Week Four

[stagemanagers]

[Last week, Gershwin High School Academy University saw its very first intentional murder! What a milestone! And right after Spongebob's No Murder party, too - that doesn't seem like it bodes very well for anybody's future.

You all wake up this morning with yet another new memory returned to you. You'll also find that the school's external doors have now unlocked. Congratulations! You're free! Unfortunately, you also seem to be entirely in the middle of nowhere. So maybe it's more of a symbolic victory.

Still, you should look around and do some investigation! Maybe you'll find a fun surprise.]

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

(( Be sure to submit your memory regains and your AC for this week! Hester's office hours and the merch booth also remain available! ))

Comments

[feudalladyshandmaid]

[Yes, it's true. She needs comfort, but... She can't let herself have it now, can she? Even with all the worry on Elsa's face, the dread she's been carrying forces her eyes open and pushes her back, away from Elsa's hands. All until her back finds the tree she'd come to a stop beneath.]

It's the dreams. The ones we've been having every week.

[It would seem that memories are very important right now.]

I didn't know why last week, but... now... I understand why I betrayed my friends.

[defyingfrigidity]

[The way Cassandra pulls away from the contact hurts. They... they'd been getting along so well. She'd felt comfortable with Cassandra, and she thought Cassandra had felt the same way with her. Just what in her memories had changed so suddenly that she's now pulling away like this?]

... What?

[Betrayed? Cassandra? Elsa can't believe it. Cassandra had been so adamant about looking out for all of them, she can't imagine her betraying someone else. Unless... something happened....]

You can talk to me, Cassandra. I promise, I won't... I won't judge you for anything. We're... we're friends, right?

[Friends. She tries not to let her voice crack a that word. This felt so similar to Varian's breakdown after the trial, and yet this pain in her chest is so different. She was worried for Varian, but she's scared for Cassandra, and this... whatever it is happening with them right now.]

[feudalladyshandmaid]

[She can't sit like this, out in the open. Cassandra needed to have her back against a wall before she even thinks about opening up to someone about herself. Or even worse... her secrets. Secrets that could irreparably alter her life, and if they got out being sent to a convent would be the least of her problems.]

...Right. Friends.

[Friends. Someone she could trust with her worries, someone who could ease the weight on Cassandra's chest. It's obvious, more than anything, that Cassandra's scared now... even as she starts to visibly open up.]

It's... my mother. I-I couldn't remember who she was for the longest time, but... She's the woman who kidnapped Rapunzel as a baby.

[defyingfrigidity]

... What?

[Elsa knew the story. Of course she knew the story. The infant daughter of King Frederic and Queen Arianna, taken from her cradle in the middle of the night. The guards combed the whole kingdom, but never found her, until eighteen years later, when the thief Flynn Rider brought her home.

But something... doesn't add up...]

But I thought... the way you talk about Rapunzel and your time before being brought here, you made it seem like you didn't know her before she came home.

[feudalladyshandmaid]

I- We were trapped in a magic house, kind of like here, and I got separated from everyone. A door opened, and inside I met this little girl who showed me... [She shudders.] It was my memories, Elsa. I saw myself, as a kid, watching my mother kidnap the princess, and...

[It's all so vivid. Even now, she can see it all happening before her; the soft notices of the clearing the cottage squatted in. The tinkling of the... music box...

The way it smashed against the floor.]

She left me, Elsa.

[defyingfrigidity]

[Oh no. Oh no no no...]

Oh Cass...

[What can she say to that? How do even begin to comfort someone who's only just now remembering being abandoned by their mother?]

I'm so sorry. That's... [She's good and honest struggling to find the words. To abandon a child, to harm someone like Cass in such a terrible way... it hurts. It hurts so bad. Enough that a spark of that hurt twists, into something that feels like anger.] I can't find the words for how incredibly cruel that is.

[feudalladyshandmaid]

[What can anyone say to that? Any other person may have been near downright inconsolable. But Cassandra? She pulled herself together with the only strength she had - her anger. Anger that burned bright enough to reach the Dark Kingdom.]

Yeah, it is. [Bitterness bubbles to the surface, beneath it all. It's almost nice to tap into something that wasn't soul-crushing depression.] She left with Rapunzel, and that's just how it's always been. Someone else always gets the attention and respect and I get... nothing.