Filling the Days

[Jaxen Marveet]

Chapter 9: Sobriety is a drag

Jole detested sobriety.

“Yes, that is a problem. As soon as one of them realizes I’m doing anything except sitting around drunk and strumming my guitar, they’ll come for us. Probably Evalara first. She’s always had a thing for me.” He smirked, but contemplation was already stirring.

“Let’s say I cooperate. Let’s say that I am all that you dream and we successfully remove the Chosen from the board, and believe me when I say I am happy to push those cocky sons of bitches into the line of fire, but what happens to the last one on your list? What happens to me when the curtain falls?”

For certainly if Jole decided to turn upon his dark comrades in arms, they would stand little chance. He was the sniper from afar, the poison cup, the trip wire. He would lay low and smash each little figure to bits with the mere flick of his fingers. They all underestimated him, and he knew he was dismissed almost as much as Amogorath was useless, but that would be their downfall. Yet, the other Chosen were a buffer as long as they remained alive. Their actions trained the eye of the Dark Lord away from him, and he had nothing to lose in the war they fought. As far as his soul went, when immortality loomed into eternal entertainment, what need have he of it?

Yet an eternity immortal while powerless was far less appealing. “I want a bargain, Devika.” He finally revealed that he did, in fact, know her name. It was perhaps the truest thing he’d said all day, and for the bluntness of the offering, his voice fell flat as the distance in his eyes — as if he was peering through the woman holding his leash and into the eons of the wheel’s endless ages turning behind her.

“When the Dragon buries his dead, the purpose of his life is used up, and I am the last one, I want my power restored and my freedom cast back to me.”

He hadn’t moved away when she adjusted his collar. They were not so different in height, though she certainly held herself as if she towered three feet above him, and from his vantage, he was aware of the curve of her breasts floating up and down with each breath and the scent of her perfume lingering like exotic spices on the air, but he did not indulge himself a glance nor so much as a tingle in his blood of lust.

He wanted her to look deep into his eyes and see someone behind them. For all her boasting, she was still an Aes Sedai of the Light whose cause proclaimed victory over darkness. There was much darkness within Jole, but the bond into his mind would reveal layers that his eyes did not release. They were standing close enough that a barest movement could press their lips together, and she would only be so lucky, but Jole used every ounce of his presence to reveal humanity insteady.

Whether it was showmanship or not was unrevealed.

“I’ve already known despair,” he whispered, lips still caked dry with hangover, the blues beneath his eyes aging him. “Swear you’ll restore me when this is over, and you will have a willing partner every moment until then.”