Chapter Text
The woman's eyes are shrewd and her expression dark. Her hair spills down her back in long ropes, each fine braid twined together with the next to create a magnificent net of shining gold, accented with glittering sapphires. Such a coif would not look out of place in a box seat at the Great Opera in Agea. It stands in shocking contrast to her leather pants and jacket, and her face, which was once beautiful but shows more signs of natural aging than most Gold women would permit.
She also has a scar. Not the scar of the Peerless, but a white scar that runs across her mouth, diagonal from left to right. Telling, that she didn’t get it removed.
Louisa au Vampa is not the most intimidating woman Cassius has ever met – he worked with Aja au Grimmus, after all – but she's near the top of the list.
Cassius hadn't hoped for anything more than a decent drink when he stepped into the grubby bar just outside the spaceport on Ravana Station. This is the backwater of the backwater, an asteroid so small and insignificant it's barely on the map. Everything here is rust and iron and shit, held together with wire and hope. The bar looks like it's about to collapse in on itself, and he'd had to duck low to avoid hitting his head on the lintel. He'd fully expected to find the place empty except for the usual assortment of shady Gray freelancers and Browns and Reds celebrating the end of some long shift of drudgery.
Louisa stood out like a flame in the dark room.
He'd taken a seat across the bar, ordered a vodka and soda – although the product served tastes like it's at least a third paint solvent – and immediately started making eyes at her.
Was it embarrassing? Yes. Was it equal to the dignity of a scion of House Bellona? Not in any way.
But it had been such a long, bleak stretch of black since he'd done anything as simple as flirt with a pretty girl, and he was lonely, damnit.
Cassius knew exactly how powerful his smile was, and wielded it with the same precision he wielded a razor. She'd rolled her eyes, but she'd smiled back, unable to resist.
Few could.
Now he's sitting on the stool beside her, enjoying his fourth solvent-and-soda and listening to the dread Pirate Queen Louisa au Vampa relate the tale of the time she outran the Dragon Guard hauling a load of black market spices from Io back to the Core.
"Hid out in the Carme group until we got close enough to Ganymede to do a swing-by, and then we were out of system like we had the hounds of Hades behind us." She leans back, and shakes her head. "My pilot could outfly Orion xe Aquarii. Thank Jove the man’s greed outweighs his conscience. Want to say it wasn't worth the risk, but we got a thousands credits a kilo for the vanilla. Twice as valuable as Helium-3, if you know the right buyer. Pods as big as your forearm, and smelled like heaven. Bound for Venus, where they perfumed some Pixie's cream puffs, I'll bet." She takes a long sip of her drink, which is something bright green spotted with maraschino cherries. It looks like a potion some wicked witch would brew up. "You said you trade water, Regulus? Surprised a strapping young lad like you don't go in for something a bit more ... exciting."
She lifts an eyebrow.
He shrugs, sheepish. Cassius's cover story has held up so far but it also hasn't been subject to the scrutiny of keen-eyed pirate queens.
"I was bred for my cheekbones and my curls, not my daring," he says, smiling at her again. "Things went south when Father lost his shirt to some Silver bankers, but I'm afraid the life of a notorious pirate is a bit rich for my blood. I'm rather attached to my head, both literally and figuratively, and I'd like to keep it that way."
He'd spun her a very tragic tale about the downfall of the family Janus after an older brother's profligacy led to usurious loans, penury, and shame.
She snorts. "That's the problem with all you gorydamn Peerless,"she mutters. "Love to act so tough and serious, but not willing to stick your necks out. No wonder that old crone Lune managed to keep you all in check for so long. Can't go without your creature comforts." She shakes her head, and the sapphires in her hair jingle. Cassius feels like his odds of ending the night in a warm bed not his own have suddenly decreased, and decides not to comment on the fact that desire to avoid the wrath of the Dominion and remain in secure possession of all his extremities isn't really quite the same as forgoing creature comforts.
She does not look like she'd care.
He is about to execute a change of topic as graceful as any deft dueling maneuver when Louisa slams her glass down. A bit of the electric green liquid sloshes over the lip of the glass, and sizzles worryingly against the polyplastic bartop.
"A man's got to be willing to take anything he asks his men to take. Got to be willing to put his own neck out there!" she says. She gets a distant look in her eye. "That's when I knew, y'know. Years ago. Before he was anything more than a gawky young Gold whelp hitching his star to Nero Au Augustus's wagon. I know it's all games in that damn Institute of yours, but he whipped that bastard rapist, and then took the same beating from that monster of a Telemanus. Made it count." She sighs in clear admiration. "Colors be damned, that's a leader of men."
She is talking about Darrow, Cassius realizes. Oh dear.
He clears his throat. He remembers, certainly, when Darrow had whipped Tactus and then invited the same from Pax. Cassius had been holed up in Castle Mars at the time, hating the damp and the bad food and the terrible company and wishing secretly in his heart that he and his twin were back home in Eagle Rest with the kind Brown cook who would let them sneak food from the kitchens. Scars be damned! He'd thought Darrow's decision idiotic at the time, incomprehensible really. He had bested fate once, surviving a wound that should have killed him. Why taunt the Moirai again?
Cassius had a claim on Darrow's life then, and he had intended to redeem it. He hadn't realized yet that with every breath Darrow took he laughed in the face of fate.
"It was certainly a bold move," he says with the most possible discretion.
Louisa snorts. "Look at you," she says, scowling. "Surprised you even got your scar, boy. House Venus, was it? Bet you kept that pretty head of yours low, didn't you?" She takes a long sip of her drink. "Life was different, back before the Republic. You and I, we're both Gold, but I'm no fool. I was born out Ceres way to a family that never had any money to lose. Gold I might be, but the Institute?" She laughs a spiteful laugh. "I had no more chance of getting into a damn Institute than I do storming the gates of Sungrave."
