For wordy: wool to brave the seasons, PG
Dec 25, 2021 0:34:06 GMT 10
wordy, oskarshai, and 2 more like this
Post by Tamari on Dec 25, 2021 0:34:06 GMT 10
Title: wool to brave the seasons
Rating: PG
Daja doesn’t come with them to visit Tris at Longnight.
“I have too many orders to fill.” She shrugs at Sandry and hands her a small package. “Here, give Tris all my best. And remind her she promised to send me a copy of Dagworth’s research on rhodium, will you?”
“Are you sure? The trip won’t be the same without you, saati.”
Daja smiles back, the kind of smile that would look apologetic to a stranger. But to Sandry, who knows Daja like she knows herself, it’s a smile that means Daja is hiding something. Sandry narrows her eyes.
“I’ll come next Longnight,” Daja promises, and won’t budge, even when Sandry spends the whole afternoon flitting around the smithy and pleading.
It’s not that Sandry doesn’t want to go. She does, desperately. She, Briar, and Daja haven’t seen Tris in over a year, since Tris has been away at Lightsbridge and they’ve been in Summersea. Daja still lives on Cheeseman Street, while Briar has purchased his own home closer to the outskirts of the city. Sandry has her own shop in the market, where Gudruny runs the day-to-day affairs out front and Sandry has a workroom upstairs. Still, when she’s not advising her uncle in the citadel, she can often be found in Daja’s smithy or Briar’s greenhouse.
Sandry bundles up and leaves Daja’s with a sigh, on her way to inform Briar she’s failed her mission. He hasn’t said as much — it’s not Briar’s way — but she’s sure he was looking forward to the four being reunited as much as Sandry was.
The long trip northeast to Karaang will be different without Daja. The dynamic with all four of the mages together is familiar. So, too, is the rhythm of Daja-Briar-Sandry that they’ve learned over the past year. But the rhythm of Sandry-and-Briar is something else entirely.
Sandry has a connection with each of the Circle, independent of the others. Daja is Sandry’s saati, her sister, steady and true. Tris is all loyalty under her prickles, a sister too, distinct as she is from Daja. And Briar… well, Briar is Briar. The boy she argued with and fought for and wrote to. The man who had come for her in Namorn, in the box, in the dark. She hasn't forgotten.
“That you, Duchess?” Briar calls from the kitchen when Sandry enters, even as he sends a pulse through their mind-link.
“No, I’m a thief here to steal all your belongings. But now that you’ve called out to me, my dastardly plot has been foiled. Alas.”
Briar pokes his head out and grins. His face is flushed, deep rose against brown skin, and his dark hair is in disarray. “A real thief wouldn’t know the word dastardly. You’ve given yourself away again.”
“What are you making?” Sandry follows him back into the kitchen and eyes the bubbling pot on the stove.
“Stew. And afore you ask, no, I didn't steal tomatoes from Crane’s greenhouse, it was a square trade.”
“You left a shakkan behind this time?”
“Time to bring it full circle, eh?”
Sandry giggles. The very thought of Briar giving up one of his precious shakkans to Crane is as amusing as the callback to their youthful exploits. She’s been thinking a lot lately, of their time in Discipline Cottage, of their foster mothers, of those first tentative steps they’d taken toward the unshakable bond they hold now.
Daja’s not coming to Lightsbridge, Sandry informs Briar, as good a time as any.
The mirth falls from his face, though he doesn’t say anything, only sighs.
“We’ll have a good time anyway, though, won’t we?” Sandry looks up at him.
“Sure we will.” Briar’s mouth quirks up again. “I bring the fun wherever I go. You on the other hand, I heard you sat with ten of Summersea’s best-lookin' Bags for a feast and didn’t crack a smile once…”
Sandry flicks her wrist. The woven dishtowel swoops over to hover over his mouth. “Watch your tone, young man,” she says in a quavering voice. “You are speaking to the future Old Maid of House Toren.”
Briar goes back to laughing uproariously, and suddenly Sandry feels very silly for worrying about the upcoming journey. Sandry-and-Briar is a different beat than three or four, but it’s a rhythm she knows. One she loves.
“Are you seriously knitting right now?”
Sandry glances to the right, where Briar has pulled his horse up alongside her. “If Tris can read while she rides, I fail to see why I cannot knit,” she says.
“You can read one-handed.”
“I can ride no-handed.”
“But you shouldn’t!” Briar narrows his eyes at Sandry’s docile mare. “Where are your gloves, anyhow?”
Sandry shakes her head, hair tumbling around her face. “When did you turn into such a fusspot?”
“The first time I made Evvy take a bath, I became Rosethorn,” he says dryly.
“Careful, she’ll hear you all the way from Emelan,” Sandry warns.
They’ve ridden northeast for weeks now, and as soon as they cross the mountain pass from Qalai into Karang, they’ll be only a day’s ride from Lightsbridge. They’ve taken no extra guards. Overconfident, Rosethorn called them. Realistic, Briar said back. Rosethorn wasn’t there to see the cocoons swaying in the breeze, or Ishabel Ladyhammer on her knees. Bandits don’t stand a chance against Briar and Sandry, not when the two are prepared.
