Written for Fate during the Secret Santa Christmas Fic Exchange on the Goldenlake Tamora Pierce Forum.

Title: Surprises

Rating: PG

Wishlist Item: 2 Evvy confessed to Briar

Summary: When Briar returns from his trip to Namorn, he gets a surprise from Evvy.

Word-Count: 3,458

Briar sighed and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was early in the morning, but already the sun was heating up and it looked to be a typical sweltering day in Emelan's capital of Summersea. But hot, cold, whatever, it was a thousand times better than Namorn, which was where he had been for the last month, with Sandry, visiting her relatives and getting into all sorts of trouble they hadn't planned on. The weather could do whatever it liked, because he was home and he didn't plan on leaving it any time soon.

"That the last of it?" Tris asked, nodding to the cart her brother had just finished loading up with the shakkans and various pieces of metalwork that he and Daja planned to sell at the market that day.

"Yep," he confirmed, "Just have to finish tying it down. Where's Daj' at? We need to get there early or we won't get a good spot."

"I'm here!" the black girl called from the smithy, hastily buttoning a clean shirt while trying to carry both her mage kit and her Trader's staff. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her skin not the same rich coffee it usually was.

Tris frowned. "Were you working all night?"

The confronted smith-mage raised her eyebrows innocently. "No, no!" she protested. "I just overslept a little, is all."

"Which is why you came out of your forge instead of the front door."

Daja blushed, her shoulders wilting—she'd been caught.

Tris crossed her arms and tilted her head back to glare down her long nose at her foster sister with her piercing blue-grey eyes. When the trader didn't offer up any explanations or apologies, the redhead sighed and shook her head. "I know you're still broken up about Rizu, but you can't be working yourself to death. She wouldn't want that."

"I know," Daja said without looking her sister in the eye. "I don't really mean to be doing this, it just gets time to stop, to go to bed, and I think about how empty and cold it is and I just…."

The weather witch chewed on her lower lip. "Hmm. I think an appointment with a mind healer wouldn't go amiss," Tris decided. Daja opened her mouth to protest, but Tris's narrowed eyes snapped to Briar. "And don't think I've forgotten that you promised to see one yourself before we left Namorn. I'm holding you to it."

Briar rolled his eyes. It was just like Tris to be all up in a fellow's business whether she was wanted there or not. Luckily for him and their siblings.

"Yeah, yeah..." he waved her off. He hadn't really promised to see a mind healer so much as not argued when she'd unilaterally told him that he was going to.

But Briar wondered, really, whether he actually needed one now. He'd been feeling a whole lot better since he'd begun talking to his siblings about his experiences, mostly in that place he'd made in his mind where he could feel safe, no matter what else was happening to him. In his dreams he was beginning to come to terms with what he'd been through, to let it be simply something that had happened to him, not something that ruled him. Briar didn't have to be defined by those experiences, he didn't have to look over his shoulder every day imagining that the horrors of Gyongxe were lurking just below a facade of normalcy, ready to infiltrate his life and hurt him and those he cared for again. Things still weren't the same as before—Briar doubted he could ever be entirely as he had been—but he could function, and fear was no longer the chief motivator of his actions.

Oh, you still need it alright, Tris informed him through the bond. You still twitch every time you see a temple robe, and you won't stay at Winding Circle for more than an hour at a time. Just because you have fewer nightmares doesn't mean you're healed. She softened this by adding, But your friends will help you. You're definitely on the mend.

He smirked. Tris—that girl thought she knew everything.

"Are we ready to go?" Tris said aloud, climbing onto the driver's bench of the cart. "I didn't wake up so early for my own entertainment, you know."

Daja and Briar shared smirks at their sister's expense. "Yes Mistress," Daja quipped, and settled onto the bench next to her, taking up the reigns.

Briar made himself comfortable in the back of the cart with their goods. "Careful, Tris. You're beginning to sound like Sandry over there. Just because she doesn't live with us doesn't mean you can take her job."

