of determined decisions and waltzing futures

While waiting, her hand had absentmindedly ghosted over the black and white keys, nostalgia bringing a melancholic tilt to her eyes. It had been ages since she'd last played the piano, and while part of her was reluctant to let herself be so vulnerable- she put her all into the pieces she played and often lost track of time and her surroundings-, another part yearned to hear the intricate melodies and soft tones once again. But that was an issue to think of later, in the solitude of her room.

She nearly frowned at the sound of her surname, though Cassie stifled the urge. It had been far too long since she'd last heard it, and since she'd given a false name to the Academy for her records, she'd grown used to being Cassie Arkwright. Still, she supposed there was little she could do; she was a Blackwell whether she liked it or not, even though her parents most certainly had differing opinions. Very strong and vocal opinions, but that was beside the point.

It was a slight surprise to learn that Diam had stayed with her family at some point- definitely before she'd been born, for she would recall such a visitor-, and yet Cassie shouldn't have been at all surprised. Many of the rumors surrounding the Doll Maker implied that he'd stayed with many of the major clans at one point or another, and for all that the Blackwell Clan had started off as a branch family, they had grown in size and power since then. Mentally shaking off such musings, her brow furrowed lightly as she considered Diam's words closely.

For all that she was nearly 350 years old, there was still a lot for her to learn. Yes, during the slower part of her world travels, when she'd just been a wandering exile rather than outright hunted, she'd been interested in the histories and cultures of the countries she crossed. She had learned as much as she could before moving on to the next location, and then she hadn't had the time when her pace had picked up to something bordering on desperate. She genuinely loved learning of it; it was why she had immediately latched onto her world history major. But... that didn't seem to be the right answer she needed.

"I can dance. I can play the piano. I can recite poetry." Her voice was only a tad bit bitter, though not at all directed to Diam. He did ask what she knew, after all, and her childhood had been filled with many etiquette and dance lessons. She was well-versed in the comportment and manners expected of a woman whose parents were looking to marry her off to the most influential bachelor they could get their claws into, though in that same train of thought, she hadn't shared the same family history lessons her brothers had been given. That wasn't really something Diam could help with, even with his stay in the sprawling Blackwell mansion.

"M-Mother and F... Father-" The titles were difficult to say; she'd practically been bred to respect her parents, but all that she'd gone through couldn't be erased or well-forgotten. "- wanted me to marry into one of the more prestigious clans. I was taught only what was needed to achieve that, and little more. It was better to focus on my brothers in that regard." She paused, then continued, her words thoughtful, if a tad melancholic. "I was more of the spare they were not expecting, but wanted to put to use, I suppose."

She frowned and cleared her through, changing subjects quickly before she lost herself to her memories. "I... I want to be more than just a bartering piece and a loose end to tie up. I do not want to be afraid of everyone I meet, to constantly question my safety. I want to live instead of barely surviving." Her voice had tapered off into a strained whisper, and while she still wasn't sure if she'd given Diam an acceptable answer, it was all her emotionally and mentally exhausted mind could give.​

Whatever Cassie was expecting, it certainly wasn't being asked about any lovers. It caught her off guard enough to leave her spluttering quietly, a delicate blush coloring the tops of her cheeks before she could stomp down on such an ungraceful reaction. That in and of itself was answer enough to the small elder vampire, but it also showed her naivety on such... intimate subjects. She may have been the vampire equivalent to an young woman on the cusp of adulthood, but with all of her running, she'd never had the chance to form such connections with people, to explore that facet of herself. Add to that the fact that she'd lived her life in the Blackwell mansion with the expectation that she'd marry well and produce heirs to the bridged families, and the concept of sex and taking lovers seemed so... odd. Foreign, almost.

A contemplative frown had chased away the remnants of her flustered embarrassment; Diam had indeed given her much to think about, and all with a simple, straightforward question. What kind of person was she attracted to? What did she want out of such intimacy? Did she even want to have sex in the first place? And then, what of relationships of the romantic sort? It was certainly a lot to consider, but she pushed such soul searching aside for later, both because she felt like it was something that should have its own day dedicated to figuring it out and to listen carefully to the next set of questions Diam was bombarding her with.

One after another they came, each seemingly unrelated to the one before it but all of them just as thought provoking as Diam's first question. In a similar manner, she would answer them one at a time- anything to delay answering the last, which had elicited a flinch from her. Taking a deep breath and pausing to gather herself, she began.

