08-02-2018, 07:28 AM
It seemed an inconsequential distraction. A game, though one she understood they were expected to take seriously. A good opportunity to practise channeling under unusual circumstances, which was not a chance to be snubbed at. Not to her taste exactly, she thought as she once again took in the terrain, but hardly unendurable. A good distraction; a distraction she needed. So she listened, idling on the bite of the winter wind on her skin. It would get colder after the sun set. And Elsae has no gloves. She glanced at the girl as she thought it, noticing how her hands were bunched in the warmth of her cloak. If she happened to look (though she should really be paying attention to the Aes Sedai) she would see Nythadri offer something of a smile; she could only imagine Elsae was finding this whole thing terribly exciting. Then the groups were laid out; Elsae and Alida. The two she knew best out of the five others gathered, which was both good and bad. And Finnaer. She didn't recognise him; no big surprise.
Nythadri was the last to be called to speak to the Green, and greeted Lythia with a wry twist of her lips – presuming the woman must know it wasn’t her own hand that had signed her up to the task. Yet here she was anyway, suitably dressed and apparently ready for whatever lay beyond. She matched the Green’s stride, and listened as each girl had before her. ‘I've been warning your team mates the likelihood of a traitor among you. Who likely upon the most advantageous moment will betray your team and switch sides.’ The words flowed like water into effortless meaning. She didn’t even mull over it, just extrapolated in the same moments the sounds met her ears, as natural players of the Game were wont to do. But no warning for me?
There was no real reaction; not least because Nythadri was not engaged enough in those sorts of mind games to have one. So there’s no designated traitor. That seemed straight-forward enough – though perhaps she was only so sure because there were no true consequences; if one of the others had been told to turncoat at the most opportune moment – supposing they even had the guts to do so – it meant little other than a ‘lesson’ of trust learnt, and a game lost. Both outcomes she could live with. Though... if there was no turncoat but an expected turncoat, why not be a turncoat. In the double sense. The potential advantage glittered like gold, the ever-present ghost of daes dae mar sinking its claws, but she was not so sure she was invested enough to bother with the subterfuge, and the consideration faded.
Nythadri’s step did not falter, but the air drew a little colder at mention of Caemlyn. She hadn’t expected Lythia to be so forthcoming; had in fact steeled herself to have to work for the information. The genuine openness caught her attention, tugged her gaze to the Green’s face, which was turned majestically toward the mountains. The last time they had spoken of Caemlyn, Nythadri had been blind to the context; had not known of Winther or her family’s new wealth. She’d figured it out, of course, piece by miserable piece. But it had taken time. And in that time it had never occurred to her that when Lythia spoke of interests back then, she had meant Nythadri’s family. Zakar’s unsmiling face loomed, and his warning echoed. Did Lythia or Ellomai know of Ellis? Or have any hint of the tangle that lay beneath the mess Jai had exposed? She could only hope not, for there was very little she could do about it.
An appropriately grateful nod met the information. No news from Caemlyn was good; knowing she had an unexpected ally there was also good, if risky when it wasn’t an ally she had any control over. So long as my father keeps his head down and my sisters keep their mouths shut, it’ll be fine. Her care for them, and it was there, she supposed, somewhere deep – else she would not have gone to the lengths she had to try and protect them – froze over, and returned to absent depths. She expected a dismissal then, but didn’t get it. Lythia kept talking. Her face was smooth, her tone even; she may as well have been talking about the weather but for the solemnity that underpinned her next words.
Flogged. By five men. Two more than Tashir. All of them Asha’man. The images punched violently through her mind, though she had been prepared to find out that he had been beaten. It mitigated her reaction, somewhat, to have replayed that scene in her head so many times already. Fists or saidin; she’d seen it both ways. The snap of bone, the tear of flesh. She could taste the blood. Knew the slack-eyed look of drifting consciousness. Of desperation. Even when she reminded herself she was only reliving her brother’s murder the sharp sting in her stomach did not lessen; she had never meant for Tash to die, but she had caused it. However unintentionally, she had caused this too. The weight of sleepless nights settled on her shoulders. She felt hollowed out.
