the light catches the eye but shadows have (moretosay) wrote in summerview, @ 2018-10-17 11:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | briar maeve naga, mircea nicolau, player: alice, player: lyddia |
Blood sticks, sweat drips
10/17
Mircea Nicolau ✦ Briar
Late night Philosophy PG-13? Completed |
Briar leaned back against the tree she had found herself leaning against after the fight, sighed deeply in a way that felt like she was trying to expend something intangible but heavier than her body anyway, and slid down to the ground. It was 40 something degrees, but instead of zipping up her layered jacket, she just extended her legs and got comfortable. It could have been worse. Her nose wasn't broken, even if it was bleeding, and her busted lip would be healed by morning, the black eye formed and gone by the afternoon. Chidi and her had...An interesting history. Briar had known the man (so to speak) for a good hundred years, met him in her first soul-searching venture to her mother's homeland after her she acquired her 'gifts' and felt the balance of her blood shift to something even fuzzier than it already was. Attention to detail, figuring out things she wasn't supposed to, assessing, these were her strengths, had always been. Nature compiled with teeth grinding necessary nurture, you could say. But she still didn't know what he was, not exactly. Just that he wasn't one of The Fair Folk, was angry and oddly possessive of her - that part of her belonged to The Fae, one foot always in The Courts now whether she wanted it or not. He was angry, but had a way of finding her no matter the face or name she wore. Maybe it was her scent, the strange blood that flowed through her veins that wasn't quite half-fae - because that shouldn't have been possible - nor was it human. Abnormal. Freak. Useful, though, and maybe that's why he kept up with her. Chidi liked to show up on her doorstep conveniently after she had finished a job, right on the dot, or right when she was thinking about settling down for a spell. Briar was good with people, and he wasn't. Grumpy, rude, stuck in his ways. Called her a snake-oil salesman, even when he was calling on her for a task. They said you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds, but apparently he missed that you shouldn't snarl at the one that pulled your ass off the ground either. It was his opinion that she had been in Summerview too long. Taking risks. Spending too much time around The Fair Ones again, seemed to think they were going to dig their claws in her more - if that was even possible. He seemed to bounce between an almost fatherly, if aggressive, protectiveness over her and frustration over something she had no idea about. But Briar, whose relationship with her father was still a box she didn't touch sober, didn't really know how to react to it. Even now. Sometimes she wondered if they were distant relatives, after all when her mother was sold to slavers she didn't exactly have a chance to bring a family tree. Or maybe just angry that someone who was only second generation from his home country had been turned into something he hated, instead of being blessed with local magical blood. So when he had showed up to get his latest object she had acquired, spouting and pushing his opinions on her current lifestyle (the fact that her real face was hidden 90% of the time to boot) and insulting her pub she had laid out some questions of her own. How did he keep finding her? Why did he bother? What was this damn amulet anyway, why did it smell sweet but rotting, and when she held it under the moonlight why did it stay solid but her hand seemed to fade? Chidi didn't want to answer her questions, even as they clearly delighted him. It was a contradiction that confused her, and though she usually loved puzzles, she didn't like ones that kept her in the dark. They fought, they yelled, far too close to the barrier and the bridge but at least away from town. They had even had a stupid, ego drive one upmanship contest about who spoke more languages. They had gone through four before it descended into growling, more or less, and just vulgarity. Briar wasn't ashamed to say she threw the first punch - though not the first ever - but he had gotten a few in as well. He had huffed off like the petulant brat probably three times her age that he was. It was exhausting, but as strange as it was, he was her oldest friend. Which still left her at 2AM, in the woods, in the cold, with a bloody face. Thinking over his words even though she didn't want to, weighing them against her experiences the last few years and the many backup plans she had. Because she had never classified herself as paranoid but had always considered the worst case scenario in great detail, and as a very real, very close possibility. She sighed, head leaning back against the rough tree and let her eyes close. Took a deep breath, and tried to forget for a moment when and where she was. |