Ruin & Rumination

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Unfamiliar scenery, when so much has changed. So many faces present that wouldn’t have passed near the territories, wouldn’t even have allowed themselves to be seen considering it. Formerly Capulet, currently Spades, still Montague. And then a no man’s land, fissures of business and homes running in random places in between, inconsiderately disturbed by the war and yet holding still.  A long walk from the Cathedral, and maybe she should have taken a jacket, should have worn flat shoes, should have done a lot of things. Doubts the target on her back is erased in the little pockets of stalwart neutrality. And yet that’s part of the appeal- the doubt instead of certainty, the sliver of hope that there’s breathing room somewhere. 

A red door, ivy creeping against a crumbling facade, green metal bistro tables and chairs, and most importantly a darkened window. Slips her shoes back on and braves the few steps of cobblestone to the door. Smiles when the chime doesn’t register a sea of eyes turned to her. Just low murmurings of conversation, people engaged with one another. 

Standing at the counter, ordering her coffee when the chime sounds again. Doesn’t turn and look, she’s stubborn that way, maybe careless. Will find out soon enough with the presence lingering by her shoulder.  “Were you looking for me?”

But right now he was free to take a break, buy a coffee from an older cafe down the road (though everything in Verona seemed older, steeped in history drowned in blood), find something to do for the afternoon before heading home for the evening. 

A chime rings out as he steps in, most ignoring him, others glancing up and looking away. Cassian makes his way to the counter, steps slowing as he recognises the person standing infront of him. Of course neutral territory would be full of those from every allegiance, but it was harder to see how it was best to tackle the relationships of the spades out in public.

Of course, this would probably also be the perfect time to slowly let Verona know that he was with the power of the Spades - though whatever conclusions people would draw from that was up to them. 

So, Cassian moved to stand next to her, looking up at the menu. “I wasn’t. Why are you wandering so far from the cathedral?”

archive moodboard for @emberizidae

Echoes of applause reverberate back from all the outer edges of the amphitheater, the cast set in miniature against the backdrop of stone and clapping visitors. Faron settles back against his seat. Waits with patience for the tourists to leave, the crowd to shuffle out. The sky penciled dark above him, all the stars snuffed out to make way for pervading cloud. Uncertain shape that could be the moon, hidden behind a shroud.

It’s quieter when he stands, redoes the laces of one shoe before setting on his way. Crickets and the low cut grass. Stutters of conversation overheard in English, the lilt of two Russian tourists he follows in the path of. It’s the long, loping stride of someone who is not a tourist that catches his eye.

Cassian. Repeated aloud when he says the man’s name, catches his attention with a hand raised in greeting. Not so unexpected after all.

“Dein Liebe zur Oper eilt Ihnen voraus.” He smiles. “Wieso wundert es mich nicht, Sie hier zu sehen.“

Why did they weep so much?

The theatre is nearly empty now. Languidly, he steps out of his chair and into the warm night air, the clouds trapping the heat into their little world. The theatre holds nothing more for him tonight.

His hands in his overcoat pockets, he sets out to the main road to pick up his car, when his name is called out. Cassian stills, eyes looking around the origin, then sees Faron waving across the grass.

He’s tempted to go home, to pretend he hasn’t seen Faron, doesn’t want to be involved in anything tonight. But he respects him, and does in fact enjoy his conversation. So his direction changes and Cassian makes his way over to his mob boss, inclines his head.

“ Et il n'est pas non plus une surprise de vous voir non plus.” They kept showing up together at these events, in front of art he didn’t understand, but Faron seemed to. He seemed to revel in it, and Cassian needed to know. 

“ Habile, passionnée, sombre. L'histoire errait mais la musique était forte.” What can you say about something you didn’t understand? He could extrapolate from other operas he had watched, from the reactions of the crowd, but any emotions he would describe were not his.

There were fireflies in the garden. Or so he thought.

