Chapter 2

Fond Memories

The children handled the introductions, and after supper they were all happily playing with dolls and spinning tops. The adults were sitting with cups of tea, watching them play, and reminiscing over old times.

"Remember the first time we meditated, when Niko took us to the Hub, and we sat on the stairs?"

Tris asked with a smile.

"Yeah! That was the time when we saw those mages controlling the heartfire."

Daja added with a grin of her own.

"That seems like such a long time ago, yet I remember it like it was just yesterday." Sandry sighed. Briar put his arm around her shoulders.

"It was almost twenty years ago, dear." Briar reminded her.

Tris and Daja smiled at each other.

"Remember, my dear friend, Trisana," Daja started in a mock haughty tone, "When lovely little Sandrilene and Briar here first realized they were meant to be together."

"Oh yes, darling Daja," Tris replied, playing along, her eyes dancing behind her spectacles, "I recall one time when I'd come back from studying the shore with Niko, and found them up in the attic."

Tris laughed, Daja chuckling along with her. Briar smiled at the memory, and at the look on his wife's face. Sandry blushed lightly and retorted,

"We weren't doing anything!"

Daja looked skeptical.

"Honestly!" Sandry huffed, "Briar only wanted to talk to me."

This made Tris laugh even harder. Daja asked,

"Did you ever have that conversation?"

Sandry knew a moment of pause, while she searched her mind for the answer. She looked questioningly at Briar. He answered the three women now staring expectantly at him.

"The next day, when we were up on the wall."

Sandry looked like she remembered what he was talking about, but Daja and Tris still looked confused.

"Briar and I went up on the wall, for walk. While we were up there we talked about the day before when he caught me." Sandry explained.

Tris asked,

"Caught you what?"

Briar's face lost some of its color, and his eyes lost their teasing light, when he remembered that day. He felt a warm hand hold his, and vaguely he realized that Sandry was retelling the story to their friends. Briar didn't need her sweet voice to help recall the horrific events of that day.

He was lost in a fog, then he was sixteen again, lying on the roof at Discipline cottage. Sandry had joined him, and he'd thought about kissing her. It was a thought that startled him, because he'd never thought of her like that before. He'd jumped to his feet, and when he'd tried to get past her without touching her, she'd stepped back, almost off the edge of the roof.

He could still see her face, when she'd realized that she'd gone too far. He didn't remember much after that, (his mind had gone into shutdown panic mode,) but he knew that he'd grabbed her, pulled her against him, and breathed a sigh of relief that she was alive. He could still summon up the fact that she'd been as scared as he, because she'd been crying, and it had killed him to see that.

A soft voice calling his name dragged back another memory. The first time that he'd realized that he loved her. Briar was wrapping her hand in bandages after she'd punched a Count on the nose, because of something he'd said about Briar. She'd pulled away from his ministrations, because in his awed enthusiasm, he'd gripped to tightly. Then Sandry had started to talk about being proper, and some such nonsense, and he'd kissed her. Briar still recalled her instantaneous response, her lips soft on his, but just as demanding. Then he remembered Dedicate Rosethorn walking in, and spoiling an otherwise perfect way to spend one's morning.

"I think that he's dead." Tris's teasing lilt came through the fog.

"Tris, don't joke like that, I'm really worried. Briar, are you listening?"

"Don't worry, Sandry. He looks like he's enjoying wherever he just floated off to. At least he does know, before he was pale as a ghost. He's getting his color back." Daja's no-nonsense voice flitted across the room to where Briar was slowly climbing out of his reverie.

The pressure of a small hand pressed against his forehead threw the surrounding fog into stark contrast with the glowing green ember above him. He knew what that was, and he reached out for it. Briar knew that if he let Pirisi and her magic trek down here, then she'd get a very interesting look at what her Mamma and Daddy were like when they were alone.