Briony’s tongue stuck all the way out at the thought of angels and all of their holiness. Just the thought of the words made her feel all squirmy and restless and ughhh. Shaking her arms about in the hope it’d get rid of that annoyingness, she let her head tilt to one side. “I can think of a whole lot of people I’d like to say bless you to. Especially at church,” she added, one finger raising to mark her point. But then those people would probably get confused because they’d want to know why she seemed to be turning all nice and stuff. She suddenly wasn’t sure she could actually say ‘bless you’ to someone when she didn’t mean it without it sounding like something else entirely. “Yeah! When—when the Eurynomes were all over the bridge I went there after mass and it was like a petting zoo. I even fed one! I think it was an arm.” She rubbed at her nose with a fist while she thought about it. “I wanted to take one home with me, but there was an Excess who said it’d just eat the family and then leave. Persephone.” Whose wings were sort of on fire but not. “I think I wanted a Kobal. Or! Or a Nybbas.” She could go through the whole list and get excited about what they all did. It really made no difference. For a moment she wished she could remember who told her all their names and then realised that made no difference either. “Cool…” Briony was in awe. “But I’d notice! I wouldn’t be a kid anymore.” There was an unspoken ‘hopefully’ in that sentence.
Tucking her hair behind one pointed ear, Briony stared up at Thunder with the same kind of intense contemplation that was reserved for figures of authority. For moments when she was trying to gauge just how far she could push an envelope before it blew up in her face. Or someone else’s. But she had her own limits, where people just couldn’t keep bugging her anymore, and the horse was stomping on them. Taking a pause from what she was doing, she beat her wings until there was just over a foot between herself and the floor before one raising her hand and firing a small bolt of electricity at the stupid animal. People should listen because she wasn’t Daniel, that’s why. And safe in the knowledge she could have done far worse, she dropped back to the ground. Stupid horse.
“Oh yeah. Think she drew everyone after they’d been blown up.” She tucked her hair behind her other ear, something she hardly ever did but then she was hardly ever on her own with just another demon. “Which isn’t fair because that’s probably worse that what I drew.” Just because Briony drew more of them. “Suicides aren’t scary, people just don’t like them.” They liked it less when a child started drawing them with quite an artistic flare. “Airla freezes all up when she’s scared. Reckon I could keep her still that way…” She didn’t even scream, she just… stopped. It was weird. “They’ve already lied to school twice about getting me ‘help’.” As if she really didn’t know what that meant. Briony spent a few seconds rather obviously dwelling on the idea of putting the chisel through her own hand right there. Then she wrinkled her nose. “It’s always about my pictures.” Not how other children reacted to her, none of that. “And,” she started again, “if I chiselled her arm off, I’d blame Paul.” They would all go down, and the smirk that had developed quite clearly said so. Briony would let them all believe he had snapped and murdered everyone. Maybe he will.