Terms and Conditions-Watchers RP (Attn:Arath)

[SerenaMorrigan]

Smoke circled and billowed upwards in a spiral and mixed with the light haze that already filled the room. Lively music was being played in the  background, and every once in awhile a couple would get up to dance. Voices bellowed laughter, and only every so often did they get loud enough to signal a dispute. The Inn was full on this particular evening, which meant the din would likely grow as the moon began to rise and embark on its journey across the sky.

 

Tilted emerald eyes surveyed the scene. They seemed to glance across the foray, from table to table. A large mug of ale tilted up towards her mouth, yet her eyes still peered over the edge as she drank. It was not the loud voices that concerned her, it was not the fact that the Inn was packed full of men. No, men never frightened the small woman. At least not until they started to  bloody channel and bond women against their will, she pursed her lips as she swallowed her drink. The cause for concern was exactly that. These men, unlike any "normal" man, could channel the One Power. Not only that, but they were all slowly dying inside. Their minds were, at least.

 

Leaning back on her bench, the woman propped up her feet on the chair across from her. Black leather boots that laced to the knee crossed over one another, and she appeared to be comfortably watching her surroundings. Nonchalantly, she packed her dainty pipe, then returned her tabac to the small pocket on the inside of her blue coat. Appearances were always important, and if anyone were to look at her, they would not be able to feel that, inside, she was ready to pounce like a cat stalking it's prey.

 

Unless, ofcourse, they were already in her mind. Furrowing her brow and chewing on the inside of her cheek, Serena playfully made an attempt at fuzzing the Bond to her new bondmate. It would be of no use at all, but she always randomly tried. In some ways, it did not seem to be anything like the Bond between Aes Sedai and Tower Guard; but, in others, it was much too similar.

 

Hers were not the only eyes that were studying the strange patrons of the Inn. At times, she felt like the one that had been singled out as being an oddity. Stony eyes would pass over the embroidered flame on the left breast of her coat, then dart to her face to see the agelessness that would surely be there. Oh, get over it already, she would think to herself as the unease in the mens eyes would take her in. They all seemed at the ready to Shield every Aes Sedai they had captured, or worse. Serena winced at the thought, she knew some of her Sisters were  being tortured and played with, and there was nothing she could do about it.

 

The Saldaean Aes Sedai, of the Blue Ajah, had come to accept her fate,and rely on the fact that Sirayn Simeone would not leave her to die. She could not! It would have been completely unacceptable and unforgivable for her to atleast abandon the women that she had sworn to her in secrecy. The Order of the Rose would not be left behind.

 

Running a small pale hand through her short raven coloured hair, she leaned her head back against the wall behind her and took in a great, deep breath. As she straightened her head, she knew who she would see before her. His presense was so immanent that there was no other place for him to be. Staring down at her, a pair of fierce green eyes met her own.

 

With a sly smile, she greeted him, and her eyes shone with a dim spark of mischief.

"Good evening, Asha'man Arath."

 

Her smile only made it to her lips; but inside, she was coiled as tightly as a spring.

 

 

Serena Morrigan

Blue Ajah

Bonded and Playing with fire.

[Arath Faringal]

Arath rubbed at his temples as he trudged across the training grounds toward the inn.  He had never been susceptible to headaches in the past.  At any other time he would have been worried.  Headaches were often times a precursor to the onset of madness.  One of the many warning signs.  No, he knew exactly what was causing this particular headache.  Or rather, who was causing it. 

 

Careful not to prod at the nest of emotions in the back of his mind, Arath quickly checked how Serena was doing.  Irritation, impatience, and a cold fury that nearly overhwelmed everything else.  All normal.  Muting the bond was easy enough in the void, but he couldn't maintain it all day long.  He was learning to deal with it, but it was decidedly ... uncomfortable.  In truth, he was feeling a little irritation of his own.  The Saldean Aes Sedai had not remained in his house.  It seemed like she was right in the middle of the inn.  True, he had not exactly ordered her to remain there, only suggested it.  She must have been able to reason her way around it.  Still, it was annoying.  He would have to make sure that any orders he did give her were very carefully worded.

 

Pushing open the door to the inn, Arath walked in and started straight toward the diminutive Aes Sedai.  An unnerving characteristic of the bond.  Arath didn't like the fact that Serena would be able to find him no matter where he hid.  Not that he needed to hide from her, but the lack of privacy was strange to him.

 

As he made his way toward her table, Arath couldn't help but smirk.  She was most definitely Aes Sedai to her core.  She sat there like ... well ... not like a Queen really.  A Queen wouldn't have proped herself up with her boots resting on the opposite seat while drinking a full sized mug of ale.  She certainly acted as though she had every right to be there though, and that the Asha'man were the intruders on her sanctuary.  Approaching her from a blind side, it was still unsettling when she easily turned toward him, a strange smile on her face and an even stranger glint to her eye.  "Good evening, Asha'man Arath." The smile almost made him shiver.  She was up to something, for sure.

