Ficlet -- Before
Filed under Browning-centric fiction. Before she meets Nagant, the Aftermath of the Murder, and her personal goals. After all, weird as she is, even she deserves a goal or three.
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There would be no tears. Life would go on, just as always. But for a moment--just one moment, she wanted everything and everyone to stop. She wanted a space of time where she could just think without throwing her trusty switchblade through someone's arm. Her heart was full of dread as she wedged her mind tighter into its box.
They killed her. Browning remembered seeing the body, spread-eagled on the floor of their home, naked and battered like a common slave. Like a toy no one wanted to play with. There had been scars, oh, yes. In some weird, twisted kind of way she stared at the body, before tears blurred her vision. Carefully she stroked one scar, made with a dagger. Something inside of her seemed to awaken, and for the first time in her life, she wanted revenge.
Racing towards the woman's room, the woman she used to call Mother, Browning saw the room sullied with blood, things not where they were supposed to be, and--all of her Mother's precious research--all had been taken or thrown into the nearby fireplace.
The scraps that she did manage to save crumbled into dust before her eyes. Downtrodden and furious, she stomped one foot onto the threshold and the floor gave way underneath her feet, making her fall into the basement with a loud
THUMP.
"Shit, shouldn't do that anymore...that was not very smart..." Browning dusted herself off and looked around and saw all sorts of bookshelves full of textbooks in all sorts of languages. Some she could understand and some she couldn't. After looking around a little bit, she saw a black book with gold lettering. "Browning."
"...what's this? Mother never showed me this..." It was stuck on a pretty high shelf, so she had to stack three thicker books and a chair together to grab it.
"Ugh...this thing is heavy...who-whoa--FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUCK--" She promptly fell down again, this time carrying the book with her.
"This so isn't worth it..." she muttered, rubbing her temples.
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There would be no tears. Life would go on, just as always. But for a moment--just one moment, she wanted everything and everyone to stop. She wanted a space of time where she could just think without throwing her trusty switchblade through someone's arm. Her heart was full of dread as she wedged her mind tighter into its box.
They killed her. Browning remembered seeing the body, spread-eagled on the floor of their home, naked and battered like a common slave. Like a toy no one wanted to play with. There had been scars, oh, yes. In some weird, twisted kind of way she stared at the body, before tears blurred her vision. Carefully she stroked one scar, made with a dagger. Something inside of her seemed to awaken, and for the first time in her life, she wanted revenge.
Racing towards the woman's room, the woman she used to call Mother, Browning saw the room sullied with blood, things not where they were supposed to be, and--all of her Mother's precious research--all had been taken or thrown into the nearby fireplace.
The scraps that she did manage to save crumbled into dust before her eyes. Downtrodden and furious, she stomped one foot onto the threshold and the floor gave way underneath her feet, making her fall into the basement with a loud
THUMP.
"Shit, shouldn't do that anymore...that was not very smart..." Browning dusted herself off and looked around and saw all sorts of bookshelves full of textbooks in all sorts of languages. Some she could understand and some she couldn't. After looking around a little bit, she saw a black book with gold lettering. "Browning."
"...what's this? Mother never showed me this..." It was stuck on a pretty high shelf, so she had to stack three thicker books and a chair together to grab it.
"Ugh...this thing is heavy...who-whoa--FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUCK--" She promptly fell down again, this time carrying the book with her.
"This so isn't worth it..." she muttered, rubbing her temples.