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Blood Briar
Planetoid
- Joined
- May 1, 2025
Lorn - Sega SunsetIt'd been a long time since she'd driven long and hard. Fast happened often, with and without cause, but the other two were more for jobs or 'other' occasions. Like this one. By the time she'd gotten the stability and money to afford her bike, her days of brutal recklessness had passed into the sunset behind her. Sometimes she'd felt the urge poke up again to venture out of Night City and try her luck with whatever threats came her way. The thought of actually flatlining to something so pointlessly gonk held her back, though. Just as it did now.
Skewing between a death wish of violence and a death wish of pain was a learned skill, but it took healing to pull her out of both. And now I'm heading right back into that territory. Between the choices of pursuing vengeance and not, she knew which of the two she could live with, and playing it safe wasn't going to get her the head she wanted to savagely tear from its owner. Playing it smart was a different story; still, there was no such thing as guarantees of survival when it came to fighting your way up the Syndicate chain. It would inevitably end up being brutal and messy, and planning and preparation would at best let her choose when and where that became the case.
None of this was easy to think about, and not because she was driving from one end of the city to the next and then the next. Beyond a few hours of time, everything the dancer had brought into her life ended up adding pain. The bruiser was plenty willing to take bullets for cause, but that didn't mean she was a martyr. Even if I did skew that way, how would this be worth it?
Her eyes briefly strayed toward the messaging section of her data feed. A ping to 9 and she could have her stop the decryption work she was shelling out eddies for. A couple of gestures and the number she'd drummed up for her could be deleted and forgotten. The marks on her body had already faded, and even if she struggled to separate out memories from physical objects for awhile, if she never returned, the ghosts of that night would eventually disappear.
Or so a soothing fairy tale might go.
Therrye had never been able to exorcise the physical memories Mirri had left in her place. In the end, she'd had to move out of that apartment and into her current one. With Tharaday, it wasn't so easy; she could still see imagined glints of pain haunting his face. Somehow it was even worse when he smiled, and that made it hurt most of all. Maybe you need some actual fucking therapy. At that, the Liandri laughed, the first bit of true humor that'd struck her the entire day. It wasn't an absurd thought. That it was so mundane and normal was what made it feel so incongruous. Especially with what this week had shaped into. Thoughts turning to how much Aolieon likely needed such weren't so amusing.
You should stop caring before you make a mistake you can't recover from.
There'd been a loosening in the ribbons that tugged on her, reducing the full-chested feeling into something more half-sided and wobbly. Was it possible to actually, for once, unravel things before it was too late? Before she couldn't stop herself from caring? Maybe was the most hopeful answer she could give, and not much of her believed it was even half true. That, in turn, only made her angrier again. After the smokescreening bullshit, she'd fed her lines about not wanting her to follow the same path and end up with the same results. A privilege of the older, certainly, to try and dissuade those younger from following in their bitter footsteps.
Beneath that wisdom was plenty of still-burning trash, by her reckoning. Aolieon had lived and lost, but she'd also given up on that being alive part. Meaning and purpose were something one had to fight for, had to keep choosing, even when everything looked dark. Therrye'd read some of her tragedies in the patterns etched on her flesh and the icy madness in her dance, and she still doubted she knew the half of it. She couldn't blame or even judge her for choosing the path of fading embers that led only to lonely ash; loss could hollow one out as surely as augments or depravity, and leave hope a smoking hulk in the rear view mirror.
Standing from that road and telling her to get out of town or shut her eyes and mouth and listen up, however? No. Fuck that. Therrye didn't have to take the same path. She'd done enough by now to keep others at a distance already - enough to buy her space for what came next. Even if, in some vidtripping fantasy, Aolieon had wanted her in her life and to pull back from everything she needed to finish, would she? Could she? Another Maybe tuned the anger to boiling. That was a dream that didn't exist in this derelict future, and it was pure dredged shit to even imagine it. More than that, she hated that she'd found that intensity of feeling for a woman who'd likely rather die than admit life might actually be worth living.
