Here we go! I thought I'd try my luck at a Sandry/Briar. I just love this street rat/noble pairing! This entire story all this takes place after The Circle Opens series. Some things might not be completely correct, and I, of course, added stuff. Of course this is a romance fic, I'm a romance fic writer, aren't I? And everyone is 18. I have some excerpts from the current COM (circle of magic) & CO (circle opens) books. Remember, I still don't own any of Tamora Pierce's stuff, cause I don't write nearly as well as her (not even close to half)!!
REMEMBER TO REVIEW AFTER YOU READ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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"Talking outloud"
'Thinking'
*~*Flashback*~*
~~Scene change~~
(Author's Notes)
~~~~~~
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for this pointless plot. All characters used in this fanfic belong to Tamora Pierce. All the places probably belong to her too. Oh, and all the stuff that goes in her books is hers too. Anything else that even remotely relates to the books are Tamora Pierce's. So there. Now you can't sue me.
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Winter Sunshine
by smileypal4eva
Chapter 1: Coming Home
~~~~~~
Sandrilene fa Toren squealed in delight and ran to a different part of the cottage. "Lark! Rosethorn, Briar and his student Evvy are coming home!" she waved the letter back and forth ecstatically. Lark smiled calmly and stopped working at her loom. "That's wonderful, dear. When will they be coming back?" Sandry scanned her letter. "Where... I saw it a minute ago... there! Let's see, counting for the time the letter had to get here... I suppose they've got about a month until they arrive!" Sandry looked up at Lark, a big grin on her face.
"Well, I'll be ready when they arrive. Now, you should hurry to Pasco's lesson. He'll be waiting for you, Sandry." Sandry gasped, remembering the forgotten dancing lesson. "I'll visit you in a few days, Lark! Gods bless!" and she hurried out the door. Lark smiled after her and continued working at her loom.
~~~~~~
Briar turned over in his sleep. "Let me alone, Evvy!" he grumbled. "Well, boy, I'm not Evvy and it's past dawn, so you best get up before I make you!" a tart voice replied. Briar sighed and sat up. He sleepily looked up at Rosethorn's face. "That's the last time I ever stay up so late," he muttered, taking his clothes and closing the door.
After he dressed, Briar packed up his belongings and went to Rosethorn and Evvy's room. Rosethorn was packing up their stuff. Evvy was still asleep. "You wake me up first, and you let Evvy sleep in?!" Briar accused his teacher. "Briar..." Rosethorn said warningly. Briar gave up and walked over to Evvy's bedroll. "Evvy, rise and shine!" he shouted into her ear. No response. After repeating the procedure several more times, Briar threw up his hands in exasperation. "She'll never wake up!" he declared.
~~~~~~
"But Sandry!"
"No! You've got to learn control of your powers!"
"I don't like meditating!"
"Well, you still must learn to control your powers, so you have to meditate." Sandry snapped, feeling frustrated with Pasco. 'Mila, I wish I didn't have to go through with this every time Pasco has a lesson. I'm definitely sure that Tris, Daja, Briar, and I were never that impatient or skittish. Well, maybe sometimes. But not all the time like this!!'
Pasco grudgingly sat down on the ground. Sandry made their protective circle and sat down next to him. Everything was quiet for a few minutes, and then Sandry heard Pasco twitching and moving around. She sighed.
"Pasco."
"Lady Sandry..." Pasco whined. "It's really uncomfortable!"
"Pasco..." Sandry sighed in exasperation and gave up. She broke the circle and stood. "No matter. We'll do this another time." Sandry walked over to her bag and opened it to replace the spool of thread. She saw Briar's letter, full of chicken-scratch writing, and picked it up. Sandry could feel her good spirits coming back. "Alright Pasco. I'll see you at the castle instead of here tomorrow." Sandry reread Briar's familiar handwriting for the fourth time. It was comforting to know he'd be back, Sandry decided. She was lonely, always walking around her uncle's big castle by herself with nothing to do.
