fandomhigh | Detention, Depths of the Castle, Monday

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detention

Detention, Depths of the Castle, Monday

Morning had broken in Fandom, and another day in detention was about to begin, the same as every other day.

For the moment, things were as quiet as they probably ever got, while everyone was still resting on their cots, women on one side of the magical black cloth barrier, men on the other. Soon, those who had managed to sleep would be woken by the ever-cheerful voice of Dolores Umbridge coming from the loudspeakers, ordering them to rise. The barrier would disappear, and whatever bland, tasteless substance they were calling breakfast today would appear instead. After that, those in detention were free to do whatever they wanted ... if they could find anything to do that didn't break one of the island's rules, or that could be done while trapped away from everyone else.

But really, the days of those in detention weren't that slow. Soon enough, visiting hours would start, and there wouldn't be nearly as much boredom then.

[OCD is up, have at it!]

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Cassidy found herself a place that was a little bit away from the rest of the prisoners. She wasn't having a very good day and that meant she was going to be sitting over here, trying to remember everything about home and all of the lessons she had learned.

Going over the knowledge in her head sometimes helped with the fact that she had been cut off from the land.

Sometimes.

"Are you all right?" Liara asked, as her rounds inevitably drew her to the red-haired girl.

The human did not look all right.

Cassidy looked up and then shook her head. With the way all of them were treated in here, it would never occur to her that she could lie to a fellow prisoner.

"It hurts. Having the land gone."

"The land...?" Liara asked. "I'm sorry. I don't understand."

Cassidy tried to make her thoughts match her words.

"Where I come from, we need to be able to go outside and walk among the plants and the trees to feel at peace and complete." Her voice was quiet. "Being cut off from it for so long hurts. I have good days and bad days."

This was a bad day.

"Oh."

Liara still didn't understand, but she had been born into an intergalactic community - she knew aliens had their own idiosyncrasies that sometimes simply weren't immediately comprehensible to asari. "I'm sorry," she offered awkwardly. "If I had known, I'd... brought some ground when I came in?"

Yes, when she was being hauled in for flinging people around with her mind, she should have totally found time to snag some mud off the floor.

"They would have hurt you more if you had tried to," Cassidy said gently. "But I appreciate the thought. I wouldn't have wanted you to get hurt because of me."

"Is there... anything else I can do?" she asked. "Something soothing?"

"Talking is helping. It keeps me a little more focused. But my mind wanders."

"I'm... not terribly good at talking," Liara admitted. "But I'll try. What does your mind wander to?"

"My world... the things I remember before I was here." She frowned. "What happened to cause me to be in detention."

She smiled faintly. "Books. I think about books a lot."

"You like books?" Liara asked, a hint of excitement in her voice. "I've always enjoyed them."

Cassidy nodded excitedly. "Oh yes. I love reading anything I could."

"Did you ever read anything about archaeology?" Liara asked. "Those were always my favorites. Back home."

"I'm not sure what that is, I'm afraid? Can you tell me about it?"

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Cassidy looked a little like how Rinoa felt: hollow and carved out, like something was missing. Was she a Sorceress, too? Maybe everyone missed something. Like home and air and their friends and being alive.

So Rinoa found a spot near Cassidy and offered a hand for the other girl to hold on to. If she wanted. She couldn't do much, but sometimes comfort helped.

Cassidy reached out to take Rinoa's hand and then squeezed gently so that Rinoa would know how appreciative the gesture was.

Hollow and carved out would be a good description of how she was feeling.

"I miss it," Rinoa said, very softly. "It hurts. For you, too?"

It didn't have to be the same thing. But here they were cut off from so much of themselves. Whatever the other girl couldn't reach ... the specifics didn't matter. She was in agony from trying.

Or maybe Rinoa was going mad at last, seeing her own troubles in every face reflected back at her. Maybe going mad would be nice. Especially if it didn't hurt.

Cassidy nodded immediately.

"It's a physical pain and it gets worse because I can't reach that part of myself."

"Mine's in my head," she said. "I think. I've never ... been away from it before, but that's where it feels like it is. There's something in my head blocking it."

It felt good to talk about this, with someone who understood, even if they weren't necessarily talking about the same thing.

"Where does yours hurt?"

"My head," she whispered, feeling relief that someone understood her pain -- even if she wished she could take that pain away from others. "My heart. Until I was put in here, I never worried about having to reach it. It was just always there and always part of my soul."

"So now it's like an arm's missing," Rinoa said, squeezing Cassidy's hand, hard. "Except the arm's still alive and out there and it hurts and it misses you. It wants to come back and it itches."

She flushed. "Mine ... mine was new, but ... I can't remember what I was without it. It's who I am now."

Cassidy nodded quickly, squeezing back just as hard. "Oh yes. Yes, exactly like that." There were tears of relief in her eyes from the simple fact that someone else understood. "It's wrong that you have been forced to feel without it. It was given to you because it belonged with you."

[[OOC: Heading home and will ping when I get there. :D]]

"Yes," Rinoa said, firmly. "Yes. It's mine. It's my own. It's part of me. I am a Sorceress. I can't be anything else."

Even here, in this detention center, down in a pit of sadness and despair, she was a Sorceress. Even without her magic, she was a Sorceress.

Maybe she had always been a Sorceress, even before she had her powers.

"You are and even if they block you from your source, you are still a Sorceress and they can't take that from you. They can take so much, but they can't take that."

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