Post by Ankhiale on Dec 12, 2013 23:05:30 GMT 10
Title: In the End
Rating: G, but not a happy G
For: Rachy
Prompt: #3 - post-WotE AU: Their magics reconciled, but the Circle themselves did not.
Summary: In the end, the only one who really wanted to stay bonded was Sandry.
Notes and Warnings: Erm. This is kind of odd, I guess. Moody and such, and Sandry is very unhappy in this fic. …Merry Midwinter? XD
*******
In the end, it wasn't just that they each had things in their heads they didn't want the others to see - big traumas like the horrors of war, big fears like being utterly rejected and alone - it was that they had spent too much time away from each other, and learned to be separate people again. In the end, the only one of them who truly wanted to live as they had at Discipline - inside each others' pockets, inside each others' heads - was Sandry, but Sandry, as Briar pointed out in a harsh argument one Starsday morning, had never wanted to grow up, had never wanted any of them to grow up, wanted to keep them all preserved as thirteen-year-olds like flies in amber. She had only ever taken steps into the adult world when forced, he snapped. Refused to leave Winding Circle until the Duke's poor health forced her. Refused to leave Emelan until the Empress forced her. Refused to handle her affairs until they had forced her.
Sandry had stormed out, in the petulant snit of one who's heard hard truths and doesn't want to let them register, and had refused to return to Cheeseman Street. She flitted about the Duke's Citadel, paraded about Summersea, but avoided setting a single foot on that one street. She would make them come to her and apologize.
They never did, though they thought of it often enough. But in the end, they'd all learned how to live as individuals again, and no matter how much Sandry's persistently-open connections itched, they could always be blocked.
Briar and Tris settled into life at Daja's house. They learned to live as adult roommates, learned to leave each other alone. They had all learned to pursue their own dreams - they had learned that they had their own dreams.
In the end, Tris was the first to leave again. Not just leave the house like Sandry had, but leave beyond the range of the Circle as she packed up and went to Lightsbridge. Daja and Briar kept in contact via letter, as siblings will; secure with the distance, Tris even reopened communication with Sandry. They all went to Karang to applaud her graduation; Daja and Briar dragged Sandry away again when she started again. No, Tris wasn't coming back to Summersea; she had moved into a flat near the university and had already signed the lease for a storefront. No, Briar and Daja weren't going to uproot their lives and move to Karang; they had lives of their own now, too.
This time, Sandry didn't storm off in rage, but left Karang in tears.
Afterwards, Briar left and came back and left again, whenever the mood took him. He had thought when traveling with Rosethorn, especially after the war, that he wanted nothing more than to settle down in one place again, but wanderlust had sunk in its fangs, and as his mind healed he recalled how much he'd enjoyed going from market to market, hawking his shakkans. He never traveled quite so far again - just in and around the Pebbled Sea - and he made sure to send letters full of colorful gossip back home to his sisters, along with the odd trinket. When he was near Lightsbridge, he crashed in Tris' flat; when in Summersea, he stayed in the room Daja kept for him. Daja remarked to Tris once while visiting for Midwinter that it seemed sometimes like he was searching for something lost.
The first few times he was in Summersea, Sandry did her level best to persuade him to stay, but eventually even she could recognize a lost cause. The fourth time he came back, she greeted him at the market with a mug of spiced cider and asked him how Capchen had been.
Daja stayed. She had had her fill of travel, which was why she had even purchased a house in the first place. And yes, at first she had thought her siblings would stay with her there - at least the two who didn't already have a home in Summersea - and she still kept rooms for them, but in the end it felt right that they'd left.
The house was big for a single person, but it suited Daja to have a place for guests - Polyam stopped by every other year to stay for a few weeks while Tenth Caravan Idaram was in the area; Nia sometimes came by on her husband's ships to overnight in Summersea. Eventually, after the scars healed, even Rizu came down to visit. And of course Tris and Briar came by when their lives permitted, and finally Sandry broke down and came whenever the stress of being involved in Emelan politics got to be too much.
And eventually Daja met a beautiful woman selling roses in Market Square, and they fell in love, and one day Daja presented Hana with a living metal rose and asked her to make a home with her, and Hana hugged her breathless and agreed. And so Daja achieved her dream of a family and a place to call her own, just as Tris off in Karang achieved her dream of becoming a successful charm-seller, and Briar wandering the world achieved his dream of selling beautiful shakkans to people who loved trees and never being hungry again. And it sounds trite to say it, but they lived happily ever after, or at least on the balance were mostly so.
Sandry knew it, too. And she hated that their dreams had turned hers to dust, but she had learned a few things over the years - about selfishness, about childhood, about adulthood, about love. And if there was one thing that would never change about Sandry, it was that in the end she really did love her siblings, and so just like she had when they'd left her the first time she swallowed her protests as best she could and let them have the lives they wanted. Better that three people be happy and only one miserable than the reverse.
She never told them about the sleepless nights she'd sit up spinning lightning or knotting together tufts of heat or weaving bouquets of flowers together, and crying. And she never let on even to herself how the nights she slept with the all-consuming hollowness in her head where three presences ought to have been were worse.
