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| Scene Title | Little Herald |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Eve seeks out Cassandra's aid to find out what happened to her on November 8th, 2011. |
| Date | October 25, 2018 |
Black and red candles are lit all around the place, the fan in the corner turned off as the smoke swirls ebbs in the Oracle Room. Shadows dance and play together on the walls and paintings hung and stacked around the room.
Hush, hush
Don't say a word
The faint cries can hardly be heard
A storm lies beyond the horizon, barely
Don’t stop
Sweep through the days
A slight breeze blows in from the lone window at the top of the room, smoke slowly funneling out into the alley outside of Cat’s Cradle. The coals on the head of the hookah burn hot and orange, the glow illuminating more of the pale hand that holds the hose presses it to wine colored lips that pull from smoke from the shisha.
Like children that can’t stay awake
Stay here untainted and say..
“And this is the dress of the hour,” is said in quiet reverence as a simple black box sits there in the large circle table between the two women in the room. One dark haired and the other more fair though the dark haired woman known as Eve Mas has a ghostly pale complexion that contrasts with the other dark colors in the room giving her a ghostly glow when the light plays right.
“November 8th, 2011. I died. In this dress,” pulling the thing from the box slowly as she removes the hood and smoke slowly leaks from her nostrils and mouth as she looks over at the younger woman. The dress’s midnight black material feels dry and coarse in Eve’s hands, the many tears and rips in the fabric that had already been cut to allow for easier movement, it's less a dress now and more pieces of fabric barely holding together. “This gun,” lifting the desert eagle from the bottom of the box. She hadn't used it in years, not since that night.. a night that gave her friends nightmares still. A nightmare that had joined the library of terrors filed away on Eve’s head. “Was used on that night as well.” Death was dealt.
Stay while the melody’s sung
Break like a wave on the run
I do be sure I can’t say anymore
I just know that it won’t last forever
Eve had asked her sister seer for a favor, something needed to be unearthed. Getting her to this room, getting to this moment. Something that had been on Eve’s mind from the St. Patrick’s Day party and she had discovered what the young Cassandra was capable of. “I know your brain is as used to seeing nightmares as mine but I must warn you.. the night that this dress lived its last night is.. messy.” That's why Eve had a bucket a towels at ready for the SESA agent as well as water and a big bottle of the finest tequila she could find. Two shot glasses sit on the table, drained but not for long.
Rush, rush
Take me away
Like hourglass sand that never escapes
The oracle takes a moment to look at the dress again before sliding it over on the table towards Cassandra. It was one of her mother’s old ones, Eve had been wearing and alternating a few of her mother’s old pieces. This one had been one of her favorites. Her pale hands go then for the bottle of liquor and she shakes it from side to side with a wicked grin on her lips, “To secrets and death and Sisters Seers.” Filling the double shot glasses up she slides one over to Cass and takes a lime for herself and looks the retrocog in the eye, “Thank you for coming.”
And then she knocks back her shot and slams it on the surface of the table. Closing her eyes and shaking her head from side to side, this was the good stuff. “That night, Adam Monroe brought me back after I was gone. Blessed me with his blood.” Cursed if you thought about how psychotic the man seemed to be, something Eve could relate too. “I need to know why.. I need to lift the veil while I was out. I think.. there must be something there.”
Eve Mas and her request for assistance with a viewing on a dress was proposed on the way out of Cardinal’s giant meeting. It’s a regular thing for Cassandra, now, to do things like this for people. When she’s not investigating things for SESA, she’s spending time in the morgue identifying corpses from their memories or at the Doyle Library helping the public with things that they may need to know regarding items from the past. Usually the viewings are little things - a child’s booties to remember a birthday, a husband’s watch to remember a wedding anniversary and the like - but she can’t edit what is shown. She can sometimes get hints of what is to come and end the vision beforehand, but sometimes it’s so sudden that she can’t stop it. She’s started to give a disclaimer for every viewing she does - offering her services with the promise that she can only show the past, unvarnished, with all the beauty and horror that can be witnessed with an unvarnished view.
In the days after the meeting, Cassandra wrestled with her conscience. Yes, she could just stand up the dark-haired seer, or cancel, or push it off for another time, but it probably wouldn’t be the best idea. Eve was the kind of person to remember slights - she didn’t know Eve very well, but could tell that is definitely the case, and with the insanity going on that she’s investigating - electric rats and potential dimensional incursions - it was finally decided that it might be best to have as many allies as possible. even though her two encounters with Eve have been interesting, to say the least.
