Betony Rue Glimpses

[Thistle]

Betony Rue entered her room and quickly shut the door behind her. The living quarters were large and inviting. There was even a fireplace, though it was likely going to be some time before there would be call to use it. The dewy light of Spring came more brightly every day and with it came warmth. It streamed through the windows, inviting those it fell upon to take walks in the cool evening, to meet with friends in parks and smell the budding flowers.
Betony Rue Jasons closed the curtains and began unpacking.
It was a wonder how much space could be taken up a filled with the contents of two bags of luggage. The shelves and drawers filled clothes and several books. In what seemed like no time at all the room looked like Betony Rue could have been living there for years. But even with a clutter of things that were hers, the woman felt like an intruder, like she and her things were out of place. It felt almost like when she had first escaped. The sense that the world you walked in was not the one you belonged to.
But eventually you knew the streets, met the people, learned the sights and sounds of a place and it became home.
At least that's what Betony Rue kept telling her self would happen even when, after years, she still felt distanced from everything and everyone. Yes, she knew names, faces, habits, and personalities, but she felt no connection. She walked through them, not within.
Finishing, Betony Rue sat down in a chair she wasn't familiar with, at a desk she didn't yet know and began browsing the internet for information that might further her search for a brother who would likely be just as a stranger to her as the Earth was now.

[Thistle]

Poisons were a fasination of hers. They were beautiful in a way. The pain they could cause. Or numbness. The creeping dread a victim felt as their blood was torn to pieces by the toxin. The realization that they could no longer move their limbs according to their will. You could see it in their eyes. It was lovely. Satisfying.
The Hag had taught her many potions and cures, far more than there were in the mortal realm. Betony Rue had forgotten most. In a way she was glad. But her memories of those liquids of subtle death had remained more clearly in her mind than most. And despite the horrors and rage she had felt in her time in that small cottage in the woods, Betony Rue could almost savor the thoughts she still had of faerie posions and the cruel effects they had. She would see in her mind as the burning vemon moved through a wretched changeling's body, wracking it with pain they could not express as it took the air from the lungs. She would watch them gasp silently, eyes wide in terror and shock. She had watched. She had poisoned them simply to see it work on the body. And not always at the Hag's instruction. She had done it on her own too, with many different types of toxins. Each was beautiful in its own way. And Betony Rue would think then, I had enjoyed that. I still enjoy it.
And that frightened her.

[Thistle]

Betony Rue held the man down with one hand and a pair of thin needle nose plyers in the other. She'd been called about ten minutes ago to come help the gang memeber that had been shot. Luckly she'd been close to their location and was able to get them to pick her up and rive her to the house they were keeping the manling at. Quickly looking through cuboards and closests she'd found a hodge podge of supplies she could use. The three other men were stationed at other limbs and the head to prevent struggling. Alcohol and a moth ball block of wood only did so much to deaden pain. The Jasons woman smiled, and this was going to be very painful.
"Hold him down." She paused for a scond before starting. She could feel the sour hot fear rolling off the man. The sweat, the horrible anticipation, the thick taste of blood filled herwith shivers.
Then she pulnged the pliers into the flesh, stretching, skin and digging through muscle. The gag blocked very little of his long scream and Betony Rue savored it, but not too much, she had to work. She twisted deeper and with a delicate twitch, grabbed the bullet and pulled it out. And then went straight to the next wound. The pain continued for another several second, and then to Betony Rue's dissapointment, the criminal lost himself to unconsiuoucness.
Betony Rue splashed a bottle of peroxide she had found under the bathroom sink liberaly on the bleeding areas. Then she took a needle and blue thread from her teeth. It had been good luck they had a sewing kit. The wounds were cleaning again, then a cut up wash cloth and duct tape helped finish the job.
"Done." she said with satifaction.
The other memebers of the gang looked a little shaken after she her work. "Umm, ok. How much do we owe you."
Betony looked back at the who's pain had forced him into darkness, taking in the amout of healing she had done. She was about to quote a price when an idea came to her.
"I'll make you a deal, I'm looking into the disappearances of several children. You may have seen it in the news. Unfortunately I haven't had much luck. If you were to look into it, I'd be willing to come by here every day for a lunar month to check up on your friend here and any other health issues that might arise and treat them. Should either of us fail to uphold this we'll be so much the worse. All of you think that sounds fair?"

Task: Endeavor -2 (come daily to treat people), Endeavor -2(look into childern dissapearances)
Blessing: Adroitness +2(Investigation, Streewise), Blessing +2 (Fast healer)
Sanction: Curse -2
Duration: Moon +2

The men looked at her strangely. Was she being serious? They knew she enjoyed pain to an unhealthy degree but to make some weird deal instead of taking money, that was just crazy. Still, it meant no payment and a free "nurse" for a month.
"Yeah, sure." Said the leader of the bunch.
Betony glanced around at the other concious people in the room. "You all agree?"
"Ok, whatever."With that spoken, Betony Rue reached out to the Wyrd, letting the words agreed upon be touched by its energies. For a brief second, everyone in the room that was aware felt strange fearful connection, which feld just as fast.
"Thank you. See you tomorrow, then." said the Jasons woman. She picked up her bag and left, thinking of the irony that the manling most in need of the benifits of that pledge was not going to get any gain, aside from her mundane help.
She checked her messages and found one from Mr. Noble. Getting out a bus map, she located the nearest stop that would take her by there.

