Full Circle

[Eidolon]

There were times – rare as they might be – that Malaika found no comfort in the solitude of her rooms, or the dusty security of books.  When escape to written worlds was barred to her it was inevitably because her head was too full of thoughts to concentrate.  As a Brown, an active mind was her lifeblood – assimilating ideas and facts and details, and weaving philosophies and concepts and histories so that she felt her brain might burst – but these deliberations were of a purely personal, distracting nature. Kasimir would call her brooding, but she did not think that was right. Contemplative, certainly. Analytical. (Coping with foreign emotions, she thought absently, in the way Broekk Sedai had taught her all those years ago).

The best remedy was to walk, and to think, and so that’s what she did. The day was pleasant enough – though truthfully she paid little attention, and temperature meant less to an Aes Sedai than it would to another. There were plenty enough people about – appropriate, she supposed, to whatever time of day it must have been. Perhaps lunch in the city would be nice. Or whichever meal was closest to the hour. Mistress Osilia’s place had become a favourite haunt, and a friendly face might alleviate the brewing tensions in her mind. There might even be advice to be had, if she could find a circumspect way to phrase it.

Lately, life had been good. Very good, in fact. And that, perhaps, was the problem. Do I deserve this much happiness? Rationally, yes – no more or less than any other person who had worked as hard as she had to get to where she had gotten. And yet… doubt hovered like a dark cloud.  Or perhaps as a warning, because she felt this time of contentedness was ending – slipping away like the last warm rays of summer.

He’s sick.

How sick? Her own letter, from Sharain, had hinted at some expediency… but she also knew they were desperate for Kasimir to return home. As an Aes Sedai it should not matter to her that her brother may be dying – especially a brother who cared little and less for her – and yet it weighed heavily on her. Had she really thought, after their last meeting, that there was any chance of reconciliation? And why should it even matter? Her life was here, at the Tower; her family in everything but blood.

The letter had not asked for her, so it would be easy to wash her hands of the whole thing – and let Kasimir go or stay as he pleased. But she couldn’t – or at least knew she wouldn’t on principle and, although Kasimir would surely not see it that way, for her nephew’s own benefit.  Chakai would not want to see her, of that she was certain, but Kasimir would not go alone, and if his father really was ill then she could not let him live with the guilt of ignoring the summons. It would be a heavy regret.  And, she thought, perhaps with her own twinge of guilt, it was her own way of offering amends. Kasimir remained adamant that he would not return home, but she accepted he might feel differently once he had seen his family again. Should he leave, it would be strange without him. Quiet. Empty, even.

Thoughts of lunch forgotten, she sat on a bench, blind to the view she must appear to be quite rapt in. Her injured hand lay cradled in the other, both resting in her lap amidst the folds of her skirts. I said I would never be that foolish again. And yet she knew she was going to go back to that house.