#also in this scene she is about twelve and cassius is eighteen

[writersstareoutwindows]

The degree to which my own ttrpg games have come to occupy the place in my brain that fandom did in high school is at this point staggering, and I intend to make it everyone’s problem.

So *cracks knuckles* at long last, here’s a few of the thousands of words I’ve written for Carella Maginus, my dearest bard (affectionate, derogatory). She is the daughter of an ambitious elven noble and a human founder of Crux, a travelling interplanar city. Due to fantasy Punnett squares (and Carella being the revival of an old character, whom I didn’t want to change into a half elf), Carella skews much more human, while her older brother Cassius is much more elven.

Siblings is hard, when your dad sucks and only one of you remembers Mom. When one of you is heir, and one of you is—well, hardly even spare.

-

(The first few paragraphs were a prompt written by my partner.)

“Hey, Cassius?”

Carella’s brother unfocused his eyes and rubbed a stray hand against them, the other holding his page on the dusty tome before him. It was late in the library, and Carella was getting tired of kicking her feet under the table and listening to Cassius, in his boring blue academy robes, turning pages, endlessly studying.

“What?” He sounded tired. Too tired to be annoyed at the interruption, hopefully.

Carella voiced the question that had been nagging at the back of her head for some time. She was a little nervous to ask, but not enough to defeat a curiosity that felt strong enough to swallow her whole.

“What was Mom like?”

Cassius paused, surprised. He marked his place in the book by inserting a smaller booker. 

‘You sure you want to ask about that, Ellie?’

‘Don’t call me that—Cass.’

Her retort made him laugh. Leaning back, he said, ‘All right. You know how Dad is an asshole who tells us how to spend every minute of every day?’

‘Cassius!’

‘Well, Mom was nothing like that. Try not to yell, Carella, we’re in a library.’

She squeezed her fists beneath the table and fumed. But then her brother did something she’d never seen him do before: he softened. The furrowed lines between his brows went away, and as he pushed his hair out of his face, she saw him smile for the first time in days.

‘Mom wouldn’t even give me a bedtime. She argued with Dad that I’d tire myself out eventually. I thought she didn’t know that I was staying up to read even when he did put me to bed, but I never seemed to run out of candles…’

His gaze had drifted. He was looking over Carella’s head as his fingers traced a pattern on the tabletop. She had leaned in to listen, desperate not to miss anything.

‘She used to tell me bedtime stories. Both of us, actually. You were too young to remember.’

‘What kind of stories?’

Carella whispered, because she was afraid of scaring him off. When they were younger, he had been easier to talk to. They would play together, even when he was twelve and she was just six; they hadn’t really had anyone else. These days he was always busy, with heavy shadows under his eyes, and he was more likely to snap at her than talk to her. She didn’t want to break whatever spell was making him talk like this.

Cassius grinned. ‘Adventure stories, when we were lucky. My favorite was about the dragon in Pyre. Well, it’s everyone’s favorite, that story is famous.’

Carella didn’t know it, but she didn’t want to look silly by asking. Dad had said that she asked too many questions; it was better to keep her mouth closed until she had figured things out by herself. Looking at his sister, Cassius tapped his fingers on the table, then pushed himself to his feet.

‘The bestiaries are around here somewhere. Hold on just a second.’

He returned in a moment holding a thick book bound with bright painted wood. Plopping it in front of Carella, he leaned over her shoulder to turn the pages until he came to the section on dragons. A hand-painted illustration of a red dragon, its neck gracefully arched, its raised wings transparent as glass, covered two full pages.

‘This is what she fought.’

Carella had gone wide-eyed. She pulled her feet up onto the chair so she could crouch over the book, the better to see every fine detail: the sharp ridge of each scale, the talons at each wing-tip, the yellow-orange glow of fire in its throat.

‘By herself?’ she whispered.

‘I’m sure the other Founders helped. But she was the one who survived the full brunt of its firebreath in her face, she was the one who got up on its back with all the fires of a volcano raging around them, and she was the one who planted her halberd in its spine and drove it like a ship, all the way down a river of lava to the bottom of Pyre.’

Carella had gone from staring at the dragon to staring up at her brother, whose face had lit up as if he were looking into that bright volcano.

‘At least, that’s how she used to tell it.’

And Carella thought she had heard that, even if for just a moment: her mom’s words, her mom’s voice in Cassius’. At least, she let herself believe.

‘That’s amazing,’ she whispered.

‘She was amazing.’

If Carella didn’t know her brother better than that, she would have said that a bit of his kid self was showing through in that smile. He sat back in his chair, but he’d pushed the magic books, or whatever they were, away by now.

‘She was nothing like Dad. I don’t know why she married him. She never so much as yelled at me, even when she was furious.’

‘Dad doesn’t yell.’

‘Not at you.’

Cassius shrugged, irritated. Carella was holding her hands in fists beneath the table again, this time nervously. Before she could think of something to say, Cassius went on.

‘Whatever. This isn’t about him. He just has a habit of getting into everything and screwing it up.’ He sounded like he was talking more to himself now. ‘It’s what he must have done to her.’

When he glanced up, he blinked as if only just remembering Carella was there. She was sitting very still, watching him with wide and careful eyes—the same way she watched their father, when she was trying to read what he wanted. Cassius swore quietly in Luthién.

He said, ‘She was a really good singer’ as if he were apologising.

And it worked. A soft feeling pricked Carella’s chest. In a warble, she said, ‘She was?’

