A long afternoon of audiences left her exhausted and Brahne told the servants to put out the lights and leave her alone. They hurried to comply, no doubt because she’d been letting her temper get the better of her lately. She sat in the dark, fanning herself, withing the heat and itchiness in her skin would subside. It was like being sewn into a heavy woolen blanket.
She thought about the looks on the faces of the petitioners, thinly veiled disgust and the sneer of superiority on top of it. Ungrateful, every one of them. They’d rather be ruled by a pretty, vapid fool than have to face her.
“Seeking solitude?” a voice purred in the shadows. Brahne struggled to her feet, concerned that she did not recognize the voice. A figure stepped into the dim light.
“Your majesty,” came the velvet voice again, accompanied by an elegant bow, but Brahne could hear the mocking tone.
“You are intruding without permission, woman. What is your purpose here?” she demanded.
“Woman?” the figure laughed. “I am a man, your majesty, and I’ve come to offer you an alliance.” She studied him as best she could in the faded light. Whatever the gender, he was dressed most inappropriately, in nothing but jacket, underwear, and boots.
“Come closer,” Brahne instructed. He did so slowly, swinging his hips. She stepped forward to get a better look, cursing her eyesight, and in the process stepped into the light herself.
“You have considerable composure,” she told him when she had inspected him to her satisfaction. “Most people take much longer to hide their disgust.”
The man shrugged languidly. “You are what you are, regardless of whether I wish to look at you.”
“I didn’t always look like this,” she spat back with more ferocity and less self-pity than she felt.
“Yes, the accident,” he answered with a hint of smirk on his face.
Brahne was tired of sparring with words. “Did you come here just to mock me?”
“No,” he said with a nod. “As I said, I have an offer…” He explained briefly about black mages and shards and eidolons. At first Brahne balked at the idea of hurting her daughter.
“Of course,” Kuja’s voice held condescension. “She would never betray you, or allow herself to be used.”
In her mind, Brahne saw the smug faces of the courtiers as they muttered that Garnet would have the throne so they would no longer have to look at her. She knew he was manipulating her, but the words wouldn’t subside. She was sure people were plotting against her, and who was to say they wouldn’t make use of Garnet?
She couldn’t say the thought hadn’t occured to her before, much as she hated herself for thinking it. And if this Kuja could really give her the power he was promising…
“Come back tomorrow night, and you will have my support,” she said. He smiled and slipped gracefully back to whereever he’d come from while Brahne retreated to her bedroom, thinking. Part of her wanted to trust Garnet, and yet if life had taught Brahne anything, it was that pretty people were not to be trusted. If they were not malicious, they were easily manipulated by flattery.
No. Brahne would not allow herself to be put aside. It had to be this way. Those who hated her were always looking for a weakness. She couldn’t allow Garnet to fall into their sights.
If she couldn’t have beauty, she would have power, and she would have it in spades.
