The Colour of Trust

[Sirayn]

"Give me your trust," said the Aes Sedai,

"On my shoulders I support the sky.

Trust me to know and to do what is best,

And I will take care of the rest."

But trust is the colour of a dark seed growing;

Trust is the colour of a heart's blood flowing.

Trust is the colour of a soul's last breath.

Trust is the colour of death.

- Chapter 44, "The Colour of Trust", Lord of Chaos.

 

Green Aventurine eyes swept trepidly over the addressed letter in his hands. He had checked the seal twice now and it still sat firmly in place, no signs of tampering apparent. His gaze flicked to follow the diminishing white gown of the Novice who’s delicate pale hands had placed the missive in his own. A missive he had not expected. The recognised handwriting and flow of loops brought a mix of wanted anticipation and fear. Surely he had not upset her further already? He had done as she requested … mostly anyway.

 

Taking a seat on a near by bench his gaze moved to that of the horizon, a hand lifting to shade his eyes. The large blazen red ball sat just above horizons edge and promised a good day for the morn. The only question in his mind now was whether he would see it. The missive turned over and over in his hands as he pondered its contents, almost unwilling to open it. An unshakable feeling of a pin poised over a bubble filled him when his fingers finally positioned on the seal to open it’s protected contents.

 

Drawing a deep and steadying breath the seal broke between fingers and the parchment flaps folded back to reveal further familiar lines and flows in dark ink. Eyes quickly scanned the few words, less then a true sentence in reality. But most definitely an order, an order to appear. He did not need words of threatened promise in regards to what would happen should he not show. Or even should he say anything to another. Far to long had he dealt with her. Short on words scared him more then any harshness she could have added in form of promised spite.

 

The letter slipped into an inner pocket as his eyes checked the horizon once more. An earlier notice would have been nice … Perhaps the Novice was late in her delivery, found a trainee to be smitten with for a spell. Even as the thought formed it was pushed aside. She still truly did not trust him. She would not offer him the chance to scout the meeting grounds before her. Moving swiftly it took only a short span of time. But in that span the fiery ball and sunk to only two thirds it’s full size showing above the horizon. This was far closer then comfort would allow him. But it was still something, and it was not a summons to the Tower Hall either. A slight twinge of relief eased the knot in his stomach slightly as his hand found the familiar gate to the winter rose garden they had used for many other meetings.

 

He should not have been shocked to find the gate swing open at his grasp. It was always locked, but then she probably had sent the missive to him on her way to the garden. Slipping inside he pulled the gate closed with a soft click, turning to see her sitting on the bench he had squatted near before. Moving no more then from the waist up in a formal bow he intoned his greeting, part of him still wishing the gate was still open. “Good evening Mother. I come to serve as you have requested.”

 

Even when he missed a second morning meeting, then a third, Sirayn Damodred could not quite convince herself it had ended. It felt like a lie; he had invaded and corrupted so much of her life, of her most private places and feelings that she couldn’t believe she had even a little time to herself. Her quarters had been commandeered by the enemy and now when she sat at her desk working, a practice she had followed for the past two hundred years as thrones rose and fell, the back of her neck prickled as if in response to some unseen threat, like somebody was reading over her shoulder. She had resorted to keeping an arm around her work to stave off the uneasiness. It wasn’t enough.

 

She lived in fear. No other word could be put to it. In her own damn Tower she had been harassed and insulted, blackmailed and threatened, her every freedom stolen and even the privacy of her own mind, which she had held as sacred ever since her disastrous bonds, violated. He had said he was leaving for a time and she didn’t believe it, couldn’t convince herself, feared that someone might touch her at any moment. Frankly she despised her own weakness but there was nothing she could do about it … except take an action which even she realised might be a little on the dangerous side. But not too much so: if the Tower Guard could work with it every day, a clutch of yapping children and rabid Aes Sedai killers, she could master it too.

 

So after she had got rid of every damn dagger she owned, just in case cowardice overwhelmed her resolve and she scuttled off to practise in case he did anything more terrifying to her, and once she had resumed her normal routine to the extent that she could pretend to herself she wasn’t doing this out of some uncontrolled reaction to having her puppet strings twitched … she summoned one of her least favourite people to an audience with her.

 

Ordinarily she would not have tolerated a lunatic in her garden, however pretty his face or flattering his lying tongue, but she needed a secure location screened from prying eyes and, anyway, if he caused her any grief she could damn well send him back. She had had enough of other people’s intermittent insanity. Besides, the peace and the green leafy surroundings calmed her fractious nerves in a way she had almost forgotten from her novicehood. She had built parts of this garden with her own hands, back when she had had enough hands to do proper hard work, and she had not forgotten.

