Dark Dreams

[Sirayn]

M'bela looked around in the hut, though it where all orderly, things didn’t easily change in the dream so though she had arrived two days ago little of that showed in here, nor that she where asleep on the bed in the corner.

 

Her reason for starting here was as easy explained as it being a safe place, she preferred knowing that she where unlike to stumble upon someone when stepping into Tel'aran'rhiod.

 

She had no reason to doubt the message left in her dream the night before to be genuine. She was too old and experienced, though she saw the reason and liked it there were something about this mission that annoyed her. There was no saying there was talk of another dreamwalker, though the few the tower could come up with were witches with no clue what they where on about in most cases. Or as much they had recorded of it anyway, there weren’t to many of them in any case and those few in the shadow where far between as such it was a little mapped out area as such even for them.

 

She had no idea for instance where her own teacher Thamior had gone, and she had little knowledge of whether there where more in the dark side or where they where, who had her talent, all in all it had been luck she had met Thamior as a youngling in here.

 

Forming the white tower in her mind she stepped forward to go about her mission. She looked around in the halls, a green sister, sometimes she wondered how Semirhage came over information. Surely no one would have been as foolish to publicly claim to be her mistress, and least of all a green witch, and lightfool at that. She shook her head, this hunt could take its time, she would settle it in here though with less risk's if she could, if not then well at least gather as much information as possible.

 

Walking up the stairs, she knew somewhat where the different quarters where, she had visited the tower in here her share of times in the centuries past. Going here for real was out of the question, it would be way to dangerous.

 

Stepping in between halls decorated with battle scenes and green floors she knew her hunt was about to begin. Now and then peoples would stumble into the dream. Altering her appearance she let her skin grow olive pale instead of the darker one, taking of the look of a domani, a bright red dress and long black curls down her back.

 

She walked from room to room, flipping through papers in search of that of the right sister, until she looked at a report with the right name. The rest of that night went to flipping through the papers on the desk and in its drawers.

 

----

 

Almost a week had passed, she thought she had found what she needed and more so, it was precious what these busy little ants got their nose stuck in, though the tower never moved with to much haste. She drew a finger over a shelve as she looked bored out the window, that was when she saw the flicker in the corner of her eyes and froze it into the dream before she even managed to turn properly. And even as she turned she could feel the potential weak as was, the shield she had at hand always ready slammed in place.

 

She was not foolish the power could be a danger if not the largest in here, so holding onto saidar had been something she had done through each night on this hunt along with the weave. She looked at the smaller woman, this would be her she thought but better make sure. If not she would have to let her go, it was out of the question to endanger the hunt in any way by having them start wonder why some woke up hurt. No she had but one aim.

 

"My my, what do we have here?" She placed a domani accent on the voice that she spoke in sweet soft tones.

 

*

 

A curving flash of light in the darkness as a blade came down. Red blood on white walls. Dark skirts flared when a sister fell at her feet. Hands clutching whitely. Dust and screaming hazed the air, the age-old white stone broken beneath their feet, the Tower shaking on its very foundations. Darkness: quiet close darkness, intimate, tasting copper and salt. Silver starlight over Tar Valon, the grand sweep of chaos at Dumai’s Wells, Black Ajah captivity in Tear, waking dazed and defenceless before a Dreadlord, thirteen black forms in the middle of the night, green eyes, a touch, colours, stillness.

 

The images came in disjointed bursts. Memory spilled over with them, bright colours and pressure, half a hundred moments from an eventful career. She had lived too bloody long; long enough to remember kneeling in white skirts before a strange Amyrlin many years ago, to remember the Dragon Reborn so terrible in the high halls of Tear, the shining glory of Callandor. The Karatheon Cycle had played itself out before her gaze and she had turned her back on it all the same. No written words dictated their path; she refused to let prophecy, or the ravings of long dead madmen as she preferred to think of them, decide their moves. Yet she had seen … brown hands on a glittering white hilt, a cold ring pressed into her fingers as she lay in the mud, hatred in grey eyes mirroring her own, the taste of desperation. How did one forget? One did not.

 

She hadn’t slept well since blood and steel during the Solin affair months ago. Somewhat shameful for an Aes Sedai to admit to but she just didn’t have the detachment necessary to block out those memories entirely; how anyone slept after seeing that she couldn’t imagine. It still crept into her sleep and coloured all her dreams in crimson and shadow. That was partly why she preferred to work so late at night: why not put the time to more constructive uses? Otherwise her subconscious just played out the same scenes over and over. Choices she’d made, paths she had set herself on for good many years ago.

 

One such scene brought her to her own quarters in the Green Ajah halls. No transition, of course, one moment she was elsewhere and the next she found herself in her accustomed rooms; the why and wherefore escaped her and so meshed in the past she wasn’t curious in the slightest. The only puzzling part of this particular scene was the woman opposite her. In an unsuspecting moment she saw: a slim Domani woman in a striking scarlet gown, all soft black curls, foreign to her entirely: and then the shield slammed down.