'Well, I do visit Lark a lot,' Sandry thought, smiling, thinking of the former acrobat's kindness and patience. 'Something I, unfortunately, will never have with Pasco,' Sandry thought again. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Lady Sandry," Pasco Acalon muttered, head down. "No, you didn't do anything wrong," Sandry smiled falsely. "... You're not telling the truth!" Pasco accused the noble. "You didn't do anything wrong. That is the truth. You're just very... lively, I suppose. Lively enough to wear my patience down to parchment." Sandry corrected the boy.
"Oh. Well, I'm still sorry for causing you misery. Until tomorrow, Lady," the boy said halfheartedly before leaving. Obviously his parents or his siblings had been lecturing him about behavior to a noble, or, precisely, behavior to a mage & and the great-niece of Duke Vedris IV of Emelan. "Goodbye, Pasco!" Sandry called cheerily. True, she wasn't exactly patient with Pasco, and he was irritating at times; but, then again, it probably wasn't all Pasco's fault. He was a dancer, and ought to have a lot of energy. Obviously, sitting still and breathing while clearing your mind was not exactly a very lively thing to do.
'Still,' Sandry thought, but dismissed her misgivings. 'I should go help Uncle with preparations,' she thought, and left Yazmin Hebet's dance studio. Her guards, Oama and Kwaben, followed her like shadows. "I trust the boy has gotten to you again?" Oama asked the girl. "Yes, he has. I just don't have enough patience to be a teacher," Sandry sighed, mounting her horse.
Kwaben and Oama both shook their heads, but did not say a word. Sandrilene fa Toren was very patient, as they had seen before. Pasco was just so energetic that he wore one's patience until it was as thinner than a strand of thread.
~~~~~~
"My dear, you have done wonderful work today. Thank you for helping us with the curtains and draperies."
Duke Vedris smiled at his great-niece. She had helped straighten and neaten up the heavy velvet curtains in the ballroom, shake the dust off the draperies, and simply made things easier for his servants.
"I like helping. Besides, I am looking forward to the Midwinter dance. Briar will get here in time for that. And Tris and Daja have already written that they'll be back too, from wherever they are," Sandry said cheerfully.
The duke smiled gently. He knew why Sandry was so happy. She hadn't seen her friends for, what? four years! And they weren't just friends; the four were bonded specially, a magical bond, that allowed them to talk inside their minds. Vedris could tell Sandry missed that, and the fact that Pasco did nothing to ease Sandry's concern for her friends did not help.
"Are you glad they are coming home? Briar, and the like?" Duke Vedris asked warmly. Sandry let a small smile tug at her lips. "Yes. Very glad. Happy. I feel truly wonderful, for the first time since ... since the three of them left," Sandry replaced lamely. The duke hugged Sandry tightly. Try as she might, the duke knew Sandry would never forget about the unmagic, and killing the poor mage involved. Although Sandry would never tell him that she thought about it, and quite often still, Duke Vedris knew his great-niece too well.
"You know, I've been thinking about our gardens," Vedris began. Sandry looked at him. "We need a gardener who really knows what he's doing. Who cares about the plants, not just the money, involved. And it would be better if that head gardener had magic," the duke said. Sandry's eyebrows raised. "A head gardener, with magic, who cares deeply about the plants involved, and wouldn't mind a salary? I take it you're thinking about..." Sandry repeated. "Briar Moss." The duke nodded. Sandry smiled. "I'm sure he'd like that. I bet I can mind speak him in a few weeks, if I really reach."
"And enough of this chattering! You should be in bed. I don't want you returning to your old habits!" Sandry scolded. Vedris just chuckled, but he obeyed, and gave her a kiss on the forehead before he left. Sandry was the only one who was frank with the ruler of Emelan. Actually, she was the only one who dared speak to him as she did. All the other servants were afraid, in a way, of Duke Vedris.
Sandry walked to the balcony, shoving asked the draperies with her powers. 'Sometimes, being a thread-mage is incredibly useful... and sometimes, I feel as if anything I do is useless,' Sandry thought wryly, thinking back to the big earthquake, when she was ten. She had woven Tris, Briar, Daja, and her magic together, to make them stronger, so they could survive trapped underground. But only after thinking how afraid of the dark she was, and how all of her friends wanted to help, except her.
