Participants:
| Scene Title | Is That My Mother |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Cassandra comes to Eve for help on these recently discovered but it's Eve whose in for the real shock. |
| Date | May 16, 2019 |
It was just about to be closing time. Eve had worked the bar alone, she was doing that a bit. Before she went on her trip, hair wrapped up in a loose bun she's wiping down the bar top whistling as she goes. The occasional crack and sputter of crimson lightning crackles over her arms. "Hmmm." She says to herself, hmmmm. Clearly lost in thought, the woman rolls her neck. Dressed in a pair of dark loose fitting pants that flair out around her ankles. Her top a long, flowy red number.
One tilt of her head and she tosses the dirty rag in the bin by the sink, walking over to quickly wash her hands and looks over the place. "Home time my little lovelies! Up up!" There's a collective groan and swell of agreement from the dozen or so people who begin to mill out. The owner flicks a switch and the spotlight, an indigo shade this evening, goes out, leaving just the front bar lights and the numerous candles to be blown out soon.
A hand goes to sweep raven dark strands of hair out of her face, she was just about done. Maybe a sweep of the floor. Maybe a joint. Maybe both.
Ever since her experiences with Caspar’s coins, Cassandra has been very much a homebody. Leaving the house was a rarity, but she's decided that she's going to try and make a trip out into the world to see how it all works. Being late in the evening, a ride is procured to Cat’s Cradle where a drink hopefully will he had before closing time. Yes, she has booze at home, but there's something about having it at a bar. Standing aside as people stream out, she slips into the bar after the last of them and walks through the quiet candle-lit space slowly. It's different from normal - the quiet serenity of a bar that's just emptied, and she stands near the bar in blissful repose, her eyes covered by a simple pair of ray-bans to block out the sight of one blood-red eye.
“Too late for a drink?” She asks the almost empty room.
"It's never too late for a Seer to find comfort within the walls of Cat's." Eve turns her head at the sound of the familiar voice and sees Cassandra, a familiar face not from this time. Well then, what a visit! Her crimson eyes twinkle in the light as she makes her way towards the door once the last of the patrons have seen themselves out. Taking a hand to rip the hair tie out of her hair to allow the mane to swing free to the middle of her back. "What shall you drink tonight mmmm?"
Her footsteps are light as she makes her way towards the bar, towards Cassandra. Twisting as she comes behind it and she lays three bottles on the bar's surface. Tequila, whiskey or gin. "We have a wide selection here." A fzzt of crackling blood red lightning trails down her arms and wraps around the bottle of tequila leaving scorch marks on the white label. Eve hadn't seen Cassandra since the day the young woman arrived to this dimension via portal during the Crossing. It was uncanny how they looked so much like their doubles, there were no marks. Nothing that said this wasn't the Cassandra of this time.
"Like the shades. Are you acclimating to our world okay?" There's a tilt of her head and it's almost like the old days before her Change. Like she knows something she doesn't but Eve is just being Eve, it's ingrained in her psyche now. That twinkle in her eye now never dies out.
“I’m not picky. Choose one. Just a couple of fingers, though. I’ve got to make it home okay.” Cassandra offers as she approaches the bar, weaving around the haphazardly placed tables and pushed out chairs, moving some chairs out of the way with a light push of her hand as she passes by to take the seat she normally claims when she visits Cat’s Cradle. A hand comes up and the glasses come off, folded over carefully, and placed on the bar with a click, her head hung a little, hair hiding her face.
“I’m getting together here pretty okay.” She brushes her hair back, the bloodshot right eye making an appearance, the woman calling attention to it by tapping her cheekbone just below it. “I’ve been getting into trouble already using my ability, poking my fingers into all sorts of sockets. Thus the eye. It’s getting better, though.”
The electricity along Eve’s arm and her newly-minted power, brings a shake of Cassandra’s head, followed by a small smile. “So what’s it like, with the new ability? Are you going around giving people handshakes and zapping them, or what? I’m not exactly sure what you can do.” She does know Eve can appear naked in roller skates in the middle of the bar - she was there for that.
Whiskey it is, Eve pours her a little extra because why not. She leans against the bar watching as Cassandra removes her sunglasses and her eyes squint, "Hmm." She hums as another stray red spark leaps from her fingers and dances along the surface of the bar leaving the smallest of scorch marks. Cat's was beginning to be littered with them.
