Sparkle Up Your Life {Guin}

[Cassie Eloise Enigma]

    Cassie lifted her chin as she marched down the aisle. She’d been nervous about her situation for days. Today, she’d woken up and decided she didn’t care anymore. She knew she could figure it out, no matter what Queen Guinivere decided her fate should be. She’d hashed out all Her Majesty’s options already, finding that each of them were situations in which Cassie could handle herself perfectly. Being sent to the Undersea would be the best possible choice for the High Queen and for Cassie. She had a home there still, and it would allow her to be close to Gemini and Ophelia. Being exiled to the mortal world would not be horrible, though it would be a difficult shift. Ambrose was in the mortal world though, and if she could find him, she was sure she’d find help with him.

    All these thoughts left her mind though. This morning she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t worry about it anymore. She believed in herself. As she approached the Belladonna Throne, her gaze turned determined, though she kept a pleasant smile on her face. “My Queen,” Cassie murmured, curtsying before her. A noblewoman had asked her before what she thought of the new Queen, expecting Cassie to join in her and her friends' gossip about what a terrible job Guinivere Marcel would do. ‘I harbor no ill will towards her. She’s a girl just like I am, and the mere fact that she is able to sit upon that throne means she is quite capable of being Queen.’ They didn’t talk to her after that. Of course, the Belladonna Queen was not perfect, but neither was Cassie. Nobody was. She wanted to give her a chance to do a good job before any judgment was passed, and before today, she hadn’t even met the girl.

    But all her questions would be answered today. She rose, meeting the Belladonna Queen’s eye. At first glance, she was not intimidating, but there was a distinct feeling of power that surrounded her. Her heart rate quickened as her mind raced to find the right words to say. Ten years of being in the High Court had taught her much about the power words had. Even the amount of breath one put behind them could change how the entire message was perceived. Cassie took a deep breath and softened her smile. “You summoned me here to discuss my position in Court. I will not hesitate to speak my mind to you, but if you have already decided my fate, I am ready to accept it.”

TAGS: Guinivere Marcel
OUTFIT

★fai

I'm not gonna listen to what the past says
I've been waitin' up all night.

[Guinivere Marcel]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]



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Cassie Eloise Enigma

779 Words

Music

n/a

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Never be so kind, you forget to be clever [break]































































never be so clever, you forget to be kind

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Guinevere tightened the grip on her throne. The prick of thorns no longer bothered her. Others had suffered crowns of thorns. She had a throne. [break][break]


If this was the cathedral that it emulated, a crucifix would be behind her, reminding her that she was not the first who had suffered. But this was a lawless land, a godless land, a faithless land, and she would not be the last, either.


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Suffering started to feel like her native tongue, like silence had been when she was a girl. She wanted to pull herself up and declare that she was no longer a girl. She wanted to use harsh words and pretend they didn’t terrify her. She was lucky she could lie.


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Luck was so rarely on her side, but it was today. It was slated against her enemies. Mostly that just made Guinivere nervous, like something was sure to go wrong soon. Cassandra looked bold. Looked brave. But looks could lie, even if she couldn’t. The question was, was she a traitor, flaunting what she thought was her power? Or was she an innocent, confident in justice. Guinevere both expected and hoped for the first. Anyone who believed in justice here shouldn’t still be alive.


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She wanted to be a just queen, a merciful queen, a loved queen, but she could not be all three. The penitent loved mercy and the supposed righteous loved suffering. No one would be happy all the time. She could burn the traitors or she could burn with them, but once fire was catching you had to direct it, or it would consume you.


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She studied her. The girl would not speak until Guinivere did. Or she wasn’t meant to. But she did. She saw her as a girl, but she was barely younger than Guinivere herself. It didn’t matter. In a hundred years this girl would look the same so long as she lived. Guinivere didn’t know how high queens aged, but she knew that mortal ones hadn’t survived– ever. Not one had even gotten here


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”You are a traitor.” Guinivere said, eyes like chips of ice, heart like a bucket of water, lungs like shredded glass. ”And yet you speak first before your betters. I thought your father trained you in manners, but it seems all he taught you was impudence. I have come today to teach justice.”