They camp for the night some hours later, Sandry unfurling their tents with a swirl of magic while Briar harvests some local hardy plants to supplement their travel rations. After so much time on the road, they have it down to an art.
Do you think Tris will be glad to see us? Sandry asks, not for the first time.
Of course, Briar says. She loves surprises.
She does not.
She’ll love this one.
Speaking of surprises, what did you get her for Longnight? Sandry has asked this before, too.
Briar smiles mysteriously each time.
Usually it’s Briar who stays awake, staring at the roof of the tent. Tonight, for once, Briar falls asleep first. Sandry curls up against him, tucked under his arm, and listens to his heart beat steady as a treadle loom.
She has missed Tris. She’s been wanting to go to Lightsbridge to see her sister for ages. But Sandry thinks she could stay here for Longnight, in the chill of the mountain pass, wrapped up warm and snug in blankets with Briar Moss, and that would be enough.
“Surprise!” Sandry and Briar shout in unison.
Tris does not shoot lightning at them. She’s learned more control than that. But she certainly is surprised. She almost drops the pile of books in her arms, recovering just in time to save the precious cargo.
“Briar?” Tris gasps. “Sandry? Lakik’s teeth, what are you doing here?”
“Spending Longnight with our dearest sister,” Sandry says gaily, and ignores the strange bite in her stomach when she says our sister.
Briar holds out his arms for Tris. “C’mere, Coppercurls, haven’t you missed us?”
Tris huffs, sets her books down carefully on her bedside table, and then hugs them each in turn. For Tris, it’s quite the gesture, even when she hasn’t seen her family in a year.
“You’ll have to show us everything,” Sandry tells Tris.
Tris rolls her eyes, but smiles. “Yes, Lady Sandry, right this way for the grand tour of Lightsbridge.”
As they walk down the cobblestone paths between the buildings, students nod and smile at Tris, who nods back. Her true identity isn’t known here, Sandry remembers, and it seems like Tris likes it that way. Her shoulders are down, her face relaxed. She looks more comfortable than Sandry can recall her looking in public for many years. Maybe ever.
“Failed any classes yet?” Briar jokes as they pass the building Tris calls the Arcaneum.
Tris shoots him a withering look. “Even in my second-year classes, I could be the one teaching them.”
“Isn’t that boring?” Briar wonders.
"How could I be bored with a library like this at my disposal?”
“Good old Tris.” Sandry puts her arm around her foster sister. “Which reminds me, Daja was asking about a book you’d promised to send her. Some sort of metal research?”
Tris gestures with gusto about the evident arrogance of the researcher in question, who had done a guest lecture in one of her classes. The trio go into town for dinner, which Tris insists on paying for (you’re my guests!). It’s Sandry-Briar-Tris now, an almost complete circle, even with Daja’s absence felt.
Sandry watches Briar across the table, watches him sweep dark hair out of his kind eyes, watches him tilt his head back when he laughs. And in the most private part of her mind, unshared with the others, a shameful side of Sandry wishes… No, she thinks. No. Preposterous.
But Tris’s friends don’t think it’s preposterous.
Tris takes Briar and Sandry to the dining hall the next day to meet her friends, a group of scholars she’s met through her classes. One of them is a strikingly gorgeous brunette, who promptly spends the entire dinner leaning across the table and laughing at Briar’s jokes. Which is perfectly fine, Sandry tells herself. Briar is funny, and the girl, Ana, is very sweet.
Ana tugs Sandry away with a linked arm to show her the desserts.
“Your man is awfully handsome,” Ana confides in a whisper. “How did you two meet?”
On the tip of Sandry’s tongue is the habitual response: you’ve got it wrong, we grew up together, he’s like my brother though we aren’t related at all.
She does say, with a laugh that should be natural: “Oh, he’s not my man.”
Ana arches an eyebrow. “Not yet, maybe. Have you seen the way he looks at you? The way you look at him?”
“We look at each other like dear friends.”
“No friend of mine has ever looked at me like that,” Ana says doubtfully. “Like you’re the only two people in the world.”
“Very dear friends.” Sandry selects some custards to bring back to the table for Briar — and for Tris and her friends, of course.
Ana hmms as they return to their friends. “How long are you staying at Lightsbridge?”
“Another week or so.”
Sandry slides into her seat next to Briar. He squeezes her hand under the table without missing a beat in his debate about soil types with Tris’s friend Anthony. Sandry can only catch the gist of the discussion; still, she’s sure Briar is holding his own. He’ll never be the kind of mage who needs pretty words to convince everyone of their intelligence. It’s no matter how he expresses himself, when no one but Rosethorn can hold a candle to his knowledge of plants.
"San here could tell you more about webs of root networks," Briar says, pulling her into the conversation. He always knows when she's feeling on the outskirts.
Sandry looks down, at his hand over hers. Under the edge of Briar’s sleeve — stitched silk, her best work — flowers start to bloom across his skin, cornflower blue.
