01-29-2018, 03:03 PM
Jai rolled and one arm fell over the side of the bed. Scratchy fibers of a rug licked his fingertips, but unfortunately no glass clunked together. What was that Dedicated's name?
Focus. Concentrate. It was there somewhere- "Uhh. Dedicated?"
He risked a squint. The room was excessively brighter than he expected. Nobody came in, and Jai didn't call again.
He jerked awake half panicked something was wrong. The arm flopped over the side of the bed was dead numb below the wrist, and tingled painfully up to the shoulder. He shook it out and straightened himself out across the mattress. Light's blessings, Creator's shelter and all those happy things to the brilliant mind that first thought to save his feathers for a bed. Who knew? Hey fellas, let's shove bits of this animal carcass in a bag and sleep on it. Genius. Feather beds were pretty blasted fantastic. He sank in gratefully, pulling the blankets up to his chin as he did. This was a good one too. It sort of hugged your outline, but was packed firm enough to not go limp-spined in the depths. A few reinvigorating punches to his pillow and Jai found himself just as impressed with what was going on up there. Overly impressed, feeling about, actually. Finding more plump, odd shapes than just the one he'd buried his face into. Odd. He was usually pretty glad to have just one pillow, let alone more than there were heads to rest. Fascinated, he picked up one small enough to fit in his fist, then chucked it aside as others tumbled over when the first was dislodged. How bloody many were there? He settled back for now, intending to count them later.
Jai opened his eyes hesitantly and stared at the whitewashed ceiling. Light streamed around the edges of window curtains, though what time of day was ambiguous. He started to push up, but immediately sank back into the pillows. They were stacked together now like they'd been arranged behind him, but toppled in the hours since. A plate empty but for crumbs forgotten on the bedcoverings stared up beside him. Which was something of a first, waking up to evidence of earlier meals tucked in the sheets beside you he had no memory of eating. Least, he assumed it'd been his. He thrust it over to the table and stretched out, knuckling his back from the poor contortion.
Beds were great. He felt like he'd been sitting squat behind a muddy trench for days but nothing a good stretch on a decent bed couldn't cure. Though his heels hung over the end of this one, it was better than a pallet on the ground. A guy can't ask for much more than that.
His eyes were burning when next they opened. And head pounding. The sheets lay like a death shroud over his skin. Unmoved, undisturbed and had apparently been smoothed across a man more unconscious than asleep. And it was warm in here under the plump blanket. It was nice. He almost didn't get up, until his throat started begging his head for forgiveness. Cracked and neglected, standing under a Domani rainstorm with mouth gaped wide would be no relief. Shards of crystals came away from his eyes. The same from his lips. Then, he saw the heavensent glass of blessed water waiting next to the bed: he welcomed it in a few, desperate gulps. When his throat felt like it'd been dribbled in angel tears, he looked around half hoping there'd be more and half wondering where the blazes he was.
His head was empty, for the most part. There were moments, of course, smudging the last few pages of his life. There'd been drinking, that was for certain; a lot of it. And not needing the refreshment of memory to tell him that much. He rubbed his eyes raw, glaring flatly at what little light glowed from a lamp in an otherwise night-darkened room. The level of disinhibition that accompanied this kind of hangover usually bought a guy something of value: but not this time. No epic tavern dice battles. No proving there were no such things as leagues separating a guy from winning the charms of women supposedly out of his. Once, he woke up with the dawn sprawled out in a dingy bobbing along the southeast coast inland from Bandar Eban. Neither Jai nor the other guy passed out in the boat recalled what must surely have been an epic plan for a cage of white-tipped seagulls and a rig of stolen illuminator's rockets.
He labored up this time, shoving the blanket aside and realized there was nothing between him and the sheets. It was hard to be worried about where your clothes were when you didn't know where you were, so he lurched to his feet unconcerned for now. Steadying himself on a spindled bedpost. Then propped himself along the edge of an unadorned dresser while wobbling toward the door, eventually pulling it open. And finding still no answers.
