Lost a battle, not the war.
@Lucia Fox
Cassanora entered the hospital wing slowly and on guard. It was an unfamiliar place and looked smaller than what they had back in Beauxbatons. It seemed like a sort of cramped army hospital that got slid into the most inconvenient place in the castle. The amount of stairs she had to traverse just to get a glimpse of the front door made her nervous to think about what she would have done had she broken a leg.
She kept looking for people she'd know. Maybe someone from her own school, or the handful of students she had got to meet from Hogwarts itself. But the chaos that ensued in the aftermath of chess had caused the room to burst with life and arguments. Nurses were telling students to lie down and be still, whilst they in return cried about all the things that hurt after they got whacked too hard onto the black and white tiles of the chess board.
She didn't need immediate attention, she was willing to wait her turn. With seeing some of the others, Cass took a seat on an empty chair she found in the back corner. Silently, she hummed a little song her father used to sing when she was little and hurt herself. He was a pretty good dad, she had to admit. Though he'd absolutely be losing his mind if he saw her like this...
PC Name: Hugh Lowe
Lost a battle, not the war.
note: dialogue in the dream was taken from posts by Solomon Lear and Hugh Lowe in the Hexiwizard first task thread, and by Flash Holmwood in Let There Be No Light.
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[ @Hugh Lowe as Cassanora • mentioning @Flash Holmwood as Yefim ]
English "#26687E" • French "#72267E" • FSL #72267E
DATE 00/00/00
OUTFIT [x]
but waking up
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█A ghostly apparition stalked towards her, maniac smile plastered across its face. It spoke in Russian, but somehow she could understand. "You've failed." The shadows parted to reveal its face - his face. Yefim Rumyantsev walked across the courtyard with the air of one victorious. "You weren't good enough." He stopped, and gave a smirk to the girl with the brown hair perched on a stone wall next to a chessboard. "Check out this move."
And suddenly Cassie was watching from her own eyes, and this time she knew what was coming, and the Durmstrang champion smashed his boot through the chessboard. Time slowed as the pieces flew outwards, broken beyond Muggle repair, and when the dust cleared it wasn't Yefim who stood there, but Cassanora Browne.
"We needed you," rebuked Cassie's champion, crown glimmering upon her head as disappointment seeped through her French. "We needed you, and you didn't step up." She raised her sceptre and offered a slight smile. "It's all part of the game, I'm afraid." Cassanora swung her weapon, and its tip shattered on contact with Cassie's head. Black glass swirled around her, obscuring her vision, covering the entire world in nothing but darkness-
Cassie bolted upright. Where was she? There was - a bed. Beneath her, there was a bed, with white sheets. The walls were white too, a stark contrast to the shadows of her dream. No, not a dream: a nightmare. Cassie rarely had nightmares. Now she was awake, and in a strange room she'd never seen before. Or had she? As her brain slowly pulled itself into the real world, she began to recognise little things around her. She wasn't in an unfamiliar environment, after all; this was Hogwarts' hospital wing, and she had been knocked out in the first task of the Hexiwizard Tournament. Cassie had a vague recollection of waking up in this bed before: she must have fallen asleep after being brought back to conciousness by the Hogwarts nurses, or however they ran their medical department.
Suprisingly, Cassie didn't hurt at all. It would probably never stop amazing her how quickly magic could heal pains, after ten and a half years of plasters and wet paper towels as a kid. She tested her strength by standing up, and found that she was completely fine. She should probably leave the room so someone more in need could get treatment. But, when she made her way towards the door, the Beauxbatons representative found her footsteps curving instead.
In the corner, on a hard plastic chair that reminded Cassie of the chairs at the two primary schools she'd attended, sat the one and only Cassanora Browne: the Beauxbatons champion who'd appeared in Cassie's dream just to tell her how much she sucked. Cassie pulled over a chair and sat down next to the fellow fourth-year. When she opened her mouth to speak, it wasn't with any of the confident optimism that most people associated with Cassie Heather McGregor-Martin, but rather with an air of doomed finality. "We lost, didn't we."
│= | #00308F ency • cassie heather | =│ | breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out Part-Veela • Alluring • Perfectionist • Scream • Sta 9 • Eva 9 • Stre 4 • Wis 10 • Arc 8 • Acc 9 | │ |
Lost a battle, not the war.
@Lucia Fox
[] is French
["Yes. Yes, we did lose this battle."] Cassanora admitted quietly as she rested the back of her head against the wall. Her face felt sore from hitting the ground, or was it hit by Yefim? She could hardly recall what happened exactly. Maybe in time, she would be able to remember more of the details. Though, she worried about having vivid nightmares about Yefim striking her down with murder in his eyes. For a 'white knight' he had been terrifying to behold. A sight she had trouble shaking loose. With every person she had bumped into on her way here, she was close to screaming in panic and making a run for it in the opposite direction. Did the others not feel the same then?
She turned face and looked at Cassie. She had been strong during the game and stood her ground in the heat of battle. ["But I'm proud of you."] Cassanora said with a grim smile. ["For what that's worth... I'm proud of all of you."] She bit her lip whilst moving around in her chair and wincing when she felt a sharp pain in her side. ["Beauxbatons showed up to fight. The school's honour was preserved. So we move on to the next fight. Whatever that may turn out to be, yes?"]
Her hand reached for the chair next to her, and she tried to grab Cassie's hand. ["Look at me."] She squeezed the hand hard. ["We could not have held out as long as we did without you. If anything, it was me that got myself caught in the enemy's line of fire. I was too weak to hold out like that. I have been a fool and let the game get the better of me. Because that's ultimately what this all is... a game. Just a silly, little game."]
["So don't be like me and instead rise to the challenge. We're going to need you in the next round. Strong hearts to pull us through the darkness, hm?"] Cassanora smiled again and winked. ["Are you in any pain?"] She asked, realizing she ought to have started with that.
PC Name: Hugh Lowe