Trash Panda

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Cas knew Regis was just trying to egg him on, but it was still difficult for him to keep up his act when everything the rebel said struck close to home. He knew he wasn’t as strong of a leader as his father and probably never would be. However, he had to remind himself that appearances weren’t important right now. When the founder of the Scourge was standing in his cell with a knife and whiskey breath, behaving as proudly as Atlas would just get him hurt. The pounding in his head and the feeling of warm liquid trickling down his cheek were proof enough that Regis wasn’t a man who tolerated having his patience tested. Even if the rebel thought he was a coward, he had to pretend like he’d given up so he could escape.

To his relief, the charade worked, and Regis finally left the room. As soon as the door closed behind him, Caspian slid down the wall with a long exhale and lifted his hands to his head to inspect the damage. Where the bowl had struck, there was a bump forming, and he curled his lip painfully as it stung in response to his touch. Unlike the injury on the back of his skull though, he didn’t feel any blood. There would probably just be a nasty bruise in a few hours. The cut on his cheek was similarly harmless. At the worst, it might leave a faint, thin scar, but as long as he was still mobile enough to run, he could worry about disinfecting the small gash later.

He glanced at the door one more time to make sure Regis was gone before his gaze landed on the glass of water outside his cell. Luckily for him, it was still untouched. He carefully and quietly rose to his feet to crouch down beside the bars. Having lost one chance to have a drink earlier, he wasn’t going to pass up the beverage a second time. He was already tired and achy from dehydration, and he didn’t want to find out how much worse he would feel if he went another few hours without wetting his tongue.

The process of getting the container into his cell was tedious. Since both of his hands were still bound, he had to get creative about shuffling it around until he was able to squeeze it through the gap. Once he had, he lifted the rim to his lips and downed the water in a few large gulps. It tasted a little like silt, but he was too thirsty to care that it hadn’t been purified. He just wished there was more of it, because the meager amount in the cup hadn’t been nearly enough to get rid of the dryness in his mouth for more than a few minutes.

At least I won’t die of dehydration, he thought with a sigh, turning his attention to the bars of his cell. Now that he’d quenched his thirst at least partially, he needed to focus on figuring out how to get away before Regis sent anyone else to keep watch. Unsure how much time he had, he stood up against and began investigating the small space, mostly by touch. He ran his hands over the metal bars, feeling for anything that might be a potential weak spot. None of them seemed to be loose though, so he moved on to scanning the ground and the walls for anything useful. With only three days before his scheduled death, he couldn’t rely on the soldiers to find him first. As long as he still had enough strength left to stand on his feet, he was determined to find a way out on his own.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I thought so xD It was the wake-up call Cas needed to start seriously thinking of ways to get out of his cell.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Cas held Regis’s gaze stubbornly when the rebel leader said his relationship with his daughter was none of his business. Maybe it wasn’t, but he wasn’t just going to sit idly by and watch him abuse her so heartlessly. He would have done the same for anyone in her situation. The way Regis spoke and behaved around her wasn’t right. Even if she was part of the rebellion, he couldn’t bring himself to pretend like he hadn’t been appalled by the way the two had interacted. He hoped that when the soldiers found him, the older man would be in the building, so they could arrest him for his crimes, and he couldn’t hit her anymore.

“I don’t see her that way at all,” he defended himself when Regis accused him of claiming Iris as his property. “And honestly, it seems to me like you do. You boss her around and hit her like she’s just a tool for you to use. What kind of father would do that to his own daughter? Do you even care about her?” He knew he was getting heated, but he couldn’t help himself. The rebel leader’s actions were sickening. As long as he was behind bars, where the angry man couldn’t get to him, he wasn’t afraid to say so either. Somebody had to do it, and even if Regis didn’t listen to him because he was a royal, he was going to try anyway.

When Iris’s father went on about the military, Cas didn’t say anything. He could have explained that the soldiers were trained to defend against large armies, not individual assassins, or that the military was a different beast when it was united under a common goal rather than casually guarding the capital. However, something told him that saying anything more about Aspiria’s armed forces was a bad idea. There was no telling what Regis would do with that kind of information nor what lengths he would go to uncover more if he revealed he knew useful intel that the rebellion could take advantage of. So, deciding he didn’t want to endure any torture before he was rescued, he kept his mouth shut on the subject.

