WHO: Cassandra de Rolo and Verin Thelyss WHAT: While taking a break from studying, they stargaze and talk about the future. WHEN: Mid-December, back during finals week. WARNINGS: Some vague talk about family loss akin to Cassandra's history, but mostly just fluff.
Cassandra couldn't decide what was more difficult: being in charge of running a city state or finals.
It was, of course, an unfair comparison, but in her year and some change away from Whitestone and in this new life that she had carved for herself in Vallo, a very full semester was certainly a challenge in and of itself. She was an intelligent and incredibly capable young woman -- not that she would ever use those words herself, instead letting people infer it on their own -- but she was beginning to wonder if maybe she bit off a bit more than she could chew with her current course load.
Even then, she couldn't entirely blame the Cassandra of several months ago that had decided on her classes for the fall semester. That Cassandra, after all, hadn't anticipated what October had shaped up to be. A glimpse into a future that she hadn't even truly allowed herself to imagine? It was a bit of a distraction, at the end of the day. A brilliant distraction that had come in the shape of two beautiful, perfect half-drow, as well as those that belonged to others and yet somehow thought of her as Aunt Cass. She couldn't, wouldn't complain.
But as much as the distraction had put her behind in some places with her academics, Cassandra knew from experience running that aforementioned city state how easy it was for her to allow herself to become overworked and burn herself out -- especially when she needed a distraction, such as one to distract from the absence she constantly felt now that those beautiful, perfect half-drow were back in their proper time.
That need for a distraction was why Cassandra had dragged Verin outside, despite the cold temperatures of a December night. With Cassandra unwilling to delve but so far into the forest during the night, they weren't all too far from the Xhorhaus, only a handful of strides away from the Sun Tree itself. Having provided a pile of blankets and a bottle of Xhorhasian wine courtesy of Verin's brother, the sky itself had obliged and provided a lack of clouds and plenty of sparkling stars above to look at.
"Thank you for indulging me," Cassandra said, shifting a bit closer to Verin. "If I looked at my laptop a moment longer, I'd have gone cross eyed."
All the glimpse of the future had done for Verin made him that much more certain that he was happy with his life’s trajectory. He’d known for a long time that he loved Cassandra and that he wanted everything a future could bring for them, but knowing those things as a possibility was very different than experiencing them as a thing that had actually happened. It made the love he felt for her that much more tangible. So when she had asked him to indulge her in a break from her studies, it was not a difficult thing for him to oblige. He wanted to spend his time with her and he wanted her to be happy and being here with her under this night sky helped satisfy both of those things.
He wrapped an arm around her middle and pulled himself closer to her, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of her head. “You say that like this isn’t exactly how I’d hoped I’d be spending my evening,” he teased, a smile glinting in his eyes as he looked down at her. “How are your finals coming, anyway?” It constantly amazed him how much she took on at school. He’d been good enough at his own studies, yes, but he’d never been as driven to push himself the way she did academically, and he’d never been quite so good at it as she was, if he was honest. “Are you at a point where you could take the rest of the night off, or are we on borrowed time now?”
Cassandra hummed, tipping her head to the side and letting it come to rest on Verin's shoulder. She'd had a few intentions to go back and perhaps round the evening out with a bit more reading, but it was hard to even consider when the alternative was exactly what was happening at that moment. Single-minded and driven though she may have been, the lure for a proper night off was too great.
"Finals are feeling rather good," Cassandra replied, smiling as she continued, "so I think that I deserve a night off, don't you?" She reached for one of Verin's hands, letting their fingers twine together. "It feels as though everything has been going non-stop since the semester started, anyway."
Verin took comfort in the way Cassandra’s fingers fit so perfectly intertwined with his own. He fixed his eyes on their interlocked hands as his thumb grazed idly over hers. “I definitely think you deserve a night off. Then again, I am usually of the opinion that you deserve every night off because you work so hard, but I also realize that’s not exactly feasible.”
Without her having to say so, Verin knew what she meant. Life in Vallo, in general, tended to feel like it was always moving full speed ahead, but the past month or so had felt especially so. It wasn’t hard to surmise that what made it such was the arrival of their futures in the form of children they didn’t know yet and the subsequent departure of them. Both of those things had been a lot to process.
“It feels a bit too quiet after everything, doesn’t it?” he asked, easing into the topic of conversation. “A night off might be exactly what we both need.”
"I think so," Cassandra murmured in agreement, her mind easily wandering back to the chaos that had been the two weeks wherein time had been in some kind of flux. She had known that it would eventually come to an end, as all oddities within Vallo seemed to, and had done her very best to savor it all while she could. That didn't mean that she didn't miss it, though; she missed all of it a great deal.
