#I LAUGHED at that look on moiraine's face

[booasaur]

The Wheel of Time - 2x06

[hahnspoetrycorner]

My Love, Mine All Mine

A/N: HELLLOOOO!!! I'm back! Sorry for the loooooooong period of inactivity. I was struggling to write for a while but some good good friends of mine helped inspire me and this is the result of that. My writing my be rusty so apologies if it's a bit meh.

Also NEW FANDOM!!! Natasha O'Keeffe... if you're free next Thursday I have a day off and I am totally 100% free.

Lanfear x fem!reader

Warnings: kissing, fluff, lots of touching, mentions of violence... nothing graphic I don't think, Moiraine isn't nice in this, reader is female but I tried to keep it as neutral as possible.

Title inspired by the Mitski song of the same name, Lanfear would listen to it and think of her love I KNOW IT

Tagged: @baubeautyandthegeek

You don’t remember falling asleep, but as you woke up you felt soft fingers tracing along your scalp, another gentle hand holding you close to someone tightly. You shuffled in closer to them but kept your eyes shut, hearing them exhale a laugh. 

“Still feeling tired, my darling?” Lanfear muttered gently against your head, making you smile where your head rested against her shoulder. You nodded your head against her shoulder once you were comfortable, feeling her hold you tighter. 

If you could, you wouldn’t ever leave her embrace, she was always so warm and gentle, not like the Forsaken you’d been told about so often. Moiraine had warned you she wasn’t to be trusted, but you’d seen a completely different side to her, one you couldn’t have imagined. When those Whitecloaks stormed Falme and Lanfear saw you in danger, being chased by some of those wretched men, she had to step in. You were too busy watching them to notice the tall, raven-haired woman not too far ahead of you. You stumbled into her, but she caught you with ease. You hid your face against her shoulder as you heard the men screaming, not daring to turn and look at them, or whatever this woman was doing to them. She held you close without thinking.

“Are you alright?” She asked gently, wondering how you were left alone in the midst of an attack. 

“Y-Yes… I think so. How did you-” The woman began pulling you away from the destruction and fighting and into the tower, finding a room that was secluded enough the two of you wouldn’t be found. 

“Who are you?” You asked, watching as she turned her head to face you.

“And why would you need to know that?” She’d turned her whole body to face you now, allowing you to look at her properly for the first time. She was gorgeous. Pale skin, bright blue eyes, long black hair that fell against her back. You’d never seen a woman so gorgeous.

“Hello?” She clicked her fingers in your face to get your attention, not missing the slight blush that crept up on her cheeks at the attention, nor the bashful smile she gave you.

“Sorry… I just wanted to know who saved me so I could thank them properly,” You replied, still looking at her in awe of her beauty. Her hand gently touched your cheek, stroking it with her fingers. 

“Lanfear,” She spoke quietly, as if muttering her name was dangerous. It was an unusual name, but still pretty nonetheless. You smiled at her as you told her your name. 

“A pretty name for a pretty girl,” you blushed. The screaming began to die down from outside, both of you listening intently. “Hmm… I think it’s safe to go back out.” You suggested, her hand still holding your cheek gently. 

“Maybe, I think we should stay here a little longer. Just to be safe,” She’d moved closer to you, noses almost touching. 

“I think that’s a smart idea,” You agreed, finding yourself more drawn to her by the minute.

Surprisingly, you spent most of that time finding out about each other, Lanfear asking you more questions than her answering yours. After a while you both decided to emerge, Lanfear holding your hand ‘as a way to protect you’, she’d said. Not that you didn’t want her to, her hand was soft and warm. You both stood, dotted amongst the crowd as the banner was raised across the sky in fire, the Dragon claiming himself. You watched as Lanfear smiled proudly and you couldn’t help but smile at her. She glanced over at you, smiling brighter as she tugged you closer with her hand. She pressed a gentle kiss to your cheek as her arm snuck around your waist. You could feel the blush rushing to your cheeks as you leant against her. 

Later on, when you and Moiraine found each other in Falme, you’d spent most of the time talking about Rand and what had happened. When you mentioned a dark-haired woman saving you she stilled. When you told her who’d done it, she looked exasperated. 

“She cannot be trusted! She’s a Forsaken, one of the Dark Lord’s most powerful soldiers. And you’ve been aimlessly flirting with her?!? I never took you for an idiot, but this is a stupid move from you.” Moiraine’s words stung, the harshness of her tone breaking your heart. You couldn’t see how Lanfear could be that person. 

“She isn’t like that Moiraine! She wants to see the world and explore, she wants to make this world a better place. If she is a Forsaken, then she’s the nicest I’ve ever met! And if she’s really as evil as you say she is, why did she save me from Whitecloaks? Why did she protect me and hide the pair of us away from them until it was safe?”

“There may be an ulterior motive that we’re not seeing… I don’t see what she would gain from having you in her grasp. Hardly the strongest channeller,” Moiraine kept laying down harsh criticism after harsh criticism, so much so you fled the room after a while, not wanting to listen to it anymore. You walked the streets of Falme haphazardly, the tears blurring your vision until you bumped into someone.

“Oh- I’m so sorry, I- Lanfear?” Lanfear stood before you, arms holding your shoulders gently. The second she saw your tear stained cheeks and felt the way you were shaking, she whisked you away back to her room. Her arms wrapped around you so tightly, feeling you sob into her chest made her heart shatter. She’d have to make whoever hurt you like this pay.

“Who did this to you, sweetheart?” She asked you, once again her voice light and soft, making you question how she could be a Forsaken.

“Who hurt you like this? I can’t stand to see anyone hurting you like this,” Lanfear pulled away, brushing your hair behind your ears before holding your cheeks. Her thumbs wiped at the still falling tears.

“I-It was Moiraine. She- she told me you’re a- a Forsaken. Is it true?” You looked her in the eyes and saw fear creep into them. 

“I am, darling. But I promise you, I mean you no harm. All I wanted to do was save a pretty girl from a bunch of evil men, I didn’t expect to find her so beautiful and charming.”

She smiled at you so softly, her lips leaving a featherlight kiss above each of your eyes, the soreness from crying disappearing. 

“She told me you must’ve had an ulterior motive for saving me. But it couldn’t be for my channelling because I’m not strong enough, can’t be connected to an Ajah, there’s no way I’m powerful enough to become one. I’m not that pretty, I don’t have any good or royal connections… I’m-“ She cut you off by kissing your lips gently. They were soft, featherlight yet almost dominating. She knew what she wanted from this kiss and she would have it. And you’d let her take it.

“I don’t want to hear you say anything negative about yourself like that… Ever. You’re beautiful, and from what you told me earlier, brave, kind and smart. As for channelling, well, you’ve got me. I can help you train and keep you safe. I can protect you from anyone who wishes to harm you. Even that little Aes Sedai. If you want me to?” Her eyes were expressive, showing the clear desperation she felt to keep you safe. You couldn’t deny you felt automatically safe around her, wanting to stick by her side. Especially after the way Moiraine spoke to you. You nodded, wanting her to keep you safe for as long as she could, before she kissed you once more. 

You both spent a lot of time running from Moiraine and Lan, staying in the most obscure places you could, exploring the world as much as you could at the same time. That’s what led you here, to this small cabin in the middle of the woods. It had been quiet and sweet, almost romantic without the given circumstances. As Lanfear’s fingers continued to massage your head gently, you smiled, feeling content with her in that moment. 

“When did you get back?” You asked, feeling guilty for missing her coming home. 

“I’m not sure, you were asleep. I didn’t have the heart to wake you, you looked so peaceful. And I know it’s been hard for you to rest,” Lanfear watched you snuggle up closer, moving your head to rest gently on her chest. 

“I find it hard to sleep when you’re not home… or at least when I don’t know where you are. I don’t want anyone hurting you,” You didn’t want to admit the truth to her. The fear you felt whenever you were travelling between places was inevitable, but when she was gone, your fear increased tenfold. She cupped your chin with her fingers softly, before turning you to face her. 

“Baby, it pains me far too much to be away from you. And I’ll always, always come back to you no matter what. I can’t bear to think about your little heartbroken face. Thinking about anyone even thinking about hurting you makes me want to unleash the true extent of my power upon the world,” Lanfear kissed the corner of your mouth, the softness of her lips always surprising you. You moved a hand to cup her cheek, pulling her even closer to you. Your nose almost bumped her own, much like when you were first together in Falme. 

“And that little Aes Sedai won’t be finding us for a little while,” Lanfear’s breath was hot against your face, her lips claiming your own gently, before you pulled away softly.

“What do you mean?” you asked. Part of you was slightly concerned at what she might’ve done to Moiraine and Lan, but most of you was happy to finally have time with Lanfear that wouldn’t be cut short by their sudden appearance or needing to leave so they wouldn’t appear. 

“They aren’t injured or hurt… I may have lured them into the Waygate and blasted them back to their starting point in Falme. We deserve a little time together, I haven’t been able to spend any real time with you. My precious girl,” She chuckled gently as you pulled her in for a kiss. Your lips took charge this time, moving yourself so you were on top of her, straddling her. She laughed into the kiss once more, having never seen this side of you before. 

“That means we’ll actually get to spend time together without having to worry about them?” You asked in disbelief. You couldn’t believe you had this time with her uninterrupted. 

“Well, the closest Waygate to where we are is five days by horse, even longer on foot. And the Waygate to Falme may temporarily be out of action right now thanks to a cute little spider.” Lanfear trailed kisses down your face to your neck, gently sucking the skin enough to leave a little mark. 

“Remind me to thank the Spiderling for that,” Your voice caught in your throat at Lanfear’s softness, her hands holding your waist as she moved her lips down to nibble at your exposed collarbone. 

“What about my thanks? I’m the one who led them off our trail… and blasted them through the Waygate back to Falme? Don’t I get a thank you?” She teased, pulling away from you to look in your eyes. You rolled your eyes softly before giving her a peck on the lips. 

“What made you think you weren’t going to get a thank you?” You kissed her once more, before moving down to her neck. She still had her usual clothes on, trousers and a loose shirt. As you worked your way down the skin exposed by her open shirt she sighed contentedly. 

“I love you, my darling.” Lanfear’s voice shocked you, making you pause and look her in the eyes. Her eyes began to fill with fear before you smiled back at her, leaning up to kiss her one more time. 

“I love you too, my Forsaken.”

[moiraineswife]

The Lies Our Broken Selves Tell Our Better Halves - A Siuaraine Fic

Title: The Lies Our Broken Selves Tell Our Better Halves

Warnings: Spoilers up to episode 3 of season 2. Safe for non-book readers. Trigger warnings: Mo's general mental state atm which is, as we know: Not Ideal. Mentions of rape/threatened rape in the context of forcing a bond.

Summary: Set/written after the first trio of episodes of season 2 to deal with Lan and Moiraine's dramatic bond-divorce via the power of Siuan Sanche, currently in possession of the only known braincell in Randland. AKA: Moiraine is making bad decisions, spiralling out of control, and smashing every 'self-destruct' button she comes across and she very badly needs Siuan to slam on the brakes before she yeets herself off a cliff. AKA: Moiraine needs a 'come to Jesus' talk so badly and who better to give it to her than the wizard pope/her wife?

Teaser:

'“Then Moiraine crumpled before her eyes. Her shoulders slumped, her mask fell away, revealing the agony and the empty exhaustion that lingered beneath. She covered her face with a shaking hand and moved blindly towards the bed, sinking down onto it as though she no longer had the strength left in her body to remain standing.

Siuan’s heart clenched painfully and the love in it for this woman caused a pang of regret to pulse through her. But she steeled herself and refused to give Moiraine an easy way out of this. It would be painful, but she needed it. Light but she needed it.'

Link: AO3 or Read Below:

“Where’s Lan?”

This simple, casual question instantly changed the atmosphere in the room the way a storm changed the feeling of the wind on the sea and instinctively made Siuan shiver.

Moiraine turned away, putting her back to Siuan, making a casual show of looking out of the window, the gesture effortlessly woven into the absent circles she was walking around the room anyway. But Siuan knew her too well for her to get away with that shit, and a flicker of anxiety immediately tightened in her stomach. She was far too calm for him to be ill or grievously injured, and if he was dead Siuan doubted she would even be upright, let alone coherent, but– 

“At the Tower, I expect,” Moiraine replied lightly, absently tracing the delicate petals of a rose in the vase on the window ledge.

“At the Tower?” Siuan repeated, bewildered, “Why in the name of the Light is he there?”

“I sent him there,” Moiraine said, moving away from the window to continue her lazy, seemingly mindless circle around the room. "He should have arrived by now. No doubt he's enjoying reuniting with Nynaeve. Likely as we speak,” with the suggestion of a little smirk on her lips and a faint laugh. It was as flat and empty as  her eyes, which remained cold and distant and sad throughout her little performance.

Enjoying reuniting with– Siuan opened her mouth to demand an answer to just such a question, but no. That was deliberate misdirection. Moiraine’s too casual air, that forced smile. She wanted her to focus on something, anything, other than what she should be focusing on. And that was an answer to the question of: what in the name of all that was bright had happened at Verin’s quaint little cottage? Clearly it’d grown more interesting since Siuan had last visited.

“What do you mean you ‘sent’ him?” Siuan asked, very quietly, and very intently, so Moiraine could not avoid the question unless she very obviously side-stepped it, thereby revealing it as a sore point.

Instead of further attempts at deflection, Moiraine returned with that false little smile that Siuan loathed. The one that held no humour at all and that she only used when she was trying to make light of a situation that could not have been darker if it was taking place within the Dark One’s own arsehole.

“I’m not really sure what’s causing you confusion,” Moiraine said with that mildly patronising inflection in her voice. “I sent him, that is to say I arranged for him to go from one place and to arrive in another of my choosing.” 

Siuan might have throttled her, but she needed her hands to massage her temples to try and stave off the headache she felt coming on. Light and she’d thought this would be a simple question. She had forgotten that, when talking to Moiraine bloody Sedai, there was no such thing as ‘simple’.

Moiriane, the Light blind her, had the gall to add blithely, “couriers do that sort of thing, you know. I was sure you’d be familiar with the concept.”

Siuan snapped her eyes up to meet Moiraine’s as she cut in sharply, with no trace of amusement or indulgence of the little farce she’d just been forced to witness, “your Warder is not a package.” 

The coldness in her voice brought Moiraine up short. Her false little smile faded as her expression hardened. Then she set her jaw in that way she’d picked up from Lan years ago, without either of them realising it and stared icily down at Siuan. As if that was going to put her off. 

“That man cannot just be ‘sent’ anywhere,” Siuan continued, utterly unphased by Moiraine’s glare, “anymore than you can send a hurricane to ‘a place of your choosing’,” she repeated sardonically, each word snapping out harsher and faster than the last, until she was practically spitting the last ones. “He has been more devoted to you than a sailor who hasn’t seen a tavern in a year is devoted to his first mug of ale." Her eyes bored into Moiraine’s, and she met the stare defiant and unflinching as ever, so Siuan pressed harder, "I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d died and his corpse just got right back up and refused to stop following your fool self around," she said bluntly.