[break][break]
It was a lie, nearly every word of it. Guinevere was no better than any one of them. Maybe worse. Cassie’s father had taught her nothing of value– or so Gemini said. And justice was a myth just as much as these faeries were meant to be. But this was the great game now, and she would play every piece she had.


[break][break]
”Your brother begged mercy for his sister.” she said, tilting her head. ’But it wasn’t you. It was Ophelia, my ward.” She studied Cassie’s poise, her posture. Would she splinter under another betrayal, or was she accustomed to them? ”Do you suppose he thought you might fend for yourself, or was it his way of warning me? He had said precious little on the topic since. Only that even the best of us make mistakes.”


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Gemini was not here. She had released him at his request. In all honesty, she did not want him here. Slaughtering blood was never easy, even if you weren’t performing it yourself. Even if you were allowing it to occur. But of course, this wasn’t the first of his blood he’d lost. She wondered if he cared. She cared. She cared desperately. She could not care if she wanted to live.


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”But someone else made a plea for you.” Guinevere tilted her head. The girl’s expression did not change. ”And she said you didn’t know. This woman cannot lie. Neither can you. So I will believe it for now.”


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She watched her breathe. She watched the girl’s eyes widen. She saw no signs of expectation. She felt like she was back by the sea, pinning down another victim. Her vision tunneled. Her breath shortened. She should not have let that memory in.


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Breathe, she thought, but it still felt like she was inhaling knives, inhaling glass. This is a different ocean. You are not done yet.


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She summoned her wit, her courage, her lies, her poison. She fixed the girl in her stare. If this was the ocean, then they were both drowning. If this was a storm, lightning was about to strike.


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”However, this plea makes me think I truly might want you dead. Tell me, Cassandra Eloise, why the Queen of the Undersea wants you alive.”









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[Cassie Eloise Enigma]

    Cassie bowed her head in apology. This queen seemed so cold on the outside. She had to have some sort of feeling, or the people would never back her. “My Queen. I apologize for my impertinence. I did not mean anything by it.” Her voice was sweet, gentle, almost too saccharine to listen to. She knew she would have to be incredibly careful in the delivery of her words. One breath too out of place, one pause too long, and she would sound disrespectful. Her grace and charm needed to be turned all the way on, for the mortal queen could lie, but she could not. “My father taught me nothing expect for how not to be a father.” She needed mercy today. She needed the Queen to understand that she was not a threat. She was loyal. “You say I am a traitor, but only because of the blood in my veins. My brother is also my father’s child, and yet you declared him your heir.”

    Was it because his mother was a mortal? Her mother was a nobody from the Undersea, but that made it all the worse. And here was the queen, talking of justice. Nothing in Cassie’s life had been just. Nothing in anyone’s life was just. No one asked to be born. “I was loyal to my father because he was King. And now that you are Queen, I am loyal to you. It would be foolish of me not to be. The very lives of those in Faerie, including my own, rest in your hands. Why would I anger you?” she smiled gently, like an innocent girl asking innocent questions. But it felt like there was ice water running through her veins. She was standing on a tipping point.

    ‘Your brother begged mercy for his sister. But it wasn’t you.’ Cassie’s stomach dropped. The smile on her face disappeared into a mask of shock. She forced herself to recover quickly, forced herself to ignore the betrayal pinching her heart. The mask of shock turned into a face of surprise, like someone had given her a gift that she didn’t quite like. She had to pretend she’d known it was coming, but in reality she hadn’t. Betrayal was expected in Faerie. How had Cassie let her guard down? Maybe she’d expected to be betrayed by someone else, but not her own brother. She would never have done that to him. She remembered the day she’d received her summons from the High King. The High King had requested her presence, that was all the note had said.