Tris snorted and shot him a glare. Both he and Daja let their amusement seep through their bond, which only annoyed their sister more. Briar grinned outright. Yeah, it was good to be home.

The cart ride to the square was uneventful, which was exactly how he liked things these days. Briar was beginning to have a solid appreciation for the mundane, after all the terrifying excitement of the war and the journey up north. Boring meant peaceful, it meant everything was how it should be and all his friends were safe. He'd never really thought he'd prefer a quiet morning ride to, say, a rowdy tussle in the street, but he definitely had leanings that way.

As Daja was backing the horse and cart into their reserved space amidst the already crowded market square, Tris was helping her by glaring away foot traffic and telling her sister how close they were to the boundaries of their allotted spot. Briar continued to help steady their wares until the cart had been maneuvered into place, and then he handed the table and stools they'd brought down to Daja who in turn handed them off to Tris who began setting up their shop.

The three worked together seamlessly, readying their shop for customers, until Briar's shakkans were arrayed on one table, Daja's metalwork on another, and Tris was set up in the middle, her job being to keep the accounts, handle the money box, write out receipts and assist her siblings in the haggling process. She was still of the silly notion that this was somehow a charity on the part of her siblings, that they allowed her to be included in their work so she could feel useful, but in actuality there was no charity involved. Daja and Briar had specifically asked Tris along to assist them in cadging the best deals for their goods. The merchant girl was a nightmare to customers and shopkeepers alike, her skills with money second to none.

Once everything was set up, Briar plastered on the face he used to convince people he didn't know and probably didn't like, that he was there to give them the deal of their lives. It was the same face he'd used in Namorn to convince the stuffy nobility that he was both not a threat and ought to be included. The friendly, earnest grin, once an easy mask to take on and off, was a bit frayed at the edges still.

It's because I don't like it anymore, he realized. I don't like the games people play with each other, the lies. Not even the simple, expected ones, like this.

"Hey, Briar, you alright?" Daja asked suddenly. She was leaning back in her chair, balancing on two legs. Her foster brother blinked in response, realizing he'd been frowning at the tabletop.

"Yeah sure, never better," he told her, flashing the trader a quick grin that was mostly convincing.

She raised an eyebrow that was Tris-worthy but didn't inquire further. Tris herself might have, but she'd missed the exchange, since she was grumbling over her writing case, trying to figure out why her ink well wasn't were she'd left it.

Briar sighed in relief and settled back into waiting for a potential customer to walk by. When people stopped to look at his goods, he readily jumped to attend them, running his usual litany of reasons people should pay the relatively expensive prices for his goods, developed over years of trial and error selling his own work. He did his best and garnered quite a bit of interested parties, but he was somewhat distracted, wondering why he hadn't seen anyone from Winding Circle yet. They usually sold goods on this day as well. Evvy was usually the first to greet him whenever they were in the market at the same time.

That girl, I hope she hasn't got into trouble again with Rosethorn, he thought with a wry smile. It would be a shame if I missed seeing her for the first time in months because she'd gotten into some mischief and been caught at it.

There were many things to say about what had happened to him in the intervening years between his decision to travel with Rosethorn and his return to Winding Circle. A lot of things had happened, some good, others bad, but the most radiant and wonderful thing was a scrawny Yanjingyi street girl with a big mouth and an even bigger heart. He couldn't begin to thank her for everything her presence had done for him over the years. Things he'd only just started to realize on the journey back to Emelan from Namorn.

He was beginning to see that she had been a grounding presence in his life, and he suspected Rosethorn's as well. Having to teach her had provided structure and routine in his travels. Rosethorn, while his teacher, had mostly left him to his own projects. With Evvy there, he'd had something familiar everyday to attend to. It had gone a long way to making him feel at home, somehow, even though his sisters weren't there with him, and she'd never been a part of his life at Discipline. And what was more, whether it was in the dirt poor villages that treated the two green mages like godsends or the fancy palaces that called them honored guests, Evvy reminded him of where he came from—the streets. Everyday, her wonder and curiosity of this life he was beginning to take for granted showed him what he had and what, once, he had not.