The eighteen year-old noble girl sighed, folding her hands on the balcony railing. A sudden image of Briar flashed in her mind, then occupied her thoughts for a while. All Sandrilene fa Toren could think about was that Briar Moss was coming back home to Winding Circle. Sandry felt an uncomfortable heat spread into her cheeks. Walking back inside her room, she took out the flickering globe of light that Tris, Briar, and Daja had made for her, to help her control her fear of the dark, which came from being trapped in a dark cellar while Sandry knew that she would certainly die.
"A treasure", Niklaren Goldeye had said he was looking for after he found her. "I found a new life, and a new magic," Niko continued. 'Yes, a real treasure,' Sandry thought, her closer-than-close friendship with Tris, Daja, and Briar came to mind. When they had given her the little crystal full of light, that was proof of their friendship.
However, the light was starting to fade out of it. It was dimmer than when she had first gotten it. Sandry felt a grin tugging at her small lips. Sandry was not as afraid of the dark now, since her life was now more occupied by thoughts of suitors. 'Not that I like them much,' Sandry grimaced, thinking of all the desperate young men who tried in vain to win her heart over. None of them even came close.
'You'd think they would learn to give up someday.' Sandry climbed into bed, looking at her pale honey-colored room. The privy was connected to a second room, a nice, forest-green color. Across the hall was a dark, yet cheery, crimson red color, which was connected to another room, full of several shades of blue. All the rooms had different colors in them. Sandry smiled wryly. 'The colors go with my friends. Green for Briar, crimson for Daja, blue for Tris.'
Sandry let a small giggle out, and pulled the covers to her chin. She fell asleep, dreaming about bright flickering threads of magic flying in the night sky with the stars.
~~~~~
Briar sighed, ignoring the fact that he was almost bouncing to his horse's amble. His horse's unusually lively amble. He and Evvy, his student, and his teacher, Rosethorn, were going back to Emelan, from Yanjing, after four long years of being away.
"I ride better than you do! It's easy to ride horses! And I've been at it shorter th'n you have!" Evumeimei Dingzai, Briar's student, kicked her horse into a quick trot in a circle ahead of them, turned a circle, and stopped. She clapped her hands, reins gripped tightly.
"Of course, you must rub it sourly in my face," Briar mumbled incoherently. Evvy, a few years younger than her teacher, understood him well enough though. "But I like doing that! After all, you are my teacher, you're teaching me how to write and talk in Imperial, you're teaching me about stones-" Evvy sighed happily, thinking about her stone alphabet, bought by Briar and given to her.
"-and, I must rub it in your face, because I'm a girl!" Evvy giggled, and rode up, next to Rosethorn, who shook her head. "I don't know who's more annoying, you or Briar," she muttered, but still trying not to smile. "Probably me. I talk too much. Like 'Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, the great-niece of his grace Duke Vedris IV of Emelan'. I've heard that expression so many times!" Evvy impishly giggled again, and looked at Briar slyly out of the corner of her eye.
"She's the one with the beautiful brown hair with sun-streaks, right? And with the thread-magic?" she inquired. When Briar turned red and didn't answer, Rosethorn answered for him. "Yes. Tris is the weather-mage redhead, and Daja is the Trader with black hair," she said tiredly, speech slurred slightly. When she had nearly died, nine years ago, a part of her mind died, and Rosethorn had learned to speak again. It wasn't completely crisp, like before the bluepox plague, but her mind was still very sharp, and she was alive, so it didn't matter to Briar.
The Earth Dedicate looked at Briar again. "Boy! You should hurry and catch up, or we'll leave you here by yourself!" she barked. Briar's head snapped up, and he tried to trot to the two women ahead. His horse bucked, leaving Briar clinging onto its neck for dear life. Evvy sighed, and slowed. "You'd think he's never sat on a horse before!" she said.
Briar snorted. "Not for long," he retorted quietly to his student. In a louder voice, directed to Rosethorn, he said, "And my name is Briar! Not boy, Briar!"
Rosethorn didn't even glance back. "If you don't hurry up, I will leave you behind, boy!" She replied tartly.
