#verin & reader

[saphirered]

Critical Role NPCs Masterlist

Last Updated: 09/19/2023

(Essek)

Secrets and Confessions

First Times (poly Essek x reader x Caleb headcanons)

Promises

Siblings (sibling!reader)

Serenity

Hell Hath No

Gifts

Betrothal pt1

Betrothal pt2

Poisoned Sting

Perfect Dream

(Verin)

Like an Artificer

New Friends

Good Company

Family Visits

Star-Crossed Lovers

The Runaway Bride and Her Warrior

Lightning and Storms

Demons

Peach Tarts

(Lucien)

Game Over

Game On

Ghost of the Past

Conditional Love

Fan the Flames

Phantom Feelings

(Artagan)

For the Love of a Not-God

Favour In Kind

Terrible Puns

Crossing Paths pt1.

Crossing Paths pt2.

(Yussa)

Glorious Performance (headcanons)

Home Again

(Bryce)

Letters (headcanons)

[highladyluck]

Saw a post (not on tumblr) from a reader 4 books into WoT who was frustrated by their impression that every woman in the series was manipulative in some way, and that they found the bits where men talk about women & vice versa were offputting.

I didn’t spend too much time on the latter, aside from mentioning that any given character’s expressed opinion about gender tends to be undercut/complicated by the actual events of the narrative in the same scene, or directly after.

But the observation about gendered manipulation made me think about power in WoT, on the principle that anything about gender dynamics in WoT is subtextually about power dynamics. Manipulation is just exercise of power, and everyone does it.

In WoT both top dog and underdog are manipulative, just in different ways and with different levels of effectiveness, and this is expressed through structural privileges as well as individual personalities & context.

Characters with less structural power- often but not always male, non-channelers, lower class, weak channellers among stronger ones, or channelers in channeler-phobic areas- tend to manipulate via guile; characters with more structural power- often but not always women, channelers, higher class, strong channellers among weaker ones, or channelers in channeler-friendly areas- manipulate via implied or overt threat.

In book 3, traumatized Egwene gets scolded for using an overt threat (blowing up the ground in front of him with channeling) on a Whitecloak just outside of Tar Valon, when she was structurally in a position of power and should have have just ignored him/used the implicit threat of being near home territory. The Whitecloak was bluffing (using guile to manipulate) and she fell for it because it triggered her PTSD.

She was tricked into giving up her high ground tactically, and Verin is furious because she also undermined every Aes Sedai strategically by using the One Power as a weapon on someone who thinks she is full Aes Sedai. Egwene threatened the structural power of Tar Valon by making it look like the Oaths don’t work, which is exactly what the average Whitecloak believes.

We understand that a) Egwene didn’t actually plan to hurt him so she is within the letter but not the spirit of the law- guile again, she thinks she was working from a position of weakness & was trying to bluff the Whitecloak- and b) on a purely emotional level Egwene was correct to believe she was threatened because she is obviously extremely traumatized by her Seanchan enslavement- she expresses that she will not be captured again when she attacks the ground in front of the Whitecloak.

Verin, the Whitecloak, and Egwene are all exerting power to manage the situation- being manipulative, being agents- according to their privilege, personality, and general context. There’s so much interest and nuance lost when you boil it all down to one single lens such as gender.

[aeor-is-for-reccing]

Established Relationship Recs!

This week, we have ten recs for fics that feature Caleb and Essek in an established relationship! Check them out under the cut, and as always - comment or kudos if you like them!

I shine only with the light you gave me by SkyScribbles (4533, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: None

There are certain things that an Umavi's son should not do, if he wishes to avoid his mother's rage and the disgust of his Den. Dancing with a human is most certainly among them.

Reccer says: The tension between the Umavi and Essek is incredibly well written, and I really liked seeing the machinations involved. Verin's spin on it all, as well as the wizard's conversation during the dance itself, made me laugh.

put your sweet lips on my lips by LadyOrpheus (15750, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: Heat but not A/B/O

Essek has finally found someone he wants to share a heat with. Now if only his heat would get the memo

Reccer says: A+ smut, lovely characterization, and a rare non-omegaverse heat fic

where's the point in hurrying (when waiting feels so great) by mllekurtz (TheKnittingJedi) (4438, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

"You weren’t paying attention." That was Essek’s justification, delivered in a perfectly even and reasonable tone, when he entered Caleb’s study for the second time that evening, wearing nothing but jewellery.

Reccer says: A wonderful exchange of control between two wizards who love each other

memory in double exposure by hanap (11479, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Caleb and Essek had a falling out. Essek visits Jester several times before things get sorted.

Reccer says: Not only is the shadowgast heartbreakingly earnest, but Jester and Essek’s friendship is beautifully portrayed. The progression feels so natural, and the ending is so satisfactory after the build.

small works of cosmic scale by mousecookie (2547, General) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek is living incognito in Nicodranas and Caleb visits him after receiving an urgent message

Reccer says: It's cute and touching

Mitosis by queenbeetle (4325, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

caleb learns a new spell and essek is eager to push his limits.

Reccer says: SUPER hot!

Iridescent Hearts by onyxshinigami (4822, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Domestic Fic from Caleb's point of view. Essek is obviously up to something and Caleb is delighted with a little mystery. They have a home! They have 3 cats!

Reccer says: It's a light, fun read. A cute little mystery/surprise for both Caleb and the reader.

the firebird & the star by quinn_of_aebradore (293, General) Reccer's Content Notes: None

In the Empire, they tell a story. The Dynasty tells one as well, similar in nature. Reality is quite different.

Reccer says: I liked it!

dress me up, make it tight, i’m your doll by atlasarcana (15516, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Caleb has been creating a wardrobe of body jewelry for Essek. Essek volunteers to model as a mannequin

Reccer says: Interesting kink and Very hot

in guidance and tethered essence by Allinna (2868, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek tries to bake apple tarts.

Reccer says: It's super domestic and cute, plus the way the whole cooking process is (essek pov) unnecessarily academic is really fun!

Aeor is for Lovers is an 18+ Shadowgast Discord server. The above fanfic recommendations were pulled from our community for this weekly event. All fics, unless otherwise specified, will primarily feature Shadowgast. Have any questions about what this is? Check out the FAQ! Next week, we’ll be back with Clothing!

[lotties-ashwagandha]

STILLED (nsfw)

moiraine sedai x fem!reader

moiraine has been ignoring you in her search for the source during your stay with verin and adeleas sedai, but she makes it up to you. word count 1.3k

Moiraine had been ignoring you for weeks. 

Ever since she’d lost her connection to the Source she’d been distant. She hardly talked to you anymore, spent days locked up in her study and hardly came down. More often than not she would spend nights there as well, leaving you on your own. It felt like you were hardly together anymore. 

You tried being patient with her about it. You knew how hard it must have been for her, and you wanted to do whatever you could to help, but she wouldn’t let you. 

You’d tried talking to her about it in her office with her. She brushed you off, and you got upset, slamming the door behind you and leaving things between you in pieces, spending the rest of the day avoiding her as much as she seemed to be avoiding you. 

