A/N: This is fairly OOC -- I futzed around slightly with the timeline and took fairly serious liberties with the number and gender of Daine and Numair's children.

Disclaimer: Any characters you recognize were not invented by me. Thank you to Tamora Pierce for letting me play with them.

Homecoming

Midsummer at Pirate's Swoop, Tortall

"Sarra, wait for me! You're going too fast!"

Sarralyn Salmalín, known to family and friends as Sarra, slowed to a trot, then stopped and turned around, arms folded in unconscious imitation of her father, to wait for her sister to catch up.

"I think you were using horse legs," eight-year-old Miri accused.

"Do these look like horse legs to you?" Sarra demanded indignantly. Indeed, her sturdy legs, clad in sensible breeches, were indisputably human. "I'm just faster than you is all."

"Just wait till I'm taller," muttered her sister. She wouldn't likely have long to wait, Sarra thought – Miri had inherited their father's lanky build, and had been threatening to overtop her more slightly built elder sister almost since birth.

"When you're taller, I will give myself horse legs," she retorted. "Or maybe I'll just be a bird all the time, and then you'll never catch me. Now, come on! I thought we were in a hurry?"

And they took off again, knees and elbows pumping, glossy black plaits flying, whooping and hollering for the sheer joy of the sound. They ran along the beach, then scrambled up the bluff and hit the ground running again at the top, up the long rise toward the fort of Pirate's Swoop.

They were best friends and fierce rivals, as was only to be expected: they were, after all, two of the most famous children in the kingdom, and certainly the most unusual. Their father was the most powerful mage in most of the world, their mother – thus far – the world's only Wildmage; they had grown up shuttling between the Tower, the keep at Pirate's Swoop, and the Royal Palace in Corus, on intimate terms with everyone from the King and Queen to the Queen's Riders' ponies, and privileged to address the formidable King's Champion as "Aunt Alanna"; and both had been born with powerful magic that made them formidable – and highly unusual – in their own right. Few could come close to matching them, and so each strove constantly to outdo the other; and when any sort of danger threatened, they were quick and stalwart to each other's defence. Not that many were eager to tangle with a child who could put on a wolf's teeth or a bear's claws, or to take on one who had started fires in her parents' bedroom as a toddler.

But this morning they were, more than anything else, two little girls who had not seen their parents fornearly threemonths.

"Last one to the stables is a stinky wyvern!" shouted Sarra as she pulled ahead.

"No faaaaiiiir!" howled Miri, no more than two paces behind her.

Then Sara stopped, quite suddenly, looking up into the sky; Miri cannoned into her; and they fell in a tangle of arms and legs and plaits and boots on the damp grass.

"I heard something," said Sarra unnecessarily.

"From who?" asked Miri.

"You mean 'From whom,'" Sarra corrected absently, listening. She ignored her sister's scowl, the one that meant Don't we get enough of that from Da?, and went on, "from the horses. And the birds – and – Miri, guess what?" she grabbed the younger girl's hands, grinning widely. "We thought it was just Da coming home today, but Ma's coming, too! The gulls saw her flying in and talked to her – she's nearly here! Come on!"

They scrambled to their feet, laughing with joy, and ran on, hand in hand.

—

Numair Salmalín, bone-weary and feeling every one of his forty-eight years, dismounted and trudged up the hill alongside his horse. Tall piebald Waver – successor to the patient Spots – was a good, tolerant horse, and had borne with him all the way from Port Legann, and Numair felt they both deserved a rest from his abysmal horsemanship, which decades of travel around Tortall had utterly failed to improve.

Besides, a mage had to preserve some dignity, and no one knew better than Numair how undignified he looked on horseback.

Raising his head and shaking a hank of grey-streaked black hair out of his eyes, he spotted the top of the Tower and grinned. The expression made him look twenty years younger – not that anyone was looking – and the emotions that had provoked it made him quicken his step.

As he topped the rise, he heard childish laughter; his grin widened, and he broke into a run. "Sarra!" he called. "Miri! Where are you?"

He heard a door bang open and shut somewhere in the warren of stables and storerooms under the fort, and the piping voices grew louder. All at once two small figures erupted from the main gate – paused, scanning the horizon – spotted him and took off running. "Da! Da!" they shrieked.

Numair knelt on the damp grass and held out his long arms. The girls barrelled into him as though trying to knock him down – Sarra first, but Miri only a breath behind her. Two pairs of little arms circled his neck; two dark heads burrowed into his shoulders; two rapid heartbeats thudded against his chest.

"Sweetlings, I've missed you so," he whispered, kissing their hair.

Two flushed faces were raised to his and two pairs of blue-grey eyes, smoky and beseeching, studied him. "You don't have to go away again, Da, do you?" asked Miri. "You were gone too long," said Sarra.

"No, my darlings," said Numair. "Not for a long time, I hope."