Sandry has gotten permission to slip into a lecture by Moren Silverstaff, an academic mage who has nonetheless brought thread magic into the forefront of magic discussion in his latest book. She can tell that he recognizes her, even sitting in the back of the hall as she is, by the way his eyes widen. Maybe he knows her by the silly songs the bards pass around about her blue eyes and sun-streaked braids. More likely, it’s the quality of her embroidered cloak.
After the lecture, Moren catches her by the door.
"Lady Sandrilene," he says in a low voice. "What an unexpected honor."
"I couldn't miss your lecture. But please, call me San. I’m in town to see family, and you can imagine my notoriety would put a damper on our ability to celebrate Longnight in peace.” She smiles to balance the bitterness in her tone.
"But of course." His handsome face turns red. “I never thought I would have the chance to ask you — or I would’ve prepared some notes but — what did you think of my hypothesis about the potential of academic mages to harness thread magic?”
Sandry smiles more genuinely.
They talk as they exit the lecture hall, walking down towards the library, and stand outside the building. Even in her cold-weather fabrics, Sandry knows her button nose must be bright red. Light snow dusts Moren’s brown hair as it does her own braids. But it has been a long time since she’s had the chance to talk to someone new who’s truly interested in her work (and also not afraid of her).
Sandry feels Briar and Tris before she sees them, a pulse of warmth in their mind-links. The duo emerge from the library together, Tris’s bag bulging. No books will ever fear the rain or the snow when they’re stored in a bag Sandry has made.
Moren doesn’t look afraid when he sees them, but he does look starstruck. “The other great mages — I didn’t realize—” he stammers.
Tris rolls her eyes at Sandry. “Do secret identities mean nothing to you?”
“I can’t help being so recognizable,” Sandry jokes. Usually it’s Tris who blows their cover, with her distinctive red braids and spectacles, but unlike Sandry, she’s established a life here.
“How do you know our Sandry?” Briar has his hands in his pockets, though he doesn’t seem cold. His grin has an edge to it.
“We’ve just met at his guest lecture,” Sandry says.
“She was kind enough to entertain my theories.”
“Right,” says Tris, exchanging a look with Briar.
Moren fawns over Briar, and Briar tolerates it. (The mage doesn’t try fawning over Tris, so at least he has that much sense.) The academic mage promises to send Sandry a complimentary copy of his latest book before he takes his leave.
“Didn’t think you’d go for that type,” Briar says as he and Sandry walk back to the boarding house that night.
“First of all, I may not be Tris, but I still appreciate an academic discussion. That’s all it was,” Sandry retorts. “Second, what do you mean, ‘that type’? A mage?”
Briar shrugs. The sun has set, and the streetlamps cast a pale glow against his brown skin and chocolate-colored coat. “A mage, yeah. A commoner.”
I’ve had quite enough of noblemen.
Fair enough.
“A mage, at least, would never ask me to give up my craft.”
Briar bumps his shoulder into hers. “So you say, but most all the mages I’ve met would hate the idea of their girl having the power to tie them up in knots.”
He’s not wrong, Sandry knows, considering the mages she’s met outside of Winding Circle. Still. “I wouldn’t want someone who was afraid of me. And if they have their own power, perhaps they wouldn’t be.”
“Who’d measure up to you? You’d get one like that Silverstick, who worships the ground you walk on. And not because you’re walking over rare flowers.”
“You don’t think I deserve to be worshipped?” Sandry says archly.
They pause at the entrance to the boarding house, and Sandry’s face goes hot at the suddenly serious look on Briar’s face.
You deserve someone who sees you as Sandry. Not just the great lady, not just the great mage. Someone who knows you when you’re covered in cotton fluff as much as when you’re decked out in fine silk.
She covers her face with her hands. “We don’t speak of the cotton incident.”
Briar’s laugh is a warm, familiar sound. She can’t imagine staying here in Lightsbridge, walking these snowy alleys and going to class, and not hearing Briar’s laughter for months and months. Countries away, worlds away, from her home and her family and Briar. How does Tris do it?
At the boarding house, they separate for their own rooms. It’s not like the trip to Karang; there are proprieties to be observed.
Again, a tiny voice asks, Would it be so bad to share a room all the time? Would it be so bad to guard each other against the nightmares every night? Is it so terrible to think about how it feels when he strokes your hair, or how he smiles when he talks to his shakkan?
The voice doesn’t belong to Daja or Tris or Briar. It is Sandry’s voice, speaking Sandry’s thoughts, even when she tries to pretend otherwise.
Sandry is not good at pretending.
Longnight is spent with just the three of them, Tris-Briar-Sandry. They end up sitting on the floor in Tris’s room in front of a roaring fire. Her roommates have scattered during the break from classes.
Despite not expecting them and thus lacking presents to give them, Tris snuck out to town one night and procured local delicacies as a Longnight treat.
“You’ll like these, Briar.” Tris nudges the plate of caramels toward him.
Briar reveals the gift he’d been hiding from Sandry during their journey: a painting of Discipline Cottage. The thatched cottage glows in the light of sunrise, spring flowers poking through brushstrokes of spiky green grass. In the corner, swirls of clouds cluster, a gathering storm.
