Title: Sleeping (1/1)
Summary: Brin considers the changes Manticore has
made within her.
Spoilers: Cold Comfort, Hit a Sista Back.
Characters: Brin, Max, Tinga.
Rating: PG13.
Disclaimer: Cameron and Eglee.
Date: May 15, 2001.
Before, when she was something less than what she was
meant to be, she had owned an apartment. One day in
September, she had purchased a can of pale yellow
paint. She had invited Rose over, and the two of them
had laughed and splattered paint against each other
and had even managed to get the bedroom walls painted.
They had changed clothes and wandered into the living
room, sunk into the couch, each of them with a glass
of bottled water in hand. Rose talked, she had a word
for every moment as if loathe to allow a single moment
of her life to go by without celebrating it with
words. Rose had spent much of that day talking about
Greg--she had insisted that the young man liked Brin.
Brin had laughed and blushed and shaken her head,
delighted with the possibility that Rose could be
right, that there was a Rose with whom to talk.
Rose wanted to be a hairdresser, and she had set her
glass on the floor and tugged at Brin's hands.
"C'mon, Bonnie," she had pleaded, dark eyes wide and
hopeful. Rose had clapped her hands in exaggerated
delight when Brin nodded and slid closer to her
friend. She had presented Rose her back, closing her
eyes as Rose drew a brush down the length of her hair.
"You have great hair," Rose had commented enviously.
"You really should do more with it," and she had
twisted Brin's hair into braids, lifted it into a
ponytail, formed locks into gentle spirals around
Brin's face.
There was a teddy bear on Brin's bed, situated
against the headboard. She had been given one by the
first family who ever took her in. Brin hadn't known
what to do with the toy, unused to frivolous extras.
The bear had sat untouched on her dresser for weeks
until Brin grew comfortable enough with people to
allow Emma to tuck her into bed. The woman had caught
sight of the bear on the dresser and had taken it,
handing it to Brin. "This is Sir Theodore," Emma had
introduced them solemnly, laughter in her eyes. "Sir
Theodore, this is Cindy. He'll take care of you while
you sleep, Cindy," Emma explained, pulling the
blankets up over Brin's slight shoulders.
Sir Theodore the Bear had been small with matted
brown fur. His nose was pink and coming unglued on
one side. His smile was lopsided. He had looked at
Brin with steady brown eyes and no one had ever given
her a gift before--even, Brin had thought, one so
silly as this. Theodore had been left behind a few
short months later, demons still so fresh in her mind
that Brin hadn't dared remain in one place for too
long. She had passed a store one day and had seen a
teddy bear in the window, and it had reminded her of
Emma and caring and temporary safety. Brin had
hesitated before shrugging. She had gone into the
store, paid for the child's toy. She had brought soft
grey sentimentality and held it that night as she
slept.
Rose had spotted the last in a long line of bears.
She had laughed and teased and on the day Brin called
her birthday had shown up with a teddy wearing a big
red bow. Rose had glanced around with mock-suspicion
before leaning forward to whisper her secret into
Brin's ear. "I collect ballerina figurines--don't say
a word," Rose had said. She bought Brin a new bear on
every occasion which called for a gift so that a long
line of stuffed toys lined the floor alongside the
wall by Brin's bed. Brin had named the shaggy light
brown one with the scowl Zack and Rose had laughed
along with her even though she hadn't quite
understood--she had always said that Brin had an
wonderful laugh.
Brin had worked in a bookstore, and she had met Greg
there. They had flirted over cookbooks and
home-repair guides, and Greg had cornered her in the
sci. fi. section and asked her on a date. Brin had
smiled and nodded her enthusiastic agreement. She had
gone home that evening, tearing through her closet in
search of something appropriate to wear. Her black
sweater had fallen from her shaking hands and Brin had
weaved her way to the bathroom, swallowing pills dry.
Her body had twitched and jumped, fine lines making
their presence known against her flesh.
"What did they do to you?" Max had demanded,
horrified sorrow in her voice.