You laid in bed that night, trying to get to sleep but the memory of your confrontation earlier still haunted you. Only when you’d stormed out of her study had Moiraine really seemed to realize how upset you were with her, and while you were glad she finally understood it you were also victim to a thousand contemplations running through your mind arguing over if you’d been too harsh on her or not. You craved the mental silence of sleep, but it never came. 

The door to the bedroom opened, and you tensed. You were hardly awake anymore when Moiraine came to bed — if she came to bed. 

She slid into bed beside you. A fresh wave of hurt crashed over you, for you wished more than anything to turn over and curl into her embrace and never leave her arms, but still you had a point to prove and still you were upset with her — but it was hell to be mad at her. 

Moiraine looped an arm over your waist and sighed. You waited. For anything. 

“I know you’re awake,” she said. 

You were silent. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and you rolled over to face her. “I haven’t been fair to you.” 

“I just want you to talk to me,” you said. “You don’t have to tell me everything, but tell me something. I’m worried about you.” 

“I know,” she said softly, her hand coming up to cup your cheek gently. Your eyes fell closed for a moment, and you allowed yourself the comfort of her touch. “It’s been so difficult,” she said, and you opened your eyes. “I’ve hardly ever been without the Source. I don’t know who I am without it.” 

You nodded in understanding, holding her hand in yours. You didn’t give advice, there was none you could give, and you would never understand her pain, however hard you tried. You’d heard of Aes Sedai severed from the Source, and of the bitter end they’d all suffered. It made you fearful that the prospect lingered of Moiraine serving the same fate. 

“What are you thinking about?” She asked, and you were silent for a moment before responding. 

“You,” you said quietly. “Always you.” 

She watched you for a moment, contemplating your state before gently pulling you into a kiss. You relaxed into her touch, but giddiness spread through you — it had been ages since she’d been this attentive to you. 

“I’ve missed you,” you said when she pulled away, and she blessed you with a small smile, a rarity you would tuck away in your memory and treasure in her absence. 

She began to kiss your neck, sucking and nipping marks in her wake. She kissed up to the base of your jaw, and then pulled you in for another kiss. She dominated it, taking control over you in every way and guiding your movements to her satisfaction. You were in euphoria under her command. 

“Let me make it up to you,” she said once she’d pulled away. Her hands slipped under the hem of your shirt, resting at your waist. “Let me show you how much I want you.” 

You nodded in approval and quickly she took your shirt off, your pants following, until you were completely bare before her. She looked over you with reverence, and shyly you averted your gaze. She was still fully clothed above you, and it made you feel impossibly more vulnerable. 

“So fucking gorgeous,” she breathed as she watched you, quietly as if any sudden sound, any sudden movement would cause you to break. 

You pulled her into a kiss and one of her hands slid up to your chest. Her thumb circled your nipple and you moaned into the kiss, pulling her closer. You were growing more desperate for her by the second, and even when you parted you could hardly breathe so long as she was touching you, manipulating your body in every way she’d perfected. 

“My perfect girl,” Moiraine said, and her other hand slid down your abdomen to rest at your hips. Slowly her hand slid between your legs as she began to kiss your chest, and in desperation you whined, a speechless plea for her touch. “Do you need mommy to take care of you, baby?” 

“Yes,” you breathed, holding back a moan as her hand finally trailed between your legs. As she ran a finger through your folds you gasped — her hands were cold against you, not unpleasantly but enough to reveal how sensitive you were to her touch. 

“Stay still for me, baby,” Moiraine whispered as you began to squirm when she started to circle your clit. “You can be my good girl, can’t you? I know you can be mommy’s good girl.” 

You whined, moaning when she kissed you. You tried your hardest to stay still but she was making it impossible with the way she was fucking you, the way she had just slid two fingers into you with impeccable ease. Your hips bucked into her hand and your back arched slightly off the bed as you whimpered, possessed by the pleasure only Moiraine could give you. 

“Still,” she reminded you sharply. You moaned, your only comprehensible thoughts all circling around her touch, her commands, how euphoric every moment of this felt. 

She began to kiss down your sternum and abdomen, and through the pleasure clouding your mind you could tell what she was working to as she kissed down your body, but you stopped her, pulling her back up to you. 

“I want you close to me,” you murmured, breathless. “Stay with me.” 

In response she pressed a kiss to your jaw, a smile ghosting over her lips as she quickened the pace of her hand, eliciting a moan from you. You were close, you could feel release building within you that made your mind go blank and your eyes fall closed with the intensity of anticipation. 

“Cum for me, my love,” she purred, and it washed over you immediately. Pleasure like fire swept through you, claiming your entire body until you were lost in it, all of eternity collapsed into a single moment. Moiraine kissed you, and for a second longer it was prolonged, perpetual, before all at once it was gone and you collapsed into her embrace. 

“You did so well, darling,” she praised, and something akin to pride rose in your chest. She held you close, pulling you over so that your head was laying on her chest as the two of you laid in the comfort of your bed. 

“Stay here with me,” you said, repeating your phrase from only minutes ago, but you meant it. You had missed her indescribably, and only her love could save the possibility of the future. 

“Always,” she promised, and you believed that she meant it with your same enthusiasm. And in her assurance, you allowed yourself to relax in her embrace, your breath evening to a steady rhythm as you succumbed to the gentle grasp of sleep.

***

wheel of time taglist: @thepotatoislost @madamevirgo

[cubanpetekotrb]

So my other obsession of the month is wheel of time and I saw episode 7 and boy o BOY do I have major thoughts and I need to get them out.

Siuan?? What the hell? Following LONG ass post is in defence of Siuan because the general consensus there is right now about Siuan just doesn't rhyme for me.

ONE thing all of Siuan actions did, it brought out SO MUCH .

Liandrin drew out 1 dark friend (Moiraines nephew) and he consequently got locked away (or killed).

One Forsaken showed herself to an entire city, no more hiding or denying (at least not from the Aes Sedai because there were like 14(!) there)

Siuan clearly has doubts about Verin and Verin acted exactly as expected (now I think Verin has a lot more going on but hey 🤷🏼‍♀️)

When Siuan shields Rand, she pushes Moiraine to say all of her intentions with Rand and their decades build plans in front off Rand as if he is not there. Which Moiraine does to protect Rand from Siuan.

Siuan asks Rand if he has channelled carefully and deliberately (not verbatim but this is the general idea), which he hasn't. She scolds him for it and says that he hasn't learned much in 6 months, which is absolutely true.

Which leads to:

Moiraine is shielded (something I do not think Lan figured out on his own) and subsequently released of said shield by Rand when she tells Rand that she trusts him. When last season Moiraine very clearly showed that she doesn't. Rand needed to hear that from Moiraine. It pushed Rand to actually use the one power very DELIBERATELY and CAREFULLY otherwise, Moiraine dead. Now who again scolded Rand about that I wonder hmmm 🤔

Which brings me to the following and perhaps most important point:

Rand now 100% trusts Moiraine, he believes Moiraine does want to protect and guide him to save the world, which previously he didnt. He was confused about what was going on and felt like a toy being played from all sides. Siuan put Moiraine in an impossible situation and Moiraine chose Rand, the dragon reborn because she knows that is the right thing to do. Rand needed to be shown Moiriane will give everything to save the world including turning away from Siuan and being made to do something she does not want (closing the gate).

