Blood of my Brother

Broken Dreams, Broken Oaths

Thanks once again to K0ekienut for beta reading for me!

And check out this insane art by @musdswo on Tumblr! https://musdswo.tumblr.com/post/651924064890421248/this-is-pretty-old-and-i-never-got-around-to

Trigger warnings: mentions of past abuse, fear, restraints, strangulation, magic-induced unconsciousness, hanging by wrists, flashbacks, fainting, mentions of blood, trauma-induced fear, asphyxiation, dislocated joints, slightly-injured animals

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The room was silent for all of three and a half seconds before exploding into chaos.

"WHAT!" Varian yelped.

"She's kidding, right?" Eugene asked.

"You can't!" the Sundrop exclaimed.

It was the last one that got Cassandra's attention. "Okay, first of all, I can do what I like. Unless that's an order, of course?" Her tone and glare challenged the Sundrop to say the words out loud.

She backed up a step. "Wh—no, I just meant this is what you wanted, isn't it? To be a guard! And you're going to give that up because of what happened to Varian?"

"Sounds reasonable," Hector stated from his place near the child. "Who'd want to stay after hearing that?"

Cassandra nodded. "I can't be part of that. I can't be part of an organization that's okay with doing things like this!"

"But you'd never do something like that," the blonde argued. "You're not like them!"

"Really?!" Cassandra motioned to Varian. "Look at his face! You can still see his bruise! I did that! I hit him, I tied him up, I threatened him, I tried to kick him!" She pulled at her hair. "How can you tell me I wouldn't do exactly what they did, especially if it was an order from the king? When my own worst self is a Coronan guard who would willingly lock him back up, knowing what happened to him? Knowing he's going to get hurt again?"

"Cassandra." Varian took a step forward, emboldened by both her shaken state and Hector at his back. "If this is what you want, then okay. But Corona will need good guards, guards who won't do things like what the others did to me. And yeah, you hurt me, but you wouldn't do it again, right? You know now. You can learn from this and become the kind of guard Corona needs you to be. Your worst self... it's not who you have to be. It's who you could be if you chose to. Who I saw was who I was, but Uncle Hector and Aunt Adira saw what they could have been. It's the choices we make." He offered a sad smile. "We all want to be better people. I want to do better and move on with my life. You don't want to do the things you did. I'm... pretty sure the Sundrop wants to do better."

"Of course I do," the Sundrop insisted.

Cassandra shook her head. "Good point. But... I don't know yet. I don't think I can stay at this point. I'll... figure it out later. For now, I do plan on quitting."

"What will you do after that?" He tilted his head.

"I don't know yet. I'm not going to be just a lady-in-waiting. Worst comes to worst, I go to Ingvarr."

"You'd do that?" her princess asked, tears starting to cloud her eyes.

"I might. I think they'd still have me. I just don't know yet, okay? I need time to think!" She spun and stormed off down a hall.

"Wait, we shouldn't split up!" Lance called. Cassandra ignored him.

"we have to go after her," the Sundrop insisted. "Lance is right. We can't split up, not in this place."