Post by Seek on Dec 26, 2021 18:54:09 GMT 10
Title: Knotted Bittergrass
Rating: PG
For: Kypriotha
Prompt: 2. Tris, any time period
Summary: The Circle has dinner two weeks before Tris is due to leave for Lightsbridge.
Notes and Warnings: Happy belated holidays!
“You don’t need Lightsbridge,” Briar blurts out, over dinner, two weeks before Tris is due to leave. None of them have made a habit of wine but the Duke has sent down Sandry—with this year’s harvest from the southern vineyards of Harvest Valley, and a pointed reminder to visit her foster-siblings more instead of minding an old man, and Sandry worked the bottle open so the four of them are being fancy.
At least the wine goes well with the meal Tris has prepared.
“It’s a feast,” Sandry had said, smiling. Tris’d made sure everyone’s favourite foods were there in the spread. They didn’t see each other so often these days, for all they kept the magical connection open.
But this is a different separation: a kinder separation, without the distance they’d forcibly imposed on each other. Daja runs her forge; Sandry runs the Duke’s citadel and somehow has time to take orders for fashionable designs. Briar works on his shakkans.
And Tris wants Lightsbridge, and part of her feels out of place for it, the way the others have so neatly fallen into their adult lives and yet she hasn’t managed to find a place of her own.
“I bought this house for all of us,” Daja would’ve said, but Number 6 Cheeseman Street isn’t Discipline, and for all Tris keeps the house clean and does the cooking—it isn’t hers, and a part of her, the part that grew up mocked and shuffled from house after house of increasingly-distant Chandler relatives…
Discipline was home. Living here, in Daja’s home, it isn’t the same, and Tris doesn’t really want to work out why. She just wants to go to Lightsbridge, to study everything that can be studied, and get her credentials, and do some quiet, unremarkable work as an academic mage in a place of her own.
After all these years, Tris knows that Briar can be rude, and tactless, but never thoughtless, though the wine is a soft but not unpleasant layer of cloud in her thoughts and blood. She studies Briar over the rim of her glass. “It’s the best place to get academic mage credentials,” she says. “Crane said as much.”
Briar scowls, though it’s clear he doesn’t have it in him. “’Course he would,” he mutters. “Bag like him, what else would he say?”
She’s had this conversation with Niko and with Crane, and even with Lark and Rosethorn, and with Daja and Sandry, but something about the way Briar says it gets beneath her skin.
“He studied there,” Tris replies, matter-of-factly. She helps herself to freshly-baked bread, drizzling vinegar and olive oil on it. “Of course he’d know.”
“I think you’ll love Lightbridge,” Niko had said, briskly. He studied her, and she found she couldn’t meet his gaze. A truthsayer like her teacher had a way of pulling deep truths out of a person, even without quite meaning to. Even if you didn’t always mean to acknowledge it, and hadn’t quite known it yourself. “But are credentials why you want to go there?”
“They’ll be mine,” she said, because a truthsayer can compel the truth, but not the whole truth. And sometimes, reality is too complex for simple words. Hers in a way that her Winding Circle medallion isn’t. Hers in a way that makes her unremarkable.
She doesn’t want to do war magic. And being Trisana Chandler, walking human thunderstorm, and, apparently, working wonders and impossibilities and oddities is exhausting.
Tris has never wanted to be different. Tris has always, always wanted a place of her own, somewhere she could fit and no one would mind the odd bits and the rough edges and she’d fight Ishabal Ladyhammer one-on-one from her sickbed all over again if anyone tried to hex her siblings but—
—But they fit so easily, so gracefully into their adult lives, and Tris can’t see a way that she can do the same.
She’s—not unappreciative of Daja’s generosity. But generosity is just that: generosity is Aunt Uraelle, pinching Tris’s earlobe, screeching about how generous she is, taking Tris in, how Tris needs to repay that generosity rather than being a burden and an ingrate, and Daja would never do that, Tris knows that Daja is as bright and true as the strike of lightning, but she…she cannot.
It has to be hers, but the words don’t come tumbling out of her mouth, and even Niko, for all his powers as a truthsayer, can’t coax that from her, even were he so minded.
Something in Briar’s grey-green eyes soften. “Coppercurls,” he says, offering her the platter of herbed chicken, a dish that Tris has come to love from Tharios, “I think you’re always going to be different. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. We all stuck out like bittergrass, even as kids. I don’t think you need Lightsbridge. I think you need a soul-healer.”
She looks up, and around her, sharply. And there it is, in Sandry’s eyes, and in Daja’s eyes, too, and she doesn’t want to deal with it. She never has.
But she doesn’t want to have this conversation. And it’s too late to be having it, two weeks to Lightsbridge.
“I’ll see a soul-healer when you start seeing one,” she says briskly. “Don’t give me any of that street rat toughness speech again.”
Briar glares at Sandry. “You told, didn’t you?”
Sandry folds her arms across her chest. “You know what Rosethorn would say.”
This quells Briar, who grumbles, but backs down. If there’s something Briar has to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing, it’s seeing a soul-healer about the horrors of Gyongxe. Even now.
Privately, Tris thinks she understands.
Daja says, quietly, “Tris has already made up her mind, Briar,” and Tris sends a flash of wordless gratitude through their link. “But I think he’s saying what we are hoping. That you’ll find what you need, whether at Lightsbridge, or elsewhere.”
“And you’ll always have a place with us,” Sandry adds, and Tris can believe it the most from Sandry, who has a heart big enough for all of Narmorn and Emelan besides. “Someone has to be bittergrass together with the rest of us.”