“Can’t let you forget where you come from, and where you have to come back to.” Briar rubs the back of his head.
Tris looks misty behind her spectacles, blinking at the painting. “Briar, this is… you made this?”
“No big deal.” He embraces Tris awkwardly. “Made some paint from some pigments and dyes I had lying around.”
“I didn’t know you could paint,” Sandry says.
Briar winks at her over Tris’ shoulder. “I’m full of hidden talents, Duchess.”
“Full of something.” Tris sniffs, pulling back and regaining her poise.
Sandry’s gifts of an embroidered bookmark and a new, warm pair of gloves pale in comparison, but Tris accepts them anyway.
Sandry and Briar prepare to leave the week after Longnight.
“It’s been so good to see you, Tris,” Sandry says on their last day together, trying not to be too emotional.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Tris says. She waves Briar away. “We’ll catch up with you. Go beg some last snacks from the kitchens.”
The two women climb to the top of the Lightsbridge walls and look out. The air is calm and the sky is blue, this morning, the perfect weather for Sandry and Briar to begin their long trip back to Summersea.
“What’s this all about?” Sandry asks.
You’re being an idiot. Even Tris’s mind-voice is tart.
I— Sandry swings her gaze away from the view to look at Tris. In general, or about something in particular?
Tris gazes back, eyebrows raised, and radiates irritation through their bond. I don’t need a vision on the wind to see what’s going on.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sandry says, although she has an itching suspicion that she does know.
Tris blows out her breath, visible in the air. Sandry. I would think it’s gross to look at Briar that way, but you’re not me. I don’t care, and neither will Daja. We’d rather see you happy than torturing yourself over something stupid.
It’s not— Sandry bites her lip. Tris, he doesn’t—
Being an idiot, Tris repeats.
Nothing means more to me than Briar, and you, and Daja. I couldn’t bear it if everything fell apart again.
Tris’s braids sway in the breeze, but she looks calm. We’re stronger than that.
Sandry follows Tris back down the stairs, meeting up with Briar and their bags, and she finds it hard to meet his eyes.
They set up camp that night on the road outside the city, a familiar flow, and the rhythm of Sandry-and-Briar should be just like it was on the way there. Only it isn’t like that at all.
Underneath the heavy wool blankets, Sandry can’t get comfortable. It feels wrong, to be thinking about what Tris said while lying right next to Briar.
“What did Tris want to tell you?” Briar asks.
“That I was being an idiot.”
Briar snorts. “Typical Tris. Did she say more? Were you being an idiot in general?”
“No,” Sandry says. “Not in general.”
Vines swirl over Briar’s skin, black and gray in the darkness, one hand behind his head and the other resting on Sandry’s waist. The only light in the tent comes from her stone where it sits on top of her pack.
“Then what?” Briar says.
“She said I was being an idiot about you,” Sandry admits. “And maybe I am.”
Briar doesn’t say anything aloud. He doesn’t say anything through their link, either, closed off more tightly than normal.
“I still think about Namorn, you know. I still remember being in the box, and I couldn’t reach Tris or Daja, and our link was so withered but it was still there. And you were with that girl, but you dropped her — you dropped her—” Sandry snorts. “You came for me.”
“You would come for me.”
Sandry puts her hand on Briar’s chest. “I would.”
“I don’t get what you’re being an idiot about, still.”
“I know you sleep with a different girl every night in Summersea—”
“I don’t,” Briar says quickly. “First of all, do you know what a pain that would be? I would run out of girls so fast.”
Sandry laughs despite herself.
Briar runs his hand from the top of her head to the end of her braid. “Now things are… well, it wouldn't be so bad to sleep alone. But I don't have to. I’ve been sleeping with you since we left, right?”
Sandry lets the words sit in the darkness for a moment, and feels Briar’s jolt when he realises how that sounds.
“I don’t mean—”
“You don’t?” Her voice shakes, gives her away.
“Sandry…”
Sandry knows that tone of Briar’s, the one he uses when he’s at a loss for words. She starts to sit up and throw off the blankets. There’s nowhere to go, but she can go pace outside the tent, get some space, and chastise herself for even bringing it up.
But Briar reaches for her and pulls her back against him. “Don’t go,” he says.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“But you did,” Briar blurts. “And I can’t say I haven’t thought about it. It’s different between us, isn’t it? Than with the others?”
“Yes,” Sandry says, hardly breathing. “It is.”
He goes back to stroking her hair, and she leans into his touch.
“Sandry,” Briar whispers. “Green Man save me from sappiness. But every time you walk out of my greenhouse, I swear it’s a little less bright.”
“I’ll let you paint a portrait of me to hang in there,” Sandry whispers back. “Then you won’t forget me when I’m working at my own shop.”
“I could never forget you. Never, never.”
And again Sandry and Briar hold each other close in the winter chill, one week after Longnight. It is more than enough.
Rating: PG
For: wordy
Prompt: 1. Briar/Sandry and 2. Emelan - any characters or pairings. Holiday theme e.g. exchanging gifts, quality time with family/friends, sharing a meal, mistletoe, snow
Summary: Sandry and Briar go to Lightsbridge.
