#(i may write another version of this more focused on cass?? this was simply Stuck In My Brain and if i didn't put it somewhere)

[softersinned-arc]

@xfindingtrouble said: [ GLANCE ]:          cassandra glances at astoria while in a public setting to assure them they aren’t alone, and ground them in doing so.

Age and experience mean little, she has learned. Death is still death, and a wound will still bleed.

It might have been easier to bear if she could remember how to pray, but she has nothing to offer except the shamelessness of grief. Bargaining. Begging. As if the gods care what she has to say, or what she's willing to give. Death is still death. The wound keeps bleeding.

She feels sick and sore, all too aware of the earth beneath her, cold and hard and silent. How cruel, she thinks, how hateful. All the decades she's spent learning how to hear, learning how to understand, but the only sound to decipher now is the nervous movement within the temple. She hears the thunder of Pike's footsteps as though she were there with them. She hears the tremor in Keyleth's voice. She hears the rustle of wings.

And she still doesn't hear him.

Astoria draws her knees to her chest and bows her head. (Give him back, she wants to demand, give him back to me, to us, but the only god she knows how to address wouldn't listen.) The sun continues its climb through the sky, casting the world in a warm golden glow, and she pulls the hood of her coat up to protect her from its light.

She has no place here, so near to holy ground. Her back burns against the outer wall of the temple, and she wonders if her own death is a rot infecting the stone, the soil. If he won't have enough of a foothold to return because he's been touched so tenderly by a dead thing already. Trembling, gloved fingers interlace behind her head, elbows tucked in around her as if to create more of a shield.

"He's in there?"

The question startles her from her stillness; Astoria lifts her head, squinting in the early morning's light. She could recognize Cassandra by sound, by scent, before sight, and she notes belatedly that there are others here, too. Yennen. Guards.

Four in total, and she somehow missed their arrival.

Better things to listen for.

"Yes."

"Is he—?" Cassandra chokes before she can get the last word out, and Astoria aches.

"Yes."

"Oh." She swallows, hard, then looks towards the closed door. "Oh."

Astoria waits for her to scream, to wail, to collapse, but she only stands still, opening both hands as wide as she can before clenching her fists tightly enough to pierce the skin of both palms. The sweet smell of blood hits the air, and Astoria hardly notices.

When Cassandra speaks again, her voice is hoarse. "You didn't—?"

"I tried. I wanted to. I couldn't go through with it. He wanted to die human."

"Oh."

Say something else, Astoria wants to demand, hate me, blame me, scream at me, do something besides this, but Cassandra is every inch a leader. What space is there for grief in a crisis? It takes her a moment to realize that she wants the anger because she wants the absolution that follows.

"It wasn't my death to take away from him," Astoria says quietly, a little desperately, and when she lifts a hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight, Cassandra wears an expression of absolute understanding.

How does that make it worse?

"Thank you," she says, so softly, so gently that Astoria thinks she might break.

The rising sun beats against her. She hasn't yet shaken the pain from crossing the temple's threshold to lay his body out on the table, and there are smears of blood dried and flaking under her eyes. (Take me instead, she wants to offer, but the only god she knows how to reach would never trade for something she's already deemed worthless.)

Thank you? For what? What has Astoria done worthy of thanks?

I didn't save them. I didn't avenge them. I didn't fulfill my promise to them. I held them while they grew cold. I smelled the decay in their body. Do you know what that's like? Smelling the person you love most in the world rotting in your arms? And I couldn't move. Couldn't cry out. I didn't save them. I can't even be in there with them now.

The sun still rises. Time still passes. The world doesn't have the decency to end when hers has. She closes her eyes, tips her head back against the wall, feels the unpleasant itch where the sun's light hits her face, albeit indirectly. Cassandra hesitates, then closes the distance between them, reaches down just enough to brush her fingers over Astoria's shoulder.

"I know." She's stepped away by the time Astoria opens her eyes, back towards Yennen and the guards, and for once Astoria doesn't want to be alone.

I have nothing to offer. She isn't even sure who she's addressing, only that she has to address someone. I have nothing worth so much.

In the temple, she hears Keyleth's voice quivering.

But Whitestone needs him and Cassandra needs him and Vox Machina needs him and all the world needs him.

Under one of the trees, she hears Cassandra let out a quiet, shaking breath.

I need him.

