Trials of Love and Beuaty

[Fezzik]

Bree was tired, somewhat dirty and a bit annoyed. Mara hadn't wanted to go to cheapside to get the painting with her. She walked into the barracks, still with her makeup, hair and different dress on. The grunts didn't recognize her and looked at her like she was a lepper, but she didn't pay any heed, just set up her easel and put the painting up... Mara and Julia were staring at one another... She groaned; this wasn't going to be a pleasant return. Julia was counting, on the other side of the bars...

"Three." The icy look on Julia's face was more than enough to make Bree know that whenever Julia reached the end of her counting, someone was bound to be violent, or receive a very harsh amount of violence.

Mara turned around and looked at Bree with icy eyes. "That's the creep I saw at the crossroads... ", she noticed the painting, a painting of an older woman, very much like what Bree looked like, with a few shots of grey in her fiery red hair. "And apparently she's stalking Bree!" Bree was utterly confused and forgot her makeup, hair and were likely to confound even those that she cared about most. "Pardon? Mara, what are you talking about?" She replied in her own voice.

"Four."

"Would you two stop fighting!"

"Then get her out of here!" Bree could tell Mara was wincing, waiting for whatever came at five... Bree knew that that would not be a smart thing to do.

"Five!" Julia opened the door, two grunts moved slightly behind Mara; Julia's fist was quick and landed squarely on Mara's cheek. That wasn't what caused it... Mara stumbled back, dazed; Bree moved forward; Mara tripped over the boot of a Grunt, bounced off the other and the sound that followed as Mara hit the floor made Bree's blood curdle; the grunts mistook her motions for involvement and turned on Bree; quickly she touched a wand and vanished. "Stand Down! Get her out of here!" The first bark was to the Grunts, the second directed at Bree.

***

Bree looked at the priestess, shaking, holding Mara around the head, rocking her. "No!... what can I do... can I... go talk to her? I need her!"

"The plane of spirits is dangerous and unpredictable."

"I can't loose her, if she's gone, I'll loose everything... I'll go... I'LL GO; Please!"

The wise woman shook her head. "It is a sin, a blasphemous act. Leave her here, we will watch over her and see if her spirit returns."

Bree was numb; she felt nothing as she let Mara go in the care of the clergy of the Moon. She was pale; the blood seemed to stop flowing her her head; she couldn't feel her heart beating; she couldn't feel anything... As she walked out of the Temple, she looked around. The sun was warm, but she didn't feel it. She bumped into a cart, and felt nothing, despite the red mark on her leg. Nothing; all her feeling was gone.

[Fezzik]

She wandered the streets of the port, slowly circling farther out. The odd Sailor propositioned her or groped her on the way by... she picked one of their knives out of their belt quietly, not thinking... she didn't even know what to do with it or why she took it. She kept meandering, out of town, moving listlessly toward the East, along the road.

She arrived outside the Inn in the morning, the sun in her face as it rose over the mountain. To anyone else it would have been warm and calming. She didn't feel any warmth, nor anything special about it at all. She had started to hear things as she walked.

"You know, you will feel again; it will take time, but you will feel."

"No you won't; you said it, it's all gone, everything is gone. If you want to feel, you know what you have to do. You know why you have that knife."

She stopped by the tie-out posts for the horses... she drew the knife up, and shoved it hard into her forearm. Blood spilled, but she felt nothing, didn't even flinch. She didn't hear the other voice. "Put that Down!" The magic of her ring mended the wound quickly, but she raised the knife again; the bleeding stopped, then the knife went toward her upper arm... something caught her arm. "Stop it!".

"She's just trying to keep you from feeling, don't listen to her."

"If you want to stab someone, aim that knife at me; don't be a coward and hurt yourself for it." Julia stood not far from her; Bree moved her head, not really understanding why her arm was held, or what this woman wanted.

"She's gone... she won't come back. Everything is gone... everything." Her tone was flatter and duller than the mercenaries; there was no mocking, playful tone in it as there usually was."

"Then feel something! Let it out!" So Bree did; she moved her arm to plunge toward her stomach, still grasped, the woman stopped Bree uttering a profanity at the suddenness of the movement. "I know you're angry." Oddly, Bree felt no anger. Just, do what you need to do to let it out, punch me, kick me, yell at me, charge me with murder... but I'm not going to stand here and let you stab yourself." The grip tightened on Bree's arm and she dropped the knife. "Answer me!." Bree let her hand flop. "We're going for a walk, to the Post, we'll get some food in you, then we'll go to Mirakus and see about the defenses."

Dully, Bree responded, "I don't need food... need to feel. [That's right, feel... look at that over there, that might make you feel], it's all gone.... No point, it's all hopeless." Bree looked at the horses, "You'll be eaten, devoured, mutilated, left as husks, no one will care."