 

Her letter had been deliberately late; perhaps it was childish of her but she didn’t want to turn up to find yet another interloper in a precious place, not to mention that the boy had no key to her garden, and never would at this rate. If she received lunatics on her territory she would at least do so herself. So she waited, skirts smartly arranged, face impassive, for the boy to arrive. He did so quietly and without fanfare; his bow raised no more than her eyebrow in response. “Good evening, young man.” Last chance to back out, she thought, but in truth she was pretty damn desperate for this trick to kill all her troubles. “I have two weeks to learn the Flame and the Void. I assume you have nothing more important to do?”

 

Even the schooling she had trained him in could not stop the hesitation partway through his rise as her command, neatly dressed as a question entered his mind. She, the Amrylin, a woman who could have the very masters of the teachings surround her in knowledge and skill. The women who of late only seemed to tolerate his presence for only as long as it served her immediate need. Sirayn wanted him to teach her, to bring her to an understand with the emotionless art of the Flame and Void. A valued tool of the Guard and many a soldier.

 

He finished his rise and began slow steps toward her perch on the bench. Regal perfection would have been an understatement in the position and statue that Sirayn sat the bench. She had it all, she ruled the Tower and thus the nations. She had Saidar at her want and a composure that even the statues of the garden proper would envy. Why was it a woman of such stature would be in need of such a tool? Stopping several paces from her to honour an unspoken boundary he had begun to understand she needed. He motioned to the spot on the soft velvet green grass. With a slight nod of approval he sank slowly to a cross legged seat, eyes still searching her’s for a reason he knew he would never find there. “I am flattered Mother that you would choose me for this task. Though I am confident in its embrace and have received my training from one that is great in it’s following. I am somewhat surprised you would request this of me and not a full master as the Tower holds?”

 

This made no sense, he was a tool; a runner it seemed for the most part. Secure passage of information and on occasions the direct reporter of such. But she had asked nothing of him in the way of training since she had used the daggers as a means to ensnare him to service. What was it she intended to tie him to this time?

 

Though she did not show it, a tiny knot that she hadn’t known existed eased when he sat at a distance from her. She had always disliked having people near her and the constant, inexorable touching had only terrified her more; she preferred madmen and murderers to keep their distance. He had sat at her feet once and told her such lovely lies, spoken to her as if her stupid, stupid cowardice wasn’t clear for all to see, and as she watched him coldly Sirayn promised herself that she would not fall for the same tricksome flattery again.

 

It took a moment’s self control not to snap that she had had enough of his insolence. Being questioned when she had given clear instructions rankled with her, though on consideration, perhaps she had become too powerful for her own good if she refused even to be questioned. He had stroked her face as she lay helpless. Why had he done that? Did he just like his women helpless? Her fingers drummed, very slightly on the arm of the bench; cold stone beneath her fingertips. It didn’t matter. He could like whatever he wanted so long as he kept his hands off her.

 

She thought it unwise to say that if she could look at his face without the memory of fear and fury she would count her training complete. Since she also didn’t think it proper to point out that she preferred to keep her enemies in plain sight, she had rather run out of replies and it galled her to make up some excuse for a lunatic. Sirayn kept her tone curt: “If you are incapable of it I will find somebody else.”

 

If he was not so worried as to his own threads length he would have broke out in mirth at her curt comment. So like the Sirayn he had come to both adore and slightly fear. The years in her service, and out, had given him ample time to build his own conclusions about the woman who commanded so much. The woman that held a part of him he could never get back, never wanted back. As it was a smile tickled at the edges of his mouth for a moment before being cast aside. Openly allowing the smile would only have her furious and hard like a stone. That was the last thing he needed if he was to have any success at her request. As it was, taking someone so use to complete control; someone with such hardness, and teaching them the Flame and Void was going to be a challenge enough on it’s own.

 

Allowing his eyes to release her gaze and float over the peacefulness of the garden Corin made careful assurance that his face still remained empty of the confused emotions that continued to swirl inside. If nothing else it would be a blessing to slip back inside the protective covering of the void and watch the storm of emotions from its vast emptiness instead of its embrace. A stinging thought touch his consciousness and fled. Was that what she feared, emotions embrace? The thought was absurd, foolishness from a fools mind.

 

Settling his gaze upon her again, his eyes suddenly emptied into cold separation. His face took on a natural relaxed slackness to it. “If the Void is what you seek Mother then I shall lead you to it as best I can.” Hollow emptiness echoed in his voice. He had become so familiar with its embrace that he hardly had to think of the process to slip into its separation. “But to know its touch, you must be willing to let go of everything and trust.” His empty eyes held her’s for a short span, and then the guarded mask of composure returned. A mask she had trained him to wear. “Can you do that Mother? Can you do that with me?”

