cassie’s arms are bruised by the cold.    she tries to bury them under the covers,  but the heat seems to have abandoned them tonight--     no matter where she presses her hands,    her fingers grow blue and swollen in the darkness   (scraps of moonlight peek out from behind the curtains,    a howling wind caught on the trees outside...     she does not believe the world here has ever learned how to be silent).    she wants to cut out its tongue.   but what is the tongue of a tree?   the roots,  the branches,   the leaves?   even if she finds a knife sharp enough to cut,   she does not think that their silence will help her.    taissa is a warm center,   a little sun,   a sunlette.    with no other choice,   cassie presses their legs together,   stealing whatever warmth the other has kept sacred.   it is almost like worship,   to grasp at the little strands of heat and claim them as her own.      “   are you still awake?    ”     cassie murmured.   her hand reached out,   brushing against @doomdays.    “   i can’t sleep with all this rain.    ”

@polarean looks like a fairy - tale hero.    he is tall,   in the same angular way cassie is   (together,   they are raven - sharp,   though she figures that her brutality comes with a sunkeness whereas he seems imposingly full of life).   over the whites of her pillows,   his hair spills out in bright reds,   the omen of a bloodstain.    her tent is small:   the house,  this time,   is uninhabitable.   every now and again,   they might luck out with clean floors and unbroken windows--   here,  the wind pulses through the trembling walls,   demanding that its presence is known.   outside,  the wind howls like a friendly wolf’s maw.    it searches for its pack.  cassie doesn’t mean to stare...    but she’s on her side,  the blanket twisting around her neck,   goosebumps pinching her arms.    he’s nice to look at.   but he isn’t hers to look at:   she is aware of the world she lives in,   and the world he survives in   (she is stupid to look at him).      “   charles,    ”    she says,  breathing his name soft and crisp into the air.     “   you’re stealing the blanket.   ”

cassie watches him,  her chin against the peach - palm of her hand.    the bar is almost empty   (and she shouldn’t be here,  so late at night:     her mother would say she’s inviting the devil in).    @klaeus​ looks a little like the devil.    but there’s a whiskey in front of her and her lips are loose,   the conversation coming quick enough to beat her down.     “   i’m exploring my options.   drinking is clearly tonight’s remedy.   ”   her vices are never quite so sweet:   usually,  it is a cigarette and music loud enough to make her eyes bleed.    “   you’re old,  aren’t you?    shouldn’t your advice be more sage?   ”

@oddyseas asked : ACCOMPANY :  for one muse to give the other an extra ticket to an event. / cassie and neil !!!

cassie has the fox colours streaked over her cheeks. she has a sign, made of cardboard and hope, with neil's name scrawled across it and covered in glitter-- her sisters used to make things that were just as tacky for her when she played basketball, holding up their signs and screaming their throats hoarse as cassie tried and failed to score a basket. she'd never been a competitive person... she just liked the aura of being around others, of having a team at your back to lean on when things grew tough. she's stood outside of the locker room, the sign tucked under her arm. " do i look like a creeper waiting out here? i feel like a creeper. " but her smile is outrageous: she feels like she's been invited into some private part of neil's life, even if it's technically the most public part of him (it still feels like their relationship has taken a serious level up). " i've got you a present for if you win and a present for if you lose, so don't worry about trying to impress me. god, neil, i'm so excited! "

sometimes, neil watches her. she gets it. or maybe she doesn't get it in the know - everything - about - him sort of way, but she watches him sometimes, too (he has a twitchy face somewhere between handsome and impatient: she'd try to set him up with one of her friends, if he'd ever expressed interest in anyone, but he seems fine just existing as neil josten-- and she doesn't hold onto friends long enough to start sacrificing them to the altar of dating malfunctions). as she hands him the controller, she watches @parabathai. there's purple prints beneath his eyes that speak of a certain tiredness. " you know, it's so soft back here that you can just take a nap whenever. " she used to think love was pushing until someone was okay, but she's learned that sometimes love is a gentle nudge. sometimes it's doing nothing at all. it's just not the sort of love your mother teaches you (suffocate, suffocate, suffocate).

