#nivis saxi sol

[tanoraqui]

i know this is super old, but for the crit role/lotr crossover you wrote, what was your plan for percy? (my instant thought on who he might be was saruman, but more reasonably i'm guessing he would have been eowyn?)

[the AU in question]

I was going to give Cassandra half a break, actually, and let her be Eowyn.

It’d go a lot like this:

…

It’s difficult to travel incognito across open plains with a bear, so they didn’t try. They stopped before the Riders could get to them and let themselves be circled, and when Vex put her hand on her bow and Vax fingered a dagger hilt, Keyleth put her hands on both their shoulders and stepped forward. “Riders of Rohan! What news?”

The blond young man at the head of the company kept his hand on his sword, and leaned forward over his horse’s neck only warily. “I should ask the same of you. What brings two elves, a bear, and a woman to the Western mark of Rohan?”

“Hunting orcs,” said Keyleth, unflinching despite the warlike stares of the riders. “They’ve taken a couple of our friends. We want them back.”

“And who are you, to hunt orcs on our lands?”

“I am called Minxie,” she said, “and I am from the North. My companions hail from Mirkwood.” Her eyes sharpened upon a brooch on his shoulder, and armor that would be white, were it cleaner. “What brings a warrior of the Paleguard to the Western mark? Should you not be tending upon King Fredrick?”

“Fredrick is dead,” the captain said bluntly. “Percival now sits the throne, and-”

He swallowed some speech, and continued roughly, “I am Kynan. Lady Cassandra bid us here. To hunt orcs, in fact, which we have done.”

…

Whitestone was beautiful in the afternoon light. In the morning, once could suppose the pale stone that gave the city its name would sparkle with dew; in the afternoon, the sun turned them to gold and fire, so that the whole king’s palace of Rohan seemed alight.

The guards at the door held strange weapons, stocks of wood attached to cylinders of dark metal, triggers as though for crossbows where they joined. They were much like the weapons the orcs had carried, which shot pellets of metal and sounded like thunder.

“What are those damn devices of Isengard doing here?” Vex murmured to her friends.

“Maybe they’re allied after all, and we’re all about to die,” Vax murmured back. Keyleth just grimaced.

The guard they were passing, it turned out, had sharp ears. “Percival invented these weapons,” he said sharply, “who is now king. The Lady of Isengard is an ally, but how the orcs began making them, we do not know.”

“Is that the word, in Whitestone,” Gilmore said darkly. The guard blanched, but Gilmore still looked grimmest of all.

…

The Lady Cassandra was pale; the darkest thing about her the dark hair that fell in ringlets around her shoulders, and even that seemed faded, and streaked with white. She did not move upon the bed; she barely seemed to breathe.

“As I said, it was her own foolish fault,” said Percival. He was less frenetic, staring at his sleeping sister rather than the inventions of his laboratory, yet it did nothing to ease the wanness of his own face. “She raced out to the Westfold, even though I bid her stay here, and a Black Rider fell upon them. They brought her home four days ago, and she has not woken since.”

“Another grave loss,” murmured Anders. “All the more reason to keep our forces-”

“Nonsense,” Keyleth said briskly, and pushed him to the side. “Percy - that is, sire, do you have any athelas? Or kingsfoil, or-”

…

“Percival son of Fredrick, esteemed King of Rohan,” called the wizard, and her speech was proud but respectful, melodious and warm. “Why do you attack me? I have only created great works - and you have done the same! In this we are matched, and I consider it with pride, for I have only ever admired and supported the ingenuity of man. The other races, Percival, and you know thisin your heart, they lack your dynamic ability to adapt, to build upon failure so quickly that success becomes an inevitability.”

Vex and Vax rolled their eyes in mirrored motions; Keyleth pursed her lips; Kima shifted her axe with a growl and might have drawn it were it not for Allura’s hand on her shoulder. All seemed to wait on Percival, who did not speak.

Ripley continued, a hand outstretched. “If you leave this place in peace - or better, if you will come and discuss your plans with me, your thoughts for the future - I have faith that you will all succeed in your mission. And I am glad - for I have no interest in the tyranny of Mordor.”

Her words were reasonable - a mentor to a promising but wayward student, a queen to a beloved ally. Forgiving of the past and burning with passion for the future. To those who fell under its spell, it seemed inevitable that Percival would nod and ascend the steps of the tower; to those who hadn’t, it seemed equally inevitable. Gilmore watched without a word.

Percival scoffed, and looked past Ripley to where Anders crouched on the roof. “You really follow her? Are you an idiot?”

