Respite & Resolve

[Adrian Kane]

Arikan was normally amused by the stubborness of Aes Sedai. There was a certain level of practical enjoyment in goading their Black Ajah sisters. Dangling their competitive levels of dominion over each other always riled them to a perfect level of annoyance. The same affair fell flat with these two. Maybe it was their allegiance to the Light. Maybe Talin perceived his threats to be empty. He should kill them all. It would be as easy as a blink of the eye. His gaze slid across each of them. The Aes Sedai first. They would be the greater nuisance. Talin was a Yellow, and unlikely to put up a fight other than try to heal him to death. There were Yellows turned to the Black that harbored fascinating skills to torture, maim and murder. They were nothing compared to the Lady of Pain, of course, but unless Talin had foreswore her oaths in exchange for darker ones, she was ignorant of the nuances of painful dealings. 

He could imagine her body limp on the ground, eyes empty and face bruised to pulp. Her sister was of an unknown Ajah, but if she was akin to Talin, she was likely to also be of the Yellow, but Arikan did not live so long by making assumptions. It was best to leave her undetermined for now. She was a pretty thing. Far more so than Talin, whose skinny face and whining voice irritated Arikan to no end. It would a waste, but beauty surrounded in the shell of an enemy was no better. Slicing her throat would do it, and shut her up in the process. After that, the warders would need to be handled. They could be strung up with air until he was ready to deal with each. A more sadistic Dreadlord would draw and quarter them, but Arikan always had better things to do and there would be no survivors to teach a lesson. Leaving impressions behind for the living to spread the tale was the only reason to explain such depravity. Well, usually. Once in a while he truly enjoyed the slow kill, but those events were personal. These four, despite all their spurning, had not taken things so personal as that.

He wanted to kill them all. A regular death would do. Swiftly and get it over without so much as dirtying his cape.

Yet he knew in his heart that he needed Talin. He needed this deal to get to Elsae and then the rest of them. After that, he could kill them. He could find other resources. Ones that didn’t know his plan. Especially the girl warder. His gaze slid to her narrow face. Of the four, she was the most annoying. Yes, that would work. Get Elsae then betray the rest. It was a good idea. He couldn’t let them walk away.

Except, suddenly, a sort of wall built up around his chest. It tightened the more he imagined their lifeless bodies strewn about the room. He did want to kill them all? They hadn’t outright betrayed him. Talin even kept her word, so much as she explained. There was no obvious reason to kill them other than their disrespect. Had they truly disrespected him? They kept their distance. They did not bow and scrape and drool all over themselves, but they each displayed a satisfying sense of fear. He should want to kill them all. He should just do it.

He found that he gripped the edge of the chair so tight, the wood was creaking beneath his palm. The threats from Talin’s companion would normally amuse him. Normally, Arikan would rise to the occasion and ask her to give it her best try.

Instead, his lack of action to kill them all frightened him. His gaze flicked back to Talin like this was all her doing. He didn’t truly believe she had inflicted some Compulsion upon him. But when he moved, it was with grace of a flash of lightning, even if he wasn’t as physically powerful as he once was, he was still the blademaster. He channeled as he moved, holding the warders away before they did something stupid and he actually killed them all on instinct.

He grabbed her wrist and yanked her to her feet. The power fluttered winds as he channeled almost as if he wasn’t able to control it, but the thing that lashed out wasn’t saidin, it was his emotions. His gaze was hot, rimmed with anger and misunderstanding.
“What is wrong with me, Talin. Why don’t I —“ his voice trailed away with the demand, shaking her arm as if it might dislodge the truth he didn’t want to face.

“Oh calm down,” he said to the others and shoved her aside. The power didn’t release them, but he wanted each to acknowledge he didn’t actually harm Talin before releasing anyone.

Talin was fine when he let her go. Instead of leaving bodies in his wake, Arikan departed to the window to peer into the world beyond. The power slowly released the hounds, but he trusted the Yellow to hold back their bite as he kept his back turned to them.

He pushed his emotions aside and tried to remember some of what Talin’s companion said about Elsae. She mentioned a disappearance and impersonation. It made no sense. Elsae was Aes Sedai when he saw her in the dream that was not a dream. He looked over his shoulder, anger seemingly dispelled by confusion.
“She’s not Aes Sedai?” his gaze slid from Talin’s companion to Talin herself who confirmed the conclusion with a bare nod.

Some of Talin’s machinations made more sense, then, but Arikan would puzzle over the meaning of what he saw. He turned his attentions back to the other Sister.
“What do they call you?” he asked, tired of thinking of her as Talin’s companion. “You’ll bring her by sundown. This day. I am tired of waiting.”

“And Talin, while your friend is on her errand. You and I have a few things to discuss regarding this new condition of mine,” he snapped at Talin and resumed his peerage upon the view, outburst contained once more.

[Natalie Grey]

The dig of his fingers into the chair’s arm did not suggest he was taking it well, but if Nythadri was aware of the building pressure, she could not have predicted what happened next.

She barely saw him move. Saidar flooded her on startled reflex – she was determined, at the least, not to die meekly – but what was witnessed stalled action, and a sticky, surprised sort of horror paralysed at what she saw. Power buffeted like the threat of a cyclone, whipping dark tendrils of hair from her shoulders, but it was only like the incandescent heat of standing too close to a raging flame, not a threat to be countered. He physically ragged at Talin. Not a dog worrying already limp prey in its jaws, but with something far more desperate. Light. The glow of the power never even lit up around the Yellow, though her eyes were wide and glassy and afraid. It only lasted seconds. And then he dropped her.

Nythadri did not move. Her heart was pounding, but only her warder would know it.

She watched the former dreadlord warily as he retreated to the window, but it was Talin who received her blunt, accusatory stare afterwards. Arikan was broken. He was not a weapon to be handled with care and finesse lest he cut the hand, he was a flaming rabid dog, and not one that could be unleashed safely in the hope he bit the right enemy. Her first thought was madness, but he would have been protected from it given his allegiances. Was this why the Dark cut him loose? For such a brilliantly strategic mind to be reduced to such volcanic ash and rubble was a crueller punishment than death, she was certain.

Light but she wanted it to be madness, anyway. Even if it meant Talin had done naught but tied a noose around her neck in bringing her here. Certainly it made for an easier judgement. The alternative pricked Nythadri’s skin with discomfort, and she wasn’t sure it was a puzzle she wanted to solve.

Because the look on his face…

But it wasn’t the time to contemplate, not even to wonder why any of them were still alive. Because he needs us, was the most obvious answer, and for now it would do.

