stormandwind | INBOX: lastvoyages

"I don't know if a single thing I said made it through to that boy." The good news is, though Rosethorn sounds exasperated, she doesn't seem angry. Nor does she look up from setting places for them at the table.

"I'm sure it didn't. I had considerably more success." Tris knows the sound of Rosethorn's anger enough to be glad not to hear any of it in her voice. And she certainly can't begrudge her foster mother a bit of exasperation.

"Mm." Rosethorn pours them both a glass of fruit juice, then sits down. So it's a moment before she speaks again.

"You do know why I was so hard on him?"

"I know my own feelings and what I could guess of yours based on what you told him. I tried to get both of those through his skull." Tris really wasn't happy about it. She didn't get angry. She might have, though, if Rosethorn hadn't already done that for her, or if she weren't instinctively careful of Francesco's feelings. Their first serious conversation revolved around acceptance, and his concerns mirrored her own life enough on that front that she's always been careful with him.

She turns away from the stove to look at her foster mother. "I suspect there may be more, because I didn't get to hear how you said it."

"He insisted asking permission and asking for my blessing were entirely different," Rosethorn grumbles. Obviously, she begs to differ. "As if I have the right to speak for you. As if you have no voice of your own. A parent has no place letting their personal feelings - positive or negative - influence their children's decisions in these matters, unless someone's actually being hurt."

She smiles a little. "Briar was easy. When he started showing interest, I sat him down and we talked about respecting women's boundaries and how not to get a girl pregnant, and what I would do to him should I find he was careless about either, and I've hardly had to say anything to him since. None of this courtship nonsense."

Which doesn't quite get to why, precisely, this is such a big deal to Rosethorn.

"They probably are different, in his head. But Rosethorn, you've met me. Do you really think I'd let you influence my decisions unless you had good reason for wanting to?" Tris is strong-willed enough that she only lets people change her mind about anything if their arguments hold up to scrutiny. "I still told him you were right, of course, and he should never have talked to you about what's between us without asking me first."

And Briar probably was easier, that way. He doesn't lead girls on or hurt them, and he isn't serious about any of them. Just friendly.

"You know how stubborn I am. Is there another reason you're so intent on holding your tongue about this?"

"I was never afraid you'd be so foolish. It's the principle of the thing." Rosethorn purses her lips and takes a sip of juice. It's not that she's hiding it from Tris, that she thinks the girl can't handle the frank cruelties of her childhood when Tris herself faced much the same in her own upbringing. But it never gets easier to talk about.

"After I was old enough that Da understood what I could do, he'd hardly let me off the farm for fear some village boy would get ideas to woo me away. Later it was the farmhouse. And then my room." She doesn't mention the chains; some things aren't necessary. "He couldn't stand the idea that his cash cow might be stolen away by another farm when I rightfully belonged to him."

It was a long time ago. She's had time, and the wounds ache but they're not fresh and oozing. Her words are stiff and bitter in places, but the anger's cooled to something more bearable in the intervening years.

Tris stills for a moment, not moving or trying to comfort Rosethorn. She knows better than that. "I knew it was bad. I didn't realize he kept you prisoner."

Grimacing slightly, she muses, "It's not often I think my family did a kind thing, but at least they pushed me away young enough for me to finish growing up with you and Lark. If I'd had to stay there, where my power was the only thing about me that mattered..."

She shakes her head.

"I won't let anyone treat me as property," she promises softly.

Rosethorn's eyelids flutter as she glances down, but by the time she looks up at Tris again, her composure's returned. "There was no reason any of you had to know." She thinks Briar suspects, but even with him she hasn't had reason to go into detail. "It hurts, and it will always hurt, but I put it behind me long before all of you came into our lives."

But she does feel Tris deserved an explanation, now that it's come up.

"I know you won't, Tris. But I've much in common with my father, and I've worked hard not to become him. Some of these things I really do feel I must take a stand on, for my own sake."

"Thank you for telling me." She knows that no amount of distance makes that easy to do.

And Tris considers the rest of it for a moment. "You have a temper and a stubborn streak a mile wide, but you have valued people all the time I've known you. Even when you were busy telling us that you didn't like children. No one is just a means to an end for you. For your sake, fine. I'm not worried about mine."

"Would you like me not to talk about Francesco, or just never ask you to give an opinion?"

Never having been especially good at taking compliments, Rosethorn waves Tris off. She's glad for the understanding, but would rather make no more of a deal out of this than she must.

"I've nothing against the lad, Tris. And if you'd both come to me and asked my honest opinion without that blessing nonsense, I'd have told him that. I'd wonder why it mattered so much, but I'd have answered."

Tris smiles wryly. "He saw my point when I brought up exactly that. I scolded him a little, but you'd already done most of it for me."

Exasperating though Francesco can be when he gets an idea into his head, "It wasn't hard to get through to him. He pays attention. Enough to know I wouldn't be alright with the Enclosure broken and come looking for me when that happened, for instance. And to stop talking and sit with me while I read after the Admiral took my magic."

She wasn't thinking of him in romantic terms when any of that happened. He was just a friend, a good one. That day did, however, very much color her response when she found out how he felt.

Hearing all that does bring a smile to Rosethorn's face. "And that's all that matters, and all I need to know. That he cares for you, and has been good to you. I can't say I see the attraction, but I don't have to."

She can be happy for Tris regardless.

Her lips twitch in amusement at the comment about not seeing the attraction, because it's true that Francesco is probably excessive for a lot of people's tastes.

She hesitates, then adds softly, "He also said he likes the way I look. Rather, that he'd like me regardless of how he felt about my looks, but they're a nice bonus."

Tris knows a lot of her strengths. She's intelligent and observant. She cares. Her magic is powerful and wonderful. Compliments on what she sees as her weak points hit her much harder.

"Well, look at that." Rosethorn crosses her arms. "He's growing on me more, already. I suppose it means more coming from him than it does from your foster-mother?"

Her words are teasing, but her tone says I'm happy for you. It's almost a relief, knowing Tris is getting support in the ways she most needs it. Because there really are some things a mother simply can't be for her children.

Tris grins, the teasing almost a relief after her moment of vulnerability. "It means something different coming from someone attracted to me than it does from my foster mother."

"Well." Rosethorn sniffs. "If you're going to put it that way." She is not, of course, the slightest bit offended, but she's glad to turn the conversation to lighter things.

INBOX: lastvoyages

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