"It's like being ripped apart a thousand times over, all day." Eve smiles and her teeth are bared, a pained grin. "The freedom it provides. Now that's worth a little boom." Running into a seer is always hard for Eve nowadays. She felt like it was a community she had been roughly shoved out, no longer able to access the pieces of twine she use to wind together in her hands. Reading the symbols. There were still symbols to read but Eve's time of viewing them herself had passed and she was getting more and more used to the idea.
"You must be careful Young Cassandra. Abuse of your gift can lead to the robbery of it." Eve should know, "Twinkle twinkle little star, what has Cassandra seen thus far?" The former seer places both hands on the edge of the bar, pale fingertips curl around the edges as her eyes buzz in excitement and she leans forward.
One of the advantages about Cassandra being alone in a bar with Mad Eve’s counterpart is that no matter how crazy your tale is, chances are she'll take it at face value. After all, with the insanity that they all went through only six months ago - was it really only six months? - she'd have no reason to lie and Eve would have no reason to spread it around.
“I know, I know, Eve. Trust me. It's just these…items…I'm looking at. They're crazy.” Cassandra takes the whisky, lifting it in a quiet toast and taking a sip, grimacing at the strength. She leans over to take a couple of cubes of ice from the cooler and drops them into the glass with a clink before swirling it around and taking another sip. Better.
“What I've seen? The past of someone who’s newly four hundred years old. Individual memories from this man, put there by another who forcibly took them for…some reason. Control. Security. Maliciousness.” Cassandra sighs, tracing one of the sparks with a fingertip. “You should do this to tabletops, get them covered in glass or filled with epoxy. Be a unique art style based on your power.” Cassandra sighs. “That's neither here nor there, though. The memories in the coins I'm looking at were from others and the method in which they were extracted really doesn't jive well with my way of reading. I can do it, and I'm getting less beaten up while doing it, but still…it's intense.”
“The memories…”. She takes another fortifying drink. “Just moments I have no clue on. Earth shattering revelations with no context.”
New art, that might be nice. Tucking that into the back of her mind for a later date to focus on.
The taller woman stops short and tilts her head before a slow, sly grin plasters itself across her face. "Try me. I might be able to provide context from this wild little mind, I know this Plague. Adam Monroe. We go wayyy back." That's a bit of an understatement but Eve leans against the bar. "Memories.. coins… Have the pennies been found then?" My my my, it's like Christmas came early. That Cassandra is able to read them comes to little surprise. "Those pennies hold the memories that are a piece of the key that is the current predicament we find our world in."
Tapping her fingers along the bar's surface Eve breathes through her nose and reaches over to the nearest ashtray and picks her freshly rolled end of shift joint. She always smoked while cleaning, sometimes that meant ash on the floor but she would get to that. Eventually.
"Your head must be hurting Sister Seer, to dive as deep as locked away memories. Wrestling them from their cages." Eve sounds impressed and flicks her lighter, the embers of the joint glow orange and she pulls deep. Shoving the lighter in her pocket her eyes squint and she looks Cassandra up and down.
Eve somehow knowing about the pennies, and Adam, do cause Cassandra to blink as that information is processed. They seem to be a tightly knit group here in the Safe Zone, even if they didn’t know they were in the first place. It’s an odd thing for her to be a part of and not knowing she was a part of it, merely by being in the wrong place at the right time. The machinations of fate are beyond her ability to see or even think about now without too much of a headache. Instead, she lifts her glass in a quiet toast. “I’ve gotten better.” is her wry response before she takes another drink, the liquor not burning as much now that the first sip had scorched the nerves in her throat. “It took a week of bed rest at home and a couple of days of being doted on by a good friend before I felt well enough to even come out here.”
The glass is lifted a third time, held a scant distance from her lips, before she speaks again. “Twenty seven.” her voice is quiet before she takes a third bracing drink. “We found twenty seven pennies in that jar.” She places the glass down with a gentleness that belies the trembling in her right hand, straightening it just so on the coaster, hoping that Eve doesn’t notice. “Going through one halfway got me five memories, and that’s just when I couldn’t do anymore without my head popping like a balloon.” Judging from the eye, it kind of already did.
