Briar keeps walking, compelled by command; black boots trod one after the other. She cannot scent anything further from the woman, olfactory too overwhelmed with rancid flesh and leaking oil, seared scrap so sharp like flakes of airborne shrapnel cutting across mucous membranes.
She can start to see her now, though, faunus eyes capturing every horror of her surroundings clearly though the night. No time to conjure an image since the announcement, and still, somehow, the sight of Salem matches none of her expectations. Grimm colors made sense, but a sleek dress over a statuesque figure and intricately bound hair carries such poise on shorter shoulders than what she thought. Her presence feels larger than life, scraping over skin and charging the air throughout the city block, though she doesn't look it. Less of some mad witch of ruin and more a calm, controlled centerpiece influencing the tone of the surrounding table and all its carefully set parts.
The mastermind behind the horde.
Sanity made it scarier.
(How does one keep their mind intact that long?)
Pupils shrink, black within marigold focusing in further to the point she can hear the beat of her racing heart and feel the acid splash of her squelching stomach, but Briar's steps do not slow. Salt-and-pepper tail does not tuck.
Her fangs miss their mark, and the hollow truth within the woman's words, delivered with the wisdom of elders (the click of a conclusion knitted together by so many experiences that the lines blur) - not to mention the way her flesh tears into nothing and immediately mends no matter the rending so casually walked into - makes the she-wolf realize the crushing futility in a pup, by comparison, playing any pack games from the start.
And yet, Salem answered, even through the sarcasm. And tucked away her own condescending tone. And isn't actively striking Briar down, nor following up with any new threat. Briar breathes, and lets her hackles fall, and comes closer still, soul-semblance screaming - howling out its song to soothe the volatile static filling empty spaces, echoing from high mountains of debris down into the gaping chasm between beings.
Salem's skin shines pale against the sky, marred from the inside out by the stretch of veins to the surface... not unlike vines stained into Briar's.
She has been called a monster, too. She has had sticks and stones cast at her, too.
Witch. Bitch.
People fear what they do not know.
Fire and blood and stench and sick have surrounded her before, and she has survived, and she has learned. Sticks and stones collected and arranged correctly can form a solid foundation for a stronger self.
She always said the gloomy, broody ones at the back of the bar had the best stories... and, if what few conversations she's had with Qrow and Oscar and Ruby have led her correctly... is it not their stance to sit and talk? to seek peace?
(Not time enough yet, too, for anyone to tell her that Salem's meant to be exempt, because, um... hmm.)
Though Briar holds the teachings, and the armaments, and the heart of a huntress as she-wolf keeps walking into the face of that fear and the possibility of death, she does not do it to preach nor perish as a hero or a weapon. No, she approaches on her own terms: as a loving voice attempting to attune to its audience.
(If nothing else so noble, perhaps stalling a few more seconds would spare her dearest ones for now.)
"That's a shame," she huffs back, "I think pride's important."
Feet stop at a short pile a few feet away, and Briar plops down upon it like a stoop, not much else to do but stay in sight as instructed, head canted in curiosity. She will take a seat at Salem's table, then, casting starlight onto that centerpiece.
"Well, that's far enough back I wouldn't be able to pull a number up for it either," gregarious tones soon dip lower, "Not being able to ...participate, not even holding on to your own pride. Sounds lonely."