Then she paused for a moment, letting the implications of that sink in properly, watching the subtle nuances of Moiraine’s expression shift. It was like reading the currents of an ocean, something anyone unfamiliar would miss entirely, but were as obvious as words on parchment to those that knew. Siuan caught the slight twitch at the corner of her mouth, the flickering blink, there for half a heartbeat then gone, the slight tightening of the skin around her eyes, and felt as wary as she would spotting a cleverly hidden riptide beneath the waves. 

“What happened, Moiraine?” she asked quietly, in the same stone voice, unbroken and unweathered by time or tide, every inch the one she used when she made a demand as the Amyrlin Seat. One that would be obeyed.

With a swirl of deep blue Cairhien skirts, Moiraine turned on her like a summer storm. Siuan held her ground, unmoved, even at the sight of the flare of anger that flashed in her partner's eyes. For a long, charged beat of tension they stared at each other, gazes locked, jaws clenched, heels dug in, both ready to go ‘til the last breath if needed.

Then Moiraine crumpled before her eyes. Her shoulders slumped, her mask fell away, revealing the agony and the empty exhaustion that lingered beneath. She covered her face with a shaking hand and moved blindly towards the bed, sinking down onto it as though she no longer had the strength left in her body to remain standing.

Siuan’s heart clenched painfully and the love in it for this woman caused a pang of regret to pulse through her. But she steeled herself and refused to give Moiraine an easy way out of this. It would be painful, but she needed it. Light but she needed it. 

Instead, Siuan crossed the room and knelt down on the floor at her side, staying close, while still giving her the space she needed. Reaching out and gently twining their fingers, stopping Moiraine from agitating the already red and ragged skin around her nails that she’d been worrying at in her agitation. Siuan waited, patient, thumb stroking over the back of her hand, giving Moiraine time to gather her thoughts.

Finally, without warning, like a horse suddenly bolting for no flaming reason at all, as they did, Moiraine launched abruptly into speech.

“I tried for months to make him leave me,” she began, with an obvious frustration in her voice, punctuated by her little huff, “to make him see reason.” She sighed heavily, shaking her head and looking exasperated and hopeless at once. “Nothing I did worked,” she muttered impatiently, “no matter what I said, or what I did, aloof, or indifferent, or even cruel I was to him: it never made any difference. He can be damned stubborn when he wants to be,” she grimaced.

Siuan decided it was not wise to interrupt Moiraine now she’d finally started talking, and clearly had a lot to get off her chest, to point out the frankly hysterical level of irony and lack of self-awareness in her calling any other person in any turning of the Wheel ‘damned stubborn’, but she had to bite her tongue to manage it.

“The more I tried to push him away the more insistent he seemed to become on staying,” she frowned, as though unable to even fathom a suggestion of why he’d acted that way.

Siuan bit her tongue harder still to save bursting out a deeply sarcastic suggestion of why it might be that the man who had been the other half of her bloody soul for decades, and who loved her more than all the stars loved their sky, became more reluctant to abandon her the more clearly unwell and irrational she acted.

Something shifted in Moiraine and Siuan snapped her focus sharply back to her. The atmosphere around her became suddenly very cold and still. As though a funeral shroud had slipped down behind her eyes, they darkened, and she had to swallow to clear her throat before she could continue. Siuan reached up and placed her other hand gently on Moiraine’s side, feeling a need to anchor her against whatever memory threatened to pull her away in its current.

“What?” Siuan prompted as gently as she could, but she still felt the bite to the word that snapped out before she could stop it as concern flared in the pit of her stomach.

“That night, after I found out about the breaking of Lanfear's seal," she clarified quickly, clearly struggling to wrangle her thoughts into some semblance of order, "I left to set out for Cairhien and I–" she paused, mouth tightening and Siuan frowned, sensing her change her mind about what she'd been about to say. Before she could comment, Moiraine blurted out abruptly, "we were attacked by three Fades.” 

Siuan swore she felt her soul attempt to leave her body for a moment at the horror of those words, but she wrestled it back down like a troublesome line. Though she knew that, clearly, they had both survived the ordeal, she couldn’t help herself gripping Moiraine’s hand with the fear that had gripped her.

“It was my fault.” Moiraine whispered unsteadily, that familiar shadow of self-loathing turning her sea blue eyes to chips of black ice, “entirely my fault.” 

The hand Siuan was not holding curled into a too-tight fist she knew would make the nails bite painfully into her palm. 

Mouth trembling, Moiraine went on with difficulty, “ “Lan was fighting, protecting me, but there were too many. It was too much,” she wiped away the tears that threatened in her eyes with a careless, impatient hand. “I was injured, just lying there on the ground like a discarded doll–” she choked on the word as disgust and frustration mingled and silenced her momentarily. “Pointless,” she spat out, words returning, along with her anger at herself. “I was useless, Siuan,” she breathed, shaking her head, “I was so useless. Like a frightened child in the middle of a warzone,” she shook her head again. Her voice was shaking so badly now that Siuan had to concentrate to make out her words. “They were going to kill him and I did nothing to save him, to help him, I– I couldn’t–” 

She was crying now, tears streaming from her eyes, her anguish ignoring the hand she used to try and brush them away. Siuan squeezed her hand as her heart tightened in sympathy with her. Moiraine tried to speak several times, her efforts largely incoherent, though Siuan thought she heard the words ‘I tried to channel’, but in the end Moiraine gave up. Swallowing hard she finally just shook her head to indicate that the power had not come when she had needed it. 

“I failed him,” she choked out bluntly, “utterly,” she added, ignoring Siuan shaking her head and opening her mouth to chastise her for that. She was still speaking, firm and matter-of-fact now, “I knew then that I had to get him away from me,” she whispered firmly, a new resolve giving her the strength to continue, though it shattered something within Siuan to hear her phrase it like that, as if she were a blight, infectious, corrupting, “whatever it took, I could no longer stand to keep him at my side, shackled to my danger, and my weakness.”

Siuan was quiet for a long moment, letting those words fade from ringing declarations of pain, to fading echoes, until they were mere memories of the agony they once held. Abruptly, Moiraine got to her feet, and moved away. Siuan made no move to stop her. She stayed quiet, watching Moiraine tremble herself to stillness again, the agitation slowly working its way out of her body as she hugged herself, pacing, before finally coming to a halt at the window again. One hand resting on the sil, she stared out of it with a posture and smoothness to her face that said she’d done this many times before, and took several slow, deep breaths, gradually regaining control. Her shoulders hunched slightly and her eyes seemed distant and exhausted again, as though this brief flicker of true emotion had drained her of what little strength she’d managed to cling to.

Finally, when she felt Moiraine was ready to hear it, Siuan broke the silence.

“Do you remember all those years ago,” she intoned softly, “when we agreed that you would search the world for the Dragon, and I would remain at the Tower to maintain our informant networks, and try and politic the bickering Ajahs into something that vaguely resembled a useful faction against the Dark One for when the time came?” 

Moiraine nodded, looking too exhausted to speak, but she turned her head over a shoulder, watching, waiting for more. 

“I told you that you needed a Warder,” Siuan went on calmly.

Moiraine nodded tiredly again, but with a slightly more impatient air, as though she felt an ‘I told you so’ twenty years after the fact was a little pointless. Siuan agreed, which was why that wasn’t at all what she was headed towards.

Unruffled, Siuan reminded, “you didn’t want one,” and heard a barely perceptible little sigh in response. “You told me that you didn’t want a Warder, didn’t want someone in your head, able to feel all of your fears, and your flaws, and your insecurities,” she went on doggedly, apparently oblivious to the disparaging little frown pinching Moiraine’s face. “You thought it would be invasive and unbearable, and that it wasn’t worth all that. But I insisted.”

‘Insisted’ was actually a very polite way of describing what she’d done. If memory served the conversation had been a lot closer to beating her over the head with a broom and demanding it than anything as polite or civilised as ‘insistence’. Moiraine looked too worn out to point this out, however. Siuan pushed through the worry she felt coiling in her stomach, determined to see this point through.

“So we observed, and we gathered information, and we made notes, and conducted thorough investigations into all of the Warders currently in training at the Tower to find someone who was suitable and competent,” she said, remembering their girlish excitement, their first spy mission undertaken together as budding Blues, “and, more to the point, someone that you might actually manage to stand without driving one or both of you to murder or suicide within a week,” she added wryly, a fondness now tugging at her heartstrings at the memory.

The corners of Moiraine’s mouth even dared to lift into something like a true smile, warm and real, her eyes softening, meeting Siuan’s gaze with such love at the recollection. Without seeming to consciously make a choice to do so, she crossed the room back towards Siuan and reached down twining their fingers together.

Siuan burst the romantic bubble blossoming between with customary brutality before Moiraine became concerned that such uncharacteristic behaviour meant her wife had been replaced by a Forsaken.

“Then you thoughtlessly toppled weeks of our hard work into a fire pit on your way out on that hairbrained scheme you had in mind when you left without so much as a ‘by your leave’,” Siuan grumbled, not missing the way Moiraine rolled her eyes. Undeterred, Siuan forged resolutely ahead. “One week later you waltzed back to the Tower with a man neither of us had ever met before in our lives and announced that you’d bloody gone and taken him as your Warder!” she concluded.

Siuan made sure that her words appropriately conveyed how distinctly incredulous, not to mean miffed, she’d felt at little Lady ‘no Warder is good enough for me’ Damodred pulling a stunt like that after rejecting every one of her carefully selected candidates.

Siuan shook her head in mock-disbelief, but couldn’t stop the smile that was starting to blossom on her lips, “I thought you were insane,” she said bluntly. “Couldn’t even have told me his favourite colour if I’d held a knife to your neck,” she snorted with derision, “but you’d gone and bonded the great stoic stone lump, eyes colder than a dead shark’s and all,” she muttered, fully smirking now.

In spite of the lightness of her tone, and the fact that Moiraine was well aware Siuan loved Lan in his own right after all these years, she did not miss the slight tension that flared for a moment at the insult to him, affectionate or otherwise. 

Stroking her thumb soothingly over the back of Moiraine’s hand to stop her spikes making an appearance, Siuan continued, “I was wrong,” she said softly, “and I’ve never been as happy to be so, either,” she added for good measure. Moiraine looked down, as she looked up, their eyes meeting. A faint glint of tears reflected in Moiraine’s again as Siuan murmured, “that man is the best thing that’s happened to you since, well, since I did,” she teased, and was rewarded by a feeble, wobbly little attempt at a smile from Moiraine for her efforts. “And he is, without a doubt, the only reason you didn’t starve to death two months in because you forgot to eat for three weeks straight,” she added mildly.

Moiraine’s weak little smile had the audacity to shift at once into a much stronger little scowl, as though Siuan had claimed something utterly unreasonable or false when they both knew it was true. 

“The day I met him, he didn’t know you from the next haughty little Aes Sedai,” Siuan continued, remembering this more clearly than what she’d eaten for breakfast that very morning, “but I knew that he would follow you wherever you led. I knew,” she insisted firmly, “that every step you took, he would be right there at your side, taking each one as you did.” A single tear slid down Moiraine’s cheek at those words, and she gave a tiny nod of affirmation. “I was right,” Siuan agreed, nodding herself, “that’s what he’s done every day for the last twenty years, Moiraine,” she reminded her pointedly, as though she had forgotten that she had lived them, or, perhaps, as though she had simply forgotten that she’d ever lived at all.

“Exactly,” Moiraine murmured and for a brief moment, if she hadn’t known her better, Siuan might have entertained the idea that the stubborn pain in her arse might have seen reason. Unfortunately, she knew her very well, and sensed this was too easy long before Moiraine proved it to her by insisting in a hollow, self-loathing little voice that didn’t suit her, “he has wasted enough of his life on me already.”

“I don’t think he sees it that way,” Siuan argued back, preparing herself for a long, agonising night of attempting to beat some sense into this woman.

Carefully worded logic rarely worked on her when she was like this. Typically she needed a good solid reality check with the approximate subtlety of a brick to the face. This sort of clobbering generally fell to Siuan since her Warder, for all his admirable qualities, was far too gentle with Moiraine for her own good sometimes.

“You can’t just ask someone like Lan, someone who lives and breathes for one single thing, one single goal, one single purpose,” she said, laying a steady emphasis on that final word, not missing the tightening around Moiraine’s eyes that said she knew very well what she was getting at, "to give all of that up and abandon you. He needs you, Moiraine,” she murmured quietly, “as surely as the stars need the sky.”

"He does not,” Moiraine half-growled and half- groaned back. She drew her hands from Siuan’s and took a few steps away from her, gazing unseeingly out of her window again at the night sky and the stars it held beyond. “He has never needed me,” she muttered, arms wrapping around herself, “except perhaps in needing me to stay away from him,” she added darkly.

"He would be dead without you,” Siuan countered bluntly. “If he'd never met you, and you'd never convinced him to trust you and become your Warder he would have died twenty years ago.” 

She saw the flash of pain in Moiraine’s eyes at whatever memory of Lan, broken and hopeless as he’d been, and knew she felt the truth of her words. So she kept going, the moment before a catch broke the surface of the water at last was no point to slacken your grip on the line.

“Without you there would be no Lan,” she stated, clear and precise, with all the conviction of a simple truth. “Even if, by some miracle, he survived that suicide mission he set out on, he wouldn’t be the man he is today without you.” She gave that a moment, a brief handful of heartbeats, for Moiraine to come to terms with, then pressed on relentlessly. “And I know you love and trust and respect the man that he’s become at your side more than almost anyone in this world,” she all but growled, “And you know that he has more earned the right to choose to stay with you until the end."

"Enough, Siuan,” Moiraine snapped finally, rubbing the spot between her eyes that marked where the sharpest pain of the migraines that had plagued her since they were novices tended to gather when she was stressed. “I have listened to him argue with me about this every day for the last five months,” she muttered wearily, “I am not going to endure the same from you,” she said with an irritated little jerk of her head, obvious frustration in her.

Well if she was finally frustrating her that meant at least they were starting to get somewhere.

"You listened, did you?” Siuan retorted sceptically, eyebrows raised. “Did you actually listen to him and what he said to you?" she demanded knowingly, “or did you just pretend to hear him the way you do when you know someone is making a reasonable point that you don’t want to acknowledge?” she pressed relentlessly. 

Moiraine turned and managed a scowl that looked positively like her old self as she said coldly, "I know what you're doing and it won't work. My mind is made up,” she bit out firmly, seeing Siuan open her mouth to reply. 

Then she turned away, her eyes again on the window, and the world beyond, as though she could see through the buildings, and the trees, and the hills as if they too were glass, to the man that she had not been parted from this way in twenty years. 

Lowering her head she added in an undertone, “even if you did it's too late now. It is done. It is broken. That is the end,” she concluded very softly, swallowing hard and looking down at her fingers, away from the window, cutting off the invisible thread Siuan had imagined joining her and Lan for a moment.

Siuan paused, pretending to actually deliberate and consider this idea, then she said evenly, “it could still be undone.” Moiraine took a very deep, very slow breath, lifting her chin very slightly towards the ceiling, as though silently begging the Light for patience. “It could be fixed, if you tried,” Siuan said, completely ignoring Moiraine’s reaction.

"Not everything that is broken can be fixed, Siuan," Moiraine replied, a new darkness gathering at the edges of her words, like night steadily swallowing the evening sun and all its warmth.