Too still, too constant of a light, lacking those fitful flickers and sluggish, glowing patterns in the air. And he abandoned the balcony to inspect, running his fingers down the curl of the banister as he stepped down to the stone cobbled walkway, the heavy notes of the cello and rattle of conversation dimming as he distanced himself from the gala.

He parted the leaves and brambles of the rose bushes. There– tiny lanterns. Hardly bigger than his thumbnail and buried in the mouths of the roses. Orion pinched a stem. And as someone approached behind him, snapped it in half, turning with the flower in his hand.

“Cassian.” Orion stepped forward. Tucked the rose into the man’s breast pocket. “Did you follow me? Careful, careful.” Lifting a hand and tapping a finger over Cassian’s heart. “I have an Italian reputation. And, you–so righteously American with your courtroom heroics. Don’t stand too close. We make too good a picture.”

This wasn’t a cause for concern - not yet - and it wasn’t as though he wished to go mingle, talk to those who had nothing but blood or frippery in their heads. 

He moved on with his life, as there were always more events, more networking to be done, a public image to be curating. Such as a charity gala, his thoughts on charity, philanthropism, government, more, requested and questioned and leaving them nodding to themselves. He could overwhelm them, feed them lines from reports and textbooks, but that was always a sign that you didn’t understand the material itself. He just - waited until the end of the conversation to do that. 

No need to be seen as something obtainable.

As the night dragged on, Cassian took a moment to step outside, to breathe air that wasn’t tainted by mundane questions and stupidity. Small lights guided the way, before he saw the face of Orion turning towards him.

The rose didn’t look bad against the clean lines of his suit, so Cassian left it in there, inclining his head at the quick comments. He was almost tempted to smirk, to show amusement, but merely stepped closer, dropping his mouth to Orion’s ear, the finger on his chest pressing into the layers of silk and linen.

“You mean like this?”

Then a scoff, and Cassian took two paces back, looking at his, his what, colleague, acquaintance, amusement, with an assessing glance. “And no, I wasn’t following you. You Italians are so quick to assume utmost importance. Though I must say it is rare for me to be accused of too much Americanism.”

At the mention of his fiance, Cassian shrugs, focuses on the lights inside the roses. “Public image is more her specialty.” It would be too easy to start talking about her, start talking around her and clues to be picked up on the exact nature of their relationship. The world was always such a tricky place to live in.

At least he wasn’t in the hospital again.

The early morning sky was full of pinks and blues when he planted his ass on the step of an unopened shop, holding an ice pack to his temple. He’d even gotten a few hours of sleep the past couple nights and everything was still fucking sore. What a horrible, no good, very bad time.

What was going on with Verona, anyway? He was being told to kidnap people, those people were put in cages, weapons were for sale, and goddamn shit storms happened every other week since he’d arrived. Nikolai would say it was high time he got the hell out if he wasn’t so damn curious about what the hell they were all smoking. Not that he hadn’t mostly had a blast so far, but they either knew how to have the best parties, were batshit crazy, or a mixture of both. Both, he thought. They’re probably both.

“I’ve been away from my toys for too long,” he groaned, leaning back on the upper step to relax more. There was nothing like a good fire to calm the nerves and warm his insides. Maybe he’d go blow up a car or something when he felt better. That’d be nice.

A coffee is cool in his hand, long strides quickly covering the ground between him and his home, its half empty and he’s halfway home.

Then a voice echoes out into the empty street, sound carrying further in the cold air, and Cassian stills, eyes scanning the path to find the culprit. As his eyes settle on Nikolai, he licks his lips, straightens his dark button up shirt, and continues down the pavement until he stands infront of the other.

Time for the sculpting to begin.

His left hand drops into his pocket, and his back turns towards the sun, casting a long shadow in the early light, and Cassian looks down at the fascinating study. ¨There’s an easy solution for that, you know. You’ve just got to start asking the right people.“

Cassian scanned the disheveled state of the pyromaniac and dismissed any worry or thought of its impact with a languid blink. Who cared what physical state he was in, as long as he could do his job, Cassian wouldn’t spend any energy on thinking about it.

