[color=lightgray][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/lEzxcTc.png[/img][/center] [color=lightsteelblue]Time:[/color] Day [color=lightsteelblue]Location:[/color] Sorian Park [hr] The first day was hell. The pain. The nightmares. The memories. [color=D0B4EC]“You [i]scoundrel[/i]! You liar!”[/color] [i]Lottie…[/i] [color=#4DD0E1] "You should have never abandoned me."[/color] [i]Kiki…[/i] [color=D0B4EC]“...you’re exactly like him.”[/color] His blood dripped from Charlotte’s fingertips. [color=#4DD0E1]"Perhaps your sister can feast on your traitorous blood."[/color] His blood dripped from the dagger in Kiki’s hand. Charlotte’s cries as he walked away. Kiki’s laugh as she walked away. The laugh morphed into Lottie’s. Not the sweet one he had grown to adore, no, this one was far more malicious. His blood ran cold. Once. Twice. Three times the dagger plunged into him. He looked up, expecting to see the masked face of his would be assailant from the night before. But no. It was [i]HER[/i] face. That beautiful face…those melancholy blue eyes. That raven hair. Those lips that had kissed him so tenderly. It was Charlotte. She was covered in his blood, the dagger dripping gratuitously with his very lifeforce. She was laughing. She was celebrating his pain. His end. She loved it. He had hoped…wondered…if she could have loved him. [hr] Day two was better. Someone [i]progressed his healing[/i] a bit. He didn’t know who. He had simply been too out of it to know who had come in and out of the makeshift hospital room they had turned his chambers into there in the Damien estate. But he knew enough…had experienced enough wounds like this to know that the healing was, for lack of a better word…unnatural. Though they had not healed the wounds on his face. Perhaps they had been too preoccupied on the critical injuries to worry about simple scratches. Little did they know that those three marks were more painful to him than any stab wound could ever be. Still, he hurt like hell. His guts felt as though they would spill out from him with every movement. But Calbert made sure he was up and walking every few hours. Calbert had been…kind. The way a father was meant to be. It was a strange look on him. Cassius didn’t know what to think about it all, but it meant something to him. Even if he wasn’t sure he wanted it to. [hr] Day three was a different kind of hell. Cassius refused sleep, he refused the recesses of his mind; the dreams, the memories, the visions that came with it. He refused it all and he craved fresh air and hard liquor. Calbert begged him not to leave, and Cassius meant it when he said he was sorry…but he simply couldn’t take it anymore. His father sent guards to tail him. Cassius evaded, not as easily as he usually could, but easily all the same. The rest was a blur of alcohol induced oblivion.[hr] Cassius Damien woke up in a bed full of other men and women. The room smelled of sex, sweat, and perfumes. He grabbed the wine next to the bed and had his first drink of the day. Cas could barely recall the events of the night prior but he could remember enough to know that he hadn’t partaken in the [i]activities[/i] that they other men and women in his bed had indulged in. He recalled blaming it on the stabwounds…he recalled that those words had been a lie. He took another drink. After he washed and reapplied clean bandages that had been provided by the brothel’s proprietor, a beautiful woman in her 50’s named Leilianna, Cassius dressed. He very much overpaid his tab, then left as though he were in a hurry. There was no destination in mind, he just needed the air and anything other than stillness. Sorian park found itself graced with the presence of a, let’s be honest, [i]worse-for-wear[/i] Cassius Damien. However, despite his slower than normal pace…every bit of that swagger remained in his steps. The charm in his muscle memory, however, did not find itself in his eyes. The three clawmark-like wounds across his face did not help his appearance, but rather it was the weight behind his eyes that truly deviated from his usual magnetism. The weight became even heavier upon hearing a stranger's words from beyond the bend. “From the very heart of Vermillion, Verimont's Darling—Lady Charlotte Vikena.” His heart sank, not just into his chest but lower…so low that he felt the licks of flame from the very depths of hell itself. The cuts on his face began to sting. He turned to see her. Cassius watched her emerge from the side of the stage. He took in the sun in her hair, her shyness, the elegance that came from years of nobility. The color in her cheeks reminded him of the timidness in her that morning at the lake. He...had seen so many sides to her now. The fire from their first meeting...Her kindness...Her levity...Her arousal...Her anger...Fear. She curtsied, clasped her hands, and addressed the crowd in her gentle way. Beautiful couldn't do her justice. [color=D0B4EC] “Good day to you all. It is an honor to stand here for such a cause, and in such lovely company.”[/color] He fought himself to leave. He gave it everything he had, but alas, he found himself taking a seat at the back of the auction crowd. His eyes hadn’t left Lottie since they had found her. She was covered in his blood. She was laughing. She was celebrating his pain. His end. She loved it. But that wasn’t true. She was right there on stage…those melancholy eyes looking so sweetly around the crowd like only she could. He begged those eyes not to find him. Cassius felt afraid, more afraid than he ever had in warfare. He wanted to be invisible…he wanted to be safe. He wasn’t afraid of the ones who had left him for dead in the dirt only nights ago…no…he was afraid to be seen by her. But he could not for the life of him look away. [/color]