02-05-2023, 10:33 PM
One of the effects of his free emotions was that he tended to take others literally and at face value, and sometimes he even chose to rather than struggle with the discrepancies between what people said and what they meant. In this case he was a little unsure, mostly because Trista was so difficult to read, but he didn’t dwell too much on it.
“Of course.” Araya turned to survey the platform, one hand firmly on the edge to prevent himself from overbalancing, and didn’t appear to catch the smirk in her voice. He wrenched saidin under control and warmed the wood of ice and water so that they wouldn’t freeze their backsides off, then pulled himself up onto the severed trunk. He considered offering Trista a hand, but thought better of the gesture; she was more capable than him anyway, so he waited at the centre, sitting with his legs drawn up, arms lounging over them.
After Araya had pulled him self up, Trista closed the distance between herself and the trunk with two short strides and vaulted easily onto the makeshift platform. There was no showmanship to her fluid movements, just a raw grace that came from long years of practice and conditioning. She folded easily into a sitting position next to the Asha'man. For as fluid as her motions were, her still frame was surprisingly rigid, cross-legged and straight-backed. There was nothing special about the stiffness of her body; no signal she was trying to give. She was just unaccustomed to relaxing in public, and Araya was still contained in that category. In truth, there were very few who fell outside it.
Her eyes remained fix on the view, but her mind was elsewhere. She sat in silence for a short time. "How does a Tinker come to be Asha'man?" she asked finally. Her voice was unassuming, and lacked the irony another's voice might carry at such an absurd thought. The technical answer was that he had the ability to wield the Power and therefore would become Asha'man; however, if the Black Tower's regiment for its initiates was as strict as the White Tower's, it was possible that not all male channelers became Asha'man. Trista knew little of the dark Tower standing at the base of Dragonmount, but then, that was why she asked.
“The Wheel Weaves. And the Blight kills.” On a whim, he wove a wall of air about the trunk, then leaned over to rap it with his knuckles and show the gaidar it was there, though probably she would have felt the wind die down. He had left a slim gap leading to the branch they had climbed from, though she would be aware of that too; the wind had not completely ceased. The hole was for Trista’s benefit, lest she feel enclosed or trapped against her will; it was rare to find someone who trusted a channeler, let alone a male one, and certainly not one who was a stranger. It meant it was colder, but once the sun dipped he could use the Power again to remedy that should it become intolerable. The point of the invisible wall was not so much to act as a buffer to the wind anyway (though it did that too) as a reassurance that he would not accidentally roll off should he happen to fall asleep.
That done, Araya laid back, legs still bent at the knee to stop himself slipping down the uneven bark, and hands resting lightly clasped on his stomach. Despite that he could tell her posture was stiff beside him, he had no qualms with relaxing, in company unfamiliar or otherwise. “I used to do this a lot when I was younger. Spend the night outside, I mean. There’s a beautiful fearlessness about the Tuatha’an, for all that people call them cowards, and I wouldn’t have given that life up if I’d ever had a choice. Me and every other poor sod dragged to Dragonmount, I don’t doubt. But the Black Tower needs every weapon, whether they gain the pins or not.”
At night in his soldier bunk, he’d used to tell himself stories to preserve the innocent world of his youth, but that didn’t feel like the sort of thing he ought share with a stranger. It went without saying that the transition between pure pacifist and weapon had not been easy or quick, and for all intents and purposes, the scar across his throat had been the catalyst for him ever being raised beyond the rank of soldier. He remembered the heavy weight of the sword he had used to protect himself - the first he had ever touched - and the months of voicelessness that had followed. No voice, no stories, and no sanity; only the memory of the blade in his grasp and hot blood seeping through his fingers. It had all served to end his resolve, shake his beliefs, but it had taken a further push for him to ever earn the right to the title of Asha’man.
He tapped his throat. “This earned me the sword pin. It’s hard to turn the other cheek when your life’s pouring red through your fingers. Then, when I was…” he paused, and realised how irreverent he was of time. “Twenty-five, or around, I suppose, I was sent to the Blight.” He chuckled dryly. “There’s a reason why you don’t see the wagons north. Experiences like that change a man. I earned the dragon pin that year.” And lost his soul, if he was going to be morbid about it, but he’d long since accepted the bizarre nature of his predicament. For the most part, anyhow. The Creator knew that since acquiring the dragon pin, Araya had accepted the obscurest of missions and kept his head low. He had no thirst or desire for power or recognition. He was a weapon, but until Tarmon Gaidon, he didn’t have to act like it. Day to day he carried no weapons but saidin, and he owned but two; the sword that had nearly killed him, and the one that had saved him. “And that’s more-or-less how this Tinker became an Asha’man. Though if you’re asking whether or not I still believe in the Song, then the answer is yes, I still do." Or maybe he simply wanted to, but either way it shaped the man he was.
Araya watched the slowly darkening clouds as he spoke, and did not seem affected by his words as he had been by the view; he'd told this tale before, and no doubt would again. It was a common enough thing for others to wonder about him, particularly since he made no effort to hide his Tuatha'an roots.
He might’ve returned the question, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to. She’d offered the nature of her loss without prompting, but it was another thing entirely to speak about it, and while he didn't doubt she had come to terms with her past in some way (how else could she still even be alive?) he didn't feel the need to draw the whys and hows from her as an Aes Sedai might. A severed channeler becoming a gaidar; the one profession she could choose that was so intrinsically involved with all she had lost. It was as strange as a Tinker Asha'man.
