Brie Callie

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   <default>Brie Callie</default>
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Brie is a Hungry Choir contestant who became an ally of Zed's.

Personality

She has a tendency toward anxiety.<ref>They’d stopped for meals here and there, and Raymond had gotten to know Brie a bit.  A lot of Zed’s focus had been on bridging the gap between Ray, who could be mistaken for a slab of ice, and Brie, who was sometimes driven by anxiety. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.z</ref>

She's good at singing.<ref name=":1">Considering the length of the roadtrip, the choice of traveling companions was key.  She was wearing a red shirt and white pants, her raincoat draped over one knee, her bag at her feet.  The snacks they’d been eating sat on the dashboard.

“A song for your supper,” Brie sang.  She had a good singing voice. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.z</ref>

She doesn't consider her reward from the Choir a net positive, even if it's necessary for her health, feeling that she lost a great deal to the changes.<ref>“It’s not good,” Brie said.  “I needed it, I think.  It’s necessary for me.  But… you lose as much as you get. Or more.”

The kid sagged a bit. “It’s not that strong?  It doesn’t fix everything?”

“It’s stronger than we were led to believe,” Brie said.  “It fixed everything.” - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.z</ref><ref name=":3">“Zed gave me tricks.  Roller blades, weapons.  I put my leg-stumps into the roller blades, used a bit of a prosthetic leg to do it with the one where my leg wasn’t long enough.  They let you bring in whatever you want on your eighth night.  But I think whatever you do, you leave a big part of yourself behind.  Zed gave me support after, let me forget the worst of it for moments.  Let me feel a bit like me again.  That’s why I owe him.  It’s why I have to finish this.”

“Why would you even do it in the first place?”

“I have- had pica.  I don’t even always consciously realize I’m doing it, when I eat things.  Thumbtacks, screws, pop can tabs- so many pop can tabs, and batteries.  You know that zone you get into, when you’re snacking, and you don’t even realize you’ve been eating until you reach in and you hit the bottom of the bag?  It was like that. Treatment didn’t work, from age fourteen to nineteen.  And I poisoned myself, with metals in my body.  Long-term damage. Then the ritual landed in my lap.”

“And you’re better?” Avery asked.

“No more organ damage, no more weirdness, pretty sure. But better?”

Brie laughed.  A rueful chuckle.

“No. Imagine cutting out your heart to fix heart disease. And magic keeps you alive.  Your blood doesn’t pump, you don’t feel the fifty different things connected to your blood, but everything else keeps on going.  Like that.  But it’s eating.  Intake.  Fueling your body. Everything is working great and… it feels wrong. Zed said I could lead a normal life, act like I had the body I had before, and innocence could take over again.  Or I could dive into this.  I have to stop other people from suffering like I suffered. Leave the door open for anyone who truly needs it, keep the gift I got as my reward going, so I don’t die.  But… there need to be more barriers to entry.  We have to be able to control who does the ritual, so stupid kids and others don’t get into it.” - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.8</ref> These changes include losing some of the psychological barriers against eating, and that change itself disturbs her.<ref name=":2">Brie continued, head turned away, like she didn’t want to be seen like this.
[...]
Brie looked away.  Shame seemed to define everything in her expression, posture, and overall body language.  Enough that it overwhelmed the impact of seeing a teenage boy die.
[...]
Four and a half hours later, and Brie was still eating.
[...]
“What about you, Brie?” Nicolette asked.  “Want to go get a palate cleanser, after?”

“I could, but I think the fact I could would make me feel more wrong.” - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.z</ref>

She's sometimes deeply embarrassed by eating horrifying things.<ref name=":2" />

Relationships

Dating Zed,<ref>“I’d like to be,” Brie said.  “A couple.  But I wouldn’t want to intrude, or assume.  I wondered if I was the damsel in distress of the month, and if you’d be moving on, or going back to an existing relationship.  The-”

He touched her chin, turning her face, then kissed her.  Her lips were warm too, in the rain.  He could taste the sweets she’d had in the car.

