research

who: eris
where: the library
when: late afternoon

Going out into the city in daylight while playing incognito wasn't necessarily something Eris was happy to do, but she did it anyhow. It required sunglasses, a hat with a veil, a heavy scarf...a few other odds and ends that basically made her a non-entity. Or at the very least someone who would only be remembered for what she was wearing, not her actual features. It didn't make her any less nervous, and really, as she sat in the back of the cab, her paranoia running high, she felt like she was going to crawl out of her own skin just on the short ride to the library.

But nothing happened. The cabbie could care less anything about her other than she had the fare, and no one at the library paid her any attention either. Not that there was a huge crowd in the first place. She researched as much as she could about Brett Trent, for starters. Which wasn't much.

She spent most of her time trying to find things, and did find some articles, mostly printed around the time of the fire. She found that original article, and read up more on the incident itself, which when it had happened, she hadn't really given a damn, so it hadn't been anything she'd ever known much about. On Brett, though, there wasn't much. A lot of pieces done reported that he refused to give an interview, or 'declined comment'. She imagined that was the polite way of saying he'd told people to fuck off.

As she kept reading, finding bits and pieces, she read a little about his family, and how they weren't around anymore. Mostly comments were done by friends and fellow policemen, one by his partner, which looked familiar to her, but she didn't know why. Either way, she learned a little. Not much, but some. Nothing really helpful, unfortunately. But information was information, and when people weren't looking, she ripped out the pages of the articles that mentioned him. She slipped them into her bag, so she could go over them later, and then headed towards the blocked off area. The place where the damage from the fire hadn't actually been fixed, and if she knew this city, it really wasn't ever going to be.

It wasn't difficult to sneak past the barricades. Then she took her time, letting her guard down just a little, since she was alone in a burned out section of the library. Sure, it occurred to her that the floor could give, or something, but she wasn't that worried. If it happened, it happened, she wanted to look around. See where it happened, see the black charred patterns on the walls, the places where the paint had bubbled. She walked quietly past overturned shelves, books with burned edges, the spines still intact. Fire was a funny thing. It seemed to eat away what it wanted, and left the oddest things behind.

Eris wondered what it had felt like. When he rushed into the inferno with the intent to save people. Most would have been paralyzed by fear, or if not that, their survival instincts would dictate that they get away from the flames. But not Trent. No, he just went in. He rescued people. Played hero, and paid for it. She had to wonder just how extensive the scarring was. She'd seen the photographs, but really, what she was thinking about was his voice when he'd told her.

"...There was a fire. I got pretty badly burned. It's not just that."

No, it wasn't just that. Not that curl of the scar up on his neck that she could see, and not just the scar itself. Quite a bit had gone into making Brett Trent the person he was today, she just wanted to change it for him. Some things she couldn't. Other things...well that remained to be seen, now didn't it. She'd asked him if there was a way out if he'd take it, and he insisted there wasn't one. She planned on finding one, regardless. Eris believed that before her untimely demise, before this merry go round of badness started, that she would have been able to pull it off. She just had to find a way to do it now. Walking through the burned out stacks, she smiled to herself. She'd never let anything stop her before. She wasn't going to start now. Especially since this actually meant something to her.