"You want to feel something? Hit me!" With that, Bree looked at the ground at the knife, by now, a few bystanders where approaching. As in instigation to it, Julia slapped Bree across the face and the red haired woman could sense a trickle of blood, moved her hand up to her face, tasting the blood... nothing. "HIT ME!"

Bree moved down to pick up the knife... she didn't hear the legionaire, or the conversation between Julia and him... "She told you to FEEL, you know what might make you feel... do it!" With that she didn't shove the knife at Julia, but at her own stomach; Julia reacted quickly and grasped her arm just in time. "Maybe she wants to try to feel more... distract her, and get away, then go... go feel more!"

"I need to feel."

"You mean die?"

"She's keeping you from feeling... now, while she's talking to the robed man! Whiles she's yelling at you... Now now now!" Bree attempted to plunge the knife again, Julia countered, but was thrown off balance just enough for Bree to wrench away backwards; years in the Theatre, performing in the streets hand taught her acrobatics... by the time Julia could react, she was already half way to the fire. By the time she reached the fire, and spread herself in a tackle into it, Julia had mistaken her running for fleeing and hit her once with a sling stone... the elctricity of them didn't affect her... the chard feeling of her stomach didn't make her feel anything. She thrashed about, trying desperately to FEEL! A chemical waft hit her nose; a smell of and aldehyde mixture in an alchemical lab; not of burnt flesh... analytic, dead, unfeeling.

The flasks in her belt soon exploded as well... the ring ceased it's magic, the damage was extensive. Julia had tears in her eyes before, but would have more soon enough. The rain started. Burnt terribly, exposed to the elements and going into shock, Bree started to convulse... and choked.

[Fezzik]

"True love ... ", there was a pause, as if mother was about to say something she might not have believed, but she smiled and went on, her last words to Bree, " ... will conquer all." With that, she was dead. And Bree wept. She had never known anyone with as much fire, tenacity or joy of life as her mother. Her father merely left the room, his own downward spiral had already begun years ago.

***

"Mother! MOTHER! I'm lost! Where are you? Mother!?" Bree wandered in the slum; squalor, filth and decay all around her. Patterns in bricks, wood swirls caught her attention; they always had. The traces of beautiful things in desolation. "MOTHER!??" She was at a near panic; she felt alone and afraid. She sat in the mud, crying; she hadn't been in this part of cheapside before. 3 boys came up to her and poked her with a stick; kicked her, slapped her, pulled her hair as she fought them off, kicking, clawing, forgetting her fears and anger; thinking only of getting away she finally ran, her little dress in tatters.

***

Mother had brought her to a garden in the more affluent part of town. "I need to go see the Clinicus about the baby, stay here." Her mother was very pregnant.

"But..."

"No, stay here, you'll be safe." The red haired woman put her hand on Bree's cheek. "I'm sorry, you can't come with me. You created to much of a mess last time, you have to stay here. Find something to do, to keep busy. You can't come with me." The look on her mothers face was sad for some reason; there was still love there, but somehow, Bree knew something was different; would always be different.

***

As Bree left Aquor, a few paintings under her arms from the Temple, running as fast as she could to catch the wagons, the Aurlites were already coming into the town. The Red Wizards did nothing to stop them; Blackwood fought tooth and nail, brave men and women defending a town full of nobles. She'd always had a strange feeling toward nobility. Distant and apart from the rest of society, now they to were fleeing like rats, no different than the rest of the people. She saw the crimson haired woman running along with some of the nobles, but an unwilling look on her face it seemed. Bree scowled and cursed the man tugging at her arm; property. He probably would loose everything, but keep his parlor girl. The girl turned her head, locked her eyes on Bree. For a moment, and eternity, the two of them watched one another, each running for their lives; the striking green eyes, not dissimilar to her own kept her fixated; her heart lept to her throat. Bree kept running.

She stumbled and the paintings went flying. Something cold, harsh and devastating hit her back. The snow leopard continued its bouncing forward; Bree's head reeled, the paintings were gone, such things of beauty would likely be destroyed by the unfeeling, cold Aurlites. Bree rolled down the bank, into the cold water and tried her best to swim... swim away from the town, down the river. When she got out, she was shivering, cold, she couldn't feel anything, her toes, hands, arms legs and face were numb. She moved to the road. A wagon, stuck in dirt was there, she climbed aboard. The wagoner just nodded at her; she could see Blackwood men and woman fighting to keep the road safe; they were retreating; Bree stopped shivering, everything was warm; she remembered the girls eyes - hypnotic. As her body slumped and as her head hit the wood planks the eyes and the visions of the mercenaries were all that were in her head. Everything else went black.

