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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura


    [private]  could have followed my fears all the way down, cassian
    #1

    CASIMIRA

    dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

    After her brief but insightful encounter with her estranged father, Casimira could not stop thinking about finding Cassian. She had become so wrapped up in her own life that time had slipped away from her, and after staring at Ashhal’s face — the lines harsher, and not nearly as kind as Cassian’s, but the similarities were there — she had realized it had been far too long since she last saw her twin. After the death of their mother they had both retreated to their own respective corners of the world to deal with their grief; for Casimira that corner was hidden inside of herself, and it was there that she soon made her home, effectively shutting out the rest of the world.

    Tephra, the birth of her youngest son, and the earthquake that had left her kingdom as an island had dislodged her grief and taken up that space in her mind for a time, and she lost herself in the whirlwind of events, and the urge to find her twin was lost with it.

    When she had visited Hyaline most recently (something she had started doing more frequently after running into Atrox; that, and it served a dual purpose of keeping the ties between the two kingdoms strong, since Hyaline had been her home for years) the shock of seeing her mother—alive and physically whole, though to Casimira’s trained eye there was something still amiss—had jolted the thought of finding Cassian once again to the forefront of her mind.

    When she awoke this morning she had decided that this would be the day that she searches for him. His wayward tendencies often made him difficult to pin down, but she liked to think she knew him well enough to know at least most of his favored haunts, and flying would be the fastest way to find him.

    Stepping towards the edge of the newest coastline, she lets her dragon wings erupt from her sides, her pale blue eyes sweeping across the perilous looking land-bridge. It is just as she is preparing to take off that a movement on the bridge catches her attention, and while at first she is on alert simply because she is always cautious of those entering the kingdom, it is after taking a closer look with her shifted dragon eyes that she feels an excited surge in her chest. “Cassian?”



    @Cassian
    #2

    If there is an activity that is both foolhardy and ill-advised, it’s almost a guarantee Cassian could be found doing it. Of course, when he had set off towards Tephra that morning, he hadn’t realized that this trip would involve such an activity. Still, it would come as no surprise to anyone who knows him, least of all his twin, that this is exactly where he can be found.

    Today it happens to be on the auspicious and quite probably dangerous bridge that now exists as the only connection between Tephra and the mainland. If he were anyone else, he would have crossed this bridge with caution and no small amount of relief when he eventually reached the other side. Instead, because this is Cassian we are talking about, he has chosen to stop halfway across in order to peer over the crumbling edge with avid curiosity.

    This might not have been so alarming were the water below not filled with the jutting red rock that had once defined Loess’ landscape. The fall would almost certainly kill him.

    Though fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately, depending on the perspective) for all involved, he wouldn’t stay dead. Still, if he actually put any thought into it, he would realize very quickly he has no desire to be a child at this time. Which, as he stares into the stone-strewn water below from such a precarious precipice, he does finally begin to realize.

    It’s that moment however, that he hears his name from a distance. It causes him to startle, which in turn causes the stone beneath his hoof to break off. Heart leaping, he scrambles backwards as it falls into the water below with a distant splash. In his mind, he had just barely managed to save himself from tumbling over the edge of death. In reality however, one stone slipping from beneath one hoof would almost certainly not have meant his end.

    Try convincing Cassian of that though.

    Moving with sudden alacrity, he jogs to the other side to find his twin, scowl pulling at his lips. “What’d you almost kill me for Casi!?!?”

    Cassian


    @Casimira
    #3

    CASIMIRA

    dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

    As someone with wings, Casimira has never really looked too closely at the landbridge. On first glance she knew it was difficult to traverse, but it wasn’t until she watched Cassian try to cross it that she realized just exactly how treacherous it was. She knew it was uninviting enough that they rarely had visitors that utilized it; everyone that came here either had wings or a way to swim the longer distance. Truthfully, this didn’t really bother her. She somewhat liked the idea that their foot traffic was limited, and that anyone coming to Tephra likely had a reason to be here.

    She finds herself rethinking that thought process when Cassian slips, and she has just begun to flex her wings while simultaneously sorting through all the possible ways to save him if he falls when he manages to right himself and continue on his way.

    Her relief is short-lived when, in true Cassian fashion, he finds a way to blame her for almost falling. Rolling her pale eyes she walks forward to meet him the rest of the way, debating shoving him right back off the cliff. “You’re so dramatic. It’s not my fault you’re clumsy.” She gestures up to the halo that glows above his head, she adds teasingly, “Didn’t the halo give you any angelic qualities, like the ability to move gracefully?”

    #4

    Cassian probably could have swam across, but he honestly didn’t even think of it. Of course, he also could have gotten a leg cramp halfway across and drowned just as easily as he could have tumbled over the crumbling edges of the land bridge. All in all, if there’s a flaw in any plan, it’s generally assured Cassian will discover it quite by accident.

    Or by ‘accident’.

    When his sister stalks towards him, her eyes rolling and a denial on her lips, Cassian huffs his disgruntlement. That does not stop the grin that begins to unconsciously sneak onto his lips at her teasing rejoinder however. He doesn’t really blame Casimira. She had just made an all too convenient target for the fading fear his near fall had caused.

    Hazards of being a twin.

    “I’m always graceful, so I don’t know what you mean,” he tosses back in mock offense. It might have almost even been believable if his twinkling eyes and twitching lips hadn’t given him away immediately. “I’m pretty sure your dumb kingdom just has something against visitors.”

