The House of Flying Daggers - Road Rules (Ran & Sirayn)

[Guest Celes]

Polishing the dagger again, Lyv ran her finger along the blade and a grin appeared on her face. She liked the feel of this ancient weapon in her hand and wondered what it must be like to actually carry it into battle with her. She had borrowed it from Kaylan Sedai of the Green Ajah to clean, sharpen and do some test runs with it. It had hung on the Sedai’s walls for decades and weapons needed care if they were to stay in proper use. Lyv had tested the dagger and a range of other daggers and short swords for the Green Sister and was just getting ready to return the last of the collection. A blanket with twelve daggers in it lay on the bed before her and she ran her polish cloth over each one of them. It was time to say goodbye to this precious cargo and let the Aes Sedai show of her marvelous collection, now looking as if they had just come from the smithies.

 

Lyv rose and folded the daggers in the blanket, then tucked them under her arm. It would be quite stupid to drop these weapons now that she had taken such great care of them. However, it was not Lyv’s best day as she walked head first into her captain, Ralleigh Tay who looked angry and muttered a curse at her eyes having to guide her past others, not into them. Lyv apologized and made a comment that she was in a hurry, which earned her another comment, this one accompanied by a double shift of watch duty. Lyv and the captain of her company did not mix well she had soon found out and when Jasen was not around to lead the troops, she tried to steer clear of Ralleigh as much as she could. Trying not to sulk, Lyv said, “Aye Captain,†and then sought her way to the wall. He followed her to make sure she did not run off, which made the hairs in her neck stand up. What was it about this man that he always picked the best of times to butt in her life.

 

Walking outside, the package still under her arm, Lyv found Raniel running past her towards the mess hall. She halted him with a quick grab of his shirt and called his name to avoid tearing his clothes up in his hurry. “Ran, go find Kaylan Sedai of the Green Ajah and personally hand her this package,†she spoke quickly as Ralleigh was already standing next to her. “What’s this?†he asked, “get that boy out of here, we do training after our work Miss Tylin,†he grunted and Lyv sighed. “Please get it to her now, do not delay,†and then walked on towards the West Wall where she had a pleasant surprise for Aidan that he could come down and she’d take his place. So much for a good conversation on weapons with the Green Sister. Well, at least she could trust Ran to do as he was told, at least he did.

 

Lyv Tylin

Mentor to Raniel

[Robin]

Ran had trained all day and wanted to sleep. He only needed to eat something before he would go to his room He wished for a good night of rest so he would be all energetic the next day. Hoping nobody who needed a trainee would see him Ran rushed toward the Mess Hall. But as we're not all as lucky, Ran did walk in someone who needed a Trainee to get something done.

 

On a soft run Ran ran over the yards when he suddenly felt someone who grabed his shirt and called his name. It was his mentor. No!Ran thought, but didn't say. “Ran, go find Kaylan Sedai of the Green Ajah and personally hand her this package.†No, no, no! Ran's mood hadn't been all that good this day, but he hadn't thought it was even possible to become worse.

 

Suddenly a Man came out of the door and asked what was going on. Ran remembered the man as being a Captain. Apperantly the man wasn't in a good mood either. “Please get it to her now, do not delay.†Lyv said, and Ran nodded. He knew he had to do it before he could go to eat something. It sounded important, so Ran walked off towards the Tower. Toward Kaylen Sedai of the Green Ajah.

 

It was a pretty long walk to the Green Quarters in the Tower, luckily Ran knew where to go. Would he not have known it was for sure he had turned the wrong corner for a couple of times. He had been in the Green quarters for a couple of times with his mentor. But when Ran arrived he didn't really know what door to go into for Kaylan Sedai. Ran thought about what door to pick to knock on and ask for Kaylan Sedai, when a door opened and an Aes Sedai walked out. Ran fastly stepped towards her and said "Excuse me Aes Sedai, I'm looking for Kaylan Sedai, I need to deliver this." He pointed at the package he was wearing under his arm. "Could you point me the right direction?"

 

Ran Arosho

Tower Trainee

[Sirayn]

Gibberish covered a hundred papers scattered messily beneath her gaze. Corners curled, ink smudged and smeared, books lay half open across the desk: the Brown Ajah would certainly never have approved. In the past few minutes a curt hand had written over all those sheets in something that looked rather like the Old Tongue but differed in some crucial aspects ... enough to utterly confuse the unwary reader. If that code was half as intricate as she had designed it to be the only people who would be deciphering the contents of those letters were those in possession of a certain book, a certain symbol, enough tricks to figure it out. Briefly she examined the results of her hard work, compared it to something written several years beforehand. Nobody was going to make her as fluent a writer with her surviving hand as she had once been with her good left hand, back in the days when she had been a bit braver, but this would suffice.

