Chapter Text
Moiraine woke disoriented in the early hours of a pale, late winter morning. The room of the small Andoran inn five days outside Caemlyn, was already cooling around her after last night's fire. She slipped out from under her heavy blankets with a small groan and walked to the crooked table with the water pitcher and a small basin. She shivered in her damp nightshirt. Glancing at her warder's empty bed she took a long drink and probed through their bond. She let herself smirk after a hasty retreat. Lan was more than alright.
Feeling more awake, she walked to the mansard window on cleanswept but creaky floors. The main street of the mountain town seemed completely deserted in the pre-dawn light, but she could hear a rooster crooning on some distant farm. She gulped down another cold cup of water and gave a frustrated sigh. There was no point in going back to bed now.
She quickly washed at the basin and dressed in her shienaran-cut shirt and breeches. They were going to climb some steep roads in the forest that day and probably the next too, it was no place for silk dresses. Standing in front of an ornate hanging mirror, the only real decoration of the room, she combed her hair out. She was feeling very old, suddenly. Eyeing her reflection, still an image of a twenty five years old woman who was yet to have the ageless look of an Aes Sedai, she felt at least a decade older. Truth to be told, she had already felt very mature three years ago, when she left the White Tower, however bonding with Lan made her realize just how young and out of her depth she used to be. For a moment she pondered over who exactly was feeling old in her head, but decided against making an effort finding out. Probably both of us, she thought, shaking her head. She went downstairs and checked on the horses instead, using saidar to navigate her way in the still dark stable. After a short visit to the kitchen, she returned to their room and was on her second cup of tea, poring over a map on her already made bed, when the door soundlessly opened and someone just as quietly slipped into the half-light of their room. Moiraine supressed a smile but didn't look up.
The washing basin was used, various belts and pouches of leather were packed and readied. Another shienaran-tailored shirt was thrown over heavy shoulders but then they were also discarded after a minute of uncomfortable silence. Barely audible footsteps approached the bed Moiraine was sitting on. It creaked heavily, when someone gracefully gathered and put aside the map and sat down beside her. Both sat silently for a while.
“I don't want to have this argument today. You can heal it. I give you my permission.”
Moiraine looked up at Lan with a serenely surprised expression.
”Heal what?”
Lan shook his head with a resigned sigh.
“I know you will heal it without asking and I am not willing to have that argument with you so soon after Whitebridge. Just heal it, please, so we can start our journey in peace.”
Moiraine gave him a small nod and he turned around for her to reach the angry red scratches on his back. They both felt the exact moment she decided not to comment.
'Most of my yellow sisters think the same way as you about healing,' she said in a conversational tone while she slowly touched the scars and did the actual healing. ”they have firm opinions about patient confidentiality, about always asking permissions, and about body autonomy.”
Lan only looked at their reflection in the mirror, contours painted golden by the first rays of dawn and refused to ask the logical question.
“But I am a Blue, you see,” Moiraine continued, meeting his eyes in the mirror. Lan huffed in a mixture of fondness and exasperation. “when I see a two-decade-old wound in the middle of a battle I can heal, I heal it without investing my time into exploring the sentimentality that lies beyond it.”
“It was my very first battle wound,” Lan calmly stated.
“From a pointless battle of the Houses. An unnecessary mark on you.” Another lifelong mark her uncle’s hunger for power left on someone amongst thousands. One she could heal. She broke their eye contact, trying to stop her guilt seeping through their bond. There were burdens she wanted to keep for herself.
Lan slowly turned back towards her. For a moment he seemed to debate over saying something but then, he pointed at another old scar on his left side.
“You didn’t heal this one”
“Not for the lack of trying,” Moiraine shook her head with a mildly puzzled expression. “Maybe if we ever stay at a safe place where I can rest for a day or two after giving it another try… that one is difficult. Do you have any idea why?”
“Time to start our day,” Lan said with a finality, raising himself from the bed. Moiraine rolled her eyes at his now healed back but gave the same respect for his silence he'd given to hers just a few minutes before.
*
The bird had iridescent, blue feathers, an unproportionally large beak and a ready to murder look in its eyes, very much the way all other birds Lan did encounter. Absentmindedly, sitting on the ground Moiraine was feeding it pieces of their precious dried fruit reserves. She was also reading the letter the bird had carried from god knows where for the fourth time. This time, the waves of -happiness-fear-worry washing over her had been meticulously smoothed out, Lan could tell. He also had a very clear idea of who the letter had come from, based on the fast succession of several other feelings, some of them distant, others more comprehensible for him. Moiraine never talked about this person to anyone except to him. Even to him, she only talked about her two times throughout the entire time they shared. Although he suspected she was the 'friend' in several of Moiraine's lighthearted stories she used to tell him when neither of them could afford to sleep when the night was too dark and oppressing in the woods.