It is VITAL that he does because Moiraine will be the only one capable of providing Rand the protection and guidance that he needs to save the world. He only does at the end of this episode, which is nearly at the end of this season. They already lost too much time. Drastic extreme measures are unfortunately required because Siuan was right, Moiraines way wasn't working.

At the end of this episode due to Siuans actions, he doesn't trust any Aes Sedai, which is good because you know Black Ajah and doesnt trust the Forsaken, but he very clearly does trust Moiraine, and that WILL set him on the right path.

If I can trust book readers, Siuan is a very powerful channeler. However, like Egwene, it's her intelligence that is actually her greatest power. She is a crazy smart woman and nowhere near as impulsive, brash and stubborn as Moiraine, aka Pufferfish.

Something that stuck by me is that Siuan said "you have given everything, Im going to row beside you now". Siuan knows Moiraine will absolutely not let her. Moiraine is like Nyneave in that way. She would rather die than let anyone she loves do that.

Siuan has given up a lot this episode and put power back with Moiraine, leaving herself incredibly vulnerable, having lost her one true ally, Moiraine. Going back to a tower filled with enemies, she's f*cked, and she knows it, but she needs Moiraine focused on her mission, not on Siuans' potential downfall. Because that will definitely be a distraction for Moiraine.

There is no way in hell a Master chess player like Siuan would move her pawns so early and openly like she seems to be doing in this episode. That is not Siuan. Everyone in WOT world, though, needs to believe that she is (including Moiraine).

[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.

****

I'm friendly! In spite of the endless angsty content I produce! Please come talk to me!

[floatysparrowthing]

Little writing excerpt because Verin is *always on my mind*

Verin and Essek grew up in, essentially, a palace. As both cathedral and their government’s capitol, the Lucid Bastion was certainly a busy place to grow up. Alongside Den Thelyss, the members of Den Kryn and Den Mirimm also called it their home, so there was no shortage of people bustling around them.

What there was a shortage of, however, was other children. Most of the people around the brothers at any given time had already lived multiple lifetimes before this one. They simply could not relate to a pair of new souls.

It seemed to suit Essek just fine. He was content with talking to their tutors and Verin and that was about it. Verin, on the other hand, was a terror. He would slip out of their apartments and wander the massive halls, looking for people to bother. Few had the patience for him. Essek, the magical prodigy he was, learned the locate creature spell just to track down little Verin as he tore through the Bastion.

The two of them lived in one of several well appointed apartments that Den Thelyss keeps in the Bastion. They had a nanny to watch over them, tutors who visited during the day, and a large assortment of family members who lived around them. But at family gatherings, Essek took to the shadows and Verin was told to go play outside.

No one seemed to notice it, but little Verin needed attention. He needed playmates his own age and he needed a parent who would listen to his long soliloquies about the frogs he found outside and his imagined adventures and the monster illustrations in this book he was reading.

For the most part, it all fell on Essek. Their tutors would indulge him for a while, but they would inevitably turn the topic too soon for Verin’s taste. And so Essek—the introvert, the quiet reader, the studious one—was constantly subjected to, well, Verin. And Verin loved him. Oh, did he love his older brother.

Essek could levitate him in the air while reading a book; Essek could conjure pretty lights in all different shades; Essek could send a message straight into Verin’s mind! But Essek could not climb a tree, or make mud pies, or bake cakes with everything thrown in them.

[honey-minded-hivemind]

Haunted Mansion Au. With Yandere Wolverine and runaway teen reader

Oooooo... (May I call you Ghost Anon?) Yeah, none of the ghosts like when their favorite (and only) teen groundskeeper leaves. They didn't think them running away was a possibility, either. Ghost Dad-Verine is not gonna be happy. That being said, we're doing it anyway:

The ground was slick with wet leaves and thick mud as you ran, sliding in the muck underfoot as you fled from the mansion grounds.

You had been the groundskeeper the last few months (it had been about half a year), and you'd befriended (stayed polite to) a few odd people. They dressed like they were from a different time period, appeared in odd places without making a sound, and their names matched some of the names etched on the tombstones and gravemarkers in the mansion graveyard. You'd cleaned them up, placed fresh flowers, rinsed and scrubbed away mud and slimy rot. You'd even said a small prayer or blessing over them, even if you weren't religious or were from different faiths and religions.

You should have guessed (it was obvious, looking back at it) that the people you had met were ghosts. More specifically, the ghosts oof the people laid to rest in the graveyard. And there was one in particular who was after you, seeing as he was the one who caught you leaving your notice behind as you were leaving.

"Kid! Get back here! We can talk about this!" yells Logan, otherwise known as James "Jimmy" Logan-Howlett, a man who served in the military and was known to be an avid hunter and skilled fighter. His tombstone had been commissioned by his older brother, who'd fallen into grief and insanity after his younger brother had died. It had read something like:

Here lies Jimmy, short and stout

Brother and friend when you're without

Survived the worst yet all in vain

For he fell by venom, going in pain

Suffice to say, both of them had trauma, a hatred of snakes, and were insane over the fact you were trying to leave, never to return. You figured it was because he was scared you'd die, hoping if he saw you at all times that maybe you'd survive. Maybe he was scared you die somewhere and wouldn't end up a ghost at the mansion, where he resided. Or maybe he'd just always been crazy and beyond raving mad.

"Kid! Come out, NOW! You don't want to make me come in there after you... You don't want to do this. Do you? Don't leave me! Don't- There's snakes- vipers- rattlers- They'll kill you!" he screams, and you hear the rain come down harder, nearly blinding you as you duck down into the bushes between the graveyard and woods...

"Come on out. It's just me, kid. Woukd I steer you wrong?"

"Answer me! It's not safe to be out there!"

"... Kid..."

You almost breathe a sigh of relief when it's been quiet for over an hour, only the rain and wind howling and pounding being heard for miles...

Hissssss...

You go still, slowly turning your head to side.

And there, only a few feet away from you, is a snake. You look carefully at its face, then stop breathing.

It has pits on its face...

A loud cry tears from your throat as you bolt up, tripping backwards as you fumble out of the bushes-

Only for strong, cold arms to wrap under your pits, dragging you up and against Logan, who's face is unreadable.

"..."

Finally, he says something...

"You could've died..."

You shake, eyes darting over his form then down to the bushes and back to him. You aren't sure what to say. You aren't even sure you CAN say anything.

"Ypu could have DIED! WE are going back, and YOU are staying inside! Do NOT try to leave again, or I will tie you to the couch and force you to stay still," he growls, dragging you with him, through the graveyard and winding gravel paths, right back into the old decrepit halls of the manor, depositing you in front of a large fireplace and soon starting a fire inside. A cup of tea is shoved firmly into your wobbling hands, causing you to look up.