The wind cut off suddenly, as opposed to slowly dying off, and Trista was immediately aware of the invisible wall. Living in the White Tower, one learned to recognize when the Power was being used even when it was not blatantly obvious. She was aware of the space as well, creating a slight draft and soft howl as the wind gusted by.
She listened to his story without physical reaction. The tale was more of an answer than she expected. For all it was spoken in his harsh voice, she enjoyed it. Her eyes stared unfocused into the distance as she listened, but when he mentioned his age at gaining the pins she watched him from the edge of her vision. She wondered idly how many years his smooth face hid; how long ago these events had passed. Not too long, she thought. A smile like his would probably not survive long under the will of the Towers. There were Aes Sedai with gray in their hair that smiled, but not like that. Devastation sought out those most determined to keep such a smile, and shredded them mercilessly for all their effort.
The Aes Sedai and her (former)Asha'man-Warder in charge of Trista's Accepted of the Sword Mission were a perfect example, and Araya's mention of the Blight merged easily with the Gaidar's path of thought. From the Dark One's disease-bitten land grew the most awful of creatures, and the few scars Trista had lay at the no-longer-attached claws of such beasts.
"A terrible place, the Blight," she agreed. "As an Accepted of the Sword my company was sent on assignment there. We were attacked by Darkhounds before even crossing the Mountains of Dhoom," she chuckled then, though she could not have said why it amused her if he asked. "If only I could say that was the worst of it. The worms earned that prestige," wretched creatures, gigantic and pulsing; rather slimey as well.
"I was..." she paused, a tiny line forming between her eyebrows as she tried to remember her age then. "Well, I am twenty-five now. I must have been twenty, maybe?" She shook her head a little, her lips forming a wry smile. "Time runs together for me, sometimes. Surrounded by the ageless, I suppose it is not surprising," her voice took on a sardonic note at that last. Just as she could not touch that torturous light, it could not reach her. Not as anything other than a silent taunt, anyway. Unbonded, she would age the same as any other nonchanneler. Judging from her current progress, she would likely grow old and die
before a skirt decided found her suitable. A bittersweet relief, that. But then, Trista knew that in reality unbonded Gaidin and Gaidar were naught but meat shields(more so than bonded Warders, that is), and were rarely given the chance to grow old. Face death enough times and he will win, regardless of skill. "Luckily, growing old isn't really a choice," she laughed outright that time, clearly not disappointed.
For all the cruel realities of the Blight, Araya managed to savour fond memories of even that time. The fear, blood and sweat was offset by the striking camaraderie he had experienced of the Borderland people. Their spirit and determination to fight and die for each other, for their nation, and for all that lay blithely south, it was unfathomable, and yet there was something so admirable about it. “If it’s worth the prize, it’s worth the fight. What’s one soul among thousands?” It had been that sentiment that had finally caused him to stray from the extremist stance of the Tuatha’an, rather than the absolute necessity to not only defend himself from Shadowspawn, but kill for his right to live. If a Saldeaen named Kaeon had not barked that at him the night he’d arrived, feeling sorry for himself in the company barracks, he would’ve been dead on the first day. Thus Araya would bear steel so that his people did not have to, but he would not do it blindly, and he would not do it carelessly. Where he could he would lay down his arms, but the Dark One and his filth, after all, would not listen to reason or be humbled by an enemy that took the moral high ground.
He listened to Trista quietly, not wishing to interrupt what was probably the longest string of words he had heard her put together. Her voice carried little emotional attachment to what she said, but that only made the smallest inflection seem to carry the greatest weight.
“Twenty-five? You’re just a pup!” He laughed, though truth be told he was not a great deal older. It was hard to tell his exact age; Araya would have had a young face even without his channeler’s blood, and while he would not become ageless like the Aes Sedai, the ageing process was slowed dramatically. He found it somewhat amusing that she was as negligent of time as he, though something of the sardonic lilt to her words sobered him.
He was not quite sure what to say to her; expressed condolences would be meaningless and he had not one even vaguely similar experience to draw on in sympathy; it would be insulting to even try and assume he could know what it was like to live with day in and day out. Part of him wanted to say that she was better off freed from the responsibility, but it seemed insensitive and blinkered on his part. Who was he to decide that her life would have been better or worse if she had become Aes Sedai? He might try to argue that life did not begin and end with saidar and the White Tower as the Aes Sedai proposed, but if he could choose between his people and the power now that he had tasted saidin, would he really choose his people?
There wasn’t anything he could say. He knew that, and probably she did too. In the end he was silent for a while.
He had assumed somewhere in the back of his mind that she was unbonded, else she would have had duties and an Aes Sedai to return to this evening. Perhaps the sisters feared her, the incarnate of every channeler’s greatest fear, or perhaps a bias of tradition towards gaidin left her overlooked. Either way it was a loss on their part; one had only to watch the formidable grace with which she moved to realise she was a deadly warrior. It appeared she had been gaidar for as long as five years. Would the Aes Sedai really let her talent and willingness go to waste? He was not sure he condoned the ethos behind Warders, but it was not his way to judge another’s decision. Trista appeared to live for duty. What more was required of a Warder?
