Post by lisabounce on Apr 5, 2011 20:19:33 GMT 10
Title: Patterned (Part 1)
Rating: R
Word Count: 857
Pairing: Briar/Daja/Sandry/Tris – Team Circlecest
Round/Fight: 1/H
Summary: After so long together, some things come naturally and they're pattered after one another these days and maybe always have been.
When they returned to Emelan Sandry hugged them all tearfully and left for the palace again, her entourage of rescued women and children in tow. Daja, after due and careful consideration on the long ride home, accepted an offer to work in Sotat for some few months. The city, still scarred by the memory of plague, needed the construction of new copper and lead water fountains, spelled to provide clean water in the town squares. (And singing weather vanes atop the temples, giving glory to the gods when the morning light and sea breezes touched them.) It was good work, and challenging and Daja took ship some three days after they returned to home. No-one mentioned that she was running from memories of Rizu, when she was only a thought away and refused to go further.
Tris tired easily still, the healing of her injuries delayed by the pressures of doing too much, too soon and her reserves taxed by the strain of the trek south. She took lessons and visited with Glaki one morning a week and only because she could restrict herself to walking only to the wash house and back the following day and bought in bread for the first time, paying the baker's boy to do her marketing on his way to avoid carrying her goods home. She took walks around Summersea in the forenoon and stretched, slowly and carefully in the afternoon, before her naps. And she retired early each night.
Briar busied himself with his shakkans and with work in the apothecaries' gardens to the west of the city, tending the herbs grown there and dosing himself for dreams. He came back to the house (back home) one evening, cut a heel of bread from the loaf on the table in the kitchen and a piece of cheese, eating as he walked through the house. Tris was sprawled across the daybed in the parlour, a blanket tugged across her legs, spectacles neatly folded on the floor to one side. He at the last mouthful of bread and sat down beside her, rubbing one shoulder.
"Hey, Coppercurls," Briar murmured, "You've gotta wake up."
"Huh?"
"Awake. This is no place for sleep. Have you eaten?" Tris just blinked at him, confused and Briar took that as a no. He leaned over and dropped a kiss on the shoulder and stood. "Hold on."
"mmm"
Briar returned a few minutes later, another heel of bread, spread with preserves and a mug of tea in hand. "Here. Eat."
Tris blinked owlishly and glared but took the food, alternating bites of bread and sips of tea as Briar rifled through his satchel for his own sleep dose, pouring a small paper packet of powder into his own tea and grimaced as he drank it.
Tris raised an eyebrow at that. "You're still?"
Briar nodded. "The last girl I brought home tried to open my mage's kit while I was asleep. I patched her up and set her outside as soon as it was light. You slept right through it and I'm not bringing anyone else around while I'm asleep."
"I thought you'd just learned how to be discrete."
Briar smirked and took Tris's mug, carrying them both back to the kitchen, where he rinsed them under the pump.
"Come on," he murmured, returning to Tris. "You really can't sleep down here. The maid will squark and you'll be angry with her when she comes in in the morning..."
"I suppose you are right," Tris muttered dryly and struggled to her feet with a groan and stumped toward the door. At the stairs, she sighed and groaned at the sight of them.
Briar moved up behind her and placed a hand at the small of Tris' back. "Do you want to sleep down here?"
"I'll thank you not to take advantage of me, Briar Moss."
"No! But I can't trust any local girl not to try her way with my mage's kit."
"So, what? I'm the next best thing because I can see what's too dangerous to touch?"
Briar sighed and reached out with his magic. I like someone in the bed with me and it is three flights of stairs. I won't take advantage. I just.
Tris glared at him. "You'll have to fetch my nightgown. It's folded on the dresser."
"As you wish."
He handed Tris the gown and gestured toward the dressing screen. When she was safely behind it, Briar stripped down to his own smalls though, for the sake of decorum, he left his shirt on.
They'd shared a bed before (on the way to Golden Ridge, on the cots set up in the main room at Discipline when Lark could only be bothered moving so many blankets) but not as adults.
Briar curled up in the bed, spooned against Tris. She was already limp with exhaustion and he levered himself up on one elbow to drop a kiss onto her cheek. She smiled and slowly, painfully, rolled back toward him, giving him a kiss in return.
"I could have gone to my own room."
"I know. I just..." Briar curled his arm more tightly around Tris. Don't make me stay here on my own. Please.
I know. "Goodnight, Briar."