"Drink it," Logan orders, using his own freezing hands to steady yours, forcing the cup up towards your lips. Your chattering lips open, taking a small, trembling sip. "ALL of it." You shakily down the cup, and once done, Logan take its, setting it down on a lounge table. Your vision starts to fuzz around the edges, causing you to speak up.

"Log'n... wha' di y' gi'v m..?"

Your voice starts slurring a little, soon turning into a mumble. The older man- ghost- shushes you, soon wandering off. A few moments pass, all you can focus on being your blurring vision and the roaring crackle of the fire... Something thick and wooly falls across you, making you force your eyes to stay open.

"It's a blanket, kid. You need to get warm, and I can't trust you to do that on your own, so your taking a nap while we set up a room for you," Logan explains. You try to say something, but your mouth can't form the words. Your eyes soon slip into slits, in turn closing against your will. A tired murmur hums from your mouth, but all that earns is a chilly hand on your head.

"Get some rest, kid... See ya in the morning," Logan quietly whispers, then you feel something cold pressed to your forehead... The darkness seeps in... And your conscious seeps out...

Leaving a tired teen sleeping in a manor, set in front of a burning fireplace, a tainted teacup sitting on the table nearby... And a ghost watching over them, humming soothingly as they read a book next to them, close by in case they need him...

[torashisama]

Daes dae'Mar theory: What has been proved so far ?

So, in this post, i'll just add the proof I found that confirms or consolidate some parts of the theory. It won't be as long as the theory itself of course, so no need to worry about as there isn't much to explain just proof to provide.

SPECIFIC LORE SPOILER ABOUT THE WT AND MINOR BOOK SPOILER (we kind of know this already but some might have not picked up on it when Min foresaw it in S1)

Part 1 : Proving the content of Liuan off-screen talk and plan

I claimed that the person who helped Lan with Moiraine's powers was Siuan all along and not Verin like many seems to think is the most logical and probable explanation.

Well, it's true that Verin being trusted enough to know the truth about Moiraine being stilled that them staying with them for the last 6 months makes it hard to imagine anything else.

But,we were wrong, we got fooled by the writers. As we weren't supposed to realise that there were multiple plans unfolding DURING Daes dae'Mar but only after. A lot of us did not even know what to expect or suspect with the title. I for one did not question the ep until after I went on twitter and learned that the title suggested it.

We've been shown this already thanks to episode 8. They did not want us to see the betrayal coming nor did they want us to know that Bayle Domon knew Lanfear as Selene; Knowing this, It is safe to assume that everything that seems to be the obvious answer when it comes to these plans are debatable. They did hinted at the truth throughout the season though, we just did not pick up on them.

Simple instance of this, that must now seem to stick out like a sore thumb to everyone is that in E01, when Bayle Domon comes and talk to Mo :

When did this come into your possession? [DOMON] Couple of months back. [MOIRAINE] Where? [DOMON] Outside Cairhien. The old moon dial there shattered one night this spring. I know you have men following me. I want them gone, too. I don't take kindly to unwanted company. [MOIRAINE] Your enemies are your own. It seems there's something written on this. [DOMON] Aye. The whole dial was covered in a poem when they found it. Written in blood. Old Tongue. I have a copy, actually. […] Ah, serves me right, I suppose. [MOIRAINE] These men you say are following you, what do they look like? [DOMON] Only caught a glimpse from a distance, once, when we, uh, left the dock at Whitebridge. Two men in black cloaks on horseback. [MOIRAINE ] Did you see their faces? [DOMON] No. Their hoods covered them.

Moiraine's reaction after towards Bayle Domon was an indication, there's a mention of Cairhien which we know is where Rand is, most only realised that something was off with Selene or though that she would be Lanfear (for book readers) but how many made the connections thought that the fades, Bayle Domon going to Moiraine with crucial pieces of information followed by them but never attacked and them only attacking Moiraine once he's left and given her the poem was part of some plan before episode 8 ?

Now that this is established, let's provide the proof.

Remember when I asked that you take a mental or physical note of Lan mentioning the Tower Records ?

Well, this is the show telling us implicitly that he has been working with Siuan, and misleading us into thinking that surely what would explains his knowledge on these matters when he info dumps to Moiraine about the Forsaken was that he worked with Verin, a brown sister with whom he was living with for the last 6 months or so.

It is also a really good way of diverting our attention from the incoherence this assumption would cause, like the simple fact that Lan never learned that Verin knew about the Dragon Reborn before he got separated from Moiraine and that Verin couldn't have known about his and Siuan's plans that most of us thought was about Rand, the Dragon Reborn and not about Moiraine. How would she know (if she was in on it) about something unexpected even for Lan and plan an escape for it in advance?

This lead us to assume that after Lan told Siuan about Mo's stiling she decided to go to Cairhien mostly because of Rand, to meet him and then decided ALONE to finally start following the tower rules after meeting him. No matter that they had showed before that Moiraine and Siuan's dynamic regarding their mission did not rely on having a leader even though dominance naturally oozes out of her and in spite of her position in the Tower as Amyrlin seat.

Even book readers fell for it, outraged and worried that the show was turning Siuan into Elaida. ( still not a book reader, just I obviously constantly spoil myself anything related to Liuane ( Mo, Lan, Siuan) ) but it's normal, even for book readers.

As this little piece of information is a specific Aes Sedai/ White Tower part of the lore of The Wheel Of Time.

To instantly pick up on this you'd have to have memorised it or been obsessed with the Aes sedai's when you read the books and even then, you'd have to be looking for it to catch it. So, obviously, I went looking for it.

After digging into WoT WT laws, customs and systems. I can now assure that the show itself (apart from the writer saying that they planned "a sort of intervention" for Mo in the bonus) already confirmed my theory about Liuan having a plan for Moiraine.

Mo'an in the Sun Palace

[LAN] I have a question for you. And I hope someday you'll forgive me for asking it. ( a single question huh ?) After you were stilled by Ishamael, has there been a time… in all these months when you thought about ending it? [MOIRAINE] Killing myself?

According to what I've found, the WT library has a categorisation system in place that hierarchies information. Starting from "not sealed" all the way up to "Sealed to the flame".

When something is “Sealed to the Flame,” it means that by law, it can only be read by the Amyrlin Seat. “Sealed to the Hall” means that it can only be known to Sitters and “Sealed to the Ring” that it can only be known by Aes Sedai. If something is not sealed, it is open for even the newest novice to know (ACoS, Ch. 12).

Lan, thanks to his time spent with Verin only knew that being stilled was like the most brutal form of violation one could endure and that most women died because of it. So, rather vague and general knowledge. Yet, he later tells Moiraine:

[LAN] I read the Tower records. There have only been two women in history who were cut off who didn't. Most did it within the year.

It begs the question : Which level could Tower Records be at? Thanks to my research I learned that :

By Tower law, the official histories of the White Tower are unavailable to all but Aes Sedai (TWoRJTWoT, Ch. 9).

So, I digged a little more as it was too vague to prove anything and looked for something more specific, as I remembered that stilling was apparently something taboo in the Tower ( I read it somewhere on twitter and remembered) I directed my research toward a minimum level of "Sealed to the Hall", as Lan knew specific things about the age of legend and Forsaken but also most importantly he said himself (again a clue we missed):

[LAN] There's a story from the Age of Legends about the Foresaken's powers… a skill that's been lost for thousands of years… to tie off weaves and leave them in place.