This promises to be another one.
Getting a ride to the Cat’s Cradle was fairly easy with the ride sharing going around town - a few dollars to get where she needed to go with a tip for the driver’s time ensured she made it before the appointed hour - and now, sitting in the seer’s room behind closed and locked doors with the sweet-smelling smoke from the hookah swirling about with a shot of tequila within reach, Cassandra settled into her seat as the stage is set.
“You’re welcome.” Cassandra’s voice is quiet as she lifts the shot above her head in a quiet toast, kicking it back in a practiced motion. She holds it there, her head back with eyes closed, a full-body shudder going through her as the liquor burns its way down her throat, resting heavy in her belly like a ball of molten lead that slowly leeches warmth into her limbs. “Strong…” Her head tilts, her eyes closed. Cassandra inverts the glass and clicks it down on to the surface of the table with a quick motion, letting out a held breath.
Once the alcohol burn has subsided, Cassandra slides her hand across the table, palm down, moving her glass to the edge of the table before lifting her hand and drawing the offered dress toward her, into her arms, her hands bare. She looks up to Eve, eyes shining in the little light available in the room and speaks her warning. “This isn’t going to be pretty, but you already know that.” The towels are appreciated, as is the bucket, but there’s a reason Cassie didn’t eat before coming here. She’s seen a lot of bad things over the past several months and if this ishakr what Eve has said it is? Well..
“Death is…” How best to put this? “Death can be scary. It can be lonely. It’s something that few people come back from. You may see something out of this you really are better not remembering…” She rubs the cloth between her palms, feeling the texture of the fabric against her skin. “I don’t know what we’re going to see. I can’t get a feeling out of this at all and probably won’t be able to without diving in and actually looking.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” She knows the answer, and knows what Eve will say, but has to ask the question.
Another shot is poured and Eve knocks it back and sets the glass this time down a bit gently. Nodding her head along to the young woman whose she's had interesting interactions with, Eve doesn't feel shy in asking this favor. She's an imp, a meddler, a trickster who just won’t quit. The young agent wouldn't be the first or the last to fall within Eve’s proverbial clutches though the grip is light and not as forceful as one would expect. A jester at times but she hates being likened to that.
A shiver runs up her back at all the blood that once stained that dressed, some discoloration stains the ends and the middle of the dress, Eve has never learned the extent of the accident. Did she fly out the window? Break her neck? The morbid curiosity has taken her over indeed and she swipes at the hookah to take another long pull, setting the piece down.
“I'm sure Sister, just be careful.”
“A vision has only hurt me once, and that was a special circumstance.” Cassandra doesn't elaborate on that at all, setting the dress to the side on her lap and drawing out her blindfold from her inside breast pocket. The motions she makes are probably familiar to Eve - she's seen it before, after all - but this time, instead of Cassie seeing into her future with Eve's assistance, it's Eve looking into her past with Cassie’s.
The second shot of Tequila is taken quickly, the glass set aside with another shiver as the blindfold is wrapped tightly around Cassandra’s eyes, blocking all external light from entering. This also has the advantage of soaking up the black tears and keeping the disquieting sight of her eyes turning coal black from view.
There's a rush of wind - a breeze, almost - as Cassandra’s power starts to take hold. The effect is different almost every time it is used, but it generally starts with the fading of light. Candles seem to vanish as darkness creeps in from Eve’s peripheral vision, like falling backwards into a deep pool. Slowly, the chairs they sit on, and finally the room itself sinks into obscurity, then blackness, the only thing seeming to stay be there being the table in front of them.
They sit quietly for a moment as the last glimmers of light fade into nothingness, of Cassandra’s right hand lifting from the dress to the air above her head, thumb and index finger looped together to draw something down closer to her eyes. At first glance, there's nothing, but if one peers closely, several dark strands glimmer between her fingers, and as she draws them closer, it's apparent that they pass through the dress, like long threads piercing the bit of clothing..
“I've found the darker memories have darker threads. And these are very dark…”
One of the threads is tugged closer, capturing it between thumb and forefinger, drawing it out. All around flashes can be seen - memories flickering into view, brought to life by her ability, pushed aside and followed closer. To the more intense memories. Seeking what Eve is hunting.
