A/N: I haven't read Melting Stones in a really long time, so if I screwed something up, let me know. Or, you know, call it artistic license. Also, this is not the story I set out to write at all. Something shifted somewhere and suddenly everything was different.
Growing Strong
by Ace Ryn Knight
Briar had expected things in Summersea to change while he and his sisters were in Namorn that summer. Change came to all things with time, he knew, even a season away would alter the balance he'd left behind. At most he expected to find Evvy chafing under proper instruction from Winding Circle dedicates with Rosethorn at her wits end.
She was so accustomed to being a singular, stand-alone pupil and he'd worried about how she might get on with others who shared not only her age, but her power as well. To some degree he thought it might do her some good, force her into putting off new, less prickly growth. Somewhere between leaving Chammur and their time in Gyongxe she had closed herself off from those around her, all save her little friend Luvo. It was understandable, they had all faced such horrible things—been forced to do horrible things in return, and they were each entitled to deal with those scars as they saw fit. He'd seen the beginnings of that growth before they left, hints of that old spark begging to crack through her stubborn shell.
Coming home, finding Evvy in the white robes of a temple novice sort of felt like being uprooted, one moment he was sturdily content in his soil, all his limbs and leaves and blooms neatly arranged, the next he's wavering and falling. It didn't make sense. Peppery, fierce, spit-in-your-eye-if-you-cross-her Evvy who had so loved the freedom of doing as she pleased when she pleased how she pleased, was dedicating her life to the temple.
Were his life a garden and those around him the flowers and plants within it, she would have been the fountain at its heart—unique, unchanging, and unmovable. Only now it seems the fountain's not only been moved, it's changed its shape entirely. Where and what it is now, he couldn't strictly say, though he aimed to find out.
"Well," he said, leaning against the squat stone well behind Discipline cottage, "Start talking, or I swear no force on this earth will be able to stop me from stringing you up in this well."
Evvy merely rolled her eyes, a small twist to her lips, "Pahan," she chided with a sigh, coming to lean next to him, "that would never work. The stones wouldn't let you. They like me."
"I have plenty of ways of making those that don't like me dance to my tune." He promised her. "Ask any Namornese mage you see, they'll tell you."
"About that-"
"No, my stories come later. Yours comes now. Spill."
Evvy sighed again, twisting against the well to gaze into its shadowed depths. Her hands sought the mortared grooves at the rim for a moment before steadying. "I went too deep," she began, "I- I almost lost myself, several times, actually. The last time, I almost didn't come back at all."
Briar stilled, heart stuttering in his chest.
Briar? His sisters' mental voices were concerned, having felt his alarm.
I'm fine. He told them. Stay inside. He added, seeing Sandry peering at him from the back window, and slammed the connection closed.
"Go on, then." He said, nudging Evvy's shoulder with his own.
Her voice was thick when she spoke again, "I thought about letting myself go," she confessed, "I really did, when I led those volcano spirits out to sea. Their whole purpose was to die. They led me around the island for days, trying to get free so they could- so that I could- and I had to lead them away. I tried trap them first, but they got free and I realized I made things worse. And there was a girl, just a little girl and her sister and—I tried, Pahan, Luvo and the other islands did the real work, I just-"
"I know." Briar said, hearing enough. She wasn't crying, She shook a little, and when her eyes met his, they gleamed wetly, but she did not cry. Straightening he gathered her in his arms, which she sagged into gratefully.
"I know." He repeated.
"I don't want to make things worse anymore," she said against his chest, "I want to make things better."
Briar pressed a kiss to the top of her white headcloth. "I know." He said again.
"You're not…mad?"
As long as you're here for me to be mad at? No. He thought. "Not at all."
"Not even for running away from Rosethorn?"
Briar shook his head, "Not even that. I imagine she was more than mad enough for the both of us."
Evvy drew back to look at him more clearly, dark eyes worried, "I thought you'd wrap me up in your sneeze-blossoms the minute I said I'd caused Rosethorn worry. What did they do to you up there in Namorn? "
Briar rolled his eyes. "Nothing that can't be undone if you're going to keep pestering me about how mad I should be, I promise."
Evvy snorted, shoving at him playfully, "You're just a big softie, pahan. Don't lie."
A rose, he thought, at last, watching her dark eyes light up. His great, stone fountain, the center of his life-garden had shifted shape completely. There, where it had once stood in its pride of place, was a rose newly sprouted, though to be certain it was a rose unlike any that had come before, and sure to surpass even those that would follow after. It's stem was glossy black obsidian, smooth and lean; its base was nourished in faintly gleaming garnets, smoky quartz and bits of jade. Diamond-bright budding blooms gathered on its arms as with slim, mottled grey leaves, it reached toward the sun; growing strong.
A/N: Review? Even if it's only to complain about how painfully schmoopy/fluffy/out of character something is, I still love feedback.