Keeping her eyes on the skies above them, Cassandra leaned over until her head came to a comfortable rest on Verin's shoulder. "I had never thought that I would have children of my own," she admitted, pausing for just a breath before quickly adding, "Back in Whitestone, I mean. It wasn't as though I was some spinster or anything, but it just felt a bit impossible between my responsibilities and everything that I wanted to accomplish. I expected to be Aunt Cass to a brood of de Rolos courtesy of my brother and -- that was fine. Quite fine."
Finally, her gaze dropped from the skies and she looked up at Verin's face. "That future, the one that we got to see, though -- that is quite fine, too." Cassandra smiled. "More than fine."
Verin’s brow furrowed as he processed through Cassandra’s words. It wasn’t a secret that their lives back home likely would never intercept, even if it mostly went unspoken between them. For as much as he hated the idea that he probably wasn’t in her future in Exandria, it still did something to his heart to imagine that her future might not include things that she might want because her responsibilities didn’t allow them. If she had told him she didn’t want a family, or children, that would have been fine, too. Her choice was one thing, but feeling like there was no choice because of things mostly her control was an entirely different thing.
“I thought it was quite fine, too,” he agreed. “I know it won’t be tomorrow or even next year, but am I allowed to tell you now that I’m looking forward to figuring out how that future might play out whenever it does?” He smiled and pressed another kiss to her head, before resting his head against hers.
He paused for a moment, then said, “But that future you didn’t picture for yourself back home, is that...something you would have chosen? It just seems a bit unfair from where I’m sitting. Your brother getting to have a brood of de Rolos while you run Whitestone, I mean. I guess I just...hope that the future you pictured back there was a future you got to choose. You deserve that choice.”
"I never wanted to be so involved in running Whitestone, at least not at first," Cassandra admitted, voice quiet and contemplative as she managed to tuck herself into an even closer cuddle. "I was the youngest of seven, after all, so all of that ought to have fallen to the eldest. It shouldn't have even fallen to Percival, in truth. But..." She let her words trail off and waved one of her hands in a dismissive way that wasn't at all dismissive, really. "After all that had happened, though, I didn't feel like I should be the one to take the helm in it all." After all that I had done went unspoken; the thought sometimes crossed her mind, though time and therapy had helped dull it.
Her thoughts went back to that first Winter's Crest after Whitestone had been liberated from the Briarwoods. She remembered speaking with her brother, voicing her trepidation and concern about leading Whitestone. She had asked for help, her guilt too much to ignore when she considered her role in the pain given to the people who were now meant to look to her as a leader.
And Cassandra remembered, just as clearly, when Percival and his friends left. Perhaps it was unfair of her to have felt a bitterness over it; he did return, after all, nevermind that it was usually to borrow from the Whitestone coffers and bring ill tidings and refugees to feed. Percy had his own demons (literally and figuratively) to battle and it wasn't on her to judge how he did so. It just would have been nice, as Verin suggested, to have had the choice.
"But, someone had to," Cassandra said after a silent few seconds. "And though he had other adventures to complete first, Percy did come back to help, eventually. The choice may have been there for me, but I had come to view it as my duty, my penance, in a way, that it felt like there wasn't one." She leaned back from Verin a bit, lifting a hand to brush her fingers over his cheek. "It makes me appreciate that I have one here all the more, I think."
Verin listened quietly, waiting until he was sure she’d finished her thoughts before gathering his own. He reacted instinctively to her cuddling closer and his arm tightened protectively around her as though his support here could somehow translate into the support another Cassandra in another time very much needed. “I feel like there’s a lot to unpack there,” he finally said. “And I don’t know if you want to talk through all of it, so I won’t push unless you want me to, but I think it deserves to be said that knowing you as a person, you still deserved the choice. You still deserved someone to be there offering you one. I hope you know that you always have a choice here.”
As much as he didn’t want to think about his own brother just now, it occurred to him the parallels between Essek and Cassandra. Both had demons in their pasts, choices made that they’d come to regret, a sense of needing to mend the bridges burned. They were wholly different people from different circumstances, but Verin couldn’t help the small twinge of guilt he felt in that moment at how easy it was for him to tell Cassandra that her heart was not the sum of her mistakes, that she deserved more than a life of penance and duty, and how difficult it had been for him to tell Essek the same. It was a thread he’d have to unravel later when his focus wasn’t on Cassandra.