Sandry spun herself rings of thread with lumps in, but when she touched them, they were just fiber in her hand.
Rating: G, but not a happy G
For: Rachy
Prompt: #3 - post-WotE AU: Their magics reconciled, but the Circle themselves did not.
Summary: In the end, the only one who really wanted to stay bonded was Sandry.
Notes and Warnings: Erm. This is kind of odd, I guess. Moody and such, and Sandry is very unhappy in this fic. …Merry Midwinter? XD
*******
In the end, it wasn't just that they each had things in their heads they didn't want the others to see - big traumas like the horrors of war, big fears like being utterly rejected and alone - it was that they had spent too much time away from each other, and learned to be separate people again. In the end, the only one of them who truly wanted to live as they had at Discipline - inside each others' pockets, inside each others' heads - was Sandry, but Sandry, as Briar pointed out in a harsh argument one Starsday morning, had never wanted to grow up, had never wanted any of them to grow up, wanted to keep them all preserved as thirteen-year-olds like flies in amber. She had only ever taken steps into the adult world when forced, he snapped. Refused to leave Winding Circle until the Duke's poor health forced her. Refused to leave Emelan until the Empress forced her. Refused to handle her affairs until they had forced her.
Sandry had stormed out, in the petulant snit of one who's heard hard truths and doesn't want to let them register, and had refused to return to Cheeseman Street. She flitted about the Duke's Citadel, paraded about Summersea, but avoided setting a single foot on that one street. She would make them come to her and apologize.
They never did, though they thought of it often enough. But in the end, they'd all learned how to live as individuals again, and no matter how much Sandry's persistently-open connections itched, they could always be blocked.
Briar and Tris settled into life at Daja's house. They learned to live as adult roommates, learned to leave each other alone. They had all learned to pursue their own dreams - they had learned that they had their own dreams.
In the end, Tris was the first to leave again. Not just leave the house like Sandry had, but leave beyond the range of the Circle as she packed up and went to Lightsbridge. Daja and Briar kept in contact via letter, as siblings will; secure with the distance, Tris even reopened communication with Sandry. They all went to Karang to applaud her graduation; Daja and Briar dragged Sandry away again when she started again. No, Tris wasn't coming back to Summersea; she had moved into a flat near the university and had already signed the lease for a storefront. No, Briar and Daja weren't going to uproot their lives and move to Karang; they had lives of their own now, too.
This time, Sandry didn't storm off in rage, but left Karang in tears.
Afterwards, Briar left and came back and left again, whenever the mood took him. He had thought when traveling with Rosethorn, especially after the war, that he wanted nothing more than to settle down in one place again, but wanderlust had sunk in its fangs, and as his mind healed he recalled how much he'd enjoyed going from market to market, hawking his shakkans. He never traveled quite so far again - just in and around the Pebbled Sea - and he made sure to send letters full of colorful gossip back home to his sisters, along with the odd trinket. When he was near Lightsbridge, he crashed in Tris' flat; when in Summersea, he stayed in the room Daja kept for him. Daja remarked to Tris once while visiting for Midwinter that it seemed sometimes like he was searching for something lost.
The first few times he was in Summersea, Sandry did her level best to persuade him to stay, but eventually even she could recognize a lost cause. The fourth time he came back, she greeted him at the market with a mug of spiced cider and asked him how Capchen had been.
Daja stayed. She had had her fill of travel, which was why she had even purchased a house in the first place. And yes, at first she had thought her siblings would stay with her there - at least the two who didn't already have a home in Summersea - and she still kept rooms for them, but in the end it felt right that they'd left.
The house was big for a single person, but it suited Daja to have a place for guests - Polyam stopped by every other year to stay for a few weeks while Tenth Caravan Idaram was in the area; Nia sometimes came by on her husband's ships to overnight in Summersea. Eventually, after the scars healed, even Rizu came down to visit. And of course Tris and Briar came by when their lives permitted, and finally Sandry broke down and came whenever the stress of being involved in Emelan politics got to be too much.
And eventually Daja met a beautiful woman selling roses in Market Square, and they fell in love, and one day Daja presented Hana with a living metal rose and asked her to make a home with her, and Hana hugged her breathless and agreed. And so Daja achieved her dream of a family and a place to call her own, just as Tris off in Karang achieved her dream of becoming a successful charm-seller, and Briar wandering the world achieved his dream of selling beautiful shakkans to people who loved trees and never being hungry again. And it sounds trite to say it, but they lived happily ever after, or at least on the balance were mostly so.
Sandry knew it, too. And she hated that their dreams had turned hers to dust, but she had learned a few things over the years - about selfishness, about childhood, about adulthood, about love. And if there was one thing that would never change about Sandry, it was that in the end she really did love her siblings, and so just like she had when they'd left her the first time she swallowed her protests as best she could and let them have the lives they wanted. Better that three people be happy and only one miserable than the reverse.
She never told them about the sleepless nights she'd sit up spinning lightning or knotting together tufts of heat or weaving bouquets of flowers together, and crying. And she never let on even to herself how the nights she slept with the all-consuming hollowness in her head where three presences ought to have been were worse.
Sandry spun herself rings of thread with lumps in, but when she touched them, they were just fiber in her hand.