“Be safe,” she said, the moment the kiss was broken. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.z</ref> Feeling disconnected from her old life, he's become the person she's closest to.<ref name=":4">“Can’t,” Brie said.  “I went looking for you guys to try to get answers or figure out a way forward. I found Zed instead, or he found me.  I- you saved me, you did.  But Zed saved me and Zed made the world make sense again, gave me hope, cared. More than that.  I tried to go back to my old life and I can’t plug back into it.  I can’t- he ended up becoming my whole world.”
[...]
“You love him,” Avery spoke up.

"I- yeah.” - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.8</ref> by all accounts they are happy together.

She declared that she owed the Kennet Trio and specifically Avery Kelly a favor for the help they have given her.<ref>“I know we did our end of the deal,” Brie said.  “We sent you power packaged up that’s technically equivalent to your share from the Choir.  But I personally owe you more than that.  I talked to Verona that night, but you- I feel like if I tell you this, I can trust you with it more.”

“Tell me what?”

“That I owe you one, still.  For not letting those- they were goblins?”

Avery nodded.

“For not letting them kill me or whatever they were going to do.  For getting me out, for saving me that night.  I owe you.  So you can call that in and I’ll do my best.  And I think you’re good enough kids you won’t abuse that.”

“That’s dangerous, I think, in this world,” Avery said, quiet.

“Probably.  But… if we’re going to make this world less dangerous, less awful, doesn’t it start with stuff like this?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ve got such a long way to go, still,” Brie said, staring at Zed’s back.  Zed was laughing with Nicolette.  “I took too many lives, making it through.  How do you ever fix that?”

“I dunno.  That’s a little crazy heavy for me right now.”

“Me too,” Brie said.  “Right now and every now.”

“Sorry.”

“Let’s go look after our important people.  Give Jessica some support, how’s that?”

“Let’s,” Avery said. - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.5</ref>

Appearance

A woman with long brown hair.<ref name=":0">It was as if everyone in the crowd was walking left or right, except for one person that stood still.  A woman with long brown hair, wearing a red dress and sandals with straps that wound their way halfway up her calves.

She seemed familiar, and she seemed to stand outside of the flows and currents of the people around them. Verona switched to her Sight.  The world was plunged into darkness and wrapped in cocoons.
[...]
The woman had the same hair and expression, and stood in a similar stance, but she wore a white dress, painted ninety percent red by the blood that flowed from fresh bite wounds at her chin, at her ear, at her neck, shoulder, breast, and side.  Most of one hand was missing, and blood ran freely down to the ground.  The strappy sandals were gone; both of her legs were missing, one mid-calf, one at the knee.  Replaced with splintered wooden pegs that dug into raw, gnawed flesh.  She swayed slightly, unbalanced on those feet.

The Winner.  The woman Avery had saved.

The woman turned, staggering away at a good clip.  Verona turned off her Sight, and the woman was striding, instead. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.6</ref> She had eight tattoos on her arm of the phases of the moon, one burned onto her by each phase of the Hungry Choir ritual. After the Choir was defeated, she was covered in more tattoos to bind it's power; a complex diagram of chains across most of her body, connecting to the phase-of-the-moon tattoos.<ref name=":5">Brie’s arms were tattooed heavily.  Avery recognized the marks that had been on her arms, and on the others.  Eight phases of the moon, with the full moon at the wrists.  Fine chains spiderwebbed out, connecting to the moons and to other chains, in a complex network that might have been hiding a diagram in it.  A hint of tattoo at the collar of her simple white dress suggested the tattoos extended across her body. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.4</ref>

On one occasion, she wore a red dress, and sandals with straps that went up her legs.<ref name=":0" /> On another, she wore a red shirt, white pants, and a raincoat.<ref name=":1" /> On another, she wore a simple white dress.<ref name=":5" />