Nythadri understood the need for consequences; she was not squeamish or overly soft-hearted. But the motivation for Jai’s punishment had been pure politics. He was a scapegoat for the failings of his superiors, and that she could not abide. Nor was it a thing she was easily able to push to the side, not least its companioning face of guilt. She realised then that Lythia must have been there. Seen it. Did you try to stop it? The words edged her tongue like a serrated blade, but the blame was so painfully misplaced she swallowed back the poison, tore her eyes away from the Sister and fixed them on the landscape. The impotency of her position gnawed at her, the sheer powerlessness; neither of which was Lythia’s fault. She forced it down, blocked it off; calm, efficient. I was prepared for this.
Her brows narrowed over her eyes, braced against the cold glaring sun like she wanted to shut the world out, but it was the only outward reaction she allowed beyond the glacial detachment of a still expression. ‘Last I saw of him he was alive.’ It should have ended there; those should have been the last words, the drawing of a line beneath it all: he was alive. But Lythia didn’t stop there; the preceding sigh alone flooded pre-emptive coldness in Nythadri’s veins. Flogged again. The anger was like little pinpricks under her skin, and she couldn’t even be sure who or what she was even angry at. But it burned, light it burned. Saidar nudged the hand of comfort, but she knew better than to draw on that addiction. Calm down. Even through the choke of her reaction, her mind was whirring and pulling apart the brief sentences. Lythia had witnessed the first beating, but not the second. So who was the informant, and who exacted the second beating?
She was reigning in control of her reaction, such as it was; honing in on the facts whilst trying to decide if it was wise to take an interest. Or to confirm it, at least; Lythia would not have told her about Jai at all if she did not think it meant something to Nythadri. The desire to hold back unravelled when she met Lythia’s fiercely honest gaze. Aes Sedai took away the things that mattered and called it a lesson; that belief was too ingrained to abandon for a few tossed bones, but she was finally starting to accept the Green’s brand of sincerity. It was exactly the kind of truth Nythadri required; the kind she sought in every new acquaintance, and failed to find each time. Until Jai.
“Who beat him the second time?”
The Aes Sedai had not been there, but she must know. Nythadri didn’t ask why it had happened; Lythia’s implications were enough – she’d seen how fast he’d swarmed on Tamal, how the dark curtain just dropped and only shreds of humanity remained. She was under no grand illusions that he had not been the one to provoke a fight in the first place, though Lythia’s phasing made it seem agonisingly one-sided. That didn’t surprise her either, though it pained her with the echoes of his confessions on the beach. ‘I should not have gotten up, Nythadri.’ And he seemed determined to make sure that one day he didn’t.
She was not sure if the Sister would answer; there was the unmistakable twang of a nocked arrow in Nythadri’s tone. Hard-edged. Even if she didn’t answer, she must know Nythadri could find out. Would find out, supposing she had not already followed the road of common sense to its most obvious conclusion. Lennox. She was confidant she knew what Jai would have done; who he would have retaliated against. But she wanted to hear it, and she wanted Lythia to say it; to trust her with the knowledge of it, so that she could begin to convince herself she could trust an Aes Sedai. Her pale eyes were searching, contemplative; testing delicate waters, this strange new experience of being an aspirant. Of having a place to belong.
She was still shoring up the edges of emotion when Lythia posed her final question; such a disastrously innocent question. The curiosity didn’t surprise her at first; Liridia’s Warder, Keren, had let the blade’s identity slip. Malkieri. So it did not seem odd that a Green would find it of interest – such rarities were almost extinct, just as were men with that branch of blood diluted in their veins. But she also respected the way Jai coveted his privacy. She’d never asked about the sword, and he had never volunteered the information; everything she knew was a compilation of observation and happenstance. She knew enough to build a picture; enough to know it was something important. Not enough to know exactly why.
She remembered the long line of immortalised Kojimas with that blade laid out on their laps. It never should have been Jai’s, yet for whatever reason it was. An heirloom, definitely that. She suspected more, but had nothing to base that on but conjecture; when she’d gathered her things on the beach, intuition had stayed her hand from touching the sword before Jai had channelled his belongings through the Gateway anyway. She remembered every time he had touched its hilt – caressed it, squeezed it, brushed it. Like a touchstone, an anchor. So her expression fell eerie still when Lythia so casually spoke of loss. Spoke of Shadow. Then her heart plummeted. Nythadri was the type to honour honesty with honesty, and Lythia had offered nothing but. More than once. It braced against her rational judgement while in the company of an Aes Sedai, but she allowed the humanity of expression through; the burden of concern, the hollow guilt. Her eyes were tight, her lips downturned. “-know something of what it must have felt like for him.”