Talin rather looked like she desired to detach the arm Arikan had shaken. She had no glib comment in riposte, and in fact she said nothing at all. There were pink spots of horrified colour to her pale cheeks, and she carefully smoothed a tendril of hair back neatly behind her ear as she composed herself. Kaori had moved quietly nearer the moment he was able, but did not touch her. His expression was utterly flat, like he had already succumbed bitterly to his powerlessness in the game they played at his Aes Sedai’s behest. She couldn’t be hurt then.

Meanwhile Elly lurched forward when the bindings finally eased, as though she had been furiously straining the entire time. Her hand gripped the hilt of her sword like she might use the momentum to try and lop the head right from Arikan’s shoulders, consequences be damned, but she only steadied her balance with a growl. Her jaw clenched. The scars on her face looked stark white against the colour of her anger, and she did not relinquish possession of her sword, though it remained silent in its sheath. It was clear she was not counting the blessings of life, but furious at the indignities so casually bestowed in his disrespect of Talin. Watching her, Nythadri realised it was going to be an inconvenient hate.

“They call me lots of things, I imagine. Many of them unsavoury,” she replied dryly, and finally stood. Elly glanced back at the sound of her voice. By the weight of the woman’s stare right now, she was sure of a veritable litany marching through the warder’s head alone. Because not all that roiling anger was aimed at the man framed in Illian’s morning light. At least some of it was stored against the path Nythadri had committed them to, moments before. Why does he need to know? said the glare. Which, actually, she happened to agree with. She didn’t want to share a piece of herself, even so simple a disclosure as her name. But her own reluctance made it a necessary pain. Self-spite for fear she refused to owe him. That, and a more poignant understanding. Treat a man like a monster, and it’s what he became. Treat a monster like a monster, and it’s what he stayed.

“Nythadri.”

No honorific. It seemed pointless to insist on respect he would only ignore, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of discerning whether or not that irked her. His precepts of Aes Sedai were clearly long ago mired, and some battles she wasn’t interested in waging. She took a step closer, only to practically bruise herself on the swift extension of Elly’s arm barring her way. The scowl arrowed down said don’t you dare. For a moment Nythadri was surprised at finding herself so blocked, and then irritation flared into coldness. Enough that Elly begrudgingly took possession of her own limbs. Nythadri ignored her, but stayed where she was.

“She was there too, you know.” Elsae, that was, when he had made the Tower’s walls drip with blood and death; the first ever to breach them. They had been in the same coterie of novices, bubbled and protected from the war’s brunt until breach and desperation had them running frantic missives with the rest amidst the horror and chaos. No one had been spared that duty, in the end. “I’ll return within three, as fast as I may. This will be done properly, or not at all. It is all in the aid of strategy, is it not.”

His own explanation could serve as a chain for his patience. Arikan could hardly argue against it. But she did not want to give him leave to consider the fragile bridge of trust between them, or how he might strengthen it in ways she did not want to imagine. She glanced at her sister as she withdrew, jaw tight.

[[we’ll have to handwave the timelines a bit. I dunno how long ago the battle was supposed to be. Elsae and Nythadri did actually rp as novices during it though]]

[Natalie Grey]

Talin Sedai, Yellow Ajah

Talin didn’t enjoy the emotional outburst. In fact she much preferred Arikan when he was cold and calculating, even when she imagined he might be contemplating the exact details of her demise to pinhead precision. At least that was cognition. Experience told her he was unlikely to act while she had value, and she knew better than anyone that the things one thought in the privacy of one’s own mind should not be allowed to cast such shadows as good and evil about their person. In short, he could think whatever he liked. Talin didn’t care or judge.

Neither did she enjoy her own emotional response; the trill-like speed of her own heart, or the way she felt herself tremble. It was all so physical.

She could still feel the brand of his hand. Her brain felt like it had been blended in her skull for how violently he had shook her. The shock was dissipating but the memory of that touch would not. She detested it, not because of what he was or what he had been, and not because she had been afraid at how he had lost all semblance of control (and it did scare her). It was his fear. His desperation. And the emotional switch in his head that had sent him tumbling in her direction like a child demanding solace from its mother.

Well, not tumbling. That was unfair. He was still diminished from what she imagined his peak physical limit must be, but he was more than adequately recovered from the snivelling mess of a man he had been when she’d discovered him. And muscle had an impressive memory. As a Yellow, Talin would know. She was proud of this restoration.

But the nauseous point remained. And it seemed likely he was infected with something she could not cure.

It was not a shock, exactly, but it was a disappointment she had adjusted her expectations for back when he had first demanded Elsae. Though certainly she could have wished he’d not been so visceral with his final proof. Talin was not a White, and had little interest in the murky caverns of minds she did not understand, even one so uniquely depraved and snarled up as his. If Arikan was plagued by some kind of feelings, she had little idea what to tell him. But since he did indeed appear to have them, and Talin took her self-appointed duties towards his care seriously, she had prepared herself quite thoroughly. If they proved enough to incapacitate him… well, Talin would not allow her investment to be for nothing. It was how they had come to this moment.

In the aftermath he appeared to be recalibrating, and she was content to allow him the time. She watched his turned back and tried to remember how to hang her arm naturally at her side, wishing he had not touched her, wishing she could not still feel it.

Kaori stood near, like the hounds who’d run with the wagons of her youth. She liked him for that.

Nythadri was clearly angry, or so Talin presumed from her hard look. It had been a lot for her to take in, but the woman worked best under exacting pressure, so it had been the only way to elicit the necessary responses. It was something Talin had learned about her during their training, though only once they had started to practise the 100 weaves together in earnest. The mask of her cold expression was almost always impeccable – so much so that once, before Talin had really known her, she had wondered from afar if they were utterly like-minded. It wasn’t the case. Like peeling back the skin of a cadaver to study the organs within, there was a lot of Nythadri’s inner-workings under that surface. As well as incentive, such pressure also provoked the kind of emotional response that made her simple to manipulate. Talin mapped the paths she might take with great care. She knew a great deal about Nythadri’s life.

Some things had gone very wrong in the execution, but some things hadn’t. A plan too rigid was just as ineffective as one born of spontaneity.

In the silence after Nythadri left, Talin found herself considering that this was all the fault of the spurned tea. It was a chamomile infusion, meant to inspire calm and balance, and she had instructed the servants herself on its preparation. But it was not just about the blend of herbs. Rituals themselves had importance. They defined life outside of more obvious rules, like law and punishment. Rituals created a balance of expectation – like pleasant discourse, and bonds of camaraderie. A sip of tea between talk of kidnap and treason softened the blow. Taking tea with a dreadlord was so absurd it forced the mind to set it aside.

