[open] and you can tell the sun in his jealous sky..

[starryeyed_cass]

[OOC: Just to let everyone know, Cassie is backdated to the thirteenth. Everyone else is on the current date. :)]

On the thirteenth, it is Cassie Riddle’s twenty-third birthday. In the early morning, she is up on the roof of Kashtta, playing guitar. She’s singing a pretty little folk song she was fond of from back home to the skies of the

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[sophicsulphur]

"...Really?" Her eyes fix on Cassie, now intrigued. "I mean, I didn't think I was gonna come back, either... I thought I'd just stay dead. That would have been nice," she says, seemingly oblivious to how that sounds, before the ball finally drops. "--Oh. Sorry. I guess that sounds weird. I mean, I'm not trying to say-- but you don't understand what it's like. Until you've been there. If you had, you'd know why I said that... I mean, I wasn't trying to be morbid or anything." She brushes a clump of hair from her face, leaving her with a small red streak across her forehead, then scratches the drying smear. Something Cassie said isn't quite making sense to her: she's heard it used as an epithet, but her internal translation sense isn't coming up with any link between the word and any concept she's known. "...What's hell?"

She giggles and mimics Cassie when she pokes her tongue out. "All right then, I'll do it!" She looks down at her bowl of mixture. The consistency looks good. "Like this?" she says, handing it off to Cassie.

And now she's thinking about the whole street performer thing. She hadn't known it was a profession. Maybe she'll try it some time, she thinks. It sounds like a good way to earn money, and make people smile, too. "...Maybe I could give them alchemical items. Things with a little bit of magic in. You know? Just something small that would have a neat effect. It would make people think twice."

[starryeyed_cass]

Cassie nods in all seriousness, "Yeah, no one ever comes back from being dead, that's it. No second chances or anything, just one life. But I like to think our souls go on, somewhere," She smiles weakly, shaking her head briefly and waving one hand in a dismissive motion, "Oh, no - don't worry about it. It sounds like where you went was a nice place, like the tone in which you talk about it,"

She laughs at the smudge of red across her forehead and passes her a damp cloth for her to try and wipe it off, "Hell? Well.. to put it simply, it's where bad people go when they die. Evil people: murderers, rapists, people who really, really bad stuff. It's all firey and stuff and those who go there are punished for forever for what they did in life,"

Cassie nods, "Brilliant! Now you can make the orange and yellow and I'll do the rest," she says, taking the red mixture from her to add it into the cake tin first, "With mixing the orange, go easy on the red - it's a really strong colour compared to the yellow,"

She tilts her head to the side, raising her eyebrows in thought, "You could, it would really add to the realism of it," she says with a nod, grinning.

[sophicsulphur]

Iris giggles a little at Cassie's words, bringing two more bowls over to her side of the counter and beginning to carefully add in the orange, drop by drop. Her tongue pokes out in concentration as she makes sure she has just the right amount of orange-- never one to be imprecise about her ingredients, is Iris, for she's learnt the hard way that that gets you burnt-- but, after a brief stirring to ensure the colour's mixed all through, she's ready to continue the conversation.

"But people clearly do come back to life," she says, the source of her giggle. "I mean, I'm living proof that souls go on. My body was burnt on a funeral pyre. And yet, here I am, in the body I was born in."

She holds out her hands to illustrate, then thinks better of it. Her hands, in particular, might not have been the best body parts to use to illustrate this. The skin is slightly darker on the hands themselves, abruptly shading lighter towards the wrist in an effect that makes her look like she's been tanning in long sleeves. She's mildly thankful most people seem to assume that's all it is. "And before you say maybe they didn't really burn it, or something... I know they did. It would have been against my wishes not to. And I trust my friends." She smiles and nods, as if that's the matter settled.

"--Thanks." She takes the cloth and begins to dab at her forehead, listening to Cassie's words. About halfway through the statement, however, her eyes widen. "...No way," she says, her expression caught somewhere between shock and a skeptical pout. "That can't be spiritually sound. Why would you punish someone forever? That's awful. It doesn't make any sense."

[starryeyed_cass]

Cassie's busy working on the blue and purple mixes herself, carefully stirring so nothing's spilled. She looks up at her friend and nods, "That's true, but you've been the only one. Well, the only one I've known to actually come back,"

She tilts her head to the side, "You were cremated? Is that because you're an alchemist?" She had done a little reading not long after she'd found out, and she's learnt a few things. Like the importance of fire, for one. Turning metals into gold. Making magic. She stops mixing to look at her friends hands and frowns slightly.

The colour difference does look strange, but she really doesn't know what to make of it. She just smiles, and makes a motion of zipping her lips together, "Not gonna say anything, I'm sure they would have,"

Cassie nods, a weak smile at her lips, "Yep, it's true," she says in a serious tone, "I don't know why. When people go to heaven, they're happy forever. When people go to hell, they're punished forever. I mean, if someone went a killed lots of people, shouldn't they be punished for it? Make them feel bad for what they've done?"