…

Get up, Vex whispered to herself, in the silence of her own mind. Quiet seemed to have fallen over the battlefield as well, or at least her small corner of it. The terrible black beast and its dark Rider demanded it. Get up, daughter of Mirkwood. Daughter of Imladris. Get up, or the idiot king you promised to protect is going to die, and so will everyone else. Vax is in that city somewhere; get up.

But it was not her hand that drew a ringing sword; it was not her voice that declared, “Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, queen of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!”

A voice as cold as a night on Weathertop hissed back, “Come not between the Nazgûl and her prey! No mortal man may hinder me, and any who try shall be borne away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.”

And then Vex did look up, for what answered the Nazgûl was a laugh, bright and clear and nearly as cold, and yet bearing in it the echo of sunlight. What she saw was a young woman, standing between the Witch-Queen and the fallen steed and body of the young king of Rohan, and her sword was steady as she removed her helm to reveal dark hair streaked with white.

“But I am no man! I am Cassandra, de Rolo and shieldmaiden. I have looked on your kind before and I fear you not - but I do swear, you shall not touch my brother, for living or dark undead, I shall smite you where you stand!”

[tanoraqui]

How about 24 or 5 or 9 for the WIP ask?

5 is my lucky number and I haven’t said anything about it yet, so…”bit of a crit thing” is my, I dunno, 2/3-written? fic in which an assassination attempt leads to Cassandra being Feebleminded, which leads to Percy and Kynan going on a search through the castle for her. 

I had a nice narrative device (I think?) in which I alternated scenes with close pov to Percy with an exterior, omniscient narrator keeping track of Cassandra with line like, “Keep in mind that she has been here before - this familiar maze of stone and swords and shadow, but also: this scared, this trapped, this furious and flinching and helpless.” 

There was something going on, metaphorically, with Percy being important to Cassandra’s past and Kynan important to her future (I still kinda ship it, or at least friendship it), but it wasn’t entirely working.

I also wanted to suggest, in the omniscient narration and then clearer at the end once they find and Greater Restoration her (Pike is around, fortuitously), that Delilah did this to her at least once, and probably more than once, as a punishment and teaching tool. (It’s much easier to retrain someone’s instincts when instincts are all they have.)

I’m almost certainly not going to finish it, so I’ll spoil it: they find her in Percy’s workshop, because it’s the only room in the castle that never belonged more to the Briarwoods’, or to their people, than it did to its original occupant. Ripley mostly worked elsewhere, and that room was so firmly Percy’s, growing up, that it was a neutral spot for all the other siblings. 

[tanoraqui]

the best modern Whitestone is Whitestone the small mining town that’s the brochure-perfect company town of Whitestone Mining&Lumber, “A Family Business since 1824.” It’s in the Appalachian mountains in southern Pennsylvania, right next to the mine where 1/3 of the town earns the money they spend in the other 2/3 of the town. The de Rolos, aforementioned “Family”, have a summer house a ten-minute drive further up the mountain, built to honor the fact that this is the very mine where FuckifIknow de Rolo I first started mining coal. There is absolutely promotional material for Whitestone M&L featuring pictures of the town, including one where a handful of de Rolos are arm-in-arm with an assortment of smiling miners and some lumberjacks, precisely one (1) of whom is African-American and one (1) of whom is a woman. 

The mine is mostly empty by now, but the town has taken up tourism as a side business, “The Last Real Mining Town in America!” Especially since Percival and Cassandra won their company back from the hostile takeover/septuple homicide. The Briarwoods were the sort of people who demanded federal subsidies for their poor, faltering industry while simultaneously cutting safety standards as much as legally possible, and more. Percy and Cass have actually been working on retraining their people, not just in Whitestone but throughout the company, shifting away from coal and into biofuel, and even a serious investment in Pelor Solar. (Aided by the Ashari Environmental Lobbying Group?)

My favorite version of this would be in one of those aus where Percy and Cass won the company back somehow before meeting VM, so the gang can be looking to lay low for a while, maybe on vacation or maybe from the law, and Percy is like, “I, um, have a town...” “You can’t ‘have’ an entire town,” scoffs Scanlan.

[hard cut to VM standing in front of the Whitestone City Hall, which is a real government building but has the Whitestone M&L logo above the door]

Scanlan: I take it back. Percy owns a town. Percy: I don’t own the town. It’s a municipal entity. Percy, under his breath: We just employ approximately one third of the people, and own most of the housing.

