IP: 167.206.17.114
Posted on March 19, 2017 at 07:17:21 PM by
THE DUCHESS;
EVERYBODY'S LOOKING FOR SOMETHING
Was it a knock that had woken her? No, that couldn’t be it. The Duchess had slipped into her tent for only a short rest while the rest of camp ate. She wasn’t hungry in the slightest. She hadn’t had much of an appetite since the familiar face in blue had shown up and set her on a quest to find her ren. She would like to have said she couldn’t place the face, but the Duchess wasn’t an idiot and hadn’t lived under a rock. Although she had no interactions with the goddess herself, it was impossible to mistake the strange woman as anyone other than Aura.
The Duchess groaned at the noise and rolled over to go back to sleep, but there was another knock, louder this time, more insistent. She bolted upright. Tents didn’t have doors that one could knock on, and this was not her tent in the woods of the Peaks. She didn’t recognize any of this, but it was inside an actual building, and limited light shown through the small windows.
“Cassia?” a voice outside called as it cracked the door. “Cassia, are you awake yet? We need to get moving.”
How long had it been since anyone called her that? It must be someone else being addressed, though no one else was in the – there. A flash of moment caught the Duchess’s eye, and she slunk into the shadows as whatever had moved vanished. Slowly, skirting the wall and moving lightly on her feet, she pressed forward, hand behind her to reach for one of her knives. The thing came back into view. It was a girl, about eleven years old, looking just as worried and defensive as the Duchess felt. They relaxed at the same time, but Duchess continued to feel for the knives she kept on her at all times.
They were gone, and she twisted away from the girl to look for them before noticing the girl had turned away too.
“Cassia, that’s enough let’s-” The voice cut off as the speaker entered the room and paused, a scowl forming. “You’re not even dressed?! Pick up the pace! I have to be at the meeting in ten minutes and you need to head to school, miss.”
Worry of punishment washed over the Duchess but it didn’t stay longer than water stayed on an oil slick. She recognized the man, which meant she recognized the girl. The girl was clearly just a reflection, and Duchess was… herself, before anything bad had happened. She was herself before the Duchess existed at all.
The man stepped forward, his boots heavy on the wooden floors, and knelt in front of her, softer and kinder than he’d been a moment before. “Are you okay?” he asked as concern filled his voice as he inspected his daughter’s face for some hair of trouble.
Cassia didn’t take her eyes off him as she shook her head, waving the concern away. “Just thinking,” she said. She had no intention of making herself seem out of place in this time. She had changed so much since she was this age, and would be a stranger to her younger self now.
The man rose and, with a wink, commanded more insistently that she get ready for the day and focus before shutting the door behind himself. Once he was gone, the Duchess took a short survey of her room, allowing memories to flood back as her hand traced over each piece of jewelry and every fabric in her wardrobe. She then selected a teal dress to wear and threw a feathered fascinator in her hair to keep it out of her face. She’d had much longer hair as a girl than she bothered with now, and already it had become a bit of a nuisance. She pulled a necklace that was, perhaps a bit tacky for a girl so young but matched the dress nicely, around her neck and held it there as she left the room.
Cassia’s father was more than happy to oblige the girl and fasten the snaps of the necklace before dragging her from the suite and into the halls of what could only be the castle. It wasn’t the castle of the modern day, however. This was filled with military planning and magical preparations, strategy meetings and training. She walked through the crowd like an expert, weaving around people without touching them and without being noticed. It took all of her will not to pull items from the pockets around her, but somehow she managed. Eventually people took note of her father walking through and parted ways to make the passage easier until they arrived in front of a large chair.
Through her lashes, the Duchess looked up at the man in the chair and tilted her head with a frown.
“Go to class,” she was instructed by her father, before he began to address the man.
She didn’t move. She watched him, took in the details of a face so familiar even now: olive toned and framed in black hair. Mallos, only this version looked different. Older, if that was possible in the past, and far more uptight than the one who got in the way of nearly everything anyone had going on and, if rumors were true, played doctor with pirates while playing family with the king.
