A Rose Arose Alongside A Purple Dusk - OTA

[thinking_about_it]

Open/locked?:Open
Who: Cassidy, Grey, and whomever they encounter
What: Arrival!
Warnings: Given their series, pretty much anything has potential, but other than violence mentions these two are pretty safe.


Cassidy groaned and pushed herself up off the ground. Her head hurt. Had she passed out in the herb garden again? Tulips, Grey was going to go hissy cat on her for that. Except... she hadn't been draining anything into the land. It had still been locked under too much snow.

It was still cold here, but this wasn't the garden at the Queen's Residence at all. It was some sort of lawn. And there was a.... Wow. she stared at the large school, building. It was almost as large as the Hall, though not as intimidating. And not as Dark.

Hearing a groan, Cassidy looked behind herself, then gasped and dropped back to her knees. "Grey!" she called, reaching out a trembling hand to touch him carefully. When he just groaned again, she took a breath and snapped some steel into her spine. And her voice. Sitting back on her heels, she spoke in a firm and even voice. "Prince Jared Blaed, attend."

That did it. Like someone having a bucket of cold water thrown on him, he was at once awake and alert. Though with less sputtering and anger. He sat up, his green eyes locking on her hazel ones. "What's wrong?" he asked, the words almost a demand.

"That's what I'd like to know," she said, leaning back on her heels now that he was sitting up. She got to her feet and offered him a hand, which he took. Once they were both standing, she reached up to take off her hat, but at a glare from him, her hand dropped and she played with the end of her red braid instead.

They were an odd looking couple, based on where they came from. He had the look of Shalador and Dena Nehele - athletic, fit, golden skin, angular features, dark hair, green eyes. She, on the other hand inherited all her looks from her mother Derva, which meant that she was gawky, too tall, with pale skin, freckles that she hated, hazel eyes, and red hair that she was coming to hate less this past year.

But at the same time they looked perfect as a couple together. But that was because of how they stood, ready to face any trouble together. They even circled with their backs to each other as they looked around the new place.

"Is it concerning or a relief that I haven't spotted Vae?" she mumbled.

His temper sharpened and he reached back to give her hand a warning squeeze. "Company," he said, seeing someone notice them...

Comments

[queen_butterfly]

She simply shook her head, not sure how to reply back for a second, but resumed leading down the other hall again. "I've tried feeling for a spirit, but I've yet to find any in it. It is rather convincingly... lifelike," that much she could concede easily enough, "But I've yet to find anything I could move from it, save energy itself." And she was trying not to do that again, honestly.

[thinking_about_it]

"I wonder if Jaenelle would know..." Cassidy mused.

[queen_butterfly]

"I should clarify... Were there a spirit present, I would have found it by now."

Which wasn't to say that she was going to rule out the possibility of it developing one later on, of course. But at least at present, there wasn't any to be found in hers, nor had she found one in the others at the table....

"I take it you're familiar with poppetry? Or at least passingly familiar with poppets?"

[thinking_about_it]

"I know about poppies..." as in the flower, "but I'm not sure what you mean by poppets..." Cassidy admitted.

[queen_butterfly]

"A doll with a soul," she said, matter-of-factly, almost distractedly; this was simply How Things Were, not something dramatic, at least in her view, it seemed, "usually a created soul. And not necessarily a doll, but very often; a vessel which wouldn't have been truly alive, if not for the spirit it holds."

[thinking_about_it]

They both looked utterly perplexed at that. "I.... maybe ask the High Lord...?" Cassidy asked, with a shrug. "Oh! Unless you mean like one of Jaenelle's shadows?"

[queen_butterfly]

"Ask... who? About what?" She'd just explained it to them. Why were they telling her to ask someone about...? No, no, no speculation. This was all confusing enough as it was.

[thinking_about_it]

"Well, they're darker then we are," Cassidy said. "Maybe they'd understand it better."

[queen_butterfly]

What....

She paused there, turning to look at them, expression still hesitant, trying to figure this out.

"If you think someone else would understand what little I've said better than you do, I suppose that that's fair enough... but that doesn't explain to me why you think I ought to ask someone else about something, or what you think I ought to ask them about...?"

[thinking_about_it]

"Well... you asked what we know about it..." Grey said.

"Because you wanted help with something to do with the topic, right?" Cassidy finished.

[queen_butterfly]

"...No." She paused again to look back at them, quiet, and baffled and not even trying to hide it. "You sounded rather lost and I didn't want to explain over your heads... so I wished to know what your basis of understanding might have been. I was informing you of the practice." A small sigh, and then a bemused bit of a smile, shaking her head as she resumed leading off; apparently she wasn't offended, so much as just finding the confusion entertaining. "I daresay I likely have a bit more experience with the practice myself, than whoever you're speaking of would, if they're a human, as you look to be...? Hence being certain there's no spirit within those little things, at present."

[thinking_about_it]

"Oh," they both said, a little sheepish and embarrassed.

"Sorry," Cassidy added. "I think we're both still a little mixed up over everything."