"No,” Siuan agreed, and she could not maintain her previous toneless, matter-of-fact even cadence now, not when she knew that Moiraine did not only mean to imply her fractured relationship with Lan, but also her fractured self. “Not perfectly or completely,” Siuan went on, made herself go on, made herself say those words, with the full force of the belief that lived behind them. “Maybe it can never be exactly as it once was. But it can always be better than it is now,” she said, and she felt her father’s voice echo in an unheard harmony alongside her own, his lessons, his wisdom, still a core of who she was and, more importantly, who she strived each day to be.

There's no such thing as perfection, so there's no excuse to ever stop trying to improve.

Her head and her heart were still full of his sayings. If they’d been rich, she’d often thought, he could have become one of the greatest philosophers of their age, quoted from Tear to the Two Rivers.

Usually Moiraine knew the feel and form of Berden’s little pearls of wisdom. Usually she would tease her and tell her that her accent became stronger, more Tairen, when she said them, as though her father truly was sharing his words with his daughter’s voice. Usually they coaxed a smile from her, and a pause to the ceaseless spinning of her mind. Usually they connected to her in the same place that she connected to Siuan, a tether to a welcome shore that promised a safe harbour.

This time nothing. No response. No acknowledgement at all. To the point that Siuan was sure she had barely even heard her speak, let alone what she’d said. She opened her mouth to say something more but Moiraine beat her to the catch,

“Not this,” she whispered, and she was staring at the window again, but this time she clearly didn’t see it, or anything at all for that matter, save whatever memory had gotten its hands about her throat and started to crush the breath from her. “Not after what I–” she began in a tremulous whisper.

Abruptly she broke off, as though remembering herself. Siuan watched as she reflexively corrected her posture, straightening her spine, standing tall and confident, the very image of a perfect Cairhien noblewoman. But though her face, as she turned back in Siuan’s direction, was perfectly calm and smooth, she would not meet her eyes.

Something went very cold and dark inside Siuan as she realised that she had made a damned rookie blunder and allowed Moiraine to distract her from the one key detail she clearly hadn’t wanted to discuss.

“How did you get him to agree to go to the Tower without you?” Siuan asked slowly, fear rising in her throat and choking the word near to silence. “You never answered me.”

She’d thought Moiraine had given Lan some false instruction asking him to fetch something for her that she could not, due to her exile. But no, Lan knew her far too well to fall for something like that. Especially after what Moiraine had done to him the night before she’d gone to the Eye of the World. And from the look in her eyes,, the hunch in her shoulders that all to clearly gave away her bone-deep guilt–

“Moiraine–” she began, unable to keep the warning from her voice.

Quiet engulfed them for a long, heavy moment, that seemed to press down with a greater weight than the world they’d carried between them all these years.

“I wrote to Alanna and asked her to meet me at the crossroads so that she might escort Lan to the Tower while I carried on alone to Cairhien” Moiraine answered at last, trying to speak stoutly and confidently, but Siuan could hear the tremors of the fracture lines she was close to breaking along, no matter how well she tried to hide them.

Narrowing her eyes, Siuan bit out, the words sharpened by the tension that was winding ever tighter in her, “it’s a good thing she has Ivhon and Maksim. I imagine that would make it much easier to bind and gag Lan and throw him over the back of his horse, which is the only bloody way I see him going to the Tower with Alanna while you ended up here.”

It could not have been clearer that Moiraine could not meet her eyes. She stared down at her clenched fingers, the skin of which was red raw from how she had agitated it during their conversation. All at once, it was as though she could not even stand to be in her own body, to be herself at all. So great was the guilt and pain and shame that seemed to physically press upon her as Siuan watched, that Siuan thought she might collapse between it. Their eyes met for the briefest moment, as they darted wildly about the room seeking another anchor point, and for that single beat of time, Siuan felt as though she glimpsed Moiraine’s true self, trapped and smothered within the cage of her bones, huddled and broken, given up on trying to break free.

“What the fuck did you do, Moiraine?” Siuan whispered, terrified, genuinely terrified, for the first time in years.

“I told him–” Moiraine began, then broke off, as if gagged by her oath, though Siuan knew there was a far simpler, far more human barrier between her and the words she struggled to speak this time. “I told him that if he refused to go willingly–” 

Again she stopped, this time needing to take down a gasp of air as her whole body shook. Even then she seemed to be struggling to breathe, as though something constricted her throat, each word needing to be forced out past an ever-tightening noose, and Siuan suddenly felt dread grip the very heart of her. All at once she did not want to cross this line. She did not want to know into what darkness this woman she loved had fallen.

“I told him that I would have Alanna take his bond by force if I had to,” she whispered in a strangled little voice.

Siuan recoiled. The movement was instinctive, and she couldn’t have stopped it if she’d wanted to. Nor was she sure that she did. Light– That was– Light. Forcing a bond with someone against their will was one of the most invasive and horrific things it was possible to do with their power. It was not only a violation of the body, but of the mind, the very soul itself. For Moiraine to have even threatened that– Threatened Lan with it–

“I thought that you loved him,” Siuan said, horror and disgust rising in her words as well as the back of her throat. “I thought that he was family to you,” she breathed, revulsion forcing her, for the first time that she could remember, to step away from this woman that she had spent most of her life waiting to run to. “How could you do that to him?”

“I didn’t!” Moiraine cried, stricken, a burst of emotion rising in her, stronger than anything else she’d been able to muster as she stared at Siuan with desperate urgency. “Of course I would never have allowed it to get that far, but–”

“You threatened him with it!” Siuan interrupted, a snap in her voice, words rising to a shout in her disbelief and her anger and her horror.

That she had done this in what Siuan assumed, what she begged the very Wheel itself, was in a wild moment of utter desperation was one thing. But to stand here now in the cold aftermath and defend the choice? 

Siuan felt as though she were looking into the eyes of a stranger, a nameless, unknown creature wearing her face. Because this could not be her Moiraine. The Eye of the World had taken that woman she had loved for decades, that woman she would have ripped the world apart seam by seam to protect, and spat out something else, something that looked like Moiraine, sounded like her, but could not be her in truth.

Still in disbelief, bile burning the back of her throat she went on, hoarse with shock and ever mounting rage, making her voice waver, “the fact that you actually managed to get those words out past the First Oath to spit in his face?” Her lip curled and she spared no effort at all to hide her disgust as she growled, “I think that’s far enough.”

“Why don’t you understand?” Moiraine whispered, staring at Siuan as though she barely recognised her either. As though they were two strangers seeing each other for the first time. "I was so sure that you would,” she murmured, her eyes going unfocused as she looked inward, seeing something that Siuan could neither see nor even fathom. “I was so sure that you–”

Flinching back with a sudden twist of contempt at that very suggestion, anger rose in her. “How could you ever think I would understand something like this?” she demanded, furious, “let alone accept it!”

“Because you know me!” Moiraine shouted a little wildly, her voice rising and wavering out of her control, like a loose sail stolen by a strong gust rippling and writhing as the rage of the ocean claimed it. “You know me, Siuan,” Moiraine whispered, thumping her palm flat against her chest, just over her heart in a broken display of utter desperation, “you know me better than anyone.”

“I thought I did,” Siuan breathed, her face still hard and cold as her heart had become, petrified and crumbling in the face of this unprecedented darkness in the woman she adored. “Before tonight I never would have believed you capable of this. Not for all the light in this world.”

Moiraine looked utterly broken for a moment, her face falling into lines of clear agony, her eyes closing against it. For a moment Siuan was sure that reason and sanity had returned, and it had hit her just how awful what she’d been suggesting was. 

“I swear to you,” she breathed softly, “I swear to you on my father’s name that I did this for the right reasons,” she all but begged, her eyes wide and shining with tears, “I didn’t do it to hurt him, Siuan–” she began.

But Siuan’s anger flared once more and she cut in, “then I’m sure it wouldn’t have,” she snapped with a furious spite twisting each word, “I’m sure he wouldn’t have felt any pain, or violation, or betrayal at all,” she spat, the words firing from her mouth like crashing hailstones, “not as long as you made sure you had him raped with good intentions–”

Moiraine flinched violently at that word as though it was a physical lash Siuan had branded her with. But Siuan couldn’t find any pity for her. She had blinded herself with willful ignorance and justified this to herself somehow, but Siuan would be burned to ashes before she let her ignore the harsh reality of what she had held over the head of a man who had trusted her enough to dedicate his life to hers for two decades.

“I would never allow Alanna, or anyone else, to hurt him like that,” Moiraine snarled, anger deepening her voice so that it almost seemed to echo up to her from the depths of the ocean itself. “If I could not channel I would put a blade through their heart before they even tried to do such a thing to him,” she went on, emotion burning so palpably from her now that for a moment Siuan felt as though she stood beside a raging sun, “And if I had no blade then I would tear them apart with my bare hands before they even thought of harming him.”

There she was. Yes. That was Moiraine, her Moiraine. Without question. There was no mistaking the blazing intensity in her eyes, the strength of will that seemed to rise from every taut muscle and sinew of her body like a heat haze as she set out her goal and swore every fibre of her soul to see it done, as no one Siuan had ever met could do.

But again, Siuan saw her in the slight tremble of her mouth, the brightness of her eyes, the frightened woman who lived beneath that raging force that at times felt as if she could halt the Wheel itself by virtue of the strength and stubbornness of her command alone. The woman you could almost forget was there, fragile and afraid as any other mortal creature made of flesh and blood and foolish, foolish love.

“But I will not apologise for trying to save a good man from an unjust fate,” Moiraine whispered, the near overwhelming fire of her earlier words suddenly ash, and though there was a crack to her voice there was no less conviction or intent because of that, as she now met and held Siuan’s gaze. 

Even now, after she had been emotionally beaten and branded for her choice, she maintained that, if it could not be called good, it could also never be called wrong. 

Siuan wanted to shake her. She wanted to shake her and ask how she could have endured what she had at the Eye, how she could have felt someone use their Power to strip away her own. How she could know as keenly as it was possible to know what it was to be left behind, vulnerable, and violated, and helpless– how she could feel that pain, and then threaten someone she loved with the same in the name of protecting them.

But she had spoken one truth, amidst the rest of this shadowspawned blight: Siuan did know her. She had known her, and loved her, since they’d been little more than children in the Tower together. So she had to believe, if she believed that there was any light left at all in this forsaken world, that Moiraine had meant well, and could still be made to see some bloody reason.

“Explain,” she murmured tautly, with every flaming bit of restraint that she was still just clinging to.

“There is no chance that either of us will live to see the world we hope to save,” Moiraine said with an honesty that was as casually brutal as it was familiar; and it was as familiar to both of them as cold beds and lonely hearts. “Not until the Wheel turns us out together again in another life. You know that,” she said very quietly, her eyes never leaving Siuan’s, never dropping, never even blinking as they confronted this truth, and this tragedy, of their life, and their love again. “We both made our peace with that years ago when we started all of this. We knew what the price would be if we were to take this path. And we both agreed to pay it."

Siuan nodded, but her brow creased in a slight frown as she said slowly, "Lan would give his life for this, for you, just as willingly, without even thinking about it."

"Of course he would!” Moiraine snapped, sounding almost insulted on her Warder’s behalf, as though Siuan had implied the opposite. 

Slamming her palm down against her thigh, frustration rankling through her, she lifted the same hand to press against her head, as though trying to help it resist some unendurable pain. Then she looked up at Siuan, her expression softening, the lines of tension and stress smoothed away, so she appeared half a child again, innocent, and naive, still able to find the hope they had begun this all with years ago. 

“But he doesn't have to,” she whispered, the words near a plea, to her, or the Wheel itself, Siuan didn’t know. But it was as honest and as raw a prayer as she had ever heard pass this woman’s lips. “He is not bound to that fate as we are. He would give his life for it, without hesitation, I know he would, I do not question that. But he does not have to die for this unless I drag him into the grave that has already been dug for me.” 

Light but there was still good in her, Siuan thought with gentle despair, her heart aching with it. Perhaps too much. 

“He can still have this life, a good life,” Moiraine insisted, the words apparently sounding reasonable and fair to her, when to Siuan they just sounded like the nonsensical plea of a loved one to save a fallen friend who’s heart had long since stopped beating, “a life that he deserves at last. That is all I wanted for him, and everything I have done has been for that. For him,” she implored.

Siuan believed her. Light but she believed her.

“You hurt him,” Siuan said quietly, still adamant that she would get an acknowledgement on this point, before they went any further. “No matter why you did it, or what you hoped to achieve, you still hurt him, Moiraine. More than anyone else ever could, and more than you ever should,” she added firmly, because she understood now, but that did not mean she accepted.

“I know,” Moiraine said, something darkening in her eyes. Shame, Siuan realised, shame for what she had done. 

All at once she seemed to fade before her, the ghost of the woman that had once stood in her place. She moved as though in a daze and sank down onto the edge of her bed again, head in her hands. Cautiously, Siuan moved to her side once more and sat down next to her.

Her presence seemed to give Moiraine the strength she needed to speak. Raising her head, she said softly, “I knew I was hurting him every day that I spoke to him so callously. Or looked at him as though he were a stranger I did not trust. I could see that pain in him, as clearly as I see you standing here before me. And it destroyed me, Siuan. You have to know that. But– He is no longer caught up within the threads of my Pattern, so he need not be hanged by them as I will be,” she said, her eyes wide, the words caught somewhere between a statement and a question; wanting it to be true, but needing Siuan to make it so.

“Moiraine,” Siuan said, achingly tender, the way she would have wrapped her last breath around her name before she rammed the dagger of mercy between her ribs to spare her a fate worse than death. 

Moiraine trembled to hear that, and all the gentle agony it promised.

“Nothing in our Oaths keeps us safe from lying to ourselves,” Siuan murmured, combing her fingers through Moiraine’s hair, smoothing it back from her face. “It’s time,” she said softly, “you can’t hide from yourself anymore, love. You know, you’ve always known, in your heart, that you can’t do this alone.” 

Moiraine’s face crumpled at those words, and she buried it against Siuan’s chest as she turned her face against her shoulder. Siuan cradled her, comforting her from the pain that she herself was inflicting with each word she spoke. Yet she spoke them still, feeling the weight of irony in each one, but knowing they were needed. 

“You and Lan are bound together with something far more powerful and lasting than any Warder bond,” Siuan told her, sharing a truth she had seen the moment she had met Lan, standing at Moiraine’s side, and feeling, for the first time since they’d heard the prophecy, and chosen their paths, that Moiraine might be safe on hers, with him beside her. “Your Patterns are intertwined, absolutely and inextricably, and always have been,” she murmured, achingly gentle. “Your fate is his; and his yours.” 

Moiraine’s whole body shook with the weight of the breaths that heaved through her chest as she struggled to bear yet another burden Siuan laid upon her back. 

“I told you that there would be no Lan without you,” Siuan said, still cradling Moiraine in close to her body, “but equally there is no you without Lan,” she murmured.

As she spoke she rubbed Moiraine’s back in broad, soothing circles, trying to convey without words that it was nearly over. A few more words, and Moiraine would have survived the harshest torture that any person could know. That of having the deepest fears that gave your soul its shadow to contrast its light laid bare before you with simple, merciless truth. 

