A pause that stretched like a wound.
"Still trying to
bind
him. Trying,
yet
again, to
take
something precious from me."
The blood drained from Cassiopeia’s face so fast she felt dizzy, the room tilting for a moment as if the floor had dropped away beneath her.
"Or did you think — did you think, Cassiopeia — that I did not know what had brought you?" Melissa asked, voice low and trembling with old fury. "Every Maxton who has walked into a room I was in for the last years as the wife of your family, has come for the same reason — to
take
something, or to watch something be taken. Your two brothers. Your ancient aunts and uncles. Your cousins. You. The order was always the same. Go see what she has. Go see what she still loves. Go see what we can take next."
Melissa drew a slow, shaking breath that sounded like it hurt coming out.
"All your family does is take everything precious to me, Cassiopeia.
Take. Take. Take
. You took my
child.
My
infant.
You took my happiness. You took my daughter’s twin, Cassiopeia, and you replaced her with your brother’s bastard, and you made me raise him. You
took my brother
. You staged the road accident. You took
Phei’s father
. You took
his mother
. You took his whole world he’s ever known and
annihilated
it in a single afternoon and as if that were not enough, you robbed him of happiness for ten years, took my child’s remain and used to give that bastard powers; you took everything away from us — every single thing — and what."
"Every single thing. And what had we done to you?"
Her voice had thinned to something raw and bleeding, the words scraping out of her throat like they were tearing something on the way up.
"What have we ever done to your family to deserve this, Cassiopeia? What had
Mei-Lin
ever done to deserve her neck being snapped? What had Seiryū ever done to deserve dying in that harrowing pain? What had my daughter — my newborn — done to deserve being killed in her own bassinet?"
The words landed like stones dropped into still water, sending ripples of old agony through the room.
"M-Melissa —"
"For everything you took. For every single thing. What had we done?" Melissa was in tears, streaming endlessly from her eyes.
What had the Ryujin Tiamats ever done to them, really?
The silence stretched, heavy and terrible, thick with the weight of eighteen years of unanswered grief.
"And yet there you were," Melissa said, even quieter now, voice cracking at the edges, "back in our doorway to finish the job. Trying to turn Phei into a mindless husk so you can drag his
soul
home to the same people who staged the road that killed his mother and father. As if all you had done wasn’t enough!"
"Melissa, no — that’s not —"
"And still you have the audacity,"
Melissa whispered, voice shaking with barely contained rage,
"
the unbelievable, monstrous, the unprecedented audacity, Cassiopeia. Just because he outwitted you and he turned you into his slave first before you did just the same, instead of killing you. Just because you lost. The audacity of standing here in my doorway and asking me — asking me, Cassiopeia — for a clean slate.
Cassiopeia’s face was wet.
She hadn’t even realized she was crying until the tears were already falling, hot and unstoppable, tracing burning paths down her cheeks and dripping from her chin onto the front of her blouse.
The training had never taught her what to do when the body started crying before the mind caught up.
She was crying. Quietly. More than Melissa was crying — Melissa had wiped her one tear; Cassiopeia had two, three, four, the small civil failure of her face cumulative now, running unchecked down her cheeks while she stood gripping the door frame — quietly, helplessly — while her hands stayed locked on the doorframe like it was the only thing keeping her upright, the wood growing damp beneath her palms from the sweat and the tears she couldn’t stop.
Melissa saw it.
She did not soften.
"Just because you lost to him, Cassiopeia. Just because you became part of this family the way you became part of this family — not by
surrender
. Not by choice. By
defeat
. The mark on your soul is the evidence of a contest you lost, and you stand in my doorway as though it is a
wedding
ring."
"M-Melissa — I —"
Must I
remind
you, Cassiopeia — must I, honestly, must I — that this was not your choice." Melissa asked, voice cracking with old, buried grief. "You did not surrender to Phei, Cassiopeia. You lost to him. That is how you became part of this.
Lest
—
and you and I both know this
— lest you would still be trying to take him. Right now. This very afternoon. With your same hands and your same patient mouth."
She turned.
Walked back toward the sofa. The small bright clean architecture of her shoulders did not, technically, shake. But she had her back to Cassiopeia again, and the space across her shoulder blades held the patient
terrible
weight of a woman who could not, at this moment, afford to be looked at.
"So do not stand in my doorway, Cassiopeia, and talk to me about your
eternal servitude
."
A breath.
"Because that was not your choice. You are
serving
because you lost, and you have no choice. Should the
Mark
go away — should anything go wrong in that bond with you — you would, by the next afternoon, be back at that long oak table with your father, finishing what
brought
you: binding My Everything as a soulless being."
"I — I would never, Melissa I —"
"You would still be Cassiopeia Maxton."
The words landed like stones dropped into still water.
"And I will never forgive a Maxton.
Ever.
My daughter. My brother. Mei-Lin; Phei’s mother. Unless you can bring them back."
Cassiopeia made a small, broken sound that wasn’t quite a word, something torn and wet that caught in her throat like a hook.
Melissa’s hands found one of his shirts again. Her fingers curled around the fabric like she needed something solid to hold onto, knuckles whitening as she gripped it hard enough that the material bunched and wrinkled beneath her touch.
When she spoke again, her voice was quiet and final, the words falling like a death sentence.
"And just you
wait
."
A breath that shook on the way out.
"Just because we Ryujin Tiamats have been quiet for years doesn’t mean we’ve
forgotten
. Mei-Lin’s family didn’t just let their daughter die and go back to their afternoons like nothing happened. Tell the Maxtons, Cassiopeia; her family will be coming to correct the debt of their daughter’s death!"
A pause that stretched like a blade.
"Tell them their doom is coming!"
Another pause.
"Oh — right."
Her voice dropped to almost nothing, barely more than a whisper.
"You can’t."
****
A/N:
I will ask again, guys, honestly, tell me what you think about this Cassiopeia and Melissa confrontation and if Cassiopeia had the right to do what she just did in light to both what her family has done, her own actions and being Phei’s slave.
And what about Melissa’s reaction pain and everything.
My most excitement is of course about Mei-Lin’s family... I literally felt a shiver going down my spine. For all we know, that family isn’t simple either and yet they’ve been quiet for years since the death of their daughter!
And what about Phei and his mother’s family?