[passerby keep obviously recognizing Percy. A couple have addressed him as “Mr. de Rolo.” He responded with polite nods, bc they’ve been addressing him as such since he was about 10 years old and clambering all over the mining equipment to see how it worked.]

Instead of “rebellions”, Cassandra led, and VM re-initiated, labor strikes. The Briarwoods were...not kind in putting them down.

[tanoraqui]

Percival “stares at his sister’s unconscious form and doesn’t say anything as the rest of his team sorts out this horrifying mess, too busy experiencing violent flashbacks to the last time she was so still, bloody, and pierced by arrows; the last time he ran away from home and abandoned her to horror and death, the Briarwoods and the god they served” de Rolo

[tanoraqui]

btw if you think I didn’t scream, “NO!” aloud at 11:50pm when Matt described “a young woman with dark hair, a white streak through it...” you are WRONG. It was high-pitched and raw.

[tanoraqui]

everyone: OH SHIT, J'MON

Matt: Don't worry, it's not them. Different dragon. Devossa is fine.

Matt: Here, kill your favorite NPCs YOURSELVES

[tanoraqui]

#hey #so #funny story #i was scrolling through tumblr #right before bed #when i read this #and my immediate thought was #Tanoraqui would like this #and the I got a SUSPICION #and scrolled back up to see who posted it.  (@precise-prismatic-mess)

I’m so flattered.

(what, me, reading tags on my posts? nah...)

also, to clarify: the de Rolos, in this au, were hell fuckin’ nineteenth century robber barons. And Whitestone is pretty ice - mine conditions safe, people cared for, effort put into keeping things prosperous - but it’s also very much the model company town. THe one they show investors. Even without the Briarwoods in charge, Whitestone M&L is still often a shitty capitalist corporation.

[tanoraqui]

can i has more cr sense8 au percy pls? (if your up for it of course)

*slams 2,000 words on your desk five months later* MY HOBBIES INCLUDE PROCRASTINATING FOR FINALS BY WRITING SCENES FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE HYPOTHETICAL PLOT OF NICHE CROSSOVERS WITHOUT GIVING YOU ANY CONTEXT SAVE A COUPLE OLD POSTS OF BULLET POINTS (posts here. Take this fic as the inter-seasons holiday special, basically.)

“I’mstill not certain we should be doing this.“

Itwas a meaningless statement even before he said it. With her arm in his, withthe warmth of her against his side and the tinkle of her laugh fading in theair, Percy thought he would trust Vex to lead him down any icy path through thewoods, with any blindfold on or off, even if he had never known her moreintimately than he knew himself. Even if they had just met, somehow, one day,and she had smiled and beckoned, he would have followed.

Exaggeratedgagging noises broke into his thoughts—Vax, visiting as almost always, makingVex laugh in the cold Northern darkness. The drugs all but gone from his veins,Percy could feel him again, that knife’s edge of sarcasm prickling overdevotion deep enough to fill the sea.

Two(one? three?) months of isolation was turning him poetic. It was horrifying.

“It’llbe fine,” said Vex, tugging him forward. “Turn right—”

Percyfollowed her instructions obediently. “I don’t know where you get theconfidence that she won’t be looking, just this one night. It’s not like theholidays have stopped them before.”

“Becauseshe’s loony, Freddie,” Vax said with overwhelming fondness.

“BecauseI don’t care!” Vex proclaimed, and Percy felt her toss her hair within herselfbefore it smacked him on the cheek. “We’re taking Christmas back. What they didto your family was horrible, yes, and we willkill them for it, I promise—”

Theothers nodded in agreement, the heroin finally losing its grip.

Vexput her hands to his face—cold, calloused, but the kindest Percy had felt—andpushed up his blindfold.

“Buttonight,” she whispered, wild and soft and fey in the moonlight, “let’s justnot be afraid.”

Theplace she’d led him was beautiful. Vex was beautiful, already shrugging off herbag and dropping down to swap her boots for skates, lithesome and lively as theswaying trees and stars above. They shone down on the iced-over pond, in the centerof the ancient forest, just as they must have in Jerusalem two thousand yearsago. There wasn’t another human being for miles, Percy knew without asking.

“Doyou even know how to skate?” he asked, amused, watching her fumble with thestraps.

“No.”She grinned up at him, entirely impish. “But you do. And Scanlan, I think.”

“Ido,” the man himself confirmed with a smile, making hot chocolate in his LosAngeles apartment.

“Ifyou’re getting gross, I’m leaving,” Vax announced, and vanished—as if thatmeant anything, as if they couldn’t all feel him and see him as well in hiscell in Osaka, or Los Angeles or the Outback or wherever Percy and Vex were.(He didn’t know and she wasn’t telling, and that was how they were safe.)