 

Frustrating months she had worked on teaching herself how to write all over again. Drills after endless drills, practice in every spare moment, working herself to the point of tears; always she wound up asking herself how this was possible, how an Aes Sedai who was supposed to be perfect ended up one-handed and useless and her script about as legible as the scratching of chickens. Half of that period she could not write so much as a simple note to pass outside her quarters in case anyone caught sight of her witterings and figured out how much trouble she was actually having with a trick most novices had mastered. These days her writing was much smoother, good enough not to actually shame her if anyone saw it, and it was time to pick up correspondence with her eyes and ears again. Their densely written and informative reports had shaded toward worried queries during her long silence and doubtless that let anybody who intercepted their letters know too much.

 

Adequate writer again or no Sirayn classed herself as too busy an individual to trudge through a hundred different copies of the same letter. She had Ajah Head business to attend to, unruly children to discipline, and a watch to keep out of the window in case a certain dark haired Dreadlord turned up some day ... not that she ever had, thank the Light, and maybe it would be better to forget exactly what she had done to somebody wearing her face and her name. She needed a minion of some sort to do this repetitive, thankless task while she herself got busy doing something far more important; something that required her supervision; possibly something that involved cut-throat political business, she was feeling in a ruthless mood today. Making somebody suffer like a fish wriggling on a hook seemed a far more tempting prospect than writing any more.

 

Looking for prey she had scarcely exited her quarters when a likely looking boy sidled up to her. Sirayn fixed him with a severe grey glance. In her day people hadn't even dared to approach Aes Sedai without a stack of excuses and apologies already on their tongue ... although possibly her memory was skewed with time, she also remembered a good deal of insubordination. His excuses about having a package to deliver slipped off her like water off the proverbial duck's back. A likely story: trainees did not wander in and out of the Ajah Halls for innocent reasons. "Kaylan Sedai is far too busy for the likes of you, boy. Luckily I am not." Perfectly cool her tones rang like iron in the busy corridor; children in white skirts scurried up and down but none came within several feet of her. "Can you read and write?"

[Robin]

When the Aes Sedai asked if Ran could read and write Ran didn't know what to do anymore. Lyv had made clear that this was important and had to be delivered at Kaylan Sedai of the Green Ajah. Now this Aes Sedai said he couldn't. He had to! Ran didn't know what to do. Should he obey his mentor and tell this Aes Sedai he had to speak to Kaylan Sedai. He didn't want to speak against an Aes Sedai, especially not this one. She looked like she wouldn't take anything from him. She looked like he must answer her. Ran was trapped between his Mentor's task to go to Kaylan, and Sirayn Sedai who asked if he could read and write.

 

Ran didn't turn red very often, only on moments he was making a fool of himself, but now he was turning red either. "Yes Aes Sedai, I can read and I can write but.. Please accept my apologies Aes Sedai, I need to bring this to Kaylan Sedai. I don't know what's in here, but I've been requested to do so." But Ran didn't really got heard as Sirayn had already asked Ran to follow her. he could do nothing else than following her and do to whatever she wanted. He couldn't just walk away, so he followed her deeper into the Green Ajah quarter, into a room.

 

OOC: I couldn't come up with anything else. Or with more. :)

[Sirayn]

The shade of crimson her quarry turned rather fascinated her. Clearly a sign of guilt; she had suspected already that he was lying about this supposed message and the colour merely proved it. Ever since her initiation into the Battle Ajah countless years ago there had been a somewhat icy distance between her and the ancient Aes Sedai, indeed many of the other woman’s generation, but nevertheless she could not imagine in what cause Kaylan Sedai would want to receive strange messages from unknown children … and given the secrecy and sending of letters on the quiet she herself got up to she ought to know. No, it was a likely story indeed and not one which she intended to tolerate as an excuse.

 

Only by a fraction did she raise her brows at his attempt to get out of her service. Children these days had no respect. Back when she was merely a novice in skirts so white and new they lit up the dark, even then they had had more sense than to cross an Aes Sedai openly. Sparing a brief cold glance for her unwitting victim Sirayn turned away scorning his explanations and headed further into her Ajah Halls. Her quarters lay where they had always been for two hundred-odd years; the door marked with a simple carved sword, black and silver, touched with white in the colours of her own sigil; the polished wood yielded at a light touch and she entered the spacious room allowing the boy to come after her before she closed it.

 

Papers still covered every surface exactly where she had left them. Out of habit she collected together some loose sheets, stacked them neatly, though she had no intention of doing such unskilled labour herself in the most part; that was why she had servants like this boy around to do it for her. “Sit here, boy.†Sirayn indicated the chair behind her dark wood desk. Never had anyone but her sat there before, if she remembered correctly, and it somewhat lessened the impact of carefully orchestrated command when the place was taken by a stripling child. “This letter here is a master copy. Rip it, spill anything on it or damage it in any way and I will not be amused. And these,†she indicated a stack of plain parchment, “are the papers you will use to copy this letter out for me.

 

“You will note that the message is not written in the common tongue; it is in code, you are not supposed to be able to read it. It will therefore require a bit of concentration to copy the code correctly. You will sit here and copy it out until you are finished. And not a letter out of place! This is important work.†A final stern glance and Sirayn returned to her own work in the expectation that her new companion would do the same.