In the next moment, Regis moved on to a different topic on his own, but the sudden change was far from relieving to Caspian. The prince tensed as the rebel leader’s voice grew dangerously quiet, holding his breath with instinctive apprehension. He could read the atmosphere well enough to know he wasn’t off the hook yet, but he hadn’t expected the older man to pull out a key. As Regis approached his cell and unlocked the door, Cas pressed his back against the wall, heart knocking against his ribs. He’d thought the rebels wouldn’t touch him until they decided to kill him, but now that he was trapped in a small space with a violent man leaning over him with a blade, he realized too late that he’d thought wrong.

With nowhere to go, he hurriedly turned his face to the side as the rice bowl flew at him. The dish made contact with his head, and he gasped. His vision swam from the blow, but he was still coherent enough to understand what Regis had just said. Three days. He had just three days until the Scourge killed him. It wasn’t very much time.

In spite of himself, he could feel his legs tremble as cold dread washed over him. The possibility that this dark room was the last place he would ever see was suddenly very real. He wouldn’t see his home or his father ever again. He wouldn’t have a chance to make up for this mistake. Stop it, stop it, he bit down on his lip, trying to stop the despair from taking over. It wasn’t over yet. His odds may have been grim, but he still had three days to do everything in his power to get away. The first step was making sure he physically well enough to run.

Putting his safety before his pride, Cas slumped against the wall with his face still turned away from Regis. He wanted the rebel leader to think his spirit was breaking, so he hopefully wouldn’t be as inclined to keep throwing things at him or use the knife in his hand. If no one else touched him while he stayed in the Scourge’s custody, he still had a chance to escape.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Aaand Cas ran his mouth again xD He got a little too cocky this time

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Father. Caspian’s eyes widened as he made the connection. This man was Regis Nox-Fleuret, the leader of the Scourge. He was shocked that someone as high up the ladder as Regis would show his face in a prison cell, but maybe he’d just come by for Iris since they were family. However, he wasn’t acting like the prince would have expected of a parent. The man’s tone was sharp, and he was looking at her with nothing but anger in his eyes. Even if she had disobeyed some order he had given her, it seemed harsh for him to speak to her so furiously when all she’d done was talk to their prisoner for a minute.

As the father and daughter conversed, Cas couldn’t help but gawk at them. He was grateful that the room was dark enough to veil his expression for the most part because his surprise was written all over his face. He was both baffled and disgusted that Regis would accuse Iris of sleeping with him. For one thing, she was a grown woman who could make her own decisions about who she chose to be with. For another, he couldn’t understand why the rebel leader was so upset when their plan had worked. What did it matter how she had tricked him if they had managed to capture him either way? It seemed like he was upset that she had even pretended to be interested in him so that he’d go with her to the woods.

He sucked in his breath and turned his head away as the glass bottle struck the bars of his cell and shattered. He’s insane, he thought, wincing at the feeling of a sting in his cheek. One of the broken shards had nicked him in its flight path. Not long after, the sound of a slap followed, and he looked up again incredulously as Regis ordered Iris to her room like a rambunctious toddler. He couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed, but even more so, he was astounded that Iris would side with a man who hit her. If this was the way members of the Scourge treated each other, it seemed obvious to him that they weren’t people who could be trusted.

Still, she followed the order, and Cas watched with a frown as she hurried out of the room. Even though she was the one who’d gotten him into this mess in the first place, he couldn’t help but feel a little pity for her. No one deserved to be treated like that. And, if he was honest, he still had some faint, residual feelings for her that had yet to disappear. It was difficult for him to watch someone he’d gotten close to be treated like she was less than dirt.

Regis spoke again, and Cas turned back to him cagily. The image the rebel painted was gruesome, and he swallowed the lump that began to form in his throat, trying to remember that the Scourge wouldn’t have the chance to kill him before the soldiers found him and brought him home. He’s just trying to scare me, he assured himself, taking a deep breath and meeting the other man’s gaze with narrowed eyes. Even more than when Ethan had been in the room, he couldn’t show Regis that he was frightened of him. He had to appear strong because he was Aspiria’s future king. Besides, he had already figured out that the rebels weren’t going to touch him, otherwise Iris’s boyfriend would have punched him earlier.