 

The last woman to shield her had been Amiarin Lucif. Panic and fury kicked in that instant. A hand she no longer had went to a blade she no longer carried; she went for the One Power in the same instant, hammered against that shield, trapped inches from the light and warmth and safety of saidar. Too bloody late. All her dreaming daze had vanished like mist under the sun. Now stone cold awake, she stared hard at the intruder, trying to work out what the hell was going on. Nobody she recognised, nowhere she might have expected it, not even a familiar turn of phrase … was this even real at all? She had conjured up those thirteen Black Ajah members easily enough. Perhaps her mind was just playing tricks on her. Maybe she was still dreaming.

 

Confusion could be lethal. Her colourful history gave her no clues at all. Burn her but she wasn’t going to let this woman see her off guard, apparition or no, whatever quirk of the underlying conscious she was. Calm, composed, controlled: the Aes Sedai way. As far as she knew the Aes Sedai way did not cover being caught and shielded in her own quarters. “You are in my room,” growled Sirayn Damodred. “You are in my dream.” When she had banished the Bubble of Evil ghosts they had left at her command. Not before frightening the life out of her if she were entirely honest with herself. Perhaps the same trick would work again. “I don’t believe I gave you permission. Get gone!”

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

Fly in the spider’s parlour

 

The woman tried to reach for saidar, but apart from beeing a weaker channeler then M'bela, there where the fact that M'belas strong element was spirit so the shield held easily enough. “You are in my room,” M'bela smiled. “You are in my dream.” a will strong woman this Sirayn, but at least she had the right one, there would be no more long nights waiting, her hunt had been fruitfull. “I don’t believe I gave you permission. Get gone!”

 

Leaning back against the wall M'bela watched her rant. "I am afraid that wont work so well you see, and for one not good at asking permisions herself you shouldnt be the one to speak. This is my batlefield, i set the terms her, so you can whipe that Aes Sedai haugthyness off, really its so anoying."

 

M'bela had the control now, the shield in place and the woman was locked to her dream as such. She let the soroundings swirl untill they where standing by the edge of dragonmount, this was as good a place as any and less likely for geting random stumble by Aes Sedai. "Now lets play guess what I did wrong" she grinned.

 

"Oh and when we are done we can negotiate for a fair remedy to make up for that so as to be sure not to do such a terible thing again, I have a feeling you dont like guests so surely you would not mind not having another visit?" she raised an eyebrow in question, "well for your own good i would hope not, i have litle tolerance for waisting my time with witches foolishness. So be a good litle girl.." she started walking back and forth, "and start by guessing your sin...the quicker you get it the sooner we can be on about this."

 

*

 

If there was anything that genuinely irritated her it was people who thought shielding meant they could dictate the pace. Battle Ajah members did not concede defeat until their corpses had stopped twitching. She especially had never been good at bending the knee … even shielded, trapped by a stranger in a strange world, clueless as to how she would escape. Something about this she recognised in a primitive way: the discomfort of shielding, her own confusion, the dark glances the Domani woman flashed her all made her prickle in warning. It rang too close to images and memories she had kept tight suppressed for a long time. No, she would not let them surface. That way lay panic.

 

Burn her but she needed to think. Too many possibilities confused her; time to cut them down to the bare essentials. She had been dreaming, ordinarily as far as she knew, only to wake up here … if she had woken up at all. Narrowing her eyes she sorted through her memories turning a precise focus on them. Her own quarters had appeared around her; she had glimpsed this self-satisfied wretch; by the time she even realised what she was seeing the stranger had shielded her. Had she been expected? Yes -- that shield had been ready before she arrived. She herself was fast, the Green Ajah demanded no less of its soldiers, and to beat her reflexes that shield had been prepared in advance.

 

Her logic led her step by step down an ever darker path. Her dreams had been interrupted so another channeller could shield her. Even as the term Aes Sedai haughtiness provoked her, if she had had the One Power at her fingertips this Domani pup might have found out exactly why she thought so highly of herself, the familiar setting began to … smear. Colours ran into each other. Straight lines warped. The floor lurched beneath her; everything swirled; she seized the back of a chair for balance and the next moment even that ripped from her fingers. Just an instant of uncertainty but it lasted forever. Then the world reasserted itself round her in clean bold lines.

 

A vast shadow fell across her. Lifting her eyes she found Dragonmount towering above her. Fear contracted coldly inside her. That ostentatious scene change confirmed her suspicions and she didn’t like the conclusion at all. She should have figured it out earlier, Aes Sedai education and her own history was sufficient to the task, but it hadn’t crystallised in her mind until just now. After all her memory was inch-perfect in almost every way. It had been many years ago, to be certain, but not enough for those vivid images to dull … for it was by no means the first time she had encountered Tel’aran’rhiod.

 

They had had to hold the child down. Long before she had finished her hands had glittered redly with her friend’s blood. Tiny black stitches like spiders, the child screaming beneath them, thrashing wildly as she worked. The blood had washed off her hands in scarlet ribbons in the stream: iridescent water and redness. Oh yes, she remembered Tel’aran’rhiod very well indeed, one did not forget meetings like that in a hurry. Nor did one forget what it meant. Danger.