[Thistle]

Betony Rue knocked on the door to be let in. She went to where the injured man was being kept. She unpacked her bag of several odds and ends she thought may be useful and began her healing.
"So, tell me what you have found out so far."
The men spoke of asking around a little. Most of the information was what she already had known, from the newspapers. It wasn't the words she was interested in though. It was was the intent to lend insight and the Wyrd's ability to grant Betony that intent through her pledge.
The next hour passed with Betony not making as much progress as she would have wanted on the serious wounds of the man. She did a quick check of the others but none were really hurt, which was good. She had to be at the bus stop in around fifteen minutes. She packed up her things and left, promising to come back tommorrow and informing them of her expectation that they have another report.

[Thistle]

The blows fell hard and qick, her claws tearing up the skin of the little girl's arm and side.
"You are not here to ask questions!" was the sreech.
Animals and birds, agitated in their hung cages, added to the din with howls and caws. The Hag ignored them for now. The barbed fists reigned down on the little girl's back as she tried to curl in a corner.
"You are here to learn!" yelled the little girl's teacher. Having exposed muscle she started tearing the deeper flesh. The little girl tried not to cry, it would make things much worse, she knew.
"Demand answers, show weakness and be punished." now the Hag was tenderly plucking at the nerves so they snapped. The pain shot through the little girl's entire body.
The Hag examined her work, satified with the cringing girl. "The answer to your question is the blood of a lion, spiced with peacebloom and boiled away to a paste.
"Now heal that arm." Her Keeper went away into the depths of the livng space to do other things. The girl wept silently, not because of the state of her body, but because the pain had wiped from her mind what she had asked.

[Thistle]

Betony Rue Jasons had joined the Autumn Court. The season where things began to chill, be harvested, and die. The Court of Fear.
In this court we seek to understand fear. To see it in ourselves. To embrace, overcome it, to create more so we can protect against even worse horrors. That was what she had been told once upon a time.
Yet within her fear still ran rampant and nearly uncontrolled. Fear of the joy she might feel, of the sadness she could cause. She was so terribly lonely, she yearned for a closeness and love. But she knew to do that was to invite harm to them. She could imagine herself slicing open a lover's gut and retching out the pulsing organs within. And the visions sickened her with a sweet ecstasy and vigor. Should it ever happen, she'd enjoy the pain. She would become the Hag and take them away for torture in Arcadia with glee and laughter. And that frightened her.
Was it worth the risk of intimacy if all you could offer was pain in the end? She sought her brother but with little hope and that allowed her to go on. If the search would never end then she could never harm him. But she could still feel the love for the lost child in her heart without the threat of pain.
Betony clawed at her scars, leaving red trailing nail marks. She needed to overcome this without loopholes. It would drive her mad otherwise. She just didn't understand how to do it.

[Thistle]

Corbin enters the room. It reminds him of some of the places in the Tower of Dusts. Other changelings would likely find it odd that a place that induced such remembrances caused so little actual discomfort to Corbin now. Corbin's fear and hatred of his prison had faded long ago, before he'd even left Fairie. In fact most emotions had paled away during his durance. The only poignant pang he still occasionally felt was sadness at the death of his family. Even that was growing cold with age. It might panic him if he could still feel that deeply. As it stood, he just felt a discomfort that he did not enjoy. Life without any feeling would be dull. So he clung to his despair with a cool fierceness.
He understood emotions of others and what was expected of him though. So he faked moods to fit in and searched his world for something to light his interest beyond just interest. He wanted to feel.

[Thistle]

"Betony Rue." said the Hag in summons. The little shuddering girl in the corner didn't respond.
"Betony Rue!" said the Hag again. The weak little girl sniffeled in confusion. Her name wasn't Betony Rue. It was - CRACK!
The Hag the girl over the head. Blood started to mat her hair and her right ear seemed to have gone deaf from the blow. "You will come when I call!" screamed the witch Fey. "Understand that."
"But my name is -" CRACK!
The Hag hit her again. It wasn't that hard compared to what the Hag was able to do, but the little girl was still too weak to be taught with the full force of her blows. The Hag, such a good teacher was she, knew that and would work up to that. She knew how much force to use.
"Never contradict me. Now come Betony Rue!"
The weak little girl stayed curled up in a ball weeping.
CRACK!

It would take many more lessons but the weak little girl would eventually come when the Hag called Betony Rue, even though her name was - CRACK!

[Thistle]

The the siren thought she was being clever. She had noticed Betony Rue's penchant for addressing others by they're last names. She had asked for Betony's and had been told Betony Rue didn't have a last as far as anyone (or Betony for that matter) knew of.
So she had taken to calling her the Jasons woman. Jason, a name derived from the Greek "to heal". The siren thought it was amusing beyond belief given the pain normally experinced during her operations.
As such things do sometimes, it caught on. No one ever called Betony that to her face, but it became a title of a sort. She was the one freeholders went to to mend injuries. She was the healer woman, the Jasons woman.
Then some scribe made the mistake of thinking it really was her last name and put it down in the Court records. He realised his mistake when Betony left for California and another Jasons woman was appointed. The letter of introduction to Sacramento was inaccurate in regards to Betony's name, calling her Miss Betony Rue Jasons.
Betony Rue found the entire thing unimportant and didn't bother to correct the mistake when she arrived.