“Allright!” Pike chirped to her choir straggling into line in her little woodenchurch at the eaves of the Amazon, so newly rebuilt it still dripped tar. “Youready?”

“Let’sdo this!” said Scanlan, bringing two frothing mugs into the living room, whereKaylee was doing her best to scowl at the bright tree and heap of presents.Tary echoed it, squaring his shoulders for a much less amicable familybreakfast, and Grog smashed a beer bottle as he shouted, because it was aChristian holiday but fuck it, it was a holiday, and the peace was still goingand the dirty thugs and criminals of Ankara were going to have a fuckin’ party.

Asfar as possible from any gritty urban party, and more importantly any evilbrain surgeon, Keyleth sat by her campfire and took out her guitar, andlaunched into an offkey rendition of “Jingle Bells” on the warm Australianevening. Across the fire, Kashaw stared at her like she had to be kidding, butwithin a verse she’d smiled enough to draw out his surprisingly rich tenor.

Scanlanblew them both out of the water, of course, and Kaylee didn’t blink as she toreinto a box that she would soon find contained mostly just increasingly smallerboxes, because Scanlan singing was like the sun shining. It just happened. Halfwayaround the world, Turkish pop music blasted out of the bar and down the street,and Grog jumped up and down with Zanror and Worra, mostly on the beat.Tremulous voices strengthening as the sun slipped through the high window andthe rest of Puentamáre’s congregation filed in, swelled by all those coming tovisit the “little angel,” Pike’s choir sang the day in, and Vox Machina stoodand sang with them.

Theydanced in the bar in Turkey, bright lights and pop music pounding against theancient sandstone walls. They laughed over brunch in New York, until Lydiaasked if something was the matter and Mary-Anne kicked Tary under the table,and both his parents shot him dirty looks. They clambered over rocks in theOutback and Tary squealed in fear at a giant spider as Vax laughed and held itup to his face.

Theyjust managed to hold onto the iPhone to film Kaylee furiously flinging sevenlayers of boxes and wrapping paper at their heads, in retaliation for spendingten minutes unwrapping a single guitar shop gift card. But she was laughing,too, so it was okay. Turning state’s witness earned Vax a couple extraprivileges; he spent one on a phone call to Zahra, left bear-sitting, and Vexcried on Percy’s shoulder while they all made kissy noises at the phone andassured a confusedly lowing Trinket that his mama would be home as soon as shecould, and she loved him very much. Percy hadn’t ice-skated since he wassixteen, years before That Night, but they did waltz steps and figure-eights ona moonlit frozen pond somewhere in Siberia, and held each other tight. It wasChristmas and Vox Machina laughed and sang and cried, and held each othertight.

“Whata lovely way to spend the holiday.”

Percyslipped before she finished speaking, eyes clenched shut; he didn’t know whenthe ice was coming until his hands hit, hard, and the spray his face.

“Percy?”Vex.

“Really,Percival,” Ripley said, “You don’t have to so childish about this. I’m not hereto hunt you down, tonight.”

“She’shere,” he gasped, pulling himself across the ice. Eyes shut, don’t even look.Don’t even think. “Vex, she’s here,you have to– get the–”

“Shit!”Vex fumbled for her bag, still on the shore. “Fuck, fuck! Fuck her!”

Ripleyclicked her tongue in disapproval. She stalked silently across the ice, inlight boots rather than heavy winter skates—but then, she wasn’t really there.

“Ithought you might like to go on a trip, actually.”

Andthen they were standing in a corridor, and Percy was the one mis-dressed forthe occasion, bundled up for the frigid wilderness. He had half a foot inheight on Ripley, and he’d worked to keep his machine shop muscles while pentup in…wherever he and Vex were. None of it did anything to ease the way hisstomach turned as Ripley eyed him up and down, judging him for the failedscience experiment he didn’t need to be in her head to know she deemed him. Shelooked almost identical to how she’d been that week starting eight years agotoday, staring down at him. A few more streaks of grey in her bun, but the sameslim glasses, the same purse to her lips, the same damn style of lab coat,sleeves stained red at the end of each day as she peeled him apart. He knew whyshe’d done it, now. It didn’t help.

Thebarest hint of a smile curled up her lips as they both remembered. Then sheturned and strode down the corridor, calling over her shoulder, “Come along.”

Percyfollowed, scanning the hallway for clues as to Ripley’s location. He wasn’tsurprised to find none. The walls were stainless steel and the white-and-blacktile floors were sanitation-clean. It was another Vecna facility, but god onlyknew where in the world.

