Tris used to enjoy the nights. She used to enjoy the sweet release from reality that came with sleep and dreams. She used to enjoy the quiet that crept over the house and entire city. She used to enjoy leaving the windows open to let in friendly harbor breezes, and when it got cold she would just let Little Bear sleep next to her as a living heater. But that was before, when nighttime activities were limited to sleeping, reading, and sewing; before Briar started bringing them home. She had known it would happen eventually – they were all growing up, so it was just a matter of time. But she had not expected him to be so regular with them, for him to bring a different one home every time. And she definitely had not expected it to hurt this much.
As Trisana Chandler lay in her bed with the windows thrown open to any passing breezes, she clenched her eyes closed and tried to shut her ears to the sounds carried in on the wind. She wished that she could just turn it all off; it had gotten to the point where she hardly slept three hours each night, thanks to Briar. Tris fought the images at first, refusing to see them, but they were persistent. The colors seemed to snake tendrils up under her shaking eyelids, brushing her irises and assaulting her corneas. Eventually she had to give up and let them in, already knowing that what they held would plunge the icy dagger farther into her heart. Sometimes she could block the sounds out, but as she got increasingly tired her control slipped, letting them in.
The color images shown two people intertwined on a bed, sheets thrown off in a sweaty, tangled bundle. Tris watched from her own lonely bed as the two figures stripped clothing, dark callused hands gently removing straps, untying laces and pulling down petticoats. She wished with all her might that those hands – as gentle with women as with affectionate bean plants – were touching her, that the clothing being thrown to the ground was her own, that it was her who lay completely exposed under that beautifully sculpted body. As the two began to move, touch, Tris stood up from her own bed and stripped off the sensible cotton nightgown which buttoned all the way to the neck and reached down to her ankles. She slid the breast band and loincloth off herself the same way Briar had done to his conquest, the lay down on her bed and waited for what came next, attempting to reawaken her imagination enough to pretend that it was Briar who touched her body instead of herself.
She watched as the man fondled the beauty's chest, teasing her own nipples until the stood as erect as the woman's in the next room. As Briar's dark, curly head lowered itself to the woman's cunt, Tris tried to imitate the action with her hand, failing miserably. She tossed and turned in her bed, frustration building up as the other woman writhed with pleasure as Briar's wicked tongue – used so often to spar with Tris – lapped at her, bringing her almost to the peak then stopping right before she climaxed. The woman gasped, gripping the man's curls tight enough to elicit a wince from him. She dragged him up, flipped him over, and took his length in her hands. Tris watched the long, pale, elegant fingers dance over his staff, playing with the sensitive tip until he was so hard that he might burst at any second. The redhead silently cursed this stranger; what right did she have to touch Briar? Then she smirked, for she knew what exactly it was the Briar liked in bed due to the many affairs she had witnessed on the wind, and this definitely wasn't his cup of tea.
As the teasing came to a close, Tris opened her nightstand drawer and pulled out the thick, long cucumber taken on the sly from the kitchen. She saw the two position themselves and at the same time positioned the vegetable, then plunged it in the same time the two joined. She opened her mind to the sounds on the wind now, reveling in the sucking sounds, the gasps and hitched breaths. As the moves became more frantic and the sounds louder, Tris also became more frantic, using her envy the same way the other two used lust. Someday, she swore, that would be her in Briar's bed. Someday, after he had gotten bored with the shallowness of all the normal women in Emelan who were content with a one-night stand.
The woman climaxed first, screaming out with sheer gratification as she shook underneath Briar's frenzied movements. He came next, his hoarse exclamation quiet compared to the barbarian's scream. Once again Tris closed her mind to sound, not wanting to hear anything said afterwards. She removed the cucumber from herself; she had not yet figured out how to make herself climax using the vegetable.
At last she could get some sleep, though she dreaded waking up in the morning and pretending like she was none the wiser. Niko had warned her that scrying on the wind could drive her insane, Tris just hadn't realized until now what he had meant. Some things were best left unseen.