He was on a landing. A couple of closed doors looked back at him, a skinny rug ran down the middle, and a flight of stairs led down. Not so much as a picture hung on the walls. He looked left again. Then right. Then down the stairs. "What the blazes?" and scrubbed his hair back in frustration. Then looked down at himself. It wasn't the skinniest he'd ever been, or the whitest, but a few days of labor oceanside wouldn't go rejected. Pants were probably the civil thing about now, so Jai sank back in the bedroom a moment in search of decency.
A bit of rummaging around found his uniform folded up on a chair. The threads shone, soft and inviting. His boots were nearby, and wiped of mud, but still in need of a long polish. No smallclothes, though. No belt and no socks. But again, he had bigger worries than missing garments. So pants would do for now, but he had to sit on the edge of the bed to hobble into each leg to get them on.
Bare footed, shirtless and uncaring about covering the skin-pinching ugly scarring ruining an otherwise acceptable physique, he made it most of the way down the stairs before someone showed up. She looked like his grandmother, only younger. Her dress she wore like a uniform, crossed at the waist with a clean apron, and her hair was pulled back from a moderate-aged face into a snug bun. Which she should let out, despite the threads of gray, her honey-colored hair shone against clear, but hard, eyes. And they were staring straight up at him, arms crossed. Not at all expressing surprise, either. And not looking the most sympathetic.
Jai blinked, paused on the bottom step, confusion stammering out. Her expression stirred something of recognition, but he wasn't quite sure what it was.
"Uhh, why do I feel like I should be embarrassed right now?"
Before she could answer, the long rays of dawning light broke through. He saw cloth; or, well, bolts of fabric flung about. There were lots of scrubbing his skin raw by her hand. Lots of blushing; at least, coalescence of blotchy cheeks into discernible embarrassment. He remembered endeavors to fight her off not going well. You'd think a guy wouldn't be so horrified to let a woman have her way with him. But blood and ashes! Jai's fiercely warm cheeks broke into an apologetic smile.
"Um, right. Uhh."
Hana was a hard woman, he decided. Not so much as a flicker broke her impassivity. Jai scrubbed his hair and tried again to put together where he was. It was a pretty ordinary looking place. Curtains dangled before shutters, all three windows he could see of them. Four chairs neatly faced one another by a warm fire. Decently woven rugs were scattered across the wooden floor unfurled in parallel with the orientation of the room opening around the bottom of the stairs. Whitewashed walls cornered everything in. Grays mostly, but muted earthy colors showed up here and there. Oddly, around the plush comforts of an otherwise institutionalized home, a mandarin orange cabinet stuck out like rage in a porcelain shop. Jai looked it over. If the first color weren't enough of a headache, the trim was painted beet red and dusted gold feet curled toward the floor like the claws of iron basin bathtubs.
Light what an ugly cabinet. Expensive design though. Somebody had pretty good taste, then to buy Winterwood. Winterwood, his jaw fell.
"Blood and ashes!"
A thrill of panic instantly flushed every pore and he caught himself just before falling weak-kneed in shock. Things rushed backwards in time. The Healing, Araya, Lennox, the M'Hael. His eyes shot to a window, imaging the spread of white-capped gleaming buildings rising up around this little colonial-esque graystone house as he had seen from the view upstairs.
There was no fighting it then. His knees gave way and he sat on the bottom step of the stairs, palms slid from feeling around his face to make sure it was all screwed back together and ended up shoving his eyes into palm-sealed darkness.
"Light what did I do?"
He asked himself, fingers shoving across his hair. The lights of memory were distant lamps but as soon as he found one flickering and turned toward it, the details surrounding such moments snuffed themselves away.
Nythadri first. She was there, crystal clear and staring. Lips parted as though about to speak. Or maybe smile with that sensational all-too-knowing smirk of hers. Or jab him with the kind of sarcastic banter he enjoyed struggling to parry in like kind. Arad Doman came and went like a wave. Then the sound of a barely-deflected crossbow bolt whispered uncomfortably close to his ear. He walked all night in the rain soaking wet: miserable and trudging through Caemlyn.
Something told him to stop digging around with Caemlyn. Leave the rest of that delicious day out of reach. It was a day, right? A Week? How long had he been out?
The cold entrance of that crypt of unwanted memories was a hard one to look into. But, hey, a black hole of the past down there or a black sky overhead now? One seemed no worse than the other. He sighed.
