ataraxionlogs | (closed) story time.

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(closed) story time.

CHARACTERS: roy walker & cassandra anderson
LOCATION: medbay
WARNINGS: knowing roy, trigger warnings for depression and suicide.
SUMMARY: roy will tell the story of Κασσάνδρα, the seer no one believed.
NOTES: backdated to the 14th, continuing/in response to this.

[ she hasn't been to the medbay before, feeling no more inclined to accept medical treatment now than she did when she walked away from peach trees. dredd patched up the wound on her side, it's fine. even now, she's not here for that but rather to see roy. he's given no last name, but she can't imagine that it will be particularly difficult to find him, especially given that she knows what he looks like.

he'll be the first person she actively seeks out on the tranquility. hearing him tell her about the seer with her name should be interesting — and it should take her mind off the fact that she failed her final assessment, that she lost her primary weapon. that still nags even though she's no longer in mega city one (and that is another thing she wouldn't mind being distracted from.)

she's — curious.

anderson spots him and steps closer. ] Roy. [ in place of the sir that he wouldn't accept. ]

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[ The days pass in the medbay like it passes in the hospital - agonisingly slowly. But at least he has the tablet with him, courtesy of a boy named Alex. No wheelchair, though - he gave it away - but he doesn't need one anyway. There's nowhere that he particularly wants to go, and that hasn't changed even though he is on a spaceship. There's no use in feeling curiosity, really.

He's looking through his tablet, his fingers turning an empty vial in his hands over and over when he hears his name. He looks up and blinks, and there is genuine surprise in his eyes when he sees Anderson standing there. ]

You actually came.

[ A pause, and he shakes his head. He shuts off the tablet - he learned how to do that easily enough, despite it being nothing like what he's seen before - and he's still turning the vial over and over in his hands. ]

Grab a chair or something so you don't make my neck hurt.

[ they pass no quicker in anderson's room; especially not after peach trees. it's such a contrast to how busy she's been in mega city one. there'd always been training at the academy, tests, physical exercises — here, she has too much time on her hands.

the surprise comes as a surprise to her — she said she'd be there, hadn't she? but where it's written in his eyes and over his expression, hers doesn't make it that far. she's a little stiff in the shoulders, so used to standing at attention that she's a little unsure how to approach someone without that layer of formality now. ]

Of course.

[ she does as he says. there's chairs around and she takes one, settling into it, hands on her knees and back straight. there's questions about why he's here that she could find the answer to easily enough. for the time being, she's content to wait and see if he offers any information, where he's going to steer this conversation. ]

[ He doesn't watch her take a seat. Instead, his eyes are still fixed on the vial. His first failed attempt. Alexandria helped him get this one, but there were only three morphine pills in it, caused by a misunderstanding. Maybe she's smarter than she thinks she is; maybe she already expects what he's trying to do, and that's why she took most of the pills and left him with only three. But she got him the other vial, the one in his neighbour's nightstand.

But that's only sugar, because that man is a hypochondriac. Roy still feels a surge of sheer, unadulterated rage at that, but he tempers it down easily. He slips the vial beneath the blankets and rests his hands on top of his knees. ]

Cassandra was a princess of Troy, [ he begins, staring up to the ceiling. ] She had a lot of siblings, but the most famous ones were Paris and Hector, but this isn't their story. This is hers. When she was young and barely flowered, she went into Apollo's temple and stayed the night. The next day, her parents found her sleeping with serpents licking her ears, and from then on Cassandra hears the voice of spirits, and she can tell the future.

[ she isn't actively trying to read his mind, no more than usual at least — stray thoughts that she sometimes ends up picking up even when she isn't trying, the way one would hear a sentence of someone else's conversation without straining one's ears. that's only sugar. ]

Barely flowered? [ she's from a post-apocalyptic world, metaphorical and flowery language is not her forte. excuse her. but a moment later she is already nodding at him to continue. ]

[ He stops, the story screeching to a stop in his mind. The anger shifts a little, turns into something more like curiosity, and he tips his head to the side. ]

Barely flowered into womanhood, [ he clarifies. ] It's a metaphor, meaning that she's probably a teenager. Around fifteen or so?

