DROWNING IN WORDS ~ Anxiety attack

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    'Cause you know sometimes words


    ｡･ﾟﾟ･ Cass was reading. Sort of. It was a picture book- reading English words gave her a headache. She was also walking, queen of multitasking right here, but she bumped into an NPC in town center. She put down her book and looked around. There were people everywhere. That was fine by itself, but there was no easy escape from where she was. She had found herself in the center of town center. She breathed in, knowing focusing on breathing calmed people down. This was fine. She breathed out. NPCs were talking around her. Inhale. They were talking very loudly, but Cass couldn't focus on their words. Exhale. She tried, but it only served to pull her apart in every direction. Inhale, exhale. She could no longer hear any of them over the blood in her ears. Inhale, exhale. She remembered when she first joined. Inhale, exhale. It was scary, there were so many new people. Inhale, exhale. But she learned they were her friends. Inhale, exhale. She looked around, but couldn't see any friends. Inhale, exhale. She realized she couldn't see anything through her tears. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. She was hyperventilating. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.


    Hyperventilating was bad. This was too much. She ran out, weaving between NPCs and jumping into a snowbank She buried herself into it so only her face and tail poked out. She'd caused a scene, hadn't she? Oh, now everyone will think she had issues or something. She didn't mean to, but people were intimidating. Everyone apparently had the power to kill her, they just chose not to! What would it wake to change their mind?


    have two meanings

    - Tags -

    She caused a scene, yes, but considering that Amelia was becoming the queen of such, she didn't find it in her to criticize her young apprentice. Amelia watched Cassiopeia breath heavily, quickly, before seemingly dropping everything and darting out the closest door she could find. Amy was startled but didn't waste any time in trying to follow and find Cass. She eventually did - the child's tail hung out of the snow - and Amelia tried to speak with her.


    "Cass?" she called the other's name, "Can you come out of there before you get frostbitten?"

    [ TAGS ]

    andrei didn't like negative interruptions to his day. the ebb and flow of the painted brigade had become commonplace to the introverted male, yet sudden bursts of strong emotion or violence were still too shocking for his comfort. seeing cass take a running leap into a snowbank with tears streaking down her face certainly qualified as a negative disruption. andrei couldn't help but stare confusedly for a few moments, ears pinned back in surprise as his attention was wrenched away from his downtime. what was she upset about? andrei looked at the trail of confused npcs she'd left in her wake, finding no obvious cause for her distress. strange, what was wrong with her then?


    momma was trying to find out. naturally, whenever she was involved, andrei would poke his face in merely to snuggle up to her. which, predictably, he tried to do despite her being somewhat busy. simultaneously, his eyes stared at the appendage that was just visible above the blanket of snow. "cold?" surely it was. could she even hear them? he couldn't see her ears from his spot at "ivory"'s flank, so perhaps someone should dig her out? didn't want her to freeze to death. while he didn't react as sympathetically as some, he at least had a sense of danger when dealing with cold temperature. he knew from the unsatisfying snowman hunt, when "amelia" had yanked him from the thick covering of powder and had grown to be huffy at him.

    ------what in the world was going on? yanked out of his reverie by hushed whispers of concern cerulean looked about only to find an errant tail sticking out from a nearby snowbank. flipping his books shut, sure to not let them fall on the frosty ground, cerulean stood and approached the situation with more than a few questions on the tip of his tongue. had cass finally gone crazy? had she gotten into some catnip? how long would it take her suffocate underneath all that snow?


    if he'd known that cass was panicking he might have alleviated her struggles with a bit of emotion manipulation, but with her covered in snow he had no clue what was happening. settling himself beside the growing number of npc's cerulean watched patiently as amelia coaxed the fellow feline out.


    tags ✶ current body

    'Cause you know sometimes words


    ｡･ﾟﾟ･ Cass looked around. Oh. faex. It was time to come out now. She leapt out of her snowbank with all the grace of an anxiety-ridden teenager and shook off her loose snow. Oh! The ground looks nice. maybe she'll look at that instead of everyone around her. Yes. Her eyes shifted to the side self-consciously. Oh, whatever. She breathed deeply and wiped her eyes with her paw before looking up to make eye contact with Amelia. Only Amelia. Andrei was a kid and Cerulean was... shifty. She sighed. Again. A lot of breathing, today. She wondered if there was enough oxygen for that. She did her best to notice the others there, and to help, she looked to Andrei. "Yep! Snow is still cold!" she joked. ... tried to joke. "Sorry. I... you know people scare me. I," she tried to collect her emotions. Could she even describe her emotions? "I didn't know anybody." she didn't want to leave her words hanging, so she moved on from effect to cause. She knew what caused the outburst, but not why.


    have two meanings

    - Tags -

    It took a moment for Brother to notice what all of the NPCs were congregating to. From above, it seemed like Cass was leading a charge into some hole in the ground, where some cat was diving in. Did she see a rabbit, or something? No... no Amelia was there in front of the crowd, so it was something more closer to the soft skills department. Brother walked out, Cass probably being the closest non-NPC he had to a friend in the Brigade.


    A moment later a square haze of distortion separated the onlooking NPCs from everyone stepping forward to Cass, creating a veil almost like a water's reflection, which its caster was stepping through. Heavens above knew that Brother was terrible with reading emotions for this type of interpersonal communication, but the look of somebody who wanted eyes off of themselves was something the showman ironically saw in the mirror every morning. "Cassie, dea', if ya need ta go someplace safe whe'e you can relax outside the crowd and all, I know a cou'le spots lil mo'e welcomin' than a pile a snow." The castle grounds were vast, but with several spots purely for utility, they often offered a shadowy recluse to any cat looking for them.

    ------the cat was out of the bag, and the snow. cass seemed a bit numb, a bit out-of-it as she exited her icy tomb. though he couldn't hear the feline's words and couldn't sense the waves of anxiety rolling off her he could at least tell that something was wrong. hearing brother pipe up over the crowd cerulean's mind ceased to reel. they all thought she was scared. was that it? perhaps it was because she couldn't understand them. cerulean had never truly known that feeling. sure, he had problems reading people and knowing the right things to say, but he had coaches for that. being truly alone, without knowing what was going on, cerulean too would've been a mess. feeling a bit of pity for the foreigner cerulean sent a wave of soothing emotions her way, leaving the scene for the others to pick up the rest.


    / exit scene


    plot ✶ tags ✶ current body