A/N: Still alive here! Besides laziness and life and the fact that I'm going to college in like a YEAR (EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!), I do have another excuse—it was very hard to keep Briar in character while he was groveling. For a while it kind of felt like I had gotten him in too much trouble to dig him back out again. But I think I did ok. What do you think?
Disclaimer: sue (verb)- to institute a process in law against; bring a civil action against disclaimer (noun)- a sentence claiming not to own another's work… a.k.a. covering one's butt so they will not be eaten alive by lawyers
Sandry felt as if she was fraying like an old cloth. After Briar's drunken confession the night before, everything she had left behind, everything she had tried to lock away, was suddenly out and swirling about in her mind barely giving her room to breath.
Unlocking her powers had not helped matters, and Sandry did not find any trouble in blaming Briar for that too. Though her connection with Tris and Daja was renewed, they were still too far away to 'talk' to, leaving Sandry to feel hopeless and alone.
Soon after waking, she had tried to confide in Kellen, but the woman was too busy cleaning up the mess from last night, and it felt—not wrong exactly, but like she was too removed from the situation. Kellen knew the story, but she would never truly understand how Sandry's relationship with Briar and her sisters worked.
For so long, the four of them had been close knit, each bringing the others their own uniqueness to add to the flowing tapestry.
Sandry remembered how she used to feel around Briar, before she left, before they had starting hurting each other. When everything was… simpler. The way he would tease and annoy her constantly and yet when Sandry needed him Briar was always by her side, no question. The sense of security she felt with him was comforting, even though she was perfectly capable of defending herself.
Heart aching, Sandry found herself walking slowly along the stream behind the tavern. It was a beautiful day, as if the weather was trying to apologize for being so hot yesterday. Reaching her favorite tree, Sandry plopped herself down, unwinding a piece of un-dyed yarn from its spool.
The yarn needed no persuasion, nearly tearing itself into individual fibers in its excitement to be handled by Sandry. With a chuckle and scolding pinch, Sandry got the fibers to behave, then began weaving intricate designs into it, her mind lost in thought as her fingers flew.
It might have been only a few moments or a few hours, even a few days, when a sound startled Sandry.
Whipping her head around, she felt the blood rush to her cheeks and fought to not chuckle at the sight before her. Briar, who normally prided himself for his street rat stealth and grace, lay sprawled out at the foot of the rise; a loose rock seemed to have been his betrayer. He groaned and picked himself up, muttering curses under his breath to every member of the rock's family, down to the last pebble.
Once Briar was sure the rock was thoroughly chastised, he looked sheepishly up at Sandry. Suddenly Sandry couldn't help it. With an unladylike snort, she burst into laughter. For a second Briar looked miffed, then slow grin spread across his face and his laughter sounded with Sandry's.
Wiping tears of mirth, Sandry looked down at Briar. She had missed this—missed him—so much.
His eyes locked onto hers and the smile faded from Sandry's face. The all too brief moment of the past was gone as they remembered present problems. Sandry cleared her throat and turned back to the river. After a pause, Briar scrambled up the rise, then sat next to her (though, Sandry noted with some amusement, he kept out of Sandry's reach and cast a weary eye at her).
Sandry watched him out of the corner of her eye as his hands ran over the ground. Sensing his magic, Sandry could feel him almost subconsciously strengthening all the plantlife around him, rhythmically spreading life through deadened roots. She couldn't deny that she was fascinated and impressed with his precision. Coupling that with the extreme (though intoxicated) power he had demonstrated last night, Sandry concluded that Briar was maturing thoroughly as a mage, strengthening and practicing his magic daily.
Sandry felt shamed as she compared that to her messy, disorganized magic, which, until last night, was suppressed and ignored as much as Sandry could manage. At the tavern, magic was just one more thing that could attract attention to herself, something she didn't want.
It was odd, releasing her magic after avoiding it so long made Sandry feel loose and rubbery this morning, as if she had been stretched thin trying to contain it.
Beside her, Briar breathed in deep, then exhaled, puffing out his cheeks in a mildly hopeless way.
