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There is a certain grief that comes with severing ties to an ancestry.
Bree still sometimes sees the branching rivers in her dreams, burned dry and cracking.
One stream slices through the center of it all, dyed crimson red and burning.
Training with Erebus is grueling, worse than the trials, worse than sparring with Sel.
He doesn't seem to believe in holding back, but a part of Bree is grateful for it. After all, she's always had better control over root when death bites at her heels.
It comes easily, now.
Red flames dance across her skin, solidifying into scales and wings within minutes, then seconds, then almost instantly.
The raw form of it now comes as easily as breathing, and the flames fill her with a sense of warmth, like a hot summers day, rather than scalding heat like before.
There are no words for the rage she still holds in her chest.
Even as months pass and his river only deteriorates, cracking until all that remains is a deep chasm, fury burns in her chest.
Every time her root dances across her skin rather than attacking it, every time it springs to her fingertips at the slightest thought.
All of this power, stolen. Held above her like a carrot on a stick, and in her narrow worldview she chased it. Bargained, lied, begged for a chance to taste it.
But the carrot was nothing more than a dream, a nightmare of Arthur's making.
Bree will not be trapped ever again.
Not by Arthur. Not by Vera. Not by Grief.
Not even by her friends, her family.
She thinks of them, sometimes. Alice. Had she woken up yet? Had William pronounced her dead? Will she ever see her again?
Her father. What were they telling him? Was there any use in confidentiality at this point? Did he know just how much his child had been though? Just how much she's done?
William. Was he busy, these days? Was he plotting to overthrow the order with the others, or did he lock himself in his infirmary?
Sel. Did Natasia know how to help him? Could he be helped? Was he safe now, back with Nick?
Nick. God, Nick. Did he hate her? He'd have every right to. She left him to handle a crumbling society on his own, but what is a right hand man for if not taking care of business in a king's stead?
No. Not a king. Just Bree.
Somewhere, someday.
Here. Now.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
Bree stands on the center slab of the branching rivers, staring at the blood red water at her feet.
Was it even water? Or the bloodshed she'd caused?
She shakes her head; not the time.
This is a dangerous thing, but so is Bree.
Root forms familiar scaled armor around her arms and legs as she steps fully into the river, wading through it easily. The heat is almost stifling here, a warning, but a warning is not the same thing as an obstacle.
6 steps, and the ancestral streams fall away around her.
A glade of bright green grass and thick trees surround her instead, an old swing set and slide in the corner of the yard.
"Bree! Sweetheart, come in for dinner!"
Bree watches a small girl clamber up from the grass, brushing dirt off of her dress and grinning.
She follows her inside, knowing better than to try not to cry.
She's seen this memory enough times to know it's pointless.
"There's my baby. Go help your daddy set the table, okay?"
Faye's gentle voice flows through Brees ears like honey, and the ache in her chest doesn't hurt any less, no matter how many times she comes here. Repetition does not breed numbness, it breeds resentment.
Faye smiles down at a smaller Bree, happy and innocent and unburdened.
She stands on tip-toes to carry plates to the table, pours juice with shaky hands. She giggles and swings in her father's arms, full of warmth and childlike sweetness.
Bree does not recognize her.
They have the same hair, thick curls braided into neat rows, albeit a lot longer now.
They have the same full lips, the same nose, the same cheeks.
But the eyes...
The child's eyes are dark brown, the color of tree bark and rich chocolate. Something inviting, kind.
And Bree's eyes are now blood red, the color of gore and lives lost. Monstrous. Dangerous.
Bree's eyes are burning with tears, shoulders shuddering with them.
Looking at this child, this baby, so unaware of what she'd soon experience... What she'd soon cause due to stubbornness of all things.
This child knows nothing of root or Arthur or Aether or Merlins or boys who rip her heart in two. This child does not know pain beyond scraped knees, does not know loss beyond a broken toy.
And Bree has failed her.
"Mommy, this is so yummy! Teach me to make it? Please?"
The child's mother smiles, warm, proud, pleased. "Of course, baby."
The child cheers.
Bree does not know how to make the meal, baked chicken and roasted vegetables.
Perhaps she did learn, at one point, but a more likely answer is that this request was forgotten, and then her mother was gone, and Bree would never see her cook again.
Never hear her smooth voice humming along with a blues song, hips and shoulders swaying to the beat.
Briana Mathews is a selfish daughter. She pushed and pushed and pushed, never stopping to look at who she mowed down along with it.
Never stopped to think of why her mother would be so against her going to a school she had experience in. Never even considered the idea that she could be wrong, and then an accident stole the opportunity away.
No. Not an accident. Fate. A blessing. A curse. A chance.
There is anger in Bree's heart for Vera, for her selfish decisions, but Bree is hardly in a place to speak.
But Vera is no longer inside of Bree, now. She is no longer a silent pressure, wearing her down to a sharpened end.
There is anger, but there is also gratitude.
This child would be dead by now without her gifts, which is more than Bree can say for herself.
She cannot stay here much longer. This bloodwalk always ends before she wishes it would, but knowing how you die never makes it hurt less.
Someone tells a joke at the table and they erupt into laughter, and Bree takes the moment of joy to slip away.
· · ────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·
The sun is rising when Bree wakes up.
Her face is stained with tears, but the exhaustion is familiar by now.
Grief and rage and sadness all fight for dominance within Bree's chest, but numbness wins.
Rather be numb than burning.
Heat forges diamonds, creates holy swords, but Bree is neither.
She is flame and ice and earth, a weapon personified.
A weapon, yes, but her own.
"Dragons protect what is theirs, and burn the rest."
Protection is out of Bree's hands, now, but burning?
Well. Do not ask a wildfire to yield.