Rating: PG
For: Kypriotha
Prompt: 2. Tris, any time period
Summary: The Circle has dinner two weeks before Tris is due to leave for Lightsbridge.
Notes and Warnings: Happy belated holidays!
“You don’t need Lightsbridge,” Briar blurts out, over dinner, two weeks before Tris is due to leave. None of them have made a habit of wine but the Duke has sent down Sandry—with this year’s harvest from the southern vineyards of Harvest Valley, and a pointed reminder to visit her foster-siblings more instead of minding an old man, and Sandry worked the bottle open so the four of them are being fancy.
At least the wine goes well with the meal Tris has prepared.
“It’s a feast,” Sandry had said, smiling. Tris’d made sure everyone’s favourite foods were there in the spread. They didn’t see each other so often these days, for all they kept the magical connection open.
But this is a different separation: a kinder separation, without the distance they’d forcibly imposed on each other. Daja runs her forge; Sandry runs the Duke’s citadel and somehow has time to take orders for fashionable designs. Briar works on his shakkans.
And Tris wants Lightsbridge, and part of her feels out of place for it, the way the others have so neatly fallen into their adult lives and yet she hasn’t managed to find a place of her own.
“I bought this house for all of us,” Daja would’ve said, but Number 6 Cheeseman Street isn’t Discipline, and for all Tris keeps the house clean and does the cooking—it isn’t hers, and a part of her, the part that grew up mocked and shuffled from house after house of increasingly-distant Chandler relatives…
Discipline was home. Living here, in Daja’s home, it isn’t the same, and Tris doesn’t really want to work out why. She just wants to go to Lightsbridge, to study everything that can be studied, and get her credentials, and do some quiet, unremarkable work as an academic mage in a place of her own.
After all these years, Tris knows that Briar can be rude, and tactless, but never thoughtless, though the wine is a soft but not unpleasant layer of cloud in her thoughts and blood. She studies Briar over the rim of her glass. “It’s the best place to get academic mage credentials,” she says. “Crane said as much.”
Briar scowls, though it’s clear he doesn’t have it in him. “’Course he would,” he mutters. “Bag like him, what else would he say?”
She’s had this conversation with Niko and with Crane, and even with Lark and Rosethorn, and with Daja and Sandry, but something about the way Briar says it gets beneath her skin.
“He studied there,” Tris replies, matter-of-factly. She helps herself to freshly-baked bread, drizzling vinegar and olive oil on it. “Of course he’d know.”
“I think you’ll love Lightbridge,” Niko had said, briskly. He studied her, and she found she couldn’t meet his gaze. A truthsayer like her teacher had a way of pulling deep truths out of a person, even without quite meaning to. Even if you didn’t always mean to acknowledge it, and hadn’t quite known it yourself. “But are credentials why you want to go there?”
“They’ll be mine,” she said, because a truthsayer can compel the truth, but not the whole truth. And sometimes, reality is too complex for simple words. Hers in a way that her Winding Circle medallion isn’t. Hers in a way that makes her unremarkable.
She doesn’t want to do war magic. And being Trisana Chandler, walking human thunderstorm, and, apparently, working wonders and impossibilities and oddities is exhausting.
Tris has never wanted to be different. Tris has always, always wanted a place of her own, somewhere she could fit and no one would mind the odd bits and the rough edges and she’d fight Ishabal Ladyhammer one-on-one from her sickbed all over again if anyone tried to hex her siblings but—
—But they fit so easily, so gracefully into their adult lives, and Tris can’t see a way that she can do the same.
She’s—not unappreciative of Daja’s generosity. But generosity is just that: generosity is Aunt Uraelle, pinching Tris’s earlobe, screeching about how generous she is, taking Tris in, how Tris needs to repay that generosity rather than being a burden and an ingrate, and Daja would never do that, Tris knows that Daja is as bright and true as the strike of lightning, but she…she cannot.
It has to be hers, but the words don’t come tumbling out of her mouth, and even Niko, for all his powers as a truthsayer, can’t coax that from her, even were he so minded.
Something in Briar’s grey-green eyes soften. “Coppercurls,” he says, offering her the platter of herbed chicken, a dish that Tris has come to love from Tharios, “I think you’re always going to be different. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. We all stuck out like bittergrass, even as kids. I don’t think you need Lightsbridge. I think you need a soul-healer.”
She looks up, and around her, sharply. And there it is, in Sandry’s eyes, and in Daja’s eyes, too, and she doesn’t want to deal with it. She never has.
But she doesn’t want to have this conversation. And it’s too late to be having it, two weeks to Lightsbridge.
“I’ll see a soul-healer when you start seeing one,” she says briskly. “Don’t give me any of that street rat toughness speech again.”
Briar glares at Sandry. “You told, didn’t you?”
Sandry folds her arms across her chest. “You know what Rosethorn would say.”
This quells Briar, who grumbles, but backs down. If there’s something Briar has to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing, it’s seeing a soul-healer about the horrors of Gyongxe. Even now.
Privately, Tris thinks she understands.
Daja says, quietly, “Tris has already made up her mind, Briar,” and Tris sends a flash of wordless gratitude through their link. “But I think he’s saying what we are hoping. That you’ll find what you need, whether at Lightsbridge, or elsewhere.”
“And you’ll always have a place with us,” Sandry adds, and Tris can believe it the most from Sandry, who has a heart big enough for all of Narmorn and Emelan besides. “Someone has to be bittergrass together with the rest of us.”