11-19-2022, 10:55 PM
Talin weathered the lecture with little outward emotion, maintaining just the sort of polite attention one might give a discussion of unusual weather. At times there might have been a touch of curiosity in the glaze of her eyes, but Nythadri could not have hazarded if it was for the gore or for the unique insight into such a depraved mind. For her own part, Nythadri settled behind the tried and true walls of training, and watched them both without expression. Arikan barely spared her a glance. It should have been a relief to escape his scrutiny, but his dismissal only simmered impotent flames of anger in her chest.
No one here needed convincing of his blackened soul, yet he wasted his breath on it anyway. For now she was unsure if he proclaimed his sins too loudly for it to be just his natural affectation, or if he simply enjoyed trying to make them squirm. Only the briefest pause marred an otherwise unblemished performance, enough to catch her attention and pose the silent question as to his intentions, but the tightness in his voice afterwards also made him seem uncomfortably human. It was the only time she glanced away, unwilling to let the demonic mantle strip clean from his shoulders so easily.
Meanwhile Kaori visibly grimaced, and even Talin’s lips downturned when his gaze idled her flesh like she was naught but a common whore. Light, when Nythadri had asked her bluntly if she was Black Ajah the woman had not looked so visibly offended as she did now. “A ‘no thank you’ would have sufficed,” she said coldly. Her eyes slipped to her peripheral and whatever unknowable communication slid through her bond with her warder. He didn’t relax much, but she did, once the former dreadlord finally relinquished his feet for the seat she had offered.
“Small steps, I suppose,” she murmured stiffly. A muscle twitched in her jaw as she tapped her spoon and laid it delicately in the saucer. But the tea remained nestled primly on her lap, untasted.
The casualty of Arikan’s attention shifted, but if he thought to elicit a response, then by now he was mistaken. The words were ugly, but Nythadri did not dwell on their distraction – and she did begin to wonder if that’s truly what it was. A dog absent teeth had to bark all the louder to prove his ferocity perhaps. But if Arikan was apparently stripped of all else, he could clearly still channel, and he wouldn’t even need that much to employ the sorts of skills he professed so readily to having at his disposal. He might have tortured capitulation from Talin just as soon as his strength returned. Might have done so until she begged him to allow her the boon of helping him. Yet he hadn’t, for all contrary threats. Arikan’s actions and his words met in a surprisingly jagged seam.
He had spoken before as if of a life that had passed, yet he appeared remarkably hale for a dead man – and such was the only conceivable release from the kind of oaths he had made. Wasn’t it? An impossibility she continued to puzzle over while the distraction of Elly’s emotions warred for her attention. The gaidar was strung tight as a bow, and Nythadri did not know her so well as to guess whether she would reign herself in or react to the goading. Though she did not think the scald of that anger stemmed solely from how crassly he chose to speak to an Aes Sedai. Elly had forged her place in what was very much a man’s sphere, and such insinuations of coercion were likely to hit a particularly tender mark. Light only knew what the woman’s expression was right now.
“As fascinating as you seem to believe the details of your intimate life are to us, it is not why we are here.” Nythadri spoke bluntly before Elly had a chance to; not because she feared her reaction, or the chaos that would ensue in its wake, but because the defence of their bond worked both ways. Protectiveness bit the words a little harder than she intended, though they were spoken slow and measured – as apathetically conversational a tactic as he deployed himself. His boasting was dull, her tone implied. Only the sharpness of her pale eyes belied otherwise, underpinning her irritation at whom he aimed those barbs.
Apparently tired of his own deviation, he did finally meander to his point. Though at least it had given Nythadri ample time to reconcile herself to her dismal situation and the decisions laid before her. Details were the only things left to fathom, and how badly she might be burned in the process. Derision of Elsae’s character did not give her much pause; the girl was strange, and always had been. Whatever morality governed her decision-making, it was of a different colour to the rest of them. But Arikan was a fool if he thought the Tower did not cultivate all women regardless. Whatever display of saintliness the Aes Sedai fashioned for the world to consume, the shawled women within that glamour were not all exactly great beacons of the creator’s light (that unnamed Ajah notwithstanding of course). The only thing that really mattered was the oaths that bound a woman, and the allegiances she chose for herself.
Light, the irony.