To the Sight, she is still horrifically injured, although it doesn't restrict her movements.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Brie’s white shirt and white pants were stained red with her own blood. Her hair was matted on one side, her hand and both feet were mangled. The ‘blades’ that pierced her were slivers of bone, teeth, and the occasional blade serrated enough it could be part of a beartooth trap. Watercolor stains spread from each wound. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.8</ref> She drips enough blood that her path can be tracked by it.<ref>Sight.  When she used it, she was tricked over and over again, seeing red behind film and thinking it was the red dress, but she could see the blood that dripped off the woman.  Sometimes other blood, leaking through the plastick-y cocoon film, but usually hers, if she was willing to look down long enough to spot the trail. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.6</ref>

Abilities and Art

After completing the Choir ritual, she is able to eat pretty much anything without difficulty; immune to poison, indigestion, disgust, even the need to defecate.<ref>“I don’t suppose I could use the facilities?” Brie asked.

“Hunh?”

“I need to poop, Cherry.”
[...]
“For right now, is there any chance we can figure out the washroom situation?  I’ve been tied up here for half an hour, I’m guessing.”

“Not even,” Toadswallow said.  “And you won your little contest, didn’t you?  Do you even need to worry about that sort of thing anymore?”

“Oh yeah,” Gashwad could be heard.  His voice was snarlier, of the four local goblins.

“Sneaky sneaky,” Cherrypop said. - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.8</ref> She's able to use this in combat to a degree, taking bites out of her foes with startling ease.<ref>Brie sank her teeth into his shoulder and neck.  Tore.  Spat, her expression contorting.

“Don-”

Brie bit again.  It was like she was tearing at cotton candy, for how easy it was to get her teeth in.

“Don’t hurt him!  He’s an ally!  Just-”

Brie pulled back.  Her eyes were wild.
[...]
“What’s your story?  You seemed pretty okay with biting that goblin,” Lucy said.

“I had to help you.  I… the devouring song, the reward is you have no more obstacles when it comes to eating things.  It makes it all easy.  I thought I’d weaponize it.” - Excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.8</ref>

Her sight is that of the world the Devouring song takes place in,<ref>“I see the world the Hungry Choir brought me into,” Brie said. - Excerpt from Vanishing Points 8.3</ref> whether this is her natural sight or the choir overwhelming her sight as the Doom of Edith James does Matthew Moss is unknown.

After devouring the Choir, she's investigating ways to channel their power as a Host or Harbinger.

History

Background

Brie suffered from pica from an early age, unconsciously picking up and eating small objects, leading to serious health issues. She sought out the Hungry Choir and joined the contest in hope of a cure to her condition.<ref name=":3" />

Pale

By her seventh night of the Choir ritual, Brie had had both her legs eaten by the Choir. She was dragged to Kennet by the Choir for the ritual and was going to fail at the challenge (eating some of a living bull), but the Kennet Trio intervened and saved her life.

She made contact with another Practitioner, Zed, who was investigating the choir. He equipped her with some tools which allowed her to succeed at her final challenge (eating seven body parts from each of the other contestants.) She recieved the Choir's gift; her body was fully restored (albeit with some spiritual damage) and she was magically empowered to eat anything without consequence.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" />

She worked with Zed to continue investigating the Choir, which brought them into conflict with the Kennet Trio and Kennet Others. Eventually they were both forced to swear not to investigate Kennet and to keep whatever they knew of it a secret. The trio agreed to help them bind the Choir if possible.

Informed by the Trio of the Choir's "core", Yalda they conceived and executed a plan to defeat it: Brie would eat Yalda, who could not fight back without invalidating her gift. With the help of some of the Blue Heron Institute, they were successful. She and Zed also began dating.<ref>Out on a Limb 3.z</ref>

Brie had bindings tattooed on her to help contain and channel the Choir, and she decided to Awaken as a Practitioner and join the Institute.

References

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