"She was right."
It was a sad sort of resolution he told himself, but a necessary one. "It's not an excuse. The world deserves better."
He wished he were a better man, the kind that could be what was needed. Then he sought out the patiently watching Hana as though she might have an answer to the question he hadn't asked, an answer to anything, which was absurd, of course, nobody had all the answers.
Esenya was right about more than his quality as a person. Forget that of a forged Asha'man. He knew the caliber of men who died every few minutes. All without glory or proclamation of great deeds or ballad-worthy sacrifices. Their bodies often left to be lumps on the horizon until someone was able to check boots for names. Guilt squeezed his eyes shut, hoping his father's undeserved commendations of his youngest son's honor would go ahead and disappear with the rest of a dead House. Maybe someday, if the Dragon Reborn did as prophecy said, those fields would see green autumn days once more. The sort of land he believed the survivors of these last days deserved to be happy again. That is, mostly happy; the world will hopefully be purged, but likely to be harsher place by then.
Stand tall or shrink down and fade away. Uphold expectation, not walk lazily apathetic toward the end. No matter how lost a man wanted to find himself along the way. What were a few complaints in a pyramid of graver burdens? The world to their saviors. Nor an army to its redeemer? An army completely on its own, but that meant they wouldn't fight this bloody war with every strangled breath; at least, Jai wanted to. It just had to be done. That Sister was right. Bloody right. Burn her.
Really, this life was more straightforward than a guy could hope to live. All he had to do was wake up every day and show up. Sounded simple. Go where told, eat when told, aim at whatever was needed, crash that night and do it all over again. Hopefully be useful. Or lucky enough to get in some time at a dice table once in a while. Snag someone to pass long nights. All he had to do was hold on to that, long enough to stay useful. And not go insane, no matter how appealing. And make the end count; nothing else made a difference. Jai wasn't the guy in charge, thank the Light. He just needed to show up. And no man could be in two places at once. So something had to give.
Then a moment of worry darkened Jai's tentative resolve. He was gone again. Did the Black Tower know? Was there an assignment he was missing? Light, what if there was?
Hana was saying something. He pinched the back of his neck, rummaging through the last few minutes to figure out what she'd said: something about the kitchen, maybe; while still figuring out where he was suppose to be and wondering what would happen since he wasn't there.
She retreated and Jai shoved determination into a more permanent pocket to dig out at swift need, and shifted about for a while as though going to stand and follow her that way. Light curse Dex and his bloody gentleman's cane. It'd come in handy about then. In the end, he settled back on the step and wished he'd put on the coat after all. It was too much effort to ignore the bite in the air with the Oneness' comforts, but the seventeen grueling stairs between him and black sleeves might as well be half a world away.
"Uh, would it be okay if I ate here?"
He called after her.
Hana didn't even turn around.
He dragged himself up mid-throat scratching. The unbordered stubble was long enough now to send a man mad it itching. So push through the torture a few more days or go for a razor and find some sweet relief now? Eh, who was he kidding, shaving was way too much work.
He followed the way she went, finding himself in a kitchen of sorts until pulling out a square-backed chair at a round table and gratefully landed in it.
"I'suppose I owe you a thanks.."
His arms fell to his lap but he managed a sincere smile when she looked up from stirring something bubbling away. It smelled like stewed spicemeat. His mouth watered.
"So, uhh, thanks."
Grumbles erupted from his stomach loud enough that surely every frowning Aes Sedai in the Tower would have heard it. Fresh blood warmed his cheeks and Hana shook her head.
"Uhh."
He wasn't quite sure what to say. "It's Jana, right?"
"Hana, Asha'man,"
she corrected gently, accepting his apologetic nod then going back to chopping something green and leafy, tossing it in the stew.
He had no idea if she knew his name, nor really who she was at all, beyond being an obviously brilliant cook and a good reference whenever a guy wanted an embarrassing sponge bath. "Uhh. I'm Jai. Are you Araya's..,"
he cleared his throat awkwardly. "..wife?"
There was a pitcher of something beading down the sides with condensation sitting by itself on a counter. Cold milk, maybe? He was on the verge of channeling it over, but pondered whether she would care if he chugged it straight. There weren't any glasses sitting out, and women tended to be particular about strangers rummaging through their cabinets.