The White Tower’s apparently casual attitude towards human shields had a tendency to irk him, perhaps most of all because the bonded warrior was essentially tied in body and mind. The Asha’man had no such bizarre tradition; the majority did not bond at all, but for those that did it was an intimate offering more eternal than spoken vows and marriage bands, not an exchange of services. Perhaps it was simply his romantic, idealist nature to think that. Men and women would not travel the breadth of the world to join the White Tower’s elite if it were such an abominable idea, and though the Tower’s trainee ranks were lacking right now, it was not for want of the willing.
He sat up, his shoulder against hers, and while she looked out at the view, he looked at her. Though nothing had changed in her demeanour, the words she spoke were uncomfortable to hear. Bitter acceptance rang through the humour. He might’ve laughed along with her and brushed aside emotion so raw it cut to the bone - it was none of his business, after all - but he couldn’t let himself do it, brief acquaintance or no.
“If you wanted to die you’d be on the Blightborder, not here.” It was a strange person who lived in the heart of all they had lost. For all that Araya might love his people, he would never return to them. He wondered briefly if it was acceptance she was looking for from the Tower, from the Aes Sedai. To be a part of that from which she had been excluded. “Is dying young really how you see your life spanning out?”
Trista turned her face to look at him, only to find him already watching her with brilliant sapphire orbs. She regarded him silently for a short time, her own eyes lidded and flickering with fondness. Where some put a great deal of thought into their every actions, Trista's were just natural reactions to her environment. She had no agenda beyond existing; she was a weapon to be wielded, though she was not as blind to the sisters as the sword is to the hand. Still, to explain her actions required a self-awareness she was not practiced with.
"No one living genuinely wants to die," she stated with as much certainty as if she had said the sky was blue. Death was a surprisingly simple thing to achieve if that was what you really wanted, after all. "When I could not trust myself with my life I gave it to the Tower." Intense training was not so bad when you had nothing else; one of the reasons for her young age at receiving the cloak. "So long as an Aes Sedai does not want me, I belong to the Tower. I can be used without fear of repercussions should I die." The explanation was one explained early on in her training. The Warders made certain the initiates understood the need to be bonded, and used it as motivation for the trainees to either strive to be the best or leave and resume a normal life. Trista had not needed motivation. The constant distraction a severe regiment provided was more than enough.
"If I am skilled enough, I will survive." And that was all there really was to it. She was likely to survive longer than most did. No one who wore a color-shifting cloak lacked even above-average ability, but Trista was by far one of the most skilled in the unbonded lot. A mutual distrust between her and the sisters was the obstacle that kept her from being chosen. An obstacle that, despite her best efforts, she could not muster a want to overcome.
She uncrossed her legs, and pulled one up to her chest while the other stretched out. She leaned back a little on one hand, her other arm draped over the bent knee in front of her. There was something calming about this Asha'man. Something she trusted, despite the suspicion ground into her by years of living with the Aes Sedai.
She laughed again, the smooth sound that hummed from her throat. "The skir-" she swallowed the word as it tried to come out. She was surprised. Firstly, because she had come dangerously close to letting the pet name slip out. Secondly, because she had not expected to speak out loud. "The Aes Sedai," she said, deciding she may as well finish, "they make me uneasy." Her smile was apologetic; she meant no disrespect towards the sisters. Her eyes met his, resolve standing out in their blood-violet darkness, "But I will die for them."
He didn't agree that any death could have no repercussions at all, although he understood the specific repercussions she meant. It hardly seemed justified to pick and choose like that. She made the unbonded warriors sound like cattle; nothing but a commodity, rare perhaps in skill, but still entirely expendable. All truth told, though, the Asha'man were little more than fodder themselves. When Tarmon Gaidon came, they would be on the front lines; first to fight and first to die. As much as her attitude towards life and death - and more specifically her own life and death - alarmed him, he saw reflections of himself there. Somewhere along the path of the inevitable, he had made a conscious decision to earn the pins, and with it his life had become the property of the Black Tower as much as hers was of the White.
His lips flickered as she stalled over her words; not in amusement at her as much as recognition that she had obviously relaxed somewhat. By his expression, it was clear no apology was necessary. He wasn't sure why she might assume he'd take offence except that such notions must be ingrained as part of her training. The Light forbid that one should speak badly of an Aes Sedai, after all. Araya saved reverence for those he found deserving, not that he would intentionally anger a sister to her face. That would just be foolish; they were still women, after all, and the wrath of any woman was unrivalled. Let alone one that could channel. He'd learned that lesson before.
It wasn't surprising that Trista found herself uneasy around the Aes Sedai; most people were, and the gaidar probably had more cause than most people. It might make her career an odd one, but she had already explained her reasons for pursuing it. Even so, her words made her sound rather resigned to being unwanted - to not having bonded, nor have prospects for it. Clearly there was an issue on her end also; limited as his knowledge of the inner-workings of the Tower was, he knew enough to realise that if she truly desired a Bond, she would not simply be waiting for it. That apparent apathy, though, was suddenly offset by something quite fierce in her eyes, as though she were daring him to claim contrary.
"I don't doubt it,” he answered, then grinned. “And I also don’t doubt who’d win in a match of blades.” It most certainly wouldn’t be him if it were a contest of skill alone. He pulled his gaze away to watch as the sun spread long red fingers across the sky. “They can’t all make you uneasy, though, Trista. The Aes Sedai. You speak fine to me, and I’m practically a stranger. Is it the bond itself that bothers you?” He wondered if she would be able to feel a stronger sense of saidar through another woman - or perhaps if she feared it - then abruptly shook his head. “Nevermind. Perhaps that is too personal.”
