Briar Girl

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   <default>Briar Girl</default>
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   <label>Alias</label>
 
 
 
 
   <label>Age</label>
 
 
   <label>Gender</label>
 
 
   <label>Status</label>
 
 
   <label>Type</label>
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   <label>Classification</label>
 
 
 
 
 
 
   <label>Affiliation</label>
 
 
 
 
 
 
   <label>Family</label>
 
 
 
 
 
 
   <label>Occupation</label>
 
 
 
 
 
 
   <label>First Appearance</label>

</infobox> Briar Girl is a teenage practitioner who lives in the marshlands behind the Hillglades House and a member of the Jacob's Bell Powers.

Appearance

Briar Girl has a somewhat distorted appearance due to the fact that she's changed her body to survive by foraging and living in the wilderness. Her teeth aren't pristine and her fingers are adorned by fingerless gloves, her blonde hair is a mess with twigs in it but she wears winter clothing and pajamas beneath her jeans.<ref>Breach 3.2</ref><ref name=":0">The Briar Girl shifted position. She was plain, her hair a mess, with a twig stuck in the back somewhere. Her winter clothes were layered, a little scuffed at the edges of the sleeves and pant leg. She

was wearing pyjamas beneath the jeans.

The spirit walked along the back of the pew with a coyote’s legs, until it stood directly behind her, leaning in to whisper in her ear with a beaked mouth.

“When the house’s occupants are gone, the woods and marshes there are mine,” she said.

“In what sense?” Laird asked.

“In every sense. I want it like Johannes has the north end.”

“You want it uncontested as your demesnes, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“A bit too steep of a price, I suspect. You’re not paying attention to the context of this situation. We need to drain the marshes to let the city expand, which is something we require to further all of our interests, yours included.”

“I am paying attention. I don’t care,” the Briar Girl said. The spirit’s beak was partially open still by her ear, serrated with sawlike teeth. One of its large yellow eyes were fixated on Laird. “The city will expand all the same, but it will expand slower. More expensive for you. It’ll still get where you want it to get. When

it does, I’ll have all those woods and marshes.  One way or another.”

- excerpt from Damages 2.2 </ref> She's a little older than Maggie Holt.<ref>Maggie Holt, the girl with the checkered scarf. She was a teenager, making her slightly younger than the Briar Girl, and her eyebrows made her look perpetually angry, helped by a swift, graceless manner of walking. - excerpt from Damages 2.1</ref>

Personality

Briar Girl cares nothing for her appearance or pride,<ref>The Briar Girl smiled. “You’re so transparent. Appealing to my pride? I have little. Look at me. I forage in the snow for edible plants. I hunt for my food, and I clean it myself. [...] Are you so power hungry that you imagine all of us are itching to depose the current powers?” - excerpt from Breach 3.2</ref> having changed herself so much for the sake of surivival, and she does not have much empathy for other people.

Her main goal as of the start of Pact is to own the woodlands of the Hillglades House property,<ref name=":0" /> which houses all the Others that were her companions since she ran away from whatever was her home six years ago.<ref name=":1">A girl slouched in a seat. Her familiar wasn’t in its mortal form, but was ethereal, with all of the mass of a grizzly on the front end, and a tail end that looked like that of a fish, the features an incoherent blend of different animals and plants, different features being emphasized as I looked longer. Her stick tapped the floor with no rhythm at all. She’d seated herself nearer the Others at the back than the two big families. I recognized her as the one who’d been shouting at the rabbit.

She would be the Briar Girl. No other name. A recent addition to the local population, as of six years ago. She apparently lived full-time in the woods and marshes behind Hillsglade House. Grandmother’s suspicion? She had contracted with a familiar too powerful for her to handle, creating something that was less a partnership than a practitioner dominated by the spirit. The bear-thing

would be the familiar, the stick her implement. - excerpt from Damages 2.1

</ref><ref name=":2">“I live here?” Briar Girl asked. “In these woods. I’ve watched the Thorburn family for almost six years. Hoping, waiting. I can see the ties that bind you to the house. If you are not one of the Thorburns, you’re of the Thorburns.” - excerpt from Breach 3.2</ref><ref name=":3">“Your… partner, wants you to be stronger?” I asked.