I thought there's no way this kind of knowledge is available to any Aes Sedai and so it had to be a minimum of "Sealed to The Hall" to "Sealed to The Flame" and here's what i found :

(About the Keeper of the Chronicles) She has access to the Thirteenth Depository (CoT, Glossary). Included within the Thirteenth Depository are the lists of those who have been stilled and executed (ACoS, Prologue). The Thirteenth Depository, containing secret records of the history of the White Tower, is hidden by law. Even the fact that it exists, and the law that conceals it, are hidden (ACoS, Ch. 11).

So, obviously, if just stilling records are kept in the Thirtheenth Depository, Information about skills that the forsaken used and that most believed to be lost which are actually documented in the Tower Records, surely kept in the Thirtheenth Depository.

If not Siuan, it only could have been Leane as the only other people allowed in there are the Sitters of the Hall, and even then they have to be accompanied by the Keeper otherwise they won't be allowed to access it.

"These are the secret histories, containing information that, by law, on The Amyrlin Seat, the Keeper of Chronicles and the Sitters of the Hall and the librarians who keep the records have access to."

Now that this as been proven, apologise to my client people, thank you.

About me believing she did not need to go back to the Tower to know I just refered to this thing I stumble uppon while researching :

MINOR SPOILER AHEAD (we kind of know this already but some might have not picked up on it when Min prophecised it in S1)

Egwene thinks that Siuan "must have spent a good part of her years in the Tower burying herself in the secret histories," because she "seemed to have every detail at her fingertips" (TPoD, Ch. 16).

Proving that Siuan was the one that made Moiraine gaining her powers possible, also prove that Verin probably turned to the dark at some point, which I believe was when she left with Liandrin but also :

"Compulsion is a weave that forces to do as they're instructed (TSR, Ch. 46). During the War of the Shadow, it was a potent weapon. People were forced to serve the Shadow against their will. Others were converted to undercover agents, to betray the Light at the most damaging times (TWoRJTWoT, Ch. 4)."

Reference :

https://library.tarvalon.net/index.php?title=Tower_Law#Miscellaneous

https://library.tarvalon.net/index.php?title=Thirteenth_Depository

https://library.tarvalon.net/index.php?title=Keeper_of_the_Chronicles#As_Secretary

https://library.tarvalon.net/index.php?title=Compulsion

(Part 2 : Do I really need to prove Lanfear lol ?)

proof : S2E08

[markantonys]

when the first 3 episodes dropped i remember seeing some grumbling and Plothole Accusations re: verin assuming the dragon was one of the 3 boys when s1 had established that the dragon could be any gender (though of course, most of the complaints came from readers who were mad about the show daring to suggest Hypothetical Girl Dragon in the first place and are still looking for any excuse to tear into it)

however

a) *moiraine* thinks the dragon could be reborn as any gender despite being a man last time, but that doesn't mean every single person in the world also believes this. i would imagine that the precise mechanics of soul rebirth are unknown enough that everyone has room for their own beliefs!

and more importantly (major TGS book spoilers below)

b) verin is black ajah and probably already knows from ishamael that the dragon has been reborn and is a man named rand al'thor; she may have even been at the darkfriend social when he was talking about it. so, since verin already knows the dragon's gender and might NOT know that moiraine was also considering female candidates, her assumption here that the dragon was one of the 3 boys is actually kinda tipping her hand the tiniest bit and hinting that she's already got insider info on the dragon's identity. (i wouldn't necessarily say that moiraine noticed this, but i did in my rewatch since i have the benefit of already knowing future revelations about verin!)

[sixth-light]

Small babies do not lead to binging so I won't be up to speed on WoT until closer to ep 4 dropping (especially with 1hr + episodes), but I HAVE managed to watch ep 1, so (ep1 AND book-spoilery) thoughts:

Overriding thought: fuck I just love the writing/adaptation on this show, it's so smart! They are using all the many moving pieces of the book series in such an economical way! Bayle Domon is probably the best example of this from this episode; they set him up to run into the Seanchan, established the Sea Folk, gave Moiraine a quest plot point, and did it using his canonical interests, in a scene which absolutely did not happen in the books. Love it. Also, love his accent, absolutely perfect, no notes.

The way the episode was structured/had a theme was also really good - it picked up on where everybody was and connected them to each other even while the point of the episode was how far apart they have all drifted. The Bel Tine ceremony is both a great callback to the opening episode of last season, a way to visually link them, AND a reminder that it's been a YEAR since last season began now. (It amuses me that Nynaeve and Egwene are going to have had significantly more time in the Tower in the show than the books - but is probably necessary since they are unlikely to leave, return, and leave again as they do in TGH/TDR.)

We didn't get MUCH of new!Mat but he's selling me on it so far (the chiselling at the wall!) and oh boy, they're working overtime to give him a solid reason to be extremely wary of Aes Sedai, aren't they. I'm sure that will have no repercussions down the line whatsoever.

I love how they've remixed Adeleas and Vandene with Verin and let Moiraine and Lan's flying visit turn into a longer retreat to recover. This is also very funny to me because on the re-read podcast I listen to (Wheel Takes) the new reader is CONVINCED that Vandene is secretly Black Ajah. Well...now she's gonna be right!

Small but cool note: when Lan takes Moiraine that plate of food, I liked that it was very clearly from South Asian foodways and not Fantasy Stew. They're taking the cultural depth of the world well beyond casting - obviously in costuming too, but costuming is fairly easy, food is a step up.

I think the one criticism I have of the worldbuilding is that the Tower still feels a TAD underpopulated (I would have liked to see Egwene and Nynaeve in a slightly larger novice class, and some indication of the academic learning that's part of their training) but this has improved a lot on the COVID-restricted depictions from the first season, so it's a minor criticism (and may very well be addressed in later episodes).

I liked Loial last season but the actor has really settled into the role this season: looking forward to more of him.

Also really looking forward to more of Elyas, and intrigued by how they're choosing to depict Perrin's new smelling senses as a visual recreation of what happened - I think this makes sense for a visual medium, not sure it will be totally obvious that it's meant to be interpretive not literal, but then for a new audience does it need to be? It's a magic ability/superpower, that's the important thing to get across.

That extra 10-15 minutes of run time helped the episode breathe so much. It's going to add up to nearly an extra episode and a half if it keeps going across the season; that's not bad, and needed I think.

ugh I love this show so muuuuuuuuuch

[ancientmagician]

I enjoyed the show’s depiction of Verin Sedai, though I do think that if they were going to drop her harebrained and forgetful mannerism, they could have made her seem less suspicious in another way. She was coming off more as “the suspicious one” than “the nerd” I think, and I fear non-book readers will not get the cool twist that book-readers got.

[aeor-is-for-reccing]

Babygast: A Shadowgast Rec List

This week, we have nine (nein) fics that feature Caleb and Essek being parents! Check them out below the cut, and don't forget to comment or leave kudos if you liked them!

