Who: Briar Hayes What: Getting even Where: Nick's place in New Orleans When: Backdated to Sunday night, December 26 2010 Warnings: Mentions of sex and violence, and some witchy-witch craft
It was entirely possible that Briar Hayes had finally snapped, but she neither noticed nor cared very much to begin with. For an Ageless, life was just too long to not give into your lesser qualities on occasion. Very few people knew this about Briar, but she wasn't all that stable to begin with. She had more than one thing in common with her head mate in that way, they were always getting themselves into trouble and they were always close to snapping. There were a few differences though. Rose Red, for all her shortcomings, would never have gotten involved with someone like Kane. Or maybe she would have, considering her past dealings with Blue Beard, but that hadn't kept her from lecturing Briar from her high horse 24/7 about mistakes she couldn't have even helped making. Stupid alternate universes.
No matter. Briar had just about had enough, and Kane threatening Charlotte? Taking the Homelands? Her Homelands? Had been the last straw. She knew attacking him was just about the dumbest thing she could do, and also what he probably wanted, but she didn't care. He clearly thought he was going to get away with this without retaliation and he was wrong. For the most part Briar was incredibly well balanced. It helped that for nearly one hundred years she'd been fraternizing almost equally with a demon and an angel, they'd seen to it that she never strayed too far one way or the other. All in all she considered herself to be more good than bad, at least when it came to the people she cared about. There was a darker, more malicious side to Briar that almost no one knew about, but Nick did. Which is why she'd enlisted his help last week and why she was back at his place now, to do a dirty deed. Kane didn't think she was a threat? Well, she was about to prove him very wrong.
With a bit of hesitance, she crushed (not ground, Nick instructed her, unless her intent was to give him flowers instead of thorns) a bundle of herbs together in her hands before holding them over the bowl and letting them fall, slowly stirring them in to mix with the liquid. Neither she nor Rose were experts in magic, but that hadn't stopped Briar from stealing a few things from the thirteenth floor of The Woodlands in Fabletown the last time she was there with some of Camelot's finest. Coupled with a few other books and things that had been in her possession for a few decades, she was sure she had the means to do something big. All she needed was for someone to help her around the curves, something Nick Lafayette was always good for.
"Don't worry, Rose. I know what I'm doing," Briar muttered under her breath as the voice in her head picked up, heavy with concern. A flash of silver and Briar cut deep into her own palm with the small knife, allowing her blood to splatter into the bowl as well and the liquid bubbled and steamed. She barely felt it, she'd endured much more pain then this. As if on cue, unwanted memories flooded her head: Kane spreading her. Kane bending her and twisting her until she finally cried out in pain, exploring her in ways that a woman should never be explored. What was worse was that she'd asked for it, but that hadn't been her. Briar was convinced whoever she'd been in that alternate reality had not been her. Not completely, anyway. He'd hurt her in ways that would have broken any other woman a long time ago, but not Briar. She'd been alive for one hundred and fifty years, she'd seen enough and been through enough to leave misery out of the equation and go right to what felt most comfortable. Revenge.
A soft rattling distracted her for a moment and she turned to the small cage containing the bird she'd swiped from a vendor in downtown, New Orleans. Inflicting pain on herself and on an enemy like Kane was one thing, this was the part she didn't like. Drawing in a deep breath, she opened the cage carefully and grabbed the small bird before it had a chance to escape. Some things you just had to do in the name of getting even. She steeled herself for it, murmuring a few words in Latin as she held the bird and a large needle over the bowl and without a second's pause, drove the needle into one of the bird's eyes. It died instantly, and Briar felt the magic of the enchantment swell.
There was more then one way to achieve what Sleeping Beauty had all those years ago during the final battle to get back the Homelands, all Briar had to do was tap into the magic that had been left there in her wake. All inhabitants inside Toscane, the capital city of the old Empire would fall into a deep sleep, including Kane. There wasn't any doubt in her mind that if he was in the Homelands, that's where he'd be. He was so eager to be its king. And they'd be asleep long enough for Sleeping Beauty's thorns to reach out and cover every inch of that city, trapping everyone inside with it and locking out anyone outside of it. It would take him days, maybe a week to dig himself out of there, and not without more then a few wounds to nurse. Those thorns did so love to fight back. This wouldn't kill him, but it was a damn good start. Looking down into the bowl now mixed with the birds blood and hers, Briar smiled darkly. "It's mine, you son of a bitch."