little red relish (critical role | cassandra/delilah)

[fiachairecht]

little red relish. critical role, cassandra/delilah, delilah/sylas. the briarwoods take whitestone, with cassandra's help. 2.6k words, rated m. for plutonianshores in multifandomhorrorexchange 2020.

The slip of a girl waiting for the carriage just past the gates can't be more than thirteen. She's dressed all in white, with the exception of the ruby pendant gleaming at the end of her necklace, and Delilah knows as soon as she sets eyes on her that they've made the right choice.

She thinks, for a moment, about waking Sylas, but the journey had been hard enough on him. And besides, she doesn't need the confirmation: Delilah knows death when she sees it. "Well met, Whitestone," she murmurs as the trees close tighter around the path towards the castle. "I think we have much to talk about."

She's speaking to herself, but she knows, by now, how to tell that something else is listening.

The girl is at the high table again at dinner, one empty place setting separating her from the other de Rolos. Delilah counts the children, from Julius down to Percival, and reminds herself that it would be unspeakably rude to cast a detect magic spell while seated at her host's left hand.

She has been patient this long; she will manage a few hours longer.

Dinner seems to drag on for ages, and Delilah catches only snatches of the conversations drifting past her - Frederick, telling her husband how sorry he is that they hadn't come a week earlier and been able to see the Grey Hunt run wild through the Parchwood; Johanna, having a whispered argument with Julius about the city temple; one of the servants, bidding her to enjoy her fish while wiping away tears.

And, down at the end of the table, the youngest de Rolo daughter pushes her food around her plate and drains goblet after goblet of wine, steadfastly ignoring anyone who tries to speak to her. She catches Delilah's eye, sometimes, between courses when the conversations surge, and every time, Delilah is struck with the urge to get up, to walk down the dais and take the empty seat next to her.

Why are you so sad, child, she wants to ask; would you like me to free you from everything weighing on your mind? You must know I would love you.

But she stays. It's sheer politeness that keeps her in her seat at first, answering questions from the ladies about her plans for the week, the trade negotiations Sylas will be beginning tomorrow. But as the night wears on, she finds her gaze drawn more and more to the tapestries behind the table - the tree, soaked in sunlight or blood depending on whether the light limns the thread gold or red; the deer and the hunters that seem to move with every slight motion of Delilah's head such that she cannot tell predator from prey.

If she goes to Cassandra now, she thinks with a terrible certainty, everything will be lost. It's the sort of feeling she once would have discounted without a thought, but she knows better now that she has received her charge from the Undying King. When he speaks, in whatever way he chooses, she listens.

So Delilah waits, magic aching in her bones and vague, uneasy suspicions collecting in the pit of her stomach whenever Sylas looks at her with bemused concern. Surely he who has tasted death even more closely than she has noticed something off about the terrible ordinariness of a dinner that should be anything but?

She excuses herself on the early side of permissibility, begging travel exhaustion and declining Johanna's offer of a second coffee. And she finds her patience well rewarded, then: the girl finds her way to Delilah's side as she leaves the hall where Sylas and the elder Briarwoods are sipping their last drinks. She curls cold fingers around Delilah's hand and glances up with pale, somber eyes.

"Let me show you to your chambers," she says. "While I'm sure you have your own servants, as we do, I can assure you no one knows the castle better than I."

Delilah glances back, only once. No one seems to have noticed their absence, and though her heart aches at leaving Sylas alone, she trusts him to take care of their hosts for the hour until he'll come to bed. And the longer she stands in the doorway, the less she can resist the girl's insistent grasp. 

Her hand is solid in Delilah's own. That, she thinks, must count for something.

"Of course," Delilah says, and a smile comes more easily to her face than she'd expected. "You must tell me all about your wonderful home, Lady ..." She trails off. Had Frederick introduced his youngest daughter? So much of their arrival seems a blur already.

"Cassandra," the girl says, as she leads Delilah towards the stairs. "It's quite alright. When there's six children ahead of you, you rather get used to people having to run through a few names before landing on your own."

Cassandra's own smile is tight and sad, and pulls at a part of Delilah's affections that she had thought long dormant. I would never treat a child of mine like that, she thinks, and Cassandra pauses, looks back at her with such empty eyes that for a moment Delilah thinks she's not a child at all, and she holds her breath — no, it's too early -

But, "Be careful on the landing," is all Cassandra says, quieter now that they're alone. "People have died here."