Notes and Warnings: Lightly inspired by Kris’s masterpiece Clear Skies and also by certain lyrics in Taylor Swift’s invisible string. No warnings except that this is so shippy. Thanks to FeatheryMinx for a quick beta!
-:-
Daja doesn’t come with them to visit Tris at Longnight.
“I have too many orders to fill.” She shrugs at Sandry and hands her a small package. “Here, give Tris all my best. And remind her she promised to send me a copy of Dagworth’s research on rhodium, will you?”
“Are you sure? The trip won’t be the same without you, saati.”
Daja smiles back, the kind of smile that would look apologetic to a stranger. But to Sandry, who knows Daja like she knows herself, it’s a smile that means Daja is hiding something. Sandry narrows her eyes.
“I’ll come next Longnight,” Daja promises, and won’t budge, even when Sandry spends the whole afternoon flitting around the smithy and pleading.
It’s not that Sandry doesn’t want to go. She does, desperately. She, Briar, and Daja haven’t seen Tris in over a year, since Tris has been away at Lightsbridge and they’ve been in Summersea. Daja still lives on Cheeseman Street, while Briar has purchased his own home closer to the outskirts of the city. Sandry has her own shop in the market, where Gudruny runs the day-to-day affairs out front and Sandry has a workroom upstairs. Still, when she’s not advising her uncle in the citadel, she can often be found in Daja’s smithy or Briar’s greenhouse.
Sandry bundles up and leaves Daja’s with a sigh, on her way to inform Briar she’s failed her mission. He hasn’t said as much — it’s not Briar’s way — but she’s sure he was looking forward to the four being reunited as much as Sandry was.
The long trip northeast to Karaang will be different without Daja. The dynamic with all four of the mages together is familiar. So, too, is the rhythm of Daja-Briar-Sandry that they’ve learned over the past year. But the rhythm of Sandry-and-Briar is something else entirely.
Sandry has a connection with each of the Circle, independent of the others. Daja is Sandry’s saati, her sister, steady and true. Tris is all loyalty under her prickles, a sister too, distinct as she is from Daja. And Briar… well, Briar is Briar. The boy she argued with and fought for and wrote to. The man who had come for her in Namorn, in the box, in the dark. She hasn't forgotten.
“That you, Duchess?” Briar calls from the kitchen when Sandry enters, even as he sends a pulse through their mind-link.
“No, I’m a thief here to steal all your belongings. But now that you’ve called out to me, my dastardly plot has been foiled. Alas.”
Briar pokes his head out and grins. His face is flushed, deep rose against brown skin, and his dark hair is in disarray. “A real thief wouldn’t know the word dastardly. You’ve given yourself away again.”
“What are you making?” Sandry follows him back into the kitchen and eyes the bubbling pot on the stove.
“Stew. And afore you ask, no, I didn't steal tomatoes from Crane’s greenhouse, it was a square trade.”
“You left a shakkan behind this time?”
“Time to bring it full circle, eh?”
Sandry giggles. The very thought of Briar giving up one of his precious shakkans to Crane is as amusing as the callback to their youthful exploits. She’s been thinking a lot lately, of their time in Discipline Cottage, of their foster mothers, of those first tentative steps they’d taken toward the unshakable bond they hold now.
Daja’s not coming to Lightsbridge, Sandry informs Briar, as good a time as any.
The mirth falls from his face, though he doesn’t say anything, only sighs.
“We’ll have a good time anyway, though, won’t we?” Sandry looks up at him.
“Sure we will.” Briar’s mouth quirks up again. “I bring the fun wherever I go. You on the other hand, I heard you sat with ten of Summersea’s best-lookin' Bags for a feast and didn’t crack a smile once…”
Sandry flicks her wrist. The woven dishtowel swoops over to hover over his mouth. “Watch your tone, young man,” she says in a quavering voice. “You are speaking to the future Old Maid of House Toren.”
Briar goes back to laughing uproariously, and suddenly Sandry feels very silly for worrying about the upcoming journey. Sandry-and-Briar is a different beat than three or four, but it’s a rhythm she knows. One she loves.
-:-
“Are you seriously knitting right now?”
Sandry glances to the right, where Briar has pulled his horse up alongside her. “If Tris can read while she rides, I fail to see why I cannot knit,” she says.
“You can read one-handed.”
“I can ride no-handed.”
“But you shouldn’t!” Briar narrows his eyes at Sandry’s docile mare. “Where are your gloves, anyhow?”
Sandry shakes her head, hair tumbling around her face. “When did you turn into such a fusspot?”
“The first time I made Evvy take a bath, I became Rosethorn,” he says dryly.
“Careful, she’ll hear you all the way from Emelan,” Sandry warns.
They’ve ridden northeast for weeks now, and as soon as they cross the mountain pass from Qalai into Karang, they’ll be only a day’s ride from Lightsbridge. They’ve taken no extra guards. Overconfident, Rosethorn called them. Realistic, Briar said back. Rosethorn wasn’t there to see the cocoons swaying in the breeze, or Ishabel Ladyhammer on her knees. Bandits don’t stand a chance against Briar and Sandry, not when the two are prepared.