[ He leans forward, bending at the waist awkward. As always. And the anger is back, its spikes turned towards himself. As always. But it's an anger he's used to, and he leans forward, unable to help his next question: ]

You don't have flowers in your world? Or metaphors?

[ the explanation earns him an incline of her head, nonverbal acknowledgment of his words before she answers this question. with the explanation in mind, she can understand where the metaphor comes from, but it's not how anyone would phrase things in her world. there's different values there and it reflects in speech — though that is not something she is really well-aware of, just something that strikes her now. ]

I know what flowers are, but I have never seen one. [ mega city one is a concrete jungle where hardly anything grows. and outside of the cities — the radiation killed everything, there, america is a wasteland. ] There's a few trees.

[ Now that's more than a little odd. Roy blinks. He slumps back against the pillows, tipping his head backwards as he tries to think. When he speaks, it's slow, as if he's trying to stop himself from talking, really. ]

I'm not particularly good at science, but I remember people saying that we only have oxygen because there are plants around. [ A bit wryly. His eyes flicker towards her. ] So how do people even breathe in your world?

[ why would he stop himself from talking, though? anderson can't help but find him — odd. interesting, but odd. ] Technological advances have made it possible to generate it.

[ wouldn't it have been ironic for them to survive the nuclear war only to die from lack of oxygen as all the plants around them die? ]

[ Because he doesn't want to want to know. Because if curiosity is a trait of someone who thinks the world is worth knowing about; that it's still worth living for, because there are more things in the world for him to discover.

Roy quirks his lips up; a facsimile of a smile. ]

That's convenient.

[ He takes a breath, and continues the story. Because he doesn't want to know more, he tries to convince himself. ]

Cassandra hears the spirits, she knows the future, and she knows, too, that she has the god Apollo to thank for it. So a week after she received her gift - and tells her father that Troy is heading towards a possible famine, or siege, she isn't sure, but she knows the city will need stores of grain in the future - she goes back to Apollo's temple to thank him.

But Apollo doesn't want only her gratitude. He looks upon Cassandra and finds her fair of face, so the god descends upon the temple. Cassandra looks upon him and falls to her knees, and Apollo tells her he wants her for himself. He wants her as his priestess, [ his lips curve up, a dark smile, ] and as his lover. His whore.

[ That's an embellishment. But he's been embellishing the story so far - he can't help it, really - and he watches her for her reaction. ]

[ if he is waiting for a strong reaction, he will be disappointed. hearing that a god in a story wants a woman with her name as his whore is hardly as intrusive as having someone strongly project their disgusting fantasies. kay's attempt to shock her hadn't sollicited much of a reaction and this doesn't, either: a slight downturn to the corners of her mouth, eyebrows drawn together barely enough to be called a frown. ]

Are you trying to shock me? [ and she will not be taking his word for it, either, not when she has the means to easily hear an honest answer simply by dropping some of the restraint she's upheld until now.

she doesn't understand roy. that, more than anything, is why she reads his mind now. ]

[ Shock her? Maybe. But it's more of that Roy's outlook on life is simply so dark, so very dark, that even the stories he used to escape into has taken a dark turn-

(he imagines it, Cassandra walking in, apollo shining, pressing his thumb into her throat- so easy, so easy it is to break that throat- so easy for anyone's throat to snap-)

He lets himself fantasise, if just for a moment.

(he likes to do it, likes to imagine himself dying. being under the hands of people breaking his neck, his breath stopping in his windpipe as it's crushed. maybe someone tearing his throat open, blood pouring out, soaking his own hands while he smiles in thanks. maybe someone tearing his head off. how would his eyes look like once he's dead? he doesn't think it will be any different. maybe if he can reach one of the scalpels he'll sink the metal into his own throat, blood hot and red over his own hands. he's tasted blood before - no one who grew up and did what he did wouldn't have - and it'll be metal, iron and red as a taste solid on his tongue, and he'll die and it'll just be darkness, blackness-

or maybe if he's lucky someone will come along in his sleep and slid morphine into his veins and he'll go like that, sinking into the darkness as his shame falls away and all of his being disappear. maybe he'll find the airlock free one day and throw himself out into the supposed pressure of vacuum and feel himself explode from inside out.

the end is always the same.)