“You need him, Moiraine,” she said, then again, one last time, to be sure, “you need him.”

Moiraine’s shoulders slumped, and she laid her head completely in Siuan’s lap, then shocked her by actually saying, very quietly, “I know.” 

A pause while she trembled, and wiped furiously at her eyes and mouth with the back of her hand, obviously trying to regain a grip on herself. For a moment, it seemed that she might succeed. Then she wavered, taking several breaths that palpably shuddered through her whole body as she tried to contain the heavy sobs that Siuan could almost feel weighing her down before she managed to get out, “I miss him. I miss him so much.”

The shock of that hit Siuan like a brick to the face. She had expected her to talk about the Pattern, about the future, about the impossibility of the task that had been demanded of them, of the cruelty of the world, and the indifference of the Wheel. She realised now that this had been the last bit of strain needed to snap the entire line, and that everything Moiraine had been holding in since Lan had left, likely since she’d started pushing him away at all, had finally become too much for even her to bear.

“Oh Moiraine–” Siuan breathed sadly.

“I look to my left to catch his eye and seek out his approval before I remember that he’s not there,” she said, the words flowing from her as thick and fast and uncontrollable as her tears. “I hear his voice each morning telling me that I need to eat something before I start my day,” she said, as Siuan stroked her hair and let her weep, “I find it strange when my plate doesn’t have a little more potato or an extra bit of bacon on it than it did a moment before, because he’s slipped me some of his without my noticing.” Siuan smiled at that, at how simple, and ridiculous, and utterly Lan such a gesture was, how it was always the smallest, stupidest things that said ‘I love you’ without ever needing to use the words. “I pour out two cups of tea without even thinking about it. When it all feels too much, and the weight of the world is crushing me, and I do not know what is right or if I can even trust myself to tie my own shoes, I wait for his reassurance, for his hand on my shoulder, or his steadfastness through the bond but– but I–”

Siuan sensed that there was more, so much more, a lifetime’s worth of tiny moments and instinctive acts that had become as thoughtless as breathing, not noticed until they were gone, and then their absence was an agony worse than dying. But there were no more words left to her to speak them. The mask she’d clutched to her face and hidden behind all these months was little more than ash snatched at by the wind. She was bare, and barren, with no more shields to crouch behind, and no more barriers to break her fall. All she could do now was feel, feel every ounce of grief and pain she’d been pushing aside and struggling to ignore for months.

Moiraine broke, utterly and completely, and Siuan held her as she did. She rocked her gently in her arms as she sobbed and screamed until her throat was raw. She stroked her hair as she gasped and heaved and struggled for each breath she sucked in past her grief. She rubbed her back as she convulsed and trembled until at last her exhausted body could give no more, and it lay still and silent in Siuan’s arms. 

Afterwards, Siuan remained quiet. Like the first breath the world took after the passing of a great storm, this was not for her to do, this was not her silence to break, only to keep watch over, until the time came. She knew that it would. Some things were inevitable that way, and she had learned patience as a babe strapped to her father’s back on his little fishing boat, waiting for the tides to carry them home. She had kept that patience for twenty long years, spending each day waiting for Moiraine’s return. She had patience now for this.

Wiping her eyes with that frustrated little gesture, sniffing repeatedly, Moiraine pushed herself tiredly into a sitting position, still leaning against Siuan’s shoulder to help keep her upright.

“I must sound so foolish,” she muttered, voice dulled by fatigue and exertion. Catching Siuan’s expression out of the corner of her eye, she seemed to realise that had not been entirely clear, for she clarified, “crying over cups of tea and potatoes when the Forsaken are stirring and the Dark One’s shadow spreads further each day across the entire world which may be lost if we cannot save it,” she said, with a truly admirable amount of dignity maintained between her hiccups.

Siuan smiled fondly, smoothing out Moiraine’s hair, “a bit,” she admitted, though she made it clear from her tone that it was meant to tease. Kissing the top of Moiraine’s head she sighed out a long resigned breath and said, “I think you need your cups of tea and potatoes and… whatever else,” she said, struggling to remember the precise details of Moiraine’s long, only mostly coherent list. Fortunately this lapse made Moiraine snort with suppressed laughter, knowing her far too well to feel aggrieved, so Siuan continued, “and that’s okay,” she murmured, giving Moiraine a bracing little squeeze. “It’s the same reason I still practise my nets and lures by hand every day,” she said, seeing the soft, fond smile and distant bob of Moiraine’s head in acknowledgement of this, “we need something to keep us sane while everything else goes mad around us.”

Moiraine considered that and then she said very quietly, “So many times, Lan has been the only thing protecting me from death, ever snapping at my heels. But he has also been my net,” she said with a watery smile, catching Siuan’s eyes, “keeping me from the insanity always clawing at the edges of my mind.” 

Siuan nodded as Moiraine’s mouth trembled with the burden of the realisation Siuan had just watched settle heavy upon her soul. She stroked her cheek, anchoring her, but did not interrupt or say the words for her. She needed this, needed to purge herself of this truth as surely as if it were trolloc poison.

“I was selfish,” Moiraine managed to whisper at last. Siuan closed her eyes, a tension she had carried since she had asked Moiraine where Lan was at last allowed to leave her. “I convinced myself that the pain I caused him was worth it, if it kept him safe but… nothing in our Oaths keeps us safe from lying to ourselves, does it?” she murmured, repeating the wisdom Siuan had given her earlier. She closed her eyes, her face a mask of pain, and Siuan felt such pride, and such love, swell within her as she found the strength to confront the person she had been, and hold her accountable for what she had done. “I sought to break him, to break the love, and the loyalty I did not feel I deserved because I knew that it would break me to lose him as well.” Silent tears escaped her, sliding down her cheeks as she whispered, “I was so selfish.”

“I know,” Siuan said, the harsh simplicity of that truth balanced by the soothing tone in which it was spoken.

“He must hate me,” she said, unable to entirely smother the small sob that choked from her as she spoke those words.

“Maybe he should, for what you did to him,” Siuan said, as softly and gently as she had spoken her last truth. 

She saw the reflexive flash of shock and betrayal in Moiraine’s eyes, before she blinked it away, along with the tears that had shone there, and nodded heavily.

"But I’d still stake my life on the bet that he doesn’t,” Siuan continued very quietly. Whether that made him a fool or a hero, she didn’t know, and perhaps it wasn’t her place to decide either way. “You know that’s not him. He will forgive you. Even for this. As long as you give him a reason to."

Moiraine looked up at her for a long moment then, finally, blessedly, she nodded. She looked utterly exhausted as she did so, but she did so, and that was enough for now. Siuan kissed her head. There was still more to say, on this, as well as the other events of the last six months, but Moiraine clearly wasn’t up to hearing so much as the day’s catch right now, let alone anything like that. So Siuan scooped her up and drew her down onto the bed beside her, stroking her hair and wiping away her latest tears.

“Rest now,” she told her softly. Moiraine started to open her mouth to protest, but Siuan just pressed a finger to her lips, “I will stay and shield your dreams,” she said quietly. It was a risk, she knew, not to return to the Palace, but Leane would make her excuses if that became necessary. Siuan judged that the hour-long grilling she would get from her Keeper about where she’d been and why was worth it to allow Moiraine to get a chance to actually recover some of her strength. “You need to sleep,” she insisted, in a tone that warned there would be no arguing of that point.

“You know so well what I need,” Moiraine growled huffily, the words barely distinguishable through the blanket Siuan was already pulling around her.

“I do,” Siuan agreed, as though Moiraine had spoken the words as a mere statement of fact, and not an obviously petulant complaint.

More grumpy sounds issued at this, though none were coherent enough to be made sense of, and were thus very easy to ignore, as Siuan bundled Moiraine up in the densest, heaviest blankets she could find, then wrapped her arms around her and held her close. She was asleep almost before Siuan had finished weaving the shield around her mind to protect her from Lanfear’s influence, at last safe enough to allow the sleep she so desperately needed to claim her.

There was still a ways to go, she knew, the shore was only just visible as a faint line upon the distant horizon, and their little boat still had a vast ocean to cross to reach it. But if things had not yet been fixed, they had been improved. Tomorrow they would improve again, and the day after, and the day after, and the day after. One step at a time. One foot in front of the other. Until the sand of the shore turned to earth, then to stone, and they reached a place where the turbulent sea was little more than myth, and the oar they carried was mistaken for a staff.

****

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[highladyluck]

Season 2, Episode 2 Liveblog

Teaser:

Good lord the WLW Agenda on that girl! flawless, no notes

Oh Rand honey, your heart is in the right place but your hands are not

How long, Selene? How long EXACTLY?

Rand is here and he’s having a bad time

Rand made fun of Mat for wanting to pay rent by sleeping with the hot innkeeper, but here he is, doing just that!

Oooooh the Foregate! Oh, this is interesting! Rand the nerd is always researching, and I guess he’s researching madness.

Lmao Verin is such a smartass

Moiraine you are being such a regular ass right now

Eeeeey it’s the fly trap! That’s a neat little book cameo. Oooooh and the dead Fade too.

Oh yeah I was waiting for someone in Cairhein to give Rand shit for looking like an Aiel 😅 gonna give that guy even more PSTD

Ok, looking at this guy’s waffleknit bathrobe… Donal Finn is RIGHT, Mat has been wearing a bathrobe this entire time. I want him out of Liandrin’s weird torture basement and into some fancy duds immediately!!!

I bet this guy reminds Rand of Tam, assuming he knows Tam’s backstory

Wow who vets these employees?

Liandrin like ‘I’ll just pocket this deadly poison don’t mind me”

I am here to watch Nyneave Heal and to make snarky comments about Liandrin and I have paused the episode so I am temporarily out of snarky comments about Liandrin

Oh I like the Accepted sleeves

“Men who can channel are not a disease” You tell her, Nyneave!!!

I don’t think they should let Liandrin teach Accepted either >:( also lol @ thinking you could stop Nyneave from being a Yellow, that ajah has her name all over it

…honestly I’m with Mat, we just saw her palm a poison and Liandrin doesn’t give anything nice to men without an ulterior motive

Ok I laughed at Mat’s choreography

I really hope he’s breaking out and not breaking into A Secret Dagger Chamber or something

Oh Elayne you are about to get a shock

Oh Egwene’s face was PERFECT

“You know, some of the greatest pairings have been between novices in adjacent rooms” Good lord the WLW Agenda on that girl! flawless, no notes

I would also be like ‘yeah yeah’ if a Green told me the Last Battle was coming, tbf. They’re the Apocalypse Prepper Ajah, you gotta take it with a grain of salt.

Love the canon detail of Nyneave never giving Aes Sedai their honorifics

Watch Nyneave discover Mat’s oubliette but he’s already gone 😂 (my guess)

BIG FISH

Oh Verin :D

Uh oh, I remember this part with the Trolloc mask.

Oh Rand honey, your heart is in the right place but your hands are not

Lmao she does not ever stop

This is not femdom!!! Illegal illegal red alert 🚨 🚨 🚨 Robert Jordan is rolling unquietly in his grave 😡 although I guess Selene got what she wanted so maybe it is femdom 🤔

Hah, I was wondering how Elayne got away with fancying up her room.

Liandrin loves someone??? OH SHIT that’s her son.

Awwwwwww we needed Min and Mat bonding and this is giving!!! I love that the show really shows how these people are friends

Mat is sharing his spoon, my heart ♥️

Moiraine like ‘oh god shut up, fine’

I do love the pond story, straight from New Spring :D

I cannot wait for Mat and Min shenanigans!!!

I was not sure about Donal b/c I loved Barney, but he makes his eyes sparkle & the little half-smile is pure Mat, so I’m sold

Ah Mat, you’ll change your tune on knowing the shit headed your way, if only so you can better dodge it

Awwww stabby??? No no stabby!

Lmao Selene he absolutely can hurt you

How long, Selene? How long EXACTLY?

Oh my god Elayne making hooch in her dorm room is the canon I never knew I needed, she absolutely would

Accepted Test! Accepted Test! *bangs on the table in rhythm*

The music in this series is so gooooood

Lan don’t read that, it’ll give you nightmares

Moiraine like ‘I knew you were the one when I could abandon you and you’d survive’ but a) you could not, Lan’s deathwish is So Big and b) I see Moiraine’s mentorship strategy at play here lmao

Moiraine is absolutely trying her best to platonic lifebond break up with Lan

(And ‘we were never equals’ is not a denial)

The battle sequences feel very RJ- chaos, impressions, brief intense focus

I would NOT want to piss off Loial

Also I only JUST realized it was the Seanchan a beat before the damane showed up, b/c I recognized the Samuri-ish armor

They all have baseball bats!!! This is so funny to me, I’m sorry, but then again what is more American and Japanese than baseball bats? (Besides imperialism)

They look so scary!

Oooooh American accent! Not Texas enough but still

Damn Rand, did you intend to take his job? Yeah, ok, I see you did. Damn, that’s cold! On par with book 2 Rand tho

[ravencromwell]

Finally decided to indulge in the Siuan/Moiraine meta I've been wanting to write for ages now, musing on the differences in psychology ensuing from their significantly different arcs within the book and show and why Siuan's actions at season 2's apex are entirely in psychological sync with her show portrayal, even if they swerve wildly from the books.

Let's start with some Siuan back-story context. In the books, Tear was undeniably an unfriendly city for those with the One Power. But that translated, in practical terms, to Aes Sedai keeping their stays there brief, and girls who could touch The Source being quickly bustled off to the Tower. There were no Aes Sedai advisers, as in other kingdoms etc., but neither was there the virulent hostility of the show.

Siuan left Tear quickly in the books—the first day she was discovered to have the Power, but only because a sister was traveling through and didn't wish to delay returning to The Tower for such pesky things as sentimental goodbyes. Was that harsh? Absolutely. But the world of the books is exceedingly harsh in some respects, giving girls little to no choice about becoming Sisters, should they be discovered harboring abilities. (Much of Nynaeve's back-story involved hiding her powers precisely because she didn't fancy being ripped from The Two Rivers.)

Siuan faces a much different harshness in the show. The show doesn't do a great job explaining this, but The Dragon's Fang, which is etched onto Siuan's door before her house is unceremoniously torched, is a sign of immense contempt for Dark Friends. Within show Tear, a wary mistrust of Aes Sedai has curdled into something much more dangerous. All use of The Power is suspect, because if men's half was tainted, there's nothing to say women won't go suddenly mad, too.

It's worth remembering as well here that book Siuan was roughly fifteen when she went to The Tower. Now, I'm totally blind, and audio description doesn't give me an age for tiny show-Siuan, but if she's anywhere near puberty, I'll eat my metaphorical hat. And instead of being shepherded to The Tower, she had to flee for her life.

In her family's only means of support, I might ad. Book Siuan was by no means well-to-do, but she was firmly in the middling ranks of the working poor. Show Siuan's family are on the fucking destitution brink y'all. And she took her father's livelihood. Dying destitute ain’t fuckin pretty.

Siuan is not a stupid kid, and she clearly adores the shit out of her papa. The first thing that little girl did the millisecond she got any privileges? Wrote to her papa.