 

How ironic. Despite her best intentions her lips twitched in a bleak smile. How carefully had she prepared? Built her defences up, year on year, worked on each part so hard. All to be plucked like an apple from her own dreams by a bloody Dreamwalker. And she was supposed to be the Green Ajah’s finest! Good work, no wonder she was Ajah Head, she toasted herself silently. Then she stuffed down her savage inward fury, strangling out the urge to curse her wilful stupidity until she battered it into her own skull that she could never be so careless again, and did her best to focus once more on her current predicament.

 

Dreamwalking then. She had no defences whatsoever in Tel’aran’rhiod, no way to protect herself, no escape. It was a bitter thought, paired as it was with the realisation that whoever this black-haired Domani woman was, this could present a real and serious danger. Even a half-trained Dreamwalker could take an Aes Sedai apart. And the One Power too! People could die in the Dream World. Or worse. Death was her companion, a raven on her shoulder, she did not fear a clean end. But she had other fears; the kind of fears a channelling Dreamwalker could make very real indeed. The kind of fears a Dreamwalker might have seen in her own nightmares. The kind of fears a Dreamwalker might be better at creating than even Amiarin Lucif.

 

Amiarin. Even thinking the name left her cold. Did she face such an ordeal again? Could she? She had promised herself it would never happen again, promised, and on the strength of such a promise she dared to take on daily life. Such a promise had never involved Tel’aran’rhiod and hostile Dreamwalkers. She had so much to lose still. And nobody was coming to rescue her. This time there would be no eleventh-hour escape, no cavalry charge … no salvation. Not even Seiaman to keep her strong. Nothing to stop this Dreamwalker conjuring up the darkest of her imaginings.

 

Tai’shar Battle Ajah. She had wanted Jehanine de’Gavrielle to be proud of her, wanted it so long and so intensely it had become a wordless craving, an unspoken part of her heart. Jehanine would never be proud of her now. On the contrary Jehanine would think her weak; alone, terrified, a craven the Battle Ajah should never have accepted. Her surviving hand had been so tightly knotted in her skirts that her fingers ached. She made her fingers open, smoothed out the heavy cloth, gathering her courage. It was to be rough talk then.

 

“It’s ill-mannered not to introduce yourself,” said Sirayn with her best attempt at a benevolent smile. “Since you haven’t, I think I’ll name you myself. I had a kitten once with fur the colour of your hair.” She had named the kitten Balerion, after the Black Dread of legend, having a taste for the mythical herself. An odd memory from happier times. “How do you like it … Kitten?”

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

Suicidally reckless

[Liitha]

“It’s ill-mannered not to introduce yourself.” M'bela looked at the woman, this was to be expected, she wanted to take back control. “Since you haven’t, I think I’ll name you myself. I had a kitten once with fur the colour of your hair.” Had she now? Well, cats tended to be drawn to channelers for some reason. “How do you like it … Kitten?”

 

M'bela laughed, then she let the ground build up around the Aes Sedai untill she was enveloped in a heap of mold, only her head sticking out of it. "I dont mind, now how many mice like you did your little kitten break the neck of before she came to any misfortune. You see, being a cat in a world of mice is not to bad." She walked closer and looked into the woman's eyes.

 

"Regardless the answer is wrong, I'll give you a couple more chances. And for someone worrying about manners, I would say you dont head them to well yourself. Or didn't your mother teach you it is not nice to lie?" She ran a finger down the left cheek of the woman and tilted her own head. "Comfortable? I hope so, I wouldn't even need the power but to shield you in here. Even that your tower children can't do properly, children in the real world and children in here." She grinned, the last thought she didn't voice, that for some reason they even lived as short as children.

 

"Maybe you need some inspiration to think..?" She let it hang in the air for a moment then let ants form all around the base of the heap of mold around the other woman. Allowing the heap to turn into an ants nest, she smiled. "Is that better or maybe you would prefer warm milk with honey" she raised an eyebrow. "Now lets get back to guess what I did wrong." She made a tree appear and leaned against it crossing her arms over her stomach to rest them. "Now wring that clever brain of yours to find your sin so we can progress this game, that is unless you would prefer to stay in here forever? I do appreciate playtoys though I have yet to see someone who willingly offered to be one for me." Her lips curled into a smile.

 

_______________

[Sirayn]

Taunting her enemy in such a way had been colossally stupid. She remembered only too vividly what Amiarin Lucif had given her for her mockery: remembered the blow out of nowhere, stinging pain, the red drip of blood; remembered fear and grinding tension. But she had not forgotten something else either … that even people like that, whose cruelty armoured them, backed by the Shadow’s might … could be provoked. And a Dreadlord who lost her temper gave up control of the situation. That control she desperately needed -- to protect herself, to quiet her fears, maybe to strike back when the time was right. The game wasn’t over yet by any means.