And Arikan had ruined it.

She delicately retook her seat, hands threaded on her lap. It seemed to help. And she was tall for a woman, often misidentified for Aiel: both things that men in particular generally disliked. Some tractability would soothe.

“Okay,” she said eventually. “Tell me your symptoms.”

[Adrian Kane]

They were all there. Yes, he caught on to the theme. One battle that they didn’t even fight in, and all the little girls were traumatized. Those children in the White Tower were too pampered. Too protected. Even these pathetic warders that followed the Aes Sedai around were green around the neck. Talk to him after dozens of wars and brutalizing countless battles. Talk of terror when the horrors of the Blight were unleashed. The children of villages along the blightborder were a hundred times more hardened than the novices that fetched water and ran messages through the streets of Tar Valon.

“Good that Elsae was there. You three should all know exactly who you’re dealing with,” he reminded. “It wasn’t the Chosen leading an army of horrors. It wasn’t Demandred's strength that opened portals you three do not even know are possible. It was me who commanded legions of myrddraal, endless waves of trollocs and walls of dreadlords. Can you even fathom what it takes to earn such a position in service to the Great Lord? Can you even fathom a war council with a dozen Myrddraal? To pitch a General's tent close enough to control the demons but not so close as to constantly smell the spoils of war bubbling away? To command and keep that much power? Tell me your battle-hardened tales of woe again. Then remember who it is you’re sharing in tea time. How desperate you must be to even consider an alliance with me. The White Tower must truly be crumbling from within.” The oration was delivered without even baring a turn from the window. Whatever outburst from before was carefully bottled back up. The only release was that of vile and venom. Threat and memories. 

Nythadri left with her warderess, but the open and closing of the door was only a slight release to the pressure that built within the room. He continued to hold onto the One Power, but only to enhance his sights to watch their silhouettes reflected in the window through which he gazed. Talin’s question probed callously factual. Reminded him of that first encounter. When she encountered a dying wretch of a man but just before she realized who he was. That hut in the Tairen countryside was sure to become Arikan’s tomb if the Yellow hadn’t followed word of mouth to his location. When she did, she found a shell clearly subjected to physical tortures. He was bare more than a skeleton, having shriveled to survive on the metabolism of his own muscle. The gory oozing of infected cuts dripped pus and putrid. The nails on his hands and feet were plucked away. Holes opened pits in his jaw where teeth once occupied. Burns and pincers plied at the most tender of flesh beneath his short-clothes. Sockets swung in and out of their joints.

But above it all, the furious gaze of vengeance flamed his gaze when Talin found him on his death bed. It was hate that kept him alive. Hatred and the strongest of will to use the One Power.

The mask of that same gaze was lifted from time to time. It did her well to remember his temper was contained by willpower, and to not test it farther than she was willing to risk. Yet as he dwelled, they were all still alive, but the semblance of trust was still not going to be extended to drinking her bloody tea.

He was silent for a long while, but when he chose to speak, it was with as much unfeeling as Talin’s question. His hands were clasped behind his back by then, although hidden by the lay of the cape. If she could see them, she would find them stable and unmoving. He was a mountain again, impenetrable and unconquerable. His voice was that of stone, and the release of emotion from before was buried so deep not even the whims of the Chosen’s probes would have located it.

“Something is in my head. It’s making me reconsider what should be natural,” he said, knowing it was an indecipherable explanation. “I’d accuse you of Compulsion if I thought you had the knowledge or strength,” he added on spite. But then, after another moment, his shoulders released a breath and he added a longer confession.

“It’s like a noose has been wrapped around my throat for my entire life, as long as I can remember, beckoning me into a darkness I was eager to plunge. One misstep and I would fall to my doom, but I reveled in executing the bidding of my Master. I was overjoyed by His attentions, even at the worst of His malice, because it was beautiful and terrible and my soul yearned to serve Him. Then, when the Chosen were released from the prison at Shayol Ghul, the Great Lord cast my leash aside for others He deemed more worthy. I served Demandred instead of the Great Lord Himself, and while I loathed them both for it, I was desperate for the Great Lord’s approval. And I obeyed like a pathetic child yearning for the attentions of a father that has cast him off. My entire existence has been in that service until shortly before you found me. And now, what pushed me to grovel for the Great Lord’s favor is gone. I will see Him destroyed. I will see all of them destroyed. I don’t care by who, myself or the Creator if one exists. I will see them destroyed,” he said, voice ceased with abrupt closure.

He turned then, finding the plug of her eyes. The fire within his own that she first beheld in Tear remained, emboldened now by fresh reconciliation. “But this voice," he seethed angrily. "It’s like a whisper that makes me pause. That voice kept me from killing all of you when I should have done it out of sheer spite for the way you talked to me,” he glanced at the warder, making sure that he wasn’t about to rush him for talking about it.

“I wanted to kill you, but I didn’t. Maybe I still will, but that’s what is wrong with me, Talin. What weakness has infected me? ”

[Natalie Grey]

Talin Sedai, Yellow Ajah

“No one is likely to forget who you are,” she said eventually. Not with the way he beat them around the head with it every five minutes, anyway, but she wondered if it was legacy that bothered him. Fading into ignominy after a lifetime of service – or worse, fading into nothing, forgotten. The way he spoke about the Forsaken she suspected the latter. Clearly he feared the obscurity that came with replacement.

Though Talin collected the useful bits in his surprisingly open confession, she was mostly bored with hearing about it. Arikan called himself a child bereft of a father’s love but did not seem to realise the squalling he was doing about a life lived in power. Choice was immaterial – he’d never known the lack until it was gifted back, it seemed. So he had been spurned. So he had suffered unspeakable tortures. He had delivered worse, and the balance of the scales was inconsequential – or so he should hope, for if there really was a Creator, judgement was unlikely to tip in Arikan’s favour.

Raqual would have a field day with this one's mind – the White might even have been able to look past who he was in order to study him. But it would not have been to fix him.

For the moment Talin watched him steadily. It was easier when he faced away. Arikan controlled himself with (usually) exceptional comportment, but he was like a chained and hungry beast. The hatred in him positively burned sometimes, and when the chains of it rattled Talin did not like it. It wasn’t aimed at her, usually, but it made her want to scrub her skin when he looked at her with eyes so rimmed with emotion.

