09-10-2016, 03:22 PM
She wasn’t surprised he brushed her accusatory question off, or didn’t want to share the answer he did have, or maybe didn’t even get what she meant. Nythadri was used to being misunderstood – whether that elevated her to undeserved mystery, or relegated her to simple rudeness. Best for whom, though? For him, or for her? She let it drop as quickly as it had captivated her, and if it disappointed her she did not show it. It wasn’t often Nythadri attempted to create bridges on any but a superficial level, and she was accustom to being rebuffed. Or being wrong.
He made her second question personal in a way she had not; and there was a reason she had not. She listened quietly at first. Like most she had ever encountered, he separated destiny and duty from freedom and choice. There was no middle ground. His answer couldn’t have been more contrary to the gaidin she had met in the gardens, and she wondered if that was an insight of saidin or just a difference of personality. She couldn’t attest to the life of an Asha’man, so she didn’t really know.
And then he had to go and drive the point too hard.
She realised that he was talking about himself; that for all his disinclination to answer earlier personal questions, he had now said more than he should have. Usually she was uncannily adept at detachment; she could face the offensive and shrug, like nothing could truly touch her core. But not with this. An emotional response was already rising, cooling her limbs in icy fury. She didn’t like being spoken to like that; to have his opinions cast on her like she was hopelessly naïve and whimsical. Like she didn’t realise the consequences of her own longevity, the duties that would always separate her from the life she may have otherwise chosen.
He stuffed the word normal back in her mouth and formed either what he imagined her vision of normal to be, or revealed his own. It wasn’t often she found herself in the unusual position of being the optimistic one – not through design, but through perseverance. He seemed to have fallen into the void that unsettled her to sleeplessness – not pessimism, but cold unyielding realism. His resignation was not even that of depression, it was stony worldview. It was him. And she could accept that, if only it did not feel like he disparaged her clinging idealisms in the process of expression.
Her instinct was to stick the knife in, or try to with what she knew of him. For all his scorn, he had come home; against his own apparent advice, he was watching his loved ones decay, knowing that unless his thread was severed prematurely, he would outlive them all. But she didn’t. A nail driven hard into her palm eased the urge to return the perceived assassination, but she couldn’t quite hold herself to silence either.
“Everybody dies, Asha’man. I was not aware it was a valid reason for not living. Thank you for enlightening what is clearly an ignorance in me.”
He would find fault with that, she imagined. Opinions didn’t change just because they met resistance, and her tone had not been friendly so much as chill, clipped. For the second time that day she found herself having to guard her tongue, but this time it was assisted by his murmur of ‘saidin’ and the gate that opened before them.
It was strange to see the very air split and not feel any sense of the power that caused such a feat, but she was too riled to appreciate the anomaly fully; her thoughts were more occupied with excusing herself as soon as the opportunity presented, as opposed to curiously regarding the scene revealed before her. It wasn’t until she heard her own name that her attention snapped to the woman who spoke. Domani, by her colouring. Not young, but possessed of a silvered, willowy beauty. Nythadri had never seen her before.
“Accepted Nythadri.”
It wasn’t often at all that she found the need to emphasise her rank before her identity. Clearly this tall woman knew exactly who she was. But that was no Aes Sedai face beckoning her to break Tower doctrine, and though the puppeteer of this Gate – if not the one who had sparked it to being – was Fate, her feet found themselves firmly rooted on Tower soil. I don’t want to go? No, it was not rejection of the opportunity that dug her heels in. It was the manipulation, the lack of choice. “I’m not permitted to leave Tower grounds.”
Tower grounds; not even allowed to the city since her mishap. Though she had never gone to the Mistress of Novices to ask. Had never had a reason to. She showed little inclination to move, though she realised she had little choice. Once backed in a corner, though, Nythadri never failed to fight.
Edited by Natalie Grey, Sep 10 2016, 03:30 PM.
He made her second question personal in a way she had not; and there was a reason she had not. She listened quietly at first. Like most she had ever encountered, he separated destiny and duty from freedom and choice. There was no middle ground. His answer couldn’t have been more contrary to the gaidin she had met in the gardens, and she wondered if that was an insight of saidin or just a difference of personality. She couldn’t attest to the life of an Asha’man, so she didn’t really know.
And then he had to go and drive the point too hard.
She realised that he was talking about himself; that for all his disinclination to answer earlier personal questions, he had now said more than he should have. Usually she was uncannily adept at detachment; she could face the offensive and shrug, like nothing could truly touch her core. But not with this. An emotional response was already rising, cooling her limbs in icy fury. She didn’t like being spoken to like that; to have his opinions cast on her like she was hopelessly naïve and whimsical. Like she didn’t realise the consequences of her own longevity, the duties that would always separate her from the life she may have otherwise chosen.
He stuffed the word normal back in her mouth and formed either what he imagined her vision of normal to be, or revealed his own. It wasn’t often she found herself in the unusual position of being the optimistic one – not through design, but through perseverance. He seemed to have fallen into the void that unsettled her to sleeplessness – not pessimism, but cold unyielding realism. His resignation was not even that of depression, it was stony worldview. It was him. And she could accept that, if only it did not feel like he disparaged her clinging idealisms in the process of expression.
Her instinct was to stick the knife in, or try to with what she knew of him. For all his scorn, he had come home; against his own apparent advice, he was watching his loved ones decay, knowing that unless his thread was severed prematurely, he would outlive them all. But she didn’t. A nail driven hard into her palm eased the urge to return the perceived assassination, but she couldn’t quite hold herself to silence either.
“Everybody dies, Asha’man. I was not aware it was a valid reason for not living. Thank you for enlightening what is clearly an ignorance in me.”
He would find fault with that, she imagined. Opinions didn’t change just because they met resistance, and her tone had not been friendly so much as chill, clipped. For the second time that day she found herself having to guard her tongue, but this time it was assisted by his murmur of ‘saidin’ and the gate that opened before them.
It was strange to see the very air split and not feel any sense of the power that caused such a feat, but she was too riled to appreciate the anomaly fully; her thoughts were more occupied with excusing herself as soon as the opportunity presented, as opposed to curiously regarding the scene revealed before her. It wasn’t until she heard her own name that her attention snapped to the woman who spoke. Domani, by her colouring. Not young, but possessed of a silvered, willowy beauty. Nythadri had never seen her before.
“Accepted Nythadri.”
It wasn’t often at all that she found the need to emphasise her rank before her identity. Clearly this tall woman knew exactly who she was. But that was no Aes Sedai face beckoning her to break Tower doctrine, and though the puppeteer of this Gate – if not the one who had sparked it to being – was Fate, her feet found themselves firmly rooted on Tower soil. I don’t want to go? No, it was not rejection of the opportunity that dug her heels in. It was the manipulation, the lack of choice. “I’m not permitted to leave Tower grounds.”
Tower grounds; not even allowed to the city since her mishap. Though she had never gone to the Mistress of Novices to ask. Had never had a reason to. She showed little inclination to move, though she realised she had little choice. Once backed in a corner, though, Nythadri never failed to fight.
Edited by Natalie Grey, Sep 10 2016, 03:30 PM.