Truthfully, his answer had not mattered; he could have said anything, lie or truth or obfuscation. It was his reaction to the question she had wanted, and he had given plenty of time for her to dissect it. Or, light send it was enough, anyway. The connection was an emotional one; it had to be. He’d cast around for reason enough to appease, all whilst boasting of a predilection for compulsion out of sheer whimsy. Why, then, he chose to dance Talin’s tune was anyone’s guess. The bite of his temper was not soon forgotten, but neither was the impossibility of his being. A flimsy foundation for the risk she prepared to take. But watching him now, and hearing that last utterance especially, she began to suspect that the root of his motivations were unclear even to him. She didn’t follow that thought back to any possible source. She didn’t want to know what it might mean. But if she ignored the context; ignored what he was and what he had done, he sounded a lot like a man tasting freedom for the first time in a long time.
“You lecture ad nauseum on the follies of trust, and yet you have placed yourself in the palm of my hand for a woman you have never even met in the flesh.” He’d meant to unseat her with revelation, and she intended the same in return, by pointing out the truths abandoned in the margins of all he did not say. There was no real threat in the way she said it. He was too dangerous to try and control that way even if she had the stomach for it, which she did not. But it did not mean she was not stubborn enough to test the bounds of his patience. He dressed his derision up in courtly fashion, but it was clear he viewed them as children. Why that bothered her she was unsure, but she wanted the needle of a reaction; to feel some hint of the powerlessness he must be feeling behind that mask. “Fortunately for you,” she continued dryly, “it would seem my hands are tied.” The turn of phrase was not incidental. Her humour was deadpan. But the accord was met.
“Not if he doesn’t leave the room,” Elly growled beneath her breath. But she remained still. Her anger still burned, so hot and hostile it seeped tension into all of Nythadri’s muscles like venom. In fact it was so virulent she wondered if the warder had space to feel anything in return through their bond. In time perhaps Elly would learn to grow cautious of such stillness in her Aes Sedai.
Talin nodded to herself in conclusion, and leaned to slip her untouched tea back upon the table. For the briefest moment Nythadri was surprised at how easily the woman assumed she would capitulate to such a callous exchange of life. She did not move to follow.
“Creative or not, you will need more than a single ally in this.”
“Sister,” Talin interjected as her hands returned delicately to her lap. It was said pleasantly enough, but Nythadri understood the note of warning.
Talin intended only to arm a weapon and let it loose. Beyond Elsae’s deliverance, Nythadri doubted she had any intention of further involvement – not unless Arikan demanded it of her, and by then she might simply declare that she had given him the tools he asked for, and he ought simply get on with the job. It seemed doubtful Arikan knew about the oath rod. He’d be less keen to take the Yellow at her word if he did. He was but a cornerstone of the world she intended to build; a piece of foundation that must be laid first. Clearly it was a cause Talin had thought Nythadri could be roused to support.
“Those hooks are as sharp as you suspected, sister. And it seems you had a touch of Sight as to where they will lead me.” No small measure of morbid humour coated the last words. In fact, Shayol Ghul was the flippant example the Yellow had used, prevailing upon the loyalty that mired Nythadri into this mess in the first place. She did not look at the other woman, knowing she would remember that conversation in the clearing well enough. Instead she ran her fingers lightly over her sleeve, a blue shy of midnight, and evidence of another miscalculation on Talin’s part. The Blues had courted Nythadri’s destiny since they deposited her upon the Tower steps, but if she had been aware of the web, such distant machinations never imprinted upon her. It was Lythia who claimed her as a sister in truth. The roots of such a claiming had burrowed surprisingly deep.
For Nythadri was considering madness. And yet the Seanchan stirred in the west, and Talin herself told of greater unrest at home. If the Dragon’s Peace shattered?
Well, it would not be the only madness then.
“Elsae may have skill enough to impress even you, but she will lack resources. The Tower will not easily welcome her back once her disappearance is noted. At best she will be considered to have fled, and at worst she will be caught and punished for impersonation. Her presence will be a risk to you.” Nythadri might have said it plainly, but instead she waited for it to sink in that the Sister he sought was not a Sister at all. The information was a weapon wielded expertly, but she chose not to make the cut a painful loss of face.
“She is not a sacrifice, and I will not abandon her as one. And certainly not to your declared appetites.” In that remark Nythadri was curious to observe his reaction, or what might be gleaned in the debris of it at least. Some indication of what his connection to Elsae might really be, or of his intentions, beyond the pretty lie of strategy. “I’m sure you do not consider me in a position for bargaining, so I shall not bargain. You need me. If what you say is true, and you truly do intend to clear the field, then I pledge to see it through. It is the price I demand for my aid. And if I am wrong in that trust, I vow to see you burn, Arikan. Even as I must burn alongside.”