"I study world history. It is..." Her nose scrunched up slightly as she searched for the words. "I find it so intriguing. I did not allow myself to stay very long in the countries I visisted, but even so, the history and culture that I glimpsed was truly breathtaking. So much has gone on in the world, so many innovations and advances. It is so, so amazing." Her voice gained an edge of awe, her gaze faraway; she had a deep appreciation for history, and though her classes were reading and writing heavy, she didn't mind it at all, not when she was so delighted to learn. Blinking slowly, she tugged on an errant strand of hair sheepishly and paused to think. Other than history, she had a minor interest in geology and little else. It felt almost shallow to Cassie, who, barring a fight to the death or injuries too far gone to heal, had all the time in the world to pursue whatever areas of study she wished. With a nod more to herself than to Diam, she resolved to search out new subjects to look at, new areas to consider. With that mental note down, she tilted her head and moved on to think about the next two questions..

"... It is nearing my third month on the island." Surely it was no more than a blink of an eye for an ancient vampire like Diam, but it had gone by at a snail's pace for Cassie, who was still struggling a bit to acclimate to her new environment. For all that she knew that Starlight Academy and, by extension, Manta Carlos were the safest places for her, the primal part of her that was practically conditioned through years upon years upon years of evasion to expect betrayal and discovery at every turn was taking its sweet time to calm down. Oh, she'd managed to settle in enough so that she wasn't constantly tempted to flee every time someone spoke in her direction, and her instincts had labeled her room as 'safety' easily enough, but the island had yet to truly become home to her. She mused that if she had people she was close to, people on the island that she trusted, then maybe the process would go by quicker, but then again, her wariness had her keeping nearly everyone at arms length, if not farther. "I... do not plan on leaving." Unsaid but implied was, 'while my family still lusts for my head on a silver platter'. "Manta Carlos appears to be a wonderful place, and while I am sure it has its advantages and disadvantages like any other place, it is... nice. Maybe... Maybe one day, it can be home." Her wistfulness was easily audible, but she shook her head to clear her thoughts of the sentimentality of it all before considering the next pair of questions.

"I am... abysmal at writing poetry, to say the least." She admitted, tugging once more at her hair- it was a nervous tic she'd never managed to rid herself of. "One of my tutors had me try and, ah..." The light flush of color returned, though she quickly cleared her throat. "I have not tried my hand at composing, however. Maybe I can... pursue it." It was more to herself than to Diam as she added it to her list of subjects to look into; she knew the barest of the basics of music theory, just enough to give her more of an understanding of the pieces she was playing. Again, it seemed shallow to have practically wasted her time when she could be learning so many new things, but the other vampire was doing a splendid job of unknowingly- knowingly and intetionally?- reminding her of all the possibilities that were there should she resolve to reach out and take them.

For a few moments, she tried thinking of something else to say- anything, really- so she didn't have to face his last question. Alas, she didn't quite think Diam would accept her attempts at distraction, so she simply pursed her lips, a troubled expression flitting across her features. Looking at it objectively, as the elder vampire's words always seemed to incite, all Cassie did was hide. When she suffered from nightmares or had a bad day, she hid away in her dorm room. When she was plagued with guilt over the fate of the one brother that had cared for her enough to die for her, she wallowed in it before locking it away behind the many walls she'd built up, unable- unwilling?- to dredge up the nerve to face it and all the pain getting over it would entail. When faced with the fear reminders of the rest of her family brought, or the possibility of them finding her, she hid, too terrified to ensure that she'd go down with a fight if it came to it. She hid away from others, too wary and afraid of the risks she'd take putting her faith into strangers, though it was that very same paranoia that kept them strangers, that destroyed any chance of Cassie forming meaningful relationships with those around her. Cassie's options had, for so long, consisted only of running and hiding that...

She had become a coward.

The admittance burned more than Cassie had expected it to, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth for all that the last thing she'd tasted was Diam's blood.

"I... spend a fair amount of time in my dorm room." was her only response to that last question, and yet it held a million and two more words than the ones she'd spoken, voice tainted with the self-loathing bitterness of epiphany. It was as close to an open admittance of her realization that she could verbalize at the moment, her expression twisting into a dark frown. She didn't want to be a coward, and she was so damn tired of all the running away, but she'd spent nearly two centuries like this. It was a difficult thing to overwrite, especially because she knew her family was still out there. So as long as she still walked the earth, they would be after her head- Blackwells didn't just 'let things go', and she'd refused one of the highest, longstanding traditions of her own clan.

Blinking out of her upset downward spiral of thoughts, she looked at Diam before flicking her gaze away, mind latching onto this newest prompt; anything to move away from the heaviness. Tilting her head, her gaze fell to the floor as she mused on his words. It was a sign of both her tentative comfort around Diam and the depth of her ponderings that she didn't immediately take note of his movement. The unmistakeable sound of the door locking had her bowed head snapping up, her eyes zeroing onto him and then widening at the single word he spoke.

Play.

A part of Cassie wanted to laugh, and slightly hysterically no less. She hadn't played the piano in ages, and hadn't tried so far in her stay at the Academy because she still wasn't quite used to her new environment. Hell, the mere presence of the piano itself was comfort enough- familiar enough-, but to play...?