In the end, if she was still breathing by the time Balgur was flatlined? Hell fucking yes she'd be gunning for a happier future. She knew the odds weren't high, and so much uncertainty still lay afield of her, but she'd decided long ago that she'd spite the fuckers through choosing life every time. Every. Time. No matter what is lost along the way. It had been hard to reconcile that with keeping others distant - she still wasn't sure she had, in fact - yet that was the easiest way to balance it. Even if vanishingly few people were truly numbered among her chooms, she'd still give everything she could of herself and take home memories of the smiles she saw others wear. Those in her life were close enough. Life wasn't less worthwhile, despite being dimmer, and there'd at least be something to return to after the fires of repercussion did their best to sweep so much to dust.
She didn't have to give up everyone and everything in order to pursue her vengeance.
Keeping people at a distance was for their benefit, anyhow, and the samurai was right in that, even if she took it to a greater extreme. If others couldn't become leverage or vulnerabilities on her, they wouldn't be in the crosshairs of her enemies. She wanted every barrel and blade pointed at her, where they belonged, and right where she'd earned them. On that, she suspected, the two Liandri very likely agreed.
Between that life and the one Aolieon seemed to be living, she'd repeat her choice again and again. Even if Mirri or Tharaday had died. Especially if Mirri or Tharaday had died. Falling into the shadows of self-immolation wouldn't honor their ghosts, and it couldn't avenge their loss. Part of her well understood that the types of suffering she'd endured made this more possible for her than it was for others. The rest wondered if she'd truly have found less determination for living. She'd nearly died in the dungeons, repeatedly, purely out of spiteful rebellion. They'd starved her, lashed her, broken her bones, severed nerves, denied her sleep, isolated her, sensory depped her, waterboarded her, teased her ego and chipped it back down; they set her up to die in the cage again and again, refusing to ever give her the dignity of a bullet to the dome, and yet - throughout it all - her spirit had never broken. It'd taken nothing less than a guaranteed kill trigger in her chest to keep her compliant. No reward ever quelled her defiance and no reprieve ever lured her into amenability. Even when she did choose to follow along, regaining measures of health and strength, she bitterly repaid any confidence they'd mustered in the belief they'd finally cowed her.
If she hadn't made them so much money, they undoubtedly would have given her lead to the head instead of a bomb next to her heart. They wanted a weapon in her and they'd gotten one, but the handle on her wasn't long enough to escape being cut by what they'd wrought. She'd fully expected to end up a bloody mess of so much shredded tissue after getting the perfect opportunity to wreck havoc on her captors, too. Therrye escaping was the real fluke. Since she'd gotten the chance to actually live, she did not want to go back to living solely for that death wish. She could not waste such fortune in something so hollow.
The losses that separated her path from Aolieon's weren't well known to her, and she could trace only meager outlines of what might have led her down her road. Would Therrye have felt and thought any differently about her, or herself, if they were known?
Realizing that she was thinking so hard through these lines of history because of the dancer's words snarled her insides. She wanted to thrash and buck off that influence, to be free again to not worry what was happening the next day and the next, because her own survival was the only life she needed to keep in view and intact. Instead, part of her kept running back all of the depressingly sweet words Aolieon had uttered after she'd nearly concussed her and pointed a gun at her head.
All of this felt like her fault, ultimately. Warning signs blared at her aplenty in the first few minutes of meeting the Liandri. She didn't have to get drawn in. She could have said 'no, thank you' at Neon Hearts, or after. She could have held back the feelings from becoming words that poked through her distance to wriggle onto the surface. She didn't have to make the call, make the offer, speak of the singular places resonating in her.
In the end, she had chosen to pursue these desires and to throw caution behind her. She fucked around and found out, and was left with what for the trouble? She should not care for the jagged ruins of that path. She needed to not care if she was going to keep a cool head while torching Balgur's dominion to the ground.