"G'night, Coppercurls."
QC by PeroxidePirate
Rating: R
Word Count: 857
Pairing: Briar/Daja/Sandry/Tris – Team Circlecest
Round/Fight: 1/H
Summary: After so long together, some things come naturally and they're pattered after one another these days and maybe always have been.
When they returned to Emelan Sandry hugged them all tearfully and left for the palace again, her entourage of rescued women and children in tow. Daja, after due and careful consideration on the long ride home, accepted an offer to work in Sotat for some few months. The city, still scarred by the memory of plague, needed the construction of new copper and lead water fountains, spelled to provide clean water in the town squares. (And singing weather vanes atop the temples, giving glory to the gods when the morning light and sea breezes touched them.) It was good work, and challenging and Daja took ship some three days after they returned to home. No-one mentioned that she was running from memories of Rizu, when she was only a thought away and refused to go further.
Tris tired easily still, the healing of her injuries delayed by the pressures of doing too much, too soon and her reserves taxed by the strain of the trek south. She took lessons and visited with Glaki one morning a week and only because she could restrict herself to walking only to the wash house and back the following day and bought in bread for the first time, paying the baker's boy to do her marketing on his way to avoid carrying her goods home. She took walks around Summersea in the forenoon and stretched, slowly and carefully in the afternoon, before her naps. And she retired early each night.
Briar busied himself with his shakkans and with work in the apothecaries' gardens to the west of the city, tending the herbs grown there and dosing himself for dreams. He came back to the house (back home) one evening, cut a heel of bread from the loaf on the table in the kitchen and a piece of cheese, eating as he walked through the house. Tris was sprawled across the daybed in the parlour, a blanket tugged across her legs, spectacles neatly folded on the floor to one side. He at the last mouthful of bread and sat down beside her, rubbing one shoulder.
"Hey, Coppercurls," Briar murmured, "You've gotta wake up."
"Huh?"
"Awake. This is no place for sleep. Have you eaten?" Tris just blinked at him, confused and Briar took that as a no. He leaned over and dropped a kiss on the shoulder and stood. "Hold on."
"mmm"
Briar returned a few minutes later, another heel of bread, spread with preserves and a mug of tea in hand. "Here. Eat."
Tris blinked owlishly and glared but took the food, alternating bites of bread and sips of tea as Briar rifled through his satchel for his own sleep dose, pouring a small paper packet of powder into his own tea and grimaced as he drank it.
Tris raised an eyebrow at that. "You're still?"
Briar nodded. "The last girl I brought home tried to open my mage's kit while I was asleep. I patched her up and set her outside as soon as it was light. You slept right through it and I'm not bringing anyone else around while I'm asleep."
"I thought you'd just learned how to be discrete."
Briar smirked and took Tris's mug, carrying them both back to the kitchen, where he rinsed them under the pump.
"Come on," he murmured, returning to Tris. "You really can't sleep down here. The maid will squark and you'll be angry with her when she comes in in the morning..."
"I suppose you are right," Tris muttered dryly and struggled to her feet with a groan and stumped toward the door. At the stairs, she sighed and groaned at the sight of them.
Briar moved up behind her and placed a hand at the small of Tris' back. "Do you want to sleep down here?"
"I'll thank you not to take advantage of me, Briar Moss."
"No! But I can't trust any local girl not to try her way with my mage's kit."
"So, what? I'm the next best thing because I can see what's too dangerous to touch?"
Briar sighed and reached out with his magic. I like someone in the bed with me and it is three flights of stairs. I won't take advantage. I just.
Tris glared at him. "You'll have to fetch my nightgown. It's folded on the dresser."
"As you wish."
He handed Tris the gown and gestured toward the dressing screen. When she was safely behind it, Briar stripped down to his own smalls though, for the sake of decorum, he left his shirt on.
They'd shared a bed before (on the way to Golden Ridge, on the cots set up in the main room at Discipline when Lark could only be bothered moving so many blankets) but not as adults.
Briar curled up in the bed, spooned against Tris. She was already limp with exhaustion and he levered himself up on one elbow to drop a kiss onto her cheek. She smiled and slowly, painfully, rolled back toward him, giving him a kiss in return.
"I could have gone to my own room."
"I know. I just..." Briar curled his arm more tightly around Tris. Don't make me stay here on my own. Please.
I know. "Goodnight, Briar."
"G'night, Coppercurls."
QC by PeroxidePirate