“Ireally thought you’d be doing better at this, Percival,” Ripley chided, withoutgiving him so much as a backwards glance. “I’ve gotten so much informationabout you and your little group, and you’re just lagging behind.”

“Whatdo you want, Anna.”

Hewas lagging behind, as they walked, but not so far that she’d think he wasn’tplaying along. Every extra second here bought more time for Vex to get theneedle and knock him out.

“I’mgoing to share a secret with you,” she said, with a much younger woman’s senseof mischief. “Just to liven up this little game.”

Theyreached a door at the end of the hallway, steel and locked with a keypad.Ripley smiled at him as she entered the number, sickly sweet. “After all, it’sthe holidays—it’s only right that you be with family.”

Fora long, horrible moment as she swung open the heavy door, Percy thought he wasgoing to see corpses, or worse. A freezer of strung-out piles of tissue andorgans. Eight brains in tanks, still with electrodes attached. He’d seen, onthe opposite side of the laboratory, what they’d been starting to do to hisfamily.

Itwas a teenage girl’s room. The walls were unpainted, but they were decoratedwith posters, of scientific infographics and famous historical women and acouple people Percy vaguely recognized as famous actors. There was a carpet, anelegant shag thing, and a pair of stuffed bookcases, a desk with a very nicecomputer, and a bed with at least two dozen stuffed animals, all of which Percycould name. At least one of them had been his. The girl on the bed, lying onher stomach and reading a book with her legs kicked in the air, was even morefamiliar.

“Cassandra.”

She’dlooked up when the door opened, polite coolness chasing annoyance chasingwariness from her eyes.

“Dr.Ripley. What do you want?”

“Iwas in this wing and I thought I would check on you, my dear.” Despite theendearment, Ripley’s tone had reverted to the crisp professionalism she seemedto show everyone but Percy.

Cassandraclearly didn’t buy either façade. But she rolled to a sitting position withonly a faint sigh, and held out her left arm. There was something attached toit, a cuff with a small screen that flashed first her blood pressure then, asRipley pressed the buttons on the side, several other measurements—BPM, neuralconductivity, and things Percy didn’t recognize. A slim wire ran up from it toa handful of electrodes attached, clearly permanently, to the side of hertemple.

“I’llkill you. I’ll kill you.” His voiceshook.

“Ihaven’t noticed anything unusual,” Cassandra said as Ripley checked thereadings. A bored patient answering unasked questions by rote.  “The new anxiety meds are doing fine.”

Ripleymade a non-committal noise. “Look at me.”

Cassandramet her eyes obediently.

“Leaveher alone. What are you doing?” Percytried to put himself between them, but there wasn’t room. And he couldn’t touchhis sister, couldn’t touch either of them—couldn’t drag Ripley away andcouldn’t take Cass in his arms and just run.(Like that had worked so well, last time.)

“Doyou feel anything unusual right now?” Ripley asked, still holding Cassandra’sgaze. “Physically or emotionally. Really search.”

Awrinkle appeared between Cassandra’s eyes as she frowned. There was a widestreak of white in her hair, family to Percy’s complete bleach. That hadn’tbeen there before. When he’d last seen her, when she was bleeding in the snowfrom bullet wounds as he ran— She was 23 now, the spitting image of Vesper whenshe’d died, except for that streak. The room was still decorated for a teenagerbut Percy’s youngest sister was an exasperated 23.

“Cass.”

Ripley’seyes sparkled at his anguish, but Cassandra remained impartial.

“Nothing.Should I?”

“Youknow better than to ask questions that could influence an experiment,” Ripleysaid. But she stepped back, letting Cassandra’s gaze fall. It returned to herbook.

“Don’tforget,” Ripley added as she re-opened the door, which had automatically lockedbehind them. “The Briarwoods will be expecting you for Christmas dinner.”

IfPercy had thought Cassandra’s expression polite before, when she looked up asecond time it was utterly impassive.

“Ilook forward to it. Was there anything else?”

“Oh,no.” Ripley smiled thinly at them both. “I think everything I need will bearriving soon enough—”

AndPercy was back on the bank, in the snow, in the woods, and everything but Vexfaded as she thrust the needle into his arm and released, the familiar,dizzying haze of cheap heroin washing him clean. Ripley disappeared. Cassandradisappeared. Keyleth, Vax, Grog, Pike, Tary, Scanlan disappeared. Safe. Percystayed as freezing and alone as eight years ago, running from his sisterbleeding out in the snow, assuming she was dead.