And yet. And yet.
If events had gone differently, she could have faced that future with someone who pulled things out of her she hadn't realized were there before, side by side versus impossible odds and burning with that vivid intimacy she so assiduously avoided. But that wasn't what Aolieon wanted.
If I can't cut these ribbons out of my heart, came the eventual thought, maybe they can remind me what I stand to lose if I hone hatred and fury too far. That was an easy future to imagine, and one she never wanted to find herself falling into. Though they were now distant or gone, memories of Mirri and Tharaday were treasures, shining among the many others who gave warmth to the life she'd chosen. Adding those of Aolieon, however few and bittersweet, at least felt right.
Sometimes that was the most closure one could ever hope to get.
Forest Swords - The Weight of GoldEddies transferred and ringed hands pushed the edgerunner jacket across the counter toward the bruiser. Faded synth material, black, three-quarters sleeves, entropism style, bereft of decoration beyond some plainly patched bullet holes, and, most importantly, internally layered with a bulletproof triweave. It would do nicely.
Pulling the new jacket on, Therrye gestured in thanks and parting as she walked out, old jacket trailing over her right shoulder. At her bike, she stowed it before hopping on.
Above her local gun range of choice was, predictably, an arms vendor. Therrye unhurriedly paced the walls, considering her options while pop-up displays on her feed listed out synopses and details on each firearm. The bruiser's muscle weave 'ware gave her an edge in everything melee oriented, and her lifetime of experience had primed her for dominating in close range combat. Long range engagements with minimal cover were her worst case scenario, and no amount of bulletproofed armor short of higher-end borging or exoskeletal platforms would drop their risk profile to negligible.
She'd started training harder with her Ajax, and she was making strides, but her acceptance of half measures was at an end. It was time to commit to something that would make every shot count and force her to double down on accuracy.
After a couple questions, she went down with the owner to the gun range with a box of ammo and a Rostović Kolac. The kick after the first trigger pull grounded her in a way similar to trading punches at the gym. Grinning, she sent three more rounds downrange before lowering the weapon and nodding to the man.
An hour of fire practice and another batch of eddies transferred later, she left with a couple ammo boxes, two extra mags, the firearm and a baker's dozen of grenades split between Techtronika frags and Militech smokes.
Dawn bloomed on the horizon where it wasn't obscured by towers of concrete and plasteel. It was a sight she'd reveled in so many times now. This morning, she only gave it a pause of attention, barely more than acknowledgment. Still not quite ready to yield to sleep, Therrye took off to spend an hour or two in the gym and bleed off the rest of her energy and tension. 'Move until you can't anymore.' Words spoken to her many times in her first decade of life, forever etched into muscle memory by what accompanied them each time. What else could she do but make that legacy count?
Eyes opened, dilating into violet rings. Murky fragments of dream came apart with the push toward waking. She'd sweated out during those hours of daylight rest, despite the AC and blackened window. Not in the mood to shower both before and after sleep, she gave herself a quick wipe of a damp hand towel and retired to her chair to review her feed. She noted she had an hour or so before her meetup.
Finding nothing of interest, she brought up her contacts and rolled down most of them with a swipe, past the one she wanted. As she nudged it back up, her gaze lingered on one name in particular before she resumed and got to the one she'd wanted. Last time she'd asked Joi for jobs, she got an earful of detes about some of the goings on of current Syndicate patterns and politics. While her interest at the time had been middling, some key details had stood out to her, one of which she now acted on.
I want in on any and all Khan jobs going into Balgur's dominion.
Loud and clear. I'll check in with you later, k?
Got it.
Sliding out of the chair, she popped a Nutriblast and took a pull before getting dressed. Should I check in with 9 now? Thoughts turned. She took another pull and went to the window, swiping the open control to peer out into the evening light. Nah. Let's get 'ket's opinions first. Leaning on the window sill, she splayed out her arms and rested her chin on one, can held next to her with the other. Her focus drifted, different little details close and far drawing fleeting attention while nothing concrete flicked into mind.