she sweeps the coke into her hand and takes four long gulps. there's some twizzlers that she fishes out from under the pillows. a veritable feast, as long as you weren't too picky. there's cans of beers, too, but cassie's driving. besides, she hasn't seen neil drunk yet. that felt like a special sort of occasion-- best saved for some other time. " because a k is way more chic than a c. even if chic has two cs in it. listen, no one's ever stopped to question the logic behind a game so good. " she rips into the guts of the twizzlers, washing down the coke. " athena used to kick my ass at it. constantly. a nightly humiliation. they let me sit at the table, sure, but i wasn't allowed any hair clips 'til i bested athena. took me five years. by then, i'd totally grown out of hair clips. "

the entire hotel is bathed in darkness. cassie sits cross - legged beside mabel, a candle burning away between them. she has flung open the curtains, welcoming in the sort of moonlight that cast sharp shadows across every bump. even the candle seemed to be against them-- revealing a steep darkness that mocked them, an open mouthed flicker. her back is against the couch. all the furniture came with the room. it belonged to the lady that had lived here months before, the one that had been killed by some masked freak. cassie's mother had said that she had felt a calling towards the hotel. after spending most of her childhood not sleeping in an actual bed, this had been a confusing luxury. they'd been playing card games: her and the girl she had found in the hotel, the one with soft eyes and a weary smile. when the bang came from upstairs, cassie jumped to her feet (there were very few opportunities in life to do something truly scary).

the brunette [ @doomdays ] has a voice filled with worry. " how will i know you're okay? " she asks in a way that makes cassie's heart curl in on itself. cassie has made it clear that she wants to check it out, that it's a matter of universal importance that they explore the new noise. worry is new: cassie has always been a child comfortable by herself.

" you could come with me. " she grabs the candle and feels the flame hiss towards her, an insistent little tongue that wanted to rip apart the seams of the world. " i'm taking this, anyway. so you won't have any light if you're not coming with me. " a smile is thrown over her shoulder, a promise that she's only joking.

daniel   [   @komunion​   ]   looks like he stepped out of a dream:   his presence overwhelms,   demands.    at her blinking surprise,   he says...     “   i am perfectly real.    ”

cassie’s smile is an uncomfortable knot.   she tries to untie it,   but she can’t seem to work her fingers beneath the rough rope   (it scorns her knuckles until they are peach bruises,   shades that won’t wash out for some time).     she scrambles in her bag,   pulling out a red leather journal that stains her fingers.   it was her mother’s--   a stolen gift,   the sweetest one that can ever be taken.    she doesn’t have a pen.   fuck.     “    sorry!    my sister’s just such a big fan,   i can’t actually believe it’s you.   could i get your autograph?   ”

do you truly know anything about your sisters,   cassie?     athena liked her hot cocoa with water rather than milk,   even warm milk,    because otherwise it tasted too decadent.    cleo liked hers with milk,   and clotho didn’t like it at all,   and cassie would have it made any way,   because it was hot cocoa.   you can’t exactly mess up hot cocoa.     these are little snippets of information,   facts that built up a life.   she knew what made athena cry - scream in her car,   the type of pain that could only be felt in the extremes.     she knew what made clotho curl in on herself,   days spent alone and wanting,   an empty shell of a girl that couldn’t seem to knit herself back together.     she knew what made cleo cry   (they are twin - shadows of each other,    the ache that echoes--     whatever makes cleo cry,   it stirs something in cassie’s chest).      but does she know them?    what does it mean to know someone?    she’ll never know everything about them,    nor will she ever invite that much intimacy.    maybe knowing someone is less important than loving them.

“    it’s weird,    isn’t it?    there’s no other situation in the world where you’d be forced to spend years with people and,  and,  it’s like--    you’re just expected to like them.   i mean,  most adults don’t even like their partners after a few years.    but this weird biological impulse tells us that we have to love these people forever and ever.   and i do--   i do love them.    i don’t want to sound like a total unfeeling psychopath or something.     but i felt like i had to learn to love them,   it didn’t just...    come naturally.    ”    when she finishes,   she realises how much the honesty had curled her tongue.   though it felt good to open her heart,    she couldn’t deny that the strangeness of it made her feel ill:     her tongue was often kept locked away,   used only in matters of great distress.

