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[ladyfrownsalot]

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[epistemological]

That’s not what he hears, though.

“…what I’m hearing is that you can barely be trusted with the furniture. I hope you realize that.”

[ladyfrownsalot]

Cassandra rolls her eyes.

"I don't know what you want me to say. I'd just been pulled out of a fight to the death against the person who used to be my best friend, and then I was suddenly in this crazy prison barge in space, and I cannot tell you I was thinking rationally."

[epistemological]

Jon spreads his hands.

“Things I didn’t know until now. Though my point remains: you’re focused on how well you can kill. Whereas I’m trying to figure out if you need to have this thing to make anything we’re doing make any real sense in your real life.”

[ladyfrownsalot]

"I'm focused on - what?  Nnno.  I hadn't killed anybody before, and given how she could talk to me about it afterward I'd say I have a good argument that my record is still zero," Cassandra snaps. "I called it a fight to the death because me being here means that it was a fight to my death. You are really jumping to conclusions here, pal."

[epistemological]

Jon listens, though he thinks some wires have clearly been crossed. He’s not the best at unraveling them; of his many skills (does he have many skills? Sometimes he thinks he’s kind of useless mostly) that is not one of them.

“I haven’t jumped to anything. I’m trying to say that you misunderstood why I was asking something, which to be fair… is my fault.”

He folds his hands.

“I don’t think that your actions when you came here are your baseline. Hell, mine wasn’t either and I came as a warden, as prepared as any of them are. And while we can debate if death is death, which I happen to think it is, but doesn’t actually have anything to do with our discussion at the moment, I’m not worried about how well you can defend yourself, at least not yet. Clearly you can, and if that was the concern, I’d just get you a weapon.”

He sighs.

“Being able to kill someone on a whim is part of you. It shapes who you are and how you think. If that’s something you usually have, it’s something we have to consider. If it’s not, less so. Just as being invulnerable would shape how someone thinks as well.”

[ladyfrownsalot]

"...Look. I'm not planning to start any fights, but I'm not going to turn around and run from them either. I've been trained for it. Just because I can kill someone doesn't mean it's a hobby. Having a weapon to defend myself would be useful but it's not necessary, and the Moonstone isn't either. Are we done with this conversation?"

[epistemological]

“I don’t believe I tied you to the chair so the conversation is done when you say it’s done.”

He sighs and rubs at his temple. Then he lets out a huff.

“I’m not- lovely, I don’t put things well, but I sincerely want to help you. I don’t think you want to be dead. I don’t think you want to be trapped. If I’m wrong, please, tell me.”

[ladyfrownsalot]

"No. You're not wrong. And trust me, I don't want 'lovely'."

She sips her tea.

"But every time I ask you to even have an opinion on how I'm going to get out of here, you just turn it around on me and say that I'm the one who's going to do all the work and I'm the expert on me. Which, okay, I don't disagree. I just don't get how you're going to help if you're not going to do anything."

[epistemological]

“…because I don’t know anything about you. And this-“ he points at the folder, “will tell me facts. But it won’t tell me that either.”

He spreads one hand. “A piece of paper can tell you the town I’m from and that I was raised by my grandmother. I’m sure it’s evoked a certain image even now. But that image becomes something else when I tell you that I ran away constantly, that I wanted nothing more than to get away from her because I knew she didn’t want me there. That I was a burden to her, not someone to love. And children feel those things keenly.”

He folds his hands.

“I never said you’ll do all the work. I said you’re a part of figuring out what we’re doing. And that I won’t force you to do it. I barely know you. Any goal or idea I’d put forth would be patronizing at best and useless at worst. If you want my theories, I’ll give them but I wanted to give you a chance to come forward with something first.”

[ladyfrownsalot]

She shrugs expressively.

"Well, all I've gathered so far is how I'm trapped here until I turn back into the loyal doormat everybody wanted me to be, so. Theory me."

[epistemological]

Like a bloodhound, he narrows in on that second phrase.

"That. Let's start with that. Why you think I or anyone else wants you to be a loyal doormat."

[ladyfrownsalot]

"Not you. The Admiral, I guess. And basically everybody back home. Because back when I was that, I wasn't a problem."

[epistemological]

"...I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't think that's what the Admiral wants. But I'm curious who you were a 'problem' to."

[ladyfrownsalot]

Cassandra scoffs into her teacup.

"Everybody you saw in my memory, for one thing. All her friends. Her whole kingdom."

[epistemological]

"You seemed to be allied with them at the time," he points out, since that's what he saw, "whatever her choices might have been."

[ladyfrownsalot]

Her eyes narrow.

"Yeah. I was. And then I had to relearn how to do everything with my left hand, because she couldn't just trust me. She was - she thought she was my best friend. But that's not how it is anymore."

[epistemological]

"And that is where you started being trouble. By not... blindly accepting her choice. That her choice had maimed you. If I have that right."

[ladyfrownsalot]

"That was when I knew I couldn't trust her. I started being trouble when I took the Moonstone."

Ugh, more explanation.

"...It was meant to be her job to take it, her destiny, because she had its opposite. The Sundrop. She'd been warned that letting them make contact might kill her but she didn't care."

[epistemological]

"I'm curious who decided this was her destiny or if it was some vaguely hinted at piece of information from a cave wall or a book or something."

Because there's being trouble for people in the present and then there's being trouble for magical whatever.

"Or why they'd decide that if it would kill her."

[ladyfrownsalot]

Cassandra lifts her eyebrows in his direction.

"She believed it and she marched right up to take the thing anyway. Does all that other stuff matter?"

[epistemological]

Jon's going to sort of... glance sideways before he looks back at Cassandra.

"...I hope you won't be upset if I'm starting to doubt your friend is very bright." A pause. "But yes, it rather does."

[ladyfrownsalot]

Cassandra barks out a harsh laugh.

"It's not that she's dumb. She's just...out there, not listening to good advice, taking any opportunity she can to sacrifice herself for the greater good."

[epistemological]

Ah.

Ah.

Well, things do seem to be making more and more sense now, don't they?

"She doesn't see the value in herself. Even though you keep trying to tell her or" he glances at her glove, "show her. Make her realize what she's doing."

[ladyfrownsalot]

"Yeah. But it's no surprise. She was kidnapped when she was a baby. Kept in a literal tower for eighteen years and used for the powers she was born with, and all the time her 'mom' was raising her to think that she was only worth anything if she was useful. And yeah, she escaped, but some things you just can't get away from."

[epistemological]

"No," he agrees, "but there comes a point where you're hurting other people with it, such as that scene I saw during the flood. And at that point, it's no longer an excuse. What she did to you was wrong. What she did was stupid. Her past explains that, but it doesn't give her carte blanche to swing her own trauma around like a club and inflict it on others."

He sips his cooling tea.

"And I say that as someone who had to learn that lesson myself."