Subject: Grail:"Great Brightness"- Can So! (Brinn)

Athalya Anne woke up. She felt... well, she didn't feel anything just now.

The events of her entirely too long day were begining to creep into her

conciousness. *Oh, God.*

she thought. Lucy and DeMontigny and the Ferengi all streamed into her

thoughts and brutaly took them over.

DeMontigny.... For reasons of his own, he had opened his soul up to her. He

had played for her. A remarkable demonstration of trust she didn't feel she

needed or deserved. *I'll think about it later.* Athalya Anne shoved

DeMontigny into a closet in the back of her head. She didn't want to think

about the implications of the act. She didn't want to think about it at all.

And out came Lucy and the Ferengi. Pain wracked her mind. She moaned lowly.

"Ooh..." The looks on their faces. One literaly hysterical and the other

literaly purple. That didn't bother her. She had seen the same looks on

different faces a thousand times over. What bugged her was the amount of

satisfaction she derrived from it. She had always derived satisfaction from

killing, but killing was different. Killing was a reaffirmation that she was

a Marine and that she was a good Marine.

But watching others suffer and commiting the cardinal sin of enjoying it

replused Athalya Anne. Her enjoyment of it - and it was enjoyment no matter

which way you cut it, caused a physical reaction in her. Athalya Anne got up

and ran to the bathroom where she promptly emptied her stomach.

*Oh, gods.* Athalya Anne thought, as she got a glass of water and chugged it

down.

*How could I? How could I enjoy the pain of others?* She was feeling

nautious again and sat down. It was a major rule of hers: never hurt others

unless forced. But she had violated that rule not once but twice in the same

day.

Lucy. She had found the button that caused her pain and she meshed it harder

and harder and harder with every time. She couldn't even enjoy it because

Lucy was an android, but on the same arugment, she had enjoyed it more than if

Lucy were capable of projecting her feelings. It was a form of self torture:

lets see how much you can hurt her before she empathicly screams, but she

never can scream, so you keep hurting her. It was eqivalant of beating ones

head up against a wall repeatedly.

*What?* A part of her psyche questioned her, *Are you afraid of pain? Can't

you handle it, girlie? What sort of Marine are you? Never mind. You're not

a Marine at all. You can't take pain.*

"Yes, I can!" Athalya Anne screamed at herself. She was up and running,

looking for the knife she usualy kept in a boot.

*No you can't, bitch. You're afraid to hurt Lucy.*

"Am not!"

*Well, you obviously can't take pain very well, can you?*

Athalya Anne found the knife with ease. "Can so!" And with that, she jammed

it into her thigh. The thigh that wasn't holographic. She screamed, but also

turned it slowly, causing more pain and more screamind. "Can so!

Cansocansocansocansocansocansocansocansocansocansocansocanso!" Athalya Anne

screamed, like a little girl having a temper tantrum. She watched detachedly

as blood spilled over her naked body and onto the chair, then floor. She

twisted the knife, slowly of course.

Athalya Anne screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

"Can so!"

But all the time she was hating herself. Hating herself for being weak.

Hating herself for being herself.

Athalya Anne screamed again.

"CAN SO!"

LMaj Athalya Anne Brinn