Supposedly, there was some place out there, a Casablanca that was not the one in Morocco, that was the...Wonder, or whatever, that she was supposed to protect. And Casablanca very much wanted to go there. It was hers, after all, and she...thought that she maybe deserved to get to explore it.
But she hadn't. Not in the nearly a year she had been a Page. Not a single time. And that was kind of ridiculous, when it was supposed to be so incredibly important. She was name for it and everything!
So, she resolved that she was finally going to visit. It was a late autumn evening, a little chilly, and she'd pulled a sweater on over her uniform, though that didn't do much for the fact that her legs were entirely bare. She was pretty sure that putting leggings on would look stupid, but...maybe if it got extra cold, she would have to suffer looking stupid in order to not. Well. Freeze. Even if she hadn't the year before, when she had never even thought to try. Maybe being magical meant that she was less cold? That sounded good.
All of that, though, was very beside the point of her plans for the evening. She had climbed up onto a lonely rooftop, and she took a moment to look out at Destiny City below her, and then she closed her eyes, and focused.
And when she opened them, she was definitely not on a rooftop in Destiny City.
It was a luxuriant-looking room, with couches and tables all around, and what looked like a bar, and one wall, with a couch set into it, was completely windowed. Some of the glass had broken, but it was clear to her from the remaining frames that once upon a time, the windows on the sides had been decorated with a spectacular array of stars and moons, celestial patterns that held her attention for a long moment.
But it was the view together the giant window in the center that really made her gasp.
Spreading out below her was a city, and it was....beautiful. Glittering buildings in white and gold and stained glass, reaching for the sky, and a broad boulevard below her that was lined with flower beds and trees, and so much more that she could barely begint o take in. It was an art nouveau paradise, spread out before her eyes, and she wanted to explore every inch of it.
"Oh," Casablanca whispered, entrance, and she stepped up to the window, pressing her palm to the remaining glass and staring out at the view below.
A woman, long purple-and-pink hair pulled into an elegant coif and glittering white dress speckled with silver and gold beading, draped herself across the couch, cigarette holder in hand, and laughed. She was older, sophisticated, gorgeous--but still, in her eyes, Casablanca recognized herself. All around her, she could hear the sounds of a bustling club--conversations she couldn't quite make out, the smell of smoke, even the taste of alcohol on her tongue.
The vision lasted only a moment, but Casblanca knew it for what it had to be.
That was her past self. The Knight of Casblanca that had held the title a thousand years ago. And she was....
She was incredible. Beautiful, graceful, and she had seemed to be the center of attention for the entire room.
What kind of person had she been, Casablanca wondered? What kind of place was this?
She darted to the stairs, and ran down them, taking the steps two at a time in her childlike eagerness. At the base of them was a door, and she pushed it open, and stepped into what had to be the main floor of the club.The first floor was dotted with tables, around an open space that she suspected was a dance floor, and a raised platform that was probably a stage. There was a bar down here, too, and bottles of what had to be thousand-year-old liquor behind it, and though she had to carefully pick around broken glass and destroyed chairs and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, Casablanca could easily see how this had once been beautiful. Whens he ran a hand over one of the tables, she swept the dust away to reveal elegant carvings in the wood, more of the star-and-moon motif that she had found in the window upstairs. The chairs had clearly once been plush, though she was nervous about sitting in them now--no way to tell how much they had degraded at a glance. And she could see another door that she suspected led to a kitchen, so there had been food, too.
Food, and drinks, and dancing, and upstairs, a private space that looked out over the whole Wonder--the whole, magical, glittering, white city that was apparently all hers.
She moved to the front door of the club, heavy and made of a wood that had the look and feel of oak with inlaid stained glass, and pressed on it, and frowned. It wouldn't budge, and so she leaned with more weight, but....nothing.
Apparently, she wasn't allowed to leave here yet.
"Fine," she said to nothing and no one, "I'll come back. And we're gonna make this place sparkle again. How's that?"
It felt like a bargain with her world. And it was one she intended to fulfill. No matter how much time or effort it took from her.
[1006 words]