She slaps her chest. "I came from nothing but I built myself up. I built myself up! Louisa au Vampa never hid behind any man. Never kept her head low. I took every punishment and kept crawling forward. Took the risks and the beatings that came with them." She waggles a red-nailed finger in Cassius's face. "That's why my crew's loyal. That's why they got my back. You gotta earn respect. That pretty face of yours might have gotten you this far, but you'll never be a leader of men until you learn to take some punishment."
Cassius begins to suspect she's more drunk than she first seemed. Her voice is perfectly steady, but there's a gleam in her eye that seems a little less than coldly sober.
"That's what he knew," she says. She downs the rest of her drink and calls to the bartender for another. "The Reaper. Maybe because he was a Red. Those poor bastards know how to take a beating. He knows that with big risk comes big reward. I mean, think of the balls it must have taken to sneak into the Dragon's Maw itself and drive that knife into the Sovereign's guts. He and Augustus. She's a woman with a spine of iron. Can see it in those cold eyes of hers."
The bartender brings her another drink.
Cassius declines to inquire what kind of balls she thinks it took Traitor Bellona to sneak them in (he'd been the one who'd had to fool Aja, after all!) and wonders instead if perhaps Louisa au Vampa has been just as bereft of good conversation as he has been. Certainly, she seems more lonely than her ferocious appearance suggests.
Probably it is hard not to be lonely, sailing from space rock to space rock, through the deep black, with only the briefest of sojourns in little cesspits like Ravana. It makes one feel very, very small.
It makes Cassius feel that way, at least.
"That's what women want, boy," she says, looking right at him. She has nice eyes, Pirate Queen Louisa. Gold shot through with brown, like something prehistoric trapped in amber. "We want someone strong. Someone who can take a risk and take a beating. Pretty face is all well and good –" She waves at Cassius in a manner so dismissive that it would have provoked a duel, back in Agea. "– but what we want is fire." She gets that sly, distant look on her face again, and after a moment, continues, "Not that he's so rough on the eyes, Reaper. I know they say he's Carved but there's not a Violet alive that could Carve those cheekbones. Cuts a fine figure in PulseArmor too. This Sovereign doesn't look half so much like she's got a stick up her ass as the last one. Bet that Reaper of hers keeps her happy with his stick up her –"
Jove.
This time it is Cassius who waves the bartender down, desperately. He is not nearly drunk enough for this conversation, which seems even more voyeuristic because of the direct and personal knowledge he has of the various parties involved.
Louisa narrows her eyes at him, noticing his reaction. "Didn't take you for a wilting flower, Regulus." She sounds disappointed.
"Oh," Cassius stutters. "It's not that. It's just so distasteful, the Republic and this Sovereign and all. I suppose I will never be able to quash my Society sympathies. I mean, they are a very attractive couple, I suppose, if you get past the whole murderous revolutionary warlord and devious genius traitor thing, and they do look extremely happy with each other."
He fears his cheeks are turning red.
Louisa leans close, and puts her hand on is. Her skin is rough but warm. Her generous bosom presses against his shoulder. "You a virgin, boy?" Her voice is amused and soft. "Always like to show a new mate how to hand my ship."
Cassius chokes, and then is miraculously saved from a premature and very ugly death via mortification when his datapad buzzes.
Louisa, looking annoyed, leans back in her chair and reaches for her drink.
The spell it seems is broken.
The call is from Pytha, and Cassius answers, immediately alert to all of the myriad dangers that might present themselves to a Bellona, a Lune, and their trusty Blue captain making their way across the system.
"I'm sorry, Ca-Regulus," Pytha says. "But Castor just woke up. He had a bad dream, and he's scared, and he has a stomachache." There's a muffled noise in the background; Lysander seems to be trying to protest that he's not scared, he just had a bad dream. "I told you not to buy him all that candy," Pytha sighs. She closes her big, blue eyes. "I know it's your night off, but he keeps asking for you."
Cassius sighs too. "Tell Castor that his bold knight will soon be back to dispel all bad dreams," he says. "And tummy aches."
He ends the call. Louisa au Vampa is looking at him with a decidedly amused smile on her face.
"Kid brother," he says, sheepishly.
She laughs, bright and amused and a little cruel, and pats him on the ass on his way out of the bar.
*****
Much later, back on the Archimedes , after Lysander has been pacified with a story about one of Cassius's famous duels as the Morning Knight and his stomach soothed with a cup of warm milk, after Pytha has retreated to her own quarters with a hushed but sincere word of gratitude, Cassius finds himself in his own small room, thinking of the past. Thinking of Darrow. He pours himself a glass of whiskey – better stuff than what they slung back in that bar, but his stores are running low– and gets out his datapad.
For seven centuries the Peerless guarded the most terrible secrets of their Institutes even from their Aureate brothers. Now, the clips are all over the web, especially – of course – from Darrow's class at the Institute of Mars. It takes a moment, but Cassius finds what he's looking for. It's not one of the great moments of triumph – not when Darrow scaled Olympus and threw the gods, such as they were, down from its heights. No. This is before all that. Before Cassius knew of the betrayal that rent his heart. Before rebellion and war. Before they would shatter worlds together. When they were just silly dangerous children, still.
If they've ever become anything more.
Three boys ride their horses across a moonlit plain. They are filthy and wild and full of joy. Darrow holds the standard of Minvera in one hand, triumphant. Sevro howls. Cassius can see his own face – smiling with such a fierce and radiant joy he aches now to see it. They ride fast across the plain, until they are just three small dark spots in the distance, and then gone. The stars seemed brighter on that long ago night, and the dark less lonesome then than it seems to him now. He watches again, and turns it off, and goes to his bed alone.