~~~~~
so, what'd ya think? good? bad? horrible? like I said, it's gonna be a Sandry/Briar, but these first few chapters will introduce all the people involved. So, I'll go now, and let you review my story (or what I call a story; what other people might call some incoherent jumble of words)!
REMEMBER TO REVIEW AFTER YOU READ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
~~~~~~
"Talking outloud"
'Thinking'
*~*Flashback*~*
~~Scene change~~
(Author's Notes)
~~~~~~
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for this pointless plot. All characters used in this fanfic belong to Tamora Pierce. All the places probably belong to her too. Oh, and all the stuff that goes in her books is hers too. Anything else that even remotely relates to the books are Tamora Pierce's. So there. Now you can't sue me.
~~~~~
Winter Sunshine
by smileypal4eva
Chapter 1: Coming Home
~~~~~~
Sandrilene fa Toren squealed in delight and ran to a different part of the cottage. "Lark! Rosethorn, Briar and his student Evvy are coming home!" she waved the letter back and forth ecstatically. Lark smiled calmly and stopped working at her loom. "That's wonderful, dear. When will they be coming back?" Sandry scanned her letter. "Where... I saw it a minute ago... there! Let's see, counting for the time the letter had to get here... I suppose they've got about a month until they arrive!" Sandry looked up at Lark, a big grin on her face.
"Well, I'll be ready when they arrive. Now, you should hurry to Pasco's lesson. He'll be waiting for you, Sandry." Sandry gasped, remembering the forgotten dancing lesson. "I'll visit you in a few days, Lark! Gods bless!" and she hurried out the door. Lark smiled after her and continued working at her loom.
~~~~~~
Briar turned over in his sleep. "Let me alone, Evvy!" he grumbled. "Well, boy, I'm not Evvy and it's past dawn, so you best get up before I make you!" a tart voice replied. Briar sighed and sat up. He sleepily looked up at Rosethorn's face. "That's the last time I ever stay up so late," he muttered, taking his clothes and closing the door.
After he dressed, Briar packed up his belongings and went to Rosethorn and Evvy's room. Rosethorn was packing up their stuff. Evvy was still asleep. "You wake me up first, and you let Evvy sleep in?!" Briar accused his teacher. "Briar..." Rosethorn said warningly. Briar gave up and walked over to Evvy's bedroll. "Evvy, rise and shine!" he shouted into her ear. No response. After repeating the procedure several more times, Briar threw up his hands in exasperation. "She'll never wake up!" he declared.
~~~~~~
"But Sandry!"
"No! You've got to learn control of your powers!"
"I don't like meditating!"
"Well, you still must learn to control your powers, so you have to meditate." Sandry snapped, feeling frustrated with Pasco. 'Mila, I wish I didn't have to go through with this every time Pasco has a lesson. I'm definitely sure that Tris, Daja, Briar, and I were never that impatient or skittish. Well, maybe sometimes. But not all the time like this!!'
Pasco grudgingly sat down on the ground. Sandry made their protective circle and sat down next to him. Everything was quiet for a few minutes, and then Sandry heard Pasco twitching and moving around. She sighed.
"Pasco."
"Lady Sandry..." Pasco whined. "It's really uncomfortable!"
"Pasco..." Sandry sighed in exasperation and gave up. She broke the circle and stood. "No matter. We'll do this another time." Sandry walked over to her bag and opened it to replace the spool of thread. She saw Briar's letter, full of chicken-scratch writing, and picked it up. Sandry could feel her good spirits coming back. "Alright Pasco. I'll see you at the castle instead of here tomorrow." Sandry reread Briar's familiar handwriting for the fourth time. It was comforting to know he'd be back, Sandry decided. She was lonely, always walking around her uncle's big castle by herself with nothing to do.
'Well, I do visit Lark a lot,' Sandry thought, smiling, thinking of the former acrobat's kindness and patience. 'Something I, unfortunately, will never have with Pasco,' Sandry thought again. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Lady Sandry," Pasco Acalon muttered, head down. "No, you didn't do anything wrong," Sandry smiled falsely. "... You're not telling the truth!" Pasco accused the noble. "You didn't do anything wrong. That is the truth. You're just very... lively, I suppose. Lively enough to wear my patience down to parchment." Sandry corrected the boy.
