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DRAGONMOUNT

A WHEEL OF TIME COMMUNITY

Myth Busters (Attn Dante)


U4ea

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OOC: This is a little retro... before Ed and Sandre made up in the Blight

 

IC:

Edana stretched her shoulders, looking up at the clear blue sky overhead. She'd just unloaded the last of Joe's crates and packed it in the storage room. He'd be back any moment with her purse for the day and she could wander back to the Yards and get a shower.

 

As if she'd conjured him from her thoughts, the wiley bartender appeared at her elbow, offering her a small purse of coins. She smiled at him. At least, she hoped he took the uptilted lips and baring of a little teeth as a smile. She didn't have much to smile about these days. Not since Sandre...

 

She sighed, shaking her head and nodding her goodbye to Joe. She made her way through the winding streets, but wavered as the road curved up to the Tower gates. She heard the soft flow of water and sighed, unable to resist it. The memories would hurt, but she prayed it was like lancing a wound. Sooner or later, the scar tissue got thick enough that it didn't hurt anymore. Right?

 

She made her way to the River and settled on the bank, letting her memories flit around in her head without checking them or the tears that gathered in her eyes. She heard a rustle behind her and angrily swiped at her cheeks, turning her gaze and the little belt knife she'd freed from its sheath towards the newcomer. She relaxed a little and put the knife back when she saw Dante's head appearing in the brush. She wasn't sure she could handle another Kaldun in this place, but at least she didn't want to kill this one.

 

"You don't have to hide, Dante. I know you're there," she said, letting a little of her old sense of humor trickle into her voice. That she'd found a friend in Sandre's brother should've shocked her. After that first attack in the mess hall, she'd hardly had a cross word with Dante, though. It was strange how two brothers, as close as these two obviously were, could be so vastly different...

 

~Edana

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Dante crawled out of the bush he had been hiding in as soon as the accepted he was hiding from was gone. Now that he was bonded many Aes Sedai had "requests" for him. They too were as stubborn as Rasheta about him saying no to them. Dante found very quickly you dont say no to an Aes Sedai.

 

"I wasnt hiding from you." he grumbled as he collapsed next to her and brushed back his shifting cloak. "These Aes Sedai have run me ragged. I am so busy trying to set up an information network to protect Rasheta and..." he blushed slightly "Other Aes Sedai are demanding my assistance elsewhere in areas Rasheta does not. I have not had time to train and have fallen behind."

 

He realized that she was at the river. A sore spot for her. "What are you doing here sis? I cant imagine this is good for you."

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Edana tried to laugh at his plight, but shook her head instead. "At least you're wanted by someone, Dante," she said softly, her eyes watching the water flowing by. She fed her pain into it, hoping it would carry it away this time. "This place is just a place. The memories follow me, no matter how hard I fight them."

 

She sighed, shaking off her thoughts. "So, what is it that frustrates you about your Aes Sedai, then? That she needs you or that she's sharing you?" She could quietly admit that she was becoming more curious about bonding as the days went by. More because she was lonely than any sense of duty towards the Aes Sedai she'd sworn to protect, though. Was that a bad thing?

 

~Edana

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Dante was not sure where to begin. His whole life was topsy turvy at the moment. "Well where do I start... you cant tell an Aes Sedai 'No', you cant tell her shes wrong. If she says the sky is pink with purple polka dots when you see clear and blue you just answer 'yes Aes Sedai'. Im the laughing stock of the Greens. Rasheta and me are strictly professional which has left others believing they can take over the other duties that are normally done by the Greens."

 

He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair, a habit all the male Kalduns seemed to share when they were frustrated. He hoped Edana had not picked up on that. "I can feel her even now. Shes sleeping but she wakes when she doesnt find her old warder at her side in her sleep. I feel her pain and then she sleeps again."

 

He pulled his knees up and rested his arms on them. "The bond makes you close to them but... I have felt closer to women I have loved. I could have said no but I know that the moment I did the fool woman would be on her way to the Blight."

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Edana winced as he drug his hand through his hair, but turned her eyes back to the water to hide it. Light, when did the pain stop? She blinked and turned back to him as his tirade flowed out. Had she really been thinking about being bonded? She shuddered.

 

"Perhaps her old Warder is the reason why she is the way she is? And not all of the Greens can be like that, Dante. I doubt me that Loraine would stoop to that level." She shook her head, unable to wrap her thoughts around that particular woman being mean to anyone. Kynwric swore she was daunting on a battle field, but...

 

She shook her head. "They can't all be like that. No one would willingly subject themselves to that..." Not being able to tell them "no?" She eyed him warily. "And what do you mean you can't tell them no? Do they take your free will with that bond?"

 

It wasn't sarcasm making her ask that. It was fear. None of the other warders she'd met had mentioned such a thing...

