#49: The Heirs of Whitestone
Originally posted here on March 5, 2022.
"It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
Hello. I am (in short) Percival de Rolo, although my headmates call me P2 due to the system already using Percy as our "singlet name." I'm a fictive, my source a mixture of my selves from The Legend of Vox Machina, and, less so, the Critical Role campaign one. Goratrix has been trying to get me to post here for some time, and I have finally acquiesced. I'll bring something a little more
thoughtful, in the future, but for now, have a response to a creative prompt that gets out quite a few of the emotions I haven't managed to work through yet. If you don't know much about my source--I apologize. I explain very little. If I become a frequent poster, I may in the future. I think it's largely comprehensible without, though, but your mileage may vary.
This covers a range of very heavy topics, including murder, torture, sexual assault, explicit and bloody descriptions of wounding and killing, and suicidal thoughts and ideation. It's also first person and very... emotion- and feeling-based. It's a touch
weird, in short.
"I have a sister."
It's like stepping out of the fire and into the lake, cool, breathable, no ash in the air and the only smoke is disappearing in the wind, cold like Whitestone often is. I have a sister, ringing in my head, a mantra, a prayer, to no god, to any god, to Cassandra, myself, the world and my own private heart, hopeful and fleeting and desperate, because now I have something to lose, something I didn't know I had, something I can't afford to lose, Cassandra, Cassandra, Cassandra--
It's like bees under my skin, a buzz of bones and heat in my throat, energy that isn't just rage. The Briarwoods will die, my truth, my life, is now secondary, secondary to Cassandra, to finding her, and when I do it's with a flash of a blade, blood, Anders' laughter--Keyleth moves, and it's no no no no no, Cassandra, please, I can't lose you, please--then it's rage, white-hot, heat in my heart and The List in my hand, bullet after bullet flying to kill the man who has murdered my sister, to blow out his brains and make him suffer, suffer, suffer. (There isn't enough suffering in the world, is there, Percival?) My blood sings with it, for it, vengeance, and we trusted him and he betrayed us, and now he's killed her, killed my only sister left, and when I first felt murder it was his face I saw and now mine will be the last one he ever sees.
His body through the window, skull in a million pieces. He hits the ground two floors down with a crack, never satisfying enough, but the sunburst of blood from his neck is, a grisly crimson promise of what I will do to the Briarwoods, to anyone--
"Percy?"
Away, the heat, away, the smoke and fire, the brimstone in my nose and the ash in my lungs. Fuck the mask, the gun, it's dropping everything because she's alive, and to hell with the gods, it's Keyleth that did it, thank Keyleth, our light, the only god we need because I skid in beside Cassandra, covered in blood but whole, hand to her neck that I pull away to check and no, it's fine, she's fine--no.
No, she's not.
Her eyes are still blue, of course they are, but they're dull, now, with only the faintest light behind them. They're cold like snow but have lost their edge, their reflection (she's sixteen, sixteen, too young to feel this way to be this hurt but weren't you fifteen when they came, Percival, aren't you twenty, too young to be ready to kill and die and lose your soul and and and) and I wish, I wish, I wish I could do something, anything.
"I thought you were dead," I say, like it isn't the most obvious thing in the world.
"I thought you'd come back to check." What embers burn in me extinguish, she's right, she's right, I should have gone back, even though arrows through the back and their heads ripping out through her chest should have been fatal, completely fatal, but I should have checked--
I swallow and look down, at the pool of blood (her blood) we're sitting in, and I say, quiet, like it's a betrayal all on its own, "I'm sorry. I'm here now."
"Not soon enough." Not accusatory, not a shot, but it still hurts, this statement of fact, flat and dull like she never was, so full of life and laughter and troublesome little vermin she'd find crawling around and would know the best sibling to slip it into the shoes of (she was eleven, wasn't she, eleven when they came, so young and sweet and corruptible) and it's been too many years.
"It's been a long time, hasn't it?" I ask, just as dull as her, like it's an admission of guilt.
"Long enough for them to nearly break me."
"I'm broken, too, Cass. They did it to us both."
"They didn't hurt you like they hurt me." It's something in her eyes, a fire I know I get in mine, a flash of rage in her chest like sparks from hammered red-hot metal. "You ran."
"I escaped. I had to. I had to get away so that I could ever possibly return and stop them."
"I know." She exhales, a refusal to lash out, even though I see no way she can't blame me for it.
Vax drops my things next to me, cautious, like I might bite him, and I reach for my gun without thinking, a comfort, something to help me think.
Click, click, click.
"What is that?"
I glance down at it, its names, flashing in the light. "The instrument of our revenge. Did you see--"
"--what it did to Anders." Click, click, click. "Is that what you've been doing all this time? Making that? Scheming?"
"Yes." (No.) "For the most part." (Drinking, too, and lying in ditches, getting imprisoned, wanting to die. The rest doesn't matter.)
"I've been scheming, too. I've been feeding information to the resistance."
I look at her, at her dull eyes, and see something, a spark, something sharp behind the mask, and warmth (how is it different from heat? In every way that matters) blossoms in my chest, just a little, just a hint of something good. "I heard. That must have been dangerous."
"Very."
"I'm..." (proud of you?) The words stick in my throat. I don't deserve to say that, like I have any authority over her, like being her older brother means a single thing since I abandoned her. "I'm glad you've made it."
"I'm glad you have, too." (Isn't that what the rest of Vox Machina says? Do they mean it? Does she?)
"Thanks." What else is there to say? "You're safe, now."
"I'm not safe for as long as they're alive," she snarls, spitfire and heat, and yes, we're related, this is my sister, no one can fake the de Rolo rage. "What they did to me..."
Cold core in the flames, re-building. "Cass?"
For a moment, just one, her eyes are sharp and jagged, like she'd tear her soul to shreds (like you?) just to see them bleed, bleed like she has, like we all have. "Don't restrain your imagination. It happened." She shifts, fists tighten. "You saw the torture in the basement. You didn't see the torture in their bedroom."
Eyes green-turned-orange, smoke-off-skin and fire-like-death in my throat, a growl no human can make but I do, I do, I do, and Vox Machina, pretending to mind their own business, looking around the adjacent rooms, withdraw further, fearful glances and furtive whispers and distrust and worry. I feel like my fingernails could be claws, my teeth fangs, my back could split open in wings of feathers and darkness and spines and I could tear and tear and tear (KILL, KILL, KILL! THEY DESERVE IT! ) and never ever feel like it's enough, nothing is enough to get them back for what they have done to us, to all of us, to Cassandra especially. (THEIR SOULS ARE FORFEIT!)
Enough, enough, breathe, Percival, I take shaky ashen breaths as Cassandra scoots back, slick in her own blood and eyes wide, mouth slightly agape as she sees, for the first but not the last time, the monster that they made me (are making you, Percival, you're not getting any better) and the creature that I have promised myself to be.
Click, click, click.
They will die, but first, they will suffer, and I don't care what becomes of me as long as they are gone. (Good, never do, never worry, just let the rage consume you, just let vengeance be your guide, your heart, your purpose.) The remaining names pass by on the List--Delilah Briarwood, Sylas Briarwood, Anna Ripley--and I agree, agree to a silent bargain I'm already bound by, one with myself (or so you think) to never rest until they're gone, and they will be gone, tonight. It's a race to their plans, whatever they are, and it's one that I intend to win. This catharsis they will not take from me, nor Cassandra, because no matter where they run, I will be there, reminded always of who turned me into this, twisted and beat us both until we hound them 'til their demise comes calling.
Click, click, click.