WHO Cassandra de Rolo WHERE Overlook Hotel WHEN Early afternoon of October 6 WHAT Cassandra faces down and conquers a couple fears. STATUS Complete WARNINGS References to Stockholm Syndrome and mental manipulation via magic, as well as familial death and the dead bodies of her loved ones.
Cassandra wasn't sure how she had gotten to the hotel. She had read the warnings and had only meant to make a quick walk to the village, thinking its close proximity would mean nothing to untoward would happen. But that had been her first mistake, truly. Had she not been in Vallo long enough to know that if something odd could happen, it would?
She wasn't even sure how she had gotten inside. One moment she had been staring at the outside walls, the next she was standing in the lobby. She saw the waypoint and had almost walked to it and used it to go anywhere but here, but she hadn't. She knew that she ought to turn around and leave, to get as far away as possible. Perhaps she should even get out her phone and ask for help. Yes, she thought, that was exactly what she should do. She even pulled it out, held the hard plastic in her hand and prepared to reach out to Percy or perhaps even ask Gilmore to teleport and get her, to ensure that her feet wouldn't betray her once more, if she could even blame them for this terrifying detour.
Cassandra was an intelligent woman, one who had read book after book during her captivity, one who had rebuilt a city, despite her age and despite the hand she had played in keeping its people full of fear and free of hope. But now, as her gaze turned onto the nearest hallway, she tucked her phone away and stepped forward.
It was impossible to tell just how far she walked before Delilah Briarwood stepped out in front of her. Part of Cassandra wasn't even surprised, despite the way her heart hiccuped in her chest and the fear pooled in her stomach.
"Cassandra, darling." Her voice was as smooth as ever, her auburn hair up in its tightly braided style. The skirts of her fine dress seemed to move with a wind that Cassandra did not feel. Delilah smiled, extending her gloved hands toward Cassandra beseechingly. "I knew you would return to us. I knew that you would realize that you were one of us."
"No," breathed Cassandra, taking a step back. She was an intelligent woman, one who knew that the Briarwoods were dead, had finally truly fallen for the last time on that titan and in Dalen's Closet. And yet, she felt her chest tighten and the need to run seep through her very veins. "I'm not one of you."
"Of course you are, Cassandra." Just as his wife's had, Sylas's deep voice introduced his presence before he appeared in the hallway. Tall, broad shouldered, and as impeccably dressed as Delilah. "You're a Briarwood."
"Just like us."
"And we love you."
Cassandra's heart began to race. They weren't real, she told herself, even as they stepped toward her with warm smiles. She remembered those smiles. She remembered the bone achingly loneliness that she had felt after the loss of her family, after the realization had dawned and solidified that Percy must have been dead himself or simply had forgotten her and wasn't going to return (she had never decided which would have been worse), after she came to understand what it was to truly be alone. And she remembered the warm smiles, the ones that the Briarwoods came to reward her with. They were smiles that made her feel wanted and maybe even loved. They were the smiles that coaxed her into doing their bidding without magic dulling her will. They were smiles that made her hope for another chance at a family.
Except, no.
They were not her chance at a family, Cassandra told herself. They were the reason she had so little family left.
"I am a de Rolo."
The scene seemed to shift around her, the hallway of the hotel turning to a corridor in Whitestone castle. All around her were screams. Some were familiar, voices that she held dear now shouting out in pain and horror. Her parents, no longer reading to her or telling tales from memory to entertain, but instead begging for the lives of their children. Julius. Vesper. Oliver and Whitney. Ludwig. No longer laughing or teasing, but instead sobbing and wailing. The staff, innocents in this whole affair outside of simply being employed by the wrong noble family at the wrong time.
Cassandra felt her heart ache and her knees start to buckle, but she forced herself to stand firm. She looked down Delilah and Sylas, her eyes narrowed as she repeated. "I am a de Rolo. You took them from me." The screams around her silenced. Her words were both familiar and different, but firm as she finished, "And we took everything from you."
The Briarwoods stared at her, an almost remorseful look in Delilah's eye -- and then they vanished entirely.
One moment passed, then another. Cassandra's hand came to rest at her heart, feeling the thud in her chest eventually slow. The hallway was no longer that of the castle that she had grown up in, but of the hotel she had found herself within. Her mind began to clear, just enough to know that she needed to leave and she needed to leave now.
Cassandra turned, hurrying to follow the path that she came -- or, at least, the path she had thought she'd followed. She turned one corner, then another, and then her hand was taken by someone else's.
"Cassandra." Percy's expression was relieved, though there was still fear laden behind his glasses. There was blood smeared across his cheek and soaked into what had once been one of his finer shirts. She thought that she could remember the last time he had worn it. It had been for a dinner, had it not? Yes, there had been guests. "I'm so glad that I found you," he continued, tugging once on Cassandra's arm and pulling her from her thoughts, "but we need to go."
It wasn't until Cassandra had allowed Percy to tug her forward and down another corridor that she realized his hair was brown.
"Percy, wait -- "
Thunk.
Once more, Cassandra was no longer in the hotel. Once more, she found herself in Whitestone, though this time it wasn't the castle that surrounded her, but it was the woods that she was now running in, Percy's fingers still tight around her own. Once more, it was familiar, too familiar, so familiar that she suddenly dug her heels in.
"Cass -- "
Thunk. The arrow didn't find purchase where it would have in Cassandra's memory, instead sinking into her brother's chest. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Blood soaked into what had once been a fine shirt, each arrow combining to make a pattern that was all too familiar to her. She saw it every day, after all, the scars a reminder of this harrowing night.
"No." The strangled sob that escaped Cassandra's throat was unlike anything she had heard before as Percy staggered forward, falling to his knees and hair now white. His hand fell from hers as two more arrows found purchase, these a reminder of a death on a titan that she had been powerless to prevent, and he slumped to the ground. His eyes were open, a blue gaze that matched her own.
Cassandra scrambled backward. With her eyes on Percy, she didn't see the body behind her until it was too late and she turned to see Vex'ahlia staring up at her, eyes glassy and the same arrows in her body. Breath hitching, Cassandra turned to start in another direction, only to be stopped by purple robes. Gilmore and, next to him a half-elf in black feathers. One gnome, then another. A goliath. A red haired druid. A man in shining armor. A drow that she had only known for a few months. Allura and Kima and then the other Allura she had only met in Vallo. The Mighty Nein. People she knew, some better than others, but she knew all the same -- all spread out around her, the same arrows.
"No," Cassandra whispered, shaking her head. "No, not again. Not -- "
Thunk.
The arrow pierced the ground at her feet and immediately terror turned to cold fury, filling Cassandra. She picked up the arrow.
Thunk.
One more arrow to the ground. Cassandra picked it up as well, then strode over to the form of Vex'ahlia. It wasn't really her, she knew it wasn't her, but she had a bow all the same and Cassandra couldn't help but think that she wouldn't mind her borrowing it. Another arrow found purchase in the ground, but this time she ignored it.
"Not again," Cassandra growled, lifting the bow and shooting an arrow at her pursuer. There was no telling who the person was, but she didn't care as she watched the arrow sink into their torso. She was not the girl she had been. She was not a pawn in some game. The second arrow flew as she shouted, "Never again."
Before she should look for another arrow, the woods were gone. Her loved ones were gone. Instead, she stood in an empty room and knew she was back in the hotel. Her heart still beating in her throat, Cassandra pushed her feet into action, navigating back through the halls, to the lobby, and as far away from the hotel as she could get.