Chapter Text
Cass cast a look over her shoulder, hood drawn over her face. By all regards, she wasn’t really supposed to be doing this.
But by all regards, she didn’t really care.
She kept her head low, fingers curled around the fabric obscuring her face. She knew if she asked Lance and Eugene, they’d say yes. Of course they’d say yes. But this wasn’t something she really wanted company for. She’d given the guards the slip. She would go back later, she swore, but she didn’t want to be tailed for this.
Pushing the gate open gently, she stepped into the threshold, immediately sensing the shift in the air. It was nicer than most places, reserved for nobility, but it still held that solemn resignation that shrouded every final resting place. She took a deep breath, steeling herself against any emotion for the time being, and pushed forward, past extravagant headstones and memorial statues. She found them easily, the two headstones with fresh dirt, and gifts and flowers laid delicately across. The larger headstone had more of these decorations, with sunflowers and drawings strewn across the disturbed earth, but the other wasn’t barren. Varian was seen as a hero, finally, after his saving the day from the red rocks, and his involvement in the neutralization of the Moonstone threat. He was seen as a martyr.
He’d been included in the royal plot by request of both Eugene and the Queen, claiming that between his status as the son of a village leader and knight, and his many sacrifices for the kingdom, he more than deserved to be remembered amongst the nobility. Those closer to them knew it was more a symbolic thing- they’d died together, fighting together, for each other’s safety. It would be cruel to separate them after all they went through at each other’s side.
It was here that Cass stopped, hesitating. She’d waited for this moment. Planned the exact time, once less people were visiting and everything had calmed enough for her to slip in unnoticed. But now that she was here, staring at those names engraved into stone, the matching dates underneath, she felt that same despair washing over her. Get it together. She needed to be strong enough to at least pay her respects.
So she kneeled down, her gloved hand raising and pulling the hood back, letting the faint sunlight shine against her black curls. Careful not to disturb any of the painted stones or flowers strewn across the two mounds, she settled down in the middle, waiting for genius to strike. Her free hand clenched around the bouquet she’d brought, built from different flowers she’d collected from vases around the castle over the past couple days. It was humiliating that she couldn’t go out and buy them on her own, but she hadn’t wanted anyone to meddle. Even if it was for only a few minutes, she wanted to do this on her own.
She set the bouquet between the two headstones, avoiding covering any of the other offerings, then leaned back again. Her eyes were drawn to the framed pictures set in front of the stones. The one in front of Varian’s was easily recognizable as Rapunzel’s work: a vibrant painting of the boy smiling, far happier than Cass had ever gotten to see him. But the other didn’t look like the princess’s. It was a pencil sketch of Rapunzel, seemingly done without her knowledge. The girl was pictured gazing somewhere beyond the artist, face calm and serene, sitting cross legged with her arms folded in her lap. Where the other was colorful and whimsical, this one was detailed and precise, almost looking like a moment captured in time.
She sighed, closing her eyes. She felt like she was trespassing. She wasn’t welcome here, not anymore. She shouldn’t be allowed so close to where they lay resting. It was like a criminal revisiting the place of a crime. These were people, good people, the best people, and they were her victims. Victims of her own self-serving foolishness, forced out of the world because she had thought she was important. Because she’d… she’d been so obsessed with her destiny.
If this was her destiny, she didn’t want it anymore.
So many things wanted to come tumbling from her lips, apologies and pleads and desperate admissions of how much she missed them, how much she missed her, but they were pointless. Nothing she said would ever matter. Words were useless. Words couldn’t take her back to before she kidnapped Varian. Words couldn’t stop her from taking that blasted Moonstone in the first place. Words couldn’t bring them back.
There was nothing she could do to fix any of this. She was helpless, trapped existing in an endless loop of what-ifs and grief. Of every darn memory, everything she’d once held dear, now tainted and painful and sad. She did this. She deserved this suffering.
With her eyes closed, figure bent over the graves, she didn’t notice movement behind her. She didn’t have those preservation instincts anymore, keeping her on her toes and ready to jump into action. Her mental resignation to her deserving punishment cancelled out years of training and skills. So it was with great shock that she pried her eyes open, whipping around, only to be met with an arrow held inches from her nose. The archer was mere feet away, point blank, bow still out in front of him. He reacted with fury, nocking another arrow.
“Witch!” He spat, aiming again between her eyes. She drew back, face pale, but didn’t move. Her gaze trailed to the arrow still right in front of her, clutched in a gloved hand. The hand was attached to an arm, leading back to a whole person. A person with painfully familiar blue eyes. The figure wasn’t looking at her, instead glaring at her attacker.