 

~Edana

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He laughed. "No, when I originally said I would not bond Rasheta she wrapped me in air and yelled at me trying to get me to see her way of it. I dont think the Aes Sedai know or just dont care that its not all that fun to be helpless... well depending on the situation." He said the last with a blush.

 

"I sometimes think had I come a year later things would be different. I met a woman I liked... took my mind away from Rasheta for a time... then she became a trainee so there went that. I had just been raised." He fingered the shifting cloak a little. "No this is what I was meant to be I think. Aes Sedai make things difficult but what they can do with their power... we will need them in the last battle. I just wish they had a little more humility is all." He turned to smile at her. He didnt want to mention no one had a bigger issue with Aes Sedai pride than Sandre Kaldun. Sandre stuck out in training like a sore thumb because he was the only one who didnt praise the works of the Aes Sedai even in the privy.

 

"Why do you ask?"

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Edana shook her head and looked back over the water. "I'm lonely," she said softly. "As well trained as I am, I will most likely be standing on a wall for my entire life. Guard shifts and training sessions are all I have to look forward to."

 

She sighed, finding a rock with the toe of her boot and working it free. "Before, I couldn't bear giving Sandre up to do my duty and become a warder. He said he'd volunteer to be bonded with me, a matching set, as it were." She laughed and shook her head, even if it hurt a little. "I couldn't bear to think about sharing him, either. Even if she meant nothing but his duty to him, she'd have a hold over him and I didn't like that idea."

 

She expression sobered and she threw the rock across the moving river, watching it skip a few times before the weight pulled it down. "I have nothing, now, so there's no reason not to do what I came here for. With Sandre gone, I have every reason to do it, though. Not the least of which is that I am very lonely." She looked back at him. "You can't babysit me every minute, you know?"

 

~Edana

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"Can too." Dante argued. "As much as a match pair of Warders would have been cute." He chose his words to show her she could be girly on occasion. "I think you are already bonded. Your not over him. You would be helping no one by giving what small part of yourself he doesnt still have a hold of just as it would not be fair for him to do the same. You dont need a bond to know what hes doing any time of the day either. He was always a creature of habit. About now hes in some village they are protecting watching something that caught his interest, a cloud formation, dripping water, children playing, something.... but hes thinking about you. Stroking that braid."

 

He looked at her. She knew Sandre better than he did. He was prone to do such a thing after their arguments when he was hurt. He was surely hurt now. She would be a great Warder. However Dante did feel she already had a bond.

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Edana snorted, shaking her head and looking up. The sun was setting, making the sky explode into a hundred different shades of pink, purple and blue. Cute, indeed. Dante was probably right, Sandre was staring up at that sky, wherever he was. As much as he was sure to hate her, right then, she doubted any thought he had of her would be a good one. She didn't say as much to Dante. Let him keep his romantic ideas as long as he could. Love had a way of destroying those quickly enough.

 

She had to be honest, though. "No, I'm not over him. I'll slit your throat myself if you ever even hint that to him, though." She looked away from the sunset. "And I'm no good to anyone right now, not this way. I have no direction, no goal. I have no focus and I fill my free time with meaningless little nothings, just to exhaust myself until I fall into bed, too exhausted to think." Ah, but then the dreams hit her. How many mornings had she been shaken awake by a dream so real it brought tears to her eyes to see the reality her life had become. And when, by all that shines in the Light, had she become such a girl?

 

"Being bonded would change all of that. I suffer no illusions that your brother will come back to me, Dante. What could I possibly be saving myself for?" She held up her hand to stop the argument she saw flashing in his eyes. "Let's not argue about that right now, okay? We'll just agree to disagree about Sandre until he's here to prove one of us wrong."

 

Sandre. Here. She suppressed a sigh of longing with every drop of energy she had control of.

 

~Edana

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"Your year in the Borderlands is coming up are you sure you want to Bond before you can experience that? Best to wait until afterward." The Kaldun lands were on the way to Fal Dara. She would have to pass them and would no doubt see the flags on the poles on the side of the road. If she resisted that and survived the Blight then she would be over him and then she well and truly should bond he thought.

 

"I will tell you its a lot of worry to be a Warder... my life is linked to hers. Something happens to her I am as good as dead. Warders get the raw side of the deal in this. Her survival after losing me could almost be said to be guaranteed. Especially since we have not grown close... Im expendable."

 

Nothing he could say could prepare her for what she was talking of doing. It was shame really the cost was so high. "Your life isnt even your own anymore."

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She turned, pinning him with her eyes. "My life isn't my own anymore, already. I pretend I have some control over it, but I really don't, do I? Between the Captain telling me where and when I can breathe and your brother..." she growled in exasperation and stood up, pacing from one side of the little clearing to the other.

