dear_mun | voice test from right after leaving him :c

I'm sorry. [ His voice falls a little flat. It's not something that Cassel is even sure he believes; it's just something people say, and it can't do any harm to say it aloud. ]

Belief should come first, not love. It shouldn't have to be the other way around.

You've nothing to be sorry for. [ It's a self-aware tone, but gentled out because she doesn't think he's saying it to be malicious, if anything she's not sure he means it at all, which in this case she'll take. ]

And well, you need something to believe in for the belief to come at all, don't you? Love could be that thing.

~~If one would let himself have it.~~

Maybe. [ Cassel Sharpe is as emotive as the next seventeen year old boy, which is to say, not very. Love has always been difficult for a Sharpe though, both his brothers and mother included; to a point, even Lila counts herself among the ranks. At least this difficulty seems to be a universal thing. ]

Love's pretty painful. Half the time I'm don't think it ends well— [ He points with a glove-covered hand. ] Except for whoever's pulling the strings up there.

[ Expression softening in a way that runs the entirety of her frame from posture to the quirk of her mouth, Belle bows her head a moment, hands folding easily in her lap. Well that may be true.

Sometimes.

One can't run around believing it will never end well at all though, or why run anywhere? Even home. There must always be something more even if not the same thing, and maybe she would not want the same thing anyway because that would make it less special, wouldn't it?

Just because she loved and he wouldn't let himself love her back...just because it had been close, like the bridging chapter of some personal epic, quiet and loud and bright and potentially some private eucatastrophe...just because all of that...well.

It had been nice to believe.

Part of her says that chapter isn't over yet either, just...left to another time. But she wouldn't stay behind to find out. No. She'd meant it when she said no one else would decide her fate; love included. If love wanted her back, then, she thought, thinks sitting across from the boy now: come and get me.

I am right here.

'Here' is with this boy whose name she doesn't know of course, 'here' is somewhere she does not recognize in sight or smell or touch or aught else. But there's a sense of security she can't quite put her finger on. It is enough to let her focus on him, the twinge of something in the boy's frame - like loss maybe or like trouble twisted into personal shapes...people he knows, people he thinks about, is thinking about. Her gaze narrows to his gloved hand. ]

That, [ her eyes flicker back up to catch his if they can ] isn't untrue. Love might be that way to begin with, because it can also make us...so happy. [ a sort of masochistic betrayal perhaps though, she drops her eyes to the floor at her side ] Of course, the happiness may not always...be a lasting happiness.

[ Clearing her throat, she sits up a bit straighter, nods a little curtly at his hand, a little stiffly, though the inherent uncertainty in her look takes some of the rigidity away almost at once. ]

How did it happen?

[ She sounds like she believes it, he decides. No; Cassel knows she is in love, or was once, and he knows these things because he remembers how Lila used to talk to him, remembers the look in her eyes and the way her mouth formed the syllables of his name. It's stupid and sentimental, sure, but that's all he has. He knows how Lila talks to him now, how her brow furrows like she hates him when she loathes him instead.

He doesn't doubt that love can make people happy. He's seen what one touch from his own mom can do, make men hand over credit cards and whole houses and run con after scam with him as the diligent son. Whether that feeling lasts, whether that happiness is real; that's the true test. ]

Is it worse to have a little or none at all? [ He means happiness just as much as he means you're luckier than some.

Cassel looks surprised at her question. It's an open expression that shifts as soon as it arrives into something a little more concealed but when he speaks, it's with a rueful twist to his mouth. ]

I met a pretty girl. We were both cursed, and I was horrible to her. She picked her family over me. I would have done the same thing.

[ Ever watching, Belle shifts her posture, hands folded across her ankles, leaning toward him a little as if to get a better look at him just by how the light falls on him, how the shadows shift. Part of her wants to know if his question is sincere, or if there's some kind of mockery here, resting on the former as she shifts backward again, head tilted then turning entirely, her profile to him. ]

I don't know. I can't return to not knowing love to tell you and it's hard to remember outside of the feeling, even when you don't have all of it.

[ Pressing her lips together thinly, she closes her eyes and shrugs softly. ] It may be different for every person.

But I would rather know the feeling I think, lasting or not.

[ With her heart moving around her own answer, it's a welcome enough distraction - the boy's explanation of his hand - and she frowns, brow arching as she ends up leaning forward again. ]

Cursed? Was it the curse that made you...behave in such a... 'horrible' way to her?

[ Her folded hands fidget, off her ankles and in her lap now, the roadworn parachute of blue pooling out around her. ]

[Cassandra knows a thing or two about being disbelieved. She gives the girl a sympathetic look.]

Seeing the world is no small prize.

[ It's quite strange, this road that seems to be a room or just a nebulous space depending on how she looks at it, meeting various people as if they just have appeared, but perhaps they have - perhaps she has too. She returns the look with a soft smile, a bit sadder an expression than anything else. ]

This is true. It was one of my dreams...is one of them. [ She amends awkwardly. ] I shall have to make it happen now, especially.

I like that. I like it when we can believe that we can control our own destiny.

[She tilts her head to one side, ever the curious cat.]

Are you to become a worldwalker, then?

[ The slightness of the smile eases into something a bit broader, a touch more warmth behind it at least. ]

A...world walker? I don't know. That is, I wouldn't mind. I do wonder how far our world goes.

Worldwalkers don't walk in their own worlds. They're usually dragged, kicking and screaming, into others.

It's not as bad as it sounds, really. All depends on where you end up.

[ This time the slight knit of her brow turns merely into the wide arch of both, incredulous and a little, bemused too. ] The part where they're kicking and screaming sounds especially unpleasant.

But if you mean that one gets used to it...

Well I can imagine that. And to see other worlds, not just the one I barely know...well I'd not realized it was even a possibility.

Nor did I. The world was never supposed to be this big.

So...it was a mistake - many worlds instead of one?

That's the way it usually goes. Yes.

voice test from right after leaving him :c

/g-gently touches

/ruffles his hair D8

NO I AM A REAL BOY /teenageangst!!! B|

/gets him glass hightops....ruins all the fairytales.....and maybe his feet... 8X

BETTER B)

<333

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