No one here needed convincing of his blackened soul, yet he wasted his breath on it anyway. For now she was unsure if he proclaimed his sins too loudly for it to be just his natural affectation, or if he simply enjoyed trying to make them squirm. Only the briefest pause marred an otherwise unblemished performance, enough to catch her attention and pose the silent question as to his intentions, but the tightness in his voice afterwards also made him seem uncomfortably human. It was the only time she glanced away, unwilling to let the demonic mantle strip clean from his shoulders so easily.
Meanwhile Kaori visibly grimaced, and even Talin’s lips downturned when his gaze idled her flesh like she was naught but a common whore. Light, when Nythadri had asked her bluntly if she was Black Ajah the woman had not looked so visibly offended as she did now. “A ‘no thank you’ would have sufficed,” she said coldly. Her eyes slipped to her peripheral and whatever unknowable communication slid through her bond with her warder. He didn’t relax much, but she did, once the former dreadlord finally relinquished his feet for the seat she had offered.
“Small steps, I suppose,” she murmured stiffly. A muscle twitched in her jaw as she tapped her spoon and laid it delicately in the saucer. But the tea remained nestled primly on her lap, untasted.
The casualty of Arikan’s attention shifted, but if he thought to elicit a response, then by now he was mistaken. The words were ugly, but Nythadri did not dwell on their distraction – and she did begin to wonder if that’s truly what it was. A dog absent teeth had to bark all the louder to prove his ferocity perhaps. But if Arikan was apparently stripped of all else, he could clearly still channel, and he wouldn’t even need that much to employ the sorts of skills he professed so readily to having at his disposal. He might have tortured capitulation from Talin just as soon as his strength returned. Might have done so until she begged him to allow her the boon of helping him. Yet he hadn’t, for all contrary threats. Arikan’s actions and his words met in a surprisingly jagged seam.
He had spoken before as if of a life that had passed, yet he appeared remarkably hale for a dead man – and such was the only conceivable release from the kind of oaths he had made. Wasn’t it? An impossibility she continued to puzzle over while the distraction of Elly’s emotions warred for her attention. The gaidar was strung tight as a bow, and Nythadri did not know her so well as to guess whether she would reign herself in or react to the goading. Though she did not think the scald of that anger stemmed solely from how crassly he chose to speak to an Aes Sedai. Elly had forged her place in what was very much a man’s sphere, and such insinuations of coercion were likely to hit a particularly tender mark. Light only knew what the woman’s expression was right now.
“As fascinating as you seem to believe the details of your intimate life are to us, it is not why we are here.” Nythadri spoke bluntly before Elly had a chance to; not because she feared her reaction, or the chaos that would ensue in its wake, but because the defence of their bond worked both ways. Protectiveness bit the words a little harder than she intended, though they were spoken slow and measured – as apathetically conversational a tactic as he deployed himself. His boasting was dull, her tone implied. Only the sharpness of her pale eyes belied otherwise, underpinning her irritation at whom he aimed those barbs.
Apparently tired of his own deviation, he did finally meander to his point. Though at least it had given Nythadri ample time to reconcile herself to her dismal situation and the decisions laid before her. Details were the only things left to fathom, and how badly she might be burned in the process. Derision of Elsae’s character did not give her much pause; the girl was strange, and always had been. Whatever morality governed her decision-making, it was of a different colour to the rest of them. But Arikan was a fool if he thought the Tower did not cultivate all women regardless. Whatever display of saintliness the Aes Sedai fashioned for the world to consume, the shawled women within that glamour were not all exactly great beacons of the creator’s light (that unnamed Ajah notwithstanding of course). The only thing that really mattered was the oaths that bound a woman, and the allegiances she chose for herself.
Light, the irony.