Whistle Song by Chekhov (115412, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: Implied past child abuse

Caleb and Essek find themselves the targets of the oddest Assassination attempt. They also get saddled with the Assassins themselves, because they can't find it in their hearts to leave them to their fate. Cue a long process of trying to understand what the hell is going on, and protect the two girls trying to kill them.

Reccer says: the characters are very well studied, Caleb and Essek are very IC, while exploring the sudden responsibility thrust upon them. I adore the twins, and I love the emotions conveyed, the conflict, the struggle to become something other than what they have been told they are, and accept the love and connection offered to them.

care under fire by hanap (2067, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: Choose Not to Warn

Yasha comes to relieve Essek from the woes of new parenthood, when Caleb and their daughter are ill, and he is being stretched thin.

Reccer says: This fic is very sweet and a lovely little look into Caleb and Essek, but more broadly, the Nein's, future!

Lichtenberg Figures by Twistmalchik (2746, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: Male Pregnancy

Essek is uncomfortable one night from his and Caleb's daughter not breastfeeding any longer. Caleb helps him out in quite an unconventional way.

Reccer says: This fic is incredibly sweet and very, very hot! I love how the author approached this kink, it feels very validating as a trans reader and I appreciate that!

Family Resemblance by firefright (1289, General) Reccer's Content Notes: Choose Not to Warn

Verin meets Caleb and Essek's baby and is utterly charmed by her.

Reccer says: This is a very, very sweet fic of a lovely moment in time! I really love the banter between Essek and Verin, feels very accurate to their relationship.

Fond Mistakes by firefright (644, General) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek's and Caleb's daughter has a question for one of her fathers.

Reccer says: It's exactly the kind of question a child would ask irl, which makes it funnier.

the fugitive's version of shelter by hanap (28208, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: Male Pregnancy

Caleb and Essek navigate the early stages of their relationship, which is complicated by one, Essek's fugitive status, and two, his pregnancy with Ludinus' children.

Reccer says: This fic is lovely! The fact of Essek's entire situation creates very engaging, tense situations throughout the narrative, and seeing the wizards navigate through them is an absolute pleasure. Furthermore, Caleb's utter devotion to Essek and his children and their wellbeing is the sweetest and most integral element of the story, and makes the whole thing really nail the chosen family theme!

Everything New by Moonsp1r1t (2860, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: None

Caleb is a doting dad to his new baby and has to figure out babysitting arrangements

Reccer says: SUPER fluffy!!

And then two recs for: Lay Your Bones by LadyOrpheus (17166, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: None

When Essek is captured by the Dynasty, Verin finds himself in the unexpected position of meeting the Mighty Nein and meeting the niece he didn't know he had

Reccer 1 says: Very interesting character explorations plus a very cute baby! Fun plot too Reccer2 says: Babygast is the CUTEST. The parts with little Yuna are so sweet

Aeor is for Lovers is an 18+ Shadowgast Discord server. The above fanfic recommendations were pulled from our community for this weekly event. All fics, unless otherwise specified, will primarily feature Shadowgast.

Have any questions about what this is? Check out the FAQ! Next week, we're going to visit some old favorites again with a recurring theme!

[iviarellereads]

Wheel of Time full series spoiler thoughts on TDR 25-34

A probably semi-regular weekly bonus to my reread blog, since sometimes you realize things on reread that just make you need to yell in a full spoiler space.

Ha, he DID set up the hedgehog that gets Perrin and Faile later. That's adorable.

And also, Chesmal FUCKING Emry. She who might have been another Semirhage.

I believe the justification for Lanfear urging the girls on to Tear is that she wants Rand to be absolutely equipped to take out Be'lal and she might even expect Ishy. She believes she can handle Rand from there. Do you think she was right? What grade would you give her on the plan and the execution thereof?

Some of the visits while the girls are scrubbing DO seem obvious in nature, but what was Verin's game? She was always playing 12 dimensional chess even when she did the simplest thing…

Fun to see the Aiel trick of finding what you need in TAR, performed accidentally, a couple books before it's mentioned.

If this reread and really having to dig into more of the times that the characters, the three I named in my chapter 29 bit in particular, are lying to themselves or the reader… if this is how I start to not hate Mat's character, I'm gonna have to seriously consider quitting the fandom. (That's hyperbole and a lie, I have trouble hating Mat's character ever since the show made him a wet cat instead of a Han Solo.)

So many double, triple, quadruple fakeouts to make you doubt your opinion of anyone in this series. The Gray Man in Sheriam's bed… to what purpose? Was one of the Forsaken scaring her off the tasks assigned her by another? Was she trying to brush away suspicion on herself?

I do love that Laras gets shown to be actually really good later. Well, as good as one can be, working in a system like the White Tower. We get the line about her not being party to breaking a woman's spirit here, true, but she's still coming off as so strict and kinda hateful. Seeing everything she does later, helping Siuan and Leane to escape, and offering to help Egg, and I'm sure she knew more about Verin's request for sweet tea than either of them ever let on.

Good to see that Mat's roguishness still only holds charm for me if I apply his show backstory and characterization. I haven't fallen THAT far as to be a book-Mat fan yet. (I kid, I joke, I make funnies. Some of my good friends are Mat lovers. But I'm just not destined to join y'all.)

“Next you could try telling the Lord Captain Commander of the Whitecloaks he should marry the Amyrlin Seat.” Well it's not quite predicting what will happen in the end, but Egg is still very much caught up in the fantasy of being with Galad, so it made me grin anyway.

I don't particularly care for Gaul, really, I'm far more interested in what Bain and Chiad have going on, but hooray for a fan fave showing up. I do feel for everyone who mourned that this first appearance's show adaptation was changed to Aviendha. It's more important to establish her as one of the extremely core characters who actually really affects the plot later, but Gaul gets so little in the story besides lurking next to Perrin for the remaining 11 books, and they took away his intro. ;~;

I will not hear any Faile hate in the comments, though. My poor knife wife queen whose character was mostly assassinated by being only seen through Perrin's nose for her first six books.

[normallyiminsane]

Finished The Great Hunt and it's almost an anticlimax. I want to read more about Aes Sedai and Nynaeve and Elayne and Egwene. Book readers were right that the book spent so little time with Egwene as damane, I'm glad the show portrayed how horrific that was and gave it the weight it deserved 'coz Egwene is gonna be the biggest badass I just know it. And Ryma, my love, awww, she got maybe a sentence???? Thank you, show, for giving her that powerful moment. Can't believe Moiraine was in like 2 chapters- the beginning part (it felt like the show's Lan and Moiraine divorce and rebonding sped up 100x minus the vampire attack) and the end- yet she is still a favorite. And Verin, Verin, what are you up to?

I have The Dragon Reborn next. This is the last existing Rosamund Pike narration. She's so good sometimes I forget she's reading them. Hope she does more.

I love that the books exist while I wait for the new season. It's like getting more story out of a beloved story!!!