Until the errant thought of, I wonder how Liliya's doing. She looked then toward the horizon, watching the slow crawl of the sun into darkness. How long has it been? Year or two, now? A finger pushed into the window, rubbing the pad across its surface. Hm. The faintest of shrugs later, she stood back up and drank most of the rest of the can.
It wouldn't be until many weeks later that the Liandri realized why this line of interest spiraled out the way it would.
Futurescapes - Sci-Fi AmbienceWhile she wasn't a total deadfoot on the dance floor, there was only one sort of partner dance Therrye excelled in. Dodges and blocks wove with blows and swept back and forth between the Liandri and the Human, chrome impacting hard every time it connected with 'ganic flesh. On that side of things, Bethsket held the clear advantage, and would undoubtedly leave a collage of bruises on violet skin. It did leave her a little slower, though, and the rough diamond of the bruiser's talent had long been honed into a glimmering jewel of skill.
Neither disrespected the other so much as to not give it serious effort. "S'fucking preem that you don't give me any of that sissy shit." "I'd never." "That's why I love you, bitch."
Every block was an opportunity for a grapple, every shift in distance a chance for a kick or a retreat, every dodge an opening for a counter. Much could be said for how Therrye spent her time in the gym, yet the more relaxed fights there did not compare to fighting in a world that wanted you dead. The bruiser could expect Bethsket to come at her with strikes that could concuss her or worse, and while not every attack was an attempt to incapacitate or maim, plenty were. For her part, she gave the same, and it hadn't taken long for her knuckles to become bloody and torn against the metal of the merciless brawler's arms.
"Still get hot seeing that blue blood of yours." "Gonna have to step it up if you want to see more." "Bet."
Early on in the Human's journey out of the haze of slavery, she'd become concerned over how quick the woman to chromed up. They both had been there during the cyberpsychosis incident of 2117 in one of the Bloodbath Brawlhalla's precursors, leading to the temporary closure of the cage circuits by the dominion lords. The augment killswitch installed in that near-borg had failed, catastrophically, and the audience had included a coterie of prominent Corpos. Reparations had to be made amidst the rest of the bloody fallout, and leashing methods of the fight slaves were ramped up.
Neither of them cared about the dead left in the crowd, though. It was some of the psycho's fellow fighters they got to see torn limb from bloody limb that stuck with them. Locked up as they were, they would have met the same fate if the armed response reinforcements hadn't arrived as soon as they did.
All of which, understandably, made Therrye nervous that Bethsket might go out the same way. Fortunately, she didn't go much further than replacing her arms, her neck, and some headware. It was still a risky holding pattern, all told, but the Liandri had played a personal hand in keeping that needle from going any farther over the line.
The next cross of blows was a near thing for the bruiser. Bethsket aimed for a head-on collision of fists at strength, and without her breakers, she'd risk a blowout of muscle weave and reinforced bone. Opening her hand with a fractional amount of clearance, she snared her elbow instead and turned into a throw. The brawler still clipped her shoulder, tearing gouges into it, before she was sent careening down the slope of the dry channel where they fought. Flopping to the bottom, she landed on her back and stared up at Therrye with a blink of surprise.
Then she started laughing her ass off. "Fucking got you!" Glancing over at the wet heat of blood running easily from rent flesh, the bruiser shook her head and chuckled. Should have left the jacket on, she mused without ire.
When it first happened, it had felt like a little miracle. Raised as they were in violence and suffering, rage was all she'd known in battle for decades. It was Bethsket who'd suggested they fight not for training or regulation, but for fun. Gonk of a thought as it seemed at the time, the brawler's carefree attitude, making little games of each bout, made it all click into place. Therrye'd laughed for once in the midst of a match and she still struggled to fully wrap her head around it. The cheeky Human always made it work, though.