The light burns against her skin and she addresses the dawn, the creeping sun, the unseasonable warmth. What else is there to beg but this? Him? In Whitestone, where he planted the tree? In Whitestone, where Percy was born and changed and reborn again?

Please. She swears that for a moment the sunlight feels almost like a caress on her battered skin. I hadn't felt the sun without pain for years. Not until that night in my library. My laboratory. Drinking wine. Hearing him laugh. I felt so warm.

She hears panic in the temple but still she cannot hear the sound of his heart. She hears a soft cry from Cassandra but still she cannot hear the sound of his breath.

I'm so cold. I need them. I can't bear to lose them. I can't bear to be so cold. I'm not ready. Bring them home. Bring them back. Please. I need them. They're the sun, to me. They're summer. They're home.

She listens for an answer. She hears only silence. For several long minutes she doesn't move, and then she hears it.

The sound, fainter than any she's ever heard, the most beautiful thing in the world.

The warming of his blood.

The quiet and pained beating of his heart.

She lets out a strangled sound, inhuman and pained, and she covers her face with her gloved hands and she gives in to the dry, wracking sobs that shudder through her. At once Cassandra is moving, and she kneels in front of Astoria, fingers curling around her wrists, trying to pry her hands away from her face.

"What is it?" Cassandra pleads, and Astoria rests her hands against the girl's gaunt cheeks, meets her eyes, listens.

"His heart just beat." There is a breath, shallow and rattling. There are sighs and sobs of relief, and laughter, and Astoria closes her eyes for a moment. "He's breathing. Go. Go."

Cassandra scrambles to her feet and moves towards the door to the temple; she's about to throw the door open when she stops, takes several long breaths, tries to compose herself. She is the leader Percy knew she would be. She is the leader this place needs. She is the leader they all need. She will enter the temple composed (as much as she can manage). She will contain herself until she is alone, so that Percy needn't bear the weight of her grief. The moments pass, and she squares her shoulders, nods as if to herself, and Astoria feels herself pulled to her feet, hood falling as she stands.

They're speaking, inside, though Astoria finds she can't make out the words just yet, overwhelmed as she is, and she stands stock-still, stares at the wooden door, tries to quell the shaking in her hands.

The door opens. Cassandra bursts forward, and the heavy tangle of her emotions pushes at the limits of her control. Astoria swears, as she steps as close to the open door as she can without feeling as though she's about to be torn limb from limb, that for a moment the sunlight on her skin feels like a kiss to her temple.

"Where is he?" Cassandra speaks with one voice, though she speaks for the both of them. "Is he alright?"

And then, his voice: "I'm going to throw up."

Astoria presses a hand to her lips to silence a desperate laugh. Cassandra, ever the younger sister, answers at once: "Oh, he's alright."

Her legs shake beneath her. She sees a vague shape moving—Cassandra, her footsteps clear, walking towards a smaller shadow. Pike. She looks at her, first, then back over her shoulder, and even through the painful morning light Astoria knows that Cassandra is looking at her. She feels them make eye contact. She feels so much less alone. After a beat, Cassandra looks back at Pike. "Thank you."

It takes what little is left of her strength to keep herself upright. The voices blend together; all she cares about now is the stuttering beat of his heart. After a moment she realizes that Casandra is leaving the temple, no doubt to give them a measure of privacy, and she stops in the doorway.

For a long moment, they simply look at each other. Astoria is a frightful sight, hair tangled from her own fingers, streaks of blood drying against her skin, inhuman eyes shining with unshed tears. Cassandra is regal, and fragile, and terribly young. Astoria feels the most absurd urge to wrap her in her arms and call her sister and promise her a moment's reprieve.

The moment passes—but Cassandra slows as she passes her, catches one of Astoria's hands in her own and squeezes, much in the way a sister would.

#xfindingtrouble #xfindingtrouble ( cassandra de rolo ) #i. here's the truth from my red lips. ( answers ) #(utter fucking wreck) #(i may write another version of this more focused on cass?? this was simply Stuck In My Brain and if i didn't put it somewhere) #(well. i would simply have perished.) #(also i know she's not yennen in the stream but idk what they're doing given the [redacted] reveal in-show so. idk man.) #(lmk if i should change anything!!!) #(and for organization purposes) #iii. when i feel this cold you're like the fucking sun. ( percy x astoria )