Part 3
“Describe Brigid’s servants.”
Brigid has only one permanent servant at present, her personal maid, as she is uncomfortable about having servants at all: its another part of her more democratic upbringing. Her maid’s duties are largely to help her keep her quarters cleaned and her clothes ready, since Brigid is slowly but steadily acquiring a very diverse wardrobe, partly on Florimel’s instigation and partly due to Brigid’s own, long-repressed sybaritic tendencies: she is finding that she enjoys a lot of sensual pleasures that she had not considered in the past, including beautiful clothes and jewelry. (This is a far cry from Brigid’s quarters in their fully-automated base or her own messy apartment.)
Her personal maid is named Francesca and is from a long line of servants to the court of Amber. She has her own room in the servants quarters of the castle. She is an attractive, fair blonde woman with green eyes, about 5′ 5″ tall. When she was first offered the position she was a little uncertain how she and Brigid could get along, but Brigid’s undemanding and exuberant personality soon won her allegiance and respect. She and Brigid have several times gone into the city (with Brigid in disguise) to “see how the other half lives”.
Francesca is certainly indispensable, as she is far more knowledgeable about Court life and sometimes advises Brigid on proper dress and etiquette for formal occasions, besides being a conduit for gossip. Certainly Brigid would be far less involved, and feel more alienated, in life in Amber without Francesca. Having looking into Francesca’s eyes and examined her mind carefully, albeit with her permission, Brigid knows exactly how far to trust Francesca, which is very far, as Francesca has grown to appreciate the charismatic Brigid and would do almost anything for her.
“Describe Brigid’s voice.”
Brigid is a natural singer: with her natural abilities of shapeshifting and perfect pitch, she can reproduce any note and voice she demands. (That is something developed from her superhero campaigning days to accompany her shapeshifting and disguise abilities.) Her natural voice is a clear, resonant contralto but naturally ranges from a penetrating soprano to a husky ‘whiskey’ alto. She has had sufficient training and experience to be able to control it to produce a number of special effects, from giving a piercing, command across a battlefield to a softly but strongly compelling siren’s call.
Brigid is a very informal individual and will naturally speak informally. She will reserve any formal speech only for formal occasions.
Having spent a considerable amount of time with a variety of individuals with varying beliefs and levels of power, she has picked up a wide variety of invocations, curses and invective. Some of them include “Oh, God” or “Oh, Goddess!”, “Oh, hellfire,” but her favorite saying is “Like, give me a break!” which has three levels: the first is a simple statement, the second is the statement said sarcastically accompanied by rolling her eyes skyward, and the third is the full production with her saying “Like, give me a break!” in a slow, exasperated tone, with her nodding and shaking her head, shrugging her shoulders, and rolling her eyes skyward.
“Describe Brigid’s sacred object.”
Actually, Brigid has two sacred objects, the two pieces of jewelry she wears that are the remainder of her legacy from her father, the gold and emerald ring Balor and the engraved and enameled silver arm band Nuada. They are all that were left of the seven pieces of jewelry that were discovered with her at the orphanage: the others were sold over the years and are apparently lost. When Brigid applied for and received emancipated minor status at the age of 16, she was given the two remaining pieces and for the first time was told the complete story of how she was found with the jewelry. Since they were all that was left to remind her of her parents, they were infinitely precious to her.
It was only after she had worn them for several days, however, that she learned by accident of their special abilities, and so re-doubled her resolve to find the other pieces. She has been able to trace their first owners; in every case, some mysterious, beneficial event occurred while they were wearing the jewelry. Afterwards, the jewelry was sometimes stolen, or mysteriously vanished, or even just sold to an unknown buyer, and there the trail ends.
The jewelry was appraised as several million dollars, total. The diamond was sold first, and the money used to help refurbish the orphanage as well a finance a futile investigation into Brigid’s appearance at the orphanage.
“Describe Brigid’s ideal enemy.”
An ideal enemy would be one she would respect, and there were very few in her past. People she respected tended not to be opponents, and her opponents were people she tended not to respect. Such was the ‘black & white’ nature of the Shadow she lived in and the profession she excelled at.
“What is Brigid’s favorite meal? Typical breakfast? Her favorite beverage?”
Pizza. Preferably deep-dish pizza. With everything. Washed down with a pitcher of Coke.