 

Intellectually she knew she had no chance against a Dreamwalker. Even if she could crack this stranger as she had done Amiarin Lucif she couldn’t defend herself. But on a basic and primitive level she rejected defeat; a soldier of the Battle Ajah never gave up. Her own courage and cunning had to be equal to the situation or how could she call herself Aes Sedai? It benefited nobody but the enemy Dreamwalker for her to just give up as if there was no hope at all … and though she had no skill at Tel’aran’rhiod herself, nor could she even access the One Power at the moment, it might not always be so. A keen mind could be just as good a defence as saidar. So she had not conceded and this strange Domani woman would have to be just as darkly imaginative as Amiarin to get that from her.

 

Something solidified round her to trap her in place. She tested it, found it undeniably stronger than she was, forced herself to relax though cold awareness tingled over her and told her that she was trapped and helpless. The association only doubled when the woman lazily drew a finger down her cheek. It jolted cold fear through her; she jerked her head away, gone taut as wire in an instant, and then cursed herself bitterly for her stupidity. In better times she would have been able to control that panicked impulse but Aran had targeted her defences so hard and so relentlessly, brought so many bitter memories to the surface that she just couldn’t, too many raw nerves, too much fear. Next moment it occurred to her like a dash of ice water that that might be exactly how the Dreamwalker had known to touch her. She had known Aran was a Darkfriend since the blackmail began, and if he had told this woman how to get to her, a Dreamwalker who could twist Tel’aran’rhiod to anything she wanted …

 

She was feeling less inclined toward defiance every minute. It shamed her; a true Aes Sedai did not know fear. A true Aes Sedai would not have let the Solin affair happen either, nor would she have carried that fear with her ever since, so she had no excuses. What if the other woman realised? It didn’t even bear thinking about, she’d terrify herself before the Domani ever got started. Had to think clearly. The link might just be a product of her imagination and one mistimed flinch meant nothing. It had to mean nothing. She had promised herself nobody was going to come near her again; even Green Ajah courage had its limits.

 

A sudden crawling sensation jerked her out of bargaining with herself. It maddened her in short order; when the first bites came and she found herself immobilised in the middle of an ants’ nest, then fear and shame and the stifling feeling of being trapped choked her and she had to draw a slow breath to steady herself. She had weathered worse than this and would do so again but all the same … it burned her to be targeted by a child’s trick as if she were a naughty novice rather than an Aes Sedai facing serious business. Calm, she needed to be calm, a Captain General should be in command of herself at all times. Guess what she did wrong? It meant nothing to her. Of course she had offended the Shadow in numerous ways, that was her job as a Battle Ajah member after all, but … she didn’t like the sound of that playtoys at all. She knew what Dreadlords did to their toys.

 

Nevertheless, she had a duty to her Ajah, the Tower and the Light and she meant to uphold it. An Aes Sedai did not bow to intimidation. “What I did wrong? How long do you have … Kitten?” Her lips twitched despite the ongoing crisis. Imagining this black-haired Domani stranger six inches high and playing with yarn did a good deal to fix her composure in place. Going on the offensive reassured her; she adopted her most offensive drawl. “Let me see.

 

“In my younger days I swore and drank to excess and indulged in unseemly practices. I’ve lied, insofar as the First Oath permits, and wilfully deceived my superiors, and disobeyed orders and even betrayed my own people when the Tower ordered it. I’ve sent Darkfriends to their maker without trial and numerous other activities not strictly endorsed by Tower Law. I have disrespected my elders and betters, I’ve picked fights with the wrong people and opened my mouth when I should have stayed silent, I’ve been a poor sister and a poorer friend. I've been a spy and a soldier and a schemer,” and a coward … but that much she did not mention. Her smile was slow and cold. “Shall I go on? Or would you perhaps like to be more specific?”

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[Liitha]

“What I did wrong? How long do you have … Kitten?” M'bela found she did start to enjoy this, it had been a task given at first but maybe it was more of a gift the way it was turning. She studied the womans face, she had seen the reactions, oh this woman was working hard for sure, those Aes Sedai used to be all mask and buisnis till you broke them, yet this was not a broken one and she had so far given up more of her mind then M'bela would have expected.

“Let me see" M'bela remained calm, had she learned or...the next few moments gave her the answer.

 

“In my younger days I swore and drank to excess and indulged in unseemly practices. I’ve lied, insofar as the First Oath permits, and wilfully deceived my superiors, and disobeyed orders and even betrayed my own people when the Tower ordered it. I’ve sent Darkfriends to their maker without trial and numerous other activities not strictly endorsed by Tower Law. I have disrespected my elders and betters, I’ve picked fights with the wrong people and opened my mouth when I should have stayed silent, I’ve been a poor sister and a poorer friend. I've been a spy and a soldier and a schemer,” M'bela hid a yawn behind her hand. “Shall I go on? Or would you perhaps like to be more specific?”

 

She rose and walked closer, "seems your enjoying the ants" she smiled sweetly, "and you should go on but mayhaps should i be kind to give you another clue for that oh so interesting story..." she looked into the woman's eye and then firmly captured her head in her hands, the weave was one she had learned and did enjoy well enough herself at most times, thoug she did not have her mistress skill with it. She had enough thoug from practise as she wove the treads and slowly let them sink into the head, allowing them to touch the pleasure senter within the Aes Sedai mind. Slowly she thigthened her web, increasing the pleasure all the time looking into the other womans eyes.