 

"Serena," Arath said simply, nodding politely to her and taking a seat opposite her.  And just out of arms reach.  "Felt like trying your luck on the grounds today, did you?"  Trying her luck indeed.  Some of the captured Aes Sedai had been attacked by some of the less pleasant Asha'man.  Nobody had been injured yet, at least not seriously, but there had been some close calls, and it did nothing to ease the tension that had been building for the last few days.  "I hope you're enjoying the best the Farm has to offer?"

[SerenaMorrigan]

Propping an arm up on the back of the seat of the bench, Serena took in a deep breath off of her pipe. As she let the smoke drift out in a thin line, from a small hole between her red lips, she tilted her head to the side and just sat across from the man in silence. His young face was hardened with the trials he had already overcome at an age where most were still gallivanting about the taverns with a young girl on each arm. At least, the Aes Sedai assumed he had been through quite a bit. How could he not, with such an ill fate as his?

 

She let the minutes pass before she decided she would speak. Sometimes, there was such a strong message in silence. Straightening her head, she kept her cat –like eyes on his, and began to speak. “Tried my luck? Is that what one calls defending themselves, here at your glorious Black Tower?” Her words were icy cold with sarcasm as she flourished her right hand in the air before her, as if to accentuate the “magnificent” surroundings.

 

“I don’t know. I’m not too sure that any of your men, yourself included, would take too well to being attacked. Call it a hunch, but I would say that you might feel a little…perturbed,” Casually, as if she wasn’t having a conversation with someone that could quite possibly snap at any moment, the Aes Sedai took a swig of her ale. “To say the least.” A dark eyebrow arched upwards as she returned her gaze towards Araths.

 

“I wonder,” Her brow furrowed as she thought, “if you think what your ‘brothers’ are doing to the Aes Sedai, is acceptable?” Or when it is my turn to suffer at the hand of the Asha’man. The diminutive Aes Sedai would not let the man know her true feelings. The feelings of fear, or even the sympathy that welled in her heart at times, were to be held to herself as if locked away neatly in a tiny box within her very being."Have you any idea what some of them are doing?" Serena's insides shivered as images of what she had heard had been going on, crossed her mind.

 

Something seemed to tickle at the back of her mind, as she regarded the Asha’man before her. Chewing on the inside of her cheek, she tilted her head to the side again and continued to watch him. Her eyes took in every slope of his features, they seemed to scan over him as if memorizing every image, and applying it to another one.

“Strange.” She mused.

 

“Have I met you somewhere,” Her eyes could not leave the image of the man before her, but she could not place her finger on it. How odd for her to let the other person in the conversation know that she was actually struggling with something...maybe he knew what she could not. Again, her hand gestured in the air,"prior to this...event."

 

Perhaps it was just the dark coat, the flashing of the pins on his collar in the candlight. Had there always been pins there? Had his face always been so hard? But where could she have seen him, if she had?

 

 

[Arath Faringal]

Arath tried hard to ignore the icy tone and the cool words coming from the little Aes Sedai.  For the last couple of days she had done nothing but try to provoke him, and it was simply getting old.  Much easier to ignore than it had been right after the battle.  When she brought up the treatment of her sisters, Arath chose not to respond.  He didn't know exactly what was going on with the others.  He had heard rumors.  Dark, disturbing rumors, but nothing he could confirm.  Some of the Asha'man would not be able to resist the temptation of revenge against the Aes Sedai, particularly against the red ajah.  It was nearly inevitable.  That didn't make it right, but it was hardly surprising that most of the Aes Sedai were having a less than pleasant time in their captivity.

 

For the hundredth time, Arath wondered what he was supposed to do with his own prisoner.  What could he do with a captive Aes Sedai?  Maybe she knew something of ter'angreal and might be able to help him with his own research?

 

The silence stretched out between them again; an unsettling quiet that begged to be shattered.  It was made all the worse by Serena studying him over the edge of her mug.  All too often Arath felt like he was the captive and she the captor when she stared like that.  When she finally spoke up again, it was in an oddly curious tone.

 

"Strange.  Have I met you somewhere, prior to this...event?"

 

Whatever irritation Arath was feeling was burnt up in a livid flash of anger as the memory came crashing back on him.

 

A bright flash of lightning erupted nearby, wiping out a small group of men charging forward.  The battle was raging all around him, men dying on both sides to the awesome One Power raging all over Dumai's Wells.  His group pressed forward.  There was nothing more important than rescuing the Dragon from these Aes Sedai.  The battle was fierce, with so many fallen on all sides.  His own fire and lightning had cut down many of the enemy, but for every one down, three more took his place.  Forcing his way forward his group broke through a line.  A woman stood in front of him and he had time only to register the piercing look in her eyes before another glowing blast threw him away, cracking his skull against a large stone.

 

The last thing he had seen at that battle, the last thing he had seen for several weeks, was the look from that Aes Sedai.  The one sitting across the table from him now.  His face tightened in anger and his fist clenched beneath the table.  So many weeks in a coma, and she didn't even remember.

