a/n: from here on out, the pieces are unrelated unless otherwise indicated. They have simply been grouped under the same theme.
Six People Who Watched Crane and Rosethorn
By icecreamlova
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Professionals
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If someone had told Briar, just before Blue Pox broke out, that Rosethorn and Crane would work side by side without muttering death threats, he would have laughed in the unfortunate person's face. (He wouldn't threaten them: Rosethorn could do that fine by herself.)
Which was why he was surprised, to say the least, to find them bent over the same well of essence, with the same rack of ingredients further up the bench, pursuing the same task with single-minded fervor.
The room was the quietest in the greenhouse, and Briar's ears were sharp, but their heads were bent so close he couldn't hear what puzzle they discussed. Their hands moved across the bench, Rosethorn's palms open to accept a tiny crystal jar in the exact moment Crane offered; Crane turning to look at some symbol Rosethorn sketched across the desk, even before her fingers touched the wood and started drawing.
When Crane returned to his desk, Briar was astounded to realize that he had come and gone without a single argument – as though Crane and Rosethorn were street urchins, who hadn't the luxury of letting emotions get in the way of their tasks.
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A View From the Window
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It's an absolutely disgusting hour to be awake, but Sandry has been sleepless since before midnight devotions. Sweat rolls mercilessly along her temples, down her neck and back, clinging to her legs; she gives up and rolls out of bed.
She paces to the window and peers out, wishing Tris hadn't gone, wishing Briar and Rosethorn weren't about to leave… and nearly takes a step back in surprise. There, right outside, stand Rosethorn and Crane, silver light making their different colored robes appear the same deep gray. Their feet fade into the darkness, but she can see their faces so clearly.
They're not speaking. They're not even looking at each other. Sandry still knows, somehow, that meanings lie thickly in the still air. This is a private moment, but curiosity has always been her weakness, so she watches as they run hands down the stems of plants, pluck leaves here and there, and do not say a thing.
What Sandry finds strangest is that, otherwise, they give every indication of being caught in a conversation: heads turning this way or that, an arch of an eyebrow rising beneath the silver moon, lips curving into crescent smiles…
It's what the children of Discipline do every day.
Finally, Crane's long fingers unwrap, gently, from around the stem of one of Rosethorn's tomato plants. "To think I never knew…"
"Now you'll have no excuse for being a ninny if another epidemic strikes," Rosethorn says, still touching her bean plants' stalks. "You'll be able to reach me through the plants."
Crane shakes his head. "This is ridiculous. I should be glad I no longer need to argue with you." The soft quality in his voice says otherwise.
They stand on opposite sides of Rosethorn's garden, but when Crane runs a hand across her blooming vines, tracing their silvery stems, Rosethorn shivers, as though he'd touched her. Her hands cup the bean leaves, and he is still, very still, eyes closed, breathing heavy.
Sandry finally turns away, not disappointed that her window into their conversation has vanished. She is, instead, strangely glad that all they could bear to say aloud was spoken somewhere beyond her hearing.
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Comas
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My favorite part of my work is doing the mending! Maybe others will tease me for it… they can't understand why a teenage boy will do 'women's work', but, well. I sort of kind of just stay away from them? I mean, yes, I stay away from them and take pride in my magic. Yes.
When I'm doing something busy, I can watch other people: they think I'm not paying attention. (Lady Sandrilene laughs when I tell her this, for some reason). I would never spy on – erm, watch I mean, purposefully or accidentally – Dedicate Rosethorn, though! She's terrifying! You know, the first thing she said to me when she arrived back from the east?
"Touch my bean runners and I'll hang you from the well."
Lark and Lady Sandrilene assure me that she says this to everyone. I'm not convinced: I give her a wide berth.
I give her an even wider berth when Dedicate Crane visits. (I thought I'd be safe from him here, but no such luck.) She raised an eyebrow when she heard how I accidentally unraveled the black embroidery of his habit, congratulated me. Then she said I'd have to show my face a few times just to vex Crane. I know you're supposed to obey your teachers but actually, I sort of just want to be left alone. So every time I see them in the garden, kneeling on the dirt and arguing over plants, or… not arguing, I run.
I'm me that way. No shame in running.
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Gossip
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Lark has always been observant. She notices discrepancies before anyone else: her mother's coughing fits, the lawmen filtering through the crowds watching her troupe tumble, Rosethorn's thoughtful stare when she watches Crane pass.
Lark doesn't subscribe to gossip; it hurt her far too much. If she had taken gossip to mind when she first came, she would have left Winding Circle by now, in tears, as the novices looked down their noses. She wouldn't have met Rosethorn.
That's why, when she sees the way Rosethorn and Crane take long paths to avoid each other, she waits in the Earth Temple dormitories for her friend to return. She asks. "Did you love him?"
Rosethorn stops, stares, and finally, with the honesty she shows her closest friend, answers, "Yes." She doesn't volunteer any more.
With that answer in mind, what Lark doesn't have to ask is if Rosethorn still does.
She finds that she can accept that part of Rosethorn, if Rosethorn ever catches onto what Lark feels.
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Our Mistakes
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When the time came for Tris to leave for Lightsbridge, each member of the family had their own advice.
"Keep yourself healthy," Daja said.
"Try to make friends?" Sandry asked.
"Keep from sparking," Briar said, with a grin, as Tris got impatient from all the talk.
Rosethorn wasn't like her siblings. She gave advice only once, and the tone of her voice made Tris stop and listen.
"When I was at Lightsbridge," Rosethorn said quietly, "I lost myself there. My friendship with Crane, my sense of belonging. It took years to get back, but eventually, when I remembered that Crane wasn't just an idiot, and that Niko had studied at Lightsbridge, I remembered the good as well as the bad."
Rosethorn didn't say any more. Tris didn't think she'd need the advice in this way – not when she loved books – but she did remember the way Rosethorn and Crane stomped on each others' toes, during her first days at Lightsbridge.
Tris knew, then, that if she ever found herself lost in the crowd and Lightsbridge, she wouldn't bury it like Rosethorn did. She thought that might have been the moral of Rosethorn's story.
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Appearances
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This is what the novices of Winding Circle see, when they come upon Crane and Rosethorn arguing:
Two of their teachers fighting bitterly. They despise each other, with fierce rivalry, and do not care who know it.
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When Rosethorn walks over to Crane, she is looking for a fight.
She stares down at his experiments with a keen eye and reckless attitude – his attitude – and tells him he's doing things wrong.
There's something interesting about the tilt of his head, then, something considering in the look of his eye: she likes it. She missed it for a long time, but the Blue Pox brought them back together.
"You have no method," he sniffs. "I'm going through them systematically."
"You'll never get through everything that way," Rosethorn says sharply, leaning closer and watching the light flicker on behind his eyes.
"Better than missing out because of over-reliance on instinct," Crane sniffs, and his eyes widen.
She's leaned close to whisper, "Really? I've always thought instinct was… very useful."
"Rosethorn," he points out, taking a step back and gesturing expansively, "we're in a glasshouse. The students are watching."
She can see them in the corner of her eye, trying to hear through the sea of glass separating them. "Then," she murmurs, "we'd better put on a show."
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Let this, they whisper to one another, be a lesson: never let your work consume you, or you might lose your friends.
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Well?