“Must you pour so much salt on your own wounds, Arikan?” She sighed a little. “You really must stop calling him that. He is the Dark One, remember. You served the Forsaken. Holding on to old nomenclature will only make these habits harder to break.” He would not like that, though it would do him good to listen for once. But she did not pause to allow him time to pontificate more than he already had; he was always easier to manage when he felt in control, which meant answering questions promptly when he posed them. “What makes you call it weakness? Clearly, by your own conviction, this voice does not tell you not to kill the Dark One. Since I am apparently fortunate enough to still have the breath in my lungs with which to point that fact out to you, I cannot see a problem.”

Her attention was steady. If the bluntness of his admission concerned or alarmed her, it did not show. Kaori did not move either, though Arikan glanced for his reaction. But words were pretty baubles, and in this case she imagined he only meant to comfort himself with reminders of control. He could, if he wanted. If it soothed him like whiskey on a screaming babe's gums then she was content to let it.

When she spoke next, it was at least a little softer.

“You will remember the time it took to Heal your body. It was slow. It was painful. Healing often is, in all its forms. I will Delve you if you wish it, but I suspect to find nothing of note. You are not infected, Arikan. The infection has been removed. The weakness you complain of is only the pain of healing. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Talin was curious to see if he recognised the affliction. She couldn't imagine what it must actually feel like, but one did not need to be able to empathise to understand what it was he described. She didn't bemoan the lack of her own whisper, but she did think it was an easier way to live – to have something internal that told you the differences between right and wrong, at least insofar as accepted society believed. The irony of course was that if Talin had such concerns about guilt or conscience, Arikan would not be sat here now.

She had asked herself once if she truly minded which side ultimately won the war. She chose the Light because she already knew its rules, making it a decision of efficiency and convenience. None of it had much to do with morality or belief, though she was too wise to admit to it to another soul. If she could force Arikan to the path she wished him to take, she would, and do so without guilt. Truthfully it seemed no different a thing just because it was done in service to the Dark. But she wondered how one came to spend an entire life that way. Did they really waste the effort to Turn children? It could not be so because Arikan was not dead behind the eyes, as they said the Turned were. He was anything but that. That was a curious revelation.

"Of course, healing is often swifter with aid," she added.

---

“Do you really have nothing to say?”

“I have plenty to say, Aes Sedai, but not in public halls.”

“If he meant to kill us, he would have done so. I believe that is the truest thing he did say.” And perhaps the truest of his actions, too, though it was not a particularly comfortable thought. Had Talin done something to him? If Arikan’s power were contained somehow she was not sure how useful it made him for the path ahead. And Talin would know that – she would not have put a bet on a hobbled horse, especially not one she had incapacitated herself. It might be a measure of control placed upon him, or a spark of madness that made him untenable, or something else entirely. She wanted to ring the Yellow’s neck for answers, but waiting around for Arikan to release her would be a foolish pause. Time was not something they had to waste.

Elly kept a belligerent half-pace stride ahead, and Nythadri was tempted to halt completely in irritation, but it would only strike a match against dry tinder – and she needed to court at least a little of the woman’s trust and affability.

Her warder did not like this.

She was going to like the rest of the plan even less.

*

Elly began pacing once they returned to the sanctuary of their shared room, and Nythadri realised with some dismay that she must first spare the time to smooth her warder’s feelings into something that did not feel quite so fraught between them. The echo of it though their bond bit at her thoughts almost as much as the physical restlessness frayed her patience, but she owed that much to a bondmate – and especially one received in such a way. She could not concentrate anyway, and she would need to be able to trust the woman in the days ahead. Clearly Elly pieced together enough of what Arikan was. Nythadri could hardly fault her reaction. But this connection was too new, and too untested. If Elly couldn’t reconcile, what then?

So she waited. There was not much to see from the window beyond barren hillside and scrubby, stubborn undergrowth. It mattered little, for Nythadri was not seeing; she was remembering.

Arikan had moved fast. It was unlikely he was not armed at the meeting; not given the way he had waxed on about contingency and trust, and the boast of his long, long life. Even without saidin he could have hurt Talin before Kaori reacted. The power had indeed rippled out from him like waves, but beyond its disturbing touch, he had done nothing with it but protected himself from retaliation.

A rabid dog bites without question. It is not afraid. It holds nothing back.

His had not been a reaction stoked by paranoia; she had seen the chains of that beast, and knew the white flare of its eye. Jai’s insecurities needed the coax of time and steady ground to remedy; they might be panic-soaked and volatile, but never happened without a trigger. If power leaked out of him, neither was it to so benign an end as fluttery winds. It was to an end of pink fluttery entrails. Though even then, she could not say it had been a lack of control – Jai did control it. And he would have done worse if the shield hadn’t snapped in place that day.

Arikan had not reacted rashly because he wrongly sensed betrayal, or because he was offended; if such had been the case the warning enacted had been a poor one, for it had only made him look foolishly out of control. So he did not reign back because he needed them to deliver Elsae, as she would prefer to believe.

But it could not be a lapse of rationale either; if it was, they would all simply be dead. That was an irrefutable truth. He had not attacked at all. He had chosen not to.

There had been signs of his thinned patience, though; his white-knuckled grip on the chair’s arm, the creaking of the wood beneath the pressure. Unless it was not patience that unravelled, she realised. Had he been listening at all? He had barely acknowledged his flawed understanding of who Elsae was, and not until some moments after his retreat. Which meant the battle prior had been waged all within, not prompted by anything that had been said. It had been an internal realisation. Something personal. Something new.

What is wrong with me, he’d asked. A new condition. Light.

A darkfriend kills without compunction. He is not hesitant.

Nythadri shivered a little, and turned away, wondering suddenly if somewhere in the bloody fort he was still looking out over the same view. She’d known she’d seen fear, but the idea of humanity in a dreadlord was not compelling, and she did not want to truly consider it. She did not believe he had had a change of heart, nor would he even be permitted to do so after the oaths he had made and the atrocities he had committed. Talin intimated she had Healed him, though, and there were signs about his person of a long recovery. Who had reduced him in such a way? What had the injury been? She did not know, and she did not have the Yellow to question as she’d have liked. Whatever it was, this change had been forced.

But it was unlikely to be madness.

The only mad one here was her, for what she was considering.

Elly had been talking for some time; sober musings on how difficult Arikan might be to kill, and the ways they might do it. Her feral stride had calmed, and she stood closer now. Her fingers curled on the windowsill, then fisted in frustration. Her jaw was locked tight, framed by the dark slash of her hair. Nythadri finally intervened.

“We’re not going to kill him, Elly.”

“A darkfriend. Nay, a flaming dreadlord, Nythadri. There is no redemption for the things he has done, and it’s an insult to let him live. Even if we die in the trying.”