Focus. Concentrate. It was there somewhere- "Uhh. Dedicated?"
He risked a squint. The room was excessively brighter than he expected. Nobody came in, and Jai didn't call again.
He jerked awake half panicked something was wrong. The arm flopped over the side of the bed was dead numb below the wrist, and tingled painfully up to the shoulder. He shook it out and straightened himself out across the mattress. Light's blessings, Creator's shelter and all those happy things to the brilliant mind that first thought to save his feathers for a bed. Who knew? Hey fellas, let's shove bits of this animal carcass in a bag and sleep on it. Genius. Feather beds were pretty blasted fantastic. He sank in gratefully, pulling the blankets up to his chin as he did. This was a good one too. It sort of hugged your outline, but was packed firm enough to not go limp-spined in the depths. A few reinvigorating punches to his pillow and Jai found himself just as impressed with what was going on up there. Overly impressed, feeling about, actually. Finding more plump, odd shapes than just the one he'd buried his face into. Odd. He was usually pretty glad to have just one pillow, let alone more than there were heads to rest. Fascinated, he picked up one small enough to fit in his fist, then chucked it aside as others tumbled over when the first was dislodged. How bloody many were there? He settled back for now, intending to count them later.
Jai opened his eyes hesitantly and stared at the whitewashed ceiling. Light streamed around the edges of window curtains, though what time of day was ambiguous. He started to push up, but immediately sank back into the pillows. They were stacked together now like they'd been arranged behind him, but toppled in the hours since. A plate empty but for crumbs forgotten on the bedcoverings stared up beside him. Which was something of a first, waking up to evidence of earlier meals tucked in the sheets beside you he had no memory of eating. Least, he assumed it'd been his. He thrust it over to the table and stretched out, knuckling his back from the poor contortion.
Beds were great. He felt like he'd been sitting squat behind a muddy trench for days but nothing a good stretch on a decent bed couldn't cure. Though his heels hung over the end of this one, it was better than a pallet on the ground. A guy can't ask for much more than that.
His eyes were burning when next they opened. And head pounding. The sheets lay like a death shroud over his skin. Unmoved, undisturbed and had apparently been smoothed across a man more unconscious than asleep. And it was warm in here under the plump blanket. It was nice. He almost didn't get up, until his throat started begging his head for forgiveness. Cracked and neglected, standing under a Domani rainstorm with mouth gaped wide would be no relief. Shards of crystals came away from his eyes. The same from his lips. Then, he saw the heavensent glass of blessed water waiting next to the bed: he welcomed it in a few, desperate gulps. When his throat felt like it'd been dribbled in angel tears, he looked around half hoping there'd be more and half wondering where the blazes he was.
His head was empty, for the most part. There were moments, of course, smudging the last few pages of his life. There'd been drinking, that was for certain; a lot of it. And not needing the refreshment of memory to tell him that much. He rubbed his eyes raw, glaring flatly at what little light glowed from a lamp in an otherwise night-darkened room. The level of disinhibition that accompanied this kind of hangover usually bought a guy something of value: but not this time. No epic tavern dice battles. No proving there were no such things as leagues separating a guy from winning the charms of women supposedly out of his. Once, he woke up with the dawn sprawled out in a dingy bobbing along the southeast coast inland from Bandar Eban. Neither Jai nor the other guy passed out in the boat recalled what must surely have been an epic plan for a cage of white-tipped seagulls and a rig of stolen illuminator's rockets.
He labored up this time, shoving the blanket aside and realized there was nothing between him and the sheets. It was hard to be worried about where your clothes were when you didn't know where you were, so he lurched to his feet unconcerned for now. Steadying himself on a spindled bedpost. Then propped himself along the edge of an unadorned dresser while wobbling toward the door, eventually pulling it open. And finding still no answers.
He was on a landing. A couple of closed doors looked back at him, a skinny rug ran down the middle, and a flight of stairs led down. Not so much as a picture hung on the walls. He looked left again. Then right. Then down the stairs. "What the blazes?" and scrubbed his hair back in frustration. Then looked down at himself. It wasn't the skinniest he'd ever been, or the whitest, but a few days of labor oceanside wouldn't go rejected. Pants were probably the civil thing about now, so Jai sank back in the bedroom a moment in search of decency.
