This is a story I started two years ago, as Sorka Returns, after losing my email service and password to my old penname, Sorka Robinton. Years later, I randomly remembered my original email and password, heralding my return to fanfiction writing after a really, really long time. I'm not sure whether or not this will be a blessing, or if I will suddenly flunk out of college.

This story is already posted under the penname "Sorka Returns," but I plan on rewriting and finishing this story. I don't have my old notes or outline, so wish me luck. I hope I have matured as a writer since my last stint. (I probably have- for one, I learned English grammar.)

I know we're not supposed to post multiples of stories, but I'm not sure what exactly I can do about it, since I no longer remember ANYTHING about my other screenname. If anyone can give me advice about this, I'd love to hear from you. Until then, I'm going to post this rewrite here, and hope it doesn't get deleted. Besides, I think this story will change enough by the third chapter that, besides names, the story will be completely unrecognizable.

Here was the original summary, by the way:

Mad Lady Adellaine, scorned for most of her life, is forced to come to terms with her power to both quell a rebellion in her land and save the broken heart of the inconsolable itinerant mage, Briar Moss. Please comment, though I admit it's a downer!

Also, it is NOT Sandry/Briar, and possibly not even Briar/Anyone, anymore. Plus, with a bit of tweaking, I can make it compatible with Will of the Empress.

The Redemption of Briar Moss

1. Mage

---

Briar Moss, itinerant mage, stood in the roaring crowd as a finely dressed procession rode through the main street. Had he any thoughts left for himself, he might have realized that both his quiet demeanor and style of clothing caused him to stand out within the enraged throng of ragged peasants and day laborers.

A rotten vegetable flew past his head, in such a state of decay that Briar- with or without magic- was no longer certain if it had been a potato or an onion. "Pig!" a woman screamed at the passing nobles, mouth open to show less teeth than Briar had fingers. She threw another decomposed root, not the least bit inhibited by the strong warding spells placed around the nobles. Other voices joined hers, and the noise around him degenerated into a decently nasty, extended harangue. The worst insults, he thought vaguely, were aimed at a fat old Bag with a wife much younger than he was good for.

Of course, none of this was Briar's concern. Mentally shrugging, he turned to leave the crowded street, which continued to flood with people. "What's going on?" he finally asked, once it was apparent that he would be unable to escape the crush of bodies.

The man he had tapped gave the young mage a suspicious once-over. "Ain't no Bag," Briar told him, and the man grew visibly friendlier.

"Take no offense from me, lad," the man told him. "But you 'ernt dressed like no poor hand. That makes you different from the rest of us."

Briar nodded, understandingly. When he was on the streets, he wouldn't have trusted a clean, well-dressed man, either. He didn't notice the farmer's glance stray to his tattooed hands, where the pattern of vines shifted eerily under his skin and curled around one of the tattooed Xs on the web of his thumbs.

The man- possibly a farmer, Briar thought, due to a thick tan line above his eyebrows- reached over a shouting child and tapped the back of a friend. "This here mage wants to know what's on." The friend, a character who sported the thick ears and callused knuckles of a fighter, grinned in response. Briar's mind numbly registered the word "mage," but the second man had already pushed his way toward Briar and was energetically shaking his hand with a huge, scarred fist.

"Must have impressed my mate, here, he don't often talk to Bags," he commented, causing Briar to glare venomously at the huge man.

"Not a Bag," Briar growled, returning the hand clasp. "So what's this all about?"

The huge man and the farmer looked at each other, and shrugged. "Lord's a jackass with his taxes. We can't pay 'em."

"Even if they was fair, we couldn't pay taxes anyway!" the toothless woman interjected, having overheard the conversation. "His gods-cursed war's taken everything." Her gnarled hand latched onto Briar's wrist. "Our sons, our food, now our money."

The farmer gently detached the woman's fingers. "Don't stifle the poor boy, Mama," he told her, patting her hand kindly, before turning back to Briar. "Can't you do nothing about it?"

Briar snorted. "The hell do you expect me to do?" he demanded.

