Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing….maybe the plot….yeah…that's it though… oh, and the poem. Tamora Pierce owns Briar and co., while J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter and co.

The moon was just beginning to fade from sight as the sun rose above the eastern horizon as three distinct cries were heard from the window of an upper level room in the Healing House of Hajra. Two were distinctly babies' tears, weak and warbling new cries that had never fallen on mortal ears before; the third was that of the exhausted, happy mother who had just spent the past day and a half bringing the two tiny boys into this world.

Healer Clarisha bent over to hand the sweating woman her sons. After carefully depositing her burden safely into the new mother's arms, Clarisha stepped back and asked the question that all the other healers would be pestering her about later, "Mage Alda, what are you going to name them?"

Peering closely into the identical bundles of blankets she held in her arms, Moniquena Alda thought for a moment, and then looked back at the Healer standing next to her cot. She smiled reassuringly at Clarisha and replied, "This little one," she said jiggling the bundle on her right arm, "with emerald eyes is Haresh, and this little one," she shifted her attention to the bundle on her left, "with jade eyes is Kherroch. My tiny jewels…"

In unison, both boys giggled once, and then started to wail. Moniquena looked up at the healer, "I think my boys are hungry. Do you think we could have a little privacy please?" Nodding, Clarisha turned and left the room. "Well little ones, who's first?"

An hour later, both boys were fed, changed, and tucked safely into their respective basinets, each labeled with their names written in the elegant calligraphy that was a symbol of the power and wealth of their mother. Moniquena stood in the space between the two and looked proudly at them. Powerful mage that she was, she never felt the vision coming. Gasping, she clung to the edges of the baskets as each boy's future flashed before her eyes. However, her grip on the basinets also put her into direct contact with her boys, their power amplifying hers until the near future was hidden from her and all she could see was the boys' lives in ten years. She saw her Haresh lonely, hungry, living in a tiny room under what looked like stairs. She saw her Kherroch stare glumly at X-marked hands, locked in a cell with twelve other boys.

With a shaking cry, she wrenched herself out of the vision. "Oh Goddess, is that the lives they will lead? No, I won't let that happen. I promise you, my sons, that you will never know those lives I saw, even if I have to send you away. I love you both too much to keep you if I am to doom you to that." Crying, she reached into the basket Healer Clarisha had used during the births and took out a knife. Cutting into her palm, she began to weave a spell spoken of only in legends.

Search for the One,

Hear the ripping.

The fabric of time and space

Enter the past,

The otherworld,

The future

Search for the One,

Travel through the universes,

From time known to time unknown

Follow nothing

Look at reality

Through another's eyes.

Search for the One.

Blood dripped to the floor, but instead of forming a crimson puddle, a vivid green circle appeared. As the green color of the portal drifted to the sides, a kneeling young woman came into view, with bright red hair and eyes as green as little Haresh's. Her lips were moving, and tears were streaming down her face, but no sounds came through the portal. Moniquena looked closely and saw the reason for this stranger's despair. Clutched in her arms were two bundles, much like those ensconced in the baskets to either side of her, but unlike Kherroch and Haresh, they were completely still.

There was a hopelessness about the young mother that seemed to call out to Moniquena. The portal would not have opened to this woman had she not been worthy, but Moniquena wanted to be sure. A door opened to the left of where the mother knelt. A tall man with dark brown hair entered. Moniquena started to shake. He was the mirror image of her late husband, the father of her babies. Yes, her boys would be safe with them, Moniquena was sure of that.

Reaching into her magic to open a second portal, not a just portal of viewing, but a portal of sending, she realized how depleted her magic was. The vision and the opening of the first portal had nearly drained her. She should stop, and wait until her magic was restored. Moniquena searched through the nearly forgotten basket and took out some clean linen that had not been used during the birth. However, before she could finish bandaging her hand, an urgency filled her. Suddenly, she was desperate to do anything to get her boys to that couple, to keep them safe from whatever it was that forced them into those lonely, miserable lives.

Removing the strip of linen she had already wrapped around her hand, she again took up the knife and sliced it across her palm, opening an even deeper cut. She repeated that motion on her other hand. Letting the blood drip on the floor where the original portal was, she reopened it, making it more powerful, and stable enough to not hurt Haresh and Kherroch. Keeping a careful eye on her magic, she directed the portal to the now deserted nursery.

Cautiously, she took up Haresh's basket and pushed it through the portal. As she did this, Moniquena noticed her power take a massive hit as her son's power separated from her own as it crossed through the very fabric of reality. She was tapping into her life-force, scraping up the very last amount of strength she had to keep the portal open in order to send Kherroch through. However, before she could maneuver Kherroch's basket to the mouth of the portal, a second vision took control of her attention, one that took even more of her dwindling strength. Had a healer looked in at this time, they would have watched in horror as the once beautiful young woman grew haggard and spindly, almost frail, her very life pouring into the violent bout of foresight. They would have seen her face turn pale and horrified, as her vision showed her the near future that had been hidden from her earlier, how the portal she opened would separate the boys forever, would drain her magic to the point of extinguishing it, would send her to an early grave, leaving her four year old Kherroch on his own in the cruel streets of Deadman's District. She saw how her Harresh would be targeted by an evil man in his new home because of his foreign and unknown power, saw how his adopted parents were murdered before he was even past his second birthday, saw how he would grow up in that tiny room under the stairs without affection.

Those same healers would have seen her wrench herself from the vision, sobbing, to take up her remaining boy and disappear into the night, knowing that she was the one to doom them to those lives. As it were, there were no healers around to witness the flight of the now powerless mage, and the cries of shock and distress were many and loud the next morning as they discovered that Moniquena Alda, the most powerful seer in the entire known world, disappeared, leaving behind one empty basket and a pool of dark, crimson blood, never to be seen again.

A/N… Did anyone notice the significance of Briar and Harry's mom's name? If you didn't, that's okay, it's kinda obscure, and probably only makes sense to me because of my distinct lack of sanity. I wanted her to have a name meaning farsighted, or something along those lines. So, Alda- the last name of the actor that played Hawkeye Pierce and Moniquena- sounds kinda like Mohicans (the main character of the book, The Last of the Mohicans, was named Hawkeye), well okay, it doesn't really sound like it, but use your imagination. Basically, it's a really really roundabout way to (hopefully) un-cliché-like give the name of a mage meaning. Plus, even though she's powerful, that doesn't make her wise in the use of that power. Personally, I think I made her a bit of a moron, but maybe I'll explain why she was so hasty later…

Like it? Hate it? Think it should be infected with a virus so severe it will crash my computer forever in order to keep me from writing more? Let me know!