A bit of rummaging around found his uniform folded up on a chair. The threads shone, soft and inviting. His boots were nearby, and wiped of mud, but still in need of a long polish. No smallclothes, though. No belt and no socks. But again, he had bigger worries than missing garments. So pants would do for now, but he had to sit on the edge of the bed to hobble into each leg to get them on.
Bare footed, shirtless and uncaring about covering the skin-pinching ugly scarring ruining an otherwise acceptable physique, he made it most of the way down the stairs before someone showed up. She looked like his grandmother, only younger. Her dress she wore like a uniform, crossed at the waist with a clean apron, and her hair was pulled back from a moderate-aged face into a snug bun. Which she should let out, despite the threads of gray, her honey-colored hair shone against clear, but hard, eyes. And they were staring straight up at him, arms crossed. Not at all expressing surprise, either. And not looking the most sympathetic.
Jai blinked, paused on the bottom step, confusion stammering out. Her expression stirred something of recognition, but he wasn't quite sure what it was.
"Uhh, why do I feel like I should be embarrassed right now?"
Before she could answer, the long rays of dawning light broke through. He saw cloth; or, well, bolts of fabric flung about. There were lots of scrubbing his skin raw by her hand. Lots of blushing; at least, coalescence of blotchy cheeks into discernible embarrassment. He remembered endeavors to fight her off not going well. You'd think a guy wouldn't be so horrified to let a woman have her way with him. But blood and ashes! Jai's fiercely warm cheeks broke into an apologetic smile.
"Um, right. Uhh."
Hana was a hard woman, he decided. Not so much as a flicker broke her impassivity. Jai scrubbed his hair and tried again to put together where he was. It was a pretty ordinary looking place. Curtains dangled before shutters, all three windows he could see of them. Four chairs neatly faced one another by a warm fire. Decently woven rugs were scattered across the wooden floor unfurled in parallel with the orientation of the room opening around the bottom of the stairs. Whitewashed walls cornered everything in. Grays mostly, but muted earthy colors showed up here and there. Oddly, around the plush comforts of an otherwise institutionalized home, a mandarin orange cabinet stuck out like rage in a porcelain shop. Jai looked it over. If the first color weren't enough of a headache, the trim was painted beet red and dusted gold feet curled toward the floor like the claws of iron basin bathtubs.
Light what an ugly cabinet. Expensive design though. Somebody had pretty good taste, then to buy Winterwood. Winterwood, his jaw fell.
"Blood and ashes!"
A thrill of panic instantly flushed every pore and he caught himself just before falling weak-kneed in shock. Things rushed backwards in time. The Healing, Araya, Lennox, the M'Hael. His eyes shot to a window, imaging the spread of white-capped gleaming buildings rising up around this little colonial-esque graystone house as he had seen from the view upstairs.
There was no fighting it then. His knees gave way and he sat on the bottom step of the stairs, palms slid from feeling around his face to make sure it was all screwed back together and ended up shoving his eyes into palm-sealed darkness.
"Light what did I do?"
He asked himself, fingers shoving across his hair. The lights of memory were distant lamps but as soon as he found one flickering and turned toward it, the details surrounding such moments snuffed themselves away.
Nythadri first. She was there, crystal clear and staring. Lips parted as though about to speak. Or maybe smile with that sensational all-too-knowing smirk of hers. Or jab him with the kind of sarcastic banter he enjoyed struggling to parry in like kind. Arad Doman came and went like a wave. Then the sound of a barely-deflected crossbow bolt whispered uncomfortably close to his ear. He walked all night in the rain soaking wet: miserable and trudging through Caemlyn.
Something told him to stop digging around with Caemlyn. Leave the rest of that delicious day out of reach. It was a day, right? A Week? How long had he been out?
The cold entrance of that crypt of unwanted memories was a hard one to look into. But, hey, a black hole of the past down there or a black sky overhead now? One seemed no worse than the other. He sighed.
"She was right."
It was a sad sort of resolution he told himself, but a necessary one. "It's not an excuse. The world deserves better."