“You’re back to discussing power,” Briar Girl said. She spread her arms. “Look at me, Thorburn. I gave up my power for this. What are you going to tell me that might change my mind?”

I don’t know, but I’d better figure it out before you decide to have me torn limb from limb.

“What’s ‘this’?” Rose asked. “What did you give your power up for?”

“A place in the world,” Briar Girl said. “This place, specifically.”

“Why this place?” Rose asked.

“Because this is where my friends are. When I left civilization, I came here first, and this is my home, this is where they are.” - excerpt from Breach 3.2 </ref>

She likes and believes in recyling and the cycle of life and death, and despises demons who break the cycle and damage the world.<ref>“And some of the things that are in the books aren’t devils and demons, or anything that devours the world. Some are particularly nasty

goblins, or other things we don’t have labels for.”

Another shrug. “Close enough. It’s about taint, about rot. Once those things get hooks in the world, the world starts coming apart at the seams.””

I frowned. “Says the girl who takes homeless people’s bodies and turns them into…”

“Feorgbold, life vessels,” the Briar Girl said. “Recycling. Death, consumption and rebirth are parts of the cycle of nature. Some of my favorite parts. I could do what I do a hundred thousand times over, and there would still be balance. Your things, they are not balanced, not in any way we want to deal with. Never simple death, but oblivion, annihilation. Helping the universe to reach zero, with screams, darkness and pain every step of the way.” - excerpt from Breach 3.2 </ref>

She dislikes confined spaces.<ref>“If you’d please step into my office-”

“No,” the Briar Girl said. “I don’t like confined spaces. Stop asking.” - excerpt from Signature 8.1 </ref>

Art

Briar Girl's specialty as a practitioner is the creation of Feorgbold and she is somewhat wise towards things like Demons, citing that the balance was important and they oppose it. She is also proficient with Shapeshifting and knowledgeable about the subject.

She's modified her body so that she can survive the wilderness better and the cold doesn't bother her.<ref>“I’m guessing she can probably smell it on you, too,” I said.

The Briar Girl smiled again. I noticed her teeth weren’t stellar, and there might have been one missing among the back molars. “Now it’s my turn to ask how you might know that.”

“If I were living in the woods, hunting and foraging for my food, probably selling what I could to buy creature comforts like clothes, I might try to wrangle the same thing,” I said. “I can’t help but notice the cold doesn’t bother you, either, so you’re doing some things to make life easier for you.”

Not to mention that your familiar might demand something along those lines. I

glanced at the thing, and it huffed hot breath into the air, where it

fogged around the snout and the intense yellow bird’s eyes.

If I didn’t have experience through Rose, I might not have even considered that the hot breath was purely for show. A spirit didn’t need to breathe any more than a vestige did.

“I’ve made a good few changes,” the Briar Girl said. Her attention flickered to her familiar, as well. “Not enough, it seems.” - excerpt from Damages 2.1 </ref>

She has a range of forest Others as spies and servants,<ref>Others were lurking around the area, but they hung back in groups.

The Briar Girl’s spies, more than an attacker of any sort. [...]

“Briar Girl!” I screamed, again. I could feel the connection, now. The Others at the periphery of the area reacted. Some retreating, some drawing closer. Messengers and warriors. Plant and animal spirits, elementals, and dark, gnarled animal things with an overabundance of teeth and claws. - excerpt from Breach 3.1</ref> many of which she created, such as birdlike Homunculi.<ref>“Briar-”
A bird landed in front of me, a storm of wings and feathers.
Black and white, instead of a beak, it had a very human face on a tall head, pale, with features reminiscent of one of the statues on Easter Island. Exaggerated, stern, any eyes hidden beneath the shadows of a heavy brow.
“Thank you for answering,” I said.
“What are you doing, calling me?” the thing asked, speaking in her voice.
“I want to deal,” I said. “I know what you want, you know what I want. We’re going to talk sooner or later, so let’s talk.”
“Follow the homunculus,” she replied. The bird-thing turned to prepare to fly away.
[...]
I trudged through the snow, while the homunculus-bird circled back to keep me in sight, allowing me to follow. The
[...]
Rose continued, “The homunculus, I recognize that word. Manufactured life. You made it. A lot of these Others are tools, aren’t they? Hand

crafted Others?  They’re weapons as much as that hatchet is.” - excerpt from Breach 3.1</ref>

Essentia

Briar Girl's Implement is unknown but apparently a stick<ref name=":1">Damages 2.1</ref> or staff<ref>“To sanction the use of the Jacob’s Bell witch hunters to execute Maggie Holt, please vote,” Sandra Duchamp declared.

