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Sandrilene fa Toren

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"Ow!" Briar cried. "Be careful with those daggers!"

"They're tiny pins," Sandy said. "And if you would just hold still, you might not get pricked so much!"

She shot her brother a glare before returning to her stitching. At twelve, poor wiry Briar was no bigger than his sisters, and therefore served as the perfect dress model for Sandry's creations.

"In case you haven't noticed, Duchess I'm a boy," he said. "We fidget, and frolic, and fight, but we do not sit still, especially not to wear a dress. "

"I can't sew it and wear it at the same time. If you pull out all my basting, you will regret it," Sandry warned, as another pin pricked him, this time on purpose. Briar shouted out again, and she sighed. "Will you give it a rest?!"

"Only if you promise to be careful," Briar said, agreeable at last. Sandry went back to work. The dress was pink, and very formal, something she would wear when her Uncle's sons visited next month. She didn't tell Briar, but in this particular shade of pink, his skin glowed very becomingly. She pictured Briar in the dress and a wig, curtsying and dancing at a high society ball. The thought was highly amusing, and it made her giggle.

"What're you laughing at?" he drawled. Sandry sobered, but did not answer him. Using her magic to continue stitching without pricking her brother, Sandry became absorbed in her task. She didn't notice when Briar began to look longingly out the open window, or when he invited a vine from a climbing rose to come in and visit him.

As Sandry circled beneath Briar, working now on the dress' hem, the tendril tickled his face and hand. She did not see the tiny thorns that picked at his skin, and his face brightening as Briar decided to seize the opportunity for revenge and relief from his current task.

Under his direction, the rose vine reached towards the distracted Sandry's backside. When the thorns pricked her, she yelped and jumped up.

"Briar Moss! You'll be sorry!" she said, unfastening her dress from her brother. Carefully, he hopped out of her dress, wearing only hid own breeches. He started to pull his shirt back over his head, and Sandry beckoned to the cloth, so that it slowly unwove itself.

"Come on, Duchess, it was only a bit of fun!" Sandry carefully laid her dress across a table.

"I'll show you fun!" she cried, taking off after her brother. They passed Rosethorn and Lark, Daja and Frostpine, and Tris and Niko, all coming in for the evening meal. Sandry stopped and joined them, a self-satisfied look on her face. As Briar kept running, out the door, past the gate, and down the road, the weave in his breeches gradually came undone, the strings slowly inching their way back to Discipline Cottage, and Sandry.

That'll teach him to mess with me, Sandry told her sisters over dinner.