“    come on,    ”     she said,  slipping on her shoes.   she swung her bag over her shoulder,   feeling it touch against her hip   (it had her purse in,   a few trinkets she liked to carry with her...     all the things a girl needed to start her journey into the world).    she grins over at @doomdays,   eager for the night to begin.     “   there’s this cute little place i saw driving in here.   we’re not dressed appropriately at all,   but there will be music and enough space for me to dance with all my elbows.   you wanna drive or should i?    ”

cassie feels the old familiar wound of jealousy gape open.     of course @doomdays has a bedroom where she can hang things,    a private space that she could decorate as she pleased   (cassie has a tent and a van--    the latter has become a stark mess in the single year that she’s had it...      there were coke cans lining the floor,   a layer of dust that no one had told her to clean up,    the places where her mother couldn’t touch anymore).    if she was being honest,   she liked the mess of it.    she had never owned enough stuff to have a mess before.    she couldn’t even begin to imagine how she could destroy a bedroom--    how the floor might be stained,   how the wardrobe might have peeling stickers stuck on it,    how she might have scratched and broken every surface in there.     she couldn’t imagine that tracy was so careless with her things.    still,   you never knew how bad things could get until they got really bad,   did you?      maybe tracy’s room was a mess.    her jealousy dwindled--    a quick flashed tempered into something softer.     if she hated everyone for what she didn’t have,    it would eat her alive.

“    that’s kinda cool.    sort of like you’re containing it,   you know.    the paper is the metaphorical trap and you’re pouring it all out.    lots of people don’t ever deal with their issues.    i mean,   they never find a way of getting it all out.    i don’t think i’d be brave enough to draw it all out--     i think i’d just keep it all inside and let it eat away at me.     maybe that’s why i talk so much.    i’m trying not to let that happen.    trying not to be eaten alive,  i mean.     ”      a quirk of her lips,   a confession that feels half - coy   (in her words,   she cuts out her heart and serves it up for anyone to eat).      at tracy’s next line,   cassie bumps her arms fondly against the other’s.   the gesture is easy,   light,   as warm as any summer’s breeze.       “   everyone’s pretty just happens to look a little different.      ”       she thinks again of her mess,    of the way dust falls like kisses against her skin:     to her,  that is beauty incarnate,   transformed into its purest form.    to anyone else,   she can imagine them recoiling with horror--    her mother would never get to see it.    even her sisters were exiled from her kingdom.

she stood to her feet,   grabbing two pieces of plain paper.    tracy might prefer her own notebook,  which was fine,   but she still felt it was rude just to grab stuff for herself.   she found some pencils in the school drawers--     the classroom would be empty until the lunch bell rang,    where cassie would try to entice tracy into skipping gym with her.     there was just enough room behind the bleachers to still get a full view without being seen.      “   okay,   what are we drawing?    the first thing that comes to our mind or?     ”

mother's want / daughter's need. their question itches something deep inside of cassie (a child should not center themselves--- when her mother asks for something, cassie must scurry towards it like it is her own demand). she wonders what it is like to be a mother. does your want double or half? do you become more or less? her mother has birthed four daughters. what does that do to your own need? sometimes, her mother was distant enough that every word was mumbled and uncouth. other times, it is like she feels her mother's every breath echoing in her chest. want, halved, then halved, then halved, then halved. cassie, the third daughter, steals the scraps that the others have not yet eaten. cassie is no god. she is not even godly. she prays to no greater being, she takes nothing from the skies. while she is a creature of belief, everything she has vested her faith in stands firmly on earth (but the mother must be something of a god, surely, to make cassie's knees tremble like a scolded child even when she isn't around-- is it something you want? or something your mother wants and has sent for you to fetch?). cassie could trace every stitch in her body and still not know where she ends and her mother begins: the question would take a long time to answer with any sort of truth.

so, she delays. she takes the drink and takes four great sips of it. one, for athena, with her owl - eyes and outrageous laugh, the daughter who has shunned her mother. one for cleo, the little lamb, ready and eager to be slaughtered by every cruel word their mother spits at them. one for clotho, who had spun secret tales out of her own mind when the lights were dim. one for herself: she does not have to have her own wants. " my mother has told me to come retrieve it. that doesn't mean i don't want it, too. don't you think both things can be true? i'm interested in it. i wouldn't have gotten this far if i wasn't. " she studies their face, sun - shaded and handsome, and wonders if she is being believed. fingertips trace the spine of the book, the glorious yellow pages that seem crisp rather than rotting (it is never been so beautiful before: it is like @solstis' presence makes it beautiful). " she -- my mother -- wants to know what you'll give away for it. "