In fair Verona, our tale begins with CASSIAN KUN HEE, who is TWENTY-EIGHT years old. He is often called CASSIUS by the SPADES and works as their EMISSARY.

It’s like you’re carved out of fucking stone, a collegiate girlfriend had said once, curled on the opposite side of a bench as her tears fell in the January night air in a morse code that would spell out coming years of emotional damage tied to this moment. And indeed, Cassian Kun Hee had had enough experience with marble statues to identify as one: his childhood had been a reverie of white busts and dusty libraries, pristinely-clipped grass, deep red wine and hallways with echoes; and he became the mirror within which all of it cracked and refracted. His father was a dead man in that his choice of passion and career had seen its expiration arrive centuries prior: without Achilles of heroes or monsters of men to fasten ideals upon, the philosophizing of man and his mortality had greatly lost its importance amongst the world. Not quite a phoenix rising amongst the ashes but at least a hawk shaking cinder from its wings, Lucien Kun Hee was a grand thinker that would be identified and immortalized as an even greater philosopher. Though his name was not passed around red carpets or booming theatres, there were several books, lectures, interviews, and even a handful of grainy television specials; there was not an intellectual circle in the world that did not have respect and intrigue for the Korean-American philosopher that had revolutionized modern thinking.

In the way that all children are shaped by their parents, the glass ball that was young Cassian’s life was smudged with the imprints of his forebearers. From his father came the gift of the most lauded minds across the globe: playmates were the stiff-necked sons of academics and the strong-spined daughters of expats and revolutionaries. At the age of nine he sat at a dinner party with Ivy League professors and writers whose own leagues were entirely unquantifiable, so pale and thin he seemed to be quivering. There was no fear, only boredom. He joined the discourse on advanced physicals and moral dilemmas, never once spilled the chestnut bisque on his fine suit. His mother was as formidable a woman as the man she wed; a politically-minded and honest woman that would eventually become New York City’s first female senator, and a nurturing if not strict source in her son’s life. He grew into a teenager with the confident composure of one knows they’re the smartest person in the room - which perhaps wouldn’t have been so damning, if the rooms Cassian was entering weren’t filled with the world’s most brilliant scholars and political leaders. He had a slick quietness borne not of shyness but an arrogant unwillingness to speak when it would be wasted, coming from a mouth too refined to sneer or open when he felt others unworthy (of course, it’s not the lips you must look for on a wolf: it’s the teeth). His distaste was much more subtle, and in that, all the more penetrating - a subtle cant of his head, half-twitch of a smile, sharp dullness in his eyes: the geography of his face was full and terrifying, a reprimand in features for being not quite enough.

But philosophy had no marrow for Cassian, no viscera worth sucking between his teeth - while the mating of his parents had produced a savagely brilliant offspring, it was too much. Even as a child, nothing had ever been enough for him; his brain was never quite occupied enough to allow it to rest in contentedness, and instead it wallowed in apathy, immorality, the wicked desire to know just how much he could get away with. The pursuit of law became the selection for his future, and like all aspects of his life, it had been a thing meticulously dissected and put back together in order to properly identify its bloody advantages beating at its center. More terrifying than a beast is the wolf in repose, as the sight of a monster groomed and calm is all the more horrific when you know its true nature. This was the way Cassian was held in law school, where even amongst notoriously predatory men, he was feared. As he tore through studies with ferocious sufficiency, he posed a threat at once latent and identifiable; through his composure and charm would at times flash through sudden brutality, and that sudden crack in the mask, that slip of cruelness struck like a blow to the ribs, something vicious and unexpected. When it was not abrupt it was lingering, and even those beguiled by Cassian’s handsomeness and drive were left with a feeling of slight uncomfortability, like they knew in some guttural, fairytale part of them that they should be afraid of something in the room, but what escaped them.