The world is thrown into darkness. Then, screams.
“DEBBIE GO GO GO!”
Eve is crammed in the back seat of a car, a square-jawed man with short, dark hair — Tyler Case — sits in the passenger seat gripping the door and the center console for dear life as the city zips past at breakneck pace. In the driver’s seat, a brunette with chin-length curly hair — his sister Libby — has a white-knuckled grip on the steering-wheel, tears streaming down her cheeks. Eve, in the back, is howling.
One by one the buildings of the MIT campus begin to collapse down into themselves. A rolling cloud of dust and debris explodes up in their wake and screaming pedestrians are scrambling into the street. Everyone in the car is screaming and a cloud of black dust is rolling through the streets, soon enveloping the car.
Foot on the gas as hard as she can, Libby plows through a stop sign, snapping it off and sending it crashing into the windshield. Helicopters are flying overhead towards MIT, drones are streaking through the air.
Distracted by the collapsing apocalypse in the rear view, Libby doesn't notice a group of fleeing pedestrians until it is too late. She jerks the wheel to the left, swerves through oncoming traffic and then onto another sidewalk and straight through the guard rail of an overpass.
Everyone in the car is screaming.
The car careens through the air, pitching forward as it sails off the overpass into northbound traffic. The vehicle collides with the roof of another car, glass explodes, the world spins like a top as the vehicle flips end over end and lands on its roof wedges between other cars in gridlocked traffic.
Eve, without a seatbelt, was thrown around the back of the car like a rag doll. Her neck is broken, one arm snapped with a compound fracture protruding from her elbow. Blood stains her face where bruises and contusions and small lacerations show the extent of her injuries.
Libby, suspended by her seatbelt, is motionless and unconscious. A gash onset forehead from where it impacted the steering wheel bleeds up her brow and into her hairline, dropping off the tip of her nose, too.
Tyler is likewise injured but conscious. His seatbelt also saved his life, and he struggles to fumble at the straps and buckle, groggily looking around with his eyes swimming up and toward the back of his head as he drifts in and out of consciousness.
This is what Eve never saw.
Seeing her death from this perspective gives Eve pause and she rears back as the her that was before is snapped for all intents and purposes. Debbie and Angel Face get a look over before she's focusing on the accident as it happens, eyebrows shooting up at the sound of her bones breaking collides with metal grinding on metal. The hollow look in her eyes makes Eve flinch and she shrinks away, shaking her head from side to side. No no no no.
This is not how it was supposed to end, and luckily for Eve it didn't, but there is one person that Eve feels she can still blame, "Fucking Debbie." Throwing her hands up as if it was more on Libby to brave a truly horrific night and speed race to safety than for Eve to had worn her belt
"Seatbelt always from now on Sister." Moisture collects in the corners of her eyes and a thumb with a nub of a nail wipes them away before they can even begin to fall. "I told them to let me drive! I would've, I would've.." Eve looks frustrated, she was alive but it hadn't needed to come to that. A look over to Cassandra, "It was a rough night."
Objects in vision may be closer than they appear.
A vision pushing her into a moving vehicle is a different thing entirely for Cassandra, the little seer flailing her arms to balance herself in the chair that she's perched herself in. The world contracts, light boiling forth from all around, as if having the vision pushed her from black-stained water into the brightness of day in time that couldn't be measured as longer than a breath. The motes of light focus and condense, the figures in action already, fleeing from the chaos of the collapsing MIT campus.
Cassandra, of course, doesn't know any of this. If there were any landmarks or signs, it's missed in the screaming and the speeding and swerving. The only familiar face is Eve, and she's currently howling from somewhere above Cassandra's ears near the crown of her head, since the echo she's reading is centered on the dress itself. She watches, helpless, as the car swerves to barely avoid a dozen pedestrians fleeing for their own safety, the tires screeching in protest as it impacts the curb, bouncing roughly in the air around them. In the space of seconds, Cassiandra watches as the woman sitting across from her, the woman who asked for this reading, meets an untimely and gruesome end. Cassandra instinctively flinches as the roof of the car distorts from the impact of Eve's head against it, and finds a scream rising in her throat as the guardrail looms in the windscreen.