At first, Lan used to think he hadn't got any stories to tell in return on such nights. It had quickly turned out, however, that she had a weird sense of humor for a Cairhien noble and a good appreciation of what Borderlanders found passing for a joke. She was less inclined to dwell on things long lost than him and had an unwavering faith in their ability to make a difference. There were still darker days when Lan needed to reach into that tangled corner of his mind, what was his bond with Moiraine and tap into that faith. There were also days like this, when she was feeling too much of the things he had already forgotten he was able to feel and the bond was a bit overwhelming. They made it work, nonetheless.
The forest was silent around them, a good day of riding from the next village. Snowdrops were only just peeking out from under last years’ leaves. Lan adjusted a strap on his horse’s saddle, deep in thought. The bird had definitely flown far, far away from its home.
“I need to go to Tear,” Moiraine finally sighed, making her decision.
“Then we are going to Tear,” Lan simply said. She looked up to him from where she was sitting amongst dead leaves with the bird. It definitely looked more perked up now, Lan suspected Moiraine was using the One Power to boost its energies for its way back.
“She is safe for now.” she said, caressing the bird’s head. “I can’t ask you to do this with me, it’s not even related to the Dragon Reborn.”
“Who must be three by now?” Lan tilted his head. “Is that a ripe age to tear them from their mother’s lap and raise them to be a weapon?” Moiraine didn’t reply, although she became even paler. Lan quickly regretted raising the subject just now, another of their fundamental moral debates. He used logic instead. Moiraine was always more manageable when you used actual logic.
“It wasn’t to do with the Dragon Reborn when we went North last winter and you healed half of Fal Dara from that birch-fever outbreak,” he said warily. He offered her a sad wrinkled apple of last summer, still full of sugar to help someone going through a shock without being aware of it. “You need to explain Aes Sedai politics for me on our way there, though. I don’t wish to go into this blindly.” he added.
Moiraine only looked at him for a few moments, searching for something, then accepted the apple.
“Tell her we are coming,” she told the blue bird.
“We are coming,” it croaked back to her, then took flight.
**
The soup was coming along nicely. Siuan propped her shovel to a tree and crouched down to stir the battered-looking pot. She breathed in the scent of mussel, algae and spices, tossed a few mushrooms into the pot, and smiled with a mixture of sadness and nostalgia. It was perfect. Just like her father used to make it.
The fire illuminated the small clearing in the vast delta, a relatively dry place surrounded by an oxbow-lake on one side and a grove of tall cypress trees on the other. The end of their hanging-moss covered branches disappeared into the fog. Persistently, the trees grasped into the swamp with their bare roots, into the dark water where they were feeding on layers and layers of dead creatures, long-forgotten and rotting.
For most people in the world, this landscape was lethal. For Siuan it was home.
The fog crept closer and she fished out a thick blue scarf to cover her simple linen dress. She’s been staying there for almost a week now, on the small island where her father’s hut used to stand, surrounded by an intricate system of river branches. She tried rebuilding it, however, she was alone and this was Tear. Using her powers would be risking the Stone’s unwanted and unavoidable attention. Alone and without the one power, the rebuild would take her a lot of effort and with the one power, she would take a lot of risk.
Alone. She scoffed. Physically she’s never been alone since she was a child, ever since she’d fled Tear for the White Tower. Mentally, she’s been alone for years now, ever since Moiraine hugged her goodbye in the royal palace of Chachin. There was no one she could trust in the White Tower and Moiraine’s heavily coded letters provided no information about her well-being nor her whereabouts. Having no idea about how Moiraine fared in the world all on her own had given Siuan a number of sleepless nights. It was the safest option, Siuan knew. Still, she missed her. Having someone like Moiraine in her life, as close as humanly possible for six years, ruined the joy of finally becoming the powerful person she'd always wanted to be. Despite being one of the most talented Aes Sedai of her age, despite perfecting her iron grip on her emotions, she felt incomplete, from time to time. As if a part of her was wandering in the Borderlands, while she was forging political alliances in the bath-house, as if a part of her was sleeping on the cold forest ground every night she climbed into her ornate bed. When the blue bird returned a few days before, croaking “coming”, Siuan gave them the promised silver bracelet without hesitation and afforded a few teardrops to run down on her face. She didn’t cry when two of her sisters tried to kill her then accused her of being a darkfriend. She didn’t cry when she fled the Tower barefeet with only the clothes and the purse she’d been already wearing. She didn’t cry, as a law.
