Disclaimer: i don't own Pierce's Circle of Magic series, but i do own any that aren't in her stories, like Allah, Aoorie, Gwen, Glacier, Merri, Joseph, and Cecila
Things to know while reading:
1) The Women Council runs the city and the head woman is also considered the ruler of Hope.
2) It adds a new member, by voting amoungst themselves, every five years, at the same time a woman is voted off
3) To be a member you must had given birth and raise a child
4) You had to have a least a tiny bit of magic in you
5) A maiden is someone who is pure of heart, mind, and soul, otherwise a virgin girl
Purple Flowers & Blue Grass
Chapter Nine: Yin-Yin
Six months previous: Sandry-
One woman stood in the middle of a group of twenty women. All wore white robes, unadorned. Their long hair, mostly black or varying shades of brown, were tied and braided loosly and then further tied behind scarves or kercheives. Their long white robes were hooded, currently the hoods were pulled up, covering their faces, hiding who they really were. This was the council of Women.
The Council stood in a large white room. It was lighted by candles that smelled vaguely of rosemary and mint. The floors were plain, not stained or carpeted. There was only one door that led from the room and it was currently locked and barred, to stop anyone from interupting the meeting. The women stood just inside the lines of a ward. The ward was placed there to protect them from a disease. A disease that ran just outside their door.
"Women of the council, you have been called here to discuss something important. A new disease that has never been seen is raging here, our young are in danger," Gwen's voice came from the woman in the middle. "No cure is known, it is up to us, the leading council of Hope, to reach a decision." murmers and whispers are traded amoung the women, fear obvious in their voice. Only one is quiet. "Don't you have anything to add, Sandrilene."
"I do ma'am, but it'll be better said if the others can hear it." Sandrilene said, as she stepped forward, drawing down her hood as was the custom. Her light brown hair was braided more neatly then any other, held in it's place by a plain white kercheif and by her thread magic. Instantly the others all became quiet. She was the youngest member, only added to their ranks the year before as old mistress Senile retired. And yet they respected her, because Gwen, their leader did, that and she was the most powerful mage in their ranks, trained by greats of the outside world.
Mostly Hope was cut off from the world, but even they knew who the greats of the world. Niko, Frostpine, Lark, and Rosethorn, her teachers, amoungst them. They had even heard of four young mages who could do near impossible things... Some of the more fanciful liked to believe she was a part of the legendary "Circle" quartet, but most believed the tales were naught but rumors and bad rumors at that.
"We have but three options if we wish for our people to live... first we could go to the Titans," a cry of outrage went up, even amoung the women there was a deep hatred for those barberic people, "they are known to have soemthing to cure anything. It's true we, meaning Kwaben, Oama, and I, when we came here brought a bit back,but the ingredents are yet unknown to even our greates mages. They might be reasonable to trade us something for it."
"Then again they might not." another woman said standing forward. She too brought down her hood. Unlike Snadry and the other women her hair wasn't braided and tied back by scarves of kercheifs, it was too short. Her black mane hung widly to her chin and was pulled half back by two barrets shaped like nigtngales, they were made by her ten-year-old son Tyson. She had a light brown eye color, that when caught in certain light seemed to flash a red. She was a half and inch taller then Sandry, but most people thought they were the same height.
"I agree Cecila. actually, but I wanted to know what the others think and to give them more options."
Cecila bent down and eyed Sandry blue eyes with her brown ones and whispered for only her to hear. "Why do I get the feeling that the other tow options are worse as then this one?"
Sandry shrugged and whispered back. "Depends on how you look at it.
"The second choice is to look for the magical sourse of Iveline's water." a hush settled over the women. No one had ever dared suggest such a thing. Sandry spoke of a source of life thier ancestors had written about all those years ago when Hope was first founded. The source of Iveline's water is said to be able to bring the dead back alive. It was more powerful then the Titan's "cure-all" medicine, because it could cure all. Thousands of their people had tried to find it all before and no one ever could. And none of them ever returned. Most called it blasphemy to even speaqk of it, because it was no longer Iveline's water, but sometjing much worse. It was called Le Desparte. The Desperate.
Then a laugh broke out. "Think about it for a minute. The Ancestors found it when they were more then ready to cross over, no one ever found it again, because they never needed it, but we need it now. Iveline help us, we need it now."
"Even if we could find it we don't have enough men to send out looking for it and besides it could take an unnumbered amount of supplies to get it." Gwen groaned. "No it's too dangerous for now. What is your third idea Sandry?"