    Cassie had been terrified. She had heard the rumors of the King’s promiscuity, no doubt made worse by the Undersea’s discontempt for the Land. Her only thought was that she was being brought to the palace to be nothing more than a concubine. Her mind told her it couldn’t be possible, she was only eight. Her heart knew that it didn’t matter. She’d been taken to the very throne room in which she stood now, to stand before another monarch, a man. He had the same eyes as her. He had given her the once over and nodded. ‘She’ll have to do.’ There were maidservants who took her to her rooms, dressed her for dinner. She sat at the long table, at the man’s right hand. Across from her had been a woman with eyes so cold they rivaled the Undersea Queen’s. Next to the woman had been two boys. They also had the same eyes as her. She figured it out on her own.

    For the next ten years, she lived in this man’s palace, studied under the tutors he payed for. But she had always spent the most time in the library. That was how she and Gemini had become so close. He was only six when she came, but he was by far smarter than she was. They valued each other’s company, and when Ambrose was taken to do his special heir duties, they would go to each other so that they didn’t feel so alone. Cassie had never questioned whether or not she should trust Gemini. Even when she’d found out that he’d been named heir, she had not spent a single second doubting whether he could be trusted. She’d gone to him, asking him to intercede for her. He told her he’d do what he could. She’d been so blind. It made the betrayal all the more painful.

    “My brother has always been smart. I trust that he knows what he’s doing.” It was hard to keep her voice steady, hard not to let it betray how she was really feeling. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin, there was someone else who was on her side. A woman. For a second her mind thought of the sea, a glimpse of a woman with long dark hair, watching her while she slept before turning and shutting the door behind her. Could it be? Could her mother have been watching over her all this time? There was no expectation on her features when the High Queen asked her next question. “The Queen of the Undersea?” Her eyes went wide. Cassie must have heard wrong. That was Jin-hwa’s mother, of course, but she was brutal. There was no reason for her to value Cassie’s life.

    “I must be honest Your Majesty, I do not know. Her eldest daughter is my best friend, but that is no reason for her to save my life.” Her mind raced, trying to think of good reasons why the Queen of the Undersea had asked for mercy for her. She could find none. Cassie’s life was on the line. She didn’t want to beg, but she knew it would be all that would save her this time. A rival queen wanting her alive was dangerous. “I come from the Land and the Sea. I have not been back to the land where I was born since I left it. It is only my father’s blood that ties me to this land. In the Undersea, he does not matter. Trust that I am loyal to you, but know that I also will not betray my other home.” It was something she’d always struggled with internally, for there were those at Court that whispered of treason committed by Cassie. As if being born to parents from different lands was treasonous. “I had no hand in my conception. I did not choose who my mother was, nor did I choose who my father was. I had no parents. I raised myself.” She met the Queen’s eyes somberly. “You would not punish a daughter for the sins of her father, would you?”

TAGS: Guinivere Marcel
OUTFIT

★fai

I'm not gonna listen to what the past says
I've been waitin' up all night.

[Guinivere Marcel]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]



[break]

Cassie Eloise Enigma

662 Words

Music

n/a

[break][break]

Never be so kind, you forget to be clever [break]































































never be so clever, you forget to be kind

[break][break]









































































Guinivere took her time, gauging Cassie's reaction, pausing, breathing in and out. This was a chess game, but she had the upper hand by virtue of her position. Virtue was, of course, and ironic word to use in this situation, but anything could be good if you spun it the right way. [break][break]


”I would not judge on blood,” she said, another lie. Blood shed or blood shared was exactly what she was judging on. So the blood of the covenant was thicker than the water of the womb. That much was true, but no deals had been made today. ”I judge on words. I find myself becoming so utterly fae that I cannot distinguish myself some days.” Was that an insult to herself or to her people? Words were the currency of the fae. ”You declared for your brother. Your own words betray you.” Of course, everyone seemed to be betraying her these days.[break][break]



That was the thing that made Guinivere so wary. She was not at all sure what this girl would do or even what she could do. People betraying you was a compliment, for it meant that they considered their allegiance to you dangerous. It meant you were relevant. But why Cassandra, out of all the children the late king had?[break][break]



”The undersea Queen declares for you. The late High King sired you. You have proven yourself valuable, but that is not safety.” Valuable things were treasures to be stolen, secrets to be uttered, persons to be ransomed, symbols to be destroyed. ”You have not proven yourself dangerous, nor foolish, just impulsive and important. I do not care for that combination in my court.” If Cassie’s action brought down hellfire, Guinivere would much prefer that her court was out of the range. She was no fool, even if she was greatly hesitant. The things she had learned followed her like scars, clung to her like bloodstains. Guinivere had learned nothing easily. Everything for her was a tribulation. She wished she could believe she didn’t deserve it.