[Fezzik]

From love to pleasure

Bree's spirited dance had ended, she stretched out, laying beside the other bardess.


“You know.... you would make a great Sharessian."


"I have a good teacher."


A vision of the past floated through Bree's Mind.


"You would make a good sharessan"

Bree looked a her mother who was not pleased with the instructors comment. Her heart sank a little as her mother responded. "She's going to learn how to bring love out of people not wallow in her own pleasure for its own sake!"


"I dare not to sway you away from Sune's grace, but if you ever decide to know more of Sharess.... I am here."


Bree paused. Then answered. “Maybe I could hear it anyway; I will listen.”


"Sune can teach love and favours beauty, but with Sharess there is more. She takes love and beauty and teaches us to lavish within it and find every way possible to make it a pleasurable experience. It is great to love, but why not have more? There is love, but then there's feeling love and enjoying it."


"Mother I like painting and dancing. I feel free when I'm doing it was is that wrong?"

"You're doing it for the joy of others in the end not for yourself. Pleasure alone doesn't bring out love, we've discussed this before. You're a smart girl go practice you're lute."




"She has a more singular focus then? Expression of the physicality of love and embracing it?"


“Yes. It's the pursuit of pleasure. Hedonism."


“I've felt a bit weak since I came back, like something is missing or fading.”


"She has a lot if skill. When she's older we will train her more. She needs to see more of the world first."

Her mother bowed and smiled. On the way back to their little shack in the city her mother told her, "there you will develop your duty to Lady Firehair. Maybe someday you'll be lucky enough to receive her grace."

Bree thought about that and the other women in the temple dancing with abandon. Not concerned expressing their own pleasure in the dance. Not to inspire passion or beauty but simply to enjoy it. Bree expected she would not have that feeling with the duty she would take up later.

She learned to live with our that which she understood as selfish desire and she lived it through others instead.


"When weakness exist, we must find ways to ease our pain. Find something that makes you happy and then make it a pleasurable experience. Even if it's just a glass of wine."

“You ease my pain; you make me happy... you give me pleasure." Bree put her arm around the woman beside her and hugged her.


"Then Sharess has already placed her grace upon you where Sune has not."


There was a pause for while.


Various nobles: men and women wooing potential lovers; often they would loose themselves in that abandon of lust and love occasionally forgetting that she was hiding in the room providing help before the amorous activities started.

The Myrios and her subordinate. It took Bree a while to turn him into a brave enough soul to ask the imposing woman... Then Bree walked in on them, pretended not to see wrote a note and left.

She didn't feel it herself until she met this women – bold, confident, seductive and loving. Pleasure.


Bree sighed contentedly.

[Fezzik]

Letter on a Pillow

Curled up under her sheet, Bree organizes her thoughts. She hugs the pillow beside her, sighing heavily. Slowly she gets out of bed, puts on a robe, and sits down at the desk in the room. The heavy curtains block out most of the light of the sun, but a splash plays along the top of the desk. She picks up a quill and dabs it into the ink, and starts writing.

I have to write this down, or else I don't know if it will ever be said. Something has happened to me, some of which you've guessed, but I'm not sure how much you remember of the day at the Inn. The last few months have been difficult for us both. The weathering has taken it's toll on me.

I have been released from my sacred duties. I have forgotten things; subtleties that no longer come to my mind. Whatever reason this has happened, it doesn't matter. I've been shown another path. I followed Sune for my Mother and my Sister; that duty did mean everything to me and my following was true. But something else has re-awakened in me; something I haven't felt since I was very young, when I made a choice.

I was once told it was my own selfish desires; something to quash and push to the side; I was supposed to let others bask in my beauty and spread Love. I don't feel that need anymore. I don't care what others think of me or what they see. My life is my own. I embrace my past; I accept what I was, but I don't have need for it anymore. I've embraced my own pleasures; I want to take pleasure in all the good things life has to offer. I'm free.

I was born a gutter rat. I was dressed, taught, presented to the world as something else; and I believed it. I'm still a gutter rat, free and not fretted by the duties I used to have. If others want to know about the pleasures of life, I'll tell them, but I want only to worry about my own, and yours. I'm not the same woman you met; I've changed. I was born a gutter rat, I am a gutter rat, but I don't have to live like a gutter rat scrounging in muck; I choose pleasure.

If you cannot live with the changes, I understand, but I need you to know. You are the one I with to walk beside; the one I want to explore all the worlds pleasures with.

The letter is folded, sealed with a small amount of wax, and placed on the pillow to be found by the one it is meant for. Bree changes into her dress, and leaves the room, instructing the Inn Keeper to allow the recipient into the room, since she has no key at the moment.