“What can you tell me, Eve? What predicament are we in that Adam is trying to kick off? Why were those…things…pulled out of his head? Richard and Elisabeth said some names but I’m not clear on anything.” Cassandra’s shoulders slump, her head hanging briefly and then moving to gaze at the smoking seer. “Let’s make a deal. I tell you what I know, you tell me what you know. So, Sister to Sister, what in the ever living hell is going on?”
"Sister to Sister." Eve taps her fingers along the bar continually, dragging from the joint and assessing her younger friend. "Your twin found her way into a lot of secrets as well, it's meant to be hmmmm given the nature of your lovely gift. This is a particularly dangerous set of memories and I haven't even viewed them."
"There is a Dragon, an entity older than dirt. It has all the gifts, like a mosaic. It can change your DNA. I call it the First of us. It granted Adam his long life, his healing. It crossed over when you and others did in New Mexico. Hmmm." Eve leans forward and tilts her head.
"Adam wants the Evolved to inherit the world. Us to be on top, the mundane mortals have ruled long enough." It is a sentiment that Eve once heavily believed in. They should have their turn now. The means to get there though, it had started to matter for the older woman. Too much blood on her hands.
Cryptic.
It’s not like she should have expected anything else, really.
Cassandra sits and sips at her drink, stirring it with a fingertip, the ice chiming merrily on the sides of the glass as its swirled, the fingertip lifted and tasted after a second before another drink is taken. She’d eaten earlier, so she’s not worried about getting too terribly drunk and thanks to the rest that Richard and Elisabeth forced her into, she’s got energy and sobriety to spare. She sits and listens, nodding from time to time. “I saw those eyes before. A couple of times. Once when I first started my dimensional jumping, and once when I arrived here.” It was too much to hope, apparently, for this world, for all its warts and war, to be just a little bit sane, compared to the last few she’d been in. And when Eve finishes, Cassandra leans back on the barstool, draping her arm across the back of the one next to her, much like the Old Cassandra used to, tapping the toe of her boot against the bar in thought.
“The memories I saw were…interesting, to say the least. It was blind luck that we managed to grab the one with Adam’s memories. You guessed right, you know.” She lifts the glass to Eve in a quiet toast a second time. “It was all about his adventures in the past. His life before…” She lifts her glass to swirl it around. “All this.” Memories, by default, are before the war, before the chaos, before a lot of things, but for her to indicate all this means something more.
“As I said, there were five…the first one…”
And Cassandra begins talking, moving through the memories like one would tell about a trip to the store, using the names and places that she knew as context to provide it when she could. Little scenes blink into view from the memories she had of the events, giving Eve looks at exactly what was said. Adam and Claudia Zimmerman in a relationship. With a child. Adam at the first test of the Looking Glass here on the world, Arthur there, Roux burning his body almost to cinders when she was taken over by the entity.
Cassandra pauses to re-fill her drink from the well behind the bar - more soda than whisky this time - before telling about Yaeko and Adam, talking about previous marriages and children he had that might still be in the world today. She shows and tells about the battle atop the Deveaux building, where a group of the Founders, as she learned they were called, tried to capture the entity for some reason. “I think they were trying to banish it, somehow, but I’m not sure. No context to work off of.” She adds in order to banish it before another group, this one joined by Lucille’s father and someone Cassandra learned was named Mateo.
And then the final memory, on the beach, the woman with the green hair, the request for a sample of the Shanti virus.
“And Right about there…” When the memory fades out. “Is when I passed out.”
As the memories play out Eve goes and grabs some popcorn to throw in a wooden bowl and placed on the bar between the two. As the Seer does her work Eve envies her for a moment, she can still tap into the Other. The place that Eve once knew so well. Still, it is awe inspiring to see memories of the past come to life in her space.
"Ahh. Mother Claudia. She's in control of SESA. I wonder if Niki knows…." rapping her fist on the surface of the bar as she stuffs her face full of popcorn with this particular tame memory. The next isn't so.
The Looking Glass, Arthur, Adam and the unnamed woman who- "Qunnie!" Using the old nickname instead of Red. "Oh nooo, she was touched." Eve also knows she's supposed to have died only later as in a few years ago. "That's.. very likely. Adam brought her back. Much like he did me, it works on a fresh corpse, don't let it get ripe. What people wouldn't give for vial upon vial of his blood." It would be a worthy boon and only a select few have ever had his DNA to do things with.