The farmer leaned closer. "But you are that boy, aren't you?"

Briar's blood froze.

The expression on his face must have been truly frightening, because both the burly farmer and his muscular friend barely stood his ground before the slight young man. "I already told you I meant no offense," the farmer stammered, "but I saw your hands. We've all heard stories about you, you and those girls from Winding Circle."

A murmur ran through the crowd, and Briar suddenly found himself the focal point of four hundred people. "You called me a mage," Briar said quietly to the farmer.

"Ain't you?"

A little boy's gleeful voice interrupted. "There's Mad Lady Ad!" he cried, and the mob and Briar's attention was momentarily diverted.

"Who the hell is-" Briar began, before a young noblewoman rode into his view, her yellow eyes glinting in irritation as the child who had so noisily pointed her out. As she and the other nobles reached the Lord's gates, she suddenly let out a painful cry and half slid off of her horse before stumbling through the other nobles to press her hands against the gate. At her father's furious shout, a stable man in livery unceremoniously hauled her inside. An appreciative sigh ran through the crowd.

The old woman once again grabbed his wrist, dragging his head down to the level of her mouth. "We don't like her da the Lord, but she always does something like that when she passes through. "So we call her Mad Lady Ad, 'cause she crazy."

Briar squinted after the girl. "Why is this Ad girl crazy?" He had thought he had seen a shimmer out of the corner of his eyes.

"Why you think? You seen what she done. If that ain't crazy, than what is it?"

"Magic," Briar muttered.

---

After the incident in the marketplace, Briar really shouldn't have been surprised to find his reputation had preceded him. After a single inquiry, he had found himself politely ushered past the gates and directly into a sumptuous dining room for a personal meeting with Lord Gerntyl and his family.

Briar cleared his throat and tried to remember the grammar that Rosethorn and Lark had beaten into his head. "Lord Gerntyl, I hadn't expected to be recognized so far from my home." I say home as if I have one, he thought bitterly, but, for the moment, technicalities weren't important.

The fat Bag smiled, his facial expression as oily as the gigantic slab of roast served onto his plate. "But my dear mage," he said, apparently not noticing Briar's wince, "of course stories have reached my lands of the young students who took the magical community by storm."

Lady Lida, the young wife, managed a frightened little smile. "May I offer my condolences? It was such a terrible tragedy," she managed to say, before retreating into her wine glass for the remainder of the meal.

Briar's back felt like a board. "Yes, thank you," he said curtly. A chilly silence fell upon the meal, and he was glad of it.

The Lord motioned to Briar with a piece of fried root speared on a fork. "About what you were asking, young man," he said, mouth full, "The retention of all my borderlands is the utmost priority. I'm not losing a single hectare to that upstart that has been taking my coastline."

"The people I have talked to in the city have spoken of recent hardships- food, for one," Briar said boldly, wondering whether this pompous cretin would have the nerve to toss him out of the castle on his rear end.

Gerntyl laughed heartily. "Surely they do not starve. You, mage, are too susceptible to false rumors." Briar barely managed to keep his mouth shut, and instead concentrated on cutting tiny, precise bites of meat with his knife and fork. Now that he knew all nobles weren't like Gerntyl, he found it even harder to tolerate the presence of imbeciles.

Sandry wouldn't have ruled like this, an inner voice told him, but he shoved it aside. Now wasn't the time to think about such things.

---

Gerntyl had been generous enough to offer board for the night, but despite the luxury of the room, Briar had ended up wandering the halls until dawn. Since Sandry's death, sleep had never come easily.

Briar found castles to be oppressive. Fine rooms reminded him too much of Emelan, the only gilded cage in which he had ever been comfortable. Among the only people he had ever loved, who had ever loved him.

He had let them down when they had needed him the most.

Exhausted, Briar collapsed into an overstuffed chair with his head in his hands. Rosethorn was right, he thought. He was destroying himself, but he didn't really care anymore.

He would leave Kenat in the morning, for a place where maybe- just maybe- there was no one who had heard of Winding Circle.

---

Comments? Reviews? Anything?