“There is no redemption,” she agreed. She tried to bury the weight of a sigh, but after a moment let the control lapse; she did not need it here. A wall would not help, and Elly was not an enemy. It seemed too much trust to ask a woman of the Borderlands, especially one who claimed Malkier in her blood. Every scar was hard won. She came to the Tower to fight the Dark, not to treat with it. Pale eyes met dark, but Nythadri had promised not to offer release every time their path grew grim. It was likely Elly felt it between them anyway, but Nythadri did not ask.

“Whatever he claims to be now, it makes no difference. You must see that! He has breathed lies for so long how could he possibly know the difference? If he does this truly at all, then it is for himself and no other, and he’ll cause more damage than he could ever possibly be worth in his pursuit of vengeance. Cold vengeance at best, Aes Sedai, and nothing for right and honour and goodness. The Light does not need him. The Dragon does not need him. And we, we certainly do not need him.” Elly turned. Her fist planted angrily beside Nythadri’s head, blocking the view. She leaned close and in earnest. “Raise the Tower against him,” she pleaded. “We know where he will be. What other chance will there be like this? It’s justice.”

It was worse because she was right. Though it was not like Nythadri had not considered it. She’d made no overt commitments when she’d agreed to Arikan’s demands. Her hands were tied, but only by ropes of her making. Thirteen sisters, though, and none of them could be Black, lest the entire plan come to ruin and Arikan declare himself an enemy in truth. It would become but another dire catastrophe for the crumbling Tower to address before Tarmon Gaidon descended. Light that comment had stung. It couldn’t be true, and yet Talin was not rash; she would not have left without good reason, and not with what she had stolen. Of course, it was not something Arikan needed to know. But it was something Nythadri did intend to discern for herself.

“I hear you,” she replied. “And I will never ask you to hold your tongue. But I will remind you to whom you made your oaths, Eleanore. You don’t have to trust him. You have to trust me.”

For a moment Elly’s expression was eerie still. It felt like twisting a buried blade, using the reminder of oaths so recently forged in flames to ensure obedience, but in the next breath Elly had knelt, hand on heart. A muscle still twitched in her jaw. She looked fierce rather than contrite, and angry still; Nythadri could feel it. She felt like cursing for the formality, for the furious loyalty, and for the guilt that burrowed deep in her own chest to witness it.

Elly would like Jai. Blood and bloody ashes, the two would probably be an indomitable force of annoyance.

After a beat Nythadri knelt alongside, knowing the woman would hate how casually she destroyed the ritual even before the irritation sprang up in the connection between them. A smirk twitched her lips, unapologetic for the irreverence. She did not want a relationship forged in such severity. In fact she did not think she could stand it. “I’m sorry for how you ended up with me, El. You deserve better than I can give. But you are stuck with me. For many years to come, I hope.” She waited for the woman to look up, to see that she meant every word. She needed to see it as well as feel it. Because Nythadri was not done testing their bond. “There is more we must agree. If any of this will work, I need to be able to move through the Tower freely, and for that I must make a neat stitch in the gaping hole of my disappearance. I can explain my absence, but I cannot so easily explain you. Not yet. Maylis was sure you would return north. I will be going south. We would have had no cause or opportunity to meet on the road.”

“You intend to leave me behind.” The words were stiff.

“I’m asking you to be discreet,” she corrected.

For a moment there was silence. Then, finally, the tension eased a little from Elly’s shoulders. Though not by much. She sighed sharply. “What do you mean, south?”

Three days, Nythadri had said. Arikan might be willing to burn up every advantage he currently had in order to bring himself the one thing he apparently wanted, but Nythadri would not be so blindly rash with the expenditure. After Elsae, what then? She did not intend to be collateral to his selfish gains, but neither did she plan to let him wriggle from the hook and hope he in the meantime delivered on his word, as Talin apparently did. The vow Arikan made was the only thing supporting this tenuous alliance, and she had meant what she said: she would ensure he saw it through.

It meant thinking ahead, and the best misdirections were couched in ample truth. Should someone in the Tower happen to ask where she had been, she could hardly prevaricate around Illian of all places.

Still, she paused on the precipice of the next decision. There were two options she might use to explain the rashness of her absence from the Tower. None of her Ajah sisters would fault a flight to claim a bondmate everyone was sure she would claim; it would be gossip, not scandal. Explaining the lack would not be tricky, but finding the will to leave in the first place might. If anyone tested the chains to duty, it was Jai. That only left the crumpled paper received on the night of her Raising. Not a place she had thought or desire to return. But it was the sensible choice, for more reasons than one.

The decision was made, then, though it did not fill her with gladness.

[[Nythadri continues here]]

[Adrian Kane]

Forsaken.

He tested the word in his own mind. Words wielded power, but that particular term was only one he wielded when subterfuge required it. When he lived the life of a Black Tower Asha’man, the word was tossed about carelessly. Forsaken and Fades not Chosen and Myddraal. It was a masquerade of a light-abiding, Dragon-serving shell of himself. A facade. One that worked well. A M’Hael was assassinated and the Black Tower splintered. But for every time he spoke of the Forsaken, another word echoed in his mind. Chosen. Almost like they could hear him otherwise. The Chosen took poorly to derogatory terms. Arikan was wise enough to never need be taught that lesson. Although these days he understood their sensitivity.

The echo was quiet now. A disquieting silence. Forsaken only because Talin urged him to exchange the word burned in his brain. He wasn’t sure which was worse. Trading the words or taking Talin's advice. Never mind about the Great Lord of the Dark. His real name bounced around Arikan’s mind next, as did the memory of that one touch of the Great Lord’s own power.

“Did you know there is another Power?” he asked, just wanting to lord information over her since she had just done the same to him. “What does the White Tower teach you about the One Power? Where it comes from?”

Strength was proof of favor. Why the True Power came to him when he escaped Lythia’s dungeon remained a mystery. It remained elusive since then, but it was enough to break the shield and flee. Did the Great Lord think to curry his allegiance now that it was free to give? Maybe Chosen was the right word after all. Maybe it was Arikan who was chosen to be the Great Lord’s next vessel? Nae’blis be damned. In their world, they kept what they killed. If a Chosen was too weak to avoid their own demise, they weren’t worthy of the honor to serve Him, and they were replaced.

Is that what the Great Lord wanted? To court Arikan to higher ranks than previously considered? To thin the herd of his aging forces?

When his plan succeeded, and all the Chosen were eliminated, the Dragon struck at the heart of the Darkness, Arikan would be the one that rose from the ashes. A new lord. A new type of ruler. Something to consider. Something he never really thought was within reach for himself. He always served a greater master.