[apocalypticavolition]

Wheel of Time Season 2 Episodes 1 - 3 Thoughts

In my reread - which I won't be doing today, or probably any day that a show episode comes out in the immediate future - this is the part where I'd have some sort of snark warning about spoilers to shoo away the viewers who might not have blocked the relevant tags for some reason. This is about the show, but I will be discussing a few things that will be spoilers to show-watchers only - and if you haven't caught up at all then obviously I'll be spoiling the show.

After seeing Apple TV's Foundation blossom into this beautiful and entertaining show that had almost nothing to do with its source material, I figured I could come to Wheel of Time's second season with an open mind. And hey, episode 1 of the show made me think that we were over the rough part. Yeah, I had to meet its plot changes in the middle, but if I was willing to do that, the show seemed to promise that I would be rewarded. After the three episodes released so far, I'm not quite sure. I want to love the show, but I'm not a show lover.

And yeah, it starts with the opening. Jordan's world is one in which evil doesn't prosper and makes no illusions about being an alternate system of morality that good guys just besmirch because they're meanie pants. Having a little girl pet a rape-and-murder machine that's purring at the prospect of human contact isn't a great start for me, and frankly there's just something about Ishamael in this scene that feels like Nandor from What We Do in the Shadows, which isn't a worthwhile comparison.

Nor does the new show intro excite me. The previous season's over-focus on the Aes Sedai felt to me like a mistake overall but the concept of the opening sequence was still strong. I wanted to see it change and evolve over the course of the eight seasons, but now we're just given a few seconds of a snake devouring itself. It's a major step backwards.

But these are quibbles. I know they're quibbles. If they were the biggest kinds of complaints I had against the show I'd move on. Things get a lot stronger from there, showing us some great TV! Let's break it down:

Moiraine and Lan: Moiraine is not taking being shielded well. This is a legit reaction. Her misery is clear and the bath scene is a great contrast. Lan's attitude isn't much better. It's well-acted, well-set, and seeing changes like Verin being folded into Vandene is good! Like I said, I get that it's TV, I get that there have to be changes, and this little change works. Heck, Bayle Domon showing up works. He's fun, Moiraine fucking him over is fun, it's good TV. It's a little frustrating that we still don't know what the poem is (I mean, I know as a reader but still), but that's all in good fun.

But I do have problems with the division forming between Lan and Moiraine. Not that it's happening at all, under the circumstances it makes perfect sense. However, the characters and narratives taking the stance of, "Moiraine is suffering trauma so she's allowed to be as cold to her best friend of twenty years as possible and he just has to take it" does not work for me at all.

Then there's the Fade sequence. In the next episode, Lan will apologize for not sensing the Shadowspawn coming, which raises the question - why didn't Moiraine sense them coming? She's shielded, not severed. Why did the first Fade go down so easily? Why is Lan so terrible at fighting Fades when he spent his whole life training to do so? At least Verin saves the day. Really, Verin is awesome in general and I have no complaints, she's everything she should be for this adaptation.

And then comes the double dose of cruelty. First we get a summary of how Lan and Moiraine met, based on the New Spring novel, but we leave out the coolest part, which frankly only does Moiraine dirty. Though, they do Lan dirty too by making the sexual assault he suffered something to laugh about as a funny cultural affectation instead of the rape that it clearly was.

And then things go downhill. Book Moiraine might have been cruel in setting up the transfer of her bond to Lan, but she didn't make it happen right away and she didn't explicitly tell Lan she never thought of him as an equal. Her behavior is abhorrent and unheroic and while Moiraine's always been on the utilitarian side of things, this is just more than I'm willing to deal with. It also only makes Alanna feel skeevier as a character, which is impressive considering all the rest of the stuff she pulls. And that's it. They're gone - and frankly, for show Moiraine all I can say is "good riddance".

Wondergirls: Egwene is overall good, Nynaeve starts well enough. I don't really like Nynaeve's getting to skip the novice phase taken away from her - I feel that Rafe's love of Egwene consistently tears down the characters around her and now that she's chiding Nynaeve that she should be happy I feel very vindicated in this belief - but I can live with it. Nynaeve choosing to suffer rather than address her block is good. The Aes Sedai politicking about how to train Nynaeve and who should be her mentor is great! Egwene's jealousy is in-character.

Nynaeve training with Alanna's Warders though, while impressive, feels like mostly an excuse to give those two a few extra lines. And Alanna feels genuinely skeevy in this incarnation; I had thought her advice to Egwene was just inappropriate metaphor until the characters clarified, and at that point I'm just wondering why Alanna is supposed to be a positive representation of polyamory if she's clearly trying to groom Egwene on the side. Like, at least Liandrin being a bad mentor and person overall is clear from her interactions with Nynaeve. Of course, much less about Liandrin is clear in general. She steals medicine as if an Aes Sedai wouldn't be able to obtain such things without question)

And then we meet Elayne. Book Elayne is a sweetheart, only stuck-up in the most basic of ways (taught to walk around with her nose in the air). Show Elayne makes several faux pas and doesn't seem to present much reason for Egwene to want to be her friend. "I haven't seen a soul", she says, surrounded by servants. She says she spent six summers in Tar Valon but her attitude screams six summers in Seandar. Sheriam at least seems like she's gonna beat some sense into her, but I shouldn't be rooting for that outcome, should I?

Meanwhile, Nynaeve follows Liandrin out of the tower and discovers her dark secret, a son dying of old age. At first my associate and I thought it was all going to be some kind of ploy to impress Nynaeve and influence her ajah choice, but it's all legit. I thought that Liandrin having a son was fine, but my friend is less convinced and there's something to be said for that. Liandrin's attitude doesn't scream, "son she's outliving", and it adds to the sense of incoherence to her character.

Elayne just barely manages to recover as a character during the drinking sequence when she chews Egwene out, which also sets her up nicely for her bullshit. Not sure what I think about the convenient drama of Nynaeve overhearing Egwene bitching about her, but at least it kind of goes places. It helps explain why Nynaeve's so vehement about the testing, anyway.

Her testing is... where things start really going downhill. The beginning is fine (though the whole "attacked by bandits" thing doesn't work for me at all for the Two Rivers - not in the last season, not in this one), and the middle is a good adaptation, but then we hit the end. The fake out's good, but then... Ugh. In the books, Nynaeve wills the portal back, but that's not what happens here. Further, Liandrin's motivations remain incoherent: if she's a Darkfriend working to bring about these peoples' downfall, Nynaeve's death (a huge loss for the Light) shouldn't be something she's this upset about. Like yeah, corrupting her would be more fun, but a win's a win. But the Shadow doesn't want wins in this episode. It wants to lose as hard as it can.

Sheriam is also a bit odd here but since she may not know Liandrin is Black I can buy her behavior as being generally shitty while covering for herself. I mean, "your grief is your own" is so unnecessarily cruel that it's clear that she's Black. That said, not sure why she's discussing arches with the girls when my impression is that the test was supposed to be something of a secret until the novice was ready to advance. Nor do I think Elayne is done any favors with her absolutely hollow condolences - Sheriam was more believable as a sympathetic ear.

