A Cycle of Stories about
Recognition, Trials and True Power
The Cycle
Here we are.
This is where Cassandra's story begins.
With longing. It often does.
Cassandra doesn't call it that,
of course.
She has other explanations.
Quite sensible ones.
For a while.
Then something shifts.
An old house. A stranger. Love. Loss.
A few choices that seem perfectly
reasonable at the time.
Some of them even are.
There will be deception. Trust.
Things lost and things found.
Ancient forces moving quietly beneath
the stories - and a few that have never
been particularly good at being quiet.
Cassandra will question some things.
Resist others.
Trust a few she probably shouldn't.
And occasionally walk straight towards
something while insisting she is doing
no such thing.
I've learned not to argue.
There will be darkness.
There will also be beauty.
They've always known each other
rather well.
And through all of it, Cassandra keeps
walking.
Not always in the direction she
intended.
But then, the interesting paths rarely
begin that way.
While the ash trees are dreaming.
Recognition
A rather innocent word for what
happens here.
It isn't.
But we'll call it Recognition anyway.
Something is seen.
A past. A truth. Another person.
Another world.
Sometimes Cassandra sees it herself.
Sometimes someone has the audacity
to see it for her.
She particularly dislikes the second
kind.
Cassandra likes her truths discovered
on her own terms.
Preferably examined from several
angles, questioned thoroughly and
accepted only when all reasonable
alternatives have become impossible.
It can take a while.
Still, she gets there.
There will be an old house she chooses
to return to.
A stranger she chooses to follow.
A love she chooses to believe in.
And a place she enters without quite
knowing what she will find.
Some choices are deliberate.
Others only reveal themselves as
choices much later.
Cassandra doesn't know yet which are
which. That's probably for the best.
Because once something has been
truly seen, Cassandra can argue with it.
Resist it. Walk away from it.
She can take her time.
She usually does.
But she cannot become the woman
who didn't see it.
And that is where Recognition begins.
Cassandra
Antevasin
Twilight of the Gods
A tale of water
Trials
And then life gets involved.
It usually does.
Cassandra has seen enough by now to
know that things are rarely quite what
they first appear to be.
Knowing this will not stop her from
occasionally believing otherwise.
Recognition is one thing.
Living with what you have recognised
is another.
This is where Cassandra meets what
she cannot avoid.
Trust. Love. The things we believe
about other people.
And the things we believe about
ourselves.
There will be love Cassandra chooses
to trust.
People she chooses to believe.
Things she holds onto longer than she
should and others she lets go of before
she is entirely ready.
Some of those choices will hurt.
Some will hurt considerably.
Cassandra has an interesting response
to pain. She survives it.
Efficiently, if possible.
Understanding what it did to her is
another matter.
That takes longer.
These three stories are where
some things break.
Trust. Illusions. A few rather persistent
ideas about love and destiny.
But Cassandra doesn't break
when they do. She changes.
Not all at once.
Not neatly.
Very few important things
happen that way.
And somewhere among what remains,
she begins making different choices.
She doesn't know yet what those
choices will make possible.
*This chapter touches on loss, grief and difficult relationships.
The Gods laugh
Paradise in Hell
The Raven
Power
By now, Cassandra has learned a few
things. Some willingly.
Others with considerably more
resistance.
She has lost things she thought she
needed. Survived things she thought
might undo her.
And discovered that neither love nor
fear becomes particularly manageable
simply because you understand it.
Inconvenient, but there we are.
Recognition showed her
what was there.
The Trials showed her what remained
when some of it fell apart.
Power is what Cassandra does
with that.
And what changes now is Cassandra.
She begins to choose differently.
She protects without possessing.
Lets go without disappearing.
Walks towards things she once might
have avoided.
And, every now and then, trusts what
she knows without putting it through a
full internal tribunal first.
I said every now and then.
Let's not get carried away.
There are still old patterns. Old fears.
A few doors she would rather keep
firmly closed.
Naturally, some of them are about
to open.
But Cassandra is no longer waiting for
the world to tell her who she is.
She is beginning to decide that
for herself.
And once she does, something rather
interesting happens.
The world starts answering differently.
The silver-haired child
Where the ashtrees dream
Becoming
The Garden beyond the veil
OBSIDIAN - THE CODA
Cassandra has become rather good at
walking away.
Sometimes wisely.
Sometimes because staying would
require something considerably more
difficult.
Then she meets Obsidian.
This is inconvenient.
He doesn't ask her to fight.
He doesn't need saving.
He doesn't arrive to teach her a lesson.
Cassandra has had quite enough of
those anyway.
And perhaps that's why this is different.
There is nothing here for her to defeat.
Nothing to fix.
Nothing that asks her to become
anything other than what she already is.
You might think Recognition would be
familiar territory by now.
It isn't.
Cassandra has been through the Trials.
She knows considerably more than she
did when we began.
Including how to protect herself.
Perhaps a little too well.
So this is not another trial.
It is something quieter.
Which, for Cassandra, is not
necessarily easier.
And somewhere between Obsidian and
Emerald, something shifts.
Not an ending.
Certainly not.
More like a threshold.
Something has opened.
We'll see where it leads.