Her typical breakfast is whatever is available at the Castle in the morning, and usually a lot of it. For such a tall and slender figure she certainly burns up a lot of energy with her energetic pace, even when she isn’t shapeshfting. On average days this usually means a large plate of scrambled or fried eggs and toast, a couple of glasses of juice and milk, several pieces of sausages or bacon, a large stack of pancakes or (her favorite) thick French Toast with real butter and maple syrup, a selection of pastries or rolls, and maybe a bagel or two with cream cheese and lox, although the lox sometimes gets fed to an attending cat. She can, indeed, pack it away, something that Dworkin and others have remarked upon in the past.
Brigid’s favorite beverage is Coca-Cola: she even appeared in a Coke commercial once. She is glad that some arrangements have been made to maintain a supply of it in the castle, although she hadn’t seen the traditional wasp-waisted bottles before. She keeps a bottle opener among the ‘pocket stuff’ she normally carries.
“What was Brigid like in the fifth grade?”
That was about when she started taking voice lessons. Sometimes she would be so enthusiastic for them that her other studies suffered: she was not the best math student, alas. Many times the Sisters had to rein in her impulsive behavior by threatening to withhold her music training just to get her to complete her other studies. (She did learn discipline through this, however.)
About this time Brigid was also just starting to grow into her height, so she was extremely gawky and awkward for a while. Clumsy, too. Since there wasn’t much in the way of athletics at the orphanage, and very few other girls of her age there, Brigid has forced to do things on her own, like running around the inside of the walls of the orphanage, using them as an improvised track (very few others could keep up with her).
“What assassination method would Brigid use, and what sort of calling card would she leave?”
First off, Brigid is extremely uncomfortable about killing, especially an assassination. About the only way she would be convinced to do it if she was shown some overwhelming evidence that this noble’s death would mean the saving of more lives in the future and a convincing argument that it must be done ‘in the dark’ as an assassination instead of going through the forms of a trial.
If she has to kill, she would prefer it in the open, but would do it quietly if necessary. Even then she would want it to be sudden and quick, with no possibility of pain for the victim and to spare as much grief as possible for any of their family. Given her familiarity with magick and the Pattern, and her own experiences in the past, she would have little trouble creating an ‘accident’. If it comes to it, she is certainly capable of approaching the target in secret (using her power of shapeshifting and her experience in disguising herself) and simply using her mind to flood their mind and stop their heart. At no time will she do this in anger or hatred, and would try to refuse such an assignment if she feels she could not maintain her control throughout the mission.
Her ‘calling card’ would be something that only someone looking for such would notice, and would change every time Brigid would have to perform such an act. It would be something distinctive, however, to spare any one else from being blamed for her actions.
“Who is Brigid’s role model?”
KnightStar, the man who took a rock singer with the tremendous potential to be a superheroine, and molded her into a champion for justice and life. She owes him a lot, for giving her an initial sense of purpose and belonging, for giving her the training she needed at times to defend herself, and for giving her the confidence to strike out on her own and seek her own path that ultimately led to Amber.
“Who is the Elder she respects most?”
This one’s easy: Fiona. Not only are they seemingly alike in temperament and ability (and appearance) they share other secrets as well. Besides, Fiona was one of the few people who seemed to care for Brigid when she was feeling out-of-sorts in Amber. She was who Brigid went to for training in magick and the Pattern. However, Brigid doesn’t look up to Fiona as a mother, but certainly as a teacher and confidant.
Besides, Fiona made Brigid the godmother of her latest daughter, Victoria. That has to count for something.
“Who, among the family, is Brigid’s worst enemy?”
She isn’t aware of any one at the moment.
“Of Brigid’s peers, whom does she wish to know more about? Why?”
That would almost have to be Prince Ombra, because they share Faerie blood as well as their Amber blood. She would be very interested in knowing whether he has developed any powers and abilities through his Faerie blood that she might look forward to learning, herself.
“Who is Brigid’s best friend?”
Among all the people Brigid knows, Michelle Brown is Brigid’s best friend. It was to Michelle that Brigid went to grieve for the members of Tempest, and it was to Michelle that Brigid went to have the Tempest Foundation created. Brigid trusts Michelle without reservation, even without ever having read Michelle’s mind.
Among the Amberites, that would be Lesha. They share a number of similarities, including being shapeshifters and being raised someplace other than Amber. They’ve shared a number of talks on Lesha’s ship, showed each other things from their past and present that they are unlikely to show others, and what seemed like a cold professional relationship as Regent and Ambassador has become a firm friendship.
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