thanks samantha. im still clueless, but not as clueless! i was wondering, does anyone know briar's student's name, and the city he lives in?
however, im pretty sure i've screwed up. its entirely inaccurate. deal with it. im going to be in a worse mood than i already am. for one, their teachers arent' with them, but im too lazy to change it now. besides...i want rosethorn hanging out with crane. :)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Sandry, almost fourteen years old
"Are you sure you're going to leave?" Sandry wailed. Tris shrugged, looking away.
"I'm pretty sure," she said shortly, pushing her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. Daja grimaced, fingers probing the blisters on her right palm. The boy in the shadows, curled in a large chair, let out a loud sigh.
"I wonder what they have in store for us," he grumbled. "Torture, most likely."
The trader girl grinned. "Only torture for you, if Rosethorn catches you cutting up capers. And you will, boy."
"Oh, be quiet, trangshi."
"This is terrible!" Sandry cried aloud. "I'm going to be the only one left here...doing nothing!"
"Not nothing," Tris said. "You get to stay with your Uncle, right? And Lark, and Rosethorn, and everyone..." She sniffed.
Sandry managed a teary smile. "Well, for at least tonight," she said with a sigh, "You'll be staying at the finest establishment in Emelan!" Daja groaned, throwing a small pillow at her friend.
"You mean we're staying in the most colorful place in Emelan," Daja moaned. "It's like a Nemornese rainbow quilt." Sandry laughed.
~~~~~~~~`
The last hours were unbearable, almost. The dinner they sat through, food as stiff as cardboard in their mouths, went too quickly for words, though they each sat as quietly as mice.
The circle split up after that, shortly, each taking their bundles to three different carriages. Tris snuffled, eyes red and puffy; Daja's hands twisted their mate to near-strangulation, Briar bit his lip hard, and Sandry wrung her braid in both hands.
Niko cleared his throat. "Well,..." They looked up. "It's time, all of you."
"When will we all visit again, together?" Sandry asked, forlorn. "All of us?"
He cleared his throat. "It depends, you know. If there are vacation times granted by all teachers, the weather clears up..." His eyebrows snapped together suddenly with a thought. "Tris, don't interfere with it." She made a small protesting sound. "But some of you might meet up someplace."
"Will we be able to talk to each other, you know, with the mind thing?" Briar said quietly, too softly for his usual personality. "If we're so far away?"
"I don't know."
Tris' wagon left first, and each of the Circle gave her a tentative hug as she bundled into the back of the empty cart. "Bye," she said gruffly, but sobbed into her hankerchief as the carriage rolled down the dirt road and away from her only friends.
Throwing her staff into the wagon, Daja remarked, "I don't want to be the last," and hugged her friends again before jumping into the empty seat in the front. "And I know I don't want to ride in the back." Her driver chuckled, handing her an oiled robe as drops began to patter down from the grey sky.
"And Tris isn't here to make it all go away," Briar mumbled.
"I think it's raining because she's crying," Sandry offered, feeling teary herself. "And she cut us off from mindspeech again," she said sadly, her magic feeling the iron solidness of the sparkling blue barrier.
"Bye, Daja!" Sandry called, waving wildly in the rain, not even caring that her pretty pink dress was becoming soaked, or that it was freezing. The trader waved back, pinching her arm fiercely though her eyes still watered against her will.
Briar sighed. "Now I gotta go, too." Sandry let out a little moan, dress plastered down by the downpour. "This is awful."
"I know!" she wailed. "We're all seperated! When are we going to see each other again?" She hugged him tightly for an instant, before drawing away and sniffing into her kerchief.
"I don't know," he said sadly. To his dismay, he sniffed a few times, blinking hard. Sandry smiled a weepy grin and found a lace-hemmed hankerchief, spelled to stay clean. Wiping his face, as no one had done since...well, no one had ever done, she grinned at his halfhearted glare.
"Don't move," she said. "I might poke you in the eye," she teased, before bursting into tears and flinging herself at his neck and kissing him once, on the lips. Eyes clouding over, he realized with a start that he couldn't think correctly when she did that.
He didn't actually mind affection, but he did mind the 'strangeness' of being so close, which had been bothering him for several months now. He didn't like any weirdness that he couldn't control. Did friends kiss each other goodbye?
He was actually considering meeting her halfway in this, but she had already pulled away, and was crying her eyes out, so he couldn't think about it anymore. Hugging her one more time, gingerly because she was sobbing, he hopped into his cart and disappeared down the road.
Sandry trudged in, abandoned. "Uncle?" she called softly. He opened the door to his study and smiled his most reassuring smile as she stepped inside, desolate.
~~~~~~~~