Cassandra Pentaghast (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stabsbooks) wrote2016-07-31 02:50 pm
stabsbooks) wrote2016-07-31 02:50 pm
for obi_wanmanshow
The name had been a part of her nearly all her life, as familiar to her as her own. When it had first appeared - glowing golden script on her inner arm - she had been fascinated, spending hours upon hours staring at it, tracing the letters with one finger, dreaming about the kind of person her soulmate might be. The name was strange to her, not Nevarran or Orlesian or anything she had heard of, but that had only added to the mystery and excitement.
His name had appeared on her skin at the time of her first flowering - one more marker on her path from girlhood into womanhood. If she had been the sort to go to school and have friends, it might have been the kind of thing to giggle over with the other girls, to shyly hide away, only to shriek in feigned indigence when her sleeve was playfully pushed up and the name finally revealed. As it was, Cassandra learned from tutors, and rarely had contact with other children. The name, like her beloved books and dreams of dragon-hunting, became a solitary escape, a daydream of a better life.
Both had faded, in time, as such things do. Fantasies of true love and romance had been replaced by the realities of work and duty (though Cassandra had never quite been able to let go of her fondness for romance, if only entirely fictional ones). And the name on her arm had faded from a bright gold to something duller and duller as the years went on, until it was something that could not be seen at all except in the brightest light of day.
(The longer it took, they said, the more your soulmate's name faded, the less likely you were ever to find him at all. And this one - an unknown, foreign name, one belonging to a man who clearly lacked either the interest or the means to seek out a soulmate with the name Pentaghast, well...)
Cassandra herself couldn't say exactly when it was she had stopped expecting to find him. Certainly it had been nothing overnight, no sudden revelation. She had simply woken up one day, no longer a girl in her twenties eager to make the world her own, but a woman in her late thirties - accomplished, certainly, perhaps even fulfilled - but utterly alone, and more and more likely to stay that way.
But the name is still a part of her, as much as it ever had been. And so it is that when she hears it spoken aloud for the first time, she doesn't even blink; hearing the words she had whispered so reverently to herself for twenty-five years is as natural as breathing.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi." She nods sharply, focused on her work, ignoring the tiny voice in the back of her mind that is urgently whispering something, something is happening, this is important - She holds her hand out to shake - her arms, as they always are these days, fully covered by long sleeves that meet her gloves, the barely-visible name securely hidden from even the most prying eyes. "I am Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast."
His name had appeared on her skin at the time of her first flowering - one more marker on her path from girlhood into womanhood. If she had been the sort to go to school and have friends, it might have been the kind of thing to giggle over with the other girls, to shyly hide away, only to shriek in feigned indigence when her sleeve was playfully pushed up and the name finally revealed. As it was, Cassandra learned from tutors, and rarely had contact with other children. The name, like her beloved books and dreams of dragon-hunting, became a solitary escape, a daydream of a better life.
Both had faded, in time, as such things do. Fantasies of true love and romance had been replaced by the realities of work and duty (though Cassandra had never quite been able to let go of her fondness for romance, if only entirely fictional ones). And the name on her arm had faded from a bright gold to something duller and duller as the years went on, until it was something that could not be seen at all except in the brightest light of day.
(The longer it took, they said, the more your soulmate's name faded, the less likely you were ever to find him at all. And this one - an unknown, foreign name, one belonging to a man who clearly lacked either the interest or the means to seek out a soulmate with the name Pentaghast, well...)
Cassandra herself couldn't say exactly when it was she had stopped expecting to find him. Certainly it had been nothing overnight, no sudden revelation. She had simply woken up one day, no longer a girl in her twenties eager to make the world her own, but a woman in her late thirties - accomplished, certainly, perhaps even fulfilled - but utterly alone, and more and more likely to stay that way.
But the name is still a part of her, as much as it ever had been. And so it is that when she hears it spoken aloud for the first time, she doesn't even blink; hearing the words she had whispered so reverently to herself for twenty-five years is as natural as breathing.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi." She nods sharply, focused on her work, ignoring the tiny voice in the back of her mind that is urgently whispering something, something is happening, this is important - She holds her hand out to shake - her arms, as they always are these days, fully covered by long sleeves that meet her gloves, the barely-visible name securely hidden from even the most prying eyes. "I am Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast."
no subject
He has not been idle, wandering Celene's immaculately sculpted garden. He produces, after a suitably poetic flourish, a single rose, not yet fully in bloom, beautifully pale white in the evening light-- and just barely pink along the edges of its petals, a delicate blush. It is an exquisite breed, likely very expensive, and he has stolen it, quite literally, from the Empress of Orlais' garden.
Obi-Wan offers her the flower.
"I hope it would not be too forward to offer you a gift. I'm afraid, when I saw this, it so reminded me of you that I couldn't help myself."
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"Thank you, my lord," she murmurs, smiling as she carefully plucks the rose from his fingers - her own brushing his, just slightly. "You are too kind by far. I cannot think how I might repay you."
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He wonders if she remembers it, before deciding that it hardly matters if she does. And as for the rose itself, he has no doubt that Celene will shortly have greater concerns than the boldness of one Inquisition thief.
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Her gaze darts to his at his words, and she shakes her head, eager to dismiss his concerns - though of course, they both know all too well that he could never have caused such offense. The game is still being played.
"Never think that," she reassures him. "As you say, it was merely duty. I - you will think me foolish, or overly romantic, but in truth I thought of little else but you, in that short time we were parted. My greatest fear was that I should come here, only to find you had not appeared for our meeting after all - that you had come to your senses, or found better company in some other young lady."
no subject
Grown men do not giggle, but it was a near thing. He's quite proud of the lack of a smirk, as well-- the image of a demure, genteel Cassandra is fascinating and ridiculous, but no less charming.
"I'm grateful then, that I was not too difficult to find."
no subject
"You seem quite certain of my charms, Master Kenobi, for one who knows so little of me," she observes thoughtfully. A pause, and she tilts her head, studying him. "Tell me, do you follow the Maker?"