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Fresh out of Greenwood, Cassie had no time for nightmares. Running from town to town was enough of a distraction, she didn’t get much sleep anyway, Zigs was too much of a diva to agree to keep watch. The first full night of sleep she had was in a temporary bed in the cold underground shelter that the Resistance saw as home.
It felt weird, being around new people in a new environment. Freedom paid by her second-handed murder. It was new and exciting, her past only being an afterthought tucked in a secluded part of her mind.
Although, when you bottle emotions up for long enough, they’ll take a toll on you.
Cassie didn’t speak to anyone about her father. She didn’t lie about her past, but neither did she tell the whole truth. It made her feel another layer of guilt, as everyone else in their ragtag group had laid their demons out, and as far as they all knew, Cassie was just a lost girl looking for purpose. She couldn’t find an easy way to say “I had my own father murdered” without seeming like a terrible person.
All these fears presented themselves as nightmares. Hearing the screams of her father was very common, as was seeing the eyeless face of the seer who sealed his fate. Some were vivid, some were abstract, and all made her feel nauseous. She Lin slept heavy across the room, but Cassie still learned how to cry as quietly as possible.
Zigs became a lot more protective of her during this time, not hesitating to peck or squawk at anyone who put Cassie even slightly out of balance. He had pushed her to go out more and talk to new people, the constant war-talk was suffocating even if she had made good friends with the Resistance. Every conversation lead back to the same depressing topic, and even though Zigs was a pleasant escape, there’s only so much companionship a bird can give. (Cassie would never tell him this, of course.)
In the back of a cramped bar, a cocky bounty hunter offered her a drink, and Cassie found freedom once again. Two months later and she was too used to the feeling of how much more comfortable a real bed was to the ones in the Resistance base.
Kinessa was all over the place, in most senses of the phrase. She’d travelled and talked to the most amazing and the most disturbing people. Self-proclaiming herself as being a good judge of character, whilst letting no one into her mind, she never stayed long enough for that. Cassie silently wished that she would one day be let into just a fraction of the lone hunter’s psyche.
Cassie needed someone indifferent, Kinessa needed someone to care. It was only a matter of time until their stars aligned.
They met as they always had, under the cover of night. Something about that reminded Cassie of the stories she’d read as a child about teenagers sneaking around, but she wished that it didn’t have to be this way, she didn’t want to pull Kinessa back into a world of war.
Tonight they sat on the outskirts of a small town, on a hill angled towards the shattered moon. Cassie had let Zigs go off on his own for a while, knowing he’d be back just before they went home. They sat facing each other, the silence of the night broken by the two women laughing at each other’s jokes.
They returned to a comfortable quiet after a while. Kinessa stared up at the moon, her expression unreadable. Cassie’s heart thumped painfully, her finger tracing circles in the grass underneath her as she tried to keep her emotions in check.
“I don’t know what it is about you, but I trust you more than I’ve trusted anyone in a long time,” Cassie spoke, softly and sincerely. They weren’t lovers, not yet. Cassie couldn’t label them at the moment, not feeling comfortable to be fully committed when she still hid behind lies.
“Aw, you really know how to compliment a girl,” Kinessa gave a lopsided smile as she spoke, Cassie tried to suppress the fluttering feeling in her chest to no avail. The way Kinessa brought light into any situation effortlessly reminded Cassie of what she was searching for in the first place.
Cassie playfully shoved her, “but you’re also pretty dumb sometimes.”
“You love me,” Kinessa said in a sing-song tone.
Without thinking, Cassie replied, “yeah, I do.” And she did, she really did. But Kinessa didn’t deserve her when she barely knew her. Cassie’s breath caught in her throat and she clenched her fists at her side, the woman sat cross-legged in front of her changed her expression from a soft smile to a worried gaze.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, careful and concerned. Cassie wondered for a moment how many people had seen this side of the ever-professional bounty hunter.
She allowed Kinessa to unfurl her fist and take her hand in hers. The mix of her overwhelming affection for Kinessa and the debilitating pressure of all the things she wanted to say made her tear up slightly, which seemed to worry the other woman even further. Cassie was never one to swear, but at this moment, her mind said ‘fuck it’.
“I’ve never told anyone what brought me here,” her voice faltered slightly, Kinessa squeezing her hand gave her a small burst of strength to continue, “and I’ve done… some things that I kinda regret. Things that I’m afraid people will hate me for if I told them.” Cassie couldn’t look Kinessa in the eye, but she could feel Kinessa’s gaze burning into her skin. Though it didn’t hurt, it felt safe.
She finally looked back up at her when she began to speak, “look, I’ve got more than a few skeletons in my closet. I promise you that whatever you’ve done,” Kinessa put her other hand on Cassie’s, “I’m here for you.”
And so Cassie told her story, from her frustration in Greenwood to the first meeting with the Oracle, and eventually to the moment she decided that she wanted to trade her father’s life for her freedom. Kinessa listened, every step of the way, letting her pause when she needed to and holding her hand all the while.
“Do you regret it?” Kinessa asked after a period of silence. Cassie took a moment to ponder the question, it was something she had asked herself multiple times but never reached an answer.
Cassie curled a loose strand of hair around her finger, a nervous tick. “I… don’t know. Sometimes I do, I wish there was another way to settle my anger, I still cry and have nightmares about it. But I also know that if I didn’t do it, then I wouldn’t have ever seen the world, I wouldn’t have met all these different people. I wouldn’t have met you.” She weakly smiled up at Kinessa, but dropped it as she quickly changed her tone. “Am I a bad person?”
“A bad decision doesn’t make anyone a bad person,” Kinessa began, readjusting her sitting position slightly. “You can’t change your past, but you can choose to put it behind you and focus on the present. And I think that right now, you are one of the kindest, most amazing people that I have ever met, no matter what. ”
This time, Cassie cried for real, smiling and sobbing words of thanks. Kinessa pulled her closer and let her cry into her shoulder. “If you have any more nightmares, just think of me there, beating the shit out of all of the bad thoughts,” Kinessa whispered. Cassie suddenly erupted in laughter and learned that all that mattered right now was that she was free, and that it felt so good to admit to herself that she was in love.
Somewhere in the distance, Zigs felt proud.