“No infection,” he reaffirmed her diagnosis thoughtfully. It wasn’t madness, either, but relief did not flow free as blood. The spoils of healing was an apt comparison, but he knew it was more than that. This was a refinement of the mind, and for all the tragedies of the body, there had been nothing of Talin to heal inside his head. She had the look of being ready to attempt it anyway.

“But delve me without my permission, and I will take your hand,” he glared at her. “A channeler can still channel without their limbs. Although I hear it the pain can make it harder,” his voice was cool. It wasn’t an exaggeration.

He sat after the warning was issued. Even if the voice inside hesitated in mindless killing, it didn’t seem to mind maiming.
“Tell me about this Aes Sedai you brought. You two are close enough for you to coerce her into accompanying you. I want to know everything. You owe me.”

[Natalie Grey]

Talin Sedai, Yellow Ajah

“The True Source is the driving force of creation,” she said sharply. “Anything else is incomparable.” That seemed an easy enough distinction to her, particularly as a healer. If the world must be dismantled before it could be rebuilt, so be it, but there was little question in her mind as to the superiority one function had over the other. She was not interested in philosophising with him, however -- or in hearing his self-aggrandising claims -- and her lips sealed tight after. He could lecture if he wished, but it seemed an utterly wasteful use of both time and breath.

The question tripped like a ward in her mind, though. She was not convinced that he truly understood the magnitude of his diagnosis and its ramifications yet, but she perceived that he did probably realise that there were choices to be made. Presumably regular darkfriends were plagued by consciences of their own, but either they decided not to listen to them, else placed other priorities in higher esteem. Nothing about Arikan suggested he would forgive so easily what had been done to him by choosing the same paths that robbed him of so much. But power lured in dangerous ways. It could not entirely be ruled out that his thirst for revenge might become too tightly braided with ambition.

He had spent a lifetime in thrall. Eventually he would realise he could ignore that whisper.

Then they would see what he became.

She watched him quietly for a moment, still and wary. She knew better than most how habit and convenience informed the soul, and Arikan had already sermonised quite endlessly on his dark knowledge and preferences. Whatever he chose for himself Talin did not ultimately care, so long as he upheld his end of the bargain first, but she was not ignorant of the risk; that this deal might only trade one danger for another. But one was better odds than thirteen. And once the Dragon's Peace shattered into pieces, as she suspected it very soon would, there would be little other choice. Talin laid careful contingencies, but she could not account for every variable. She did not find the fallibility comfortable.

The swift promise of violence made her shudder, perhaps in extension of her sobre thoughts. She did not consider herself squeamish, but the idea of her own dismemberment was not particularly pleasant. Kaori made a small note of irritation in his throat for her reaction. She did not hide the disgusted purse of her lips, mostly because she had learned Arikan enjoyed invoking fear. Such was the dance between them that made him sometimes pliable, and her still alive.

She was a little disappointed when he sat, though. His was certainly the kind of company best left to small doses.

Her hands rested primly in her lap. She perched like a bird on the edge of flight. Clearly he still felt her provision of another sister into their arrangement was a dereliction on her part. She was content to allow him to believe it, though. Everything she had said about her failure to produce Elsae was true, but not because she was incapable or even unwilling. It was because in so doing she would have marked the termination for her own use, and Talin was simply not done with him. Reward versus risk, it was a pointless endeavour for her to perform the deed herself. Nythadri was a very specific choice though, and for more reasons than one. But the manipulations laid here must be subtle.

Despite her awareness of his patience, she did not answer right away. Her sister wouldn't be thankful for anything she chose to share, no matter how insignificant, and while the chains of Nythadri’s loyalty were strong they were not infallible – and they had already been greatly strained the last few days. Talin tried to decide whether it counted as betrayal, but came to no obvious conclusions, in part because she saw these people as two sides to the same coin. One loyalty did not outstrip the other, for the moment at least. And debts could be repaid.

“Very well,” she said eventually. The vagaries of everything would have gone better with tea to soothe the throat, but she thought better of sharing the observation. “We are not friends, precisely. But Nythadri has few of those. The bonds she makes are rarely shallow. It is the most reliable thing about her.

“She’s from minor nobility, a House in Andor I believe. Some kind of scandal nipped her heels when she first came to the Tower; not that you’d ever hear a word of it from her own lips, but there were rumours at the time.” Talin shrugged; whispers amongst novices had never been of much interest to her. “She never seemed to care what people thought of her, even when the gossip was damning. She did cut her family out like a canker though. That's more or less an expectation of donning the white, but most girls are at least a little sentimental about it, else they still think their highborn birth places them at a lofty height to the rest of us. But I’ve never heard her talk about her family or her past.

“She’s perhaps the most politically astute person I know, though she’ll tell you she has no interest in the game. The Blues courted her from the very beginning, as was their right of course, given they brought her in. They nudged her every step along the way, but they may as well have tied rocks about her ankles. If she took a long time to earn the Ring, and she did, it was because she didn’t care to impress the people she ought to have cared to impress. I would say she did not care for the ways the Tower tried to shape her at all. Such a gift to squander.”

They had barely known each other then, but Talin had always watched those around her. The haughty disapproval in her voice was genuine. She would not have wasted such opportunities as Nythadri had been afforded.

“I don’t know precisely what changed. Hard labour on the farm perhaps. The Mistress of Novices’ own bondmate apparently escorted her back to the Tower in disgrace, though I don’t know what it was she did in the city to earn such a punishment. The farm is about as hard as a girl may push before she’s cast out a failure, and tenure as an Accepted is not at all common. Nythadri learns her lessons the hard way often as not, but I cannot imagine fear was the thing to break and bind her. Had the Tower cut her loose, I do not believe she would have looked back.

“My understanding is that it was what happened in Arad Doman which changed her mind. Some unusual lesson facilitated by the Brown Sitter, Fate Sedai. That is all she has ever said to me. You must know who the woman’s brother is.” She was curious to know what, if anything, Arikan knew of the politics abroad, but did not pause longer than to observe a cursory reaction to the connection. If he did not know now he would know soon enough. Everyone would. The long months King Daimon had quietly spent brokering peace with the Seanchan was contentious at best, but war would utterly ruin the Tower's chances of being ready for the Last Battle. Even so, it shifted discreetly in favour of that ruin. “After all that tiresome obstination, Nythadri had the shawl within a year – her stint on the farm included. Sufficiently motivated, she is quite relentless in her focus. She really would have made a formidable Blue. Certainly it would have been the smart decision, given her skillset. But it wasn’t what she chose.” On what Ajah she did choose, Talin purposefully did not say. She did not think it was a difficult summation, given the way Nythadri had reacted to the situation, but mostly she wanted to witness what questions Arikan did or did not choose to ask of the holes in her account. Talin offered a wide breadth of knowledge, but if he wanted more specifics he would have to give her more indication of what it was he wished to glean.