Sandry's eyes flickered over the cloaked faces of the other women, she knew there was shock there and fear what was the next suggestion, but they shouldn't fear it, it should be she who does. "My third, and final,"
"Thank Iveline." one of the women mutterd to another too low for Sandry to make out who.
"...is to send someone for the medical experts Rosethorn and Crane of Winding Circle, if they can't find what is in the Titan Cure then nobody can." It hurt her to say the names of two people she cared about and she knew it would hurt more if they decided to bring them here to see them and work with them, as undoubtly Gwehn will make her do, because she knew they would bring Briar to help and, undoubtly, others who think she's dead.
Everyone was in shock, they expected her to say something crazy, not something so... sane. But why did she sound so sad?
"Anyway, we shouldn't decide on this without talking to the Men's council (A/N: like the women's council, but they're made of men and they don't have as much political power) Sandrilene, since it was your ideas that will give our brians mush to chew on why don't you go to the exits and have Julie or Suzannah send someone out and find Jake."
Sandry shrugged and stepped out of the ward, not even disrupting its' magic because hers was programmed in. She unbarred the door and unlocked the locks and stepped outside. The white room was actually a cottage set behind Gwen's three story red brick house. It was covered by dense foliage and trees, most people of Hope never knew it existed. Heaven knows Sandry didn't till she was offered the position.
Sandry quickly made her way out of the foliage and into Gwen's backyard. She could hear children's laughter coming from the patio were all the women's children sat and played. She went over and stood in the doorway. Her two four-year-olds sat togethjer holding indentical dolls made of soft fabrics. Besides them sat Cecial's youngest child five-year-old Patrick. Her oldest son, Tyson, sat at a nearby table craving as he watched over them, Sandry was sad to say Allah got out of her biting phase and into a pushing one. He had his mother's balck hair and eyes. His hair was cut close to his head, but it still managed to stand up in tufts. He wore green cotton britches and a plain white cotton shirt. Merri, who was Tyson's age, sat in another chair nearby and watched over a different group of children as she worked on her weaving skills. Her blond hair was braided like Sandry's and her black eyes were so focused on her work she didn't see her "mother" and teacher come in. She wore a unadorned green dress. Along the walls stood girls in their mid- to late- teens as theyw atched the going ons of the children, ready to step in should there be trouble.
"Mama!" Aoorie screamed causing the other children to look up and laugh as the petite woman was thrown backwards by the even smaller form of her daughter. Alllah, who was being strangely queit and submissive today, came up and threw her arms around her mother's legs.
Allah and Aoorie were beautiful little girls and indentical to their button noses. They had their mother's light brown hair, freckles that were sprinkled over their noses and cheeks, and beautiful eyes that switched from blue to green and every shade in between. Today their eyes were a sofy ocean blue. They wore white dresses like their mother that had roses embroidered on the hem in different shades of blue. Their hair was curled in tight spring curls and allowed to hang freely down. Unlike their mother they had their father's skin shade, a soft creamy brown.
"Are you done? Can we go home?" they questioned her hopefully. They hated her meetings more then anything, they loved to spend time with their doting mother.
"Not quite yet, but I have to go visit Julie and Suzannah. Want to came?" like everyone else in Hope, her daughters loved visiting Julie and Suzannah, though Sandry would be hard pressed to find anyone her daughters didn't like visiting.
"Yes!" like always they answered together.
Laughing she shrugged out of the hoaded cloak and tossed it over a chair that lay besides Merri, only then did she look up and smile at Sandry. "The girls and I are going for a walk. Watch that ok and make sure it doesn't get any child messes over it." Sandry shook her head, she had no idea why they wore white when they were all mothers and had children fromt he ages of one to eighteen who got into all sorts of messes.
She took one of her daughters' hands in each of her own and began to walk with them towards the entrance/exit. They made it down the crowed warm streets talking lightly of the girls' preschool classes at the school. Sandry made out the group of men before either of her daughters. She gribbed each hand ligthly and used the hand that was holding Aoorie's to point ahead. They saw them and knew as she did that it was Jake's group that had returned fromt he frozen tundra outside their protected wallls. The girls let out a happy shout, because a member of Jake's hunting squad was their all-time favorite male, and "brother", Joseph, and ran ahead of their mother. Sandry caught up with them in two bounding lopes and from thenon she ran only a step ahead of the girls.
When Sandry and her daughters reached the group she pulled one of them into a hug. Even through the large furs she could tell it was her foster son Joseph. "Ah Sandry," he moaned once before hugging the woman back. Letting go of Joseph she quickly and efficently unwrapped the fur scarves from around his face adn took the over large coat off of him.