 

Arath let the silence stretch between them again before answering, fighting to contain his anger.  He tried to smile, but it only managed to come out as a sneer.  "Yes, we've crossed paths before.  At another ... similar ... event.  Another foolish attempt by the White Tower to put a leash on a man who can channel.  I do not remember much of Dumai's Wells, but I do remember seeing your face right before everything went black."  He doubted she would care at all, but it felt good to be able to confront one of the demons from his dreams. 

[SerenaMorrigan]

Looking down into her mug of ale, she could see her reflection, albeit slightly marred, staring back up at her. Serena sloshed it around in a circle, pretending not to see the perturbed look on the Asha’man’s face. He had not been happy to find her there, and she could not help but smirk back at him. No, he won’t be too fond of that, either, she chuckled in her mind.

 

Raising her eyes from the frothy liquid in her mug, she watched Arath intently again. His demeanor changed and he appeared absolutely infuriated. Narrowing her eyes was her only defensive move at that point. She did not want to back away and show him that his mannerisms frightened her; however, that did not mean that her heart did not jump into her throat as he fumed across the table from her.

 

"Yes, we've crossed paths before. At another ... similar ... event. Another foolish attempt by the White Tower to put a leash on a man who can channel. I do not remember much of Dumai's Wells, but I do remember seeing your face right before everything went black."

 

Slowly, the Blue Sister nodded in recognition. “Ah. Yes.” Her lips curled slightly in a playful smile, and she looked away from him for a moment to scan the crowd. Obviously, he had thought it had been she who had struck him.

 

Sighing, she shook her head. The small smile still on her lips. Her gaze returned to his,“Well, we all did what we had to do, Arath. Need I remind you that it was not my party that had kidnapped the Dragon Reborn. I, and my Sisters that I had traveled with, had disagreed with the others and had come to negotiate his freedom.” She was positive he would not care, but it was worth her time to remind him.

 

Her emerald eyes looked into his with sympathy as she tilted her head to the side. She almost wanted to reach across the table and place her hand on his; however, she was quite sure that would have been a huge mistake. The Asha’man were like highly explosive devices, just waiting to be set off by something. Serena wasn’t oblivious to the fact that these men had become trained weapons, and madness could not explain all of the horrid things that some of them had done; but Serena was not a firm believer that they could be all bad. Some of them were merely old enough to grow a beard!

 

“And, Arath, can you think of why you might not have died right there on the field? Some of the Aes Sedai do not have particularly wonderful Healing skills. You know, not all of us are Yellows.” The Saldaean Aes Sedai had been sympathetic to the male channellers, even then. In fact, she had Healed a few of the men, unbeknownst to her Sisters. At least, none of them had mentioned it afterwards. Most likely, between the Stilling, kidnapping, severing of limbs, and deaths, her Healing the enemy went unseen.

 

“I apologize if I left you, but you did not die, that is all I could do.”

 

Serena Morrigan

Blue Ajah

 

 

OOC: if you don't agree with this, than I can change it.  ;D Serena did Heal a very select few of the Dedicated and an Ashie, I believe at DW's; but if you don't like it, just let me know.

[Arath Faringal]

This was all news to Arath.  He had not been told of any healing done to him prior to the Black Tower healers doing their work.  Though in truth, very few people had spoken to him concerning what happened at Dumai's Wells.  Many of the survivors of that battle had died by the time he had awoken from his coma, and most of the others simply didn't wish to discuss it.

 

Still, Arath couldn't help but laugh at the irony in Serena's suggestion that she had healed him.  "So you claim to have healed me, however little it might have been, and then attempted to kill me here while I did the same here?"  Not exactly true, but close enough.  Arath had defended Dalinar while he worked healing on whomever he could reach.  "I would say any debt I owe you for that healing was negated by your trying to drown me.  And stabbing me with your bloody knife."  He didn't even bother to mention the cracked ribs and the dislocated shoulder.  The healers had done a marvelous job healing away all of his injuries, but from time to time he still found himself rubbing at the shoulder he normally would never have regained the use of.

 

"But what's done is done.  You cannot give me back the weeks I spent unconscious after Dumai's Wells.  And I cannot give you your freedom."  He felt the knot of emotion in his mind darken again at being reminded of the bond that she so despised him for.  "Frankly, I no longer care what you did to me at that battle.  At either battle.  I don't like what happened, but it doesn't matter.  What concerns me is what I'm supposed to do with you now."

 

Arath leaned back in his chair, studying the diminutive woman from across the table.  "Since it seems in my best interest to keep you safe, it might be a good idea for us to set some ground rules.  I can't watch over you all the time, and I'd hate to think of what might happen if you ran afoul of the wrong Asha'man when I wasn't around.  Do you think we can be civil long enough to work something out?"  That really was asking quite a lot judging by how often those emotions flared up in back of his mind, but it was worth a shot.  Anything to curb the headaches she was giving him.