Both men turned to look at her as she continued to observe them, which was until her father gave her a shove. “Class, Cass. Now.”
Tripping over herself to maintain her balance from the shove, the girl rolled her eyes and headed down the corridor in what she hoped was the right way. She’d lived here for years, grown up here, but it had been so long and it wasn’t called the Labyrinth for no reason. When she did eventually find the room she was meant to be in, the teacher lectured her on the importance of punctuality and diligence in training before allowing the Duchess to take a seat.
In the next moment, the class was emptying, and the once shadowy corridors would have been pitch black were it not for the torches hanging on every surface. It helped that the rest of her class knew where they were going as well, and together the group made their way to the great hall where parents or familiars waited and news was passed around. Cassia’s memory took hold as she scanned the crowd of people and animals until she saw the stag, his silver antlers a stark contrast to his pitch-black coat. She hurried over to her mother’s familiar and gave him a hug. He paused a moment, pulling away from the girl, before relaxing into the hug. It was strange behavior for Cassia, he thought, but he wouldn’t question the affection. That was for her parents to do.
Together, they began the ascent back to the family suite, though toward the top of the second flight of stairs, the deer slowed, fading slowly. Noticing his absence by her side, Cassia stopped and turned in time to see the fear in his eyes as he vanished from existence.
She screamed. Everyone within 200 yards would have sworn they heard an animal’s murder in that moment, but it wasn’t. It was a bleary-eyed daughter who just watched her mother’s death from miles away. Her mother, who was meant to be on the front lines of this war, fighting for Mallos because he’d promised the family power when it was over. It was only fifteen minutes of sobbing in a heap on the stairs before her father returned and found her. He was just as saddened by the news, but he had a soul lantern in his hand and her ring in his pocket. The teleporter had found his wife and saved what he could before the battle sparked up again.
He lifted the Duchess from the ground like he had when she was a young child, and carried her inside to bed. There, she held onto the ring, playing with it until she was ready to go with her father to the family crypt and release her mother’s spirit there.
Donning a cloak over her shoulders in dark grey to hide and because she couldn’t fathom wearing a color in the moment beyond the dress she had no motivation to remove, Cassia stepped into the main living room, eyes red and nose still running. She didn’t let go of the wedding ring in her hand, silver antlers wrapping around to meet in the onyx deer head of her mother’s familiar. Together, Cassia and her father slipped out of the labyrinth and into the night. Somewhere within the winding halls, sweaty hands dropped the ring, but Cassia was pulled along in protest to get out of the castle, as Operation Kemet began to unfold. Whether her father knew what was going to happen in the labyrinth or it was a coincidence, the Duchess never found out. He wasn’t saved by the knowledge if he had. They ran across the Per-a’a Nakht border and into an equally surprised Set-Merut regiment. Cassia ran as fast as she could, clutching lantern to her chest. Whether it was by virtue of being a child or not, she was left to run in peace.
Her breath was heavy and ragged when she reached the family estates, but she heard no footfalls behind her suggesting her father had followed. She had to do this alone. She was alone.
Cassia had seen the rites done for each of her grandparents, and the one great grand-parent who had lived to see her born and raised. Still, she had no training, and she didn’t understand what most of it meant. She performed the rituals clumsily once she made her way into the crypt, and recited as best she could from memory before faltering and falling to her knees, tears threatening to overwhelm the entire process. When she finally gargled out the last line, she opened the lantern. Ordinarily, the rite was spontaneous. As soon as the lid was lifted, the spirit would take form to speak its farewells before passing onto the next life. Cassia waited patiently, but nothing arose. Ten minutes later, the Duchess watched the puff of blue smoke that was the remainder of her mother’s spirit slip free and disappear, without a word to her daughter.
Laughter caught her off guard, and as the Duchess turned her head and opened the sore, puffy eyes, she was back in her tent with the crew laughing about something or other just outside. She pulled her knife and stepped out to remind them that they needed to get to work.
She needed to find her mother’s ring.
Replies:
- an item for your hamper! - By birthday ninja March 19, 2017 at 07:19:54 PM
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