The safety glass shattering is strangely beautiful, the memory slowing as those who would actually be making it mercifully lose consciousness from the initial impact. Shivering, retching, she squeezes her thumb and forefinger together tightly, the image freezing the second before the vehicle leaves the bridge and goes airborne above Northbound traffic. She holds it there for a second, wavering, her heart pounding in her chest. Being in a car accident, she's learned from her viewings, is very much like being in a washing machine. Your body becomes a part of a physics experiment where the end result can, and often does, end with injury, destruction, and death.
This will be one of those, sadly.
Taking a deep breath, Cassandra releases the thread and allows the world to move again, and with that, the world begins to spin. Earth, Sky, Earth, Sky, Earth, and then Impact. During the crash, Cassandra can only hang on. She's even more of a onlooker to this vision than usual, unable to slow it now that it's happened until the inevitable end. She feels the jolts of impact rock her form, watches as the hood peels away, and feels the blood pulled to her feet, very nearly passing out. The vehicle pirouettes on its nose before landing heavily on its roof, the wreck straddling a Honda Civic and an old Ford pickup that happened to be in the way.
The projection shifts from Eve to the unconscious Libby in a heartbeat, now showing Eve, crumpled like a discarded doll on the roof of the car, eyes wide and unblinking as the last vestige of life escapes in a breath. Dead things can’t make visions, it seems.
"Merde…" Cassandra's voice cracks as she slumps, looking away but unable to close her eyes to block the image. wiping her mouth, the bile threatening to come up and bring two shots of tequila along with it. "If this is just the end of it, I can imagine it was a rough night…."
Tyler’s consciousness grows, and with a struggle he realizes his predicament. Wrestling against the restraints of his seatbelt he cries out, “Libby? Libby? Fuck!” With a click, gravity asserts itself and Tyler crashes down into the upended roof of the car. He groans, safety glass crunching under his shoulders, legs twisting. He crawls across the roof, reaching up with one arm to support his sister’s weight, the other to unbuckle her. She wakes up, with a scream, the moment she starts to fall.
Libby lands in Tyler’s arms, upside down, quickly and frantically asserting herself. One hand comes up, dabbing blood from her brow, and in the distance the pop and crack of gunfire sounds like it’s getting closer, mixed with a riot of screams. “Come on, come on,” Tyler says, dragging Libby backwards and out of the driver’s side window. She can walk, from the looks of it, but collapses to her knees the moment she tries and throws up all over the street. There’s other motorists shouting and screaming. People are running up the lane into the gridlocked traffic away from smoke and flames.
“Stay right here,” Tyler insists, then moves to haul the rear door of the car open after several struggling tugs. Libby is shell-shocked, staring at the blood on her hands, looking up and around with wide, tear-filled eyes. She helplessly reaches out in the direction of her brother, then just slouches back onto her heels and listens to the scream of fleeing motorists.
Tyler climbs into the car, boot treading through a puddle of gasoline spilling from a rupture in the gas tank, and unclips Eve’s seatbelt and cradles her lifeless body in his arms. He can tell from the black and purple at her neck what’s going on, but logic isn’t in the driver’s seat right now. “It’ll be ok, it’ll be okay, c’mon… c’mon…” Tyler hoarsely whispers as he crawls back out of the vehicle with Eve’s head and shoulders supported in his arms. When he gets her out onto the street, Libby lets out a cry of horror when she sees the condition Eve is in.
“Oh my god, oh my god, she’s dead!” Libby screams through her fingers, scrambling away from the corpse as if it could hurt her. Tyler looks down at Eve’s lifeless body, one hand over his mouth, and both are rocked from their dread by the sound of machine gun fire just past the overpass and screams from a crowd. The riots appear to be growing.
“We’ve got to go!” Libby howls, waving one hand flippantly in the air, “We’re going to get killed!” Tyler swallows audibly, letting go of Eve and laying her down on the street beside the demolished car. Blood runs down the back of his neck, small pieces of glass are embedded in his palms. He exhales a shuddering breath, looking like he’s going to argue, but the sound of sirens and helicopters causes him to close his mouth immediately.
“Ty, come on!” Libby screams, grabbing one of his hands in hers and pulling him away. Tyler stammers, motioning to Eve, but he knows. He knows. Reluctantly, he nods and allows himself to be pulled with Libby away from the wreck of the car and Eve’s body. As he and Libby move away, all that can be heard are angry cries, and the government’s response of suppressive fire.
