Desclaimer: the characters are not mine. they belong completely to Tamora Pierce. i just love her stories.

Purple Flowers and Blue Grass

Chapter one: Never Apart

Sandry-

Lady Sandrilene was fumed. How could he have done that to her? He promised she was the one and only one, but then... but then he... well, he, Oh, she didn't even want to think about it. Briar! That name made her want to spit in disgust! How much she now hated him when just an hour age, just an hour ago!, she had loved him so much.

Just two months ago Sandry had finally lost her patience with him, she was so sick of waiting for him to realize his feelings for her. Her mutterings of uvami,the trader word for patience, no longer helped. She had marched up to Briar, on the second day in Storm Moon (it was raining of course), as he worked in his garden on number Six Cheesemen Street, grabbed him by the arm, and... kissed him like there was no tomorrow and after a moment or so he had kissed her back. Since that day they had been a couple, always together and never apart. They were never seen without each other (except maybe in the bathhouses and the privy) , in the garden Sandry would sew, embroider, or whatever as Briar pulled up weeds in his garden, in Sandry's study as she worked on a complicated spell for Pasco, Briar would skim through a book occasionally asking questions about what the spell was supposed to be used for. In two weeks time, on a rainy Earthsday, while Tris was at the Citadel talking books with His Grace and Daja was in Winding Circle helping Frostpine with a project, Sandry had given up her virginity to Briar. By the end of Carp moon, Briar had been getting ready to propose.

He finally did, he invited Sandry to dinner at a local inn on the middle of Seed month. They went to the Cessna inn, their favorite haunt (the four, that is) since they had all gotten back from Namorn, for dinner and it was like any other night that she never suspected he was planning on proposing. After dinner they decided to go for a walk. For many minutes the four of them, Sandry's two guards Kwaben and Oama were following a good distance behind not so far behind that if their Lady Sandry were attacked they wouldn't be able to help, but not so close they could hear what was being said between the two young mages, walked along in silence.

Holding her small hand in his larger calloused one, he pulled her down onto a bench. "Sandry so much is against us," he had started out, Sandry's cornflower blue eyes lost the glitter ass she began to think Briar was going to break off their relationship, "our classes, the color of our skin, hell, even our own magic," he pulled Sandry a little closer to her body, "but frankly I don't care." Briar slipped off the bench and got on his knees before her. "Will you be my Duchess? Forever?" he pulled a ring out of his pocket, an engagement ring. It was a gold band with two stones, one yellow and the other green, attached closely together and the setting holding them there were tiny briars. "Will you marry me?"

Sandry had shrieked, threw her arms around Briar, sending them both to the ground, and, while kissing his face, shouted Yes! over and over again. Briar stood up, bringing Sandry with him and twirled her around in circles, both laughing happily and hysterically.

Back in the present Sandry pulled the engagement ring on and off her finger, twirling it around every now and then. It seems she will never be able to say 'I Do' to Briar. Suddenly, overcome with sadness, Sandry collapsed onto her bed in tears. Sandry ripped the beautiful ring off of her finger and hurtled it against the wall. It rolled to the base of the door. Where the green stone cracked.

"Sandry!" Briar called through the door. The doorknob rattled, he wanted to come in. "I know you're in there! We need to talk!" his voice cracked at the last two words.

A burning anger filled Sandry's stomach, like no anger before. How could he? Sandry thought. How could he come here, to her home, and demand to talk to her after he had gotten that… that… girl pregnant? How can he act like they can still be together?

Briar –

Briar reclined on his bed hours later after knocking on Sandry's bedroom door and getting no answers. He knew why she didn't want to. Knowing Sandry she thought Clover was pregnant with his child. She wasn't, he had never even slept with her. They were only friends. What Sandry didn't know is that she was the first girl he had slept with in two years since they got back from Namorn. It was then that he had realized he was in love with Sandry.

On the way back Tris and Daja decided that Sandry shouldn't be alone because of Shan, Briar growled in disgust (Briar still wanted to kill him for ever hurting Sandry, both in her heart and her dignity), they thought it best if Briar and her shared a room (they later found out it was a ruse to get them together) because of the Shakkan tree that pulls Briar out of a deep sleep via it's magic and his special blend of plants that pull even the deepest sleeper out of sleep. Briar found himself staying up late at night to hear her breath and pondering late into the night what makes Sandry smell so desirable. Briar had mentally slapped himself and went to trim his shakkan. When, on some nights, Sandry started to murmur in her sleep about the unmagic incident she was in, Briar had longed to go over and kiss those tears off of her face. Cursing both himself and the people who doubled her fears of the dark, Briar forced himself to sleep. It took him two years to realize that Sandry felt the same. He didn't tell her because he was a coward, but she… she wanted him to realize it without help. Briar could kill himself for making her wait as long as he did, but he was too happy he finally had her. And all that was ruined with one plea of help from a scared pregnant girl, named Clover.