[break][break]
She tilted her head. ”Do you know what gods make of their favorite servants, Cassandra?” She drew out her full name, because once, Cassandra had been the favorite of Apollo. Once, Orpheus had been honored by the muses. Once, the Apostles had sat at the Messiah’s feet. It ended the same way. ”They make them martyrs.” So many had died in service that they had their own title, a legion of saints condemned to suffer. It was not worth it. She had been a favorite before. She was, some might say, a favorite now. They may have promised glory. The gods never cleaned the blood of your hands.

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Gemini had asked for mercy. Guinivere had lied. Her gamble worked. She was stunned by how easily she was believed. She was a liar. She was a killer. She was ordered to do the dirty work and the glory was never bright enough to wash away her stains. Everyone in the room pretended not to notice. Cassie should not have trusted Guinivere.


[break][break]
You would not punish a daughter for the sins of her father, would you? Guinivere’s original crime was being her father’s daughter. Guinivere had been punished for his crime. He had died for them. Again, the myth of Cassandra was uncomfortably poignant. Cassandra was killed by Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra was killed by Orestes. Orestes was forgiven by Athena herself for he was only avenging his father, and the death of a father was worse than the death of a mother. If that was really true, than Guinivere could never be forgiven, for she killed her father to save her mother. It was selfishness. Guinivere had been forced to choose a parent, and she had chosen her mother, and that choice was final. She was dealing with the finality even today. ”I judge by words.” she said again, a lie heaped on lies. ”Choose yours wisely.” Guinivere never had, not until it was too late.









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[Cassie Eloise Enigma]

    Cassie stood quietly. Head bowed, eyes cast to the ground, she let herself be chastised. She let herself take in every word the High Queen said. Words. They did not carry the same weight as they usually did. There were lies in the air, poisoning the throne room around them. It was so foreign, so undoubtedly mortal. The fae could find ways to twist the truth, but a mortal like Her Majesty could blatantly ignore it. She spoke of betrayal, but here she was, sitting on a throne belonging to a land from which she was not born, not like Ambrose, not like her. Saying Queen Guinivere was a traitor was treason. She almost laughed out loud at the irony. A traitor queen on a stolen throne, chastising Cassie for her so-called treasons. What had the world come to?

    At least she thought Cassie was valuable. That counted for something. Value did not ensure safety, as the High Queen duly reminded her. It was a lesson she’d been forced to learn years ago, as a young girl being made into an Emissary. She’d seen people fake their own deaths to go on the run, she’d seen nobles assassinated for having views that did not meet the status quo, their deaths labeled as ‘suicide’. Everyone knew that’s never what claimed the lives of dissenters. She didn’t want to be seen as impulsive, though that’s what she was. She’d been quick to call Jin-hwa to her room, quick to tell her to calm down and be rebuffed for it. She floated through life, doing what she pleased, having little to no concern for the consequences. Her father had given her a life of luxury and privilege. Was she better for it or was she worse?

    She raised her head in dull surprise, eyes wide and round. She needed to look as innocent as she was. Martyrs. Was it Cassie’s imagination, or did the word carry too much weight? In the fog of a mortal’s lies, the truth could not stand out. Was she being threatened? It would be foolish to kill her off, especially with the Undersea Queen’s favor. It would enrage her, give her nothing but a reason to attack. That couldn’t be what Queen Guinivere was saying. She wouldn’t kill Cassie. It would be foolish. And Queen Guinivere did not strike her as foolish. She took a breath, hoping no one heard how shaky it was, or how her hands, now twisted in blush pink tufts of tulle, were trembling. “The Undersea Queen’s vouching for me is news to me.”