The vision goes black, flickering occasionally when a fleeing bystander moves past Eve’s body. It appears there’s a gap where she was alone, and as Cassandra knows, the dead don’t create impressions.
Seated on the couch, Eve's hands are flapping wildly. "There was no choice after all…" she now hates Libby a little less but she's still a bitch, if not maybe a extremely freaked out civilian women not equipped for dealing with any of this. Maybe Eve needed to give her a break. She'd have to apologize for sending Samson to kill her.
"Do you think there's more?" Eve's tone is curious, watching the space that her broken body lay before during the projection with an intense gaze. "When Adam shows up." That's the moment she needs but this, this was helpful in piecing together just what had happened. "I'll need the number of a good edible arrangement guy." The seer has witnessed more gruesome things and they have happened to her in these dreams so seeing it as a projection makes it feel just like a dream except this had already happened and she massages the back of her neck faintly, absently.
The chaos of the accident blends into the chaos of the riot that's swiftly approaching.
As Libby and Tyler flee, the vision fades into nothingness, the darkness overwhelming, the silence enveloping the pair like a shroud. After all, it's not every day that you watch the living person that's currently sitting across from you get killed in a car accident. Cassandra sits in silence, finally shifting to sit on the couch next to Eve, reaching across the couch to try and take Eve’s flailing hands with her free one, the thread of memory still held tightly in the other. “People don't generally survive something like that, Eve.” She says softly. “If what's coming is as bad as it sounds, they couldn't have helped even if you crashed into a fully-staffed emergency room.”
A flash of memory from a fleeing couple is seen, a crying woman gasping as she catches sight of Eve next to the crumpled car, saying “Oh god, she’s dead!” before she turns to cling to someone with her before the image fades away, the duo running off into the darkness. “There's more.” Cassandra turns to Eve, a rivulet of black escaping from her blindfold, trickling down her cheek. “There has to be. We just have to find it.”
“Are you ready?”
When assent is given, she goes.
When next Cassandra mocks focus, a figure that has haunted Eve for the last seven years comes fading into view. Adam Monroe emerges at the edge of the vision, dressed entirely in black, with tall boots laced tight and a handgun bolstered at his side. There's no badges or insignias visible on his uniform — but it is that, a uniform — when he approaches. He stops at Eve, purposefully, intently.
With a crunch of glass under his boots, Adam takes a knee beside Eve and brushes a gloved hand over her cheek. “It's funny,” he says in a conversational tone, “I have you to thank for my freedom. I suppose, after all this time, it would end up this way for you.” Adam winces, touching the black and purple parts of her neck. “You were supposed to stay in the Ark, Eve. You were supposed to wait for me.”
Exhaling a sigh, Adam grabs one of Eve’s arms by the wrist, pulling her arm over his shoulder, then hoists her body up in a fireman’s carry. “No rest for you yet, though, you've got work to do.” With that assurance, Adam begins to walk against the rows of now abandoned cars.
"I had some help getting my body put back together." This very man in front of them… and he had motives. This wasn't exactly news but just like she knew she died this day, hearing it first hand from his mouth..
"Why wait.." Eve's face is full of confusion as she leans forward and almost touches the projection, there were so many of her memories she didn't have especially during her time at the Ark, it wouldn't be the first time there was a haze on her memory. The tall woman's brown eyes squint, she did free him alongside her friends but hearing him like this, work to do. Eve's face screws up and she leans back in her seat. "Work to do." A look towards Casandra with the black tears. "..he knew where to find me. He was coming.. for me?" Shaking her head the oracle looks confused as her digits twitch and wiggle. "There must be more.." her throat tight and she leans forward to take a healthy swing directly from the bottle of tequila.
“Yeah, I figured as much.” Cassandra says as Eve sets down the bottle, wiping away the tears with her thumb. “There are rumors of a few healers around here now that can take care of pretty much any injury, so it stands to reason there were some then, too. That isn't out of line for the narrative.” What she doesn't say is that death is pretty much a permanent thing for the general public, but why Eve?