 

"Aye, I'm heading to the Blight soon. And you're right, I wouldn't let anyone bond me before that. I heard it's far from pleasant up there and..."

 

Sandre had told her that. He'd lost so much weight, so much of the laughter from his eyes while he was gone. She bit her lip until it bled, welcoming a physical pain to push away the emotional one. Why was everything about Sandre?

 

"Why did you do it, Dante? Don't tell me she didn't give you a choice, you know that's not true. There was always a choice. Why did you choose this instead of letting her go?"

 

~Edana

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Her frustration at having no control over her life was apparent. Bonding would be worse. "You really want to know?" He stood to stop her pacing and looked her in the eyes. He didnt like what he was going to have to tell her. "I loved her no matter what she did to me and even though I felt she didnt deserve it. The thought of her going out to the Blight without me was killing me. My life is hard now Edana but its not miserable as I would have been had I kept resisting this. I feel for her so much that there is nothing I am not willing to work through. She can ignore me, or hide from me, or become lovers with my best friend and I will be happy to just be by her side knowing that the object of my affection is happy and safe."

 

His own dilemma mirrored hers. Her love was in the Blight without her and she was miserable. He hoped she saw that. If she saw that a guy much younger than her would go that far he hoped she would realize she had to try again, and again if needed.

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His words cut and she closed her eyes against it. She'd let Sandre go to the Blight. She'd done what he swore he would not let Rasheta do. He didn't give her a choice, but...

 

She pulled away from him, her shoulders slumped. It always came back to Sandre. Dante didn't look any more happy than she was, if she were honest. "If that's what you call happiness, Dante, there's no hope for me, either."

 

She shook her head, propping her shoulder on a tree trunk and staring at the water without seeing it. "I am being selfish, I guess. I couldn't subject someone else to this misery. That's exactly what would happen, too. No matter who the Aes Sedai was, what her reasons were, I'd drag her down into this miserable pit with me." She shook her head, feeling the tears welling up again and fighting them. "If he dies..."

 

She looked back at him, an idea occurring to her. "They won't tell me," she said, turning to face him. "You have to tell me, Dante. Swear it! If anything happens to him, I have to know. Promise me..." She was close to hysterical, or, at least as close as it was possible for her to get and still maintain control over herself. The thought of his death made her heart scream, but the thought of not knowing about it made it worse.

 

~Edana

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He had hit home and inside he felt he finally convinced her even if she didnt see it yet. She was hysterical and broken and now she knew it. He didnt know if she would hate him but he decided she needed help. He pulled her close for a hug and held her tightly until she stopped struggling.

 

"I promise you Edana you will know first." He let her rest there a moment. "In his last letter though he told me he wouldnt until he saw you again... then the light take him for all he cares. I challenge you to find someone more stubborn than Sandre Kaldun when he wants something his way."

 

She really did feel family. At the same time she didnt. It wasnt easy being lonely and feeling her warm body on his and not be at least a little lustful of it. He pulled away blushing.

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She was sure he meant it to make her feel better and she was even more sure that it failed miserably. She wouldn't tell him that, of course. He pulled away and she wrinkled her brow, but didn't say anything.

 

"I told him I would never bond an Aes Sedai," she said softly, turning her eyes back to the water. "I wonder if my anger is pushing me to strike back at him..."

 

She shook her head and sighed. She was exhausted from the day and the wild ride her emotions had gone on since she'd stepped off the road back inside the Gate. "Your brother is insufferable, even from half a continent away."

 

~Edana

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Dante had to smile at least a little bit. "Be glad you only know one of them. Eldest married a woman who looks and fights like one of those Aiel Maidens, thinks like an Aes Sedai, and acts like a Saldean Noble woman. Naturally hes had to toughen up." He got a chill at the thought of having a wife like that. Being bonded was hard enough. "We have women in the family too. My sister is a dangerous beauty. She may feign to be shy but her teachers for the Game of Houses is a Cairihienen and a Domani. The woman is deadly with a hair pin. You'd love her."

 

He picked up a stone and tossed it towards the river, watching is skip a few times before it sank. A dip in the river didnt sound bad right then. "So what are you going to do Edana? I dont think you could handle the complete control an Aes Sedai would have over you right now. I think when you are over this you will be asking yourself what the heck you were thinking."

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Edana shook her head, watching the stone skip across the water. She already knew what she was thinking. She was angry, hurt, jealous...

 

She sighed and shook her head. "You know I can't hand control of myself to anyone, much less another woman." She laughed. "Can you imagine? The blasted...woman... would probably make me wear a dress, for Light's sake!"

 

The last time she'd worn a dress...

 

She reached for a rock, throwing it a bit harder than she meant to, though she was pleased with the soft plunk of it sinking into the water. No, if she couldn't hand any amount of control to Sandre, then an Aes Sedai was out of the question.

 

~Edana

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