Briony Fells (underyourskin) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2012-07-14 04:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | #solo, 2009-09-12, briony |
Would you mind if I hurt you?
Who: Briony, Airla NPC'd & NPC legionaries & an unfortunate
Where: Streets of S.O.
When: Evening
Warning: Briony. Death?
There was a smell victory was supposed to have, but she’d forgotten it. At the moment, she guessed it smelled like stale air freshener. It had taken her all afternoon to get Airla to let her brush her hair for her – maybe braid it like Mommy did – and the moment she had gotten hold of it a flash of inspiration hit her harder than their neighbour could kick his dog. Sat on the sofa with a fist full of blonde curls, she tried not to kick Airla too hard when she swung her legs during the news. The first time the blonde human complained, she just gave her hair a sharp tug – which undid half of the braid she had been working on and made her cross. The second time had been accompanied with a call for Hayden as well. Well, that wouldn’t work. Briony had locked him in the back yard when she went to get her OJ. So she had hit Airla over the head with her brush. The third time – oh wait, there was no third time. She had learned by then and had shut her trap. Just as well too, because the little demon was sick of her whining over all the best bits in the headlines. The gory, messy, nasty stories. Like her most favourite story possibly ever in her whole life so far because it was just so funny! Oh, sure, there were a lot of dead demons in it, but there was the dead angel and a dead kid. That last bit was the best part, she thought. Mortals had such a desperate need to protect the young…
“It’s bad parenting for Paul and Rachel to leave us home alone like this.” A hair-tie fixed the braid in place. Airla said nothing, but that didn’t matter. Briony wasn’t looking for a response. “Let’s go out front.”
There was a whole lot of ‘out front’ once you got past the front doors, it turned out. That had been her goal – to drag her so-called sister out of the house under terms that she couldn’t argue with any more. If you could ignore the way Airla’s joints seemed to seize up when she had been exposed to Briony past a certain point, it had been easy enough to manage. The older girl didn’t actually know her way around town as well as she did, so pulling her any which way was like leading a pig around by its nose. And, after a while, she was sure her sister had actually decided to keep her eyes closed. As though when she eventually opened them again, Briony wouldn’t be there. The girl was so frightened that the demon very nearly felt like someone had wrapped her in ice cold cling-film from head to toe. So maybe Airla wouldn’t want to see what was lingering where the road turned off. Didn’t matter anyhow, she didn’t care for what Airla wanted. She wanted to go and poke that bird-faced angel-demon with a stick, actually, but that wouldn’t go down well. It somehow looked nastier than a Eurynome. So did the others with it. Briony really hated that so many demons were bigger than she was.
“Hey!” What were they called again? “You!” That none of them were turning around at all was annoying her enough on its own, but it’d help if she could remember the— “Andras-thingy!” Oh, sure. Now they looked. Tugging Airla to move faster – which only made her trip and scrape her knee – she grinned at the really ugly faces that stared down at her, all the while yanking harder on her sister’s arm to make her move. “Hi.” She let Airla trip into the nearest creature, her eyes still at least half-closed. It was easier than handing her over. “That,” she pointed at the adoptive sister who was just beginning to notice that Fear’s touch was no longer there, “is for you.” They were all staring. Why, couldn’t they talk? “To do that thing,” Briony clarified with mild frustration. “Where someone does the stupid thing and tries to be a hero!” She was not really fully talking in kiddie-speak anymore, what was there to understand? It was their thing. They were the legionaries who did it—
Oh, they got it. Or the Andras she had mentally named Owlface got it and the others were slowly catching on. Meanwhile, Airla had just opened her eyes and her mouth had opened, face and neck muscles straining in a silent scream. Well that was new. But no—oh no, they did not all just get to turn and leave like that. No.
“I’m coming too!” The one she was calling Wolfman seemed confused. “I want to watch.” Duh. What was so hard to understand about that?
It would only take one person to be an idiot, Briony predicted. Cowardice was safe. Cowardice was easy. Cowardice was not moving an inch to do a single god-given thing to rescue the child surrounded by not even a handful of demons. Okay, if you included Briony, there was a handful – but she was sat atop someone’s car, feigning distress while actually just observing. Airla’s screams and whimpers for her parents were pressing the button of any idiot in that small crowd over there. In short, she was doing exactly what she’d been brought here to do. But if she brought an angel down? Briony would be mad. As it was, she was finding it hard not to join in with the way the Andras legionaries were goading the crowd. The little girl needed help. She was distressed! As the demon that caused most of that, Briony would know. She also knew that Airla would cry and scream until she had torn her throat apart. They would all be hearing this in their sleep.
Unless someone felt they really needed to be a hero.
And could someone do that soon? Because Briony was getting bored.
If she had been a betting kind of demon, though, she would have put money on male and most especially on angelic-blooded. If not a full-blooded thing she needed to get right away from. But a male, angelic-blooded not-quite-human fit the bill just right. She didn’t have time to reflect on how his dodging of bloodthirsty Andras legionaries was almost noteworthy, though, before he was obviously getting too close to that ward. The sheer hope on both his and Airla’s faces made Briony feel a little sick.
Then he met the ward laid out by the legionaries and… wow. The kind of ‘wow’ that made her realise a few moments later that open-mouthed fascination was a bad idea when people just seem to splat. Now the front of her shirt was the same colour as her skirt and… Oooh, how do I explain this to Rachel? Hopping off the hood of the car, Briony surveyed the small crowd that had proven to be made up entirely of cowards and sniffled. That game was over with – so was her sister. Now to set the pieces straight.
It was time for the waterworks and a heartbreaking impression of Airla as she ran-stumbled-tripped her way to the Cowards' Corner.
“H-hey, M-mister… I-I-I want my—” Her breath hitched. “M-m-my Mommy!” Did she get a prize if she threw up on one of them?