And more than likely, Berden never wrote back. It wouldn't take her long to figure out what'd happened. Moiraine is at great pains to tell Alana Jenny was not "her" support dog, and we laugh it off as oh, look at Moiraine being all adorably prim. Which in one sense, it totally is. But I'd almost guarantee you there's a deeper layer there: it wasn't "hers"; it was "theirs" because once Siuan found out her beloved papa was dead, they both needed something to cuddle.

This may seem like somewhat of a digression, but I'm maundering on because in the books yes, Dark Friends are evil. But they're evil because they caused a terrible cataclysm many thousands of years ago that killed lots of people, and they wanna do it again. There's no personal skin in the game for our beloved ladies, except they get thrust into the job through a convergence of some very complicated circumstances—I'd recommend any show-only watchers read "New Spring" because while I love almost all the changes the show has made ferociously, the way Siuan and Moiraine undertake the search is vastly more plausible as presented by Jordan there.

For Siuan in the show, by contrast, Dark Friend has _very personal ramifications. Dark Friends caused the corrosive mistrust that got her papa _killed! And Moiraine, better than _anyone, knows how that broke her.

And she _knows full well she could be deposed simply for having a relationship with Moiraine. The sensible thing to keep all the awful people from committing terrible crimes that will reverberate down the centuries to impact a little girl just as she was impacted would be to keep both their noses clean. And yet, she loves Moiraine so much that she'll take that risk to maintain not only an alliance about Rand, but a romantic relationship which could, realistically, be discovered much more easily.

And now, Moiraine, the woman who parroted back her beloved father's words of farewell about how Siuan was as clever as a pike and strong as the tides seemingly willfully lied; seemingly became a _Dark _Friend. Even her admonition that Lanfear is "too strong" must bring up so many awful questions: just how long have they been working together for her to know that? Because from Siuan's perspective, what it looks like is Lanfear coming in, guns blazing, to save her accomplice, Moiraine.

When Siuan says that there are rules and they have to abide by them, it's reflecting profoundly deep fears—not only about what Rand could do, but the kind of hatred toward those with The Power it could foster. For twenty years, she's put those fears aside. And now it appears that her going against Tower Law has lost her Moiraine to the Forsaken, and made terrible outcomes nigh on inevitable. And people are really confused about why she looks beaten?

Hell, from her perspective, forget Lanfear's entrance. The very fact Moiraine seemingly lied to her and is now talking about love must seem such a cruel mockery: laughing at Siuan's weakness; just as, perhaps, she was laughing at her with that parting comment in The Tower: an Amyrlin Seat still so swayed by what her papa told her so many years ago. (Yeah, we know it was as close as she could come to an I love you, but how the hell is Siuan supposed to know that, given everything?) This was not willful emotional abuse on someone she knew to be acting in good faith, but a reaction to the person she loved enough to risk the fucking Amyrlin Seat for becoming a monster!

Do I wish they'd picked _any other direction for their relationship? Yes, yes I damn well do. There was plenty to play with for angst factor by having the coup go down as it does in the books: Moiraine not being there to save her when all Siuan wanted was more time together, for one thing. Moiraine needlessly obfuscating in front of Siuan and  the other Sisters in S1, when Leandrin already knew! about the Two Rivers folk. Thinking she was being canny, when all she did was get herself pointlessly exiled so she couldn't protect Siuan? Quite enough of an angst sandwich, thanks ever so, without this new development. But! if they were going to include this, Siuan reacted precisely as I would expect her to, given the context I've outlined above, not in some madly ooc fashion worthy of the tags descending into emotional abuse discourse.

[jackoshadows]

Rosamund Pike on Moiraine, season 2. (Google Translated from French)

PREMIERE: At the end of season 1, Moiraine loses all of her powers... In what state do we find her? ROSAMUND PIKE: Moraine is no longer the same woman. She is traumatized and lonely, like a wounded animal that pushes away everyone close to her. In this world, being cut off from the One Power for a woman is one of the most painful traumas, equivalent to the loss of a child. You will therefore see how a hitherto incredibly powerful character will attempt to face her enemy without her greatest weapon. What new aspects of his temperament have you discovered? PIKE: She seems much more vulnerable. She feels like she's missing a fundamental part of her identity. And that doesn't happen in the books, it's an exploration by our writers. I was a bit appalled: I liked Moraine for who she was and I didn't want to see her suffer. So it was a challenge, not entirely pleasant, but very interesting. Losing the Unique Power means losing the link with his Champion. How is Moraine and Lan's relationship impacted? PIKE: Their dynamic takes a hit! In this world, the Aes Sedai and their champions are linked psychically but also physically: this link allows them to stay longer without sleep, without food, but above all to feel what the other feels. Suddenly, Moraine and Lan find themselves in a deafening silence, cut off from each other. They never needed to communicate because they always had this intense connection that did it for them. So Moraine starts to establish a distance, she doesn't feel worthy of him, she pushes him away and becomes very cruel. Daniel and I were apart for a lot of Season 2 and we missed working together... Are we going to delve deeper into the mythology of this universe? PIKE: Oh yes, and it's amazing! The first season allowed to establish the rules, and season 2 deepens them. We go further in the exploration of the characters: there is a new enemy of size, the Seanchan, a people who come from the other side of the sea. They enslave the women who can channel magic, and the use as weapons of war. Their aim is to dominate the world: we see them seizing cities, terrorizing the inhabitants. But there are also some very interesting new female characters like Elayne Trakand, a new novice to the White Tower and future Queen of Andor. She meets Egwene, and their personalities collide. Finally, wouldn't the main theme of this series be sisterhood? PIKE: 100%. This is one of the great attractions of The Wheel of Time. And that female power is portrayed in an eclectic way, there's not just one example of what it should look like: in Season 3 that we're shooting right now, there are two incredibly powerful roles played by women from 70 years. And then we celebrate women, but not only! We also play with genres, creating fluid characters. Our casting director is always on the lookout for bright and unusual faces that are unrecognized by the public. I won't be very interesting when you get to season 3 because there are so many exciting new characters! (Laughs.) What can you already tell us about season 3 of The Wheel of Time? PIKE: With the third season, we open the field of possibilities. We're currently doing an episode that's really avant-garde, almost psychedelic. We have the possibility to push things this far thanks to the support of the studio. I think we're making a series that I hope will be watched in 20 years. The goal is not to just reach our time, but to do something timeless.

Very possible they were filming Rhuidean for season 3 before the SAG-AFTRA strike.... One of the best parts of the books IMO, so I hope they do it justice!!

[onaperduamedee]

Translation mine under the cut:

PREMIÈRE: At the end of season 1, Moiraine loses all her powers… In what state do we find her?

ROSAMUND PIKE: Moraine isn't the same woman anymore. She's traumatized and isolated like a wounded animal pushing away all those close to her. In this world, being cut from the One Power for a woman is one of the most painful traumas, akin to losing a child. So you're going to see how an incredibly strong character up to that point tries to fight her enemy without her greatest weapon.

Which new sides of her character did you discover?

She seems much more vulnerable. She feels like a fundamental part of her identity is missing. And that doesn't happen in the books, it's our writers' exploration. I was a little stunned: I liked Moiraine for what she was and I didn't want to see her suffer. So it was a challenge, not exactly pleasant, but very interesting.

Losing the One Power means losing her Warder's bond. How was the relationship between Moiraine and Lan affected?

Their dynamic takes a hit! In this universe, Aes Sedai and Warders are mentally linked as well as physically: this bond allows them to stay awake without food longer, but also to feel what the other feels. Suddenly, Moiraine and Lan find themselves in deafening silence, cut from each other. They have never needed to communicate because they always had this intense connection that did it for them. So Moiraine starts to distance herself, she doesn't feel worthy of him, she pushes him away and becomes very cruel. Daniel and I were separated for a long time in season 2 and we missed working together…

Will we dive deeper into this universe's mythology?

Oh yes, and it's incredible! The first season allowed us to set the rules, and season 2 goes into them in depth. We go further into the characters' exploration: there is a new major foe, the Seanchan, people from across the sea. They enslave women who can channel and use them as weapons. Their goal is to conquer the world: we see them seize cities, terrorize populations. But there are also new interesting female characters like Elayne Trakand, a new novice at the White Tower and future queen of Andor. She meets Egwene and their personalities clash.

Ultimately, wouldn't this season's main theme be sisterhood?

100%. It's one of the great appeals of the Wheel of Time. And that female power is depicted in diverse ways, there isn't just one example of what it should look like: in season 3 that we're currently filming, there are two incredibly powerful roles played by women over 70. And then we celebrate women, but not only! We play with genders, creating fluid characters. Our casting director is constantly finding brilliant and unusual faces, unknown to the audience. I won't be that interesting anymore when we reach season 3 because there are so many new fascinating characters! (laughs)

What can you tell us about season 3 of the Wheel of Time?

With the third season, we're opening up the field of possibilities. We're currently shooting an episode that's really avant-garde, almost psychedelic. We have the opportunity to push things as far with the studio's support. I think we're making a show that, I hope, will be watched in 20 years. The goal isn't to only touch our time, but to make something timeless.

[esterzach]

Part II of Random Thoughts

Also , spoilers, loads if those

That is why Siuan's behavior doesn't make any sense. Her body language is off, her moods are off, and she is jumping from seconds of being soft but even that looks... sort of forced, to be angry, resentful, and bitchy. That's Liandrin's mood style of changes. She aims to be nice and sweet but ends up revealing her character rather quickly. Even the expressions on her face are odd.

That shows with Rand even more. If Siuan is angry and feels betrayed by Moiraine, what reason does she have to be angry at Rand? Why does she act like this, as if she hates him? This is a young man she doesn't know. She only knows that this is The Dragon reborn. She wasn't even mean to Logain at the beginning, and he killed an Aes Sedai and a bunch of other people and walked on her nerves on purpose. The line about how it would have been easier if he was a girl, didn't sound like her. It sounded like something Liandrin would say. This desire to restrain him, to tame him, to sort of punish him, also doesn't sound like her. it does sound like someone else though.

Up until the end when she appears at the Waygate, Siuan acts as if someone else has stepped in her place. Even the tears. Siuan attacks Lan. Lan! Forget that she shields Rand. This is Lan. The man, who said "Give her my love" the last time. The man who trusts her enough to go to her for help over Moiraine's head. This is a violation of the third oath. This is evil crap here. Her life isn't threatened. She knows that. No one is attacking her. Lan wouldn't go against her. Still, she uses full force to throw him against the wall. She enforces Moiraine's oath, which is something quite disturbing. She doesn't speak to her, she just orders her. She doesn't ask why, she doesn't look hurt, just angry.

Now this scene is shot in a way that confuses me. The directing and editing look disjointed and just bad. At some moments they just stand there and nothing happens. Siuan just watches, her face though looks as if she is fighting something again. She looks miserable and tired. There is a shot where they show her profile, she looks beaten, but nothing suggests it took so much effort. When Lanfear appears she looks at her and as if she hesitates. It takes her a while to channel. And she never actually attacked her. We see the signature blades, but they don't go anywhere. We see Lanfear disarms her quickly, and we don't question Siuan, because we assume Lanfear is faster. But Siuan can be insanely fast and we saw it with Rand twice and with Lan too. She looks around and laughs.

What Lanfear did with Liandrin - she just neutralized her wave. Here she uses brutal force and knocks her out. Siuan doesn't say a word. We are left to assume what she thinks and feels there.

What does Liandrin say in Damodred's house - she looks at Moiraine's portrait and says she knew her back then. Liandrin has a thing for Moiraine. It was fairly obvious in S1E5, but whatever feelings she had were replaced by hatred. Almost completely. If she is actually using 

compulsion on Siuan, not that I know how this works, but if in fact that is her, she would use that to break both of them. An act of revenge. She wouldn't attack Lanfear, because Lanfear will know that's her and will end her in a flash. So she just stops and waits, as if for Lanfear to join. When she appears, Moiraine is surprised. Whyyyy Siuan isn't? She just looks at her.

I have no reasonable explanation about the "Moiraine, please" line. It seems out of place. What does she beg for here? But again the editing here is... not great. Aside from Moiraine's memories and the notion that her world is now completely broken, again... this seems badly presented. The idea is good. But the execution... well...

So I don't know what to think. If this was Siuan as intended to be Siuan... This will take a lot of convincing.

"I don't know what you think you'll gain from this?" "Hopefully what we lost", Lan says. Trust is what they lost. It is what he wants back.

Trust. Daes Daemar is about lying and manipulation, about the lack of trust, isolation and paranoia, insecurity and fear, and living in a world where there's no one whom one can trust. Decades of trust and closeness are being broken for no reason. Decades of trust have been restored. Another call back to S1. You have to trust someone, Moiraine. If it's not going to be me, then I thought, it must at least it could be her..."

In the immortal words of another extremely talkative and extremely good-looking man, who is also good with a sword:

"Fuck."

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 31: On the Scent

If you're on the scent for spoilers, keep reading! If you don't want to know everything about The Wheel of Time, including the books, show, comics, and card game all compressed into like, a couple thousand words inexplicably, definitely don't keep reading. The second you click that button everything will be psychically uploaded to your brain. I mean uh... something on theme... scentically uploaded to your nose.

We have a rising sun chapter as we're still in Cairhien and Thom's not around.

He gave one abrupt shudder and stopped laughing; she left him to crouch over Hurin.

Another not subtle thing to be doing. It's a good thing these Cairhienien are so politically suspicious that they miss the much greater threat right in front of them.

He said he didn’t know it, but he had a smile that shouted ‘lie’ a mile off.

Perrin could probably smell the lies on the dude before he opened his mouth.

I couldn’t hear what she said, but I didn’t know whether his eyes were going to pop out of his head or he was going to swallow his tongue first.

I'm sure that Verin just did the usual Aes Sedai thing and that the specifics aren't important, but it amuses me to imagine that she just told the dude the truth straight out.

He heard gasps from the Cairhienin listening, but he did not care. They could play their Great Game if they wanted, but Ingtar had come, and he was finished with it at last.

This is called dramatic irony and also counting your chickens before they hatch and whatnot.

Rand glanced at Perrin—He’s a sniffer?—and found Perrin studying him in return. He thought Perrin muttered something. Shadowkiller?

Have you boys tried talking to each other about your-

Nope. Can't even pretend to ask with a straight face.

Everyone was watching now—not even Cuale gave any attention to his own burning inn—and Rand thought a little caution might not be amiss after all.

Exactly Rand. You're surrounded by strangers in an immediate sense and surrounded by Darkfriends in a metaphorical sense. No point celebrating being free just yet.

Suddenly he noticed that the others were looking at him, Verin and Ingtar, Mat and Perrin. He realized what he had been doing, and his face colored. “I am sorry, Ingtar. It’s just that I’ve become used to being in charge, I suppose. I’m not trying to take your place.”

It's fascinating, how this boy has to be dragged kicking and screaming into everything, but once he accepts it he just takes to it instantly. A couple weeks' leadership and the boy completely forgets Ingtar's even there.

You can see why Demandred, Sammael, and Etcetera'al got so pissy.

She’s Moiraine’s eyes watching me, Moiraine’s hand trying to pull my strings. But I have cut the strings.

If only Rand had tried to learn about politics while he was here. He might have realized that Verin knowing things doesn't at all mean she's on Moiraine's side.