Delilah waits for the genuine smile, the laugh. Follows Cassandra's gaze up to the chandelier when neither is forthcoming, and the chains draped over the iron arms sway in the twist of the late-autumn breeze that has slipped through the closed windows, the cracks in the stone. She shivers, and Cassandra's hand falls soothingly on her wrist. "Recently?" Delilah asks, though she cannot convince herself she wants to know the answer.

Cassandra shrugs. "The castle has stood for a thousand years. The stones have plenty of stories." There are more gems on her necklace now than there had been when she stood at the city gate, and they drip down her neck in the candlelight.

Delilah knows death — has spoken to it, bargained with it, slept beside it in bed every night for years. And still the way Cassandra de Rolo speaks of it unsettles her. It should be a triumph, to know Cassandra is already so close to death, yet the thought that some other death may have a claim to her before Delilah has had a chance to do more than give her plans the barest push into motion is not a comforting one, and she turns over the contradiction as Cassandra begins to walk again.

"I need to leave you here," Cassandra says when they reach the double doors to the guest wing. The wood is carved with the same tree motif from the tapestries in the dining hall, and this time, Delilah is sure that the leaves are drops of blood, fallen from Cassandra's necklace. "Sleep well, my lady."

She lifts Delilah's hand, kisses it cold and lingering. Delilah watches her mouth as her head lifts, imagines kissing the life from her lips as she lays the girl to rest in the temple under her castle. Soon, she thinks, but aloud she says, "And you, my dear."

She blinks, and Cassandra is already gone.

*

In the morning, Julius is dead. Delilah wipes blood from Sylas' chin and thinks about how quickly plans can disappear.

Feeding does not seem to have strengthened him. Sylas lies back among their pillows looking down at his stained nightshirt with hazy eyes, his fingertips dragging up and down her arm slowly, so slowly. "You must understand, my love," he says, and even his voice is slow — thick, sad, coming from some deep place Delilah is afraid she cannot touch. "I didn't mean to lose control. I should have ..."

Delilah brushes his hair back from his face, kisses his forehead. "Travel does strange things to all of us," she says. There is still time — nothing is lost, not while Cassandra is alive. "As long as you didn't bury him he won't bother us again. Rest now. I'll take care of everything. Come sundown things will look better."

She kisses him goodbye, and something lingers on her tongue, ashen and arcane. She must see Cassandra, she thinks. Must save her from whatever is beginning.

Delilah locks the door behind her — wood, metal, magic. No one, living or dead, will touch Sylas while she is gone. She pulls her gloves on and keeps her steps slow, but she has hardly turned the first corner out of the guest wing when she nearly collides with a serving girl.

"I'm sorry, my lady," the girl says, bowing backwards as quickly as she can. "Lord Julius has taken ill, I was — I was to check on—"

"No matter," Delilah says, and, illness, she thinks, that can certainly be turned to her advantage. "My husband is also feeling not quite himself today. Please do not disturb him unless I ask you to, our own attendants know what he needs."

The girl turns and flees, apparently needing no more encouragement, and Delilah wonders how careful Sylas had been to stay unseen last night. She traces her lip with the tip of her tongue, feeling the marks his teeth had left behind, and, no matter, she thinks, fearful servants are sometimes the most helpful ones.

*

Cassandra's door swings open as soon as she knocks, unlocked and unguarded. The girl herself is standing at the window, in a white nightgown that turns her skin near-transparent in the sunlight filtering through the gaps in the thick curtains. "Lady Delilah," she says without turning around, as soon as Delilah crosses the threshold. "I apologise that our plans for the day must be rescheduled. I hope your husband's condition improves quickly."

"And I your brother's," Delilah says, and the lie comes easily. "Trade negotiations will wait."

"Julius will not be improving," Cassandra says. There's a note of quiet triumph in her voice, well-masked but undeniable, and when she turns around her mouth is stained a familiar crimson, bright and sharp and clean against the grime of the window behind her.

Delilah's breath catches in her throat, and it's only long years of schooling that prevent her from reaching back to brace herself against the wall. "I'm sorry to hear that," she says faintly.

"I'm not," Cassandra says with a smile. "I don't think you are, either, if you will forgive my bluntness." She rubs at her stained lip with a thumb as Delilah watches, transfixed, as Cassandra's face twists in a mockery of glee. "Sit with me a spell? I don't think I want to see mother today, I've had my fill of family."