Walking down the channel, she met up with her as she stood up, and the two shared a fist bump. Bethsket raised both brows and waggled them, grinning. "Wanna go again?" It wasn't quite as infectious as Brahms, but it got close. "Yeah."
As always, there was no real tallying of wins or losses. They could each count aplenty the number of blows that would have sent each other to a ripperdoc; it was the ad hoc, whimsical goals that sprung up in the midst of their bouts that were the take-homes. Therrye could always count on 'blood' being one of Bethsket's, and the brawler in turn expected her to try to get her into a headlock at least once.
Bruised, gouged, and definitely banged up, the two sat comfortably side by side at the end of it. "One of these days you're gonna have to use those breakers on me." "That'd make it too easy." "Oh, you bitch." The brawler pushed her shoulder, though it lacked the force of their earlier aggressions. Therrye laughed easily, the tension of the past week forgotten for a little while, and looked over at Bethsket with a relaxed smile. "I missed you." The Human gave her a cheeky wink. "Back at you." A nod toward the road. "Burgers?" "Hell yeah."
They didn't exactly race each other all the way to Jerry's, but they definitely pushed one another to go faster, weave through cars, and cut turns. Together, they were a bit of a menace, and that rarely seemed to bother the Liandri. It was kind of impossible for her not to loosen up around her, and she accepted - or forgave - most of her flagrant disregard for 'stilted ways of living'.
"Yoooo, Jerry! How's biz?" "Hey, long time no see Beths. Same old, same old, you know." "I try not to, but I getcha." "Watcha hungry for?" "Double Double, Friez and a Workz my man." "You're eating all that?" "Girl, you're helping." More laughter and easy smiles. Moments like these were the little treasures she happily hoarded. They weren't enough all on their own to stand against the gnawing dark inside - but they made her days so much brighter.
"Still drowning all that in white sauce?" "Like there's a better option." "Squirt in the red!" "Then it feels less fatty!" "You're such a leadhead sometimes." "Uh huh, miss metal arms." "Yehhhh, das what the ladies call me." While the brawler posed, Therrye cracked up again. Even though she wasn't 10 meters from the spot where she'd shared a late night meal with Aolieon less than a week ago, there was enough grit in her bond with Bethsket to keep from falling into that hole for now.
For as well as they got on, the brawler was one of the few femmes in her life without even a crackle of flirtatious tension. Intuition told her that if they went there and it went bad, the volatility in both of them would eventually sour their relationship with toxicity. Bethsket was a true choom, no matter how long they went without seeing each other, and they vibed in a way she never quite sparked with anyone else. It just wasn't worth the risk for her.
Once they finished, and binned the greasy paper, they were back to sitting together against a wall. How many times have we been like this in the past 7 years? Memories fluttered by, a vibrant stream of color in her mind's eye. Not as many as I'd have liked. A small frown crossed her expression; she swept it and the accompanying emotion away.
"So Ther. What's this mystery biz you mentioned?" The bruiser turned to look at her with a smile bordering on lurid. "I wanna bag Balgur." "No shit!" Bethsket exclaimed, delight and surprise intertwining. "Fuck yeah, I'm game." A beat. "You got some plan though, right? 'cause, like..." She could tell the woman was remembering what happened last time they descended into that pit. Therrye nodded resolutely. "... you ask Tharaday?" Her glance aside said it all. "He has a right to this fight." An unenthusiastic nod. "So you gonna ask him?" The Liandri gave a deep exhale and ran fingers through her hair. "Yeah, just... not yet." Bethsket shrugged. "Long as you do, yeah. I'm in." Her smile was decidedly less enthusiastic now, but still appreciative. "Thanks, 'ket." "Oh, I'm totes gonna ride your ass 'til it all sounds legit." She laughed, inevitably. "Good. I wanted your eyes on it anyhow." The brawler gave her a hearty pat on the shoulder and pulled her in for a sideways hug. "I gotchu, girl."
