#POINT IS i do have that gold bracelet plus the gold-buckled belt but also the red shoes.. that i and everyone around me love..

[todayisafridaynight]

what's also great about the ichi watch is that the gold and red goes well with the arakawa-inspo outfit i have..

[iviarellereads]

The Fires of Heaven, Chapter 4 - Twilight

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Aiel icon) In which I have to shake my head and remember these are fictional characters I can't explain anything to.

PERSPECTIVE: Rand enters the Roof of the Maidens in Rhuidean, the only man other than gai'shain who may do so. The Maidens all treat him like a brother or a son, not all according to age. He accepts it in kind, though it makes him uncomfortable. He knows the other Aiel men would laugh at him if he tried to explain. Plus, it would hurt the honour of the Maidens.

He climbs to the second story above the great window, where there are no Maidens or gai'shain to ask if he needs anything or how he is. He goes to his bedroom. He chose the building because it was whole and near the plaza, and one day awoke to find the Maidens had made it, or at least the lower floors, their Roof. After some questioning, he found that they would move their Roof to wherever he is.(1)

A little later, Aviendha comes to see him for the first time in ten days. He notices a silver necklace, and gets a stab of jealousy wondering who gave it to her. They have a little spat, at which point she throws some blankets at him, saying she should have let him freeze.

Rand thanks her for the blankets. She says one of the Maidens asked her to bring them up, when she learned that Avi was here to see him anyway. He asks why she came, and she says he told her the bracelet wasn't a regard-gift, so she came to give him something, to make things even and cancel debts.

She tosses a belt buckle at him, steel ornately shaped into a dragon and inlaid with gold. He says there was no debt to cancel, but she says if he will not take it against her debt, he should throw it away, and she'll find something else. It's just a trinket. He says she must have had it custom made, and she says when she gave up the spear, all her weapons, the steel had to be made into gifts. Simple things, to give away. The Wise Ones had her name the three men and three women she hated most, and she was told to give each of them a gift made from her old weapons. Bair said it teaches humility.

Rand asks if he's one of those she hated, and she says absolutely, she hates him with all her heart, and she always will.(2) They talk about Elayne, and Rand says he doesn't have time to think about women.

At that, Isendre sways into the room, naked except for jewellery, carrying a tray. Avi asks if Isendre was asked to bring anything, but she says no. Avi says Isendre has been warned before about this. Rand tries to smooth things, but Avi refuses to hear it. Isendre stole from Maidens, she earned punishment.

Rand thinks how he barely stopped the Maidens from enacting a death penalty, and he can't allow a woman to die any more than he can kill one. He also thinks about how he can't reveal that Isendre and Kadere are Darkfriends, because they don't even know he knows. Isendre's nakedness is part of her punishment, as is the servitude.

Avi says Isendre can leave the wine, and must go find the nearest Maiden and tell her what she did. She turns to Rand and says he has no right to lure any woman to his bed, belonging to Elayne as he does, but especially not Isendre. Rand says he'd never with Isendre, and Avi says she's been switched seven times for trying to sneak into his bed. She would not persist like that without some encouragement.(3) Avi stalks out of the room, and Rand puts the tray in a corner, not daring to drink anything Isendre brings him. He lays down, still with his boots on, and pulls all the blankets over himself.

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(1) They love him, and not just as a symbol of what they have to give up to remain wedded to the spear. If he wasn't a good boy at heart, I don't think they would accept him like this, but they stay and they WANT to stay. It's sweet in a weird warrior culture kind of way. (2) It can be so easy to convince yourself that the longing you don't want is hatred. (3) And here's where I throw my hands in the air with helpless frustration. She's only about his age, and all, but no sweetie there are plenty of reasons a woman, particularly one like Isendre, might want to seduce her way into a powerful man's bed without any encouragement at all. Like perhaps having orders from one of the Forsaken to do so.