I guess that would probably have only made him more suspicious.

Also I forgot to mention her directly when taking these notes but Tiedra's plump so we know she's a good innkeeper.

It almost seemed to him that she was in the room with him, that he could smell her perfume, so much so that he looked around, and laughed to find himself alone.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if she had popped in invisibly somehow.

It was him, he thought. Rand is the Shadowkiller. Light, what’s happening to all of us? His hands tightened into fists, large and square. These hands were meant for a smith’s hammer, not an axe.

The duality that Perrin will be grappling with rears its ugly head. At last he already knows the answer. Though that really just makes his plot arc all the more frustrating.

Also, points to Perrin for pulling off having Rand in his POV instead of what usually happens (thus far in the series) and Rand hogging the spotlight. This isn't the first time this has happened (Egwene did it back in Fal Dara), but it does show the transition this series is slowly undergoing.

One of Mat’s eggs hit the floor and cracked. He did not look at it, though. He was looking at Rand, and Ingtar had turned around.

Mat, the so-called idiot, irresponsible fool: Has a tell about Rand's situation but volunteers nothing and doesn't cause any trouble.

Perrin realized he was staring, too. “Well, he did not fly,” he said. “I don’t see any wings. Maybe he has more important things to tell us.” Verin shifted her attention to him, just for a moment. He managed to meet her eyes, but he was the first to look away.

Perrin, the so-called quiet, responsible kid: Tries to get in a fight with a woman several decades his senior over his friend's honor.

“Interesting,” the Aes Sedai said, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I would very much like to meet this girl. If she can use a Portal Stone. . . . Even that name is not very widely known.”

Verin must suspect. How panicked does this make her?

Rand asked the innkeeper if there were any more books, and she brought him The Travels of Jain Farstrider. Perrin liked that one, too, with its stories of adventures among the Sea Folk and journeys to the lands beyond the Aiel Waste, where silk came from.

Is this our first real Shara reference? I think it might be.

The Shienaran played with a slashing, daring style. Perrin had always played doggedly, giving ground reluctantly, but he found himself placing the stones with as much recklessness as Ingtar. Most of the games ended in a draw, but he managed to win as many as Ingtar did.

Ignore the terrible pun and focus on how Perrin is being shifted by his experiences as well. Perhaps this is why he talked back to Verin earlier.

“There are Darkfriends among the high as well as the low,” Verin said smoothly. “The mighty give their souls to the Shadow as often as the weak.” Ingtar scowled as if he did not want to think of that.

Frankly Verin, if there weren't so few Aes Sedai I'd argue the Tower's horrible percentages make the mighty even more frequent donaters. And indeed note that Ingtar isn't "as if" anything. It's exactly the case that he doesn't want to think about noble Darkfriends.

“I know little of Cairhienin,” Ingtar told him, “but I’ve heard enough of Galldrian. He would feast us and thank us for the glory we had brought to Cairhien. He would stuff our pockets with gold and heap honors on our heads. And if we tried to leave with the Horn, he’d cut our honored heads off without pausing to take a breath.”

It's mind-boggling how actively detrimental to the cause of existence most of the modern day royalty proves to be. Like obviously they need to be toppled from their thrones and all that but damn.

There was a dignity to him that Perrin did not remember; Rand was looking at the Aes Sedai and the Shienaran lord as equals.

Well he's found the Horn of Valere twice now, so he's worthy of being a legendary hero even ignoring all the stuff he hasn't done yet. Selene's flirting sadly helped.

It will also help if you remember the way you behaved before the Amyrlin. If you are that arrogant, they will believe you are a lord if you wear rags.

Lan's training paying off in a dozen ways. He'd be so proud if he were here.

“A sa’angreal.” She sounded as if it were really not very important, but Perrin suddenly had the feeling the two of them had entered a private conversation, saying things no one else could hear.

For example, she's basically telling Rand what tools are available to him.

One by itself is powerful enough, but I can think of few women strong enough to survive the flow through the one on Tremalking. The Amyrlin, of course. Moiraine, and Elaida. Perhaps one or two others. And three still in training.

I guess Verin must think Cadsuane dead, since Lelaine and Romanda would make three if she were being counted. How terrifying that at this very point the White Tower has a total of eight, kind of nine women capable of using the Choedan Kal. It should be so much more.

As for Logain, it would have taken all his strength simply to keep from being burned to a cinder, with nothing left for doing anything.

Unless the male statue is quite different and only ever meant for Lews to use, Verin is very mistaken here. Logain is only a step below Rand, and there's sixteen tiers in between him and Moiraine.

She was talking to Rand. Perrin knew it, and from the queasy look in Mat’s eye, he did, too. Even Loial shifted nervously in his chair.

Thank goodness the empath is the POV to confirm that Loial is not blind or stupid but has in fact put two and two together.

Watching Verin’s smile, small and mysterious, Perrin felt a chill. He did not think Rand knew half what he thought he did. Not half.

Perrin you don't even know half of how right you are.

But we'll get to that next time, when our company visits The Huge Toad Crouching in the Night: Lord Barthanes's Manor! (Disclaimer: Toads may be metaphorical or even simileical)

[birgittesilverbae]

siuaraine & murder

"Marith–"

"Hers was a natural death," Siuan interrupts before the anxieties that prickle through Moiraine can take root. "A fact in which we are allowed to take comfort," she continues in response to the maelstrom of emotion that floods down the bond. It's painfully familiar, the warring of grief with relief, interrupted only by swift dagger thrusts of self-loathing. All too reminiscent of those days bookending Tamra's funeral. She reaches up to cradle Moiraine's jaw, swiping the pad of her thumb across Moiraine's lower lip. "So none of that."

"I was not–" Moiraine begins, but if the unfinished statement alone weren't enough to call out an aborted lie then her disgruntled expression would do.

"The fact that they didn't murder Marith," she states – and Light, so casually discussing the murder of sisters, of Amyrlins, always causes a swoop in her stomach, like her foot has broken through a rotted deck plank and she's plunging into the unknown – "that they avoided doing so shows a fear to act openly. I don't believe they'll take that risk again for some time yet, not after we so neatly scuppered their pogrom. They've slipped up and revealed more of their hand than I think they intended, and they're scared." She tries to laugh. It comes out choked. "But then, so am I. The reach they would need to so deftly turn an Ajah to their designs? The decay must go even deeper than we believed. It's not just a handful. There may well be dozens."

Moiraine's mouth tightens, and a tiny wrinkle forms between her brows. Siuan's hands ache to smooth it away. "Is Chesmal Emry still in the Tower?"

Siuan exhales. She'd thought they'd long since put this argument to rest. "Moiraine."

"Is she?" There's fire in her voice, royalty demanding an answer. Withdrawing her hand from Moiraine's cheek, Siuan regards her with pursed lips and lifted brows. Just looks at her, until Moiraine's shoulders come down from around her ears and she sags slightly. "Is she?" she asks again, careful and gentle.

"Yes." 

The tension returns as quickly as it had faded, Moiraine taut as a coiled spring. "She has proven time and again just how dangerous she can be, Siuan. I fear you grow complacent."

"I do have eyes on her, Moiraine, I'm not some bilge rat fresh off the docks. She's been spending a lot of time with acquaintances outside the Yellows, but that alone indicates nothing. Even if it did, what else could I do beyond continuing surveillance?" She presses the heels of her palms to her eyes. "Tamra, Meilyn, Kerene, Sierin, Cetalia, Light only knows how many more. All murdered in what was meant to be a place of safety. And I must sit here dangling my feet in the water as though I don't know full well that there are silverpike hiding in the reeds."

"And when do we bring the battle to them?"

"It's times like this I'm almost glad you're out of the Tower more often than not." For all that Moiraine had grown up in Cairhien, learning Daes Dae'mar in the cradle, when it comes to Darkfriends she has never quite found the patience to look at the problem and not launch into an immediate solution. She's never been quiet about her desires to pull on the thread of Chesmal's potential allegiances; she'd much rather do that and deal with the consequences as they arise than let the Black Ajah fester just beneath the surface. 

Siuan, however, is all too familiar with the waiting game, with setting lures and watching to see what takes the bait. And all too familiar with the dangers inherent in chumming the waters. Sometimes you get lucky and come home with a boat full of catch. Sometimes you don't come home at all.

Moiraine makes a perturbed sound and Siuan tugs her down into a kiss. She laughs against the sulky pout Moiraine adopts, peppers kisses up her jaw. Presses their foreheads together. "You know as well as I that exposing them is an option not yet available to us."

Moiraine pulls upright, cheeks flushed but face drawn. "Nor is your death something I will consider." Her fingertips are cool where they trace the bow of Siuan's mouth, where they brush across her cheekbone, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear.

"I am as safe as I can afford to be."

Moiraine arches an imperious eyebrow, gesturing from herself to the room around them. "It only took Lan a quarter of an hour to gain entry. The next who tries might not give you such a… warm welcome."

"Is that what the novices are calling it these days?"

"Siuan," Moiraine cautions, sharp as a freshly-honed boning knife. She lifts her head, glances to the side, but Siuan still catches the glint of unshed tears in her eyes. 

"You'll be happy to know that Maigan expressed similar concerns," she says, keeping her tone light. "She even suggested that I bond a Warder."

Moiraine doesn't react visibly. The shift in the bond, however, is instantaneous. She feels focused now, a captain with her hand on the tiller, scanning the horizon for any hint of danger. "What was your response?" Her voice has gone flat and clipped, all too Cairhienin in affect.

Siuan finds Moiraine's hand with her own and interlaces their fingers. Even the echo of Moiraine in the back of her head is guarded. "Well, I could've sat her down and told her, 'I’ve had a Warder for the past twelve years' and then she'd say, ‘But you’ve only worn the shawl for ten’ and I'd say, ‘Bold of you to assume one must be a full sister to bond a Warder’ and- What do you think I bloody said?”

“That you would consider it, I imagine." Moiraine brushes her thumb across Siuan's knuckles. "They can be very useful."

"I've yet to find a–" Siuan mutters, only to trail off sullenly, her throat going tight as the pressure of her oaths makes itself known.

"What was that?" The fingers of Moiraine's free hand whisper a path down her neck. Siuan longs to kiss away that self-satisfied smirk.

"I hear they benefit from reduced fatigue and improved health, while all their Aes Sedai receive is relentless mockery."

Moiraine hums thoughtfully. "I would think you would appreciate the increased stamina. After all, it certainly doesn't solely benefit me." She punctuates her words with a roll of her hips that has Siuan aching for more.

"Light, but you're a bloody lionfish." It's all Siuan can do to keep from putting this conversation aside and continuing along that path. She knows full well that is Moiraine's intent, however, and so resists the temptation.

"All tangled up in your net." Her smile softening, Moiraine bends her head to press a kiss to the back of Siuan's hand. "You do not need my permission," she says gently. "If that is what you are searching for."

"I was more interested in your opinion." She frees a hand only to retake one of Moiraine's, to bring it to rest over her heart. She waits, barely breathing, her blood thrumming wildly through her veins. An answering flood of emotion cascades down the bond, feeding her own, ratcheting her higher. All too aware of the heat of Moiraine against her.

Moiraine's eyelids flutter shut. She takes a steadying breath.

"There are already times when I can't quite reel myself in," Siuan continues. Her mouth is parched and her words lie thick on her tongue, a struggle to work free, "when I find myself mirroring you without a thought. If I had to cope with twice that? How do Greens manage? Light, how do you manage?"

Moiraine stares at her, eyes narrowed, and then she — laughs? The nerve of the woman. Moiraine schools her face to an expressionless mask, but the bond still resonates with mirth. Then she catches Siuan's aggrieved glare and dissolves into giggles all over again.

"Well?" Siuan presses.

"It's–" Moiraine shakes her head. The corners of her mouth keep jumping as though she's holding down a smile. "It's not– Whether we didn't get it quite right, or if it's that we both channel, or that we're both women…" She leans forward, her hands grounded on the mattress, bracketing Siuan's head. "The bond with Lan is nothing like this. I feel him… Not more distantly, not less strongly, but differently. I can always separate out which emotions are his and which are mine. We don't feed off each other in the same way." Her eyes narrow. "And don't you dare turn that into some filthy comment."

"The thought hadn't crossed my mind." Faintly pleased with herself at the truth of the statement, she lets her hands fall to the curve of Moiraine's waist. "That's a relief, at least." She lapses into silence, thumbs stroking Moiraine's sides.

[hahnspoetrycorner]

Her True Love (Lanfear x fem!reader)

A/N: HELLO! This was a quick, self-gratifying piece I wrote in like a few hours bc I was inspired by that scene where she's covered in blood... y'know the one after Moiraine's stabbed her.

Warnings: attempted assault, lanfear being covered in blood, slight m0mmy k!nk, a LOT of nicknames (as i said... self-gratifying), a lot of blood mentioned, please let me know if i've missed anything!! <3

Not proofread so I apologise in advance for any spelling mistakes or issues with writing :( <3

A/A/N: fr though, lanfear is so mommy to me i can't cope

You’d been trusted with looking after the Inn many times before. You knew this was just Lanfear’s cover to get close to the Dragon Reborn, Rand, but you still wanted to take care of it. After all, it was still important to Lanfear. It sometimes seemed to you that she cared about everything else more than she cared about you. You understood why, you knew Rand was important, and that getting him to trust Lanfear was the key to everything working, but you couldn’t deny it still hurt. 

As you got lost even further in your thoughts, you were oblivious to the young man staring at you from one of the tables at the Inn. It was a big night of celebration within Cairhein, the start of The Great Hunt. Where young men and women search for the coveted Horn of Valere, which you knew was fake, but you played along. You began collecting empty cups from empty tables when the young man who’d been watching you made himself known. 

“What’s a beautiful young lady like you doing working alone on a night like this?” He spoke loudly, his speech slurred slightly but he smiled at you brightly nonetheless.

“I’m capable of looking after myself, thank you. And I offered to work, so I can only blame myself.” You laughed, taking the empty cups to the bar, feeling him follow close behind you. You were quick to move behind the bar, thankful the large bar top was able to block him from getting too close, but he still tried. He leaned over the bar, his hand drunkenly reaching for you before you backed away slowly. 

“You’re so incredibly pretty, far too pretty to be doing menial bar work.” He commented, making you feel more uncomfortable. 

“Thanks but I’m not interested,” You turned him down politely. His face changed, dropping his smile for a more serious expression. 

“Oh, c’mon. Not even a little bit? I don’t think I believe you.” He smirked at you, his eyebrow raising questioningly. 

“I’m sorry, man. I’m sure you’re a nice guy but I’m not interested.” You were beginning to get nervous, his smirk dropping slowly. 

“But you think I’m nice. How does that mean you’re not interested?” He asked, head cocking to the side slightly. 

“I-I- Please, I’m not interested. Even if I were, I’m not available. I’m sor-” You were cut off by him grabbing your hair and pulling you forward, his grip harsh. You felt something cold against your neck, he pressed it tighter against your neck, feeling a sharp edge cut into your skin. 

“Do I look like I care?” He asked, before moving the cold, sharp item away from your throat and slamming your head down against the bar. You groaned loudly, feeling everything around you spin violently as your head pounded. 