The unveiling of this Yaeko, a familiar face but a different set of expressions and eyes. Eve knows that woman. The Woman in Red. "Ha! Ten! I thought there would have been twenty! He must really care for her." It's apparent from their interactions, "They've been through hell and back." Only imagining what transpired after she and Odessa were sent back to their own time after the ill fated run in they had in 1670. "Don't listen to him honey! You can do better!"
"I met her once, when I hopped back with my cousin to Ancient Japan. She was a host, a vessel for the Dragon that took over Quinnie's mother earlier. She looks amazing in red."
A toss of popcorn thrown in the direction of Adam's projection with a, "Booo!" The weight of seeing him in such an intimate setting does dawn on the former seer but what he is now, is not something she hopes Yaeko will always love. Maybe she was the key to him.
The next memory has Eve standing up and rapidly sinking to the floor, "The Ritual." She breathes out in awe, eyes widening as she looks from each face. She knows a few. "Grandpa Broome…? He could play with your mind.." Eve's face twists and she shakes her head as it all transpires. The hurricane of events in that short span of time but then Eve's hand, which was up in the popcorn still comes slamming down to the ground taking the bowl of popcorn with her and having it sprinkle all around her. "M-Mom!" Eve gets to her feet and charges to the spot Valerie Mas stands, the metal that she used an ability to impale Adam's body on is noted but mostly ignored. Along the way Eve bumps into unseen chairs and furniture. Stubbing her toe but making it all the same. "Mom…" she whispers this time, trying to touch Valerie's cheek but her fingers only past through the projection.
"That's my mother. Valerie Mas, what is she…" Eve shakes her head, "Your counterpart, the sweet lovely Cassandra Prime. She showed me when Adam brought me back from death. But… he sounded like he owed them, my parents for doing something for him. Their sacrifice, had gained his favor. Twisty twisty, these halls twist." Eve twitches and her body begins to glow from within, stirred in emotion at the sight of her mother, "But here she is stopping him, from his goal. He. Enthralled to the Dragon. Connected. Bound. Do those chains ever wither?" There's a snort and Eve now looks over at her mother with an expression she wore as a girl, so curious, so in awe of her mom. "You were sneaky sneaky mom, up to all sorts. You lived a life."
Lived.
The thought makes her stop and she sinks to the floor with her head bowed. "The next one please," though it had already ended. There's an audible sniff from Eve's place on the floor.
The last memory makes the older woman tilt her head, "Cindy…. Cindy… why that's-" and then her mother is brought up again. This time Adam speaks of her like a comrade and they aren't on opposing sides. This must be before… this must..
It ends.
Eve's body lays out on the ground and she's smoking a joint. The space around her churning and burning in the shape of her body, crimson mist leaking out from her body.
"Wow…" Eve twitches from the pain in her body from her ability but there's a wide O expression on her face. What a trip.
Fzzt. "Ow ow ow." Her whole arm snaps and crackles into that fine red mist before snapping back into pale flesh. "Ohhh oh. Okay ok…" Eve tosses the joint in the ashtray and climbs to her feet. Her eyes glows even brighter as her veins do as well. "That was… OH.""
Eve's bout to blow.
It was a trip for Cassandra from start to finish, and the third time that she's experienced these memories. Thankfully, with repetition, the agony of the initial extraction was fading into memory, the knowledge of what was gained overriding the effort required to translate it from such a different ability. Caspar's ability took without care. Cassandra’s ability could return what was taken. Give back what was lost.
Cassandra sits in silence as the images play through, listening to Eve's commentary, her blindfold automatically coming out before the projection started to keep from ruining the bar top and her clothes with her tears. She removes it carefully once it's all done, folding it over on itself and slipping it into the pocket of her jacket, finishing the dregs of her drink, pouring the half-melted ice cubes into the sink behind the bar, sinking back into her seat and turning to regard Eve on the floor.
Putting aside the lack of cleanliness on a bar’s floor, the wisps of smoke that’re starting to rise from the wood beneath Eve’s prone form can't be good. And when the electric seer pushes herself to her feet and stands, Cassandra can only gawk at the blackened snow angel that remains scorched into the planks from the errant sparks from Eve's ability.