She said, as one of the men, an exposed to the elements one, was wrapped in soft warmed blankets and was being led away, "I'm glad you made it back from your first hunting trip safetly, Joesph." She released him and her two little girls threw themselves at him much like they did when their mother first returned from the meeting. She stepped up to the largest man there, who was boardering a good 6"5. "Hail, Jake, the wonderous man who can read the minds of the greats," she joked, giving him a mock curtesty.
"If we were in Namorn, or another country like that, you would be hung for your imperitance." Like Sandry he was orignally from the outside world. He began to unwrap himself from the mountains of fur. First his hair became viewed, or what little their was of it. His hair line had resided quite nicely, but unlike most men he didn't try to hide it with a comb over. Tufts of black sprinkled heavily with gray stood from the sides of his head. Like his height suggested he was a big man, thick waisted, broad shouldered, and heavy, but he couldn't be considered fat by even the most pessimistic person. He wore brown breeches under the coats, furlines boots, and a brown shirt and tunic. He was Gwen's husband for the past forty odd years.
"Your telling me," she muttered remembering her misadventures in Namorn. He raised a salt-and-pepper eyebrow at her, but said nothing otherwise. Everyone had mostly gotten used to Sandry's sudden world-wide view adn mysterious hints of her past. "But I'm being completly serious Jake, you do have amazing abilities to be where your needed when your needed. I was just coming to send someone after you."
"Boys," he called back to the men who were slowly getting out of their furs, "take the meat to the cold houses, me and Sandry have some things to discuss." Some 'Ayes' of agreement were heard as they headed back the way Sandry came. "Go on, Sandrilene." he waved her on.
"Girls, stay nearby," she reminded her daughters unnesscarilly as Joseph was there and would keep them in line. "Days after you left a new disease sprung up, it hits the young, no, no... not my babies age, thank Iveline," she quickly told him when he glanced worridly back at the twins, he was their grandpa like Gwen was their grandma. "A little older, between the ages of six and nine. It eats at their senses, but it doesn't kill them. It just destroys their senses. Amasing really, never heard of suh a thing." she muttered to herself before continuing. "We women have been meeting nearly twenty-four/seven and we think we've come up with several ways that might help," quickly she told him about her three possibilities excluding that theyb were her ideas in her hurry.
"The first one, defiantly a no, because this disease is probably magical and I don't doubt from the Titans. Second one, Gwen had a good point we don't have enough people nor the time, not to mention, again, it might be the Titans hoping we'll do just that. The third, yes the third is a real possibilty. I had heard of Rosethorn and Crane the last time I was up and about fourteen years ago, found a cure for a disease called blue pox, correct?"
"Yes, it sprung out when I was ten and had almost literally jsut begun my mage training. I was a student at Winding Circle, I remember the fear and the urgency in everyone. Turns out it was caused by a penny-pinching woman." Sandry shook her head in disgust. "But is it really wise to bring strangers here?" she couldn't help but ask.
"Wasn't it your idea?" she nodded. "Yes, it might be a risk, but if we took a risk when we brought you in and when they brought me in.
"You had no choice!" she laughed. "What harm could a pregnant woman do after all? Allah, Aoorie, be good girls and fetch Mma her robe." the girls skipped ahead, Joseph a step behind.
They had reached Gwen's house, the other members of the Men's Council stood just beyond near the foliage waiting for their leader, Jake, already in their robes. "If you had been any other woman i wouldn't doubt a woman in labor could do anything, but you are you and you are a stange one. No they are our only hope." and he left her to change into his robes. Black as midnight, because unlike the women they wore black.
ooooooooooooooooo
"So we've all agreed?" Gwen asked the council some odd hours later. It was nearing dinner time, they had missed missed lunch and some of them hadn't even had breakfast. Everyone was tired and hungrey and glad they finally reached a deasion. "Who will go to fetch the tewo mages of Winding Circle?"
"I'll go," a certain petite woman offered stepping forward.
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present time; Briar-
"How the hell are we going to find her?" Evvy cursed from where she sat on Moonstream's desk. It was the middle of the night, a night just like the one where Sandry went missing. Dark and moonless. Everyone, meaning Briar, Daja, Rosethorn, Lark, Frostpine, Niko, Crane, Skyfire, Moonstream, and Evvy, was seated in various spots on the rather sparten office of the superior dedicate of Winding Circle. The walls were white washed like everyhting else here and the floors were bare. Because the deicates practised life without the use of most wordly goods the walls were bare and the few shelves that were here were covered with only books holding healing spells. The chairs that were brought in for the meeting were straight backed and uncomfortable. Most of them were crowded around the stone fireplace that was left of Moonstream's giant oak desk. The desk was covered in papers of all sorts and an inkwell with a quill still hanging haphazardly half-in, half-out. The room was lite by the fireplace and two of Tris and Daja's globes that hung on the walls.