They camp for the night some hours later, Sandry unfurling their tents with a swirl of magic while Briar harvests some local hardy plants to supplement their travel rations. After so much time on the road, they have it down to an art.
Do you think Tris will be glad to see us? Sandry asks, not for the first time.
Of course, Briar says. She loves surprises.
She does not.
She’ll love this one.
Speaking of surprises, what did you get her for Longnight? Sandry has asked this before, too.
Briar smiles mysteriously each time.
Usually it’s Briar who stays awake, staring at the roof of the tent. Tonight, for once, Briar falls asleep first. Sandry curls up against him, tucked under his arm, and listens to his heart beat steady as a treadle loom.
She has missed Tris. She’s been wanting to go to Lightsbridge to see her sister for ages. But Sandry thinks she could stay here for Longnight, in the chill of the mountain pass, wrapped up warm and snug in blankets with Briar Moss, and that would be enough.
-:-
“Surprise!” Sandry and Briar shout in unison.
Tris does not shoot lightning at them. She’s learned more control than that. But she certainly is surprised. She almost drops the pile of books in her arms, recovering just in time to save the precious cargo.
“Briar?” Tris gasps. “Sandry? Lakik’s teeth, what are you doing here?”
“Spending Longnight with our dearest sister,” Sandry says gaily, and ignores the strange bite in her stomach when she says our sister.
Briar holds out his arms for Tris. “C’mere, Coppercurls, haven’t you missed us?”
Tris huffs, sets her books down carefully on her bedside table, and then hugs them each in turn. For Tris, it’s quite the gesture, even when she hasn’t seen her family in a year.
“You’ll have to show us everything,” Sandry tells Tris.
Tris rolls her eyes, but smiles. “Yes, Lady Sandry, right this way for the grand tour of Lightsbridge.”
As they walk down the cobblestone paths between the buildings, students nod and smile at Tris, who nods back. Her true identity isn’t known here, Sandry remembers, and it seems like Tris likes it that way. Her shoulders are down, her face relaxed. She looks more comfortable than Sandry can recall her looking in public for many years. Maybe ever.
“Failed any classes yet?” Briar jokes as they pass the building Tris calls the Arcaneum.
Tris shoots him a withering look. “Even in my second-year classes, I could be the one teaching them.”
“Isn’t that boring?” Briar wonders.
"How could I be bored with a library like this at my disposal?”
“Good old Tris.” Sandry puts her arm around her foster sister. “Which reminds me, Daja was asking about a book you’d promised to send her. Some sort of metal research?”
Tris gestures with gusto about the evident arrogance of the researcher in question, who had done a guest lecture in one of her classes. The trio go into town for dinner, which Tris insists on paying for (you’re my guests!). It’s Sandry-Briar-Tris now, an almost complete circle, even with Daja’s absence felt.
Sandry watches Briar across the table, watches him sweep dark hair out of his kind eyes, watches him tilt his head back when he laughs. And in the most private part of her mind, unshared with the others, a shameful side of Sandry wishes… No, she thinks. No. Preposterous.
But Tris’s friends don’t think it’s preposterous.
Tris takes Briar and Sandry to the dining hall the next day to meet her friends, a group of scholars she’s met through her classes. One of them is a strikingly gorgeous brunette, who promptly spends the entire dinner leaning across the table and laughing at Briar’s jokes. Which is perfectly fine, Sandry tells herself. Briar is funny, and the girl, Ana, is very sweet.
Ana tugs Sandry away with a linked arm to show her the desserts.
“Your man is awfully handsome,” Ana confides in a whisper. “How did you two meet?”
On the tip of Sandry’s tongue is the habitual response: you’ve got it wrong, we grew up together, he’s like my brother though we aren’t related at all.
She does say, with a laugh that should be natural: “Oh, he’s not my man.”
Ana arches an eyebrow. “Not yet, maybe. Have you seen the way he looks at you? The way you look at him?”
“We look at each other like dear friends.”
“No friend of mine has ever looked at me like that,” Ana says doubtfully. “Like you’re the only two people in the world.”
“Very dear friends.” Sandry selects some custards to bring back to the table for Briar — and for Tris and her friends, of course.
Ana hmms as they return to their friends. “How long are you staying at Lightsbridge?”
“Another week or so.”
Sandry slides into her seat next to Briar. He squeezes her hand under the table without missing a beat in his debate about soil types with Tris’s friend Anthony. Sandry can only catch the gist of the discussion; still, she’s sure Briar is holding his own. He’ll never be the kind of mage who needs pretty words to convince everyone of their intelligence. It’s no matter how he expresses himself, when no one but Rosethorn can hold a candle to his knowledge of plants.
"San here could tell you more about webs of root networks," Briar says, pulling her into the conversation. He always knows when she's feeling on the outskirts.
Sandry looks down, at his hand over hers. Under the edge of Briar’s sleeve — stitched silk, her best work — flowers start to bloom across his skin, cornflower blue.