 

"Mayhaps this helps a litle should i go on.." she smiled and even as she spoke she added preasure she didnt aim for pain somehow she had a feeling it didnt work as well with this one, it was a mather of reading your victims. No her aim was humiliation through pleasure solemly, mayhaps some pleasure this old Aes Sedai hadnt had in years and years...she grined and tilted her head studying her prey coming to understand where this was going.

[Sirayn]

This time when Kitten took hold of her head she didn’t even get the chance to recoil; panic flared, quick and intense, which she stamped out ruthlessly. That way led defeat. The firm grip forced her to meet the other woman’s dark eyes, too detached and amused for her liking. It took concentration to relax under that stare. She resented being so closely controlled, hated being helpless as a child and at her captor’s mercy, even as she recognised it as another interrogation tactic. Unsettle, frighten, then apply pressure and step it up until the target cracked.

 

Inwardly she had been braced for a full Amiarin-style interrogation ever since she realised her true situation. She had no illusions; as Aes Sedai went, she was stronger willed than most and she had resisted this before, but black-haired Kitten was almost certainly a Dreadlord from her casual use of force and given enough time and inventiveness … a Dreadlord could break anyone. And nobody was coming to save her. Pain she had expected, during the Amiarin episode she had gained intimate knowledge of many forms of pain, and probably worse to come. Such old adversaries as Dreadlords and the Green Ajah knew one another well; both sides had high pain thresholds drilled into them during their long careers; someone like Kitten should know more creative methods. Rationally she knew that.

 

Uninvited pleasure still took her totally by surprise. Its first touch made her tense on a sharp indrawn breath; she had barely formed oh Light no in her thoughts when it settled into her bones. Indescribably strange, it lit every nerve to thrilling, spread heat through her and for a blind moment she didn’t know whether to pull away. Like a succession of fireworks it woke fear: shame: crawling humiliation that anyone should impose something so private and so intimate on her: real outrage. She felt intensely sensitive, the heat of the other woman’s touch multiplied, senses overloaded. The rational part of her clawed for control. Trapped by dark eyes and strong hands, she couldn’t find it.

 

Slow, deep breaths calmed her racing pulse. Inch by inch she got herself under control, her efforts somewhat hampered by the increasing pleasue; shockingly sharp now, she fought down the urge to struggle uselessly, to get rid of this building tension somehow. She couldn’t concentrate while this sweet, relentless ache disrupted her train of thought. Exerting her will she forced her voice even, though it scraped, twisted with strain: “No, can’t say this is prompting my memory-“ she broke off on a gasp as Kitten stepped it up another notch, short of breath now for some reason, striving to keep herself under control beneath this strange new assault, “I think I’d -- I’d have remembered this. Another hint? Kitten?”

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[Sirayn]

"Strange you dont recognise it since you claim to be a master in it and so much more...toy" she grined and pulled back as an other idea came to mind.

 

Her heart still hammered. She choked off the urge to snarl; the power balance was already skewed so far it was horizontal, did the bloody woman have to point it out as well? It unsettled her. Amiarin had applied crude pressure, no less effective for its primitiveness, but this one was more … oblique. Targeting her pride, probably the best target of all, probing the limits of her resistance. Shame and unwanted pleasue coiled tight. She strained a bit at the bonds holding her, working off some tension, and did her best to scrape together some wits. “I think I’m better at taking this than you are at giving it out.” Her smile had a brilliantly hard edge. “Want to bet?”

 

M'bela laughed as she produced the perfect a'dam with the help of her memorie..."Maybe, but toy i got time do you?" she sliped the collar around the womans neck and then let go of the shield after doning the bracelet. "Now this migth be interesting" she let the ants nest evaporate too.

 

She recognised it on sight. Nobody who had gone into the west to rescue captured sisters from Seanchan hands could have forgotten it: the silver linking bracelet to collar, just a delicate piece of jewellery on the outside, but for those in the know a’dam represented desperation. A trap designed specifically to enslave channellers! This was spiralling into nightmare. She pulled away violently, couldn’t break the Dreadlord’s grip, trapped and powerless; shut her eyes in useless humiliation as the collar snapped shut round her throat.

 

The silver felt cool against her skin. No amount of provocation would open it. She was shaking now, defeat too bitter, after all her hard work someone had caught and collared her in her own bloody dream. Fury overrode her best efforts at calm. The situation was already desperate; she had nothing to lose; in an instant she had made her decision. Snarling wordlessly, she hit the other woman so hard it jarred her arm to the shoulder. Pain exploded in her head, she hadn’t known about that charming little addition, dazed and furious she lashed out again.