Her head tilted. Red hair arrowed neatly against her cheek. “You realise, of course, that she never said she would bring Elsae to you. Not explicitly. And you allowed her the loophole.

“If she asked for more time, it’s because she’s already three steps ahead of where she needs to be. I very much doubt she will have believed much of anything you said, and I could not tell you the conclusions she drew, but I am certain she will find sufficient justification to help you given what she did say. She will not betray the chance you might be genuine, not unless you give her a compelling reason. Better to give her the reign anyway, in my experience. Let her feel she forms her own opinions and choices. I do not think you will be disappointed. Frustrated, perhaps. She is certainly that. But I would not have brought her to you if I did not trust her capability. Clearly my own life depends upon it.”

Talin paused for a moment then. The soft hint of a frown tightened her brow, and her gaze flickered away. She tried not to flinch. She did not know how he would take that last bit. Poorly, probably, but she wanted him to understand her summary of Nythadri was not merely made of airy and meaningless words. More threats would be predictable, and she would weather them as she normally did, but she was still very aware of her arm and the unexpected volatility of his earlier reaction. Koari shifted with her unease. Whatever Nythadri believed of Talin’s motivations, Talin had understood that the Green would not be able to walk away from this – especially if she felt Talin intended to. Arikan could not hope for a more ironclad alliance, if he could help himself from ruining it all by being so stubbornly… himself. And if Nythadri exerted some influence in turn.

Well, a conscience was rather the point.

“There is something else you should know," she added after quiet consideration. "I cannot account for the Warder. She was an unexpected complication, and one I dealt with as efficiently as I could at the time, though it burned some of Nythadri’s trust to do it. But, Nythadri will take hard decisions when she must, and they seem to have met some accord between them.

“Kaori says she is from Kandor, but she has vocal claims to Malkieri blood that might make her quite insufferable on the point of your past. Eleanore Candevin Aramorgran is her name. I cannot see that she will approve of what Nythadri is doing, and frankly you have done precious little to smooth that path today. I did see her kneel and make the oaths though. I believe she will be loyal to her Aes Sedai upon her honour alone. But I do not know her, and neither does Nythadri. That is more risk than I would like.”

A risk that must be considered carefully, not rashly acted upon, of course. Her gaze slid back, brow raised as though she could hear the loud mechanism of his thoughts. “Walking too firmly in the Light is not justification for murder, in case you were wondering.” That she had almost sliced the woman clean in two with her Gate she did not of course mention. That had been pure survival, and would have been a simpler resolution to the sticky issue in all honesty, but it was done with now. In any case, offing what was now a sister’s warder seemed in a higher class of sin. And she needed Nythadri sharp, not reeling from the loss.

[Adrian Kane]

Arikan

The obedience was acknowledged, but the longer Talin droned, the more Arikan began to regret requiring everything. Bloody hell. The shrill sound of her voice made him want to cut out her tongue. He found himself holding up the weight of his head with one hand, staring blankly while she explained. The warder must possess some amulet that drowned her out else he would be mad in a week. At one point, he considered interrupting with the wave of a hand, but he endured worse intolerances in his life. Half a day tuning out the sermonizing within the Fortress of the Light built the endurance.

So much torture. And they claimed he was the Darkfriend? He sighed more than once, but regardless, he waited, picking apart nuggets of useful information from the slag.

Minor nobility could be useful. Cold slicing out of the family implied spurning, and emotion was always a useful pressure point. Betrayal was only as painful as much as one cared. The harsher the cut, the greater the hurt. But not from ego. Surprising. Usually the more minor the noble the greater the ego. To that end, Nythadri hadn’t declared her title when she shared her name. Not caught up in that, then. That she did not sprint hard and fast for the Shawl was telling. So the things she cared about lay elsewhere.

There was not much to be impressed by Talin claiming her colleague the most political person she knew. Clearly Talin was intelligent enough to align herself with Arikan, but that was her greatest asset so far. Add that the compliment originated from a Yellow and to them, everyone was politically astute. But Talin said she was distinctly not a Blue. That their pressure drove her away. So Nythadri was stubborn and proud, and she had an ego after all. A picture was forming of this girl Talin lured to his grasp.

He waited, and when she did not offer the answer, his tongue clicked in annoyance of even having to ask.
“Then what is her Ajah?”
Browns and Blues. Surely not another Yellow? Having a warder that was coerced to heel was hardly the behavior of a Green.

For all of Arikan’s experiences, he spent little public time in the company of Aes Sedai. Most rarely as himself. Other identities, sure. The lordly ones in particular. Aes Sedai always crawled the edges of royal courts, and there also Arikan was likely to lurk. But their inner ploys and Tower politics held little interest to him. Not until dalliances with their Black counterparts, that was.

The answer didn’t much matter in the end. Mention of Arad Doman kindled fresher attention, unwelcome as it was.
“Of course I know. Don’t get me started,” he replied with an exaggerated eye-roll. The whole blasted Darkworld knew about the Light’s golden champion king. He was almost as insufferable as the Dragon. More so since he didn’t have the wind of prophecy at his back. Luckily, that man’s rise to power coincided with his own decline or Arikan may have had to deal with him otherwise. And what a blasted awful chore that would have been. Worth it in the end, but talk about torture along the way. Bloody Domani.

If Nythadri disbelieved his claims on Elsae, she was perhaps as astute as Talin claimed. Then again, everyone was astute compared to a Yellow. It wasn’t lost on him that Talin pried little into his motives for this apparent interest in her whereas Nythadri was quite concerned over them. News that the girl wasn’t Aes Sedai refreshed some perspective on Talin’s disinterest. Maybe they hated each other. They already claimed to have all known one another a long time. They trained together, surely. Shuddered in their boots during the battle together. So why the apathy? Was it animosity? Jealousy? An oddity to imagine Talin envious of anyone. She was already so full of herself already, what more of another could she stuff in that head?

He glanced at the warder. Standing sentry. Recalling their chat at the gate when Arikan mistook him for the stablehand. “For dark’s sake, sit,” he jerked a head at a chair. “Your Aes Sedai is right, her life depends on her choices. And i’ve not killed her yet,” he gestured, clearly indicating the living breathing woman in front of them. He waited for the warder to make his choice - to keep standing or to sit and join them like civilized people. “You can’t swing a dead trolloc without hitting a borderlander who claims Malkieri blood. You know nobody cared an inkling about Malkier until 80 years ago. Then the Great Lord’s blight swallows it up and now that’s all they talk about, and that bloody baby getting away.” More eye rolling before settling his gaze upon Kaori. “Why do you say she is from Kandor?”

