Cas' Memories

Something one of you said affected her.

She scratches nervously at the dirt, the piercing blue of that eye lingering on her still haunting her memories. Something tells her that it wasn’t Vela.

But what had she even said…? Vela was the one who had gotten Rima to open up in the first place. The one who had saved her, because if she hadn’t tried to take her alive, then Cas would likely have killed her without a second thought.

I think people can do better, she’d muttered, knowing she didn’t sound quite like herself. Like a bit of Vela and Kadoren had sunk itself into her. But after everything she’d done, and how much she’d changed…

What else could she say to a kirin so angry at the world and what had been done to her, so empty of hope, who believed so strongly that she had no other choice?

She’d said too something about making her own choices. And a sort of promise, a pact between them for a revenge they surely both wanted. She was pretty pissed at Roridan, at all of the Grey’s forces, just for having a paw in Cephi’s death. But for Rima, it was far more personal.

But Vela’s own conviction had been strong enough to cut through Cas, her wry laughter. It isn’t. It isn’t meaningless. So what could she have said by accident, barely knowing why she had even followed Vela on this crazy half-baked plan…

Her eyes dart nervously between the stars, feeling something wrong, then fall back into the cave upon a fading illusion.

Outside, the night is less cold than it has been, but she still shivers with her friends left behind in the warm firelight. The island is so small that it can barely fit the rocky outcrop, but there’s no sign of anyone. She almost turns back.

“You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

The voice comes from behind, and she turns, quietly padding towards it. By the time she rounds the cave, the air where she stood is still, a glowing door in the void fading to golden embers.

For a moment she watches the empty, inky sky, and finally her tension relaxes. They did it. They broke away from the uncertain darkness of the ashen path they’re set on. They changed something. And maybe, for Roridan at least, they’d just made this mess even bigger.

Good luck.

Vela startles awake under her touch, her eyes instantly flicking to the empty pile of ropes and then to her. Her words confirm it. “She’s gone.”

They sit together a moment, staring out into the empty night sky, talking over it. It didn’t feel right to kill her, but was this the right thing to do? And when everything about this reality felt wrong, like their very existence wasn’t quite right, how much bigger of a mess could they make?

“But we do exist this way, and I’m glad for it. I wouldn’t want to do this on my own.” Vela shoots her a glance she stares at the stars and pretends not to see. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

“I don’t either,” she answers. “Not anymore.” She doesn’t think she can be alone now. They have to make it through this together.

This time when the impulse hits her, it doesn’t feel weird or like there’s some barrier between them she can’t allow herself to cross. She just lets herself lean into Vela, and the kirin rests her head on her neck.

And for those few quiet moments, it feels natural. Like something they’d done a thousand times before and will a thousand times again.

“We’re not just random adventurers.” Her voice, strong and clear, runs through to her core. She can feel every drop of emotion swirling through her soul. “We’re really not.”

“At least it doesn’t feel like a mistake anymore,” she murmurs in response.

It’s something she hasn’t admitted to yet. A light burning out too young, a reckless runaway in the wrong place at the wrong time. A quest she’d hated, a life she’d been so determined to cut short. Her, no one special. Her, who never wanted it. All of it one big mistake.

And yet, with Vela holding her like this, those feelings seem so far away now.

“No,” Vela says softly, then stronger, lifting her head. “No. It’s a choice.”

A choice. Not one either of them had gotten to make in the first place, but they were making it now.

Behind them, Kadoren stirs. She was already pulling reluctantly out of Vela’s embrace, but at his tired mumble she quickly yanks herself the rest of the way and collapses onto the floor with her pounding heart.

Luckily neither of them notice her expression as Vela explains where Rima disappeared to and wonders aloud what she might do now. A question no one can answer.

“What I do know,” she says, her voice rising tall with the rest of her as she strides past them to the entrance, “is that she’s wrong. We’re not just random adventurers – we’re guardians – we are – ”

She turns swiftly back to them, eyes as blazing and bright as the blinding stars silhouetting her proud form. Defiance. Conviction. Hope. So much emanating off her that suddenly Cas finds herself overwhelmed with it, frozen as she hangs onto every word.

“We are the Grey Guard.”

All the stuff she’d said before, about needing a name, about giving people something to hold onto, it hadn’t mattered much to her. She was just trying to find an end to this. If she faded into obscurity, if she gave someone hope, it didn’t much matter either way.

But in that moment, she believes in it. If only because of the strength of Vela’s heart, the steadiness of her words, the light within shining so brightly that it steals her breath away. She can believe in it. She can believe in her.