She finished Lythia’s sentence for her, laying the words heavy as a shroud.
“It’s a leader’s duty to know those he leads. Well enough to know the difference between the teaching of a true lesson, and crushing someone completely.”
She didn’t say it, but the pierce of her look was all the accusation necessary; that line was crossed. In her opinion, at least. Light, but Jai was already unbalanced, teetering on the edge of an abyss. His soul was in that sword – cold, inanimate piece of bloody metal that it was, had been she corrected dismally. It blazed a trail back to a rich heritage, the heritage of the kind of man who placed a hand on hilt then heart to beg forgiveness. The kind of man that deserved to live.
All she had wanted to know was that he was alive; and now she did, and it wasn’t enough.
Blood and Ashes. A field in the middle of nowhere was the last place she wanted to be. Did Lythia think she would play games with children while Jai was cut adrift from the mess she had helped create? Her fingers had trailed the scar down his torso, the kind of wound that kicked a man to the jaws of death and left him there without miraculous intervention; she’d seen the frozen look on his face when he’d relayed, unasked, the story behind it (the whole bloody reason she’d ever told him about her brother). He’d had good intentions, she knew that. Stupid, but good. And it had cost him. It had cost him dearly. She believed Lythia when she said she did not know where Jai was, but she also believed in her own abililty to track someone down if it was what she wanted. Anonymous pendant or not; whether he wished to see her or not. Jai didn't get the choice; not when she set her mind like that. The resolution set her expression grim; realisation such plans had to wait made it cold. You must see it through to the end. Excepting loss of limb, life, or burning out; you must see it through to the end. The words formed a trap – she hadn’t even signed up for this. But she’d stepped through the Aileen’s Gateway willing enough and – whatever face she presented to the world – Nythadri did in fact accept the consequences and responsibilities that came with her actions. Twenty-four hours. Her eyes blinked, seeing the mountains, the trailing tents, the other Accepted. Lythia had unhinged her, and had probably done it on purpose. And it had worked. Her jaw tensed, but she didn’t fall apart. The brief flash of openness ended. He’ll lie to himself. If he was still alive, if he was still somewhere safe. She pulled her cloak tighter about her neck, meeting Lythia’s gaze a final time. “Thank you.”
Nythadri was the last to be called to speak to the Green, and greeted Lythia with a wry twist of her lips – presuming the woman must know it wasn’t her own hand that had signed her up to the task. Yet here she was anyway, suitably dressed and apparently ready for whatever lay beyond. She matched the Green’s stride, and listened as each girl had before her. ‘I've been warning your team mates the likelihood of a traitor among you. Who likely upon the most advantageous moment will betray your team and switch sides.’ The words flowed like water into effortless meaning. She didn’t even mull over it, just extrapolated in the same moments the sounds met her ears, as natural players of the Game were wont to do. But no warning for me?
There was no real reaction; not least because Nythadri was not engaged enough in those sorts of mind games to have one. So there’s no designated traitor. That seemed straight-forward enough – though perhaps she was only so sure because there were no true consequences; if one of the others had been told to turncoat at the most opportune moment – supposing they even had the guts to do so – it meant little other than a ‘lesson’ of trust learnt, and a game lost. Both outcomes she could live with. Though... if there was no turncoat but an expected turncoat, why not be a turncoat. In the double sense. The potential advantage glittered like gold, the ever-present ghost of daes dae mar sinking its claws, but she was not so sure she was invested enough to bother with the subterfuge, and the consideration faded.
Nythadri’s step did not falter, but the air drew a little colder at mention of Caemlyn. She hadn’t expected Lythia to be so forthcoming; had in fact steeled herself to have to work for the information. The genuine openness caught her attention, tugged her gaze to the Green’s face, which was turned majestically toward the mountains. The last time they had spoken of Caemlyn, Nythadri had been blind to the context; had not known of Winther or her family’s new wealth. She’d figured it out, of course, piece by miserable piece. But it had taken time. And in that time it had never occurred to her that when Lythia spoke of interests back then, she had meant Nythadri’s family. Zakar’s unsmiling face loomed, and his warning echoed. Did Lythia or Ellomai know of Ellis? Or have any hint of the tangle that lay beneath the mess Jai had exposed? She could only hope not, for there was very little she could do about it.