That was probably, he'd started to think, what had gone wrong for him in Namorn. Free of the responsibility, he'd taken advantage and acted like the spoiled lords and ladies, playing kid games and calling it politics. If Evvy had been with him on that trip, she'd of never let him make such an idiot of himself, chasing skirts and sucking up to the bags. She'd have fearlessly stuck out her tongue at the first phony face and told him to take a hike. He liked that about her.

During the war, sometimes that courage of hers had been the only thing keeping him and Rosethorn going. If a kid could stare down an army without flinching, then how could he and Rosethorn, an adolescent and an adult, do anything other than the same? While they were fleeing Gyongxe, it was her power, her cleverness, her determination, her optimism that had seen them through. People needed bright spots to protect when they had seen the horrors that they'd survived. If there was anything in his life he could be proud of having accomplished, with was making sure that she got out and made it to discipline for teaching. She was his greatest achievement, and even though he wasn't her primary teacher anymore, he was glad to call her his friend. She was now one of the big touchstones in his life, the people he called family, along with his teachers and his sisters. Without them, he knew he'd survive, but it would be a hollow life from then on out with no joy.

One of his plants stretched out a branch in response to his contemplations, maybe to comfort him, though he didn't feel sad exactly. He quickly reassured the plant and convinced it to resume the windblown position it needed to grant beneficial properties to the home.

By midday he had sold a spruce with the help of Tris, and set up an appointment to set it in the man's home, and he had made a number of contacts who might later become buyers or willing to trade valuable services for a tree of their own. All of that work meant he was famished.

"I'm going to get us some food, guys," Daja said. "Tris you want to help me carry it? You've been at the counter all day without a break, you need to walk around."

Tris shrugged. "Alright," she said, and got up from her chair stiffly to follow Daja to a food stall.

"We'll be right back, Briar," Daj told him before they left. "Make sure anyone who comes looking at my stuff doesn't get away before I come back!"

"Yeah, yeah," he waved them off.

Without his sisters to talk to in between customers to cajole, he got a bit bored. He soon found himself staring into space, just thinking about which plants he needed to re-pot back at home, and which needed more fertilizer or a pruning. It would be autumn soon, and he no longer had Evvy for free child-labor. He'd have to do all the weeding himself. He wasn't looking forward to that without her occasional whining just for the sake of reminding him that she was there and still helping him. She was a hardworking kid, and never seriously complained or was lazy.

Suddenly he heard a familiar giggle.

Looking up he saw Evvy standing in front of his stall with a wide grin. "Thinking about pretty girls again Briar? You're plants are gonna get jealous!"

He smiled back crookedly, about to deliver the perfect come back when he realized what she was wearing—a white novice uniform.

Images of the dead strewn about the country side around the Living Circle mother-temple in Gyonxe, many wearing the same uniform, rotting in the sun, half-mutilated by scavenging animals, flashed before his eyes. His muscles tensed and the fear, the shock and tormented, nightmarish feeling of being tiny and helpless, unable to help, change or fix any of it, to do nothing but run and fight like rabid dogs to try and survive, it all came flooding back.

Evvy didn't initially notice the stark change in his mood, but she did notice where his eyes had landed. "Surprise!" she said beaming as she twirled in her new uniform. "What do you think?"

Briars voice shook as he suddenly felt a surge of hysteria and inexplicable panic well up in his throat and tried desperately to tamp it down. "W-when did this happen?" he asked.

His agitated, lukewarm response was obviously not what she wanted or expected to hear, considering her bright, shiny pride in her status was beginning to wilt. "When me and Rosethorn got back from The Battle Islands," she responded, eying him concernedly.

Rosethorn had written him about their misadventures in the Battle Islands with a raging volcano, and just reading about it had made his toes curl, but he didn't know what that had to do with anything.

"Why a novice? Why—," he cut himself off as his throat closed up, and he eyed the uniform balefully and his spine shivered at the feelings of loss added themselves to his already agitated state.