"Oh. Well, I'm still sorry for causing you misery. Until tomorrow, Lady," the boy said halfheartedly before leaving. Obviously his parents or his siblings had been lecturing him about behavior to a noble, or, precisely, behavior to a mage & and the great-niece of Duke Vedris IV of Emelan. "Goodbye, Pasco!" Sandry called cheerily. True, she wasn't exactly patient with Pasco, and he was irritating at times; but, then again, it probably wasn't all Pasco's fault. He was a dancer, and ought to have a lot of energy. Obviously, sitting still and breathing while clearing your mind was not exactly a very lively thing to do.
'Still,' Sandry thought, but dismissed her misgivings. 'I should go help Uncle with preparations,' she thought, and left Yazmin Hebet's dance studio. Her guards, Oama and Kwaben, followed her like shadows. "I trust the boy has gotten to you again?" Oama asked the girl. "Yes, he has. I just don't have enough patience to be a teacher," Sandry sighed, mounting her horse.
Kwaben and Oama both shook their heads, but did not say a word. Sandrilene fa Toren was very patient, as they had seen before. Pasco was just so energetic that he wore one's patience until it was as thinner than a strand of thread.
~~~~~~
"My dear, you have done wonderful work today. Thank you for helping us with the curtains and draperies."
Duke Vedris smiled at his great-niece. She had helped straighten and neaten up the heavy velvet curtains in the ballroom, shake the dust off the draperies, and simply made things easier for his servants.
"I like helping. Besides, I am looking forward to the Midwinter dance. Briar will get here in time for that. And Tris and Daja have already written that they'll be back too, from wherever they are," Sandry said cheerfully.
The duke smiled gently. He knew why Sandry was so happy. She hadn't seen her friends for, what? four years! And they weren't just friends; the four were bonded specially, a magical bond, that allowed them to talk inside their minds. Vedris could tell Sandry missed that, and the fact that Pasco did nothing to ease Sandry's concern for her friends did not help.
"Are you glad they are coming home? Briar, and the like?" Duke Vedris asked warmly. Sandry let a small smile tug at her lips. "Yes. Very glad. Happy. I feel truly wonderful, for the first time since ... since the three of them left," Sandry replaced lamely. The duke hugged Sandry tightly. Try as she might, the duke knew Sandry would never forget about the unmagic, and killing the poor mage involved. Although Sandry would never tell him that she thought about it, and quite often still, Duke Vedris knew his great-niece too well.
"You know, I've been thinking about our gardens," Vedris began. Sandry looked at him. "We need a gardener who really knows what he's doing. Who cares about the plants, not just the money, involved. And it would be better if that head gardener had magic," the duke said. Sandry's eyebrows raised. "A head gardener, with magic, who cares deeply about the plants involved, and wouldn't mind a salary? I take it you're thinking about..." Sandry repeated. "Briar Moss." The duke nodded. Sandry smiled. "I'm sure he'd like that. I bet I can mind speak him in a few weeks, if I really reach."
"And enough of this chattering! You should be in bed. I don't want you returning to your old habits!" Sandry scolded. Vedris just chuckled, but he obeyed, and gave her a kiss on the forehead before he left. Sandry was the only one who was frank with the ruler of Emelan. Actually, she was the only one who dared speak to him as she did. All the other servants were afraid, in a way, of Duke Vedris.
Sandry walked to the balcony, shoving asked the draperies with her powers. 'Sometimes, being a thread-mage is incredibly useful... and sometimes, I feel as if anything I do is useless,' Sandry thought wryly, thinking back to the big earthquake, when she was ten. She had woven Tris, Briar, Daja, and her magic together, to make them stronger, so they could survive trapped underground. But only after thinking how afraid of the dark she was, and how all of her friends wanted to help, except her.