Delilah blinks, shakes her head as if it were so easy to rid herself of the thought of the girl's horrible face. She should, by rights, refuse — Sylas is still waiting for her — but the Undying King's amulet is cold at her waist in warning.

Cassandra was ever the key, she reminds herself as she settles on the bed and pats the space next to her in invitation. Cassandra bounds over immediately to join her, and the bed doesn't dip under her weight at all. Her hand, when it settles on Delilah's thigh, the side of her bloodied thumb just pressing against the Undying King's amulet, is solid.

That should matter. That should matter.

Delilah feels as if she's standing barefoot in the middle of the Searing Channel.

"Thank you, Lady Delilah," Cassandra says. "I wish we had talked more last night. Though I had quite an interesting conversation with your husband."

An innocent would ask if she knew what sickness had befallen him. The time for playing innocent has come and passed without Delilah's notice, and now, all she has left to say is, "I know."

Not enough, but enough. Not why Julius died at Sylas' hand, but who guided it.

"Do you?" Cassandra looks up at her, eyes glimmering with unshed tears. If she looked through them, Delilah thinks, she would see the tapestry hanging on the wall: the deer, bleeding out alone; the fabric, faded and dusty with disuse. "Do you know what it is to die?"

"Not firsthand," Delilah admits. She gathers Cassandra's hand in both of her own. "But I think you do. May I ask how?"

Cassandra's mouth twists in something Delilah couldn't bare to call a smile. "You weren't listening at dinner last night. Didn't my father tell you about the Grey Hunt?"

The name had come up, Delilah thinks, but — "No. Is that when you died?"

Cassandra laughs with no trace of amusement. "That's a kind way to phrase it. The point of the Grey Hunt was to kill me. And, well. It succeeded, didn't it?"

"Somewhat," Delilah admits. Her amulet is cold but silent, there will be no further help from the Undying King. She is almost alone, except — she has Cassandra, and somewhere in the castle Sylas is waiting for both of them. "I know what it is to bring people back, properly, or close to. Is that what you want?" She would need another sacrifice — another bargain, another body, but it would be worth it.

For Cassandra. For their future.

"There's no need," Cassandra says, a little wistfully. "Whitestone did that some time ago. Your husband, though — you did better for him, I think. Others can see him."

Delilah thinks about the empty space at the high table, the way the servants flinch. "I see you."

"I want you to," Cassandra says simply. "It's a privilege my family lost a long time ago, and they are still suffering the consequences of those actions."

Her family. Her killers?

"You would never treat a daughter like that," Cassandra says, as though she had spoken aloud. She wraps her arms around Delilah, buries her face in the crook of her neck. "You wouldn't give her a body just to hunt it down and eat it."

"No," Delilah agrees. Her arms lift of their own accord, pull Cassandra closer. "But I would." The words are slow, her tongue tripping over the unfamiliar accent as the cold sinks deeper into her bones. "I would give her a body."

Cassandra blinks colour back into the world with Delilah's eyes. Her hands skim Delilah's body — cheekbones, arms, thighs, and Delilah watches from behind eyes no longer hers, frozen.

Please, she thinks, as her lips stretch over Cassandra's smile. Not this body, please, not yet— 

"I'm so glad it's you," Cassandra says. "I am so, so glad the first person to visit me wants my family dead as much as I do." She sighs, drops Delilah's body back on the bed and spreads her palm over the sheets. "This is nice. You have a much more refined sense of taste than your husband."

How, Delilah wants to say, but she remembers Sylas slipping into their rooms much later than she'd expected, the familiar pattern of blood dripping down Cassandra's throat. The way he hadn't remembered feeding.

Both. She can have them both. Truly her King is gracious, and joy floods her, cold as death and twice as bright as Cassandra digs Delilah's fingernails into her own throat. 

And Delilah can move again, slowly, as if fighting her way out from under a block of ice. Feeling returns slowly as Cassandra pulls herself from Delilah's body and mind, and she's surprised to find that she feels empty, autonomy bringing with it an unfamiliar loneliness.

"I want you both," Cassandra murmurs, nestling into Delilah's side. "I'll find some way to repay you. Lord Sylas will never go hungry again, and you—"

"Oh, darling," Delilah says softly, pressing a kiss to Cassandra's head. She feels even more real now, as if she had drawn some renewed strength from feeding with Sylas, from crawling inside Delilah's skin. "I have an idea you'll love."

If Cassandra responds, she doesn't hear it.