Back at her bike, Therrye saw Joi's notification pop up and opened it immediately.
Hey, 'Rye; can you come to the bar? There's someone here you should see.
Alright. Got some jobs lined up?
Yeah, it ties into that.
Preem.
Smiling with some eagerness - it's not like Joi would set her up, after all - she headed for
.It was still early for the joint, but it was open nonetheless. Rather than her favorite fixer at the bar, she saw Rhys there getting ready. The Human nodded toward the office. "She's in the back." "Thanks," she smiled, more genuinely than polite, and didn't need to even avoid anyone on the path back there.
Opening the door, she'd half-stepped in before freezing up. Standing in the midst of - really, just taking up the majority of the room - was a Goethe chromed to the teeth. Her eyes narrowed into violet orbs as she dropped into combat stance. Without her breakers, she didn't think she'd stand much of a chance, but if Joi was in danger -
Glancing toward Joi and her consternation, it took only a moment to see that, of the three of them, the Goethe seemed the least likely to be ready for a fight, his hands held up in a placating gesture. "I'm not here to throw down." Gaze sliding back and forth, Therrye remained wary, but eased up. "Joi?" "Close the door and come sit." There was a pause before the last word, yet a chair could still be squeezed into past the prodigiously large fighter.
She couldn't help but feel his curious stare on her the entire time. It made more sense once he finally spoke. "That's not her." Joi didn't look surprised at that conclusion. Therrye glanced back to Joi, ready for the explanation. "Spinebreaker, meet Therrye. Therrye, Spinebreaker." Vague recollections pinged in the back of her mind, and the name lent itself to the sort of dramatic flair she'd experienced plenty of in her past. A fighter? A more thorough assessment of the Goethe, then, who, for the moment, was wearing what appeared to be two jackets and two shorts torn at the sides and stitched together to fit him. More relevantly was the nature of the augments he was sporting. Yeah. Seems like it.
"Spinebreaker, huh?" Therrye offered her hand first in greeting, and the Goethe shook it with a surprising gentleness. He looked sheepish at her words, so she followed up with her guess, "Yeah, it took me awhile to pick a name for myself. I get it." It didn't take long for the giant to intuit Therrye's meaning and his eyes widened with the realization. His posture didn't shift much, but it was clear the energy between them had changed. "Sorry, I was looking for another Liandri. But it's nice to meet you, Therrye."
"This gentle giant is trying to find his brother," Joi explained, "since he was freed by another Liandri who also freed his brother." The bruiser was split between raising her brows and narrowing her eyes. Seriously? Urges to shoot off an angry-snarky text to the only other blue devil she knew were pushed to the side, for now. "Hn," she intoned at first, then reluctantly continued. "I might know who you're talking about." "Really?" "Yeah, I'll shoot her a message to see if she knows you. Mind if I take a pic?" The giant shook his head and she stood, backing up as much as she could, before snapping one with her eyeware. "Glad to hear that, 'Rye. That wasn't the only reason I wanted you two to meet, though." Both of the fighters turned to the fixer, then. "I think you two might have some convergent interests when it comes to work. And Spinebreaker over here could certainly use the eddies." Joi's glanced back at the poor accommodations in threads he was currently wearing. "I should be hearing back about your new wardrobe tonight, by the way," she added apologetically. Spinebreaker just shrugged and smiled appreciatively. "You're being so kind to me." She gestured dismissively. "Don't worry about it. Anyway, you two should talk."
While Joi was talking, Therrye had pulled up Aolieon's number with a weight in her chest. Pushing through it, she quickly typed out her message, added the snap of Spinebreaker, and sent it off.
Says you know where his brother is.
Then she returned her attention to the Goethe. "Yeah, I'm down. So I'm actually gunning for Derek Khan's jobs lately - seems he's got his sights on Balgur's territory. Know the guy?" she asked, with only a glimmer of malicious intent in her half-smirk.