The archer didn’t get the chance to shoot again, as he was tackled to the ground by a guard. Several more swarmed forward from the gates, yelling and shouting, and from within the fray Eugene pushed his way forward. The arrow in front of her fell to the dirt with a soft thwack, whoever had been holding it now vanished. Eugene didn’t even notice, face drawn and clammy with panic.
“What were you thinking??” He demanded, waving his arms frantically. “Cass, you’re not supposed to go anywhere outside the castle without a chaperone!”
“Sorry if I didn’t want someone breathing down my neck for five seconds,” she snapped, climbing to her feet.
“It’s for your protection,” he insisted, pointing a harsh finger back at where the would-be assassin was being detained. “Because there are people like that. And here?! Cass, you know better.”
“I’m not a child!” She growled, poking him in the chest with a single finger. “I can handle myself just fine.” She scowled. “I came because I had to! I couldn’t just- just not! ”
“Then you bring a guard or two!” He cried, running his hands back through his hair. “It’s not that hard! You’re free to roam the town, with supervision. I thought you’d follow those restrictions!”
“I didn’t need guards watching over my shoulder for this!” She exclaimed, gesturing behind her at the headstones. “For just once, just let me have a little control! I know you don’t trust me!”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you!”
“Liar!” She got up in his face, anger burning against the walls of her heart. “You have no reason to trust me! You have guards tailing me because you think I’m up to no good! You figure, the moment your back’s turned, I’ll go and do something worse!”
“I can’t lose you too!” He practically screamed, stomping his foot. “Sometimes, you make it so hard to care about you, but I do! And there are days that I hate it! I hate that some part of me still wants you safe, still wants you around, after what you did! ALL she ever wanted to do was help you, and get through to you, but even now that she’s DEAD you still won’t listen!” His body heaved with exertion, furious eyes glaring down at her, and she felt herself recoil.
“Eugene-“
“You always have to be the one calling the shots,” he continued, words tumbling from his mouth with no control. “You hated Adira because it meant there was somebody else making decisions. You distanced yourself from the group because you thought it was unfair, that your voice wasn’t being heard. You took the Moonstone, one of the most powerful things in existence, because you wanted to be the person with the authority. You wanted that importance, that influence. Even now, after everything that’s happened, you’re still so caught up in your own feelings that you ignore everyone else’s!” He drew in a sharp breath, seeming to come into himself, and it left him with a full body shudder. Looking her over once more, searching for any sign of injury and finding none, he turned, stalking off in the opposite direction.
Cass was left reeling. She knew she was the bad guy here. She hated it, hated everything she’d done. She still couldn’t figure out for the life of her why anyone kept her around. But there was still a part of her that wanted to take offense at Eugene’s words. Selfish? After everything I sacrificed for this kingdom, for the princess?
She shivered, pressing her palms into her eyes. She couldn’t entertain those sorts of thoughts anymore. They were wrong. She was wrong.
Perhaps now that he’d finally snapped at her, he’d let them do away with her.
Growling, she chucked the book on her nightstand across the room, letting it hit the wall and fall to the floor with a thud. She’d gone to those graves for… she didn’t even know. Clarity? Paying her respects? To make up for literally running out of the funeral?
Perhaps it was a mistake. Maybe she should have just stayed away, taken the out. But she couldn’t. Her heart still longed for those moments she could never have back, to get up in the morning and be greeted by a bright eyed ray of sunshine. She would take it all back if she could, but she couldn’t, and there was nothing she could do.
She moaned, sitting back on her bed and resting her skull against the headboard, pulling at the soft skin under her eyes.
She really didn’t understand why Eugene was so upset, anyways. If she really had been killed, everyone would have been far better off. He wouldn’t have to keep acting like he cared, and she would finally be free of this terrible burden. She kind of wished the stranger hadn’t missed.
“You really ought to apologize to him.”
Weird, her conscience didn’t usually sound like that.
“He’s worried about you, Cass. You’re shutting yourself off, and taking risks. It’s like you don’t even care if you live or die, and it’s scaring him.”
“I don’t,” she huffed, too worked up to really care that she was talking to herself.
“Then you need to be honest with the people you care about. You need to let them help you.”
“I don’t deserve help,” she growled, prying her eyes open to glare at the ceiling. “Not after what I did.”
“...it was an accident.” Cass frowned. That definitely wasn’t something her subconscious would say. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned, only to freeze. There was someone standing in the corner of her room. They stepped into the light slowly, a bare foot revealing itself first. Then the rest of the person was visible, standing there with only a slight hesitance, and meeting her eyes. Blonde hair, green eyes, freckles, that purple dress…
Cassandra screamed, scrambling backward on her bed, but her hand caught in the blanket and she tumbled off, hands flailing out to catch her. In doing so she only brought a shelf down over her head, knocking her out cold.
A second figure appeared beside the first, surveying the scene with a tsk.
“Told you she wouldn’t take it well.”