Cassandra nods to Eve’s open-ended question, giving a small shrug that could be easily missed. “It certainly appears that he came to find you, and I'm going to have to use a lot of guessing on motivations from here on out.” Her lack of familiarity of anything regarding the Ark or it's purpose is evident - everyone knows of the civilian massacre that took place there, and conspiracy theories abound of what it was meant to be. “It's one of those thought experiments, trying to guess motivations. Judging from the name of the place, it was meant to survive a great catastrophe. When you and those two people freed him and his group and escaped, it seems he specifically came to find you and bring you somewhere…”. She trails off, thoughtful. “Are you sure he was a prisoner there? The one time I saw him before, in another vision, he was confined like an animal.” She doesn't elaborate, but might if asked. “And his name is Adam….you're Eve. Kind of biblical, isn't it?”
The frozen image of Adam hefting Eve’s lifeless corpse, head lolling at an unnatural angle is held. “He needed to know what was coming. The future is too uncertain with too many variables, and he needed you to help navigate to a particular point in the aftermath of a riot, or see if it was even possible…”. Cassandra goes quiet. “He needed you to tell him what to expect so he could get this reality to be closer to the one he came from. That's my guess.” It's a working theory, and may be entirely insane, but what in this world isn't? How bad could it get, really?
If she only knew…
Cassandra squeezes Eve’s hand, taking her own, smaller, shot of Tequila. “As long as you had your dress on, there should be more. Let's find out.” Since Eve still had the dress, chances are she didn’t wake up naked. And the memory rolls on.
Adam carries Eve on his shoulder up the off ramp to Cambridge from the highway, one arm holding her fast while the other is occupied by unholstering and gripping his pistol. As he walks, there is a sound of aircraft roaring overhead, the distant shout, scream, and scramble of weapons fire and sirens. Adam seems largely unphased by it, as though it were the chirp of crickets.
Eventually he's back in Cambridge proper, weaving through abandoned cars and into the direction that people on foot are running from. The light and shadows at play here indicate evening rather than afternoon, meaning Eve’s body must have laid at that overpass for hours before Adam first found her.
Dozens of voices begin to fade in, and Adam holsters his sidearm as he walks past EMTs and parked ambulances, slips past uniformed police officers distracted with wounded civilians and rioters in zip ties, and moves his way under an emergency triage tent. There, Adam lays Eve down on an unoccupied cot. “You have no idea how lucky you are…” he says as he brushes a lock of hair from her face, then walks out of view.
The images stay, enough people in the tent witnessed Eve and were in proximity of her for it to continue receiving psychic impressions.
When Adam returns, just a few minutes later, he has an empty IV bag and a transfusion kit. Quietly, Adam rolls up one sleeve and sets down on a stack of plastic crates beside the cot. He plugs one end of the transfusion kit into his arm, the other into the IV bag, and with a few flexes begins filling the bag up.
“Your mother…” Adam says quietly, watching the blood dribble into the bag, “was a fiery woman. Full of passion and energy, full of belief. She and your father… I owed them, for the good work they did in their youth. Before they had everything taken away from them.” Adam’s brows furrow, one hand flexes open and closed. “You'd be surprised to know that I actually can keep a promise.”
Done musing to a corpse, Adam waits in silence as the bag is filled up. The chaos of the triage tent and the scene around them masks he and Eve’s presence from the too-stressed paramedics. A few times Adam has to wave them off, saying that he's handling things. They have neither the time nor the patience to question it.
Once the bag is filled, Adam unhooks one end from his arm and slides the needle into one of Eve’s, then hangs the bag of his blood up on an IV stand. “Can't let you die on me yet, Eve. You've got a story to tell…” he admits with a wry smile. “Rest well, little herald.”
Adam leans off of the crates he's seated on, and walks away, disappearing into the crowd and the chaos.
"There are so many forking paths and all of it so fuzzy, who's to say at this point." Is Eve's answer to Cassandra's question. Elaborating, "He was a locked up, my friends and I… we released him and a horde of others.. terrifying gifts. Awe inspiring gifts. Why should they be locked away, hiding what they are…." That night still vivid in her mind. "Sylar wanted his gift, immortality. We stopped it. Adam hung around the city and then faded into the shadows, much like I assume he has always done."
The gentleness from Adam has the pale woman placing a hand on her knee to steady herself, they were cordial before the last six years.. not exactly friends not quite enemies but what he displays now.. Eve never really knew that. It makes her heart constrict and the pale woman rubs her forehead, this didn't make sense.. this didn't make..