    She took another breath, ears ringing. Why did she fear the worst? Why did she fear that this would be the catalyst for a disastrous chain of events? Why did she fear that her wisely chosen words wouldn’t be wisely chosen enough? Her voice remained calm and steady, and she marveled at how that was even possible. It was all a farce. She couldn’t only tell truths. Cassie didn’t feel calm or steady, she felt like the land had been ripped right out from under her feet. “Trust that I did not ask for it, though that does not mean I am not grateful to Her Majesty for it.” There were eyes everywhere, eyes from everywhere. She had to be careful what she said, indeed.

    “I don’t know what to do with this information, Your Majesty.” Cassie met the Belladonna Queen’s eyes. She was nothing but a servant, that was all she ever had been. The power found in privilege and luxury could have hidden the fact that she was nothing but a pawn, but it was all going away now. She could see it clear as day. Her gilded cell was being filled with snakes. How long until she succumbed to their poison? “What would you have me do with it, my Queen?” She was looking up through her lashes, doe-eyed, innocent. It was what she was, deep down, even if the water in her veins was boiling. But wasn’t innocence relative? The worst dictators of all time thought they were justified. Her father had been one of them. What if she was just like him?

TAGS: Guinivere Marcel
OUTFIT

★fai

I'm not gonna listen to what the past says
I've been waitin' up all night.

[Guinivere Marcel]

[nospaces]

[attr="class","Lost"]



[break]

Cassie Eloise Enigma

542 Words

Music

n/a

[break][break]

Never be so kind, you forget to be clever [break]































































never be so clever, you forget to be kind

[break][break]








































































Cassie was painting herself to match Guinivere’s words, and Guinivere would be lying if she said that she wasn’t fascinated to watch it happen. Of course, she had been lying plenty today.


[break][break]



This girl was nearly as good a false supplicant as her brother. As Guinivere spoke of martyrs, so did Cassie become one. Guinivere had little doubt that had she chosen to speak of heroes, so Cassie would have followed. But that directability was valuable.




[break][break]
Again. Value was not safety. Cassandra might obey her, but Guinivere could not trust her. At the end of the day, she was playing at being a martyr, but Guinivere could see it in her eyes. She had no plans to become one. She was a girl who knew how to survive. In that they were not so different. Half the time, though, Guinivere would have been just as happy to have died. And Cassandra was determined to live.




[break][break]
Guinivere distinguished this through the knitting of her brows, through the way she spoke, the words she chose, the polished courtly manners underpinned by anger. There was much yet that Guinivere did not know about this girl. That brought her back to the central issue. She might have been able to command her, but that did not mean she was able to trust her.




[break][break]
“You ask me what I would have you do with my words. I would have you heed them. That much is simple. But I would also know your intentions.”




[break][break]
Coming out and asking was unsophisticated and showed at least some of her hand. But Guinivere had more than half the deck. She was alright with letting a few cards drop. Perhaps Cassie would tell her nothing. More probably, she would only tell Guinivere half of it, but that would be half she didn’t know before. It was worth the gamble. Or so Guinivere had decided. And why not? The house had the resources to keep playing.




[break][break]
“You wish to survive. Does this mean you turn on your own blood? Or were you never truly on his side?” Guinivere tilted her head, watching, waiting. The stained glass threw violet light on her hair, rippling across her dress. Her feet were set surely on the ground. She had grown entirely too comfortable on this throne. The flowers moved with her breath, now. “You pledged your vows to me. You called me queen. You were at my coronation. You cannot forsake that now. But had it been your brother, would you have pledged to him? Do you desire to see me on this throne, or only whatever suits you best?”



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Cassie's other brother, Gemini, preferred only what suited him best, Guinivere thought. Perhaps she underestimated his loyalty to her. She knew he would fight for her. She knew she could trust him. She could not shake the feeling that should another come who could offer him more, he would turn on her. She could not shake that feeling about anyone in her court. It would be good to have someone with true loyalty, she thought. It would be good to have someone who believed in her unconditionally. At least she liked to imagine that it would be. In all honesty, she had no way of knowing.















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