    Unable to hide it any longer, Cassian laughs. His terrible sense of humor always gets him in the end, and with Casi, there’s really no hiding it. Shifting forward, he presses his nose affectionately against her cheek before drawing back with a grin. As his eyes roam her familiar features however, the grin begins to slip as something heavier replaces it. A weight he knows Casimira has been suffering under just as much as he has been. After a moment, he continues, his concerned tone conveying far more than the words he speaks. “How have you been?”

    Cassian


    @Casimira
    #5

    CASIMIRA

    dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

    One thing that she had always appreciated about Cassian is he managed to bring out the lighter side of her—the side that had seemingly died along with the rest of her that day Starsin had destroyed her in the middle of the war against Loess. She remembers being reborn from the barest fragment of one of the diamond scales Leliana had armored her with, and how she wished she had known that being reborn did not necessarily mean being entirely remade. Her body had been newborn, but not her memories or her heart, and the first feeling to flood her as she regained her bearings was the heavy weight of failure.

    She had failed Tephra, her mother, her siblings.
    She thinks she must have failed Badden in some way, too, and she cannot fault him for disappearing.
    Failing Tephra again, and failing Savior, was not an option.

    “Are you sure the kingdom is the dumb one?” she volleys back at him, and punctuates it with a nip of her teeth against his neck. But she shifts towards him just as he does to her, and she finds herself releasing the tension she had been carrying at his touch against her cheek. There were so few that she was truly close to in this world, and she knows that if it weren’t for Cassian she would have been entirely lost. He was her twin, the one that has known her the longest, and perhaps the only one that knew every single side of her—the only one she has never had to wall herself away from.

    “Cassian,” she begins, her tone growing weighted and earnest as she waves off his question. “Mom is alive. Firion found her. I don’t know everything, but I saw her when I last went to Hyaline. I was coming to find you so that I could tell you.”



    @Cassian
    #6

    His grin cracks wide as he ducks the nip of her teeth. The familiar banter eases him, bringing comfort that his heart has been missing too often of late.

    “Well I’m not the one that lives here,” he shoots back on a laugh, dark eyes twinkling roguishly. But as the laughter fades, the weight settles right back where it had been before. Their brief respite had been just that, but it could not erase the heartache that plagues them both.

    He knows the heaviness of failure as well as his sister, though he has become very good at masking it. She had always been the stronger of them. Always the more powerful. Cassian had only ever had his laughter, and lately even that hadn’t seemed like enough. His children had brought him joy, but it is a joy now tinged by heartache. A heartache he tried hard not to think about, especially after their mother’s death.

    He could never have survived both if he did. Without Casimira, he’s not even certain shoving the memories as far back in his mind as he could would have worked either. But she had been as much his touchstone as he had been hers. She had reminded him of who he had been before everything in his life had gone wrong.

    She doesn’t answer his question, he notes, but a sense of seriousness settles over her. She had always been the more grounded of the two of them, but this is something more. Without conscious thought, he steels himself, wondering what more could possibly go wrong. And her words do stun him as he expected they would, but not in the way he had prepared for.

    His heart thumps hard in his chest, disbelief etched into his features. Disbelief that quickly gives way to cautious optimism and hope. “Alive?” he manages to croak after several tries, blinking back a rush of unexpected tears. He’s not sure why he wants to cry when the news is good for a change, but still they sting his eyes. “That’s… I… how?”

    Cassian


    @Casimira
    #7

    CASIMIRA

    dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah

    She should have found a more tactful way to deliver the news, but she hadn’t been sure how. News that their mother is alive is indeed more joyous than finding out she had been murdered, but it was alarming all the same. The roller coaster of emotion was not any less nauseating just because the news is better. Because now, a new fear had been unlocked—the realization that death was not the only thing they needed to fear. Casimira was not a stranger to death, and she knows Cassian isn’t either. They have both died and been reborn, they knew of the trait—curse—they had inherited from their father.

    But what had happened to Ryatah — what Casimira had gathered from the loose, slippery details — was something beyond death. It was not something so easily escaped, and Casimira had witnessed the way she seemed changed because of it.

    “I don’t know,” she repeats softly, shaking her pale head. “Gale killed her, I guess. I don’t know the reason. I don’t think even mom really knows the reason. Firion said that where he found her was not the afterlife. There are so many things that don’t make sense.” There is still a frown shadowing her face, and she breathes an exhausted, borderline irritated sigh. “And I…. I met…” she trails off, suddenly unsure what to call him. “Ashhal.”

    #8

    Even Cassian would have had trouble finding a way to deliver such news without it resulting in a sucker punch to the gut. Though his twin might be the more diplomatic of the two, he had always had a way of charming others around. But that is an unsettling truth no amount of charm could have softened. Still, it leaves him less winded than when he’d learned of the reverse. Of the death that had stolen Ryatah.

    He can only nod dumbly when Casimira explains the vague details of their mother’s retrieval. He’d undoubtedly have a million questions later, when he could actually think, but for now, he can only revel in the immense relief of learning she lives.

    Casi’s mention of a place that was not the afterlife does bring a faint frown to his lips. He’s not entirely sure what to make of that. After a moment, he mutters more to himself than his sister, “There are places you can go in death that aren’t the afterlife?”

    No one had ever mentioned such a thing before. It makes him wonder if that means there might be a possibility of them never being reborn after they die. He doesn’t know if they are given a finite or infinite number of deaths before they can’t come back, but the very thought makes him shiver.

    Shaking his head sharply to clear his thoughts, he blinks at his sister as she continues. It takes him a moment to register what she had said before his brows shoot up in disbelief. Though he has been just as curious about their father as his twin undoubtedly has, he had never tried to seek him out. Knowing he would probably reject them had been enough. Tilting his head, he asks almost cautiously, “And?”

    Cassian


    @Casimira




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