“Like hell it will,” he said, tilting his chin up defiantly as his confidence returned. “I’m not going to die at the hands of a man who treats his daughter like that. She did what you wanted, yet you practically accused her of prostituting herself! You should be ashamed of yourself.” He scoffed. “You call yourself a leader, but this rebellion is a joke. I hope you’re ready for death, because it won’t be long before Aspiria’s army squashes all of you like bugs.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Same! I love all the plans we've got

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Caspian had been the one to prompt her for an answer, but when Iris said she had been sent to kill him, he looked away from her with a pained expression. There were a lot of different thoughts running through his head. Firstly, he couldn’t believe he’d taken his assassin into his care. Even though it hadn’t been his intention, he’d put himself and his father in danger by trusting that she was a high born despite the fact that he’d found her on the edge of the city and that she had no form of identification to prove that she wasn’t an intruder. It would have been safer to follow Atlas’s instructions and have her sent to a cell until the guards figured out who she was. But no. Instead of doing the logical thing, he’d had to go and play hero and welcome her into the home she would have otherwise had to break into to do her job.

Alongside that realization, he also felt manipulated. She may have lost her memories for a while, but by the time he’d confessed that he liked her, she had known she there to kill him. Yet she’d still indulged him and let him believe there was something between them. He hated how easily she’d been able to string him along, while he hadn’t even considered the possibility that she’d been lying. He had been so blinded by infatuation and the conviction that she was a high born that he’d walked right into her trap.

Some leader I’m turning out to be, he thought bitterly. If he was able to escape or if the soldiers found him before the rebels killed him, he was going to be much more careful in the future. He owed it to himself and to his father to be a better ruler who wouldn’t put Aspiria in jeopardy with his unrealistic beliefs that most people were good. Once he was back in the safety of the mansion, he was going to take his training much more seriously.

As Iris went on to explain herself by talking about the way she had been raised, Cas said nothing. Aside from the fact that he didn’t want to talk to her anymore, he was also tired of hearing the Scourge’s excuses for trying to dismantle the monarchy. He knew they thought his family was corrupt, and he knew they thought they were just for causing an uproar, but it didn’t change the reality that they were in the wrong. It was frustrating to hear both Ethan and Iris talk about their cause as if it wasn’t the source of all the suffering happening in their country.

He managed not to look her in the eyes until she brought up her mother. At the revelation that she had lost her life to cancer, he looked up with a mixture of hesitation and surprise. Fail-proof treatments and vaccines had been invented to treat that disease decades ago, so it was hard for him to believe that someone had died because of it recently. However, there was no sign of dishonesty on her face. He squirmed, unsure what to think. At the very least, her mother’s case was worth looking into to find out why she hadn’t been treated for her illness. If—when—he returned to the capital, he would have to remember to ask around for an obituary.

“I know words won’t bring your mother back, but I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. Having lost his own mother a few years ago, he understood what she was going through. He parted his lips to go on, but before he could, he flinched at the thunder of an angry voice. As the door flew open, he turned toward the opening, squinting against the light that came through from the other side. The silhouette of a man stood at the top of the stairs, but it wasn’t Ethan this time.

The stranger marched down into the room, and Cas studied him silently, unable to place who he was looking at. He’d never seen this guy before, but it had to be someone from the rebellion. Whoever he was, the rage in his voice made the hairs on the back of the prince’s neck stand up, and he sat tensely, hoping this wasn’t going to be his next guard. He’d already had enough of Ethan. He didn’t need to put up with this man too.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I've got a few ideas already about how that will go down. I think the direction I choose to take it will depend on how their trip back goes though!

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I like that :) There's going to be a lot happening soon!

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I like all of those ideas! I was also thinking that they could be inadvertently making it more difficult for the search party to find Cas by moving around so much. It would be interesting if the day after they leave Regis's house, the place is raided by soldiers who'd been sent to get the prince back (Regis could be gone at the time if we don't want him to be caught)