Evvy scowled behind her glossy straight black bangs, her almond-shaped eyes narrowing. "I wanted to be responsible. Like you and Rosethorn. I wanted to help people. Isn't that what people do when they want to help? They join a temple?"

"But you can help people without being a novice. Look at Sandry or me or Tris. Why the temple? Why didn't you at least talk to me about it first," he asked her, getting up from his seat and walking around the table to stand in front of his former student wearing a frown.

She glared up at him. "Because you weren't here! You were off with your sisters in Namorn and left me with Rosethorn like an old toy!"

That got his attention. "Wait-what?"

Evvy bit her lip and looked down at her feet. "You're not my teacher anymore," she told him without looking at him. "I can do what I want with my life. I can be a novice if I want to be."

"Of course you can," Briar told her, his own fears beginning to become controllable in the face of a member of his adopted family becoming distressed. "But what's this 'old toy' nonsense? You said you were alright with me going to Namorn. That you were having all sorts of fun with your new rock magic teachers."

"I was! I was...," she said, still refusing to meet his eyes. He thought he saw a glitter of tears, and an instant later she whipped her eye and tried to disguise it.

She was crying? His Evvy? The girl who hadn't shed a tear when the bottoms of her feet had been whipped by Yanjingyi soldiers interrogating her for the whereabouts of Gyonxe escapees? Who hadn't so much as whimpered when they were running for their lived through war-torn country, on fire with battle and the smell of carcasses? This girl, was crying?

"Evvy, what's wrong?" he asked her, concerned, putting a hand on her shoulder.

The wind was unexpectedly knocked out of him as she wrapped her arms around his frame and squeezed with all her might.

"I missed you," she said, her voice gurgling through half-sobs. "Don't go away again."

His face softened, all thoughts of Gyongxe chased out of his mind, and he hugged her back, just as tightly, pulling her had against his shoulder and smoothing her hair, soothingly. "I missed you, too," he said, and it was true. He'd missed her to pieces, even with all the distractions of the palace and the Capital of Namorn, every morning he'd think about how she was doing, whether she was minding her teachers, or eating right. He'd thought about her more than almost anything else.

She started to relax as they stood together in front of the market stall, the fast-paced storm of shoppers and hawkers somehow slipping around their eye of peace.

"Briar?" Evvy whispered.

"Hm?"

She pulled away and stood on her toes to plant a sloppy kiss on his mouth that somehow managed to be filled with more love and passion than he'd every felt from any kiss in his life, even from the most experienced of women he'd courted. For all her youth, for the hardships in her life that told her not to trust, not to love, she put everything of herself into that kiss. She gave him everything and trusted him not to break her heart. His initial shock rolled away and in that moment he made a choice and kissed her back, pulling her closer. In that exchange he accepted her heartfelt offering, and they both knew this wouldn't be the last kiss between them. It wasn't a promise to never leave, but it was a promise to stay for as along as she wanted him.

"Ah-hem."

He and Evvy sprang apart instinctively, as they found Tris and Daja with their midday in their hands, watching them act like love-struck fools.

"I'll go tell Rosethorn I found your stall," Evvy said suddenly and scampered off, presumably to do just that, a blush to her usually rice-paper toned cheeks and a saucy kick to her step. Her hand had lingered in his before finally letting go.

His sisters watched her go wordlessly, Daja's face Trader-inscrutable and Tris's red-gold brows raised to her scalp.

"What, you got something to say?" he asked them when the silence stretched on and they kept giving him strange looks he couldn't interpret.

"No," Tris said, at the same time Daja said, "Nope."

"Then give me my food, I'm starving!" he demanded of the girls, and they stood there dumbly a moment before shrugging and sitting down to resume selling their goods and eating their midday meal. He realized with embarrassment that he'd been so caught up in Evvy that he hadn't even been watching the merchandise. Anyone could have taken anything in his daze.

About two seconds later Daja suddenly frowned. "Wait, was Evvy wearing a novice uniform?"