 

M'belas only comfort was the shock on the womans face as she learned aoubt the effect of hurting the braceholder, as the Aes Sedai moved in for another attack though she steped out of the way "Enough!" she sent a firery sensation of the skin beeing aflame into the a'dam..."your not a very good toy it would apear, but you will learn because you are clever." she girned " and i do know you do not want to return to the tower all black and blue, which will be the result as you get twice back whatever you do to me while leached" she smiled calmly

 

The next moment fire bloomed. An instant’s red heat seared her to speechless agony; cursing, so blind she couldn’t even see the flames to escape them, she registered nothing but pain. Only once the sensation had died did she look at her unburnt skin and realise the bloody fire hadn’t even existed. How many tricks did the a’dam have in store? Maybe she would have the rest of her life to find out. Maybe she was staring surrender in the face right now. Living the rest of her life collared and beaten, at the Shadow’s mercy, forced to spill every secret she knew until they tired of her enough to kill her … her skin crawled where the memory of fire still lingered. Light but she needed an answer to this fast.

 

Not knowing the range of limitations the a’dam imposed on her held her back as effectively as the a’dam herself. It had sprung two discoveries on her already and she didn’t look forward to a third. She wanted to try the collar round her throat, didn’t dare, thinking that a prime target for another incapacitating trick. Tentatively she touched her cheekbone instead; if the effects of everything she did to Kitten came back twice over, she should have bruised far worse than Kitten had, yet while her head still rang and her face burned her fingers found no swelling. Could it be that the effect was as entirely in her mind as the fire had been? On the surface it meant nothing, pain crippled be it based on a real injury or not, but … she was getting the inklings of an idea. A suicidally stupid idea. And she was all out of sane options.

 

She moved to the full extent of the leash, such as it was, felt the leash go tight and the collar pull round her throat. It reminded her how intensely degrading this was, leashed like an animal, permitted to stray only as far as the Dreadlord allowed. A twitch of her wrist and Ktten could summon her any time she chose. She hated it; it took a considerable effort not to pull at the leash, yank at it even, try everything she could think of to get it off her. Every passing moment she fought down that urge her hold over her temper got more fragile. She ought to calm down but … the indignity, the sheer humiliation of this stupid collar, the uncertainty of not knowing exactly what it did, stone cold fear for the future, hatred and frustration and fury … she wanted to hit something.

 

The leash slackened as she moved closer to the object of her hate, letting her shoulders drop in defeat. “This is a filthy thing.” It didn’t take any simulation at all to put a snarl in her voice. She risked the collar again, found no ill effects, found no clasp either. Of course she couldn’t open it; it wouldn’t be a very efficient channeller trap if she could just take it off. The second reason why she tried the collar was so that when she hit the Dreadlord in the throat it would be as fast and decisive as possible. “I see the Seanchan are doing their usual sterling job. Steal our lands, kill our people already and what do they do? They give all their technology to the bloody Dreadlords!” She inched closer. “Unfortunately neither they nor you are smart. Or maybe you just aren’t desperate enough.” Another inch. “I think this thing only reflects pain. And pain itself can’t kill. So it doesn’t matter how much it incapacitates me -- as long as you’ll be dead.”

 

She went for the kill.

 

Ooc: She’s going to try a killing blow to the throat, to crush the windpipe, reckoning that even if the (doubled) pain incapacitates her temporarily it won’t kill her most permanently indeed as it would do to M’bela. Better stop her. ;)

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[Liitha]

“This is a filthy thing.” M'bela smiled a litle, luckily the other would never know she just how filty, it had taken her quite some days to get over it and some nigthmares thinking about beeing back, but her training had prevalied and lucky as was, a broken dreadlord would not live long in competition. “I see the Seanchan are doing their usual sterling job. Steal our lands, kill our people already and what do they do? They give all their technology to the bloody Dreadlords!” M'bela laughed, so the woman did know some of them, “Unfortunately neither they nor you are smart. Or maybe you just aren’t desperate enough.”

 

She looked at the petite Aes Sedai, she where now coming closer, though M'bela was not yet convinced that she where done. “I think this thing only reflects pain. And pain itself can’t kill. So it doesn’t matter how much it incapacitates me -- as long as you’ll be dead.” Then she spun into movement, for M'bela though it was instincts that reacted, and as such the reaction this time wasnt through the a'dam as she lashed out it was with the power, bonds of air wraped tickly around the other. She looked indignant on the woman. "Clever but not clever enough, if you wanted a stab at me all you had to do was ask for a knife." she produced one and slowly leting go of the air she offered it to the other woman, fully knowing that she couldnt pick up anything she thougth of as an weapon. "You know for all you migth think they are more clever then you do be thinking, you are not able to touch something you think of as a weapon." she smiled, "oh and what would you do if your litle plan had succeded, slept forever? the a'dam traps you make you enable to go anywhere on your own, i guess it would have been a hungry death"

 

"Sit!" She didnt expect the other woman to obey and prepared to send the feeling of needles through the a'dam, make her have so much pains in her legs she would move on instinct of thinking them give in under her. She waited till she had her where she wanted her, "you know there is bether ways to amuse me, why dont you grap saidar, make some balls and jugle a litle for me. Surely someone with your strength would be able to put on quite the show of ligthballs and colors" she produced a chair for herself and sat down. "Fortunate for you i have no intetion to see you dead, a dog who learned its lesson is more valuable then a dead dog. Basicaly i am more interested in sending you back then migth have to deal with another of you incolent children a few years down the road, i do have other things to do you know. So with that in mind mayhaps try to use that so called clever mind of yours to learn your lessons so both of us can get on with our buisnises" M'bela waited for the answer, mayhaps reason and hope would help the woman along the rigth paths.

