The morning sun hit the front of the trailer every morning, as it did that very morning, warming her face almost as fast as the coffee in her hands did. Brienne had made sure that no matter where they camped, the door to their trailer was always facing the west. She had never been a morning person before, not until this past summer, when the solitude and silence became necessary for her survival.
These sunrises were precious to her, precarious even, taking on more meaning than such a mundane act should. It pieced her back together, heating a core that felt to Brienne more and more frozen with every coming dawn. One day, she feared, the sun and the meditation wouldn't work, and she'd be permanently stuck as an reflection of her father; a tortured soul stuck in the cycle of half remembered memories, and nightmarish lapses of judgement.
But here in this time, there was an element of comfort, of knowing and enjoying even the tiniest of consistencies, in a world that, for Brienne, could change within a few breaths. A chill of the incoming breeze blew her hair up, away from her neck, and sent a wave of goose-flesh to appear on her legs. And with that, came the faint smell of 'other' in the air. A drafting of the distinct aroma that came with the old magic, the deep magic so ancient and dark that it had the impression of burning wood, and sage spices. It was comforting to her, as normal as a child inhaling the smell of a beloved blanket.
But with the next wave of wind, it snapped the flimsy tin door to her home open, and then slammed it closed with peace shattering violence. Brienne could hear her father groan from inside, the remnants of his nightcap hitting the floor with an empty thud.
"Papa, there is someone out there," Brienne called from her chair, in perfect french, as Remy preferred from her.
There was a thought to keep it to herself, but it would do her no good to delay it by not informing Remy, or to investigate it herself. Remy didn't like it much when his daughter made decisions on her own, especially ones that could put him in danger. It didn't matter if the danger was paranoid delusions, or real ones.
"Are they close Bijou?" he inquired back, pulling himself with force to sit up in his bed at the back of the trailer. At least, Remy thought darkly to himself, he should be grateful the clothes he had on last night were relatively clean, still on his body, and that Heather was still passed out cold at the end of his bed.
"Not within the boundaries of camp, maybe five miles?" Brienne responded back, feeling confident in her assessment. She still hadn't left her chair, only corrected her posture so her peripheral vision was clear on each side. If anyone, or anything, was trying to sneak up on them, Brienne would see it.
"Governance?" Remy asked, as if it were something Brienne could tell from the distance the person was at.
"There coming on direct, and slow Papa. If they are governance, then they're idiots." The clanging of the door, followed by Remy's boot clad footsteps, landed in spot next to hers before she even finished speaking. He sat back in the cracked plastic chair, the creaking of it's back legs grating on Brienne's nerves. It was a nervous habit of her father's that she plainly hated.
"If you keep doing that to all these chairs we are going to have to replace them all," she chastised before taking another deep pull from her coffee mug.
"This furniture is a whim I indulge for you sake. Why can't you be like all the other teenagers out here and sleep until noon. Marcus and Adam find it unsettling that you rise so early." The normal amount of scorn of missing from his voice, and replaced by an unsettled shake to Remy's hands and throat.
"You mean that your friends don't appreciate me seeing the bad things they do, shining bright in the light of day." It was more direct talk than she would normally use with Remy, but his mind was occupied elsewhere.
"Did I teach you to be so judgmental Bijou, or was that part of you from the beginning?" Remy sneered, one thick hand reaching upwards to shake out the bed head that stuck to his hair.
Brienne laughed at this, a bitter sound that matched her coffee. "You have taught me many things Papa, including how to read people. It's not my fault your friends are dirt-bags."
Remy's hand snaked out faster than hers could react, and her coffee mug went sailing. It flew a good ten feet, crashing on the dead dirt ground below into a few thick pieces. "Did Heather and I keep you up last night Bij? Is that why you're so rough this morning?"
Brienne, acting like the silly child Remy was accusing her of being, remained silent. With a wave of her hand, casually scooping the air in front of her, the coffee cup shards rose in the air, and collided with a loud crash together. After another snap of her fingers, it was back in her hand, whole and unblemished. She dangled the handle from her index finger, watching the body sway from side to side. The only thing Brienne couldn't do, much to her disappointment, was put the coffee back in it.
"You could be drinking a steaming cup of that by now, if you'd let me teach you the elementals," Remy taunted her. It sounded life an offering of help, a promise of new skill, if one heard it and didn't know Remy. But Brienne knew better. It was as much a threat as anything.
Remy had been pushing her, for the last two years, to ramp up her training. Brienne wasn't sure at all how much longer to hold him off, or if she even wanted to. The darker magic felt like a tide, rising at her feet and pulling her gently, but persistently, in. The effort to hold it all off felt like an extra expense she couldn't afford.
"I hardly think liquid manifestation is going to help me out right now. We have the lone governance idiot wolf to worry about anyhow, not my lack of caffeine," she responded back with heavy sarcasm. It was likely the incoming person was another loner, Brienne speculated, exiled from the community for any number of reasons.
Most of them believed their accusations to be unfounded, but Brienne had learned over the years that most of their sentences had most likely been justified. They were all the bottom of the barrel, and it gave camp the feel like it was the land of misfit mages.
Remy had begun collecting these kind of followers since Brienne was old enough to remember. There were lulls, years in which only one or two new supers straggled into his open arms, with promises Remy could rarely deliver on. But it was always a steady stream of incoming, and outgoing, magic users, looking for connections and more power.
"If you could manipulate an element, especially one as powerful as water, then you could suspend him in a column of unending liquid, or you could do one of my favorites; slowly fill his lungs and drown him from the inside out."
Brienne snorted at this, as much mocking her father's penchant for dramatics as Remy's obvious enjoyment of showing off violent magical skills. There was no second gear for her father; Remy was either in first, or fifth. Standing still, or sprinting with guns blazing. While it made some conflict resolution a much shorter experience, things often escalated to a point it should never have reached to begin with.
"I am serious Bijou. You are wasting your time, fiddling with those weapons and spells, instead of using what could be of use to you. Ren has already expressed an interest in becoming a part of your instruction."
Brienne's body froze noticeably, locking up the instant Ren's name had been uttered. Her face was carefully schooled, but she thought it would be a miracle if Remy couldn't hear how fast her heart was beating. She'd gladly do just about anything else, anything at all, rather than subject herself to that animal.
"You commission many of those weapons for our own wars Remy, as do Marcus' clan allies. It has kept the peace in many ways, and not just with the wolves," Brienne reminded her father.
It had been a full three years since they had a vicious territory fight with the vampire clan that had wanted a piece of land they were camping in. Brienne's use of enchanted stakes and knives had turned the tide, though it was hard for her, even now, to find pleasure in so much death and pain.
But her skill with metal had become something of a legend since that war, and from time to time Remy allowed her to meet with Marcus' wolf contacts, who payed handsomely for her weapons. She never saw the money, of course, because by the time Remy had it he was already showering it down on his harem of women. It was blood money anyway, Brienne tried to remind herself. Sometimes it even worked.