Blood from Stone [AU]

[GamesMaster]

And she's got the shakes, despite her convincing herself it's not noticeable. Her breathing is easier, though, that cough cured by her previous salvo of healing spells and Remove Disease. She licks her fingers and claws clean, then looks at the basket as though disappointed there's no more.

"Thanks," she says, a moment later. 

[Bethany]

"You're welcome. May I cast on you? Healing and such," she adds, just in case Bri doesn't remember her asking that years ago, at the Cat. 

[GamesMaster]

"Sure. Your coin to waste," she adds, bitterly. A good sign; Beth's seen Bri play chipper and disinterested to people she dislikes. Or perhaps a bad one, since it might mean she no longer bothers.

[Bethany]

Beth's first spells weren't healing spells however. Instead, she casts the most common cantrip thrice. The first to clean Bri's clothes, the second for her skin and the last for her hair and head. It's only after those that she casts a simple healing spell, just to be sure, then spells to detect disease, poison and other maladies. "Juice in the pitcher," she murmurs as she casts.

[GamesMaster]

Bri reaches for the pitcher, drinking straight from it, finishing half of it before she even comes up for air. No disease; lingering traces of bloodbrush and devilweed, though not enough to stave off the shakes; long-term damage from addiction. The irony of bloodbrush is that it sharpens the senses, but only in the short-term; in the long term, it addles common sense, dulling the senses permanently. Her eyes are flat not only due to hunger, but due to a loss of vision. Her ears aren't twitching with softer sounds, only the sharp contrast between Beth's voice and the quiet room. 

She polishes off the pitcher, then, not bothering to save anything for later. 

[Bethany]

"You're not doing well," Bethany says bluntly. "Six to eight months. Maybe ten, if the weather is kind or you get lucky."

[GamesMaster]

"You think I know?" she snaps, clearly meaning the opposite. 

[Bethany]

"i can't imagine you do, given that you're not getting help for it," Beth snaps back. "You could go to the Cat, to Don, to me, to any of a handful of temples- you have help available, so why the fuck were you dying in an alleyway?"

[GamesMaster]

"Went to Don," she sneers. "Went to Cat. No help. Not for me."

[Bethany]

Beth stares at her, one eyebrow curving upward in silent rebuke of a lie or half-truth. That had always annoyed Carver, that she could pull that off and he couldn't. Strange... Come to think of it, he stopped being annoyed about it when we were thirteen or so. Right after- oh. Right after I said something about it being a 'mother's trick.' I guess.... I guess even though neither of us really thought about how he was born, we both still... knew, way back in the back of our heads.

[GamesMaster]

"No help," she hisses. "Can't live without music. What's the point?"

[Bethany]

"...music?" Bethany asks, thrown off course by the sudden change of topic. To her, anyway.

[GamesMaster]

"The music. The Brush-music. You don't know what it's like, without it, everything's so.. stale and dull and cold. I need it."

[Bethany]

Oh. Oh Bri. "You... you know you can... hear music without Brush, right?" Beth asks quietly, almost pleading. "You used to listen without it."

[GamesMaster]

"Not like that," she insists. "A bard in a tavern is nothing to the music. I won't give it up."