Cassandra/No. 35 for @jean-snow!
It amazes her more than anything else since she came to the Organization. More than her talent for swordsmanship and controlling her youki; more than the terror of the Awakened Beings; more than the pleasure of Roxanne touching her.
Even when she was human, she was shy, her words reluctant things that came out only when they were bidden. But it was never comfortable, not the way it is when she sits with her comrade-in-arms and speaks. She doesn’t understand, and it terrifies her how simple it is to talk to her.
It starts light (how do you feel? how was your mission? what’s next?) and then delves deeper (what keeps you going? what do you like?) and then one day Cassandra is telling Number 35 about her mother and her stepfather and his sons, about a tiny village nestled in the mountains and days spent mending her family’s clothes and cleaning their house. She tells her about a bandit raid burning it all, about her stepbrothers skewered on pikes and her mother weeping. The slavers sold her to the Organization. Her mother, hopefully, was more fortunate.
And all the while she speaks there is a hand on hers and a face, serious but gentle, watching her. Listening to her. Taking note of every word. Cassandra is unused to that. For the Organization, after all, she is a sword, and even with her family she was background noise. Voiceless.
“Tell me about yours,” she says, when she’s finished. “Your family.”
The other warrior smiles and obeys. Her history, too, is streaked with blood; that will always be a trait shared by recruits. The Organization takes broken girls and breaks them further. But never before has she heard a story like this, quiet, just the two of them. Even in the midst of this hell, it is peaceful.
At last Cassandra speaks her mind.
Number 35 offers a questioning look.
“Talking to you, I mean.”
“I’m sure it’s not me. It’s just good to talk to anyone, I think.”
Cassandra considers, starts to nod, and then changes her mind. She thinks of someone else with whom she has taken to spending scads of time. Around Roxanne, she cannot speak freely. Her words wither and die inside her throat like plants hidden from the sun.
“It’s you,” she says, more fervently this time.
Number 35 smiles, her cheeks a little pink, and looks away.
“Well, you tell me, then. Why is it easy?”
Cassandra has thought about this a great deal over the past months, but still it is hard to vocalize her response. The words feel sticky in her throat.
“It feels...well, you make me feel...seen.”
“Oh,” 35 says. She pauses and worries her lip. “Well, I want to see you.”
Her hands are gentle on Cassandra’s cheeks, and her lips even more so. This, too, feels easy, and when they pull apart Cassandra smiles as well.