He wished he were a better man, the kind that could be what was needed. Then he sought out the patiently watching Hana as though she might have an answer to the question he hadn't asked, an answer to anything, which was absurd, of course, nobody had all the answers.
Esenya was right about more than his quality as a person. Forget that of a forged Asha'man. He knew the caliber of men who died every few minutes. All without glory or proclamation of great deeds or ballad-worthy sacrifices. Their bodies often left to be lumps on the horizon until someone was able to check boots for names. Guilt squeezed his eyes shut, hoping his father's undeserved commendations of his youngest son's honor would go ahead and disappear with the rest of a dead House. Maybe someday, if the Dragon Reborn did as prophecy said, those fields would see green autumn days once more. The sort of land he believed the survivors of these last days deserved to be happy again. That is, mostly happy; the world will hopefully be purged, but likely to be harsher place by then.
Stand tall or shrink down and fade away. Uphold expectation, not walk lazily apathetic toward the end. No matter how lost a man wanted to find himself along the way. What were a few complaints in a pyramid of graver burdens? The world to their saviors. Nor an army to its redeemer? An army completely on its own, but that meant they wouldn't fight this bloody war with every strangled breath; at least, Jai wanted to. It just had to be done. That Sister was right. Bloody right. Burn her.
Really, this life was more straightforward than a guy could hope to live. All he had to do was wake up every day and show up. Sounded simple. Go where told, eat when told, aim at whatever was needed, crash that night and do it all over again. Hopefully be useful. Or lucky enough to get in some time at a dice table once in a while. Snag someone to pass long nights. All he had to do was hold on to that, long enough to stay useful. And not go insane, no matter how appealing. And make the end count; nothing else made a difference. Jai wasn't the guy in charge, thank the Light. He just needed to show up. And no man could be in two places at once. So something had to give.
Then a moment of worry darkened Jai's tentative resolve. He was gone again. Did the Black Tower know? Was there an assignment he was missing? Light, what if there was?
Hana was saying something. He pinched the back of his neck, rummaging through the last few minutes to figure out what she'd said: something about the kitchen, maybe; while still figuring out where he was suppose to be and wondering what would happen since he wasn't there.
She retreated and Jai shoved determination into a more permanent pocket to dig out at swift need, and shifted about for a while as though going to stand and follow her that way. Light curse Dex and his bloody gentleman's cane. It'd come in handy about then. In the end, he settled back on the step and wished he'd put on the coat after all. It was too much effort to ignore the bite in the air with the Oneness' comforts, but the seventeen grueling stairs between him and black sleeves might as well be half a world away.
"Uh, would it be okay if I ate here?"
He called after her.
Hana didn't even turn around.
He dragged himself up mid-throat scratching. The unbordered stubble was long enough now to send a man mad it itching. So push through the torture a few more days or go for a razor and find some sweet relief now? Eh, who was he kidding, shaving was way too much work.
He followed the way she went, finding himself in a kitchen of sorts until pulling out a square-backed chair at a round table and gratefully landed in it.
"I'suppose I owe you a thanks.."
His arms fell to his lap but he managed a sincere smile when she looked up from stirring something bubbling away. It smelled like stewed spicemeat. His mouth watered.
"So, uhh, thanks."
Grumbles erupted from his stomach loud enough that surely every frowning Aes Sedai in the Tower would have heard it. Fresh blood warmed his cheeks and Hana shook her head.
"Uhh."
He wasn't quite sure what to say. "It's Jana, right?"
"Hana, Asha'man,"
she corrected gently, accepting his apologetic nod then going back to chopping something green and leafy, tossing it in the stew.
He had no idea if she knew his name, nor really who she was at all, beyond being an obviously brilliant cook and a good reference whenever a guy wanted an embarrassing sponge bath. "Uhh. I'm Jai. Are you Araya's..,"
he cleared his throat awkwardly. "..wife?"
There was a pitcher of something beading down the sides with condensation sitting by itself on a counter. Cold milk, maybe? He was on the verge of channeling it over, but pondered whether she would care if he chugged it straight. There weren't any glasses sitting out, and women tended to be particular about strangers rummaging through their cabinets.
Only darkness shows you the light.