"I—um. Duchess- I mean, Sandry, well… this is kind of, why did you- can we just… argh!" After fumbling a while for a way to start, Briar groaned and collapsed back on the grass. Sandry bit her lip to stop from smirking lightly. Briar, who normally had no problem letting someone know just what he thought of this or that, was completely tongue-tied. If he was anyone else, Sandry might have felt sorry for him, however, she took some satisfaction at his current distress. She deserved some sort of retribution after this whole mess.
Briar fell silent, staring up at the clouds being born above him. He must have found some answer in them, because he began once again.
"Once upon a time—yes no laughing, please—" he quipped in response to Sandry's disbelieving snort, "there were four very different kids. Each was far more than they seemed; each had inside them immense power, which was woven together to make them even stronger." Briar kept his eyes on the clouds above, and Sandry leaned back against the tree to listen. "And then, as all kids do, they grew up. More or less." Sandry smiled at this. "As they became adults, things got…complicated. They slowly found their group of four was expanding. Outside people and events began dividing them till it seemed their little circle would be broken. Real life got in the way."
One in particular, a stupid, immature ex-thief, found the change disturbing. He saw his friends go out in the world and he was afraid he would get left behind. But the problems didn't end at simply doing different things. One of the skirts had a lot of attention… particularly with the male sort of company." Sandry felt her breath catch at this. Could it be true? All the provoking and teasing? Was he truly jealous?
Briar's voice grew dreamlike—he was lost in memories now. "As much as he tried to ignore the fact that his friend's attention was elsewhere, it bothered him. And in desperation, he began to do the one thing he could think of to get that attention back."
"He picked fights," Sandry breathed through numb lips. Briar winced at the wording, but nodded.
"He picked fights," he echoed. "It seemed for a while that things were going back to normal. But then the fights started to get mean. The idiot boy said things he didn't believe, things that weren't true. He was lashing out at the girl for something that wasn't her fault. And in the end, it had cost him dearly."
One day, after a particularly brutal fight, he woke to find her gone. She had run away, to prove something to everyone. She didn't need them. But it made him realize that he needed her. And as days turned to weeks and months—eventually years—he realized something else. Something he had been trying to deny for a long time." Briar's face was determinedly stoic, but his eyes were bright with what looked suspiciously like tears.
Briar turned his head and looked up, directly into Sandry's eyes.
"He loved her."
Sandry's heart stopped for a moment then began beating with a new vigor, as if it had determined that it would beat out of her chest. She opened her mouth but no sound would come out.
Briar didn't give her a chance. Rolling to his knees, he sat on his heels in front of Sandry. It was hard to talk around the lump in his throat, though he managed.
"And now, that stupid boy has come to beg forgiveness… from someone who has every right to refuse it." She couldn't dam up the tears inside of her. With a sob, Sandry threw her arms around Briar—strong, comforting, and very real—and buried her face into his tunic.
They stayed that way for a long time, till finally Sandry pulled back to wipe her eyes. Then, determination filling every part of her, Sandry grabbed the front of Briar's very wet tunic and kissed him.
She felt Briar stiffen, first with shock and then uncertainty, but as her lips moved over his he began to return her actions in earnest, his arms wrapped around her, one hand on her waist while the other cupped her cheek.
It was a feeling Sandry had never experienced before, and suddenly she felt electrified and almost giddy in her lack of oxygen. When they finally broke apart, both were gasping. Sandry was much disoriented in the fact that she had somehow ended up on the ground with Briar propped up on one elbow above her.
"So," Sandry said breathlessly, "how did the story end?" Briar grinned.
"Don't be so impatient," he murmured hoarsely as his lips danced just above hers. "It's a work in progress." He kissed her.
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Far away in Summersea, Tris looked up from her book and Daja paused from hammering iron in her forge.
Did you feel that?
You don't think…?
…
No way.
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Fin.
(as in The End, Finished, Done, There is nothing left, Nada, Zip, Why are you still here?, credits rolling, blackness)
A/N: hehe, I lied. There will be an epilogue tying things up, but this is as far as the PLOT goes. Funny thing about plot—I had a completely different ending for this story all worked out, but then it turned out like this. Personally, I like it. I suppose this whole 'end-of-an-story-thanks-and-goodbye' thing is kind of offset by the fact that I haven't updated for months, but I'm STILL proud of myself… (dodges flying tomatoes and other such rotten fruit).
PS. D'ya think I let Briar off the hook too easily? I'm curious…