Truthfully, his answer had not mattered; he could have said anything, lie or truth or obfuscation. It was his reaction to the question she had wanted, and he had given plenty of time for her to dissect it. Or, light send it was enough, anyway. The connection was an emotional one; it had to be. He’d cast around for reason enough to appease, all whilst boasting of a predilection for compulsion out of sheer whimsy. Why, then, he chose to dance Talin’s tune was anyone’s guess. The bite of his temper was not soon forgotten, but neither was the impossibility of his being. A flimsy foundation for the risk she prepared to take. But watching him now, and hearing that last utterance especially, she began to suspect that the root of his motivations were unclear even to him. She didn’t follow that thought back to any possible source. She didn’t want to know what it might mean. But if she ignored the context; ignored what he was and what he had done, he sounded a lot like a man tasting freedom for the first time in a long time.
“You lecture ad nauseum on the follies of trust, and yet you have placed yourself in the palm of my hand for a woman you have never even met in the flesh.” He’d meant to unseat her with revelation, and she intended the same in return, by pointing out the truths abandoned in the margins of all he did not say. There was no real threat in the way she said it. He was too dangerous to try and control that way even if she had the stomach for it, which she did not. But it did not mean she was not stubborn enough to test the bounds of his patience. He dressed his derision up in courtly fashion, but it was clear he viewed them as children. Why that bothered her she was unsure, but she wanted the needle of a reaction; to feel some hint of the powerlessness he must be feeling behind that mask. “Fortunately for you,” she continued dryly, “it would seem my hands are tied.” The turn of phrase was not incidental. Her humour was deadpan. But the accord was met.
“Not if he doesn’t leave the room,” Elly growled beneath her breath. But she remained still. Her anger still burned, so hot and hostile it seeped tension into all of Nythadri’s muscles like venom. In fact it was so virulent she wondered if the warder had space to feel anything in return through their bond. In time perhaps Elly would learn to grow cautious of such stillness in her Aes Sedai.
Talin nodded to herself in conclusion, and leaned to slip her untouched tea back upon the table. For the briefest moment Nythadri was surprised at how easily the woman assumed she would capitulate to such a callous exchange of life. She did not move to follow.
“Creative or not, you will need more than a single ally in this.”
“Sister,” Talin interjected as her hands returned delicately to her lap. It was said pleasantly enough, but Nythadri understood the note of warning.
Talin intended only to arm a weapon and let it loose. Beyond Elsae’s deliverance, Nythadri doubted she had any intention of further involvement – not unless Arikan demanded it of her, and by then she might simply declare that she had given him the tools he asked for, and he ought simply get on with the job. It seemed doubtful Arikan knew about the oath rod. He’d be less keen to take the Yellow at her word if he did. He was but a cornerstone of the world she intended to build; a piece of foundation that must be laid first. Clearly it was a cause Talin had thought Nythadri could be roused to support.
“Those hooks are as sharp as you suspected, sister. And it seems you had a touch of Sight as to where they will lead me.” No small measure of morbid humour coated the last words. In fact, Shayol Ghul was the flippant example the Yellow had used, prevailing upon the loyalty that mired Nythadri into this mess in the first place. She did not look at the other woman, knowing she would remember that conversation in the clearing well enough. Instead she ran her fingers lightly over her sleeve, a blue shy of midnight, and evidence of another miscalculation on Talin’s part. The Blues had courted Nythadri’s destiny since they deposited her upon the Tower steps, but if she had been aware of the web, such distant machinations never imprinted upon her. It was Lythia who claimed her as a sister in truth. The roots of such a claiming had burrowed surprisingly deep.
For Nythadri was considering madness. And yet the Seanchan stirred in the west, and Talin herself told of greater unrest at home. If the Dragon’s Peace shattered?
Well, it would not be the only madness then.
“Elsae may have skill enough to impress even you, but she will lack resources. The Tower will not easily welcome her back once her disappearance is noted. At best she will be considered to have fled, and at worst she will be caught and punished for impersonation. Her presence will be a risk to you.” Nythadri might have said it plainly, but instead she waited for it to sink in that the Sister he sought was not a Sister at all. The information was a weapon wielded expertly, but she chose not to make the cut a painful loss of face.
“She is not a sacrifice, and I will not abandon her as one. And certainly not to your declared appetites.” In that remark Nythadri was curious to observe his reaction, or what might be gleaned in the debris of it at least. Some indication of what his connection to Elsae might really be, or of his intentions, beyond the pretty lie of strategy. “I’m sure you do not consider me in a position for bargaining, so I shall not bargain. You need me. If what you say is true, and you truly do intend to clear the field, then I pledge to see it through. It is the price I demand for my aid. And if I am wrong in that trust, I vow to see you burn, Arikan. Even as I must burn alongside.”