“Wh-wh-why?” You asked, feeling him press you against the bar, realising he’d climbed over the bar and was now on the same side as you. He pinned you between him and the bar, your back bent awkwardly over it as his hand gripped at your hair again, the knife held back against your throat. You whimpered slightly when it began cutting into your neck once more. 

“I never cared what you thought, nor what you wanted.” The hand gripping your hair let go, moving to lift your skirts up as you tried to push him away. The knife slipped from your throat, nicking your skin before he plunged it into your shoulder, making you scream in agony. His hand released the blade, leaving it buried in your shoulder as that hand helped lift your skirts.

“No, no, please!” You begged, trying to push him off of you once more without jostling the knife.

“A sweet, tender girl like you should never have been left alone.”

You thought about Lanfear, thinking about how she would feel if she knew you couldn’t fight back, that you couldn’t protect yourself against one man. You knew she was so much more powerful, braver, more courageous than you would ever be. You feared her rejection, feared losing her and her love, her care and affection as his hands gripped your body, leaving harsh marks wherever he wanted. 

“Please, don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.” You begged once more, before the soft, lilting voice of your lover reached your ears.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” He backed away from you, letting your skirts fall back into place, although dishevelled. 

“You see, that sweet, tender girl you decided to take advantage of, she’s my sweet girl.” Lanfear moved behind the bar, approaching you with love and sorrow in her face and eyes as she helped you, removing the blade from your shoulder before guiding you to stand up gently. He attempted to run while Lanfear was distracted but she froze him on the spot, not allowing him to escape his fate.

“My darling, take yourself to my room, okay? I’ll be there soon, I promise, my baby.” She kissed your forehead lovingly before gently pushing you towards the stairs to her room. You walked up them slowly, feeling her kind eyes watching you to make sure you were safe and sound in her room. You entered her room, feeling comforted by the mere presence of her within the room. The warm blue coat she wore on a regular basis hung on the back of the door, it smelled so like her you couldn’t stop yourself from putting it on. The material was soft and warm, her scent filled your nostrils, making you sigh in relief as your eyes filled with tears. You took a seat on her bed and cried, sobs wracking your entire body as your body and mind reeled with the realisation of what almost happened. He’d almost assaulted you, had Lanfear not stepped in, had she not arrived back in time, you might’ve been killed, or severely injured. As you sat and sobbed, beginning to overthink everything, the door opened and interrupted your thoughts. A bloodsoaked Lanfear walked in, approaching you immediately. 

“I’m here, my sweet girl. I’m right here, baby.” Her voice soothed you as she crouched down in front of you. Before she could stop you or clean herself up, you’d launched yourself at her, wrapping your arms around her bloodsoaked frame and nuzzling your head against her neck. 

“You’re safe with me, princess. I’m sorry he even thought about hurting you, let alone threatening you. I shouldn’t have left you here alone, I won’t leave you here alone ever again.” Her lips pressed numerous kisses against your temple, her hands gently channelling to heal your wounds as they held you close to her. You held each other for a long while, before Lanfear attempted to pull away, making you whimper and hold her tighter.

“My darling girl, am I okay to clean myself up? I doubt you’re enjoying hugging me like this.” Her voice was sweet, trying to coax you to let go but you just held her even tighter. You shook your head, refusing to let go. Lanfear tried to come up with an alternative option, since she knew you were highly unlikely to let go of her anytime soon. One of her hands stroked your back gently, pulling away from you slowly.

“How about we take a nice hot bath together? Does that sound good, baby girl? We can spend the rest of the day cuddling, just you and I.” Her lips left a gentle kiss on your cheek, leaving more bloody kisses against your face. 

“What about Rand? Wh-What about the-the Dragon? You-you and him… You need to help him more than you need to help me. I-I understand, it’s-” Lanfear cut you off with a gentle kiss to your lips. 

“Don’t you dare say that it’s okay, baby. You’re the one I want, the one I care about. Rand can look after himself for a bit, I need to look after my baby, my sweet girl. Because I love you, and only you.” She kissed you once more, making your eyes water out of happiness. 

“Y-you love me?” you mumbled, worried that you’d dreamt her saying those three words.

“I do, my love. I love you to the moon and back,” her lips kissed your nose tenderly.

“I love you too, Lanny, so so much,” You kissed her jaw, feeling her groan disapprovingly at the nickname. 

“You know how much I despise that nickname, my love,” You smiled at Lanfear sheepishly, giving her soft puppy eyes before she jokingly rolled her eyes, “but when you use it, it’s… tolerable, I guess.” You smiled before quickly pecking her lips.

“I love you more than I can possibly say, my pretty girl.” Lanfear kissed your forehead before picking you up, making you squeal gently as she carried you to her bathroom, using her power to fill the tub up with hot water quickly. 

Lanfear’s hands undressed you carefully, taking her time as she removed each layer of clothing and leaving gentle kisses against each spot of bare skin as she did so. She praised you softly each step of the way, (“you’re doing so well, my darling.”, “easy, my pretty one.”, “just one more bit then we’ll get you in the tub, my princess.”) before she eased you into the tub, her hands reluctant to let go once your tired frame settled into the water. She leaned against the tub and watched you relax as you tiredly moved, smiling lovingly at Lanfear. Lanfear reached over to kiss your lips gently, her hand coming up to cup your cheek as she deepened it. You pulled away, smiling at her confused expression.

“Cuddles?” You asked softly, watching her nod and stand, stripping her clothes off slowly, making sure you enjoyed each moment, which you confirmed as you smiled and blushed. Once she was naked, she climbed into the gap behind you, wrapping her arms around your front to pull you back against her. You adjusted yourself so your head rested against her chest, leaving soft kisses against her pale skin. Her gentle fingers held you close, soothing your bruised skin with her power until the bruises disappeared. 

“How are you feeling, my darling?” Her lips moved gently where they rested against your forehead.

“I feel better, I still feel tired and a little on edge. I have you here now, so I don’t have to be afraid.” Her heartbeat echoed in your ears, helping you settle against her chest. 

“I’m staying right here with you, baby, I won’t leave your side again.” One of her hands stroked your hip comfortingly, much like she did in bed as she knew it helped you settle down and fall asleep.

“Lanny?” Your voice quivered slightly, scared to admit what you had on your mind.

“Yes, my love?” She watched you with so much love in her eyes, noticing your sheepish smile and gentle blush spreading across your cheeks.

“When you walked into the room… covered in-in blood… I found it really hot.” Lanfear’s eyes widened slightly before softening, her smile widening as she kissed you. 

“Oh, baby. There’s nothing wrong with that, in fact… I may have the perfect place to take you one day, but this will do, for now.” Her nose brushed yours before she captured your lips once more. Lanfear’s hand moved from your hip to your stomach, gently tracing shapes across your skin with her fingers before dipping down lower. You whined softly, her fingers deftly reaching the tender spots. 

“Is that what my princess wants?” Her voice was kind, instead of her usual condescending tone when she knew what you wanted. You nodded, prompting her to tut softly.

“Use your words, princess. Is this what you want?” Her voice moved to a more serious tone, making sure this was what you wanted.

“Yes, please. Mommy please,” You begged, voice soft yet desperate. You needed her to make all thoughts of his existence disappear with her skillful fingers and soft, tender touches.

“Anything for you, my princess. Anything for you,”

[luckhissoul]

@sonxofxgondor asked "You are no Elf. But neither do you look like an Orc." Boromir said over a campfire, flame warming both his face and the cooking fish, small but better than nothing. "Are you lost, friend? Hungry? My friends and I would be more than glad to share with you what we have. As long as, of course, you approach in friendship. You are no companion of Mordor, are you?"

the fire is warm, flickering shadows over the dirt ground that they're all gathered around. the air out here is different, he can't say for sure what made it different. but even the taste of it as he breathes in is different from back home. back home, back there - light help him, he wasn't even sure where he was. this place looked different, felt different. and the man in front of him was talking all kinds of bloody nonsense about elves and orcs as if he expected him to know what he was talking about. he didn't. he couldn't remember how he had gotten here. he had pushed the door opened and once that bright light outside the tower ahd dimmed out it had faded out into this place. where ever this place was. and where was thom? and moiraine? no where in sight.he still had the medallion around his neck, the ashandarei, and his hat. he adjusted his green coat. noting as he looked at the men before him that they were not dressed in any way like him. even their weapons seemed - different. the smell of the fish cooking over the fire, blood and ashes, did that smell good. he just remembered that he was hungry! his head is sore and there's an ache in his neck that he can't reach at even if he rubs at it. and there's a throbbing pain where his eye should be, a makeshift bandage there across the wound. the blood is dried but the pain is still there. he winces at it, not wanting to show too much weakness in front of the stranger. whoever he was.

he takes a step towards the fire, leaving his ashandarei stuck in the ground so that he won't think that he's approaching as a threat. just in case he has his knives tucked into his boots, under the sleeves of his coat, under the back of his of his collar. these men were soldiers, he could tell from the way that the stranger is dressed, the manner of how he carries himself, his weapons and armor. he pauses just a few feet from the fire, reaching out his hands to warm them over the fire. "considering i don't have any flaming idea who in the pit of doom mordor is i can say that i'm no bloody companion of his." mordor? who or what was that? he lets out a small breath, rubbing his hands together for added warmth. "i'm lost - and hungry." wincing slightly at the admission. he looks at the other men around him. soldiers, a whole bloody band of them. this could prove to be helpful or a disaster. he smiles a little, extends his hand over the fire. "mat cauthon. not an elf or an orc ---" with a small breath of a laugh.

[dtyfp2]

Ubbe

evermore

https://www.tiktok.com/@random.editz_26/video/7212315038537813253 (How I imagine the fight described later)

You scream as you circle one of the warder statues, running wildly as you occasionally look back. Stepin was chasing you, half heartedly of course, but he remained right at your tail.

You run past some of the Aes Sedai who simply move out of your way, having already gotten used to your antics. They’d never admit it, but they enjoyed having a child around, it made the Tower seem more lively.

As you run, you trip over your own feet and fall to the ground, roughly scraping your knees and palms.

“Oh no, Viserra, are you alright?” Stepin asks as he quickly picks you up, he dusts off your dress but the blood is already seeping into the fabric. Of course, as if on cue, you burst into tears. He’s quick to scoop you up and run over to Kerene, who would undoubtedly be in her office.

Kerene hears you long before she sees you. She was already making her way out, wondering what was making you so hysterical when Stepin comes in with you.

“Kerene, quick, she scraped her knees,” Stepin urges as he places you on the table. He looks stressed, something Kerene would’ve laughed at if you weren’t wailing in front of her. With a tut, Kerene is quick to heal your scraps and the pain quickly eases.

“Viserra, what have I told you about being more careful? Stepin, you really should know better, you’re the adult, you know?” Kerene scolds as you wipe your tears with the back of your fists.

Stepin looks over at you, as if accusing you of getting him into trouble. When you smile, he smiles too. He glances next at Kerene who tries to act as if she doesn’t find the whole thing amusing.

“Alright, alright, you two, get out of here and let me finish my work,” she shakes her head, hiding her smile as she turns back around.

You jump off the table, slapping Stepin’s leg as you start running again, this time careful to hold the ends of your dress up so you could see your feet. You bore no mind to the blood that stained your dress, nor the blood smear on your cheek.

“You’re it again, Stepin!”

Aerys comes into the tent, a solemn expression on his face.

They’re ready to bury Kerene.

You get up and grab the candle he holds out for you. You lean into him, laying your head on his chest as he sighs deeply and cups your face, his thumb gently rubbing circles across your cheek. All the Aes Sedai felt Kerene’s death, but none more so then the Aes Sedai with warders, unable to imagine losing the closest connection they’ll ever have. Nothing was stronger than the bond between an Aes Sedai are her warder, not lovers, not parents and children, nothing.

He presses a kiss to the top of your head before following you outside. You stand beside Alanna as Stepin comes, carrying Kerene’s body in his arms. You blink away tears as he gently lays her into the ground. You can’t watch as he slips her serpent ring off her finger, as Moiraine quietly prays over her, as Stepin struggles to cover her face.

“May the last embrace of the mother welcome you home.”

“Lews, stop this madness!” you yell at your old friend. He had killed his entire family in his madness, his poor children and his beautiful wife, and now he was enacting even more devastation. Lews turns his attention to you, away from the family he was about to masacre with balefire. Unfortuntaly for them, one of the other female Aes Sedai try to shield him, but fails. He was the strongest channeler in his history, not even the power of 8 Aes Sedai could shield him, let alone one. Lews makes quick work of the unfortunate Aes Sedai, snapping her neck with flick of his wrist.

Ubbe fights alongside you. He cuts down an arrow meant for your back. You look back at him and he offers a nod, an assurance of his loyalty, that he’d continue fighting for as long as you needed him to. a promise to give his life for yours if needed. His golden pendent is pinned proudly to his chest, his sword shines with blood, his blue eyes that stare right into yours say everything that needs to be said. You continue fighting, catching a ball of fire before it can raze an entire field.

Fear courses through your veins, but you ignore it as you hold a male Aes Sedai, tainted with madness, in your grip. All on your own, you make quick work to gentle him before he can burn everything around him. You tell everyone to run, blocking an attack from another male. Ever since Lews tainted the male power, they’ve been destroying the entire world. You feared nothing would be left.

You feel your heart rip out of your chest, it almost burns you whole. Ubbe is behind you, an axe lodged into his head as he falls to the ground. Lews is there, an evil smirk on his face as wisps of the one power dance across his fingers. He killed Ubbe, and Ubbe died after jumping in front of a axe meant for you. You fall to your knees, crying craddling his face, trying to heal his wounds but he’s already gone. He died the second the axe made contact. It was painless, a heroic death, a death he happily ran toward as long as it meant you lived. Your bond was shattered, like glass that had been thrown against the wall. You take a look around you, at the chaos and death surrounding you. The world wouldn’t stand a chance against the men, no new era would be churned out by the wheel if no one survived long enough to see if through. Was this it? The wheel rendered useless, destroyed by the weight of its failures?

Power surges into you, more than you’ve ever channeled before. Your face burns but you don’t care. You should’ve burned out, but not even the wheel would deny you this.

“You can’t defeat me, sun summoner, I’m stronger than you. I’ve trained for years while you ran off,” Lews taunts. No, not Lews, you remind yourself. Lews was gone, he died the day he went against your advice and locked the dark one away. He was dead to you the second he killed Ubbe.

Without Lews, maybe the female Aes Sedai stood a chance at defeating the others. Perhaps humanity would survive into a new era. But you didn’t care if it did, the world could burn for all you cared, nothing mattered with him by your side.

Lews own power begins to encircle him, readying for an attack against you. You look down at Ubbe, anger replaces the fear as light surrounds you.

“You’ll pay for what you did to him.”

Not for what he’s done to the world, not for tainting Saidin, not for killing his children, not for killing his wife, not for the countless others. Ubbe. You would make him pay for what he did to Ubbe. The only man you’d ever loved.

With a heave of exertion, you throw an attack against Lews and he throws his at you. When the two most powerful channelers of the era collide, it kills them both.

To memorialize their death, dragonmount erupts from the ground.

