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It was a little strange how being able to work felt like a blessing and a curse at the same time. For years now, since her purification, Brielle had been trying to reconnect with her humanity and feel more like a full person and less like a tool of war.

She was a trained actress, an artist. She'd known that. She'd done what she could to get back into it, but every time things started picking up, something had happened. First, her feet. Then, her heart.

The long hospital stays had pulled her away from being able to perform, and back towards feeling like a warrior, if a wounded one.

She'd finally managed it, though. The show was Macbeth, which was meant to be cursed, but she'd made it through rehearsals, then performances. She'd cracked her ankle fighting that serpent, but it was nothing a little magical healing and a brace couldn't fix. She'd felt free, in a way, chanting about toil and trouble onstage and then laughing with the rest of the cast afterwards.

It was afterwards, walking home, that the guilt would creep in and she would wonder if someone had died that night because she hadn't been there as a princess. Now things were over completely, and she wondered how much she'd missed.

With the war, but perhaps with other parts of humanity, too. Thinking about that was why she'd invited Devyn out for burgers in their usual spot. Hopefully he'd kept an eye on things, but either way, she'd missed him. He was a good friend.

She arrived early, making sure to set out everything, including the fries.

“Devyn,” Brielle said, with a wave, as she saw him. “You look nice.” She wasn’t surprised that he’d come out to eat burgers in the summer heat wearing trimmed boots and jewelry to match. He tended to like the opulence. She thought she could compliment the effort he put into his outfits all the same.

The milkshakes were what had really caught her attention, though.

“Oh, this will be so good,” she told him. “With the heat and everything. I usually like summer more than winter, but I don’t know. I think this time around I’m almost ready for the pumpkin spice and sweaters. I’ve been sweating all the time, but this will help.”

There was a certain summery type of charm to having a picnic with a friend, anyway.

“It was lovely to see you at the play, even if we weren’t able to talk that night, really. The flowers were beautiful.” She’d sent a thank you note, but she would thank him again.

“What did you think of the show?” She asked him. “The story, I mean. It made me think, when I saw you in the audience. Alastor was known for being warfaring, wasn’t it?” Devyn hadn’t spoken about it much to Brielle in this life, but now that she was Transcended and settled into being a Princess, she was beginning to remember more and more about people and rumors of the past.

“Did your stories have the battle and backstabbing like that?”

"Don't worry. No one is gossiping about you," said Brielle keeping an eye on Devyn. She'd been trying to make conversation about his culture, not hit a sore spot, but luckily he settled and didn't seem too offended. "Not these days, anyway. I remember much more about the past than I did when we first met. That's all."

He confirmed that the some of the rumors were true, although he'd been trying to change things. That was honorable, probably. Brielle hadn't been about to judge him either way, though.

Even the most violent, backstabbing of warriors wasn't any worse than she was.

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? She glanced down at her own hands, the nails freshly manicured after the show. No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.

She curled her fingers, then released them. She grabbed a fry.

"If it makes you feel better, I'm also beginning to remember my own cultural habits. By that I mean, I had married many people." Her cheeks tinged pink, despite the the fact that she'd had some time to get used to the idea. "It gets a bit awkward when some of them, like you, are still alive."

"I didn't think we'd been married," said Brielle with a small smile. "One of us would have said something by now, I think."

It was fairly obvious, anyway, that Devyn only had eyes for knights of Sessrumnir. It was interesting to hear that he'd visited Cybele at all, although if she'd known anything about the hunt that he'd been on there, those memories remained blurry.

"Most of what I remember are just moments from everyday life," she said. "The festivals and the casual weddings had become almost a tourist attraction in that time, but it had all started because life could be difficult and exhausting. Lots of walking through the woods, alone or in groups. Getting caught in unexpected thunderstorms, trying to wait them out under a rock outcropping while you wait them out, but still not quite feeling dry."

After a week like that, you looked forwards to the bonfire and the companionship at the end.

"Most of the food came from small game and gathering, but as the senshi, I always ended up on the longest trips deepest into the woods. There were bears with crystals on their backs that were considered quite valuable, that you could only find deep inside of caverns. Large boars. That sort of thing. We imported game sometimes, too, for more of a challenge."

Brielle shook her head at that, even as she paused for a moment to take a few bites.

"That was only right at the end. It probably would have started causing problems, if the other problems hadn't happened first. I mean, these days I only hunt deer because I know they're overpopulated."

And even then, there was a limited number of kills allowed.