Roy shrugs, feeling something in his mind, but brushing away the thought immediately. (there's something good about having no self-preservation instincts, or maybe it's just the prodding of his mind from legs he can no longer use-) ]

Not really.

[ If he really wants to shock her, he would have removed that filter that blocks his thoughts from taking form on his tongue. ]

[ the images in his mind are far from the most disturbing that she's seen — much of what was in kay's head was more disturbing, had bothered her far more, and some of what she's seen at peach trees that wasn't anyone's imagination but reality was worse not only in imagery but precisely because it was reality.

still, she cannot deny that it bothers her to see him dying in his mind, not because he fears it but because he wants it, fantasising in a way that comes from a craving and she's learned to shove it all down, to keep her face passive and even or at least as close to it as she can because she's always been expressive — but she's not sure she's quick enough this time to hide the way her eyes widen or how the corners of her mouth turn down.

very quietly: ] Why do you want to die?

[ He blinks at her, tilting his head to the side for a moment as he wonders if he had misheard her question. No, it's clear enough in her eyes that she hasn't been misheard, that she truly had asked him that, and Roy wonders what had prompted it. He hasn't asked her for a scalpel. Maybe it's the opinions he gave yesterday; maybe it was because they kind of argued over whether a world like hers is worth the effort of continuing to breathe.

But if it's prompted by yesterday, she would've asked yesterday. Not now, when he has barely spoken a few words and was in the midst of telling her a story she came all over here for. ]

Why did you ask?

[ There's no accusation in his voice. Only a sort of a slow curiosity. Like a flower unfurling in winter, perhaps, if he's going to continue being metaphorical.

You were thinking about it. [ she's never made a secret of her psychic abilities or her mutation and she doesn't see a reason why she should start now, on this ship. still, the statement is matter of fact almost, neutral enough that if psychic abilities are something that he might not consider an option immediately, it could be interpreted as her just being very good at reading between the lines. ]

I was thinking about it.

[ He repeats what she says as if trying on the words on his own tongue, in his own mouth. He blinks slightly, tilting his head to the side as he looks at her for a long moment. The silence stretches between them as he thinks. He's not obvious about his thoughts - or maybe just no one cares to look.

Still, it can't hurt to try. They are in space; all limits are off when it comes to believable things. ]

You can read minds?

Yes. [ it isn't a secret. there's a hint of worry, perhaps, about how he will react — but that doesn't quite make it to her face. mutants aren't well-liked, exactly, in her world. she can understand it — reminder of the radiation, too many of them misformed and incapable of living and other. and mutants like her with abilities — well. people are often scared of what they don't know or don't understand. ]

[ He makes a soft sound, half-thoughtful, half just to make a sound, really. So she can read minds. He wonders why he isn't angry, why he isn't reaction adversely- but he knows the answer already.

(It's not that Roy doesn't want to talk, to tell people about what is inside him. All the darkness that threatens to swallow him up at any moment; the despair that has him in its grasp ever since his youth. It's simply that no one really wants to listen - his best listener had been Alexandria, and how fucked up is it that he's relying on a kid for that? - and he can't- he can't really find the words.

They no only sound stupid when he says them, but weak. And Roy's life has basically been a tale of trying to avoid weakness even when it threatens to swallow him whole.)

When he speaks, the words come carefully. Not measured, because he's not thinking them. And he's not looking at her, instead staring to the side. At where the medical equipment are. Or where he thinks they are. ]

I should've told you the story over the communicators, then.

My mind isn't a pleasant thing for anyone to look into.

[ she catches some of that — can't help but catch some of that and she has enough distance to recognise the despair without being swallowed by it herself, without letting it touch her. it's not clinical — but keeping herself one step removed is a self-preservation instinct.

perhaps she should stop looking. force herself away. ]

It's not the worst I've seen. [ the words slip out before she can help it, the memory of kay's mind at the forefront of her thoughts, the way he'd tried to make her freak out, the fantasies he'd pushed on her, deliberately and with the intention to hurt.

that had been worse.

that had been easier, too, because she could push back at kay, fight him. there's nothing to fight in roy's mind. ]

[ He thinks he's starting to recognise it when she's looking. There's a gentle prodding into his head, like a small hand poking at the small of his back, right at the barrier where he feels something and when all feeling disappears. He looks at her for another long moment, not knowing what to say.