As the sun slowly sank into the horizon, Trista looked into the sky above it thoughtfully. She was aware of how odd her situation was, but had never actually considered it. A Gaidar unconcerned with being bonded may as well go sell herself as mercenary, or find a life outside the Tower that suited her better. She had family still; a mother and father who would probably appreciate knowing one of their children survived. She might even have other siblings, considering how young her mother was when the Aes Sedai came. But losing the Power, coupled with the abuse she had endured afterward, washed away who she had been. She remembered her past self - a laughing, smiling child like any other - the way she remembered Jain Farstrider in his lore. An impersonal character, who no longer existed regardless of whether or not he once had.
She was apathetic to the whole cause, in truth. She would train the Tower's youth and serve the Tower until she was chosen by an Aes Sedai. If that never happened, oh well. She was useful, and they could ask no more of her.
His question drew her gaze momentarily, and she shook her head as he tried to wave it off immediately thereafter. "There are some I would choose to keep company with over others, but they are all Aes Sedai." She hesitated, unsure of how to explain, or where to start. The beginning was logical, but she did not wish him to think her immodest or dramatic; unloading such a story on someone she hardly knew.
"My brother, Forrest, was a wilder. An Aes Sedai took him, and returned for me when I came of age. Unfortunately, that sister only served the Tower under the conditions her true master designated. I discovered later that her task was to lower the number of initiates at the Towers," Trista stopped, looking back at Araya to gauge his reaction. The Asha'man should be aware of the existence of the Black Ajah. Surely the Aes Sedai did not keep the facade up with even their brothers. Still, it was a dangerous topic, even if she did not out right say it.
"I survived," her voice flickered, barely. She no longer regretted that survival, but it was a powerful memory. The remembrance was only of the regret, however; her subconscious had long developed reflexes that kept most of those memories at bay. As for Forrest, she could only assume he had not made it.
"And have forgiven them," she continued, "but it is a hard thing to forget." Trista had experienced a bond, once, during her test for the medallion; aside from that, she knew only what she had been taught. But no, it was not the bond that tweaked her nerves so.
The smile faded from his face, and his jaw tensed.
The Black Ajah was probably the worst kept secret of the Tower, but the Aes Sedai would not admit to it as much as the Asha’man would not confess that there were those among their own ranks who fell to the darkness. It was absurd to think that channelers could not succumb to the same temptations as ordinary men; if anything, the pull of attraction was stronger, which was perhaps why the denial was so vehement. That refusal to acknowledge the Black Ajah only served the Dark One, in Araya’s opinion; to make something nameless was only to bolster the fear that surrounded it, but it was not for him to decide. The Aes Sedai had customs and tradition to uphold, and since the Asha’man were no better (and were little more than pups trailing behind their mother besides), he didn’t really have room to stance his disagreement. Aside from that, Araya had no intention of getting involved in the politics of either Tower, for all the strength of some of his opinions. He was quite content to take the path less travelled on his own, and Light willing remain unnoticed by those who might deign to bring him back into line.
Forrest. For all that he suddenly wished he could give her some good news amidst the bleak story of her life, he didn’t recognise the name, but since she didn’t ask he did not say. He did not know all the men of the Black Tower, after all, and it had been a number of years since he had even set foot on its grounds. Part of him wanted to offer her some measure of comfort - or at the least an apology for bringing the topic up, for all that she had waved away his retraction of the question - but neither surfaced beyond thought. One did not have to make a large leap from Aes Sedai of the Black Ajah to a severed channeler. It was a disturbing notion, and one that kept him silent for a while after.
“Then you’re far more forgiving than I would have been,” he said eventually. There was something disheartening in realising that for the truth; where once he would have turned the other cheek to practically any offence, he was a different man now. "Did you ever find her?" He meant punishment, retribution, revenge, but couldn't bring himself to say it. He shouldn't even have thoughts like that, but he found himself incensed.
Watching the transitions of Araya's face in the orange light of sundown, Trista decided she much preferred his smile. She drew pleasure from his expressiveness without discrimination, but his lighter moods were far more rhythmic.
She frowned inwardly. Rhythmic? The word was oddly specific, but suited the sensation. The feeling of listening to a favorite song, but without melody. A tickle at the edge of the void hinted at recognition, but was gone before she could grasp it.
His voice brought her focus back to his eyes; now possessed by an unusual gravity. She felt a fondness rise in her, the like brought on when an elder tried to explain something to a youth that could not quite understand. For all he was older, their respective dispositions placed her in the stereotype of jaded experience, and him in that of naive youth. Of course, looking at him now, one might not think so.
"I have never looked, and she never came back," her shoulder brushed his with a slight shrug. She was not afraid, or vengeful. There was no room for vengeance with the duties she carried. "A novice who had been abducted was responsible for my escape, and with her return and my arrival, I imagine Meire knew herself found out." The woman was either dead or long gone. That Trista could speak the wretched woman's name so freely was a measure of how far she had come. Or of how much she had suppressed. It was hard to tell, sometimes.
Recently, Trista had assisted in the arrest of another of Meire's like. A much more powerful one, in fact, who had brought Akari and the Amyrlin Seat a great deal of trouble. She did not mention the occasion to Araya, lest it be taken as a boast. Trista had gleaned some satisfaction from the woman's defeat, but it was not enough to validate the loss of Akari. The battle was won, but the casualties high. So it often seemed to be, with the Towers.