Brin could recall that she too had once seen
everything twisted around. Manticore had made her
remember who and what she was. The outside world had
been a dream--something soft and weak--a slow death as
she smothered in cotton soft wrappings. Manticore had
cut aside the soft padding that had accumulated and
filled out the personality of the false-woman she had
been. They had exposed varnished surfaces, hard
planes and sharp angles and Brin had flexed her
fingers and felt the power within deceptively delicate
hands.
Brin had met Rose in a weekend painting class where
Rose had sat beside her. Rose had looked at the image
Brin was creating, and had respected her for talent
and beauty and imagination. Brin had eaten lunch with
Greg one day, and she had laughed so hard at one of
his stories that she had sprayed a mouthful of
soda--and he had laughed and liked her. She could no
longer remember why she had let herself be thought of
as soft and sweet and normal. Brin no longer
understood that there was a world in which destruction
was not a necessity. She stood ready in the training
room, feet braced apart, hands curled into brutal
fists. She had dodged and leapt and sent her foot
straight into the stomach of a man she had known as a
brother. Pain saw respect born anew--and she was one
of them again because she was cold and hard and
fierce.
"They made me remember who I am," Brin had answered
Max. She had given herself up to the fight, the feel
of her body as it followed the motions it had been
created to carry out. Manticore had cut away the soft
layers that had been wound about her, and Brin moved
quickly and easily, powerful. She recognized the
moves Max made, saw that her sister was pressing her
way through spun sugar unreality, made slow by the
dream she had yet to awaken from. Brin had caught
Max's leg, brought her hand down in a hard blow and
had watched pain and something darker flare in Max's
eyes. She had fallen, open and vulnerable, and she
had never truly had a chance.
Tinga had not understood any more than had Max. "I
knew you couldn't be one of them," she had breathed,
relief and hope flooding her eyes. The Brin she had
once been knew that one did not hurt those one cared
about. She had been angered by Rose, by friends and
acquaintances who had come before her. Brin had
breathed deeply, forced her hands to straighten by her
side. That was a weakness, she had bee led to
remember--sentimental folly. She had grown up with
the feel of solid blows delivered to and by her
siblings. Violence was not wrong, nor was it
something to be avoided. Violence was a tool to be
used to gain an end, to ensure that orders were
followed and objectives were met. Tinga had
forgotten, spun sugar pink and sticky around her
thoughts, and she had believed that murder was a
rebellion against order.
They were sleepwalking--Zack, Tinga, Max, all of
them. They were her family, and it ached dull and
distant to see them, to know that they were as soft
and weak and lost as she had been. They would resist
and fight, scream and rage as she dragged them back
into wakefulness. She would find them one by one if
need be. Brin would save them, make them real again,
show them what it meant to be strong. They had
mistaken the world beyond Manticore for freedom. They
had been seduced by a lie--freedom was in the easy
play of violence, in the fulfillment of the needs
created in them by instinct and training. They were
held captive in the weakness they were forced by weave
about themselves, in their demeaning jobs and by
unfocused friends and lovers.
Brin had delivered Tinga into Manticore's hands.
Manticore would shear away clinging softness--husband
and child and petty choices which masqueraded as
freedom. Manticore would whittle her down to Tinga's
hard cored reality--skill and training and instinct,
the only things which were real and true and
necessary. She and Tinga would stand side by side as
they once had, heads up, shoulders back,
straight-backed. The world outside Manticore had seen
them split apart, fractured and scattered across the
continent.
They would be a family again. Brin simply needed to
wake them up, shake them out of their hazy dreams so
that they stared wide eyed and alert at reality. She
could bring them back--she would. They had left
Manticore as children their growth had been stunted.
Brin had awakened, had been guided into maturity and
her full potential. Max had seen, she knew, she had
found herself a child in comparison to what Brin had
regained. And as an older sibling guided the younger,
she would teach them, she would show them how to
become what they were meant to be.
Brin was varnished surfaces, hard planes and sharp
angles. She was strong and powerful and for the first
time in nearly eleven years, truly _real_ once more.
The others would understand soon enough. Manticore
was good at stripping away dreams and leaving one bare
to steel grey reality.
~end~