 

_______________

[Sirayn]

Next moment saidar seized her. Its grip only tightened the harder she fought; once she had tired herself out Sirayn subsided, bitterly furious, another opportunity lost. The silver felt burning cold against her throat. She couldn’t forget it, couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t work round it. Leashed: a black, corrosive thought: shame and fury in equal measure. The woman had been so close. If she could just take away the One Power and this monstrous collar both, she fancied her chances against the Dreadlord, but she just couldn’t work out how to remove those factors.

 

A better Aes Sedai would crack this. A keen mind could undo any knot and a strong will surmount any challenge; there was nothing an Aes Sedai could not master if she put herself to it. Only she had never been a good Aes Sedai, just Jehanine’s duller shadow, and she lacked the intelligence or the ingenuity or whatever it was Jehanine would have used to win. Her famous old Ajah deserved better from its Captains General than this: leashed and beaten, outfought and outwitted all along the line, a ten-day novice would have made a better showing. Even she had had a better crack at it last time -- hadn’t she provoked Amiarin Lucif, who still haunted her dreams, into giving her just one brilliant chance? She should have done the same again. Shock and confusion and fury was no excuse.

 

Her eyes narrowed when the Dreadlord produced a knife. If she could have put it to any use Kitten would never have offered it to her, but a good blade meant much to her Green Ajah heart, life always held chances, and … she needed to push back. Frustration had its claws in her too deep to suffer this in silence. If she didn’t push some limits soon she would snap. So she reached for the knife. The moment she did so her hand began to shake, tension creeping to her wrist, then all the way to the shoulder, muscles knotting tight. Biting back another snarl she forced her hand forward and pain tightened so savagely she couldn’t reach out another inch. She wanted the knife. Needed the knife. The pain was only in her head. It was a trick of the mind, just her imagination, she could ignore it if she could just -- touch -- the knife …

 

It burned her to give up. Her wrist hurt; when she moved her fingers pain spiked; useless frustration left her shaking. Blood and ashes! If it was just a trick, how did it hurt so bloody much? She worked her hand and, not needing any assistance to know how desperate her situation was, did her best to ignore this wretched woman. The sharp order triggered her wrath again. Collared she might be, and admittedly with no real prospect of escape, but she had no intention of being told to sit like a disobedient puppy … and she had seen Aes Sedai leashed before. They went in strong women, bold and full of fire, and they came out broken. Somewhere along the line they compromised with themselves: told themselves it was unreasonable to resist all the time, it only invited more trouble, they should play along quietly: and after that the Seanchan took them apart piece by piece. But it was they themselves who opened that first crack. Aes Sedai did not compromise.

 

Her defiance lasted all of a moment. Then pain overloaded her. Her muscles seized uncontrollably, her knees gave beneath her and she went down like a puppet with the strings cut. By the time her head cleared again she was on her knees, steadying herself with a shaking hand. Her pulse raced. Fear and the echoes of pain prickled down her back. Getting a grip doggedly she tried to rise, couldn’t find the strength, fell back. The indignity rendered her speechless: kneeling before a Dreadlord, collared and leashed like an animal, alone and bitterly ashamed … she had never felt so humiliated.

 

It sparked fury. She hadn’t invited this. She had been asleep in her own bed, alone, a threat to nobody. Then some Dreamwalking stranger had snatched her from her own black dreams, mocked and tormented her, leashed her and now, to add insult to injury, the Dreadlord expected her to submit. As if an Aes Sedai would ever give in! “No.” Her voice had a harsh edge. “No and no and a hundred times no. If you want something from me, you’re going to have to take it. Is your jewellery up to that?”

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[Sirayn]

M'bela shook her head, "and here one always hear of Aes Sedai ploting and cleverness, yet this one cant even put togheter two and two. Yes i want something, i was sent to teach you a lesson of geting in above yourself." she looked at the woman, "Now can your pretty litle head spin itself around whatever it migth be that you could have actualy done to call such attention onto yourself. Really all your stories is intriguing but i doubt half of them would even be seen as worth listening to so it shouldnt be to hard for your precious litle self to wrap your mind around what grave mistace you did to deserve this." She sat back and imagined the womans clothes gone, then studied her, they where to darn proud for their own good, beeing in the shadow had thougth her when to recognise someone superior and the need to temorarily bend her head and bite her tounge if needed. Her experince was though that Aes Sedai seldom had this capability.

 

During her long and bloody career she had faced methods of coercion ranging from the subtle to the macabre. Few produced the horror the Dreadlord got from her then. Panic kicked in; she pulled away, covered herself in a futile effort at protection, then cursed herself for her instinctive treachery.

 

She was shaking. Terror ran through her like wire. Didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be collared, didn’t want to be exposed and defenceless. Layers of sturdy cloth armoured her from prying eyes and mockery and the worst of her fears; naked, she felt like a snail out of its shell. It took her a good long moment before she could even pretend to be unmoved, longer still before she could force herself, though every instinct she had begged her not to, to unclasp her arms. Nobody was ever going to touch her again. Nobody!