"What of your lot, Araya?" She asked, recalling the original subject. "Do Asha'man ever bond?"
“Of course.” Araya turned to survey the platform, one hand firmly on the edge to prevent himself from overbalancing, and didn’t appear to catch the smirk in her voice. He wrenched saidin under control and warmed the wood of ice and water so that they wouldn’t freeze their backsides off, then pulled himself up onto the severed trunk. He considered offering Trista a hand, but thought better of the gesture; she was more capable than him anyway, so he waited at the centre, sitting with his legs drawn up, arms lounging over them.
After Araya had pulled him self up, Trista closed the distance between herself and the trunk with two short strides and vaulted easily onto the makeshift platform. There was no showmanship to her fluid movements, just a raw grace that came from long years of practice and conditioning. She folded easily into a sitting position next to the Asha'man. For as fluid as her motions were, her still frame was surprisingly rigid, cross-legged and straight-backed. There was nothing special about the stiffness of her body; no signal she was trying to give. She was just unaccustomed to relaxing in public, and Araya was still contained in that category. In truth, there were very few who fell outside it.
Her eyes remained fix on the view, but her mind was elsewhere. She sat in silence for a short time. "How does a Tinker come to be Asha'man?" she asked finally. Her voice was unassuming, and lacked the irony another's voice might carry at such an absurd thought. The technical answer was that he had the ability to wield the Power and therefore would become Asha'man; however, if the Black Tower's regiment for its initiates was as strict as the White Tower's, it was possible that not all male channelers became Asha'man. Trista knew little of the dark Tower standing at the base of Dragonmount, but then, that was why she asked.
“The Wheel Weaves. And the Blight kills.” On a whim, he wove a wall of air about the trunk, then leaned over to rap it with his knuckles and show the gaidar it was there, though probably she would have felt the wind die down. He had left a slim gap leading to the branch they had climbed from, though she would be aware of that too; the wind had not completely ceased. The hole was for Trista’s benefit, lest she feel enclosed or trapped against her will; it was rare to find someone who trusted a channeler, let alone a male one, and certainly not one who was a stranger. It meant it was colder, but once the sun dipped he could use the Power again to remedy that should it become intolerable. The point of the invisible wall was not so much to act as a buffer to the wind anyway (though it did that too) as a reassurance that he would not accidentally roll off should he happen to fall asleep.
That done, Araya laid back, legs still bent at the knee to stop himself slipping down the uneven bark, and hands resting lightly clasped on his stomach. Despite that he could tell her posture was stiff beside him, he had no qualms with relaxing, in company unfamiliar or otherwise. “I used to do this a lot when I was younger. Spend the night outside, I mean. There’s a beautiful fearlessness about the Tuatha’an, for all that people call them cowards, and I wouldn’t have given that life up if I’d ever had a choice. Me and every other poor sod dragged to Dragonmount, I don’t doubt. But the Black Tower needs every weapon, whether they gain the pins or not.”
At night in his soldier bunk, he’d used to tell himself stories to preserve the innocent world of his youth, but that didn’t feel like the sort of thing he ought share with a stranger. It went without saying that the transition between pure pacifist and weapon had not been easy or quick, and for all intents and purposes, the scar across his throat had been the catalyst for him ever being raised beyond the rank of soldier. He remembered the heavy weight of the sword he had used to protect himself - the first he had ever touched - and the months of voicelessness that had followed. No voice, no stories, and no sanity; only the memory of the blade in his grasp and hot blood seeping through his fingers. It had all served to end his resolve, shake his beliefs, but it had taken a further push for him to ever earn the right to the title of Asha’man.
He tapped his throat. “This earned me the sword pin. It’s hard to turn the other cheek when your life’s pouring red through your fingers. Then, when I was…” he paused, and realised how irreverent he was of time. “Twenty-five, or around, I suppose, I was sent to the Blight.” He chuckled dryly. “There’s a reason why you don’t see the wagons north. Experiences like that change a man. I earned the dragon pin that year.” And lost his soul, if he was going to be morbid about it, but he’d long since accepted the bizarre nature of his predicament. For the most part, anyhow. The Creator knew that since acquiring the dragon pin, Araya had accepted the obscurest of missions and kept his head low. He had no thirst or desire for power or recognition. He was a weapon, but until Tarmon Gaidon, he didn’t have to act like it. Day to day he carried no weapons but saidin, and he owned but two; the sword that had nearly killed him, and the one that had saved him. “And that’s more-or-less how this Tinker became an Asha’man. Though if you’re asking whether or not I still believe in the Song, then the answer is yes, I still do." Or maybe he simply wanted to, but either way it shaped the man he was.
Araya watched the slowly darkening clouds as he spoke, and did not seem affected by his words as he had been by the view; he'd told this tale before, and no doubt would again. It was a common enough thing for others to wonder about him, particularly since he made no effort to hide his Tuatha'an roots.
He might’ve returned the question, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to. She’d offered the nature of her loss without prompting, but it was another thing entirely to speak about it, and while he didn't doubt she had come to terms with her past in some way (how else could she still even be alive?) he didn't feel the need to draw the whys and hows from her as an Aes Sedai might. A severed channeler becoming a gaidar; the one profession she could choose that was so intrinsically involved with all she had lost. It was as strange as a Tinker Asha'man.
