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[COLOR=CCA1A1]Grimoire:[/color] N/A
[COLOR=CCA1A1]Skills:[/color] N/A
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[i]Cassie woke up in darkness. It wasn’t so much that it was dark for darkness’ sake, but it was an absence of light. As if it was withheld on purpose. Cassie looked around her to no avail. The last thing she remembered was being in the room with her coven, looking at the journal and attempting to speak to it, to understand it. And then…..

The room, if it could be called that, switched then. Cassie saw before her a large house, her home, and in the backyard, she noticed a little girl, around age 7, playing with some toys while three figures stood on the back porch, nursing what looked to be varying degrees of alcohol. She knew two of them to be her parents, though Cassie didn’t need to know it was her mother as she held a wine glass filled nearly to the brim with a dark, red liquid.

Cassie recalled this memory a little bit, though she only understood it from her point of view. She knew she was playing house with her dolls, acting out the various stages of life from birth to wedding to….huh, it never occurred to her that her make-believe dolls never died. 

Cassie stood near the three others in the scene as they looked at the young girl. 

“What do we do with her?” her father had asked. His tone was both filled with concern and..fear.

Her mother remained silent, but her face spoke more than words ever could. It was as if it said, ‘I know a solution,’ but couldn’t get it out.

The other person standing there was a man. He was taller than her father with light tan skin and dark eyes, almost a deep black. The man grunted as if it were a response. “We’ll keep an eye on her. Gods know we don’t need another one of them wrecking reality.”

Cassie noted her parents didn’t correct the man on his use of multiple gods. Either they were allowing him his belief, which wasn’t their nature, or the man made them wary. 

Cassie’s mother finally spoke. “What did we do to deserve this?”

The man chuckled. “You think this a punishment?”

Her father turned to face the man. “What else do you call……..that?” he asked, gesturing in the direction of young Cassie.

“Call it whatever makes you sleep at night, but the fact is she is yours and, thus, your responsibility.”

“What do we do?” her mother asked, more gently than her father.

“Contain her. Observe her. If you notice anything unusual, call us. If things get darker, well….let’s hope you have good insurance on your home.”

Her mother drank her wine and drained nearly half the glass. Her father clenched his fist, but remained silent.

Meanwhile, young Cassie was oblivious to the dark conversation happening a few feet from her.

Before she could react, the scene warped again, this time they were inside the home in the kitchen. Cassie saw that she was here again, this time age 12, with her parents standing on one side and her on the other, as if at war. In their hands was a book Cassie recognized, though she didn’t remember the name of it. It was some young adult book she had managed to get her hands on. The recalled the story was about a young girl who discovered she had magic powers and was sent to a school in Europe to learn how to control her powers. She also recalled the young girl had developed feelings for both her roommate, another young girl, as well as a young boy who teased her, but secretly liked her. It was filled with magic and romance and talk of powerful beings who controlled the world.

It was obviously not on her parent’s reading list.

“What is this?” her father had asked, though it was clear in his tone he knew exactly what it was.

[color=CCA1A1]”A book..”[/color] Cassie had responded just as her father slammed it on the marble counter, causing young Cassie to jerk.

“And why do you have this?”

Young Cassie remained silent, Cassie knowing no answer would be sufficient.

Her mother looked at if she wanted to respond to her father, but didn’t quite know the words to quell the anger. “You know how we feel about this filth!”

[color=CCA1A1]”I was just reading it for fun..”[/color] she responded, but her father slammed the book again. “Fun? This garbage is poisoning young people! Filling their minds with ideas of witchcraft and belief in other gods. That goes against God.”

Young Cassie looked as if she wanted to fall into herself, and Cassie tried to reach out for comfort, but found herself grounded in place.

“Go to your room and read your Bible. I don’t want to hear from you until dinner,” her father said, an undertone of rage. Young Cassie turned and walked to her room. Again, Cassie was in a place where she only knew the scene from her point of view. How scared she was at what would happen to her. And then she remembered.

“Lock her door,” her father has told her mother.

“Lionel…”
“Do as I say! Lock her door.”

Her mother stood for a second before she followed Cassie. Cassie knew that she would read her Bible for a bit and then try to leave, only to find her door locked. Again.

And it remained locked for seven days.

The scene warped again and Cassie found herself standing in the darkness again.

Scenes fell around her like glass, shards broken and reflected over and over again into an endless abyss where neither sound nor warmth offered her any respite from the memories of her parents, of a life of solitude and isolation, of hurt and harm until one touched the ground and sprouted. The flower, shimmering with pinpricks of magic, reflected Cassie’s face in a myriad of emotions and its petals opened to offer an orb of power beating in tandem with her heart. Another scene touched down and yet another flower bloomed, yet another time of Cassie reflected over and over and a blooming of potential. Her life rained down in pieces around her and a field in the strange darkness bloomed in full around her. They bent and swayed in an intangible breeze and the shifts and shimmers of magic drifted off their flowers and swirled on the wind about Casie before coalescing into a single creature.

A butterfly. 

It was the size of Cassie and settled on the flowers as easily as walking on ground. Its wings shimmered like stained glass in a setting sun, each beat of its wings sending a cascade of color across the void. It contemplated Cassie for a long while, as if waiting for her. 

Cassie stared in awe at the creature, wondering and waiting, before she took a tentative step forward.[/i]