Encounter

Chapter Two: My Divine

By: Miss Nightshade

Disclaimer: I do not own "Circle of Magic" or "The Circle Opens" blah-bity, blah-bity, blah. Tamora Pierce owns it all. Don't piss me off.

Note: Thank you all who are reading this now. Sorry for the wait, it seriously couldn't be avoided. Hope this chapter is worth it.

Sandry dragged the hard-bristled brush through her golden-brown hair and peered out at the grey sky; there was going to be rain that day, she could tell by the clouds. And suddenly those times when Tris had taught her about cloud formations and weather seemed so long ago. All the days of her earlier youth appeared as if they had been swept away from her so quickly that she could only look at them now through foggy eyes, unable to make out all the details that could only be kept in the years of childhood. She had been away too long, they all had, and things were changing so quickly in every relationship she possessed.

Bittersweet images of last night's dream swam through her mind languidly, bringing colour to the ivory of her cheeks. She had overheard tales of sexual encounters from sailors and travelers and the average teenage boy, but this had been so real, so vigorous, and she, somehow instinctively had forgotten her innocense and enjoyed it.

"Breakfast." A quiet voice breathed from the doorway; Sandry's head rotated so swiftly that her world reeled for a moment as the rest of her body turned to balance itself with her gaze. When the spinning faded, her eyes focused on someone she identified absently before she had time to know it; Briar stood silently before her, his face inward-looking and somehow spiritually gaunt, as if his sleep had been anything but healing.

"Thank you." She replied, choking on the words as they fought their way up her throat. She wanted to talk to him, settle things inside of her, allow her heart to cease its hurried flutter and establish that things were as they should be, but her tongue was unwilling. Briar looked as if he were almost waiting for her words, as if he could sense her dilemma, but when she didn't speak his jaw tightened and he turned smoothly and shut the door with a finality that shook her. Sighing, Sandry moved back to the bed to arrange the sheets and dress.

Breakfast was wrong somehow; several times Sandry had tried to mind-speak with the boy but he kept a solid barrier between them and refused to look at her at all, it was only Lark's cheerful chirping and Rosethorn's verbal scowls that got them through the meal. After they finished and cleaned up, the two Dedicates busily put them both to work, weaving for Sandry, weeding for Briar.

"I pulled weeds yesterday!" He howled, but his usual enthusiasm for complaining seemed anorexic in comparison to the customary nature and bulk of it and even Rosethorn peered at him through suspicious, squinted eyes.

The morning passed quickly but was an endless forever of silence and worry for Sandry, and by mid-afternoon she felt as if she were a pack-mule loaded down with enough marble to build a brand new temple. Lark examined her softly and then shooed her out the door to "get some air".

Air was a good idea. She walked down the path silently, breathing in the million or so scents of the city: pastries, salt, the subtle touch of flowers from the gardens. The pink end of her tongue flicked out to lick the taste of wind from her lips as she turned to survey her current abode. It seemed like warm gingerbread on a cold day as she stared at the walls and windows and remembered times which were like flitting shadows to her.

"Sandry." Briar's voice jumped out at her through the thoughts and for the second time that day she felt as if her skeleton were going to leap nimbly from her skin.

"You keep sneaking up on me like that, Briar Moss," she began, forcing a familiar tone of playfulness into her voice, "and one of these days I'm going to bind you with your own pants." The boy's face reddened instantly and she swallowed in fear of the look painted across his face. She had a sneaking suspicion that it distinctly matched her own. 'Cat dirt!' she cursed mentally, kicking a pebble near her toe.

"I want to talk to you." He said faintly, brushing dirt off the front of his pants from where he was kneeling in the beds. "Can we walk?"

Sandry looked into him; his brooding eyes, anguished lips, sunken cheeks, there he was, hands folded submissively, but with his legs positioned in such a way that he suggested confidence and resolution. Standing in the calm of Discipline, sunlit in the subdued brown and white of his clothes, all his passion was concentrated in his eyes. "Yes." She answered, suddenly feeling the need to deeply breathe in the reassuring inspiration of the air.

They moved together automatically, their bodies recalling days when they were twelve and prancing down the roads of Summersea as they wove around in a comical dance of playfulness and youth with the two other girls they called foster-sisters. Walking down the streets, looking about silently at all the people rushing around, Briar had a sudden urge to reach out and tweak her nose, but when he turned he remembered why things were different now.

The porcelain fairness of her, the fresh elegance of the way she moved, her chin held high, lips firm, subtly austere for all her sweetness, his eyes followed every visible curve of her face and form, his mind replacing the ones he could not see with memories of the bath. She was beautiful, but more than that, she was Sandry, and that in itself was enough to make him want her. Acknowledging that now, her understood why he had always kept her at a distance of sorts, but smilingly.

"What are you thinking about?" She regarded him unwaveringly with her large blue eyes, made more striking by the silken constraints of her golden brown hair. Briar grinned at her ethereal charm and the honest innocense of her question. The Sandry from his dreams was amazing, but the one walking beside him was so much better.

"Come here." He said, ushering her through a thick clump of trees and foliage; on the other side was a small glade where she and her former housemates would come infrequently to relax. The richly textured landscape made Sandry smile, memories of the four sitting beside the small waterfall framed by an exuberance of foliage beneath the pure and mellow translucence of the sky flickered through her anxiety-addled brain. The boy leaned against a tree and watched her knowingly.

"I'm sorry about this morning."

She looked across the five feet between them and he suddenly found it hard to believe that a beauty such as hers could understand the concept of dirt. She was like sunlight, all brightness and sensual glow invested with a mythological significance. She was a symbol of something fresh and sweet, something that could not be disregarded because it had not the weightier values of the state and position a noble most-commonly possessed. "Briar--" She started to say, something that would undoubtedly never reach the light of day because it flew from her mind with the quickness of a falcon on its prey when the boy she had for years considered the closest thing possible to a brother closed the space between them and seized her hand with such uncomplicated affection that her heart began to beat wildly.