 

He sounded quite devoid of emotion as he spoke. She liked it already; if she could get rid of shame and insecurity, anger, jealousy and indecision, and most of all fear … she might have a shot at being a decent Amyrlin.  Until she got rid of the last trappings of sentiment she had no right to wear the seven-striped shawl and take the title Mother. Briefly her fingers resumed the drumming. The thought of trusting somebody frankly scared her; she had enough difficulty engaging in conversation with comparative strangers, she knew she could never in a hundred years put her faith in Corin Danveer, flatterer and liar. Sirayn fixed him with a hard stare. “Trust what exactly?”

 

The look would have sent Novice and Trainee alike scattering. Not so long ago it would have him as well. It was not that he had gotten use to it with all the distance between them for so long a time now. But it had lost a measure of its weight. Or was he just fooling himself so that he would remain here in the quite peacefulness with her. Regardless of the reasoning she awaited an answer and history had told him that she did not wait on anyone for long.

 

“There is no exactly what Mother. There is only trust. I can lead you to the point, guide you to the very door. But you must have the trust to step through it. The trust to allow me to guide you. To release the suspicions and tension you have, to release everything and in that release become nothing. Only by doing that will you find the Void that you seek.” His eyes measured hers for indication. Registered each and every tightening and movement. It was the only thing he had learned to read her from and it was only in set measures he was even able to read that correctly. His hand started to stray from his lap as if to collect her hand as he had done back in the beginning. But he stilled it quickly before it had gone far. Touch … she despised touch, even though he longed for it. Lavinya had …. He stamped the thought out. This was hardly the time or place to revisit that mess.

 

Risking further humiliation and score he allowed some of the softness he felt for her to touch the edges of his eyes, to add depth to the softness of his words. “If you can trust me on this journey and let go of everything then I will teach you what you need to know.” His eyes fell to his lap, fingers pulling a thin blade of rich green grass to keep the tension form showing. “The only hindrance to learning is yourself.”

 

Aes Sedai did not know anger, so she told herself the slow, incredulous tide sweeping through her was merely a trick of her imagination, rather than the urgent desire to hit him. In truth had she been alone she might well have hit something; this kind of corrosive fury needed release. But first and foremost she observed Aes Sedai decorum in public and therefore she made no such move. Only the slight curl of her fingers inward, as though the first step toward making a fist, signalled anything at all.

 

Luckily she had bitten her tongue before she started sputtering in outrage; the sheer jaw-dropping insolence had rendered her, for the moment, quite incapable of coherent speech. She came within a whisker of leaving without another word. Let him sit in her garden and cackle to himself about how clever he was, how he had driven the Amyrlin Seat off her own territory, even that had to be better than hearing another word from him; his cynical lies offended her that much; but the old dislike for being seen to be weak overcame her and she forced herself to stay.

 

But it burned. She had given this total stranger everything she valued most. Her time, her attention and most of all her hard-won knowledge, all this she had poured into his schooling. She had ignored his moments of immaturity, his violence, his dalliance with lightskirt women to the exclusion of his duty, she had even showed him private fears and insecurities, facets of herself she never let anybody see. She had convinced herself he could be the perfect agent … and perhaps she could even talk to him, just occasionally, she hadn’t asked for more. It was her stupid loneliness again. Seiaman had driven a lever into that and wrenched it wide open and she had permitted some murderous child to flatter her because she was so, so desperate for something she couldn't even define.

 

Even now she could actually hear herself inventing excuses for him. He was just a child, what did he know, maybe he hadn’t meant it. Perhaps poison was a form of greeting in whatever toxic place he came from. He could even have done it under duress of some sort. Only he had looked at her just now with those green eyes, wearing the face of an honest man, and told her she needed to trust him. How utterly and hugely he did not comprehend the situation she couldn’t even express: how could he have poisoned her, petrified her and shamed her, made a coward out of she who should have been brave, and yet look at her like that and ask her for her trust …

 

She wanted to hurt him. She wanted him to suffer as she had, to feel such fear, to be so intensely ashamed of his own cowardice that he couldn’t stand to live with himself. She had never told anyone what he had done, but it had become part of the tapestry of her nightmares, one more reason why she needed the Flame and the Void. Only that would protect her from fear and shame and weakness. Only that would make her a proper Aes Sedai.

 

“You will not speak to me of trust.” Her voice didn’t even crack. She thanked some hard teachers before she reached the shawl. “I have no desire to plumb the depths of quack psychology with a poisoner. Teach me or leave and I will find another.”

 

Sirayn Damodred & Corin Danveer