“Percy?Percy, are you alright? Is she gone?”

Vex’swarm hands tugged at him and he rolled over obediently, and opened his eyes.She was still beautiful, bright and concerned and fierce. The moon above wasalmost as lovely. Percy lifted a hand to her cheek and caught his breath whenshe held it—no, choked on a sob. That was what his body was doing, now.

“Cass.She– they– I don’t know. She’s alive.” His whole body shook, drugs and cold and every ounce of adrenaline racing through his veins. “They have mysister.”

[tanoraqui]

IF you're looking for some angst, I really think that Broken Crown by Mumford and Sons fits briarwoods Era Cassandra really well

I took the road and I fucked it all awayNow in this twilight, how dare you speak of grace

That’ll do, yeah.

[tanoraqui]

Discussion on names, politics, and the (in)appropriateness of flirting in front of your future sister-in-law, and some thoughts on cryptic coloration in native species. (Warning: self-indulgent schmoop and banter.)

or: I have a lot of emotions about de Rolos and Whitestone and I decide to offload them on Vex, and then she and Cassandra and Percy snark and scheme together for 3,700 words while I try to hastily shove in a recurring metaphor or two so it seems like this is an actual story rather than eight pages of self-indulgent familial banter. Post-canon.

[tanoraqui]

cassandra! pretty please??

How I feel about this character: you mean, my favorite NPC? …okay, my favorite NPC after Ripley? Um, she is. So good and forbearing and enduring and buries her emotions under Getting Stuff Done (exactly like her brother) and has SO MANY IDENTITY ISSUES and just doesn’t want to let people down? She’s trying so hard?? Ever since she was a little girl, she was trying to be as adult as her older siblings, and how they’re almost all gone, and so are her parents, and most of her court and her city, and some of it is her fault but the rest are looking to her to lead and she’s doing so well. I love Cassandra a Lot.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Kynan in a few years, maybe, once they’re sorted themselves out as people separately. Kaylie right now, please, not necessarily a serious thing but just going out and getting drunk and kissing and maybe crying together a little. And more kissing, and cuddling, and laughing. Someone make Cassandra laugh, please. And I’m pretty open to the idea of her marrying, ultimately, someone acceptable and friendly who she doesn’t quite “love” but does get along with and makes a fantastic political alliance.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: I want Kynan to be her forever-loyal Captain of the Guard, okay. Also, of course, Tie Percy To A Chair In Whitestone Castle If That’s What’s Necessary To Get Him To Talk To His Sister And Take Up Some Of His Royal Duties In This Blessed City, 2k17.

also I want her and Keyleth to become good friends, and her and Vex to be united in messing with Percy

My unpopular opinion about this character: a lot of people ship her with Kynan and like I said, I can see it in the future but I’d rather it not, really; or at least CERTAINLY not now? Also, a lot of people write her as more Charmed with the Briarwoods than I think she was. I think there was occasional magic and 92% just emotional manipulation. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish to god she’d taken Pike’s place in Percy’s resurrection ritual - for the offerings; obviously Pike still conducting the whole thing. But just. Cassandra sprinting into the temple, skirts raised and hair all askew, and seeing him still and cold. Cassandra gripping Percy’s dead hand so hard it’ll hurt when he wakes up, tears running silently down her cheeks, ignoring how uncomfortable she is with any sort of dead-raising because honestly, this with Sarenrae’s golden warmth is as different as it could be from Delilah’s dark magic. Cassandra demanding that Percy come back, the tears invisible in her voice and the white streak bright in her hair. “Don’t you dare leave me again.”Also, Fisher King de Rolos and Cassandra discovering within herself the potential to be a paladin of Pelor, golden with life herself. Please and thank you.

OTP: Cassandra/happiness tbh

OT3: Cassandra/happiness/maybe owning a cat? A friendly cat who will cuddle with her?