Then he stood up, looked down at them, and adopted an expression of shock. "Miri, you little beast, have you grown another two hands while I was away?"

—

They entered the courtyard of the Swoop in triumph, Sarra mounted on Waver and Miri on her father's broad shoulders.

"Aunt Alanna! Uncle George!" Miri bellowed. "He's here! We found him!"

"Was I lost?" Numair asked Sarra mildly. She grinned at him and he tugged gently on one of her plaits. In response she reached over and tweaked his nose, blue-grey eyes dancing with mischief. Just like her Ma, he thought.

As if reading his thoughts, Sara said, "And guess what, Da? Isn't it wonderful? Ma's coming home today, too!"

"She is, is she?" the tall mage smiled, and his dark eyes glowed. "I'm delighted to hear it."

—

"I hate to separate you," Jon had said. "You're so much more effective together. But you can't be in two places at once, and the situation—"

"We understand, Jon." This was Numair, his arm round her shoulders, holding her close to his side. "And this is our job. You needn't waste breath rationalizing your decision."

"Yes," she'd agreed, hating it too, but understanding the necessity. "Just let's get on with it. The sooner we leave, the sooner we'll have both problems sorted out and be back home." She'd looked up at her husband then, meeting his gaze meaningfully. "You know how the girls fret when we're away too long."

And Numair had nodded, understanding perfectly what she really meant: I'm not sure how long I can bear to be separated from them and from you.

After that it had been much like any other such journey, for a while: they had broken the news to the girls, who had reacted typically, Miri stoic, Sarra tearful; had handed them over to Alanna, with flurries of hugs and kisses and the usual dire warnings against tormenting their aunt with any form of magic; had packed their gear in companionable silence, just as they had for nearly twenty years; had collected Kit (who was to travel with Daine), and saddled Storm and Waver, and ridden out together.

And then had come the dreaded moment when she must turn north, toward the Scanran border and the mysterious illness afflicting all manner of animals in the northern fiefs, and he go south to investigate the magical troubles along the southern coastal road.

She'd touched his cheek, thinking how tired and sad he looked, and told him, "Stay out of trouble."

And he had smiled at her and held her a little tighter and said, as he always did, "I'm getting too old for this. I'm going to retire and go back to juggling."

"Goddess bless, Numair," she'd whispered.

"And all the gods go with you, Magelet."

—

"She's coming, she's coming!" Sarra cried, bouncing up and down in her excitement. They didn't need to ask how she knew; there was a mouse in her pocket and a sparrow on each shoulder, and half a dozen of George's dogs trailed after her.

All other pursuits forgotten, Daine's friends and family, human and not, streamed toward the gate of the Swoop to greet her.

—

Veralidaine Salmalín, who had never got out of the habit of thinking of herself as Daine Sarrasri, frowned and squinted up the hill. There was a crowd in front of the gates of Pirate's Swoop – why? What was going on?

The gulls, the sparrows, and a pair of ospreys were the first to greet her, and they reassured her that all was well. Your stork-man is here, and your chicks, the female osprey told her, and Daine felt her face stretching into a delighted grin. Of course they had told her in Corus that Sarra and Miri had gone to the Swoop with Alanna, but she hadn't thought to find Numair here as well. "Did you hear that, Kit?" she asked the dragonet. "The whole family!"

Kit whistled and trilled her joy.

A shrieking whirlwind separated itself from the crowd and hurtled toward her; she slipped down from Storm's back just in time to be bowled over by her daughters, who seemed to have grown appallingly since she had last seen them. She laughed and wept as she hugged them tight.

"Let your Ma breathe, you dreadful children," said the voice that could still make her knees tremble after twenty years. "Bright Goddess, were the two of you raised by wolves?"

She looked up at him and the world stood still for a moment. Then she was in his arms,twelve lonely weeks vanishing as if they had never been.

—

"Where did Ma and Da go, Miri?" Sarra asked. "I wanted Ma to come and look at the new ponies."

The younger girl shrugged. "I think they went for a walk on the beach. I'll scry 'em."

Reaching a pitcher of water down from the table, she poured a small puddle on the flagstones and settled herself in front of it.

"Oh, ugh!" she cried, after a moment. "They're kissing again! Don't they ever stop?"

Disgusted as perhaps only an eight-year-old can be, Miri tossed a floor-cloth over the image of her parents standing together at the edge of the surf, arms around each other, oblivious to everything and everyone else.

"I think it's sweet," said Sarra.

—

"She's so little," Sarra breathed, enraptured with the chubby, curly-headed bundle in her mother's arms.

"Was I that little once?" Miri asked.

"Littler." Numair smiled and ruffled her hair. "But it didn't stick."

"What's her name?" asked Sarra.

Over their daughters' heads, Numair and Daine exchanged a secret smile.

"I think we should call her 'Summer,'" said Numair.