Something in Diam's voice made her think it was more a demand, for all that it also was a prompt she had the ability to ignore if she wished. And yet, did she even want to ignore it? Her slightly unseeing gaze fell to her hands, which she had splayed out in front of her, and stared at the trembling limbs. She flexed them into fists a few times, though the shaking didn't go away. Nevertheless, she slowly- painfully- shifted her position on the piano bench so that she could ghost her fingers over the black and white keys.

Ha. Black and white- sometimes she wished she could go back to the simple days, to return to seeing the world in black and white as she had when she was a child.

Shaking her head to shove those somber thoughts away, she settled into a position that was all too familiar and yet startlingly foreign to. Her trembling fingers hovered over the piano keys for a moment, then one, then two, as her tumultuous mind attempted to decide on a song. And then, between one breath and the next, her back straightened and play she did. Initially, the notes were tentative at best, quiet and hesitant, as if she weren't sure if she was allowed. But gradually, she relaxed, the tension in her shoulders bleeding out. Playing the piano truly was a soothing balm to Cassie's wary soul, and though it had been a very long time since she'd last played, her movements were as gracefully fluid as she remembered them being; her natural talent and practiced skill hadn't waned in the slightest.

Her features smoothed out into a serene expression of contentment as she played, the utter freedom she always felt at the piano returning to her. She forgot about her family, intent on seeing her dead- preferrably ripped to shreds, even. She forgot about the paranoia that seemed to make everything three times as difficult as it needed to be. She forgot the nightmares that had plagued her earlier that week. She even forgot about Diam's presence- it was why she was so vulnerable while playing, she soared to a world that was all her own. She forgot her troubles, if only for the few minutes of each piece she played, and for Cassie, it was enough.​

What was to be one song turned into two, then three, and so on all the way up to the twelfth. Cassie's long, delicate fingers tired not one whit, flowing from one melody to the next with the accomplished ease of genuine passion and talent, until she'd worked all of the weary tension from her willowy frame. The last notes of the twelfth song rang with an almost melancholic finality, and indeed, she didn't segue into a thirteenth. Instead, she let her hands rest against the keys, head bowed; Cassie had always felt so humbled by the inner peace very few things could bring to her like playing the piano did.

And as she slowly re-extended her senses- the realization that she'd kept Diam waiting for quite a while brought a mildly mortified blush to the points of her aristocratic cheekbones, the color not at all abating with the connected realization that he'd willingly and patiently waited for her to finish playing-, a small smile curled at her lips, for the elder vampire understood. After a few beats of silence, however, she finally brought her head up, widening eyes meeting Diam's steady gaze as he spoke.

She had been hopeful, of course, that he would truly offer her guidance, but the long-since ingrained expectation of disappointment and abandonment had been difficult to dismiss even with the contentment that settled atop her slender shoulders like a protective cloak. But now...

Her smile, a tremulous, tentative little thing, brightened fractionally, though it gained a distinctly sheepish edge with the mention of her diet- and the lack thereof that had prompted her breakdown to begin with. Not quite trusting her voice to remain steady enough for a verbal acknowledgement, Cassie nodded instead, taking in Diam's words with an introspective thoughtfulness she'd never dealt with before this, too frantic with the need to run, run, run for as long as she could remember.

"I will... take it into consideration." She murmured softly. It would be no small feat to work through the paranoia that kept her apart and isolated from others, but Diam seemed to have a way with helping Cassie to see how painful and self-destructive the actions she'd, for so long, believed were the only options for survival. Leaving that particular issue for what was becoming days of soul searching, she regarded the elder with a inscrutable expression, difficult to discern if only for the intensity of emotions that cycled like a whirlwind through her delicate features.

Shaking her head in answer to his prompting, she stood slowly, gracefully, only to bow at the waist before Diam. The many, many lessons on traditional comportment that had been almost inscribed into her bones were screeching at the lapse, for as a woman she should curtsy rather than attempt a bow, but such a show didn't quite convey her gratitude as well as Cassie would have liked, and besides, wasn't she trying to break away from the mold her parents had tried to pigeonhole her into? Rather, she bowed and allowed Diam to view her unprotected, vulnerable head and nape of her neck, and though she genuinely meant the sentiment, it was still a struggle to stifle the innate wariness their species held, not when such a show of trust was so new, too foreign.

"I- Thank you." Cassie breathed, hands clenching into fists where they rested atop her thighs, her pale eyes staring at the floor below. Held within those small, all but whispered words was a world of emotion, but she was at least self-aware enough to know she'd merely talk in circles and make a fool of herself with all that she wanted to express, so she didn't even try. All she could do, and all she did, was hope that Diam understood.​