[tanoraqui]

unpopular opinion: Cassandra/Kynan should really not be a thing right now. Maybe some day in the future, but honestly I don’t even want that. It’s true they’ve had/are having really similar crises of allegiance and identity, but that’s exactly why they should NOT get romantic. They should talk, gosh they should talk - they’ll understand each other, forgive each other where they can’t forgive themselves. (Cass will be instantly sympathetic, because she’s known Ripley, and Kynan, who knows nothing about recent Whitestone history, will be horrified and astounded at how much worse Cassandra had it, for so much longer, and how much stronger (than him) she seems to have come out. Give me Kynan vowing to guard Cass’s back for her own sake, not just because Vax told him to.) They can talk or they can train or they can sit in companionable silence, comfortable in finding someone who can know what they’ve done and hold them accountable without anger, forgive them without pity. Kynan can recognize her exhaustion as the clock strikes midnight, as she stays up trying to make up for everything she’s done for three years, and gently remind her that she can’t do anything if she works herself to death; she can insist he has to go to bed as well. Cass can show him how to sneak, climb, up to the roof of the highest tower in the castle, where you can see the entire city spread out like a blanket, and point to every landmark in town - the churches, the Sun Tree, everywhere rebels lost a fight because she had failed or sold them out; he can describe the sight of dragon-ravaged Emon as Ripley’s party passed by on their way to Vasselheim, and how angry he felt. Give me twenty years from now when she’s still Lady of Whitestone and he’s Captain of the Royal Guard, and they know each other so well they basically don’t have to talk to coordinate the defense of the city. (I’m amenable to them having something romantic then, so long as it’s not disastrous to whatever brilliant political marriage Cass will make.)

But if they started doing anything like dating, or even just sleeping together, right now it would be an absolute mess. There’s no balance, no one who will pull them out of their own heads to smile and relax and remember to be teenagers. (Do I want Kaylie to come to Whitestone and get them both drunk for an evening? Y e s. And flirt shamelessly with Cass maybe.) They need support to lean on, but they also need to figure out who they are independently before getting into any sort of serious relationship - and neither of them, I think, is going to get into anything but a serious relationship.

Tl;dr: Cassandra<3Kynan bad; Cassandra<>Kynan good.

[tanoraqui]

dwelling on that line about how Cassandra’s always acted older than she is, even as a kid: of course she did. Seventh child, third daughter, in a family where legacy is everything; of COURSE she did. Of course she’s been insisting since birth that she’s grown up, that she can match pace and pull her weight.

Of course she was that kid who walked around unsteadily in her mother’s shoes, begged Vesper (oldest sister) to share her makeup, stole her father’s coat and demanded everyone call her “Lord Cassandra.” She showed up to weapons training she wasn’t supposed to be part of and tagged along whenever any of her older siblings left the castle, insisting she could help with whatever errands they were doing or games they were playing. She tended to get tolerated so long as she followed through on the promises. (At least once she sprinted through the halls, half-blind in glasses not meant for her, gleefully shouting random phrases in Celestial in her snobbiest voice and apologizing to anyone she nearly ran over with a shout over her shoulder that she had to get to her workshop and build a mechanical girlfriend, because no real girl ever liked her. Pursued, of course, by a furious, coincidentally equally-blind teenage Percy, who eventually caught her by slipping through a shortcut and tripping her - sending Cass flying, possibly getting her a concussion, considering the floor is stone; breaking his glasses (which he was trying to prevent), and getting them both thoroughly in trouble.)

But also: seventh child and third daughter of an ancient noble house, once kings and queens and now ruling a single city, Cassandra was so much lower than Percy in likelihood to inherit Whitestone, but she was going to manage a household someday. She would be married off for an alliance - probably not a particularly significant one (third), but for the betterment of her family nonetheless. She would be expected to look out for her husband’s house as well, and what land and finances and people he had - feudal noblewomen did a lot, you know. 

Then, in a single night, that wasn’t her destiny at all anymore. She delayed her escape to save Percy but he didn’t come back for her, and when she woke up there was no one else to chase after, to imitate to get taken seriously: there was just Cassandra, twelve-, maybe thirteen-year-old leader of a rebellion in her own city. Or figurehead, mascot, because she’d barely had time to learn what she was supposed to be in life, and this was not that.

She tried anyway, because that is what a de Rolo does: they hold up their heads, stifle their doubts, and see to what needs be done. She tried to be the leader her people needed, and the inspiration, and she did better at the latter because she had already spent her entire life acting at being more than she was. (She knew, and knew everyone else knew as well, that she wasn’t doing anything real.)

They failed, of course.

Then the Briarwoods...

It wasn’t that they treated her as more of an adult, because they sure as hell did not. The rebellion had done more in that regard, because they needed her to be. (Maybe Cassandra was...grateful, because she was still only fourteen years old and it turned out growing up was nothing, nothing, nothing but pain and terror.) It wasn’t that they gave her more attention as a “daughter” than she had ever gotten with her mess of siblings to compete with. That was true, but it was as unsettling as it was welcome, and the rebellion had done the same - the last living de Rolo, she; their last hope.

