadly promises. She couldn't afford what happened to happen again.
The weight of that encircling arm remained, reminding her of all the other reasons as to why.
I have to.
But every part of her was recoiling at the idea, at the thought of throwing this specific thing away, fingers tightening over the precious object despite herself. Frustration filled her eyes and flooded all the spaces inside of herself left empty by the pieces she had lost.
Why was it so easy for her to leave things behind, but so difficult for her to let them go?