The wind cut off suddenly, as opposed to slowly dying off, and Trista was immediately aware of the invisible wall. Living in the White Tower, one learned to recognize when the Power was being used even when it was not blatantly obvious. She was aware of the space as well, creating a slight draft and soft howl as the wind gusted by.
She listened to his story without physical reaction. The tale was more of an answer than she expected. For all it was spoken in his harsh voice, she enjoyed it. Her eyes stared unfocused into the distance as she listened, but when he mentioned his age at gaining the pins she watched him from the edge of her vision. She wondered idly how many years his smooth face hid; how long ago these events had passed. Not too long, she thought. A smile like his would probably not survive long under the will of the Towers. There were Aes Sedai with gray in their hair that smiled, but not like that. Devastation sought out those most determined to keep such a smile, and shredded them mercilessly for all their effort.
The Aes Sedai and her (former)Asha'man-Warder in charge of Trista's Accepted of the Sword Mission were a perfect example, and Araya's mention of the Blight merged easily with the Gaidar's path of thought. From the Dark One's disease-bitten land grew the most awful of creatures, and the few scars Trista had lay at the no-longer-attached claws of such beasts.
"A terrible place, the Blight," she agreed. "As an Accepted of the Sword my company was sent on assignment there. We were attacked by Darkhounds before even crossing the Mountains of Dhoom," she chuckled then, though she could not have said why it amused her if he asked. "If only I could say that was the worst of it. The worms earned that prestige," wretched creatures, gigantic and pulsing; rather slimey as well.
"I was..." she paused, a tiny line forming between her eyebrows as she tried to remember her age then. "Well, I am twenty-five now. I must have been twenty, maybe?" She shook her head a little, her lips forming a wry smile. "Time runs together for me, sometimes. Surrounded by the ageless, I suppose it is not surprising," her voice took on a sardonic note at that last. Just as she could not touch that torturous light, it could not reach her. Not as anything other than a silent taunt, anyway. Unbonded, she would age the same as any other nonchanneler. Judging from her current progress, she would likely grow old and die
before a skirt decided found her suitable. A bittersweet relief, that. But then, Trista knew that in reality unbonded Gaidin and Gaidar were naught but meat shields(more so than bonded Warders, that is), and were rarely given the chance to grow old. Face death enough times and he will win, regardless of skill. "Luckily, growing old isn't really a choice," she laughed outright that time, clearly not disappointed.
For all the cruel realities of the Blight, Araya managed to savour fond memories of even that time. The fear, blood and sweat was offset by the striking camaraderie he had experienced of the Borderland people. Their spirit and determination to fight and die for each other, for their nation, and for all that lay blithely south, it was unfathomable, and yet there was something so admirable about it. “If it’s worth the prize, it’s worth the fight. What’s one soul among thousands?” It had been that sentiment that had finally caused him to stray from the extremist stance of the Tuatha’an, rather than the absolute necessity to not only defend himself from Shadowspawn, but kill for his right to live. If a Saldeaen named Kaeon had not barked that at him the night he’d arrived, feeling sorry for himself in the company barracks, he would’ve been dead on the first day. Thus Araya would bear steel so that his people did not have to, but he would not do it blindly, and he would not do it carelessly. Where he could he would lay down his arms, but the Dark One and his filth, after all, would not listen to reason or be humbled by an enemy that took the moral high ground.
He listened to Trista quietly, not wishing to interrupt what was probably the longest string of words he had heard her put together. Her voice carried little emotional attachment to what she said, but that only made the smallest inflection seem to carry the greatest weight.
“Twenty-five? You’re just a pup!” He laughed, though truth be told he was not a great deal older. It was hard to tell his exact age; Araya would have had a young face even without his channeler’s blood, and while he would not become ageless like the Aes Sedai, the ageing process was slowed dramatically. He found it somewhat amusing that she was as negligent of time as he, though something of the sardonic lilt to her words sobered him.
He was not quite sure what to say to her; expressed condolences would be meaningless and he had not one even vaguely similar experience to draw on in sympathy; it would be insulting to even try and assume he could know what it was like to live with day in and day out. Part of him wanted to say that she was better off freed from the responsibility, but it seemed insensitive and blinkered on his part. Who was he to decide that her life would have been better or worse if she had become Aes Sedai? He might try to argue that life did not begin and end with saidar and the White Tower as the Aes Sedai proposed, but if he could choose between his people and the power now that he had tasted saidin, would he really choose his people?
There wasn’t anything he could say. He knew that, and probably she did too. In the end he was silent for a while.
He had assumed somewhere in the back of his mind that she was unbonded, else she would have had duties and an Aes Sedai to return to this evening. Perhaps the sisters feared her, the incarnate of every channeler’s greatest fear, or perhaps a bias of tradition towards gaidin left her overlooked. Either way it was a loss on their part; one had only to watch the formidable grace with which she moved to realise she was a deadly warrior. It appeared she had been gaidar for as long as five years. Would the Aes Sedai really let her talent and willingness go to waste? He was not sure he condoned the ethos behind Warders, but it was not his way to judge another’s decision. Trista appeared to live for duty. What more was required of a Warder?
The White Tower’s apparently casual attitude towards human shields had a tendency to irk him, perhaps most of all because the bonded warrior was essentially tied in body and mind. The Asha’man had no such bizarre tradition; the majority did not bond at all, but for those that did it was an intimate offering more eternal than spoken vows and marriage bands, not an exchange of services. Perhaps it was simply his romantic, idealist nature to think that. Men and women would not travel the breadth of the world to join the White Tower’s elite if it were such an abominable idea, and though the Tower’s trainee ranks were lacking right now, it was not for want of the willing.