"I love you." He stated, a fact, not a question of self or circumstance. Sandry gazed at him in surprise, her large eyes set within the pale oval of her face, standing so close but never close enough, slender, graceful and fair-skinned, clad in a thin white shift that beckoned to be removed, pulled from the smooth curve of her shoulder. And his fingers were itching to oblige. "I love you." He repeated, echoing himself before she could speak or even visibly respond.

And then his lips were upon hers and she could do nothing but give herself up to the ardour of his warmth. When they parted her face was flushed, her cupid's bow mouth pink and faintly swollen from their kiss. He looked into her eyes, reading the conflict there she felt between their relationship of the past, now violate and interrupted, and the attraction of the world of love. "You don't have to feel the same." He said gently, allowing his hands to slip from where he unconsciously had gripped her biceps when their mouths were as one.

Briar stared, entranced by her feminine form, its youthful perfection, imaginable as a divine, waiting for her reply, wanting to reach for her again. But she beat him to it.

By the time he realised that her lips had melted against his smoothly, his hands had intuitively woven into her hair and were making their way down her back with the fervour of a feline dipping into the cat nip. It was no surprise that Sandry was clearly inexperienced, but Briar smiled inwardly at the thought of teaching her pleasures that would keep here awake nights with thoughts of their intensity.

His mouth moved to her jaw line, the soft tip of his tongue tracing a line of heat down to her throat. She arched her neck without a thought and he felt her go limp against him. Lowering her carefully onto the grass he curled her left arm around his neck and softly nudged her thighs apart with his knee. Sandry whimpered with untested desire and brought her hands into his hair. "I--Briar--" Her voice was a breathy, gentle wind of need and confusion.

"Hush, moneybags," he whispered, tracing the curve of her ear with his torturous tongue, "I'll take care of you." His nimble fingers found their way down the charming curve of her hips and took hold of the hem of her dress, tugging it upward deftly until she lay on the carpet of green in nothing but the soft rays of the evening sun and the white delicacy of her flesh.

Soft, sensual, nude, she was both woman and goddess--to be adored, not ogled. "My divine--" He purred as his eyes gratefully took in the immaculate skin gleaming in the fading light. Sandry's eyes fluttered open like butterflies and he smiled down at her, making a wonderful discord of the bright arrangement of gold and brown braids that sat like a personal crown upon her head. His lips fell upon her face and neck, steadily moving downward, tasting her clavicle, her shoulders, the tender swell of her breasts. Eager lips found one pink rosebud of a nipple, his teeth lightly grazing it, savouring the gasps and moans his untrained lover emitted at his ministrations.

He moved to its twin and began a soft sucking, his tongue swishing over the top of it languorously. Sandry cried out sharply and her pelvis subconsciously ground against the thigh he offered her; a dexterous hand crept onto her other breast and caressed it slowly. "Briar!" Her throat fought with her call and her slender digits clawed his shirt from the bow of his back. Unwilling to release him, Sandry summoned every bit of mental power she could muster and used her magick to draw the string holding his pants closed from its resting place. Briar grinned inwardly at the thought of his dream and kicked them off completely.

Gently pulling free of her arms, he worked his way down her creamy flesh, placing small kisses in an erratic path until he found the spicy nest of curls he was looking for. From the strength of her scent he knew she needed him, but he wanted to taste her and slid his hands beneath her thighs to pull them apart more completely. His tongue reached into the pink wetness of her and lapped fervently at the enticing opening, his fingers pushing between the folds of her vulva and sliding slickly into her.

The girl froze, her back arching upward, every muscle in her body tensed and waiting for his next move. The boy's fingers leisurely slipped in and out of her as his tongue found her nub, stroking it until she squirmed and grunted softly. Her hips rose in indignation as he removed his touch, but placing his hands on either side of them he moved them back onto the ground and slithered up her body, leaving a glistening trail of saliva. Sandry was ready for his kiss when it came and he somehow didn't have to introduce her to opening her mouth for a dance.

His erection throbbing with need, Briar flung his leg over her hips and braced himself with his knees, adjusting his pelvis until he was leaning against her warm, inviting slit. The girl moved to rub herself against him and it was too much, he pushed into her, breaking through her barrier in one quick motion. Sandry flinched the slightest bit, but rose to the occasion and seemed to pay it little mind as she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, crossing them at the ankles. He began an unhurried rhythm until she matched with his and then he quickened his pace until he felt himself nearing the edge.

Pulling his face from where he had it buried in the side of her neck, Briar reached down and tangled his fingers in her hair, kissing her tenderly. "My divine--oh gods--only you-"

"I love you." She whispered, wrapping her arms around him firmly. Orgasm burst like fireworks in their head, speeding across as if they were caught in a wildfire. Their bodies pumped faster and faster until they were finally left in the comfortable shallows of a tide pool after the passing of a tidal wave.

They stared at each other through tired, satisfied eyes, breathing shakily; laying on the crumpled grass, their disheveled and discarded clothes tossed around them, her white arms clasping the contrasting darkness of his tan skin. Briar's lips dropped onto her forehead softly and then her mouth; Sandry's eyelids wavered and then fell, her breathing slowing down, her chest rising and falling almost invisibly.

"My divine--" He breathed, tracing the line of her bottom lip with his thumb as he allowed his head to loll on her, cheek against her throat. "Finally."

Author's Note:

There. I finally finished it. If you didn't like it that doesn't mean you can throw tomatoes or anything else at me. I liked it.