paradisalogs | we'll be counting stars

Entry tags:

we'll be counting stars

Who: Lucrezia and Cassandra, Lucrezia and Spike!
What: Finding lost dogs and making house calls nbd
When: December 2
Where: everywhere
Rating: PG for now!

Cassandra;

More than half the lavish parties thrown in Rome were probably hosted by her family. The church certainly has deep pockets, most of the time, even if sometimes her father digs too deep. So it's rare that she would miss any of the important festivities or feel the need to leave her house to attend the ones worth going to. Regret is an uncommon sentiment for her when it comes to parties, but she does regret not attending this Bathaus one when it could be a chance to mend old friendships (or just to get away).

It's good that the weather has turned rather cool, since Lucrezia doesn't know what dry ice is and how to properly transport a tub of ice cream. At least she knows to wrap it up in a scarf when she comes knocking, herself all bundled up in a coat as well. Here is hoping everyone is at home (minus Tim).

Spike

The dog was surprisingly well-behaved even if it did bark at the kittens once or twice. It even befriended the tiger, though whether that's to his credit or the tiger's is up for question. She has enough pets as it is, with the mansion quickly turning into a zoo without quick intervention, and Spike is a friend who seems ever in need of a friend, whether one that can talk or not.

But Lucrezia knows to greatly reward those who please her with their company, which is easier done in a magical castle that grants all wishes. So it's with a pretty pink pearl collar about his neck and a matching little velvet coat that she carries Ein back to his door, knocking just twice and hoping the master of the house is in.

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Cass heaves a sigh, pretending to look as put out about the hug ending as she can.

"I guess," she says, and leads the way to the living room. There's a blanket folded up across the back of the couch, so Cass picks it up and shakes it out before nodding for Lucrezia to sit. "Get comfortable."

That expression only has her giggling as she picks up both bowls to follow Cass to the living room. It must be true love, for Lucrezia Borgia to be carrying food for you. She sets the bowls at the foot of the couch, still closer than the table, before hopping (yes, hopping) onto the couch while grinning up at her friend.

"I would need company to get comfortable."

Like she needs an excuse. Cass jumps up right beside her and drapes the blanket carefully along Lucrezia's shoulders, then winds it around the both of them. There's a quick kiss to her nose and then Cass is tugging her down to sit, cuddling up close so they're wrapped up together. Best way to spend a cold day ever.

"Will this work?"

Lucrezia is all giggles as she easily wraps her arms about Cass and rests her chin on her shoulder. A perfect fit. It's comforting, in a way reminiscent of Stephanie, to have someone she can express her fondness for without fearing another's wrath and jealousy. Or fearing their eventual demise. Not that the fear goes away so easily.

"Why are we friends, Cassandra?"

This sort of thing just comes easily, for Cass. Ever since she was a child, seeking affection had only ever resulted in violence. If she reached for her father for a hug, she got a backhanded slap and a split lip instead.

He had gotten a bloody kiss on the cheek after beating him in the fight that caused in return, of course, but the lesson had always stayed with her. There was no room for soft, loving spaces in an assassin's heart.

And now, especially in Paradisa, that's so different. Here she's wrapped up in hugs every day, wrapped up in Lucrezia's arms now and it's just what she's always wanted, love given freely. So she smiles and kisses Lucrezia's cheek, forehead resting against the other girl's after.

"Because I like you." Another kiss, to her other cheek. "Because I want... to keep you close." Her forehead now, accompanied by a sweet smile. "Because you deserve friends. Someone you... can always trust. Someone to love, who won't... ever ask anything in return."

Only God loves so purely. God and family. Everyone else loves for a reason. There is always a reason.

Lucrezia has made herself easy to love because she's pretty and she says such charming words and she smiles so sweetly and laughs at all your jokes. But without all that, they don't love her, not really. Only her mother, her brother, might. Even then she's not so sure. With Cassandra, she's just as unsure. Lucrezia thinks she has been kind to her because first she thought it would help her get Stephanie back. Besides, Cass is sweet and cute and earnest. Endearing. But without all that--

She doesn't know why it makes her feel so guilty. Like a prodigal daughter offered forgiveness when she had expected a beating instead. She moves to hold Cass tighter and to hide her face in the girl's shoulder.

"You will never betray me, will you?"

Cass reaches up to stroke Lucrezia's hair, her other arm holding her in closer, tighter. If anyone were to come home now it would look strange, the two of them clinging to each other while their ice cream melted a few feet away, but that doesn't matter much to Cass. After all, she's used to seeing people react to how strange she is.

