Brianna Vrikt

Nov 06, 2004 23:24

The home of the Bard was a beautiful manor house located on a hillside in the capital city. The garden terrace where she taught her students and staged performances had a lovely view of the palace in the distance. She had carefully chosen this location because it was close enough to Lord Vrikt's home to be noticed, but not so close as to get lost in the crowd of courtiers who must dog his steps at every turn. She set about building her reputation as a powerful practitioner of her particular magic. In only a few years after her arrival in the capital city, she had earned the title of THE Bard, rising above all of the other local songsmiths in power and prestige. Eventually she attained her goal and attracted the attention of Lord Vrikt himself. His one visit secured her place in the social stratosphere of the entire realm. And now, to attain the greatest power of all, she must raise his child to be an even more skillful magician than herself.

From her infancy Brianna's mother taught her the ways of magic. She strove to impress upon her the importance of excelling at the arcane arts so that Vrikt, the lord of the realm, would see her power and deem her worthy to be recognized as his offspring and so shower her (and her mother) with honor.
As the years went by, Brianna took her place with the Bard's other students. When she was little, she had been afraid that Lord Vrikt would visit and find her unworthy. She worked tirelessly to prove herself. Her talents and abilities soon surpassed those of her classmates, but his Lordship never appeared to see her progress.
As she approached adolescence, she began to suspect that he would never come...and perhaps he never had. Perhaps her mother had merely used his reputation to disguise her own indiscretion. But her mother seemed so determined that he would return to claim Brianna as his heir. Surely she couldn't be so delusional if Lord Vrikt wasn't her father. On the other hand, he was as negligent a ruler as he was a parent. The governing of the country was left in the hands of appointed officials. He cared nothing for the land or the people who inhabited it, except to produce magical offspring with any woman who displayed some arcane talent.
When Brianna was fourteen, she asked her mother what Lord Vrikt was like as a person. The Bard's eyes shone with the strength of her desire and her voice was filled with hunger when she answered that he was very, very powerful. Her mother was so filled with her own daydream, that she did not see the bitter disappointment in Brianna's eyes. 'Is that really all there is?' Brianna thought. 'Power? Power and the thirst for power?' She looked around the room and saw everywhere the evidences of her mother's magic. Trophies strategically displayed to let any guests know that she is more powerful than they are. She looked into her mother's gleaming eyes and saw that she, herself was the greatest trophy that her mother had: A child of Vrikt, the most arcane and powerful being in the world. Brianna suddenly hated him. She did not want to impress this stranger. She resented that her mother had always kept the thought of him so present in her life when the fact of him was so absent. She just wanted to be free of him and of her mother's obsession with him.
Brianna became neglectful of her studies.
Her growing rebellion found her entertaining thoughts of running away; maybe joining a band of gypsies or a troupe of wandering players. Anything that would take her far from here! With that thought in mind, she often wandered in the marketplace looking for opportunity. And she found plenty of opportunity. She soon noticed that if she smiled a certain way or brushed her dark, wavy hair over her shoulder in such a manner, that the young men in the marketplace gladly shared their secrets with her. Before Brianna was fifteen, she gave up playing mind games with her "pathetic" mother choosing instead to cause chaos among the boys of her acquaintance. Once, however, she inadvertently started a fight between two martial arts students over who would get the honor of teaching her to defend herself.
The two boys had already exchanged more than a few blows when they just stopped. They stood, slack jawed, in the middle of the street, staring toward a building opposite from where Brianna was standing. When the crowd cleared, Brianna saw that they were looking at a stately woman who was sitting on a windowsill, singing. Her auburn tresses were arranged in an elaborate collection of curls and braids that glinted like fire in the sunlight.
Brianna was angry. How dare they forget about her and ogle some woman twice their age! The woman looked straight into Brianna's eyes then abruptly stopped singing. She made a dismissive gesture in the air and the two adversaries shook themselves. It seemed as if they had forgotten their quarrel and even the green eyed temptress who had caused it. Dazedly they stumbled off into the crowds. Furious at the slight, Brianna turned to follow their example, but was hindered by a very large man who blocked her path and offered to escort her to his employer's apartment. In fact he insisted.