Shortly after his graduation, the Kun Hee family was hit with the first blow to their honoured name, and it struck them right at the knees: Cassian’s mother, re-elected to her second term, had been slandered and libelled with allegations of improper solicitation of funds, bribery, and other illicit behaviour that would have seen her expelled or censured. The evidence, though fabricated, had been believable and damning. It was Cassian’s triumph when he became his mother’s champion and systematically disproved all accusations to the court and the public, winning the family (and especially himself) ever-growing favour. – And it was only natural, of course, that Cassian had been of capable enough mind to free his mother of guilt - when one constructs and anonymously sends in the information to begin with, it becomes all the easier to dismantle it.

A lauded hero of righteousness in America, he traversed to Italy as an attorney shortly after, his shoes polished shining by the hot sighs of all the adulations he had left behind. To most it seemed an unexpected move, but to Cassian it was a strategy long in the making: kingdoms can be taken one by one, but the easiest for taking is the empire already in disarray.

Ajax Delgado: War Dog. What a bloody, mindless thing this boy is. He thinks himself a worthwhile villain, all dressed in the viscera of his enemies as he so often is, but only feral beasts go straight for the jugular - it takes a more refined monster to haunt in other ways. Yet cunning as Cassian is - and as condescendingly as he views Ajax - it’s in his own best interest to keep the vicious man content in order to keep his loyalty. Ajax’s role for him is all the physical enactments that Cassian is too refined to engage in himself: spy, bodyguard, hitman. Their arrangement is well hidden from the Spades (and all of Verona), playing in the shadows they are both so adept in. Call them Verona’s own Hades and Cerebus.

Faron Vasiliev: Boss. Against the hierarchy of nature, Cassian has never been interested in being the alpha – not on the visible level, at least. Such an obvious position of power leads to obvious danger, and Cassian would prefer to be the neck rather than the head of the operation - that which moves what is apparently in control. Throughout his life he has played at being a carefully removed yet powerful bystander, a leader that those gravitated towards due to inclination rather than force. Cassian’s joining of the Spades had been at his own clever ministrations - the most cunning part of all being that no one would suspect as much, allowing others to believe he’d been recruited - but the longer he spends under Faron’s control, the more manic his frustration becomes. Signing his allegiance with the Spades had been for a bid of general power, but his pride is too great, and his hatred swelling as he must bend the knee for another man. Perhaps he does not want to be the King of Verona, but he can’t stand to see anyone else operate this position either. A revolution is coming, and it hides beneath his pale skin.

Lillian Wen: Fiancée. A painting, hung and framed just above the mantlepiece, shares the fate of the stars: bound to constant admiration, but doomed to forever watch on, never participating. And that’s what Lillian is to Cassian: the most beautiful thing in any room, but with limited use. He read of her return to Verona with rabid interest, and before even having met her planned to make her his wife - a romantic sentiment, if it had been done with an ounce of emotion rather than calculation. Her image (and by extension the furthering of his own) is all he’s ever been after, and he has no care for his fiancée’s evident dislike of him, nor does he have any particular feeling for her. In his ever-present boredom she’s become one of his favourite games, seeing as this is one pawn that has seen more of him than any before her. He teases her often and thinks on the merits of pursuing her into the marital bed to claim his husbandly duties, but it’s nothing more than amusement.

Congratulations, LOTZO! You’ve been accepted for the role of CASSIUS. Admin Taryn: I think the greatest testament to this application is the fact that Cassian was developed in ways and areas that I hadn’t even started to consider. Lotzo, yours is the first application for Cassius we’ve received, but without a doubt I don’t need any others to know you have his portrayal nailed. Your initial analysis of my darling conspirator was what gripped me and didn’t let go; you brought up corners and edges of his self and morality that I’m not sure I would have been able to come up with should I have been left alone to ponder Cassius for hours. And THAT’S why I’m so happy to hand this character over to you – he’s no longer mine, but entirely yours! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

 WELCOME TO THE MOB.