"No, Lucrezia. Will love you forever, would die protecting you." Which doesn't mean as much here, when death isn't a permanent thing, but it's no less true.

Death is the same wherever. It's the thought that she would give up her everything, even life, and the risk of never coming back. That's enough. No greater love has any man, as the Bible says.

Lucrezia inhales slowly then shifts her face to sigh and smile as she pulls back to show Cass her smile. All is well indeed. It is the proclamation that she wants. Words bind those who utter them, even more so if they are so wholeheartedly meant. She is no mind-reader, like Cass seems to be to her, but she thinks she knows honesty when she sees it.

"What do you call ice cream that is no longer ice?"

"Soup," Cass answers at once, but her attention is still squarely on Lucrezia. She pressed a hand to the other girl's cheek affectionately, trying to capture her attention again.

"Why are you my friend?"

It seemed odd that Lucrezia would even use that word when it's been clear in the past she believes there's no such thing, but now Cass is curious to see what Lucrezia will say and if it will match her body language. The answer itself doesn't really matter because the label doesn't matter, but she wants to see, in her way, what the answer is.

She laughs but tries to seem displeased by that term. "It must be better than that. Ice soup at least."

Even with Cassandra's hand on her cheek, Lucrezia still tries to drop her eyes to her lap, averting her gaze. Not that it matters, when the girl doesn't need to look into her eyes to see whether she's speaking the truth. It's not that she doesn't believe in the idea of friendship, as much as she believes in the idea of love, but she isn't convinced that someone like her would ever find it away from her family.

The Borgias are outsiders, a breed of outcasts welcome neither in Italy nor Spain nor anywhere else for that matter. They belong only to themselves, to family. Everyone else are either tools or enemies.

It takes her too long to respond, trying to understand her own state of mind. Why indeed. "Because I trust you," and she knows to lift her eyes when she says it, because it's true, even if not as fully as she would like Cass to believe. "I could sleep in your arms and not fear to wake with a blade at my throat."

The funny thing is it doesn't take any time at all for the answers to come, because Cass sees them in her body language and first and it's shocking how familiar it feels, to see what she's so used to feeling. Cut off, lost, left on the outskirts of what you could be. It's different for Lucrezia, but there's enough there that matches.

"Should stay every night, then." Even though she knows it's impossible, Cass says it anyway. Anything to make her feel safer, help her sleep more soundly. "I had nothing, my whole life. No one to love, to love me." She hugs Lucrezia a little bit tighter now, though she's careful not to hurt her. "Don't let go easy, now that... I do have that. You're always safe with me."

The only difference being that Lucrezia doesn't think it's wrong at all, to live as if the whole world stands against her family. It's kill or be killed, put crudely. Though she prefers to use rather than be used, which she thinks is already kindness compared to what her father, her brothers, would demand.

At this moment, Cassandra is useful to her. She is kindness personified and she is stronger than most which, Lucrezia has learned, is an essential trait for any who wishes to come close enough to her. She has lost too many. She would rather gain fewer friends than lose too many more. It's true that she's afraid for her own safety, and that little trip to Florence didn't help any, but she also fears for the lives of those who come too close. She holds on tighter too and takes a deep breath to clear away the weight in her chest, heavy like sorrow or perhaps like joy. It's hard to tell.

"I know now. You can tell for yourself, can you not?"

Typically, Cass hates to be used. It's what she knew the entire first half of her life, just being a thing to be pointed at an enemy, a trigger to be pulled to the life of someone she knew nothing about. Expected to follow orders, to only operate as a too.

Being used for this, though, for love and to have a friend, she doesn't mind that so much. It's okay for Lucrezia to use her that way because in the end, it's what Cass wants anyway.

"Yes, can tell." She lifts a hand up to rub Lucrezia's back, soothing and drawing her closer as the other girl holds her tighter. "Does it bother you? That I... can do that?"

Everyone is used by another in the end. It's all she knows. Her father uses her as a pawn, a bargaining chip. Her brother uses her as the ideal he needs and even he sometimes fails to see her the way she is.

But Cass's question just makes her giggle, pulling back to show her that no, it doesn't at all. "Does it bother you that I can spin pretty words or that Joshua can halt time?"

"Not the same, though. Not exactly." But it's a good enough answer for Cass, so she kisses Lucrezia's forehead and then leans over to pick up one of the bowls of admittedly slightly liquid ice cream. Oops.