-:-
Sandry has gotten permission to slip into a lecture by Moren Silverstaff, an academic mage who has nonetheless brought thread magic into the forefront of magic discussion in his latest book. She can tell that he recognizes her, even sitting in the back of the hall as she is, by the way his eyes widen. Maybe he knows her by the silly songs the bards pass around about her blue eyes and sun-streaked braids. More likely, it’s the quality of her embroidered cloak.
After the lecture, Moren catches her by the door.
"Lady Sandrilene," he says in a low voice. "What an unexpected honor."
"I couldn't miss your lecture. But please, call me San. I’m in town to see family, and you can imagine my notoriety would put a damper on our ability to celebrate Longnight in peace.” She smiles to balance the bitterness in her tone.
"But of course." His handsome face turns red. “I never thought I would have the chance to ask you — or I would’ve prepared some notes but — what did you think of my hypothesis about the potential of academic mages to harness thread magic?”
Sandry smiles more genuinely.
They talk as they exit the lecture hall, walking down towards the library, and stand outside the building. Even in her cold-weather fabrics, Sandry knows her button nose must be bright red. Light snow dusts Moren’s brown hair as it does her own braids. But it has been a long time since she’s had the chance to talk to someone new who’s truly interested in her work (and also not afraid of her).
Sandry feels Briar and Tris before she sees them, a pulse of warmth in their mind-links. The duo emerge from the library together, Tris’s bag bulging. No books will ever fear the rain or the snow when they’re stored in a bag Sandry has made.
Moren doesn’t look afraid when he sees them, but he does look starstruck. “The other great mages — I didn’t realize—” he stammers.
Tris rolls her eyes at Sandry. “Do secret identities mean nothing to you?”
“I can’t help being so recognizable,” Sandry jokes. Usually it’s Tris who blows their cover, with her distinctive red braids and spectacles, but unlike Sandry, she’s established a life here.
“How do you know our Sandry?” Briar has his hands in his pockets, though he doesn’t seem cold. His grin has an edge to it.
“We’ve just met at his guest lecture,” Sandry says.
“She was kind enough to entertain my theories.”
“Right,” says Tris, exchanging a look with Briar.
Moren fawns over Briar, and Briar tolerates it. (The mage doesn’t try fawning over Tris, so at least he has that much sense.) The academic mage promises to send Sandry a complimentary copy of his latest book before he takes his leave.
“Didn’t think you’d go for that type,” Briar says as he and Sandry walk back to the boarding house that night.
“First of all, I may not be Tris, but I still appreciate an academic discussion. That’s all it was,” Sandry retorts. “Second, what do you mean, ‘that type’? A mage?”
Briar shrugs. The sun has set, and the streetlamps cast a pale glow against his brown skin and chocolate-colored coat. “A mage, yeah. A commoner.”
I’ve had quite enough of noblemen.
Fair enough.
“A mage, at least, would never ask me to give up my craft.”
Briar bumps his shoulder into hers. “So you say, but most all the mages I’ve met would hate the idea of their girl having the power to tie them up in knots.”
He’s not wrong, Sandry knows, considering the mages she’s met outside of Winding Circle. Still. “I wouldn’t want someone who was afraid of me. And if they have their own power, perhaps they wouldn’t be.”
“Who’d measure up to you? You’d get one like that Silverstick, who worships the ground you walk on. And not because you’re walking over rare flowers.”
“You don’t think I deserve to be worshipped?” Sandry says archly.
They pause at the entrance to the boarding house, and Sandry’s face goes hot at the suddenly serious look on Briar’s face.
You deserve someone who sees you as Sandry. Not just the great lady, not just the great mage. Someone who knows you when you’re covered in cotton fluff as much as when you’re decked out in fine silk.
She covers her face with her hands. “We don’t speak of the cotton incident.”
Briar’s laugh is a warm, familiar sound. She can’t imagine staying here in Lightsbridge, walking these snowy alleys and going to class, and not hearing Briar’s laughter for months and months. Countries away, worlds away, from her home and her family and Briar. How does Tris do it?
At the boarding house, they separate for their own rooms. It’s not like the trip to Karang; there are proprieties to be observed.
Again, a tiny voice asks, Would it be so bad to share a room all the time? Would it be so bad to guard each other against the nightmares every night? Is it so terrible to think about how it feels when he strokes your hair, or how he smiles when he talks to his shakkan?
The voice doesn’t belong to Daja or Tris or Briar. It is Sandry’s voice, speaking Sandry’s thoughts, even when she tries to pretend otherwise.
Sandry is not good at pretending.
-:-
Longnight is spent with just the three of them, Tris-Briar-Sandry. They end up sitting on the floor in Tris’s room in front of a roaring fire. Her roommates have scattered during the break from classes.
Despite not expecting them and thus lacking presents to give them, Tris snuck out to town one night and procured local delicacies as a Longnight treat.
“You’ll like these, Briar.” Tris nudges the plate of caramels toward him.