Trying to offer her a way toward a different direction of conversation if she wanted it, Verin asked, “If you took away all of the external forces here and got to have a future that looked exactly how you wanted it with no chance of interference, what would you want? I don’t just mean in regards to a family. Anything you could manifest into being right now, what would it be?”
Cassandra appreciated the out, even if she didn't realize that she wanted it until it was being given to her. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk about these sorts of things with Verin. On the contrary, there was no one that she was more comfortable talking about her past with; he beat out even Vex and Gilmore, the two people in Vallo that she considered to be family most. However, it was just that: her past. And while it wasn't something that she could just forget, nor was it something that she felt she ever should, Cassandra was trying not to dwell on it, as she once had. It had been a process started back home and bolstered in Vallo, to where she was now.
And so, she tipped her head back against Verin's shoulder, eyes lifting to the stars above as she considered. It wasn't that Cassandra hadn't thought about it before, but putting it into words was another thing completely.
"Back home, I was wanting to travel and see more of Exandria," Cassandra said, words coming slowly as she thought them over. "Obviously that's a bit more limited here in Vallo, but -- there's still much to study, things to see and experience. That's broad, but I want to go to Atlantis, eat at every restaurant in the city, learn Undercommon, begin trying the incredibly unlikely to complete challenge of reading through the Great Library." Her face turned, looking from the sky to Verin himself. "I also want to finish school, of course. I'm not sure what I want to do afterward. Something good, something that will touch people's lives. Teach, perhaps? I'm unsure."
Cassandra was quiet for a moment then, before she smiled. "And I know you said not just the family bit, but that is important to me, too. Being with you, for as long as you'll have me."
Listening to Cassandra’s hopes for her future warmed Verin’s heart. He wanted those things for her, wanted to be beside her as she did them all for as long as she would want to have him. He wanted her to have all the time in the world, too, to do everything she wanted to accomplish, but that was yet another thought he chose to stow away for another time when he was in the sort of place to mull over it. For now, he just allowed himself to delight in the mental image of Cassandra cozied up by the fireplace with one of her books, the two of them traveling to whatever corners of Vallo they could find, and her standing in front of a classroom captivating it the way her words alway seemed to captivate him.
“Those all sound like really great things, Cass. Maybe one day you’ll have the chance to find your way all the way over to Xhorhas? I can at least continue to help with the Undercommon. It’s going to take years and years, though, so you’ll have to keep me around for at least that long.” He smirked, clearly teasing. He knew Cassandra well enough to know she’d likely become fluent more quickly than anyone really had a right to, but that didn’t mean he’d ever stop making excuses to spend time with her even when he no longer needed excuses to do so. And then, more soberly, he added, “I’d like to have you forever if that works for you.”
That was a heady thought, even if it wasn't one that was new to Cassandra, truly. Given all she had admitted about her place in Whitestone and the expectations that she had put on herself, she couldn't be too shocked at the little bit of disbelief that she still could feel at being so loved and, in all truth, desired by another. There was no lack of love in Cassandra's life back in Exandria, but she considered herself very fortunate for having found this love in Vallo.
"I think that I can make that work," Cassandra replied, nose scrunching up as she smiled wide. "See if I can't fit forever into my schedule." She was teasing as well, of course, but her smile was as sincere and loving as ever. Reaching up, she buried her fingers into the hair at the back of Verin's head. "It sounds very nice, I have to say."
Verin smiled, closing his eyes as her fingers found his hair. He loved her, and he loved this--this easy way they could just be themselves together. “What do you want to do to celebrate the end of classes?” he asked, eyes opening again. “We could go somewhere. Stay at a bed and breakfast, make it feel like we’re traveling somewhere far off in another land. Whatever you want to do, let’s do it.” He laughed then and added, “I’d offer to cook for you, but I realize that the things I know how to make are an acquired taste.”
Cassandra grinned at that, joining in his laughter a beat later. "I'm certain there is plenty from Tal'Dorei that would be considered an acquired taste to some, so I cannot fault you there," she replied, both honest and diplomatic -- her specialty, in all honesty.
She considered his question, though, gaze returning to the sky before she continued, "I rather love the idea of a bed and breakfast, however. A bit of a getaway, some spoiling of ourselves." Her head tipped and she looked back to Verin. "What do you think?"
Verin laughed playfully, turning his head to press a kiss to the underside of Cassandra’s jaw. “I think you need to get back inside and study so you can get these exams done already and we can get going,” he said. Bold words, but it was clear in the way he held her closer that Verin had no intention of letting go. Not now. Hopefully not ever.