The Briar Girl raised her staff. One member of Laird’s family, a teenage boy with brown hair, raised a golden disc, held between crossed index and middle fingers. He looked back at Maggie, and she rolled her eyes. Nobody else in the room raised their implements. - excerpt from Damages 2.2</ref> of some sort.

Briar Girl has no Demesnes.
Briar Girl has a forest spirit as a Familiar that takes the form of a rabbit, but it's true form is that of a shifting mishmash of animals.<ref name=":1" /><ref>The words were barely out of my mouth when the rabbit Briar Girl held

leaped from her arms.  By the time it hit the ground, it was ten times

the size. A wolf, almost as large as a horse, but with feathers instead

of fur.  The patterns, length, and direction of the feathers were

reminiscent of flames curling in the air.

Rather than the wolf’s ferocious snarl, however, the demeanor was more fitting for a bird of prey or a reptile. Cold, still, and emotionless.

When I looked at the individual details, they weren’t fitting, either. The wolf’s claws were more like talons. The teeth too narrow and clean to belong to a real wolf. - excerpt from Breach 3.2 </ref> It whispers to her in a language only she knows.<ref>I could see the Briar Girl deliberating. She stroked her rabbit. Her familiar.

The thing was whispering. Not speaking, per se, but I could see it communicating, speaking a language only it and its master could understand. - excerpt from Breach 3.2 </ref> It holds more control of Briar Girl as it is stronger and desires her to become stronger as well.

Chronology

Before

Was in the backwoods of the Thorburns house for six years.<ref name=":1">Damages 2.1</ref><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" />

Bonds

Briar first appears in Blake's dreams as a result of Maggie Holt killing Molly Walker, activating the fail-safe put into place with her death. She later sends her Feorgbold to make Blake's death seem like an accident and claim his body.

Damages

Briar Girl appeared at the Council Meeting and voted towards Maggie Holt's execution.

Breach

Briar Girl allowed Blake to enter her domain and listened to Blake's request for an alliance, intially refusing as she has no desire for power, but wants the woodlands around his home. Her reasoning is that when she ran away from home and came to the forest the Others took care of her, as well as someone else, and for the sake of that she was willing to kill him and his family. Blake and Rose diffuse the situation by promising to give some of the property to her eventually, and consented to giving them some information on Glamour.

Signature

The arc has Briar Girl attending a meeting with Lola and Maggie Holt, as well as Penelope Duchamp, Joanna Duchamp, Chloe Duchamp, Lea Duchamp, Gavin Behaim, Craig Behaim, Owen Behaim, Patrick, Evonne, and Keller. It is revealed she is a student at St. Sebastian but she hasn't been attending for the semester.

Null

She appeared in the council meeting where they were determining who would participate as a competitor for the position of Lord, with her remaining out of it.

Malfeasance

As school was let out Briar Girl was called by Blake Thorburn, who she did not recognize due to the circumstances of having his connections eaten. He asked her to assemble the junior council for him and during the discussion she asks what she would gain. He points out that when the Thorburn fall then the marshes will be drained and the Others in it would be gone and she's similar to him in that she's simply being swept up in it. When she calls him on this because of the fact that a demon will be let loose due to Rose's actions, he states that if things keep going the way they are everyone loses.

Judgement

Briar Girl is within the sanctuary when they come under attack by the demonic law firm and aids in the defense by sending out her feorgbold only for her to be damaged through the connection by the demon of ruin. When the demon from the choir of madness assaults the rest of them, her familiar takes the attack for her before shifting the damage so that it can act freely and attack.

References