“Evening, good woman” a tall shienaran man boomed, crouching on the opposite side of the fire and warming his hands. Siuan, who had no idea how the man had managed to creep so close without her noticing, jumped to her feet, grasping saidar. Still, this was Tear so she took control of her fear and suppressed the urge to use the One Power on him.
“I mean no harm,” the man said calmly. “I only seek assistance for my traveling companion. Are you a Wisdom?”
Siuan only stared at him blankly.
“Are you a healer? You seem native to this land.” Neither his voice, nor his stoic face reflected the desperation Siuan somehow still felt radiating from him. “Do you know any sort of simple folk remedies for spider bites?”
Siuan stared at him some more. The man stared back.
“What color was it?” she asked, sighing.
They waded through kilometers of wild land illuminated by the full moon. Two times Siuan had to grasp the shienaran man’s arm and drag him away with brute force from treacherous patches of floating moss, hiding pits of deep water and other things . One time, she had to do the same to stop him trampling though the local reptile family’s lair.
“It’s more like a medium-sized monarchy.” she explained, breaking no sweat while the tall man could barely keep up with her. “All sorts of reptiles, small and enormous. You want to stay on their good side.”
They reached a small clearing with a dying fire, surrounded by tall trees. Two horses, still saddled, wandered around absently, looking for patches of grass between exotic plants unknown. The man’s traveling companion seemed to be lying unconscious between the thick roots of an ancient cypress tree, huddled in her blue cloak. She only opened her eyes when Siuan prodded her shin with her bare foot, affectionately.
“It’s your local simple woman , Moiraine. Bringing you folk remedies .”
“Please don’t hurt him.” Moiraine whispered faintly from the roots. “He’s an excellent warder.”
“Your circumstances contradict you,” Siuan said, falling to her knees beside her. Moiraine reached out for her uncertainly just as she leaned down to her. They kissed, desperately at first.
“Isn’t she dying?” Lan asked in a neutral tone.
They kissed some more.
It was after a joint effort of hunting for missing herbs through the mud, after coaxing Moiraine to drink the horrible tasting tea and after laying her down on a dry spot, closer to the fire when Siuan replied:
“She isn’t dying but she also shouldn’t be this affected by the venom,” she frowned, spreading her shawl out next to Moiraine’s blanket. “It's only lethal for young children and even then, only when they are not taken care of properly.”
“They slowly go cold,” she continued, looking down into the warder's questioning eyes. “It only slows down an adult for a few days. Makes them feel cold and exhausted.”
“Then why is she…” Lan asked, crouching by Moiraine’s other side.
“Because she was already more than a little bit cold and exhausted, al’Lan Mandragoran,” she interrupted, a dangerous glint in her eyes. “You must have felt that through the bond.”
He held her eyes for a few seconds, then had the audacity, in Siuan’s opinion, to lie down on Moiraine’s other side, hips touching hips, throwing his color-shifting cloak over the both of them. A large part of it also covered Siuan’s shawl.
“We were following a desperate call and time was the essence.” he said with his eyes already closed and with a painstakingly measured lack of mocking in his voice. Siuan suppressed a frustrated grunt. She visualized a rosebud, opening its petals for the sun, trying to let go of her emotions as she was taught years before. “I assume the next step is to let her rest and warm her up?” the warder asked then.
Siuan still wanted to kick him in the most non-affectionate way possible but the next step was exactly as he said. After some contemplating deep breaths, she lay down next to Moiraine, slipping under the cloak and snuggled close to her. They lay in silence for a while. The swamp was also silent around them, the safest place in the world for Siuan. Not a safe place for her loved one, apparently.
“Is this how you imagined?” a weak whisper came from Moiraine just as Siuan was thinking she was already asleep.
“Imagine what?” she asked her softly, smoothing back hair fallen to her face. Her eyes glinted with more life than they did before.
“When we used to be plotting out how we would bond with princes and marry them, back when we were but novices,” she replied in a serene tone. A muffled, hardly identifiable sound broke the shocked silence of Siuan somewhere from the other side of Moiraine.
“Don’t mind her, she must be delirious.” Siuan said aloud.
Yet she could feel Lan shaking with silent laughter for minutes before she finally drifted off.