An appropriately grateful nod met the information. No news from Caemlyn was good; knowing she had an unexpected ally there was also good, if risky when it wasn’t an ally she had any control over. So long as my father keeps his head down and my sisters keep their mouths shut, it’ll be fine. Her care for them, and it was there, she supposed, somewhere deep – else she would not have gone to the lengths she had to try and protect them – froze over, and returned to absent depths. She expected a dismissal then, but didn’t get it. Lythia kept talking. Her face was smooth, her tone even; she may as well have been talking about the weather but for the solemnity that underpinned her next words.
Flogged. By five men. Two more than Tashir. All of them Asha’man. The images punched violently through her mind, though she had been prepared to find out that he had been beaten. It mitigated her reaction, somewhat, to have replayed that scene in her head so many times already. Fists or saidin; she’d seen it both ways. The snap of bone, the tear of flesh. She could taste the blood. Knew the slack-eyed look of drifting consciousness. Of desperation. Even when she reminded herself she was only reliving her brother’s murder the sharp sting in her stomach did not lessen; she had never meant for Tash to die, but she had caused it. However unintentionally, she had caused this too. The weight of sleepless nights settled on her shoulders. She felt hollowed out.
Nythadri understood the need for consequences; she was not squeamish or overly soft-hearted. But the motivation for Jai’s punishment had been pure politics. He was a scapegoat for the failings of his superiors, and that she could not abide. Nor was it a thing she was easily able to push to the side, not least its companioning face of guilt. She realised then that Lythia must have been there. Seen it. Did you try to stop it? The words edged her tongue like a serrated blade, but the blame was so painfully misplaced she swallowed back the poison, tore her eyes away from the Sister and fixed them on the landscape. The impotency of her position gnawed at her, the sheer powerlessness; neither of which was Lythia’s fault. She forced it down, blocked it off; calm, efficient. I was prepared for this.
Her brows narrowed over her eyes, braced against the cold glaring sun like she wanted to shut the world out, but it was the only outward reaction she allowed beyond the glacial detachment of a still expression. ‘Last I saw of him he was alive.’ It should have ended there; those should have been the last words, the drawing of a line beneath it all: he was alive. But Lythia didn’t stop there; the preceding sigh alone flooded pre-emptive coldness in Nythadri’s veins. Flogged again. The anger was like little pinpricks under her skin, and she couldn’t even be sure who or what she was even angry at. But it burned, light it burned. Saidar nudged the hand of comfort, but she knew better than to draw on that addiction. Calm down. Even through the choke of her reaction, her mind was whirring and pulling apart the brief sentences. Lythia had witnessed the first beating, but not the second. So who was the informant, and who exacted the second beating?
She was reigning in control of her reaction, such as it was; honing in on the facts whilst trying to decide if it was wise to take an interest. Or to confirm it, at least; Lythia would not have told her about Jai at all if she did not think it meant something to Nythadri. The desire to hold back unravelled when she met Lythia’s fiercely honest gaze. Aes Sedai took away the things that mattered and called it a lesson; that belief was too ingrained to abandon for a few tossed bones, but she was finally starting to accept the Green’s brand of sincerity. It was exactly the kind of truth Nythadri required; the kind she sought in every new acquaintance, and failed to find each time. Until Jai.
“Who beat him the second time?”
The Aes Sedai had not been there, but she must know. Nythadri didn’t ask why it had happened; Lythia’s implications were enough – she’d seen how fast he’d swarmed on Tamal, how the dark curtain just dropped and only shreds of humanity remained. She was under no grand illusions that he had not been the one to provoke a fight in the first place, though Lythia’s phasing made it seem agonisingly one-sided. That didn’t surprise her either, though it pained her with the echoes of his confessions on the beach. ‘I should not have gotten up, Nythadri.’ And he seemed determined to make sure that one day he didn’t.
