Homeward Bound

[Raffe]

Jai’s surprise was met with the rasp of Araya’s chuckle, a dry, bone-rattle thing. It had taken years to find the light side of damnation, but if he hadn’t come to terms with it he never would have earned either pin. He was a weapon so others didn’t have to be; he fought so others were able to turn aside. A tinker would die before he raised a blade, but few tinkers ever saw the chaos of the blightborder. It was a sacrifice he made in their stead, because he had to believe such purity would still exist after Tar’mon Gaidon. “‘Was’ is more accurate. I think Tinker and Asha’man are rather mutually exclusive, don’t you? Plus, I have a house.”
The words were not as heavy with regret as they might have been a decade ago, and the self-effacing humour provoked another easy laugh as he gestured the solid walls around them. If he noticed the burden of sympathy, he gave no sign.

“She is, to both questions.”
He didn’t quite understand what he was being asked at first, so his words were starkly factual. Family for one of the Tuatha’an was not as simple as shared blood, it was something bred from the ties of loyalty and rooted in camaraderie. Hana was family. She just… was. He had no qualms or hesitations in referring to her as that, even if she herself wore the mantle of housekeep as if to be anything else was improper. “We’re not related. I knew her husband.”
Something instinctual swallowed back the name he might have otherwise offered: Daeyl. A tingle of warning – maybe something in Jai’s expression or his intonation – suddenly prompted him to wonder where the question had come from in the first place, but he had scant time to contemplate it.

‘How do you do it?’ The meaning of that took a moment to sink in. He watched the hair-line fractures as they chinked about Jai a little at a time, until that blank duty shattered to something far more monstrous. He fell into his hands, like the pressure could dislodge all the thoughts from his skull. Whatever Araya had expected, this was not it. These were burdens that sunk heavy and deep, and once released they cut a vicious path. The accusations shivered past pain, but Araya weathered the tirade. Every single one was valid, and every single one stung like a fresh pink cut as it flew from Jai’s mouth. But Araya had no answers. He didn’t know quite how to explain it; that indulging his humanity was the only way he stopped himself from ripping apart. That the razor-edged risks were outweighed by the fear of being alone - or worse, of leaving this world lacking any shred of goodness. One man’s compromise with his own soul was another’s fall into nightmare. He had no advice to offer.

Araya’s expression fell grim. To the destruction death left behind, he was not ignorant. He was never likely to forget the way Hana had crumpled the day he came to deliver Daeyl’s effects. Her face had fallen into her hands much like Jai’s did now, and she’d sunk down into a desolate pool of black skirts, the mourning ribbons looped about her arms hanging long and still. He didn’t know what to do. He could only think that the folded uniform must have manifested the wrenched loss of the bond when she had felt him die, and as soon he thought it once he couldn’t stop. It beat in his head like a heartbeat: the loss, the pain. He didn’t know what to do. Though Hana’s eyes were pink, there were no tears, and when her pallid face looked up, the words from her lips demanded to know how Daeyl had died. ‘I knew the risks,’ she said that over and over in the hour he had stayed with her. ‘I knew the risks.’ And so did Araya.

Now Jai was pacing, eating up the space from wall to wall like a caged menagerie beast. Araya’s chin sunk into his fist, watching the back and forth, the twitchy scrubbing of hair, and wondered when Jai would realise he couldn’t go on like this. Devil’s compromise or duty’s blinding path – or something else entirely – but he had to make a decision, and it had to be one he could live with; self-destruction wasn’t an option – not till the Dark One rotted. Some men simply weren’t capable of extricating themselves from emotion; if Jai chose compromise, each fear he’d spat today would wait to haunt every moment of discontent, and even the happiest of lives had those. If he chose duty, Araya was beginning to realise, then the same fears would still be snatching at his ankles to drag him under in every moment of weakened resolve. And even the most stalwart soldier had moments of that, too. Fact was, the doubts never left. If Jai was going to be the best he could be for the Tower, for the Light, then he was going to have to find a way to exist without ripping apart at the seams.

When Jai stopped, eyes blazing a hollow taint, Araya stared back. Silent. Jai had no wife. His family was tucked safe in Tar Valon untouched by their abomination son. He would leave no widow, no mourning family: none of his fears would come to pass. So where did the vehemence come from? If he was walking the path of responsibility, detached from the trappings of an ordinary man’s life, burden though it may be, he had no right to fall victim to such a rage. Araya didn’t know Jai. Moments earlier, compliance had been dominant. Days before that, the rebelliousness of a drunken brawl had seen him face down in the dirt. Which one spoke more truth he was only now beginning to comprehend. He’s afraid of the potential harm he might inflict. It was exactly why Aes Sedai made their novices cast off old lives. But Asha’man were not Aes Sedai. The ironic thing was that Araya also knew what it was like to be the one left behind; to wonder if the last goodbye was the final goodbye. Memories of Arad Doman incited a hand to massage his brow; trying to capture words to explain the essence of feeling. Why he’d agreed to Trista’s request, though it left him in a knife-edged limbo. But the stab of questions barely gave him time to respond.

“Weapons, yes. But sentient weapons. Flesh and blood weapons. What else do you think I fight for if not for them?”
The words were heavy, truthful, and in Araya’s whisper-tones barely audible. But Jai was looking at his hands, lost – and then he was shaking his head, shutting down, walking away. Araya didn’t stop him reaching for the door, but he did speak, louder this time. “Jai."
He knew the man would stop; was aware that whatever fragility had allowed the deluge to flow, it was done now. "You should really speak to Hana.”