But it was her final statement that made him laugh. An authentic laugh that rolled up from somewhere dark and dank inside.
“Walking too firmly in the Light is no pardon for murder, you say?” He looked at the warder then, the shadow of twisted merriment stretching. “Keep her away from Whitecloaks.” 

[Natalie Grey]

 
Talin & Kaori

Arikan’s attention waned, but if he had wanted specifics, he should have been specific, and Talin felt no remorse for continuing at great length, despite his obscenely rude expression of boredom. “Well I’d have thought it quite obvious from that insufferable speech. Only a Green would be quite so passionate.” She said it with genuine scathe. Despite what Talin knew of Nythadri’s reasons, and most of that deduction did not in fact come from the woman herself, she had always thought the Blues would prevail in the end. Not because of loyalty, but because it would have been the logical and most efficient choice for Nythadri to make for herself whatever her feelings on the matter. Talin chose Yellow purely because of skill, not because of any sense of like-mindedness with her Ajah sisters. Had Nythadri done so, it also would have offered the kinds of resources that Talin would have found immeasurably useful in an ally. Certainly, it didn’t seem that Arikan had political scope. At least not of the recent variety. Granted he’d been hunched on death’s door for some significant time. But still.

He was aware of Daryen Daimon, but if the rolling of his eyes was any indication, had not considered the ramifications of this peace treaty. If he was even aware of it. Talin saw no reason to offer enlightenment. Arad Doman was something neither of them could do much about in the present moment. When the dust from the Tower’s upheaval settled, then they would see what challenges arose. That might be weeks or months away yet, but it would be a problem to address sooner or later. Talin fled what she perceived to be a weakened institution, and she was not sentimental, but it hardly gladdened her to witness. War with Seanchan would be an inconvenient obstacle. She was certain it was coming, and she meant to push Arikan hard before then. The Last Battle must be summoned first, but before then the path for the Dragon must be clear.

“Light,” she corrected offhandedly. “You mean for Light’s sake. The Dark One’s blight. It isn’t hard.”

She did not glance up at Kaori when he was addressed. The comfort of her warder was not of much concern to her.

“I will stand,” the man answered, though he did stiffly incline his head. That was Northern sensibility for you. Talin did not precisely know where Arikan might have been from originally, but she did not think he could have been from the Borderlands, and Kaori’s honour was probably as foreign to him as it was to her.

“Malkier became a martyr kingdom. Is it any wonder?” She refrained from tipping her shoulder into a shrug, though she was clearly blase in her estimations about a dead country to which she had no connection or use for.

Kaori’s brow lowered for the question. “Because the Malkieri claim is on account of her mother, and that is the Kandori way. She was raised on the Blightborder, by Faider and his men.” The way her Warder said it, tight-jawed with respect, the name meant something to him. Talin did not know the minutiae of Borderland heroes, but she understood the significance by the way Kaori felt then. Idly, she wondered what the man might have felt if either Nythadri or Eleanore had refused the solution of the bond – if he had been forced to cross blades with this woman he so admired. The speculation did not last long; there was little to be gained in dwelling on past possibilities. If Eleanore became a problem in the future, it would not be Kaori who would need to deal with her. “She was one of Captain Miyakawa’s Scouts before she led an Aes Sedai through the Blight and came to the Tower.”

The edges of his voice were all rough. He did not like this talk of expendability, though Talin imagined his glowing and somewhat defensive testimony to fall on utterly deaf ears. One only had to look at the scars on the gaidar’s face to realise she was some considerable veteran, and this information was only detail to what was obvious. She couldn't fathom a reason Arikan would care. Talin’s lips twitched into a frown, aware that Kaori was himself prickly upon the subject he began to stray towards. Curiosity had taken Talin to Shienar after the Lady Armendariz arrived at the Tower begging for aid that was ultimately refused to her. The Tower claimed the Blight was as quiet as it had ever been in fifty years, but Kaori said it was not so. Such was the circumstance upon which they had first met.

Arikan’s laughter interrupted. It sent shivers right the way down Talin’s spine. “Oh,” she said. “Is that a joke?” How uncomfortable. She discovered amusement from a dreadlord was quite horrendous. Fledgling conscience or fledgling humour; she was not sure which was worse.

[[I don’t have Elly’s bio. But just for context: Faider was her uncle. His band were infamous skirmishes on the blightborder, and he was killed in the last few months or years. Elly did work for Akari, but I have no idea why she left the Scouts, I can only find reference to the fact she did. And then escorted the Aes Sedai through the Blight and home to Tar Valon.]]

[Adrian Kane]

Arikan

Kaori had a brain to him, then. Arikan cared nothing for the woman warder’s nationality. Kandor or Shienar or dark-swallowed Malkier. They were all one in the same. Only the costumes differed. For a man who spent a good portion of his long life at the border, he would know. Had he pokes holes in fortress perimeters or slit throats of worthy battle lords, indeed those nuances would have been necessary to know. Except Arikan lived on the other side of the border that made up the borderlands. Costumes made no difference there. The trollocs cooked their meat bareskinned.

So the warder could deduce, which meant he wasn’t merely hulking muscle and brawn. He was probably well-paired with Talin, then. But Arikan was pleased to have some insight into their cognitive powers. Nothing like the strategy of his own mind, but enough to pay their combined intellect some attention. This Green, however, surprised him. For all Talin’s praise of her Sister’s cunning, Arikan would yet hold his judgement of her capacities until he witnessed as much for himself. Perhaps she would be an unwitting spy. His information on the darkfriend network was outdated. His lieutenants destroyed following the defeat in Tar Valon simply for their allegiance to him. He explained as much to Lythia’s Inquisitor. The possibilities of her service to him were unformed but had potential.

But before memories backslid into the confines of that cave and all that transpired there, talk of the morality of whitecloaks and virtues of the Light edged the tide of his mood. He had stories dated a century that could exemplify such humor, though they would fall on deaf ears to any who were not also there at the time.  

He stood perhaps because the warder resisted joining their little chat or perhaps because they could offer nothing more to satisfy his need for knowledge at the moment. At the door he turned back, Tairen cape fluttering his shoulder in the motion. “No Talin. Not a joke in the least,” and he departed, laughter fading down the hall as he left.