warnings: Angst no comfort, Cassandra being an arsehole, pretentious language, death.
The decorated teaspoon clinked against the saucer, and with the noise came the sweetly spoken onslaught of complete and utter honesty. Honesty you had hoped never to hear, wishing desperately into the air between you and Cassandra in your more intimate moments that nothing so humiliatingly truthful would spill from those lips of hers.
She was not unkind when she turned her gaze to you, bringing her teacup to her lips with a straightened and immovable poise you could never achieve. Her eyes were hard, not kind enough to melt at the sight of you, not solid enough to appear unfeeling at your shared predicament. Her stomach was larger now, as came with later stages of pregnancy.
You recalled the first few times you noticed her growing, when you thought back to your own mother and how sickly she had been when she was pregnant. Not your Cassandra, though, she had all the help and care a woman with child deserved.
‘Do not panic, do not think i am her. As painful as it may sound, we are not the same.’
She didn't mean it at the time, but you understood the thing itching the back of her mind even if she did not intend to believe it herself.
‘This child matters, I matter. For the sake of house Kiramman.’
As you stood, near the steps of a glass and golden gazebo somewhere sun facing in her estate, you thought back on the moment. She has not opened her delicate mouth to speak, you think mercifully allowing you a moment under the falling petals and shade casting tree branches to simply exist with her.
And then her mercy was gone, replaced with something clinically straightforward and confrontational. She placed her teacup down, brought her embroidered handkerchief to wipe the corners of her mouth, and cleared her throat. You let yourself imagine she was nervous for this, but knowing your cassandra, she had practiced this for hours as to avoid any stutter or imbalance in tone.
“I cannot keep you any longer.”
There she was though, oh
Oh,
Shining through the perfect craftsmanship her family had chiselled books upon her head and rulers across her knuckles. A wear mark in her side, just under her lip and to the left, the first place you had kissed her so long ago. It tilted downward, then not at all.
But you saw, and she knew you had, which is why she became less truthful and more forceful.
“I have a duty to uphold, I am to inherit my fathers council position.”
You nodded, swallowing a lump that had nestled into a burrow in your oesophagus.
“Yes?”
You said it as a question, meant it to come out as something understanding, but neither of you had the privilege of keeping up your acts it seemed.
“Yes.”
She agreed.
You pushed, walking further into the gazebo. The warmth that flooded you was because of the sunlight teetering through the glass panels, it was almost enough to pretend that she simply had that effect on the world around her, though.
“Cassandra, do you…” She did not interrupt, allowing you to continue. That was not an act of mercy, typically she would push you to finish your sentence “Do we need to separate because of that?”
Sure of yourself, but with one slight furrow of her brow all that self assurance melted away under the heat. “What more is there to do?”
Oh.
Yes, of course.
What more?
“What more?” You whispered as if in disbelief yourself, laying a hand on the small table in front of her for support. She did not move away, did not feel the need to. She could feel you a little longer this way, smell you and breathe you a few more moments. Not that she would admit to that. “Cassandra- there can be so much more”
Your tone was pleading, she was unmoved now, resigned in her decision at least outwardly.
“I have a duty.” Repetition, perhaps in saying it a third time it would start to sound believable. “I have a husband, I have a family. I have a position of power. I cannot allow myself to become compromised-”
“-you've been compromised with me for months.” You seethed, leaning down to her. Still she did not move, did not break a sweat. An unmoving force, your Cassandra. “Compromised while you still had a husband- still had a baby on the way and i- i thought i was your family.”
“My family is my title, is my house.” She flicked her wrist, as if gesturing for a butler to make himself scarce. There was no butler, only you. “You are a distraction, something to occupy myself with before the truth of my position found me.”
“Cassandra-”
“Leave me, before I order the guards drag you back over the bridge.”
...
And...
...
You did not know why you thought of her now.
Bleeding in an alley in Zaun, coughing up your lungs from the grey smoke. You were yet again rendered unimportant, a distraction to the battles others fought. You thought of your Cassandra here, perhaps she would reprimand you for being hunched over.
Perhaps
…Perhaps
Seeing her in the reflection of blood on the floor, a petal landed in your open palm.
… perhaps she would find you in the afterwards of this life.
Many headcanon Caitlyn as autistic, so I decided to draw this
Autism is a spectrum, and not all autistics are the same, you might not notice until you get to know them better. Also girls are often undiagnosed as their symptoms get misinterpreted and they mask better
