Brighid (???)
At this point, Brighid had been up for almost a day and a half. She had been fighting for a good chunk of that same time, and she was heavily injured as well. Now she was being held at knife point by someone she trusted… a lot. In lieu of everything else, she sighed. The moment Correl drew her weapon against her, she had considered running and leaving, however far enough that would get her.
But Brighid didn’t want to run from Correl. She didn’t want to run at all, otherwise she wouldn’t even be here. So instead she took a deep breath, staring down the blade in front of her and spoke:
“Several months ago, early in the Spring season, there had been several murders. Knights, lords, and ladies of the court of Yor, all being killed by some mysterious assassin.” She held up a hand when Correl pushed the sword further in her direction.
“That doesn’t answer my question!” Correl hissed, but Brighid motioned for her to back down.
“If you want me to explain who I am, and why I’m here when Lord Brighid isn’t, you’re going to need to let me talk.”A moment of silence washed over them and Brighid was urged to continue on, “Thank you.”
“The King of Yor had tasked Lord Brighid of Gauwynn to look into this case, and so she did, not soon after finding a magical element to the murders, and tying together the mages of the kingdom as possible suspects. At some point, while early in her investigation, she found me, and thought I would be helpful to her mission. I had been… forced to travel with her, unable to leave her sight for some time.”
Correl huffed, drawing the blade back and pushing it into the steps beside Brighid, “Forced to travel with her? And you never explained how she found you.”
Brighid sighed, raising one hand to the back of her head and rifling it through her hair, “That’s because I don’t know how she came to find me. I was all at once found in her company and in captivity before I knew what was happening. She told me what she wanted about her investigation while I was with her.”
Correl still didn’t seem to believe her, “Still…forced? At your size that’s… and that doesn’t explain the body!” Brighid groaned, a new noise from her, given Correl’s surprised expression, “That’s because you won’t shut up and let me tell the story, first!” She snapped, waiting just long enough to be sure Correl wouldn’t interrupt again.
“Ahem…I was a captive, dragged along to every place Lord Brighid visited for her investigations.” Brighid started again, “And I wasn’t exactly a carbon-copy clone of Lord Brighid, you know! It was much easier to keep me in a cage then… We had just returned from Muney after her investigation into Sir Ionel’s death, and she was shaken, and confused. She knew from her interactions with me that magic was involved, but she wasn’t sure how.”
“I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. I just wanted to leave and be free of all of this, and this place.” Brighid said in a pained voice, looking down the stairs, “I-I don’t even know about these murders and who could possibly be behind them.”
“She had been talking about needing assistance, because this mission was becoming more than what she could handle by herself. Saying she needed someone here that she could trust, because these ‘monsters’ could be anywhere.” Brighid looked back to Correl, “We had seen you training at Caer Wren, and she decided that you would be perfect help, with how little you knew of the situation and being so new to knighthood…”
“At that same time, she decided I could no longer offer any information that would be useful. Finally, she decided that I must have truly meant I couldn’t help her, and that I didn’t know what these murders were about.” For a moment, Brighid grew silent herself, looking back to the light peering through the cracked door of the study, “and she’d been muttering about getting rid of me, so I couldn’t tell anyone else about her mission.”
Correl interrupted again, this time with shock, “She might have just meant to let you go! She probably hadn’t considered killing you, you said you travelled with her for months!” Brighid seemed to let the outburst go go this time, responding with another sigh, and coking her head to the side, “No, see I wanted to believe that too. But if that was the case, she would not have needed that sword.”
That was more than enough to give Correl pause, and with her silence she took her hand from the sword’s hilt, leaving it standing in the stairs between them.
“I was never a willing participant in this quest of hers, but towards the end of her life, I found myself wanting to help. I would have found it uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t have minded living in a cage for just a little bit longer while we… worked together? But that’s not what she saw. Not what she wanted. I was just another threat to the kingdom, a monster that talked… and she felt that given the chance, I would run, or fight…” Brighid looked around the stairway, before letting out another long-winded sigh, “She was correct, unfortunately.”
“It played out a lot like tonight, however I was never the fighter or killer, that Winston probably is. I ran, tried to run, but never left the study. And neither did she.”
Brighid made a noise in the back of her throat that sounded like a mix between a grunt and a sigh. She was trying not to remember the smell or her own blood spilling on the ground, or scrambling around the study bringing books and papers to the ground. She was certainly trying not to remember shirking as close to her ground as possible, a much taller, more physically imposing woman standing over her, before a broken blade found an unexpected target and left her with an impossible choice.
Once again the two of them fell silent, nothing but the sound of fire cracking in sconces along the walls to fill the room. Correl spoke again, tentatively, as if not wanting to be cut off, “…Why didn’t you leave, like you wanted? Why stay, and pretend to be Lord Brighid?”
“I would never have made it out of this castle fortress, otherwise.” Brighid responded with a dry laugh, “But the only person who could was Lord Brighid of Gauwynn. So she was seen fleeing the castle in a huff, trying to run from ghosts.” Brighid, met Correl’s look and continued, “And I only continued on with her mission because at this point I had nothing else. I wanted to know why these murders were happening, and who was behind them. And…” She trailed off, she had suspicions but nothing concrete yet.
“Are you going to kill me? Or tell the truth about me?” Brighid asked, bringing the focus back to Correl, and more-so the sword in the ground in front of her. Correl looked down at it before turning back to Brighid, “I should. Honestly, for killing a knight, even on accident, I should turn you in or kill you myself…” she said, no humor in her tone as per usual. Very by the book, even.
And still, Brighid was hopeful, because while she sounded convinced, she didn’t look it. Not even by half. Correl made no moves for her sword, and neither did Brighid. She didn’t want to kill Correl. Something she said made her hope that the same could be said for the squire. Something about traveling all that time together… Brighid spoke up, “If you turn me in, we will most likely both die. They won’t hesitate to kill me, but they will be too wary of you, in this time of fear and doubt, to keep you alive.” She wasn’t trying to scare her, but saw Correl’s eye widen in fear all the same.
“And if I kill you,” Correl voiced, the words, dropping like stones against the stairs, “Then there will be no Lord Brighid, and I will have to explain all of this to them… they might kill in me that case as well, for the same reasons.” Brighid shrugged at first but nodded.
Correl cursed, deciding instead to sit on the stairs. “This is…you said you wanted to find out why these knights are dying? So would you still help with this investigation? If I don’t kill you or turn you in?” She asked, leaning around the sword to meet Brighid’s eyes.
“Does that mean you’re not thinking of killing me?” Brighid asked in return. She tried not to laugh as Correl cursed again. A real laugh too, not one laced with disappoint and anger.
“I won’t kill you for now… but I won’t let anyone else kill you either.” Correl decided, sighing as she once again rose to her feet with a wince, before remembering that she was bleeding. “If we don’t get bandaged up, we’ll be dead soon enough.”
Brighid nodded, needing Correl’s help to get back on her feet.
“We’ll need to clean this up first, then we need to have another conversation.” Brighid stated, leaning on Correl to avoid her bad leg. Though the squire groaned, she nodded, “What else is there to talk about?” She asked.
“Well what are we supposed to do now?”
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