The eighteen year-old noble girl sighed, folding her hands on the balcony railing. A sudden image of Briar flashed in her mind, then occupied her thoughts for a while. All Sandrilene fa Toren could think about was that Briar Moss was coming back home to Winding Circle. Sandry felt an uncomfortable heat spread into her cheeks. Walking back inside her room, she took out the flickering globe of light that Tris, Briar, and Daja had made for her, to help her control her fear of the dark, which came from being trapped in a dark cellar while Sandry knew that she would certainly die.
"A treasure", Niklaren Goldeye had said he was looking for after he found her. "I found a new life, and a new magic," Niko continued. 'Yes, a real treasure,' Sandry thought, her closer-than-close friendship with Tris, Daja, and Briar came to mind. When they had given her the little crystal full of light, that was proof of their friendship.
However, the light was starting to fade out of it. It was dimmer than when she had first gotten it. Sandry felt a grin tugging at her small lips. Sandry was not as afraid of the dark now, since her life was now more occupied by thoughts of suitors. 'Not that I like them much,' Sandry grimaced, thinking of all the desperate young men who tried in vain to win her heart over. None of them even came close.
'You'd think they would learn to give up someday.' Sandry climbed into bed, looking at her pale honey-colored room. The privy was connected to a second room, a nice, forest-green color. Across the hall was a dark, yet cheery, crimson red color, which was connected to another room, full of several shades of blue. All the rooms had different colors in them. Sandry smiled wryly. 'The colors go with my friends. Green for Briar, crimson for Daja, blue for Tris.'
Sandry let a small giggle out, and pulled the covers to her chin. She fell asleep, dreaming about bright flickering threads of magic flying in the night sky with the stars.
~~~~~
Briar sighed, ignoring the fact that he was almost bouncing to his horse's amble. His horse's unusually lively amble. He and Evvy, his student, and his teacher, Rosethorn, were going back to Emelan, from Yanjing, after four long years of being away.
"I ride better than you do! It's easy to ride horses! And I've been at it shorter th'n you have!" Evumeimei Dingzai, Briar's student, kicked her horse into a quick trot in a circle ahead of them, turned a circle, and stopped. She clapped her hands, reins gripped tightly.
"Of course, you must rub it sourly in my face," Briar mumbled incoherently. Evvy, a few years younger than her teacher, understood him well enough though. "But I like doing that! After all, you are my teacher, you're teaching me how to write and talk in Imperial, you're teaching me about stones-" Evvy sighed happily, thinking about her stone alphabet, bought by Briar and given to her.
"-and, I must rub it in your face, because I'm a girl!" Evvy giggled, and rode up, next to Rosethorn, who shook her head. "I don't know who's more annoying, you or Briar," she muttered, but still trying not to smile. "Probably me. I talk too much. Like 'Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, the great-niece of his grace Duke Vedris IV of Emelan'. I've heard that expression so many times!" Evvy impishly giggled again, and looked at Briar slyly out of the corner of her eye.
"She's the one with the beautiful brown hair with sun-streaks, right? And with the thread-magic?" she inquired. When Briar turned red and didn't answer, Rosethorn answered for him. "Yes. Tris is the weather-mage redhead, and Daja is the Trader with black hair," she said tiredly, speech slurred slightly. When she had nearly died, nine years ago, a part of her mind died, and Rosethorn had learned to speak again. It wasn't completely crisp, like before the bluepox plague, but her mind was still very sharp, and she was alive, so it didn't matter to Briar.
The Earth Dedicate looked at Briar again. "Boy! You should hurry and catch up, or we'll leave you here by yourself!" she barked. Briar's head snapped up, and he tried to trot to the two women ahead. His horse bucked, leaving Briar clinging onto its neck for dear life. Evvy sighed, and slowed. "You'd think he's never sat on a horse before!" she said.
Briar snorted. "Not for long," he retorted quietly to his student. In a louder voice, directed to Rosethorn, he said, "And my name is Briar! Not boy, Briar!"
Rosethorn didn't even glance back. "If you don't hurry up, I will leave you behind, boy!" She replied tartly.
~~~~~
so, what'd ya think? good? bad? horrible? like I said, it's gonna be a Sandry/Briar, but these first few chapters will introduce all the people involved. So, I'll go now, and let you review my story (or what I call a story; what other people might call some incoherent jumble of words)!