Still, it'll taste just as good this way so she just scoops up a big spoonful, holding it up and bringing it towards Lucrezia's lips.

"Here."

But why use a spoon when she can dip her finger in that ice cream soup and lick it off with a laugh. (Germs? What germs?)

"Sweet," like Cassandra. She dips her finger, the same one, into the still goopy part of that soup to offer her. It's probably gross, but then Lucrezia doesn't care about such things.

It's not gross though, not to Cass at least. There's no hesitation, she just opens her mouth and wraps her lips around Lucrezia's finger so she can suck the ice cream off.

This is a totally normal kind of thing, right? Surely all girls cling and suck ice cream off each other.

It's normal enough to Lucrezia! She giggles at how tickling Cass's lips feel on her finger or that might just be her feeling giddy. Something about this feels too close in a way that tells her it isn't quite proper, but that's precisely why it's so tempting. Dipping her finger in the melted ice cream again for another taste.

"How does it taste?"

Lucrezia's giggling prompts a soft laugh from Cass, just because she's pleased to see her happy now. If she has any say in it, this will always be the Lucrezia she strives to see. Happy and laughing and content, not scared or sad.

Letting Lucrezia's fingers slip from her mouth, she grins at her friend and tackles her over backward, pinning her down into the couch and somehow managing not to drop or spill the ice cream. Instead she sets it down on the floor and dips her own fingers in.

"You tell me," she says, and paints a stripe of ice cream over her Lucrezia's bottom lip. "Is it good?"

There was once a time when Lucrezia couldn't remember ever feeling scared or sad, back when everything was simpler. As much as she was tired of the many secrets kept from her, ignorance was indeed bliss. And innocence once lost can never be regained.

Only the tackling cuts her short, quickly finding herself pinned under Cass without quite noticing how it happened. She would win no awards for survival skills and unlike her friend, she can't quite read what it means when Cass stains her lip with more ice cream. It doesn't mean anything, surely, surely.

She licks her lips clean and bites back a chuckle that returns only too easily. "The best."

And that, of course, gets a smile in return. She'd be perfectly content to stay just like this, fingers absently carding through soft blonde hair while she looks down at her chuckling friend. What could be better?

"Good," she says, leaning over to kiss Lucrezia's forehead softly. Of course it means something, the same thing it's always meant. That she loves Lucrezia, wants to see her always happy. "Should always have that."

And if two girls aren't supposed to be piled up on top of each other and exchanging kisses like there's no tomorrow, well, Lucrezia hardly cares. Who is she to talk of what's proper what isn't?

She just lowers her gaze to Cass's neck, drawing patterns about her collarbones. Maybe it's a message or just their names in loopy handwriting over and over again. "But what would you have in that case?" If the best is to be hers, what's left?

It's a little funny, the way the urge to kiss Lucrezia rises and fades away the same way it tends to do with Stephanie. But there's a reason there, a boyfriend and boundaries and possibly a slightly unhealthy reliance on Steph that never stopped even after death. She has her reasons to want to kiss Stephanie, but Lucrezia? This is different, and her fingers over her neck don't clear anything up.

Nothing about it feels out of place, though, so Cassandra stays exactly where she is. They'd intended to cuddle for warmth during a slumber party with Steph, so why not get their practice in now? She tips her head to the side to give Lucrezia more room to work, not even bothering to make out the patterns she's making.

"Does that matter?" It doesn't, to Cass. "You'll be happy. Good enough for me."

Joshua is no boyfriend in the traditional sense and boundaries never bothered her. The very circumstance surrounding her birth has already crossed many lines, so why bother abiding with them now? But Cassandra is beautiful to her with her dark cropped hair as Giulia is pretty with her light brown curls. More than anything, Lucrezia wants to feel safe and this feels good enough.

She bites back a grin and tilts her head a little, flexing her toes and using her fidgeting as an excuse to shift just a tad closer. For warmth, of course.

"You cannot forever live for others. You must take what you want too, for yourself and no one else's."

Of course, for warmth. Never mind the blanket wrapped around them. Dropping her head down a little more, Cass leans her forehead against Lucrezia's as she considers what she's just said.

"Don't really... see the point, though." Her voice is quiet and pitched low, like she's telling a big secret. And maybe she is, because this certainly isn't something she's talked about much before. Or ever, really. "Why take things... for me, when others need them? Or want them more? Spent whole life... with nothing. Used to it."

She's comfortable with that.

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