Briar reveals the gift he’d been hiding from Sandry during their journey: a painting of Discipline Cottage. The thatched cottage glows in the light of sunrise, spring flowers poking through brushstrokes of spiky green grass. In the corner, swirls of clouds cluster, a gathering storm.
“Can’t let you forget where you come from, and where you have to come back to.” Briar rubs the back of his head.
Tris looks misty behind her spectacles, blinking at the painting. “Briar, this is… you made this?”
“No big deal.” He embraces Tris awkwardly. “Made some paint from some pigments and dyes I had lying around.”
“I didn’t know you could paint,” Sandry says.
Briar winks at her over Tris’ shoulder. “I’m full of hidden talents, Duchess.”
“Full of something.” Tris sniffs, pulling back and regaining her poise.
Sandry’s gifts of an embroidered bookmark and a new, warm pair of gloves pale in comparison, but Tris accepts them anyway.
-:-
Sandry and Briar prepare to leave the week after Longnight.
“It’s been so good to see you, Tris,” Sandry says on their last day together, trying not to be too emotional.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Tris says. She waves Briar away. “We’ll catch up with you. Go beg some last snacks from the kitchens.”
The two women climb to the top of the Lightsbridge walls and look out. The air is calm and the sky is blue, this morning, the perfect weather for Sandry and Briar to begin their long trip back to Summersea.
“What’s this all about?” Sandry asks.
You’re being an idiot. Even Tris’s mind-voice is tart.
I— Sandry swings her gaze away from the view to look at Tris. In general, or about something in particular?
Tris gazes back, eyebrows raised, and radiates irritation through their bond. I don’t need a vision on the wind to see what’s going on.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sandry says, although she has an itching suspicion that she does know.
Tris blows out her breath, visible in the air. Sandry. I would think it’s gross to look at Briar that way, but you’re not me. I don’t care, and neither will Daja. We’d rather see you happy than torturing yourself over something stupid.
It’s not— Sandry bites her lip. Tris, he doesn’t—
Being an idiot, Tris repeats.
Nothing means more to me than Briar, and you, and Daja. I couldn’t bear it if everything fell apart again.
Tris’s braids sway in the breeze, but she looks calm. We’re stronger than that.
Sandry follows Tris back down the stairs, meeting up with Briar and their bags, and she finds it hard to meet his eyes.
-:-
They set up camp that night on the road outside the city, a familiar flow, and the rhythm of Sandry-and-Briar should be just like it was on the way there. Only it isn’t like that at all.
Underneath the heavy wool blankets, Sandry can’t get comfortable. It feels wrong, to be thinking about what Tris said while lying right next to Briar.
“What did Tris want to tell you?” Briar asks.
“That I was being an idiot.”
Briar snorts. “Typical Tris. Did she say more? Were you being an idiot in general?”
“No,” Sandry says. “Not in general.”
Vines swirl over Briar’s skin, black and gray in the darkness, one hand behind his head and the other resting on Sandry’s waist. The only light in the tent comes from her stone where it sits on top of her pack.
“Then what?” Briar says.
“She said I was being an idiot about you,” Sandry admits. “And maybe I am.”
Briar doesn’t say anything aloud. He doesn’t say anything through their link, either, closed off more tightly than normal.
“I still think about Namorn, you know. I still remember being in the box, and I couldn’t reach Tris or Daja, and our link was so withered but it was still there. And you were with that girl, but you dropped her — you dropped her—” Sandry snorts. “You came for me.”
“You would come for me.”
Sandry puts her hand on Briar’s chest. “I would.”
“I don’t get what you’re being an idiot about, still.”
“I know you sleep with a different girl every night in Summersea—”
“I don’t,” Briar says quickly. “First of all, do you know what a pain that would be? I would run out of girls so fast.”
Sandry laughs despite herself.
Briar runs his hand from the top of her head to the end of her braid. “Now things are… well, it wouldn't be so bad to sleep alone. But I don't have to. I’ve been sleeping with you since we left, right?”
Sandry lets the words sit in the darkness for a moment, and feels Briar’s jolt when he realises how that sounds.
“I don’t mean—”
“You don’t?” Her voice shakes, gives her away.
“Sandry…”
Sandry knows that tone of Briar’s, the one he uses when he’s at a loss for words. She starts to sit up and throw off the blankets. There’s nowhere to go, but she can go pace outside the tent, get some space, and chastise herself for even bringing it up.
But Briar reaches for her and pulls her back against him. “Don’t go,” he says.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“But you did,” Briar blurts. “And I can’t say I haven’t thought about it. It’s different between us, isn’t it? Than with the others?”
“Yes,” Sandry says, hardly breathing. “It is.”
He goes back to stroking her hair, and she leans into his touch.
“Sandry,” Briar whispers. “Green Man save me from sappiness. But every time you walk out of my greenhouse, I swear it’s a little less bright.”
“I’ll let you paint a portrait of me to hang in there,” Sandry whispers back. “Then you won’t forget me when I’m working at my own shop.”
“I could never forget you. Never, never.”
And again Sandry and Briar hold each other close in the winter chill, one week after Longnight. It is more than enough.