“Viserra,” Aerys whispers, gently grabbing your arm to shake you from your daze. Tears stream down your face as you turn around, taking erratic breaths, the excruciating pain of a severed bond still weighing on your soul. Your nails dig into Aerys’s arm, surely it must hurt but he doesn’t say anything. One hand rubs your back as one of your hands cover your mouth.

“What did you see?” He asks quietly. You shake your head, unable to get the words out. You wouldn’t want to say it anyway, it was too horrible to repeat.

Kerene’s funeral was wrapping up anyway, some of the Aes Sedai were leaving to offer Stepin some privacy in his final moments with her. Aerys wraps his arm around you and quietly leads you away from the group. You don’t even remember walking away, only the pain you felt in your chest.

[hxans]

We got through episodes 2 & 3 of Wheel of Time last night. I have a feeling I'm going to need to rewatch because a few times I was looking at something on my tablet and missed moments. That's on me for not giving it my undivided attention.

I don't know if it's intentional or not, but it feels to me like Rand stands out from the other kids (and EF ppl in general) not just because of the red hair, but he seems more... tidy? The clean-shaven, close cropped hair, even his clothes seemed less disheveled that the others. It's a little thing but it makes him more noticeable to me.

My biggest take-away was that episode 2 sets up the specialness of Egwene channeling, Perrin's wolf stuff, and Mat's emotional support cursed dagger. Oh and of course, the White Cloaks suck forever.

And then at the end there's the beautiful moment of "What's this? A ranger warder caught off his guard?" where my beloved Nynaeve gets the drop on him. I love that for her.

I am absolutely down for the courtship ritual of "you actually tried to kill me" not to mention "how did you track me?" Basically I just like Lan all 😍😍😍 because Nynaeve keeps surprising him. But theirs is also one of my favourite romances from the books, so it's a dream to see it acted out.

Also I want to congratulate them on the casting for Liandrin, because she has the most punchable face and I am going to enjoy despising her.

I feel like Thom might take a few more eps to grow on me, his intro hasn't really grabbed me.

I couldn't help but notice Rand's line to Mat about the darkfriend girl that she seemed a bit young for him, and Moiraine was more his type. I can't help but feel like that's potential foreshadowing for a more consential Tylin romance (and maybe Melhindra before that?) followed by his prophesied marriage. We'll see how that plays out if we ever get there.

Oh, did things happen with Perrin and Egwene in the third ep? I'll be honest, their part of the story was not really holding me at all. I was way more invested in the Mat-Rand Road Trip. (Also, not sure how much of the "If I wanted a man, I could do better than Mat" line had my husband laughing because it was quite the burn, or because he Knows my multi-shipping tendencies)

Anyway, Logain has shown up and I would like to see how that goes, I feel like the fanon version I built of him in my head is way more interesting than the book canon we got and also Androl stole his limelight so hopefully Show!Logain will be more interesting.

[glow-wine]

Wheel of Time 2x7

Don't wanna season to be over next week. ;_;

Unreasonably happy that Ishamael is continuing to be unable to interact with the boys without caressing their faces. Consistency!

I am also happy about the "20 years ago" cold open, although WELL ACTUALLY, it should be 21 years now. ;D It's poignant to see happy, carefree Moiraine and Siuan, laughing and planning a fun future together, and compare them to their current selves, who are so much more brittle, stressed and burdened by their mission. Are there people upset about what Siuan did? I mean ... I do not blame her for this. All of their options suck, Moiraine is not in control, it's all bad.

I do believe that this Tower policy of keeping the Dragon Reborn locked up and shielded until the Last Battle is ... flawed. But I can see how previous Aes Sedai, confident in their power, thought it was a good idea. Clearly, such a powerful male channeler cannot be left unsupervised, and who would be more qualified to control him than the wise Aes Sedai?! It sounds good in theory, but it's never been applied to real life, of course. And they did not realize how weak they were compared to what they're faced with now, or anticipate that the Dragon Reborn might have a problem with becoming a prisoner.

It is very similar to how the Seanchan treat women who can channel. Interesting parallel!

Siuan and Moiraine having a major falling out is obviously making a lot of people unhappy, but to me it is also a narrative promise that they will reconcile later. While I don't want to speculate too much about future plotpoints, I think there is a very, very high chance that the TV show will give Siuan and Moiraine more satisfying character arcs, and tell a better love story than the books did. I mean, not that it's hard.

Speaking of which, I think Anvaere has been a really cool addition to the story. House Damodred just cannot catch a break. I felt so bad for her. She's right, sometimes doing the right thing hurts. She chooses doing the right thing over her own dreams, and that's exactly what Moiraine and Siuan did. To the best of their abilities. I mean, sometimes it is also difficult to tell what the right thing is.

Man, poor Anvaere. Discovering that your beloved son is a darkfriend is rough. But he also reveals to her that the rise of House Damodred wasn't actually the result of her life's work, but thanks to his connections to the Shadow. Ouch. And turning Barthanes over is going to deal another blow to the Damodreds' reputation. This was a very sad day for her, and Moiraine doesn't even know, maaan. Poor Anvaere. I am on her side now.

LOL "it's been 0 days since a Damodred has been caught doing a bad thing".

It's a good thing that Liandrin was not being subtle at all, making Anvaere suspicious. And this means she knows that Liandrin is a darkfriend. I hope she tattles. I do wonder about this.

My man Logain is continuing to have a shit time. Love it. He must be really frustrated by now, since people keep asking him for help, he does his best, and then they do not give him the promised reward. Well, he got his wine. Let's have a very deep analysis of the things that Rand, Moiraine and Lan offer Logain as bribes: Moiraine offers death, Rand offers purpose, Lan offers freedom. I will ponder this for a while.

Who else has a bad time? Right: Egwene. But she is hanging in there the best she can. Her braiding her hair is a nice callback to the very beginning of the series, when Nynaeve tells her to touch the braid to recall her strength when the going is rough. I do not remember the exact words.

Mat is also having a bad time. He looked so small sitting on that bed, knees drawn up, hands folded together. Yeah, he joked about his situation, but I don't think he was lying. He'd rather have it over with than continue to wait in fear. He was kidnapped and put in a bedroom, then a man came in and started doing things with a knife in front of him. That's basically torture, because all Mat can do is wonder if he's going to get murdered or raped. There is this character type that is "comic relief but actually they have it worse than anyone" and Mat is that. I am weak for this type, I have noticed.

LOL, though. Everyone's having a terrible time, except Perrin, who gets to hang out with Hopper, Aviendha, Bain and Chiad, who are all lovely people. I'm sure Perrin's next moment of angst will come soon enough, but for now he's just having a fun road trip!

Maaan, I am glad I wasn't in Moiraine's situation. I could not have stood still while Rand channels a blade to cut that saidin knot. A shaking blade pointed at her heart. And she trusts him. I would not have been able to say that because it would have been a lie. I like Rand and I trust him to do his best but I also don't trust a toddler to perform brain surgery, so ...

Ishamael was such a non-entity in the books, I am pleased to have him be enigmatic, persuasive, gentle ... and with no sense of personal space. This is his thing now.

I love myself a Pietà visual, so I was pleased to see Ishamael holding Mat in his lap. Was thinking about how common this visual reference is in film/TV literally yesterday!

I wonder if the season finale will involve crazy channeling that coincidentally breaks the seals that Ishamael has collected in his room. Freeing all the Forsaken at once would be a nice "oh crap" note to end on.

[ravencromwell]

Op, I hope you don't mind me piggy-backing off this to further elucidate your point about changed contexts between book and show. In the books, Tear was undeniably an unfriendly city for those with the One Power. But that translated, in practical terms, to Aes Sedai keeping their stays there brief, and girls who could touch The Source being quickly bustled off to the Tower. There were no Aes Sedai advisers, as in other kingdoms etc., but neither was there the virulent hostility of the show.

Siuan left Tear quickly in the books—the first day she was discovered to have the Power, but only because a sister was traveling through and didn't wish to delay returning to The Tower for such pesky things as sentimental goodbyes. Was that harsh? Absolutely. But the world of the books is exceedingly harsh in some respects, giving girls little to no choice about becoming Sisters, should they be discovered harboring abilities. (Much of Nynaeve's back-story involved hiding her powers precisely because she didn't fancy being ripped from The Two Rivers.)

Siuan faces a much different harshness in the show. The show doesn't do a great job explaining this, but The Dragon's Fang, which is etched onto Siuan's door before her house is unceremoniously torched, is a sign of immense contempt for Dark Friends. Within show Tear, a wary mistrust of Aes Sedai has curdled into something much more dangerous. All use of The Power is suspect, because if men's half was tainted, there's nothing to say women won't go suddenly mad, too.

It's worth remembering as well here that book Siuan was roughly fifteen when she went to The Tower. Now, I'm totally blind, and audio description doesn't give me an age for tiny show-Siuan, but if she's anywhere near puberty, I'll eat my metaphorical hat. And instead of being shepherded to The Tower, she had to flee for her life.

In her family's only means of support, I might ad. Book Siuan was by no means well-to-do, but she was firmly in the middling ranks of the working poor. Show Siuan's family are on the fucking destitution brink y'all. And she took her father's livelihood. Dying destitute ain't fuckin pretty.

Siuan is not a stupid kid, and she clearly adores the shit out of her dad. The first thing that little girl did the millisecond she got any privileges? Wrote to her daddy.

And more than likely, daddy never wrote back. It wouldn't take her long to figure out what'd happened. Moiraine is at great pains to tell Alana Jenny was not "her" support dog, and we laugh it off as oh, look at Moiraine being all adorably prim. Which in one sense, it totally is. But I'd almost guarantee you there's a deeper layer there: it wasn't "hers"; it was "theirs" because once Siuan found out her beloved dad was dead, they both needed something to cuddle.

This may seem like somewhat of a digression, but I'm maundering on because in the books yes, Dark Friends are evil. But they're evil because they caused a terrible cataclysm many thousands of years that killed lots of people, and they                     do it again. There's no personal skin in the game for our beloved ladies, except they get thrust into the job through a convergence of some very complicated circumstances—I'd recommend any show-only watchers read "New Spring" because while I love almost all the changes the show has made ferociously, the way Siuan and Moiraine undertake the search is vastly more plausible as presented by Jordan there.

For Siuan in the show, by contrast, Dark Friend has _very personal ramifications. Dark Friends caused the corrosive mistrust that got her dad _killed! And Moiraine, better than _anyone, knows how that broke her.

Now, here's a woman who knows she could be deposed simply for having a relationship with Moiraine. The sensible thing to keep all the awful people from committing terrible crimes that will reverberate down the centuries to impact a little girl just as she was impacted would be to keep both their noses clean. And yet, she loves Moiraine so much that she'll take that risk to maintain not only an alliance about Rand, but a romantic relationship which could, realistically, be discovered much more easily.

And now, Moiraine, the woman who parroted back her beloved father's words of farewell about how Siuan was as strong and clever as the tides seemingly willfully lied; seemingly became a _Dark _Friend. Even her admonition that Lanfear is "too strong" must bring up so many awful questions: just how long have they been working together for her to know that? Because from Siuan's perspective, what it looks like is Lanfear coming in, guns blazing, to save her accomplice, Moiraine.

When Siuan says that there are rules and they have to abide by them, it's reflecting profoundly deep fears—not only about what Rand could do, but the kind of hatred toward those with The Power it could foster. For twenty years, she's put those fears aside. And now it appears that her going against Tower Law has lost her Moiraine to the Forsaken, and made terrible outcomes nigh on inevitable. And people are really confused about why she looks beaten?

Hell, from her perspective, forget Lanfear's entrance. The very fact Moiraine seemingly lied to her and is now talking about love must seem such a cruel mockery: laughing at Siuan's weakness; just as, perhaps, she was laughing at her with that parting comment in The Tower: an Amyrlin Seat still so swayed by what her daddy told her so many years ago. (Yeah, we know it was as close as she could come to an I love you, but how the hell is Siuan supposed to know that, given everything?) This was not willful emotional abuse on someone she knew to be acting in good faith, but a reaction to the person she loved enough to risk the fucking Amyrlin Seat for becoming a monster! When she says "Moiraine, please!" it's as much please this can't actually fucking be happening! as anything else. And to me, this, much more than the physical ramifications, is what Lanfear means by a "broken Amyrlin". The entire bedrock of her life's certainties are unmoored, and she's in a riptide.

Do I wish they'd picked _any other direction for their relationship? Yes, yes I damn well do. There was plenty to play with for angst factor by having the coup go down as it does in the books: Moiraine not being there to save her when all Siuan wanted was more time together, for one thing. Moiraine needlessly obfuscating in front of Siuan and  the other Sisters in S1, when Leandrin already knew! about the Two Rivers folk. Thinking she was being canny, when all she did was get herself pointlessly exiled so she couldn't protect Siuan? Quite enough of an angst sandwich, thanks ever so, without this new development. But! if they were going to include this, Siuan reacted precisely as I would expect her to, given the context I've outlined above, not in some madly ooc fashion worthy of the tags descending into emotional abuse discourse.

People can say what Siuan did to Moiraine was abusive or character assassination, but people need to realize that just because you don't like something doesn't make it out of character, and it doesn't make the characters wrong.

Between siuan and moiraine went down, I get that for people who ship, them it was rough to see but I don't think siuan was in the wrong. The biggest problem is that siuan is a character in a TV series, she is not privy to everything the audience and other characters know. She knows that moraine has been keeping secrets from her, huge secrets, disobeyed her by breaking rand out, and and from siuans perspective lied to her, something only the black ajah can do.

Aes sedai cannot go against the 3 oaths, not its hard to do, or it hurts to do but can be pushed through, they cannot. I don't believe compulsion can force an aes sedai to go against their oaths, but I know in the books even an aes sedai collared by an a'dam can't be used as a weapon like other women who can channel. Moiraine truely believes she was stilled, which is why it isn't a lie, just a tied off shield by one of the most powerful channelers in existence, which doesn't seem to be a thing outside of the age of legends and women can't see male weaves so why would she assume that's what it was. unfortunately that means to Siuan, it looks like Moiraine is a liar something only the black ajah can do, which means the only logical explanation while Cairhien is being assaulted by a woman channeler more powerful than herself, is that the woman she loves is a dark friend and has been for at least 6 months since the eye of the world.

Yes, siuan compelling moiraine into obedience with her oath is a bad thing, especially to someone u love. But moiraine is trying to manipulate her just as much by using their love for each other as a shield for justice. Siuan is going to feel awful when she finds out the truth, but as the Amyrlin she did what she thought right and forced a dark friend and member of the black Ajah to obey. we know darkfriends in the show and in the books, they can be insidious, they can even be kind people who were forced into a bad situation or fell into a bad crowd. But they can be tricky and yes, as we can see since Moiraine's own nephew is a darkfriend who almost became the king of a country, they can be the people you least suspect.

Siuan did what she thought was right even though she was incorrect, it's not going to be the last time she does this, it's going to be from the last time any character in the Wheel of Time does it. And look, if they go through the whole series, hopefully the two of them can be together in the end and work through this. I can't believe I'm defending Siuan this much, I'm not even a big fan of her character, but I think fair is fair. (also found out I've been spelling moiraine's name wrong this whole time, which doesn't have much to do with the post, just something that happened to me and will happen in the future)