There are dozens of possibilities. Maybe he should say that she's lying. Maybe he should offer comfort. But he simply picks up the empty vial from beneath the blankets, running his fingers over the warm, smooth glass. ]

Probably. [ Dryly. ] Given how your world is like.

[ He pauses, still looking at the vial. ]

What are you still doing here?

[ in the end, the dry answer is perhaps better than any other possibility — she doesn't want the comfort, really, because that is the way she grew up in and it's how things are. (she doesn't want to want it, at least.) and no one wants to be accused of being a liar.

what is she still doing here? the question surprises her even though it probably shouldn't. 'here' could be both his head or the medbay, but she thinks he means the latter.

softly: ] You were telling a story. I haven't heard the end yet.

[ There's a part of him that almost wants to get angry. To reach out and shake her and say that she must be empty inside, as empty as he is consumed by shadows, because she has seen into his head and yet she doesn't care.

And he reminds himself again. He doesn't want anyone to care. If they do, then they will try to stop him from killing himself, and that will be the worst possible think.

He doesn't. He doesn't.

(Killing with kindness, the saying goes, and that's the worst death of all.)

He takes a deep breath instead. ]

So you haven't. [ He looks at her. ] Where was I?

[ distance isn't the same as not caring and she almost points that out to him, but — but she doesn't think he'd appreciate it, or maybe he would and he wouldn't appreciate appreciating it. either way, she bites down on the words and looks away. ]

She went to the temple. The god wanted to make her his whore.

[ She seems to want to say something. Some reassurance, perhaps. A part of Roy wants to reach out and shake her until the words fall out, but that's nothing more than the want to see someone giving a shit. But shy should they; why does he want anyone to care when he's going to die anyway?

It's sheer self-pity, waiting, and Roy dismisses the thoughts. He stares up to the ceiling again before speaking. ]

So Apollo asked Cassandra to be his lover. In payment, perhaps, for the gift he has given her unbidden. She hasn't asked for it, though she is thankful, for now Troy will be safe in a siege. [ A soft laugh. ]

When she refused, Apollo raged and raged, and he decides to punish her. He does not take away her gift of hearing the spirits of the future, but instead makes it so that no one will ever believe her. Cassandra's ears are licked open by serpents, but now the same serpents stop the ears of all else she speaks to.

Then war comes when her brother Paris steals Helen of Sparta, the most beautiful woman in the world, from her husband Menelaus. [ He cracks a smile at her, a bitter thing. ] For ten years the siege went on, Troy kept safe by Cassandra's words, but no one listens to her. In the end, she was taken as a war whore by Agaememnon, Menelaus's brother, King of the Greeks, and was murdered by Agaememnon's wife and her lover when they reached home.

She died in terror and despair, for she saw her death coming. Yet there was nothing she could do to stop it.

[ the idea is almost selfish: to want for someone to care only to die and leave them devastated and yet, anderson can't blame him at all. everyone wants someone to care, don't they? (she remembers being ten years old and all alone in the world, knowing that she'd just lost the two people who had cared about her. the hall of justice had been a second chance of sorts.)

she can't help but wonder if this is the abridged version, if somehow he's trying to get rid of her now. ] I didn't know about Apollo's involvement. I knew she died.

[ it's a good thing she's not terribly prone to symbolism, or it might worry her. ]

[ Can she still hear his thoughts? Maybe. Roy folds them up, tucks them in the corner of his mind. He won't be able to stop wanting and needing, but he knows enough how to stop thinking, if only for a while. (Never permanently, no matter how much he wills himself to stop breathing.) ]

People in myths always die. Even Hercules did.

[ A little dryly. He's not going to let her escape the symbolism, though. ]

Do people always believe you when you say you can read minds?

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(closed) story time.

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idek if that's true but i guess it's feasible enough??

it is!

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