Niko, Lark, Rosethorn, Frostpine, and Evvy sat in chairs around the fireplace, their backs to the room at large as they tried to warm up from their, walk or ride here. Evvy and Niko rode here as they both now had their own living arrangementts in the city. The others all walked. Briar and Daja had been here since they heard Liam's tale and no longer cared how cold the night was. Skyfire and Crane were... well, they were them and they were both heated up by the idea of someone threatning Sandry's life. It's true they weren't always her teacher, only at odd spots here and there, but they both cared dearly for her.
"But I wander why Sandry never came back." Niko murmered from his spot leaning forward and warming his hands.
"Amnesia?" Rosethorn growled. She had honestly felt Sandry was dead. Hell, she hoped Sandry had amnesia so she wouldn't have to hurt the girl.
"I'm more worried about what he meant when he said, 'plus something you didn't even know about'. What did he mean?" Moonstream muttered.
"We could sit here for hours discussing all the high points and low points of what Liam said, but the truth of the matter is, we have no idea whether or not Liam was telling the truth." Lark pointed out, now years later after Sandry's disapperance she was calmer about it, but still her memory left a soft tender spot on her. "He might or might not know where she is."
"We went over this hours ago Lark. It's true that we don't know, that's why we're thinking of ways to find her," Skyfire reminded the dedicate lightly, "Briar, you said you've had men looking out for her for years, correct?" he nodded from his spot in a chair before Moonstream's desk. He sat there looking like a school boy in trouble for putting his female classmate's ponytail in ink. "Since they never found her we can conclude she's in a hard to reach place."
"Or she doesn't want to be found," Evvy said to the room at large, picking up a samll glass paper weight adn tossing it from hand to hand. "Sandry is know for her invisiblality spells. She did make those veils that render someone invisible, correct? So, who are we to say she never made up a spell, like an illusion, that changes ones apperance. Your men could walked by her a thousand times over, talked to her, and never have known it."
"Evumeimei Dingzai you're not helping!" Rosethorn scolded, reaching back and clipping the girl on the top of her head with her fist.
"Nice theory Evvy, but there is one little hole in it." Briar said, taking the paper weight out of her hands and placing it were it belonged, on a small stack of papers.
"What?" she smrked, believing fully in herself and her theory.
"If Sandry could disguise herself however did Liam discover her and besides Daja, Tria, and I know Sandry's magic. Where ever she is, she isn't using it. Personally I think Rosethorn has it right.
"That's..." Daja started to interrupt, but was interrupted by sudden singing from Evvy.
"That's it!" she said, as she finished a verse and looked around at everyone who was staring at her in shock, like she had suddenly turned crazy, which in a way she had. "Do you remember the night sandryy disappeared?" everyone nodded. "Lark, Rosethorn, you know how you gave me that crazy punishment for leaving the market place, correct?" The two discpline dedicates nodded still dumbstruck. "Moonstream you walked in on me singing while I was waxing the floors."
"That song you were singing just now... it's the same one?"
"Yes, Sandry taught me and Glaki it It's a tale..."
"...about a woman who was beaten and killed by her husband." Moonstream finished for her. "...a woman who rose from the depths of the sea to protect her two children. And who swore since then to always protect a woman in trouble."
"Her name was Yin-Yin and she lived in Yoshimiro. Yoshimiro still has a shrine that only maiden's can enter that is said to host her spirit and is said to known the location of every woman or child in danger."
"We have Glaki, Glaki could go in and find out." Crane said. "We'll need to send another in with her though, it's to dangerous for her to go alone. Evvy?"
Embarresed she slid from the desk and paced to the only window that faced in the vague direction of Dicipline cottage. "I haven't... technically... been a maiden for a year."
"How about Sengal. That new novice at the water temples. Isn't she like sixteen and, more importantly, a mage." Lark said
"She'll work, I'll..." Moonstream had begun before being interuppted by a quick efficent knock on the door. Who would be knocking at the door to her office at thos hour? "Come in!" she called crossing her fingers under her desk that it wasn't another emergancy.
The thick, wide door opened slowly and in stepped a dark clothed woman. A very petite woman. "Excuse me, I was told I could find Rosethorn and Crane here." her voice carried lightly over the stunned group.
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I got this chapter out later then I planned, but at least i still got it out. this is seven pages, be proud of me. also i wrote this in one day. yah, me! (London moment)
please review