Carella loved music. She sang and played piano, and was falling fast and hard for the violin. Cassius knew it all too well; more than once, he’d told her somewhat unkindly to be quiet while he was studying. But he’d also accompanied her on the piano a hundred times. Making music was like making her own little world, and she was good at it, too. She knew she was good at it.

‘She really was,’ Cassius said. Now would have been the moment to give his sister a reassuring touch, but he hesitated. ‘She could sing these long, epic story ballads without stumbling once. And she was the best for lullabies. Like I said, she didn’t put me to bed very often, but when she wanted to, she’d just have to start singing, and,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘out like a light, every time.’

‘Did she—?’ Carella paused. It was a stupid question, an obvious one, but still, she wasn’t sure of the answer. She pushed it out of her mouth: ‘Did she sing to me?’

Softly, Cassius said, ‘Of course.’ He only had half a memory, but he shared it anyway, making up what he couldn’t recall. ‘There was one night, you were sick, I remember because you would not shut up. But Mom held you the whole time, just, rocking you, you know. And she sang to you. I could hear her singing all night.’

Cassius hummed a little melody, something simple that Carella didn’t recognise.

‘Mom was...she was a good mom. She was brave. And funny—her stories could make me laugh for ages. And she was strong...I thought she was strong.’

Cassius closed his eyes. Something painful moved across his face, flickering in the low lamplight.

‘Cass…?’

He shrugged. ‘Guess I was wrong. Even she wasn’t strong enough to put up with Dad.’

Carella flinched.

‘What does that mean? Why do you keep saying stuff like that?’

‘Because it’s true? Because if she were still around, maybe we’d be a little less fucked up?’

‘Stop it!’

Cassius raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. It made her want to scream.

‘Well excuse me, Ellie. I assumed you’d finally worked out that our other parent is a bastard, in all but blood. Why else would you ask about Mom?’

Carella looked down, at her fists held tight and small in her lap. She was so sick of Cassius always acting like he knew more than she did. She’d asked about Mom because there was a portrait that hung in their manor, of a woman with soft wavy hair and a clever half-smile, deep laughter lines and Carella’s nose. A woman their father never talked about. She just hung about the fireplace, looking down over her daughter, saying nothing.

‘Maybe I just wanted to know, for once! Did you think of that in your big stupid wizard brain?’

Cassius rubbed his temple. ‘We’re in a library…’

‘I don’t care!’ Carella stood up, slamming her fists on the table. ‘You fight with Dad, and you make fun of him, but then you turn around and act just like him! You think you’re so special, you think you know everything and I’m just some dumb kid, but all you really are is an ass!’

‘Carella! People are going to hear you.’

‘You couldn’t even stay nice for five minutes! Maybe I just don’t think it’s fair that you get to know about her and I don’t. You get to know everything!’

Carella slammed her palms into the bestiary, sending it flying across the table at Cassius.

‘What makes you so special?’

Cassius looked almost silly, holding the book awkwardly, spread-eagled against his chest where it had hit him. But then he glanced over her shoulder, and his eyes went wide. ‘Carella,’ he hissed.

She followed his gaze to see a frowning librarian standing between the shelves behind her. Everything inside Carella shrank into a very small knot.

‘Shouting is not permitted in the library. And there is absolutely no rough handling of books.’ They spoke severely, addressing Cassius but glowering at Carella. ‘I trust, young lord Maginus, that you will be leaving shortly.’

‘We will indeed. Thank you for your concern,’ Carella could hear him rapidly stacking books, ‘we were just heading out.’

Carella was paralysed in that angry gaze until Cassius took her hand. She startled, then hurried after him with her head down. She’d caught a glimpse of his expression, pleasant and calm, but that was the face he always wore in public. He had to be furious that she’d gotten him kicked out.

It was late evening in Crux, and the city was in Prime. Everything was cool and blue, the lapping of the canal waters a gentle rhythm. The city was only rarely so calm.

‘I’m sorry,’ Cassius said as they walked beside the water. He was still holding her hand.

‘But it was my fault.’

‘Not that. The librarians are assholes.’ Cassius raised his free hand to hail a gondola. ‘Sorry I set you off.’ He sighed, then showed her an apologetic grin. ‘I probably deserved it.’

Looking down, Carella just shrugged. This version of Cassius was a rarity, and she didn’t want to get used to it.

She knew more than he thought she did. As he hopped into the gondola and turned to help her, she watched his hair fall back from his pointed ears. In her portrait above the fireplace, their mom had round human ears like Carella.

Carella was good at noticing things. She spent a lot of time watching quietly, waiting to find the unspoken answers to her questions. Cassius was special because he was like Dad. Carella wasn’t, because she was like Mom. And she knew that that was why Dad treated her differently.

She’d just wanted to know if there was something about Mom worth being. Maybe something Dad had overlooked—even though she knew that Dad noticed everything.

Cassius was whistling. It took her a moment to recognise the same lullaby he’d hummed at the library.

As the gabled, gilded roofs of home began gliding into view, he said, ‘I didn’t mean it, you know.’

Carella looked up from where she’d been skimming her hand in the water.

‘What I said about Mom. At the end.’ He wasn’t looking his sister quite in the eye. ‘She was stronger than anything. I wish you’d gotten to know her.’

The gondola had bobbed to a halt, absolving Carella of a response as they clambered out. She wanted to keep her thoughts to herself, without having to pick one out and polish it down and share it out loud. In her head she could hold two images at once, without having to guess which one was right: the silent portrait above the fireplace, cold, remote, and unspecial; or the warm and lively, but faceless woman who sang in a voice deeper and fuller and yet still so like Carella’s own.