Chapter Text
Cassandra’s new armor clinked as she walked down a hall in the castle that was seldom used. As she approached the doors, her heart swelled with pride and her arms and legs felt tingly from anticipation. She reverently opened one of the double doors and stepped inside. The cavernous Journal Room was dim, with early morning sunlight streaming in high windows illuminating the dust thick in the air. The crown of the Lost Princess glittered on a plinth in the center of the room.
“Cassandra, you’re early,” Tom said from his station to the left of the plinth. “You’re not due to relieve us until seven.”
“I know,” Cassandra replied. “I just didn’t want to miss it.”
Eddie chuckled. “I remember my first day on the job. I had stayed up late the night before celebrating with friends. I was nearly late to my first assignment, but made it in time. I was struggling to stay awake during my shift though.”
Cassandra gave a polite half laugh and strolled toward the crown. It was only on display for one week preceding the lantern festival. Her captain trusted her to protect this precious little bit of jewelry that was made for the princess all those years ago.
“Who are you paired up with today?” Tom asked.
“Will, I believe,” Cassandra replied, not taking her eyes off the crown of the Lost Princess.
“Will is a good guy. Not much of a talker, keeps to himself mostly. Not too bad to spend a shift with.”
“Did I tell you about my shift with Martin the other day?” Eddie asked Tom. Cassandra was relieved to tune out their conversation. She walked around the Journal Room, partly checking for security weaknesses, partly observing the beauty of the room she’d only seen maybe a handful of times in her life.
Cassandra remembered the first time she had been in this room. She was 9 years old, and her father let her accompany him as he oversaw his men moving the Book of Hearts into the Journal Room after a day of being on display outside. He pointed out how the men adhered to the procedure laid out in the compendium of Corona law, Cassandra's favorite book at the time. When the captain dismissed his men after the book was safe, Cassandra went to look at the book. Her dad told her the history of the Book of Hearts, and what a privilege it was to be entrusted to protect such an important item to the kingdom.
Cassandra listened attentively; but her eyes were drawn to a pair of signatures on the open page. They were small, written in the messy lettering typical of barely literate peasants. Two female names. A heart drawn between the two names. Cassandra tried to imagine what the two women looked like, and who they were.
Cassandra was brought back to the present moment at the sound of the door opening. Will entered the room and Cassandra gave him a polite nod. Eddie and Tom passed their spears to each of them, then left. Cassandra waited to see which position Will took before moving to the other one.
She stood still as a statue, quietly fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a Corona Royal Guard.
After several minutes, her lifelong dream was making her feet ache a little. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. After half an hour, her mind was starting to wander; she imagined thieves bursting through the door to get the crown, and she was the one to stop them.
Approaching an hour into her shift, she heard noises on the roof. Her head snapped up and adrenaline rushed through her body. Glancing over at Will, she realized she was overreacting to what were likely birds on the roof. He was still and unbothered. Cassandra tried her best to ignore the noises, and enter a trance-like state like she had heard some of the guards do.
The birds on the roof continued to make noise. Noises that sounded almost like human speech. Cassandra shifted her grip on her spear.
Staring at the closed doors in front of her, Cassandra noticed a change in the way the light illuminated the dark wood. At that moment, Will sneezed.
“Ah, hay fever?”
“Yeah,” Will responded to the voice.
Cassandra saw understanding dawn on Will’s face half a moment after she had spun around to where the voice was speaking. A man, suspended by a rope from the ceiling, clutched the crown that she was entrusted to protect. She immediately recognized him from his wanted posters: Flynn Rider .
She sprinted across the room, and within moments she was launching herself off the empty plinth grasping at Rider who was quickly ascending. She scraped his boot. Then he and the crown were gone.
She and Will gazed helplessly at the bright square in the ceiling.
“Alert the Captain,” Cassandra commanded Will. Without waiting for a response, she ran out the doors of the Journal Room.
As her boots pounded the cobblestone of the courtyard, a voice in her head chanted “ Your fault, your fault, your fault” with each footstep. It all happened so fast. But maybe if she had jumped higher, ran faster, listened to her intuition….
She skidded to a halt at the stables, and untied her favorite horse, Fidella. Luckily, she was already saddled and ready to go. Cassandra vaulted onto the saddle. "Come on, Fidella, we have a bad guy to catch."
Before Cassandra could kick the horse into a gallop, the Captain ran up beside her and grabbed the reins.
"Cassandra, what are you doing? You're supposed to be at your station in the Journal Room!"
"Dad, the crown’s been stolen! It’s Flynn Rider!" Cassandra attempted to rip the reins out of her father's hands. "I have to go, he's getting away!"
If he felt panic, dread, or disappointment, he showed nothing on his face. The Captain released the reins. "You're not going anywhere. Let me and my men handle this and stay here. That's an order."
He whistled and gathered some men and horses. Cassandra sat atop her horse, anger bubbling in her chest. The order felt accusatory, like she was responsible for letting the crown be stolen. It was true, but the accusation stung more than the guilt. She could fix this; she needed to fix this. But she couldn't disobey a direct order from her captain. She anxiously watched the men move infuriatingly slowly as they saddled horses and gathered weapons.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of two hulking figures running across a roof. Cassandra turned in her saddle to get a better view, and saw a third figure, hopping from the barracks roof onto a roof of a house just outside the castle walls.
"Rider " she cursed quietly.
She glanced back at the incompetent guards, and then at her captain, whose feelings for his daughter interfered with his usually sound decision making.
Sorry Dad. Cassandra turned Fidella and kicked her. They took off out the castle gates to the sound of the Captain calling her name.