These drabbles are based on an old collection of 31_days prompts; I just rediscovered them and are hoping to finish the entire set. They will focus on the lives of the New Hope children, as they grow up and find their own unique roles in Tortall. All characters and settings belong to Tamora Pierce.
This first one is stream of consciousness and I know the long sentences are a bit hard to get through; don't worry they won't all be like this.
Title: Cry Warrior
Prompt: Pink ribbon scars that never forget
Character: Tobe and Loey
It is such a secret place, the land of tears. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
Loey was still sitting by the Scanran man with the spear in his stomach, her spear that had kept both of them from falling dead on this field where monsters where made, when he had felt the arrow in his side and gray clouds had burst before his eyes. The sharp acrid smell of burning flesh and metal made his eyes water and the heat from the funeral pyre stole the breath from his throat, he knew that the others were saying prayers over their dead but he had wanted to find her and now they were here alone with the man she had killed. And she was crying too, real tears that streamed in flowing rivulets down her ash-darkened face but there was no blood, or at least not her own, and he didn't know what to do. It wasn't a real wound that he could see but something deeper inside and he understood that now, after these months of war. He understood it well enough to know that he couldn't offer a bandage or fetch a healer or do anything but stand there and watch her like she was a skittish colt new under saddle, waiting to see whether she would bolt or break. Because this pain was different, it was the type that never went away, like he had felt when they had burned Haven and whipped his people, like he had felt when he realized that Lady Kel had left him behind and he was going to be alone again, not someone's anything anymore.
They'd fought into the night as far as he could figure but what with the castle on fire and everyone running about getting the horses all riled, it felt as if they were caught in some strange half-light, when the circling stormwings or maybe just the fury of the war had nearly extinguished the sun. He could just see well enough to wish that he couldn't see the bodies and the tears and the blood, most of all the blood that stained the ground and his clothes and Loey's hands that she held out towards him as if reaching for something just beyond her grasp. And when he took her hands they were warm and wet and he could feel the torn flesh circling her wrists like bracelets from where they had been tied, still raw and raised now but later scars that would stay with her forever like these memories and this moment. She had fought to get free and it made his heart leap even as she shuddered under the pain of his touch because he knew her spirit and that it was strong and wild and too free to be held down forever, even by this. She had been a warrior when she had saved his life and when she had chosen to stay and fight, knowing how much it might cost, and she would grow up to be a better warrior still, like Lady Kel or the copper-hearted woman who had taught the animals to fight like men. But Lady Kel had cried and warriors could cry and he told her that while they sat and watched the flames burn down. Soon would be the morning and the future and maybe sometime the war would end, they were together and he would never let her be taken away again, it was all over finally and they could go home.