Brianna refused when the woman in the window offered her a seat. The woman raised an eyebrow and her manservant put Brianna in the chair, and rested his hands on her shoulders. The woman appraised her for quite some time in silence as she seated herself opposite her young "guest" in the dimly lit room. Brianna was not accustomed to this kind of attention. With or without the muscle-man, she would have been equally uncomfortable. When her outrage faded enough for fear to find a foothold, the woman finally spoke.
"Well, Brianna, did you intend those boys to fight over you?" She asked.
"What?" Brianna couldn't believe what she heard.
"Did you intend to start a fight?" The woman asked slowly, letting each word sink in.
"How did you know my name?"
The woman threw back her head and laughed as she gestured to her servant who bolted the door and stood facing it. The woman stood and as she walked toward Brianna, her face began to change. She seemed to become more and more beautiful. Painfully so. By the time she stopped in the center of the room, she was more beautiful than anyone Brianna had ever seen or even imagined. Brianna felt hideous in comparison. Then she noticed the haze of magic that she had seen so often during her lessons with the Bard. "It is a spell." Brianna told herself. "Glamour, maybe. I could do that." But she knew that it was beyond her ability.
"I know who you are, Brianna." The woman announced in that satin voice of hers. "One of Lord Vrikt's many magically-created progeny. You are the daughter of the local bard. Yes, I know who your mother is, too. But you've rejected her teaching, choosing instead to wander aimlessly among the trinket mongers and torment your fellow idlers. So tell me, how will this elevate you above your half-brothers and sisters?"
Brianna jumped to her feet, trembling with rage.
"Lord Vrikt has never shown any interest in me and I don't expect he ever will. If he is my father, he has never given any indication of it. Let my "brothers and sisters" waste their lives vying for his favor. I don't want any part of him. Or them. Or you for that matter!" Brianna would have shown herself out, but the door was still blocked.
"Is that so?" The woman asked unperturbed as she returned to her chair, fading back to her own natural beauty. "Tell me, Brianna. Did you intend that those two boys should...?”
"No, I didn't intend them to fight!" Brianna interrupted. "But so what if I did?"
Again the woman sat silently appraising her with that calculating smile that seemed to be her norm. Brianna stared back defiantly, trying to determine what this woman could want with her.
Having come to a decision, the woman was suddenly all business.
"My name is Lurline." She said. "I have been observing your activities in the marketplace for quite some time. You have a rudimentary talent for getting people's...cooperation, but you lack subtlety and control. Brianna, what if you could make the boys fight? Or make them swear an oath of eternal friendship at your slightest whim?"
"You could teach me that, I suppose?" Brianna asked skeptically. But she was interested in spite of herself. After all, Lurline had been able to grab Tony's and Jack's attention even in the heat of battle.
"Lurline laughed again. "Brianna, I can teach you so much more than that. No man would be immune to your charms. Whatever you want, he will consider it his greatest joy to achieve it for you."
"And in return for my...education?" Brianna asked cautiously.
"You will be regularly apprenticed to me. I will offer your mother a sum of money and you will serve me for a specified period of time while you learn." Lurline replied.
"And if I decline your offer?" Brianna asked, looking pointedly at the door and the man in front of it. Lurline snapped her fingers and he unbolted the door and stood aside.
"If you decline, you will have missed the opportunity to reach your full potential. Take some time to consider it. I will call on the Bard in one week." Lurline nodded to her servant who held the door open for Brianna.
"Oh, and Brianna," Lurline called just as she reached the doorway. "Most apprentices don't get to choose their masters."

The Bard noticed the change in her daughter. She was attending to her lessons more. Her rebelliousness and hostility had been replaced with a quiet pensiveness. She still went to the marketplace every day, but she didn't stay away as long as she used to, choosing instead to walk through the gardens, lost in thought. The Bard smiled to herself. She hoped the girl didn't fancy herself in love. Or if she was, it had better be someone with enough magical prowess to be worthy of her.

Brianna's trips to the marketplace this week were filled with purpose. She was trying to find out everything she could about Lurline before she made her decision. It wasn't easy. Some people said she was a respectable merchant from Iron Tower. Some people said she ran a local brothel. Neither of these occupations could explain the magic she had displayed. Mostly, people didn't seem to know her. It didn't seem that one week would be enough to get anything on Lurline.
And Brianna wasn't giving it her full attention, anyway. As much as she had wanted to get away before, now home seemed like a nice place to be. She wandered through the gardens etching them into her memory and storing up her memories of their growth and her growth among them. She was surprised to find that she didn't want to fight with her mother anymore; and equally surprised at how often she felt like crying.

chain-story, vrikt fiefdom, tac, story

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