“Eve…” Cassandra’s voice is measured, calm, even as she pushes herself to stand on the metal footrest of the barstool, swiveling to sit her bottom squarely on the bar top, and plopping her feet on the wooden seat. At a glance, she’s relaxed, but in reality, she’s ready to push off and roll behind the bar when - not if - Eve pops. Cassandra - this Cassandra - has dealt with a lot of crazy things, so planning a route to combat roll to get out of the line of fire isn't out of sorts. After all, she was there when Eve re-appeared the first time, so she has an idea of what might happen. The unknown part is that was Eve being playful and happy to see her world again. This might be a little more chaotic in the same way a lightning storm over a volcano is an unrestrained force of destruction.
Still, even ready to move, Cassandra speaks. “I'm glad that I showed you a few things you needed to see. Gave you a few blows with an axe to chop some knowledge free of the glacier it's been locked in for the last thirty years.” God, Cassandra needs a cigarette, even though she doesn't smoke. She leans back to rummage and gets lucky, finding a battered pack of Marlboro Lights that Sassy keeps back there. It takes a little doing, but she manages to light it from one of Eve's errant sparks, taking a deep drag and then blowing out a cloud of smoke that swirls and dances with the light show.
“And just think.” Cassandra taps some ash into one of the multiple ashtrays perched on the bar top. “There more memories in the coin I started with and there are twenty six more I haven't even touched. Who knows what we’ll find in those?”
"Chippy chip axes, come down the trees. Watch for the critters and the bees!" Eve shrieks with laughter and clenches her sides. Her body continues to fluctuate between corporeal and …almost not. It's then that she grins and looks to Cassandra with wild eyes. "There…"
A rumbling from within Eve herself sounds and she vibrates as she leaps into the air and hopefully away from Cassandra. "She.."
The woman's half pale, half blood red mist form sails through the air trailing that fine blood dust behind her, her face is twisted in pain as she feels a turning in her center, it always hurt the worst for Eve just before she felt bliss. Free. If freedom was a world with no pain then Eve was on the way to Nirvana. "BLOWS!!" Her form explodes, sending bright crimson light everywhere. The crimson mist twists in the air and buzzes around, flying chaotically in the air. Lights that she passes flicker and some bulbs pop, the lightning streaks out and graces the ceiling or walls that she draws near leaving blackened wood and white wisps of smoke pillaring out.
She cannot speak in this form but Eve would sigh in relief. She felt right. Her mass pops and crackles.
There she goes, indeed!
Cassandra, in her spot on top of the bar, takes a drag on her cigarette and hops down behind when Eve looks over maniacally, nearly falling when her foot slips on the side of the well. Thankfully it's empty, as far as ice goes, so she doesn't slip down. Stumble, yes. Go ass over teakettle, not so much.
The rumbling is her clue to get ready and, when Eve leaps into the air, barely holding it together as is, Cassandra’s head goes down behind the heavy oak bar. Her hands move to cover the back of her neck, mostly to avoid the shattering of beer bottles from the inevitable explosion, hoping that the ancient beer-soaked construction is enough to withstand an Eve-powered shockwave.
Sassy, when his boss returned in such an unstable form, found a few fire extinguishers here and there, just in case his boss went off and caused some charring that needed to be taken care of. One of those fire extinguishers are at hand and, flinching at the popping of lightbulbs, Cassandra makes herself busy putting out the smoldering bits she can reach with quick bursts of CO2 from the red-marked bottle. Thankfully, there aren't many so once impending flames are snuffed, she sits and watches the show.
If a cloud of plasma could look relieved, it might look like the way Eve does now.
“I should find you some old neon signs. You might have fun playing in those, and they should be able to handle your watts. If you get a good enough fuse to keep from melting them.” Cassandra chuckles. “That or a plasma bottle. Or a really good vacuum cleaner with a faraday cage on the bag.”
There Eve bobs up and down and stares down at Cassandra, it's not for a few long moments that the cloud moves and it crackles up to a window opened high up, quickly the red mist slips through the crack of the window leaving glass blackened and smoking rising and she's off. Spiraling out into the night sky, fine red mists trailing behind her. She's unsure of where to go but she knows she must think.
She'd leave a message if she could but Cassandra would understand. Some news was too heavy, too strange to totally digest with another in the room.
And so Eve takes to the sky.