** A/N: This isn't the first slash story I've written, but it's the first that can be called half decent. Even so I'm not sure how good it is- romance isn't something I really shine in- so feedback would be appreciated.
Oh, and I still don't own anything by Tamora Pierce; didn't you get the memo? **
About A Girl
This story is about a girl.
Most stories are.
And of course she was The Girl, the one that inspires bad poetry in even the most prosaic of admirers. She wasn't very pretty, but had a sunspun radiance to her face, and her laugh hit a note like struck crystal. Many loved her- that was just the way it went. Sandry inspired love, like a winged muse.
.
This story is about another girl.
She was a different sort of girl- strong and sturdy, with skin like hot chocolate and eyes that held steady, like her hands. She did not inspire poetry- she would have laughed at the idea- but sometimes when people looked at her a flash of something would touch her face and they would blink, uncertain of what it had been other than beautiful. She was a smith, a craftswoman, an artist; if Sandry inspired love then Daja crafted it, coaxing the embers to flame and forging it into shape.
.
This story is about a day when the earth was warm and drowsy, and breezes from the Pebbled Sea spun around Winding Circle like an invisible spindle, and the two girls went down to the beach. They skipped rocks; they walked in the surf; they tried to leap over tide-pools and mostly failed. It was childish, and they were nearly grown- they didn't care. Sandry's hair blew into her face, gilded by the sun. Daja's teeth flashed in a smile. They took each other's hands, helping each other over rocks grown slippery with scum, and didn't mind much when, inevitably, they fell in.
.
This story is about a sun-warmed rock, where Daja woke after an hour's doze to find Sandry leaning warm and heavy against her, sighing softly in sleep. A fine red burn was starting across her button nose, and her mouth- small, soft, the lips turned up a little- smiled almost imperceptibly.
Beneath heavy eyelids and golden lashes her eyes were blue, the colour of lapis lazuli, like the pompoms that the Tsaw'ha used to keep demons away.
Daja looked down at that face through air as thick as warm honey and was afraid to move, for if she did Sandry's eyes might open and catch hers and something between them would stretch and shatter.
And so she stroked the other girl's hair and turned her face away, looking at the sea.
.
This story is about a moment that night when Daja stood outside Sandry's door, one hand almost touching the wood. Her lip was caught between her teeth. Hesitating had never been a problem for her; it shouldn't be now. She raised her hand to knock.
"Sandry?" she would say. Sandry would sit up in bed and smile at her.
"What is it, Daja?" she would ask, raising the night-light in one hand to see her foster-sister's face better.
"I can't sleep."
Then she thought of Sandry asleep, that same little almost-smile on her lips, caught in the moonlight like an image carved in ivory, and shook her head. She took one step away. Two. Then she was away, feet pounding harder and faster than they should have, in time to the blood pounding in her burning cheeks.
She must be asleep, she told herself as she fled. It would be rude to wake her.
Better to let her rest, she thought, than wake something that could break us.
.
And this story is about Sandry, lying awake in her bedroom.
She listens to Daja's footsteps fade away and clutches her night-light in one hand, turning her face into her pillow so no one can hear her cry.