They did treat her as more of a person, though. Only the person they wanted her to be, but the last daughter of her house was used to that. The girl who got to come along with her siblings so long as she was useful, who loved to dress up and pretend to be someone other than herself. Cassandra was good at fitting in. The Briarwoods gave her something to do, something she was good at, and it was better to keep the remaining rebels placated, to kill them quickly if they tried anything. They’d never win, so this way, fewer would die in the end. Professor Anders resumed her lessons, teaching Infernal rather than Elvish now, and Delilah taught her a few very simple incantations - a small illusion, a minor charm spell, a ghostly, gripping hand as chill as the grave in case she ever got into a fight. Sylas laughed with approval the first time she slipped past his guard to nick him with her rapier on the training ground, and she disguised her flush of pride as mere exertion, even knowing he took care to only strike her with the flat of his sword, and gently at that.

(And there was the corruption of the land. It’s only a baseless, self-indulgent headcanon that it battened worst at the lords and ladies given rule to watch over Pelor’s tree, but the fact remains that Cassandra was there for five years, to Vox Machina’s...five days? A week at most? It clawed at cracks already in Percy, turning him cruel and cold; Cassandra...lost track of who she was. Closed off her heart and her conscience, indulged in resentment, gave in to the fear of abandonment that drove a desperation to please.)

So when the time came, she donned her mother’s armor - no tripping in too-large, too-high heels now; a man who died helped her fit this - and declared herself a Briarwood.

And did as little as possible in the subsequent fight. Attacked the heroes’ her enemies’ strongest fighter, gave Delilah a healing potion, utterly failed to take a strike at Percy, even with Sylas’s urging. (”Which one is my Percy?” she’d asked earlier, before she gave up any right to describe him as such. It doesn’t matter - she doesn’t need to ask. He’s the only one wreathed in vengeful smoke, and he’s the only one who cringes back, clutching his side, with the same tired snarl he used to wear on the training yard when they were all young.) (Cassandra is seventeen, and she hasn’t felt young in a long time.)

“Cassandra is a de Rolo,” she said to Delilah before slicing into her heart, and I would ask who, then, was talking; who made that lunge. But I know the answer is that Cassandra isn’t sure either.

She still isn’t. Here she is acting fifteen years her elder again, and not wanting it - but once more, it’s what her people need, and she won’t fail them again. Playing the part of the Lady of Whitestone, holding up her head and setting to what needs be done, because there is so much that needs be done (so much of it her fault) and she does not know what else to do. Who else to be. She does not know herself enough to trust herself - or perhaps, she knows herself too well to trust herself, knows how well she shifts to suit the circumstances. Percy makes deals with demons? Cassandra becomes one, and does damn well at it. [Not as well as she thinks.]

But Percy trusts her, which matters more than some bitter part of herself says it should (some bitter part that still dreams, sometimes, of the day he left her dying in the snow.) (Even though he keeps damn leaving again. But they all have their duties.) And the role she has to play is...not abhorrent to her. She’s had some small amount of training. Moreover it’s something she owes, for so many reasons.

For now, she’s seventeen and scrambling. But I look forward with pleasure to when she realizes how little Cassandra (Johanna von Musel Klossowski) de Rolo, Lady of Whitestone, is an act.

[tanoraqui]

that was actually everything I could want from a Cassandra/Percy interaction right now; thank you so much. “Percy! Thank god you’re here!” “What? What’s wrong?!” “You’re alive!” “Oh! Yes. I am. You alarmed me. Just...assume I’m going to assume the worst at any time for the next two months.”

[tanoraqui]

I understand that, for gameplay reasons, only player characters should participate in something as intense as a resurrection ritual - but dammit, Cassandra should have been in Pike’s place in the pleas to revive Percy. Gripping his hand so tightly her nails dug into his too-cold skin and snarling through her tears (because it's easier to be angry than utterly lost again), “Don’t you leave me again. Don’t you dare.”

[tanoraqui]

Ashley will probably fly across the country, stay awake for 58 hours, kill a man and rip a tag off a mattress in order to make the Thordak battle, but just in case Pike can’t make it even by Skype, here is why we should give the Plate of the Dawnmartyr to Cassandra in her place:

she’s been ruling (rightfully, by ancient lineage) the city-state specifically blessed by Pelor

she ended her very first scene by running off to get her mother’s armor so she could join Vox Machina’s fight (ignore subsequent complications re: who was fighting whom and focus on the potential foreshadowing)

she deserves more screentime and we all fricking know it

before you argue that she’s only an NPC, keep in mind that Matt made up a divine longsword specifically to give to Kima