Egwene confronts Liandrin, which leads us to yet another situation where somebody on the Shadow could easily eliminate one of the five ta'veren but absolutely refuses to do so because... it wouldn't be sporting? She then tries to save Nynaeve while Elayne talks her out of it, but makes absolutely no difference whatsoever (ah well, at least she isn't personally responsible for bringing Nynaeve back). Then Nynaeve... does come back. For no apparent reason. Apparently every other woman who entered this segment just killed themselves after missing the first door out. At least book Nynaeve forces the arch to reappear - show Nynaeve only forces the scenario to stop being scary and the arch shows up anyway.

Perrin: I thought that Marcus was the weakest actor last season, and while he's grown quite a good deal, it also feels like he's been given the least to work with. He's with mostly new characters bar Loial, who doesn't get the love and attention he deserves. Everyone in his sequence exists to push him along, and he doesn't have much going on just yet as he's reacting to what goes down. I do like how they're representing his power, and again combining Elyas and Hurin is the right sort of choice for TV, but I feel like Perrin was meant to be bouncing off of at least Mat at this point. His writing is very on the nose when he and the Shienarians are burying the Darkfriends, it feels very much like we're just being told what he feels instead of being shown it.

But hey, while the woman in the house horror sequence was not remotely something Perrin went through, and it was pretty changed, I honestly didn't expect it to show up at all, so I'm calling that a win for him. It's well-acted too, he doesn't have too much dialogue telling us how he feels so it works. That said, his place in the world gets a lot less certain as we go on - I assumed he was in the east like the books, but he seems to have crossed thousands of miles to go west considering what happens. Why are the Seanchan here? Why is Perrin where they are? This isn't a coincidence, it's blatantly forced.

Also sorry not sorry but the damane outfit isn't dehumanizing like it should be, it's just dumb. The damane in Perrin's arc is, as far as I'm concerned, named Little Miss Binky. Speaking of LMB, it bothers me a bit that she can sense all these channeler women when in the books the testing required the use of the a'dam. This is a random-ass village, there shouldn't be two sparkers. And Uno should not be fucking dead and no amount of Suroth's nail batons is going to make it okay for me (okay actually there is an amount but the season isn't going to run that long so same thing).

We end Perrin's arc in these three episodes with him waking up in a carriage with Ishamael, being stabbed to death as part of the Shadow's plans to bring about-- No wait, that would be competent. Instead, Ishamael is super interested in Perrin's character development (why bro?) and lets Perrin escape with Elyas while the two ditch Loial (unforgivable).

Mat and Min: Being imprisoned at this point works based on where the story ended up, but Liandrin is just kind of a cipher throughout his story. She's clearly relishing the opportunity to be evil editing him out of the letters she reads, but this is about as evil as she gets beyond the wrongful imprisonment. Why does she give him cakes in the next episode? Why is he being kept alive for months on end? There's no clear motivation for her character - if she's being a villain, she should have offed him long ago. If she's following Tower procedure in some fashion, it should be clearer.

Mat manages to make contact with Min - no one noticed his efforts, which is fine, but it stretches credulity that none of Min's captors notice that her wall is suddenly damaged after this. They're great friends and I love this for what it is, or rather what it seems to be. It really helps their relationship - though not her characterization - that he's not interested in having her read his future. Shame, considering what she sees.

After some more time, Nynaeve's apparent death prompts Liandrin to set Mat free. He almost goes to help Egwene, but then decides to ditch her because fuck Mat's character, amirite? One actor ditched us so all Mats have to be shitty now even when it's a central facet of who he should be. Then he doubles back to Min - why is he doing things in this order, this is the least logical order - but it turns out that this whole thing is staged by Liandrin and that Min is working with her. What the actual fuck?

Rand: I'm not loving how little attention he gets in the first episode, but whatever. The main problem is that his motivations are obscured to us for such a long period, and we aren't really given a clue as to how he figured out this was an option in the first place. At first I simply thought it was weird that he'd go to Cairhien when he knows he's a time bomb and that being a nurse-type made sense considering his overall sense of altruism.

Really, most of the hospital stuff works in isolation. The soldier suffering from PTSD is a nice touch and it helps build up the Rand as Aiel foreshadowing that the show hasn't had much time to get to yet. I don't like that Rand is cheating on Lan with another teacher but TV shows I guess.

Then we jump into a darker Rand. He stalks the asshole orderly and assaults him, in part with the power (though this seems to be unwilling). I thought this might be madness coming on early, but the truth isn't much better. Of course, before we find it out we get to see Rand hook up with Lanfear. Book Rand was clearly compelled and overwhelmed by a hottie being interested in him, but this atmosphere is gone here as well. Rand took one look at the slippery slope and said, "Watch how fast I can get to the bottom!"

And meanwhile, Lanfear is bizarrely self-aware! "I pretend you're Lews Therin," she all but says. "Go ahead and think of other women while you're having sex with me, your crazy and obsessive stalker!" The Forsaken are cartoonishly evil people because only someone cartoonishly evil would sign up to work under Satan. They shouldn't try to argue that they're actually good guys and they shouldn't have healthy standards in their romantic relationships!

So Rand's secret plan was to get close to Logain, which just... Why is he here? He's a war criminal who had an army of loyal fanatics! Even with the severing, he's way too much of a risk to toss amid the general populace for exactly the reason we see: a young man who can channel goes to him to learn how to carry on his traditions! Logain being Rand's teacher might be a good way of combining book characters, and he's certainly an awesome actor, but there's not enough of this stuff.

Rand learns more about the hunt being called, which is just going to raise further questions. I will note "Queen of Illian" and thus have to ask: have they relocated Berelain in this show? Have they just gender-flipped the king? These books don't need gender flips like they seem to like doing with her and Farstrider.

Then Rand and Lanfear end up at a fancy party. There's no clear explanation for how they got in, nor why the royals would be confused about Rand and Lanfear's identities. She lives at the Foregate, people! He's renting a room! The foreign prince thing doesn't work in this context! Then Rand gets an awkwardly designed infodump about the cruelty of the royalty and the reveal that the Hunt is a fake. Presumably the whole thing is supposed to be a fake that isn't happening outside of Cairhien, but that's not actually clear - and after a long sequence of Rand's arc being well-written if objectionable for his hunting down a man and beating him half (?) to death to steal is job, it's just a low note.

But hey, we get to see Logain be psycho and Lanfear be psycho, so that's pretty fun. Not really sure where Logain's gotten the impression he's the descendant of a man that is most famous for having killed his entire family, but that's crazy for you I guess. Rand also burns down the inn, an incident which everyone treats as no big deal despite the general flammability of everything in the vicinity.

Closing Thoughts: The TL;DR of all of this is, "Just as I got comfy with it, it got weird." Rand is darker than he should be at this point, Mat continues to lack the loyalty that defines him, Moiraine is awful to Lan in ways that the narrative gives no hint it disagrees with and past and future sexual assault is on the table for him, Nynaeve loses the behavior that justifies her being special and just survives by fiat, Elayne is way too awkward and rude, and the Darkfriends pass up every opportunity to eliminate or properly capture Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and Nynaeve, all of whom should be high priority targets. This season started strongly and I hope it can recover from these hiccups, but I'm worried that little details will continue to fail to add up like this.