As the man carries her for miles Eve rocks side to side and when he utters about her parents she freezes and the vein in her neck bulges as she grinds her teeth. Eyes growing wide and she snatches the bottle and drinks a significant amount of the liquor the smoky flavor washing over her taste buds and trickling down to warm her gut. The sensation of falling overtakes Eve and she lets out a whoosh of air, eyes on the man and then her body and the bag of blood. "My mother?" Eve's eyes go to the dress in Cassandra's hands. Her dress, once her mother's. "How.. did.." Eve's hand grips the edge of the table and she looks at Cassandra with genuine shock on her face. Everything taken from them? They didn't have the most glamorous life but.. had there been more? Shock and confusion lace through her emotions, what did this mean?
"Little Herald.." tears flow from the corners of Eve's eyes and she then looks to the joint on the table and grabs at it to hastily light it, puffing away at the thing in anxious energy building up. "How many… how far back can you go? She wore this dress, I.. I wear some of her things in homage. She had great style," a flash of her mother's face in her mind's eye. "Can you handle that Young Sister, can you help me peel back one more layer?" Because her past seemed to have many of them now.
The trek across the ruins of Cambridge happens at a slow pace - Adam’s road-eating stride and skill at avoiding trouble doing wonders to cover ground in fifteen minutes that would take an inexperienced person hours, if they could even find a route. Cassandra watches this impassively, almost snapping her right thumb and forefinger together to advance the memory, twisting the thread of the past, drawing it out. If Adam looks like he’s about to speak, she slows the pace but, when they reach the medical tent proper, that’s when the show really starts.
“What is he doing…?” Cassandra asks, more to herself than expecting an answer from Eve, the little herald leaning forward to watch the IV bag fill up with rich, red blood, almost to capacity. He’s obviously practiced at this from the ease he finds where a vein is and draws the blood with the least amount of pain, even being careful to get the IV in just the right spot for the blood to go into Eve’s circulatory system. And then he leaves.
Much to Cassandra’s surprise, the show keeps going. The image would normally fade at this point, when Adam leaves through the flap of the medical tent. A dead body is dead and can’t produce any sort of echo for Cassandra to pick up, except, in this case, it keeps going. The blood that is currently seeping into one of the major veins of Eve’s arm, somehow, is good enough to keep the show going.
“I mean…I think so. Potentially.” Cassandra lifts the dress from where it sits on the table, letting the thread she was looking for float away, but keeping it wrapped around a fingertip so she can continue with this track. She wants to see what happens when the Blood starts working on Eve since the final product is sitting right next to her on the couch. “I wish you could see what I see…it would make the complications to what you’re looking for a little clearer. Here…” Cassandra pushes her power a little further into the dress, ignoring the headache that’s starting to set its teeth into the back of her skull. After a few moments, thousands of threads start to coalesce around the dress, billowing in all directions in a riot of rainbow colors, each one piercing the dress to show the tie that particular thread of memory has to it. “This is what I’m looking at sorting through. The furthest I’ve really gone back is the 1940’s but really I should be able to go back as far as you need me to.” A beat. “Probably, if we can avoid the billion if’s in that question. If she was wearing this dress at the time. If I can even find what Adam was talking about. There’s not a fast way to do this, Eve.”
Looking down at the display of Cassandra's ability, Eve's brow furrows and she catches herself mid leap into a dangerous situation for her sister seer and she shakes her head, "No.. not now." Laying a hand gently on Cassandra's the older woman squeezes as fresh tears fall, "This is a gift my dear and you've given me a bit of peace I have been searching for."
But the lid to the box has been nudged open and Eve can feel herself falling backwards into the maul of her murky past. "I'd ask you keep this to yourself.. my family.." chewing on her lip, "Is sensitive. I'd like to chance to nose around without everyone else along." Eve's hand withdraws from Cassandra and her head lolls to the side, the effects of the tequila crushing her senses. "You've done.. a lot for me this night. There's an extra bed for you to sleep it off." Because Eve knows what it is to overextend herself and she doesn't want to inflict that on Cassandra.
The tendrils of smoke curl around her fingers and face as she smoke and ponders and cries. Rinse and repeat. Eventually she will make sense of all of this, but it won't be tonight.