" i'm looking for you. okay, i realise how creepy that sounds now it's said aloud. sorry, sorry. " she offers a small smile: it's the only condolenceshe can muster. " you're actually a kind of interesting topic of conversation, @b4rren. in certain circles. "

with a returned gentleness,    he squeezes her hand   (cassie gravitated towards touch eagerly,  naturally,   trying to dig her hands into anything she could get close enough to--     when she feels someone else’s distress,    she touches with all her might,   desperate to soak it all up).     her thumb finds his knuckles.    in soft movements,   she tries to ease the tension from his shoulders.     “   it’s just a party,  you know,   @sadtempo​.    what’s the worst that could happen?   i mean,  one of us could trip and fall into the chocolate fountain,   and drown in chocolate,    which definitely wouldn’t be a cool way to go--    but at least it’d be a memorable story.    and that’s so unlikely to happen.    so,   let’s chill.    i’ll walk in with you.     ”

@65spider asked : 041.   the street of an unfamiliar city at night .

cassie shudders, a full body sort of ordeal, as she imagines what could have happened if the blonde hadn't found her. a man had been trailing her, walking in that quick - step that predators usually do (and cassie had fled, an unnatural instinct for her, but one that had no doubt saved her life). when the girl finds her, safety in numbers is used to their advantage: the man hesitates, bathed in shadows, and then disappears into an alley while they walk on together. cassie reaches out, pressing her fingers against the other girl's arm, trying to ignore the way she is shaking. fear is usually absent. tonight, it colours her, in the rain-slick streets where strangers can lie like sleeping wolves around each corner. " thank you, " cassie says, small and low. she glances over her shoulder again. she cannot help it. " jeez, there's some creeps in this place. i've never actually visited this part of the city before. i don't know what i wouldn't have done if you didn't show up. you're, like, my own personal hero. "

atsumu,  arms behind his head,   laying beside her,   speaks his words into the night’s sky:     “   out here,  at night,   i feel like a kid again.    ”

the picnic has been devoured   (all that’s left is the crumbs,   scattered around them like soft halos--    her hunger has been damned for the night,   dulled by the blade of conversation).    now,  they dine on sweeter things.   when the conversation turns to lost childhood,   cassie practically salivates--    there are very few things she can sink her teeth so thoroughly into.     “   you’re a teenager,  you know,   @eclipsedt​.   it isn’t like you’ve lost a rib or gained a wrinkle or something.   you’re still a kid.    ”     she twists her body so she can bother him with her knees,  digging them into the side of his thigh.    despite herself,  she knows what he means...    already,   childhood is grabbing the knife and running it across their bond.     “   what was your childhood like?   ”

outside the library doors,   @witch3d and cassie stand beneath the small shelter provided by the stone arche.   her skin is still splashed by the rain,   her arm bearing the marks of those little drops.     it seems as if the entire world is drowning:    the grass stretches out in front of them,  a deeper green than before.    in the middle of the garden lies a statue--    there’s so many statues here.     “   so,   what’s that statue of?    ”     she fiddles with the umbrella,   huddling a little closer to bonnie   (until she gets the umbrella sorted,  she’ll use her body to shield the other--    it’s her fault for being annoying with it,  anyway).      “   is it another one of the town founders?   that’s kind of crazy,   by the way.   care--   caroline was telling me about it all.     ”     the umbrella bursts open.   she wraps an arm around bonnie’s shoulder,   gathering her closer,   so neither of them are splashed with rain.

her feet are cold.  this,  of course,  is roshan’s problem.    it would be anyone’s problem,   if they were close enough to burn with cassie’s indignation,   but it’s just roshan and the shoes with the holes in the back.     “   i think they’re letting rain in,     ”     cassie says,   kicking her foot up until it was resting on the seat across from her,  the one roshan is sat on.     the diner is not her favourite place around here-   the food always smells off.   but the windows are tinted and it stays open late into the night,   so it’s where they’ve started to meet.     “   can you just check the back of the sole and see if they’re broken?    ”

something about the other seems to crinkle at this:     “   sometimes,  you’re pretty weird,   aren’t you?    ”    @eclipsedt​ says.

cassie laughs,    though she studies roshan’s face for malice   (sometimes people say things just to be cruel...    sometimes,   it is an accident,  a slip of the tongue,   a whisper of grief into the air).    cassie jostles her foot a little closer.   she’s about to press harder,   but the waitress comes and she is distracted by ordering half the menu.     when she’s gone,   cassie narrows her white - blown eyes.     “   would you rather die in this diner with a hole in your shoe or in the shower when you’re naked?   ”