He sat up, his shoulder against hers, and while she looked out at the view, he looked at her. Though nothing had changed in her demeanour, the words she spoke were uncomfortable to hear. Bitter acceptance rang through the humour. He might’ve laughed along with her and brushed aside emotion so raw it cut to the bone - it was none of his business, after all - but he couldn’t let himself do it, brief acquaintance or no.
“If you wanted to die you’d be on the Blightborder, not here.” It was a strange person who lived in the heart of all they had lost. For all that Araya might love his people, he would never return to them. He wondered briefly if it was acceptance she was looking for from the Tower, from the Aes Sedai. To be a part of that from which she had been excluded. “Is dying young really how you see your life spanning out?”
Trista turned her face to look at him, only to find him already watching her with brilliant sapphire orbs. She regarded him silently for a short time, her own eyes lidded and flickering with fondness. Where some put a great deal of thought into their every actions, Trista's were just natural reactions to her environment. She had no agenda beyond existing; she was a weapon to be wielded, though she was not as blind to the sisters as the sword is to the hand. Still, to explain her actions required a self-awareness she was not practiced with.
"No one living genuinely wants to die," she stated with as much certainty as if she had said the sky was blue. Death was a surprisingly simple thing to achieve if that was what you really wanted, after all. "When I could not trust myself with my life I gave it to the Tower." Intense training was not so bad when you had nothing else; one of the reasons for her young age at receiving the cloak. "So long as an Aes Sedai does not want me, I belong to the Tower. I can be used without fear of repercussions should I die." The explanation was one explained early on in her training. The Warders made certain the initiates understood the need to be bonded, and used it as motivation for the trainees to either strive to be the best or leave and resume a normal life. Trista had not needed motivation. The constant distraction a severe regiment provided was more than enough.
"If I am skilled enough, I will survive." And that was all there really was to it. She was likely to survive longer than most did. No one who wore a color-shifting cloak lacked even above-average ability, but Trista was by far one of the most skilled in the unbonded lot. A mutual distrust between her and the sisters was the obstacle that kept her from being chosen. An obstacle that, despite her best efforts, she could not muster a want to overcome.
She uncrossed her legs, and pulled one up to her chest while the other stretched out. She leaned back a little on one hand, her other arm draped over the bent knee in front of her. There was something calming about this Asha'man. Something she trusted, despite the suspicion ground into her by years of living with the Aes Sedai.
She laughed again, the smooth sound that hummed from her throat. "The skir-" she swallowed the word as it tried to come out. She was surprised. Firstly, because she had come dangerously close to letting the pet name slip out. Secondly, because she had not expected to speak out loud. "The Aes Sedai," she said, deciding she may as well finish, "they make me uneasy." Her smile was apologetic; she meant no disrespect towards the sisters. Her eyes met his, resolve standing out in their blood-violet darkness, "But I will die for them."
He didn't agree that any death could have no repercussions at all, although he understood the specific repercussions she meant. It hardly seemed justified to pick and choose like that. She made the unbonded warriors sound like cattle; nothing but a commodity, rare perhaps in skill, but still entirely expendable. All truth told, though, the Asha'man were little more than fodder themselves. When Tarmon Gaidon came, they would be on the front lines; first to fight and first to die. As much as her attitude towards life and death - and more specifically her own life and death - alarmed him, he saw reflections of himself there. Somewhere along the path of the inevitable, he had made a conscious decision to earn the pins, and with it his life had become the property of the Black Tower as much as hers was of the White.
His lips flickered as she stalled over her words; not in amusement at her as much as recognition that she had obviously relaxed somewhat. By his expression, it was clear no apology was necessary. He wasn't sure why she might assume he'd take offence except that such notions must be ingrained as part of her training. The Light forbid that one should speak badly of an Aes Sedai, after all. Araya saved reverence for those he found deserving, not that he would intentionally anger a sister to her face. That would just be foolish; they were still women, after all, and the wrath of any woman was unrivalled. Let alone one that could channel. He'd learned that lesson before.
It wasn't surprising that Trista found herself uneasy around the Aes Sedai; most people were, and the gaidar probably had more cause than most people. It might make her career an odd one, but she had already explained her reasons for pursuing it. Even so, her words made her sound rather resigned to being unwanted - to not having bonded, nor have prospects for it. Clearly there was an issue on her end also; limited as his knowledge of the inner-workings of the Tower was, he knew enough to realise that if she truly desired a Bond, she would not simply be waiting for it. That apparent apathy, though, was suddenly offset by something quite fierce in her eyes, as though she were daring him to claim contrary.
"I don't doubt it,” he answered, then grinned. “And I also don’t doubt who’d win in a match of blades.” It most certainly wouldn’t be him if it were a contest of skill alone. He pulled his gaze away to watch as the sun spread long red fingers across the sky. “They can’t all make you uneasy, though, Trista. The Aes Sedai. You speak fine to me, and I’m practically a stranger. Is it the bond itself that bothers you?” He wondered if she would be able to feel a stronger sense of saidar through another woman - or perhaps if she feared it - then abruptly shook his head. “Nevermind. Perhaps that is too personal.”