She was not sure if the Sister would answer; there was the unmistakable twang of a nocked arrow in Nythadri’s tone. Hard-edged. Even if she didn’t answer, she must know Nythadri could find out. Would find out, supposing she had not already followed the road of common sense to its most obvious conclusion. Lennox. She was confidant she knew what Jai would have done; who he would have retaliated against. But she wanted to hear it, and she wanted Lythia to say it; to trust her with the knowledge of it, so that she could begin to convince herself she could trust an Aes Sedai. Her pale eyes were searching, contemplative; testing delicate waters, this strange new experience of being an aspirant. Of having a place to belong.
She was still shoring up the edges of emotion when Lythia posed her final question; such a disastrously innocent question. The curiosity didn’t surprise her at first; Liridia’s Warder, Keren, had let the blade’s identity slip. Malkieri. So it did not seem odd that a Green would find it of interest – such rarities were almost extinct, just as were men with that branch of blood diluted in their veins. But she also respected the way Jai coveted his privacy. She’d never asked about the sword, and he had never volunteered the information; everything she knew was a compilation of observation and happenstance. She knew enough to build a picture; enough to know it was something important. Not enough to know exactly why.
She remembered the long line of immortalised Kojimas with that blade laid out on their laps. It never should have been Jai’s, yet for whatever reason it was. An heirloom, definitely that. She suspected more, but had nothing to base that on but conjecture; when she’d gathered her things on the beach, intuition had stayed her hand from touching the sword before Jai had channelled his belongings through the Gateway anyway. She remembered every time he had touched its hilt – caressed it, squeezed it, brushed it. Like a touchstone, an anchor. So her expression fell eerie still when Lythia so casually spoke of loss. Spoke of Shadow. Then her heart plummeted. Nythadri was the type to honour honesty with honesty, and Lythia had offered nothing but. More than once. It braced against her rational judgement while in the company of an Aes Sedai, but she allowed the humanity of expression through; the burden of concern, the hollow guilt. Her eyes were tight, her lips downturned. “-know something of what it must have felt like for him.”
She finished Lythia’s sentence for her, laying the words heavy as a shroud.
“It’s a leader’s duty to know those he leads. Well enough to know the difference between the teaching of a true lesson, and crushing someone completely.”
She didn’t say it, but the pierce of her look was all the accusation necessary; that line was crossed. In her opinion, at least. Light, but Jai was already unbalanced, teetering on the edge of an abyss. His soul was in that sword – cold, inanimate piece of bloody metal that it was, had been she corrected dismally. It blazed a trail back to a rich heritage, the heritage of the kind of man who placed a hand on hilt then heart to beg forgiveness. The kind of man that deserved to live.
All she had wanted to know was that he was alive; and now she did, and it wasn’t enough.
Blood and Ashes. A field in the middle of nowhere was the last place she wanted to be. Did Lythia think she would play games with children while Jai was cut adrift from the mess she had helped create? Her fingers had trailed the scar down his torso, the kind of wound that kicked a man to the jaws of death and left him there without miraculous intervention; she’d seen the frozen look on his face when he’d relayed, unasked, the story behind it (the whole bloody reason she’d ever told him about her brother). He’d had good intentions, she knew that. Stupid, but good. And it had cost him. It had cost him dearly. She believed Lythia when she said she did not know where Jai was, but she also believed in her own abililty to track someone down if it was what she wanted. Anonymous pendant or not; whether he wished to see her or not. Jai didn't get the choice; not when she set her mind like that. The resolution set her expression grim; realisation such plans had to wait made it cold. You must see it through to the end. Excepting loss of limb, life, or burning out; you must see it through to the end. The words formed a trap – she hadn’t even signed up for this. But she’d stepped through the Aileen’s Gateway willing enough and – whatever face she presented to the world – Nythadri did in fact accept the consequences and responsibilities that came with her actions. Twenty-four hours. Her eyes blinked, seeing the mountains, the trailing tents, the other Accepted. Lythia had unhinged her, and had probably done it on purpose. And it had worked. Her jaw tensed, but she didn’t fall apart. The brief flash of openness ended. He’ll lie to himself. If he was still alive, if he was still somewhere safe. She pulled her cloak tighter about her neck, meeting Lythia’s gaze a final time. “Thank you.”