Consorting with Enemies

[Jay Carpenter]

Jai

She grabbed his hand, and without even realizing it, his grip closed around the twining of her fingers. A reaction that knew what he wanted until his mind caught up. He stared at the wall a long moment after, until the swing of his face reconciled what the the spirit already felt. His expression softened in her request, and the fissures in his mind ceased their expansion. She pulled and he followed. Just like what she started months beforehand and continued every waking moment up through an hour ago when what was tugged finally pulled free. He was slow and careful in turning their wrists until the twin of their arms twisted about one another, and laid the back of her hand to his cheek. There it stayed until suddenly, a grin broke. “Now who is propositioning who? How scandalous of you, Aes Sedai,” and he pulled her hand down to his lips where a heated smile rose behind the kiss he placed there. In her eyes, he found something, and he was going to hang onto it with every fiber inside. 

It wasn’t long after that steam curled around his shoulders.

As warmth soaked into every muscle on his body, Jai laid his head back, eyes sliding low. He and Trista sparred that very morning on the beach until he was thoroughly beaten and everything ached with useful exhaustion. It was hard to believe that was mere hours ago, but he could almost imagine himself back there, drifting in the sea. He’d chucked everything to shore and swam in it until the pull back to the city (and thirst) placed its demands. Little did he know it was going to be the last time. Course, he assumed every day was the last day he’d see it. That’s why he threw himself in the waves with such reckless abandon. He was literally soaking it in.

The first time he saw the sea he was stunned speechless. For a man born almost as far from the ocean as they could go, he never thought to see something so grand in all his life. Not even Dragonmount, as immense and legendary as its namesake was as moving a sight. They had arrived at night, and there was nothing to glimpse on the horizon except moonlight until the next day. Of course, Jai wasn’t patient enough to wait that long. He hiked down to the shore, planted ass in the sand, marveled at the blackness of the horizon and thought about well, nothing. It was the first time he soaked it in. He could still feel the sand in his grip. Still smell the salt on the air.

When he opened his eyes, he was somehow not surprised to find the black swath of a night sky and pinpricks of starlight overhead. He swallowed, but accepted what his mind said was there for the familiarity of comforting constellations he’d stared at so often on campaign. There was nothing more fascinating to study than the patterns in the stars, after all. And each shape had a story to match. Tales spun since childhood woven by some nanny in the precious minutes before bed. Sometimes, he woke his brother while storms rattled the windowpanes, and it was Zakar that soothed him back to sleep with fantastical stories of old. From Ages long past, Zakar always said, though he didn’t retell them with the gusto of a true believer. Jai wasn’t sure he believed himself, but he remembered the stories anyway just in case.

He was staring at the outline of The Archer’s bow when he decided someone should know something about his life before it was over.

“The first time I was even close to the sea was when I was with the Legion in Illian. We were probably a week to the north. Not that I knew that; I was only a Dedicated at the time. There were so few Asha’man in those days, and the ones we had were stationed in worse places than Illian. I ‘borrowed’ a horse and rode off to see it for myself.” He chuckled to himself, head shaking slightly, yet he didn’t break his glimpse of the constellation. He'd stared at it many times before. Tracked its movement across the sky; season after season until it disappeared fully. “I turned around when I reached the marshes, finally understanding why no army could march on the city. Bogs and swamp as far as you could see.”

A smirk threatened to break the fatigue holding him back when he glanced at Nythadri, eyes still red from the night's swinging emotions, but hers drew him in, as they had the very few moment he glimpsed them. She was stunning in the water; vulnerable, pure. Well, maybe not too pure. His gaze was drawn down, certainly not of his own free will, by the lines of black hair stuck to the curves of her neck, dripping down her collarbone and pooling upon the surface of the water. He cleared his throat and broke the line of sight. 
“But what were they going to do to a Dedicated? All I got was a yelling from the captain. He should have reported me. To this day I don’t know why he didn’t. What an idiot. If I caught some kid-” Well, he didn’t finish that sentence, but shifted to get a little more comfortable.

“I was in Illian long enough to figure out how to channel alongside a real army. Then one day I was summoned home. I woke up in Maredo and went to bed that night in a fortress in Kandor with a second pin... and I felt like I was on top of the world.” He swallowed, hands settling on his stomach beneath the privacy of the water’s surface. They hadn't stayed in bed long, and by the next morning his life was never the same.

He shook off the rest of the story and skipped ahead a few years. Best not to linger on that one too long. Even if he was telling the story for one reason only, and she already knew that part of it. He rolled his aching shoulders and trailed a finger across the surface of the water.

“Arad Doman isn’t as dangerous as it once was. Suppose there are enough of us now to leave one Asha'man there all the time. Well, two technically.” His voice trailed. Arad Doman was a far cry from the years of battle against Seanchan. Fierce damane who would claw their way back into their collars as sure as rip him apart, but he couldn’t think about it now. His gaze floated upward once more, surprised to find that the ceiling returned. But it was comfortable. Warm. Safe. He just blinked at the rafters, and realized amid the other sensations gripping his guts that he was thirsty. Maybe it was all the talking.

As he reached for a cup, a figure in a corner caught his attention. A woman, wearing a clean blouse tucked into wool skirts. Snugged across the front was an apron with flour smudges on the pocket. She had curly red hair that caught the firelight when she turned to look straight at him. He sat up a little, watching her with the pinched tension of someone confused by the sudden appearance but not really shocked by the oddity of it. His line of sight followed as she approached, picked up the cup and handed it to him.

She said nothing when he accepted it. Only looked down at him with eyes that made him wonder if she was sad.

“Thank you,” he told her. “Can you take that one to Nythadri?” After glancing at its pair, to his surprise, she was gone. He just blinked, then twisted about to scan the room for evidence of her departure but upon finding none, he looked back at Nythadri sincerely confused to discover she already had a cup, and the One Power was flowing around the room.

Then he understood.

But stayed silent. There was nothing to say.