As the sun slowly sank into the horizon, Trista looked into the sky above it thoughtfully. She was aware of how odd her situation was, but had never actually considered it. A Gaidar unconcerned with being bonded may as well go sell herself as mercenary, or find a life outside the Tower that suited her better. She had family still; a mother and father who would probably appreciate knowing one of their children survived. She might even have other siblings, considering how young her mother was when the Aes Sedai came. But losing the Power, coupled with the abuse she had endured afterward, washed away who she had been. She remembered her past self - a laughing, smiling child like any other - the way she remembered Jain Farstrider in his lore. An impersonal character, who no longer existed regardless of whether or not he once had.
She was apathetic to the whole cause, in truth. She would train the Tower's youth and serve the Tower until she was chosen by an Aes Sedai. If that never happened, oh well. She was useful, and they could ask no more of her.
His question drew her gaze momentarily, and she shook her head as he tried to wave it off immediately thereafter. "There are some I would choose to keep company with over others, but they are all Aes Sedai." She hesitated, unsure of how to explain, or where to start. The beginning was logical, but she did not wish him to think her immodest or dramatic; unloading such a story on someone she hardly knew.
"My brother, Forrest, was a wilder. An Aes Sedai took him, and returned for me when I came of age. Unfortunately, that sister only served the Tower under the conditions her true master designated. I discovered later that her task was to lower the number of initiates at the Towers," Trista stopped, looking back at Araya to gauge his reaction. The Asha'man should be aware of the existence of the Black Ajah. Surely the Aes Sedai did not keep the facade up with even their brothers. Still, it was a dangerous topic, even if she did not out right say it.
"I survived," her voice flickered, barely. She no longer regretted that survival, but it was a powerful memory. The remembrance was only of the regret, however; her subconscious had long developed reflexes that kept most of those memories at bay. As for Forrest, she could only assume he had not made it.
"And have forgiven them," she continued, "but it is a hard thing to forget." Trista had experienced a bond, once, during her test for the medallion; aside from that, she knew only what she had been taught. But no, it was not the bond that tweaked her nerves so.
The smile faded from his face, and his jaw tensed.
The Black Ajah was probably the worst kept secret of the Tower, but the Aes Sedai would not admit to it as much as the Asha’man would not confess that there were those among their own ranks who fell to the darkness. It was absurd to think that channelers could not succumb to the same temptations as ordinary men; if anything, the pull of attraction was stronger, which was perhaps why the denial was so vehement. That refusal to acknowledge the Black Ajah only served the Dark One, in Araya’s opinion; to make something nameless was only to bolster the fear that surrounded it, but it was not for him to decide. The Aes Sedai had customs and tradition to uphold, and since the Asha’man were no better (and were little more than pups trailing behind their mother besides), he didn’t really have room to stance his disagreement. Aside from that, Araya had no intention of getting involved in the politics of either Tower, for all the strength of some of his opinions. He was quite content to take the path less travelled on his own, and Light willing remain unnoticed by those who might deign to bring him back into line.
Forrest. For all that he suddenly wished he could give her some good news amidst the bleak story of her life, he didn’t recognise the name, but since she didn’t ask he did not say. He did not know all the men of the Black Tower, after all, and it had been a number of years since he had even set foot on its grounds. Part of him wanted to offer her some measure of comfort - or at the least an apology for bringing the topic up, for all that she had waved away his retraction of the question - but neither surfaced beyond thought. One did not have to make a large leap from Aes Sedai of the Black Ajah to a severed channeler. It was a disturbing notion, and one that kept him silent for a while after.
“Then you’re far more forgiving than I would have been,” he said eventually. There was something disheartening in realising that for the truth; where once he would have turned the other cheek to practically any offence, he was a different man now. "Did you ever find her?" He meant punishment, retribution, revenge, but couldn't bring himself to say it. He shouldn't even have thoughts like that, but he found himself incensed.
Watching the transitions of Araya's face in the orange light of sundown, Trista decided she much preferred his smile. She drew pleasure from his expressiveness without discrimination, but his lighter moods were far more rhythmic.
She frowned inwardly. Rhythmic? The word was oddly specific, but suited the sensation. The feeling of listening to a favorite song, but without melody. A tickle at the edge of the void hinted at recognition, but was gone before she could grasp it.
His voice brought her focus back to his eyes; now possessed by an unusual gravity. She felt a fondness rise in her, the like brought on when an elder tried to explain something to a youth that could not quite understand. For all he was older, their respective dispositions placed her in the stereotype of jaded experience, and him in that of naive youth. Of course, looking at him now, one might not think so.
"I have never looked, and she never came back," her shoulder brushed his with a slight shrug. She was not afraid, or vengeful. There was no room for vengeance with the duties she carried. "A novice who had been abducted was responsible for my escape, and with her return and my arrival, I imagine Meire knew herself found out." The woman was either dead or long gone. That Trista could speak the wretched woman's name so freely was a measure of how far she had come. Or of how much she had suppressed. It was hard to tell, sometimes.
Recently, Trista had assisted in the arrest of another of Meire's like. A much more powerful one, in fact, who had brought Akari and the Amyrlin Seat a great deal of trouble. She did not mention the occasion to Araya, lest it be taken as a boast. Trista had gleaned some satisfaction from the woman's defeat, but it was not enough to validate the loss of Akari. The battle was won, but the casualties high. So it often seemed to be, with the Towers.
"What of your lot, Araya?" She asked, recalling the original subject. "Do Asha'man ever bond?"
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