 

Eventually, when her tone was blessedly steady, she managed: “No need to be hasty, Kitten.” She had rarely been so scared in her life. Her imagination wanted to panic agan; she had feared this so bitterly for so long. “Take it slow. A first date, dinner, flowers -- then,” a rough scrape in her voice, betraying more fear, “then you start undressing.”

 

"Pretty scars...a shame one cant heal oneself yes? I imagine with your skills then you would be flawfree...that is if your skills where true and not a lie, as obvious is since by measures you are no where near the strength you claim to be." She let a couple moments pass, "So toy, how about that display show, its so easy, even with your real strength you should be able to do something, just start with leting saidar into it." She looked amused, "I do asume you still remember how to channel, or do i need to teach you?"

 

Her lips started to twitch again and she fought down the half hysterical laughter that bubbled up in her throat. Leashed by a Dreadlord, stripped to the skin and all the woman wanted to do was criticise her looks? She was Battle Ajah, of course she was scarred, she felt no shame about that. Unlike, say, being exposed and terrified under the cold eyes of a Dreamwalking Dreadlord. The way the woman looked at her made her prickle all over; she wanted to cover herself again, didn’t quite dare in case she drew attention to herself. A better Aes Sedai wouldn’t be so petrified. Aes Sedai did not know fear.

 

She had crossed this hurdle with Aran before; she needed to be calm, to be controlled, and to remember Tower principles. “Firstly, my name is Sirayn Sedai. The honorific is not optional. And secondly … the only person who gives me orders is the Amyrlin Seat. Make your own light show.”

 

M'bela peted the womans head and smiled, "I think you are forgeting yourself, by your own lips you answer to the great lord." she took a sligth pause, "and on the dark side the ranks work slightly difrent, and when someone higher give an order even if its served you in turn by someone less you do obey as if the less was higher then yourself." Her finger trailed down the womans cheek, "so lets try again, less you are making way with your mistace you migth as well amuse me, if you do migth be i give you another clue. Eventualy even you must get enough to understand this.”

 

Having her head patted was, if possible, even more demeaning than being collared and leashed. She had to work hard not to bite the other woman’s fingers. Fear thrummed through her; she hated having the Dreadlord so close, doubly hated the casual stroking, something ice cold and terrified coiled in her every time Kitten touched her. Only words distracted her from her panic. By her own lips she answered to the Great Lord? She was pretty damn certain she’d never said that, the First Oath bound her against lies, though at times it might have been useful to pass as a Darkfriend-

 

Light dawned. Semirhage. Blood and ashes. Such a stupid risk to take! Her and her bloody showmanship, she could have convinced the girl to talk another way, but she’d been so furious still -- as if she could prove she hadn’t been scared by Dreamwalkers walking all over her private nightmares when it was only the truth. She should have known Semirhage’s minions would come for her; she’d brought this on herself. Forcing herself calm, she kept her voice even, though her mind raced as she tried to work out a way round this. “I answer to the Amyrlin Seat, not to you or anyone else. Not everyone likes to lick toes so they can get up the ranks.” She was in deep, deep trouble now.

 

M'bela tilted her head, "Intersting, so you never had to bend your head as a novice? somehow from what i learned of the white tower i find that hard to belive. Puting that aside thoug do i see something dawn in your eyes?" she smiled, "Making way with that mistace?"

 

No more touching. Maybe a stolen moment’s respite, but respite all the same, time to recover her wits and try to accustom herself to this strange and threatening situation. Damn it: she was a soldier of the Battle Ajah, supposedly nothing was beyond an Aes Sedai’s will, she should be able to think her way out of this! She flexed her fingers and considered the merits of punching the other woman again. “Bugger you, your mistress and all the other cowards who kiss up to Forsaken. You should be ashamed of yourself.” Sirayn rounded it off with a pleasant smile.

 

M'bela arched an eyebrow, "You take your orders from the amerlyn, who likely is stronger then your litle self, but that you should be able to defend yourself against, and you migth be able to learn something from, but likely could teach something too as well. I sworn to my mistress willingly, she was not chosen to me by someone else, i would have as much chanse of harming her as you me, and i can learn much more and likely did from her then you could ever hope." M'bela smiled, "which is more logical?" she was bemused, "we all been novices at times, yet i would say i am doing fairly well now and for sure bether then you toy or should i rename you pet?" She imagined the womans hair in two long braids on each side of the head like a litle girl. "cute.

 

Now you got it rigth, you did what you shouldnt, now i could have sent someone else but the best way to see a job properly done is do it yourself. Your facts of childishness do not intimidate me, i could kill you or hurt you as pleasured me. Rigth now i prefer it this way and sending you back whan i am done, a dead mice is dead, a live one can be found and played with again, and you do make an amusing toy." She stoped, and then let a feeling of ice water slip through the a'dam. "Now should we be adults, or go on, i do have more time, since you find it so unworthy of making an amusement we will have to find another task, and with those oaths binding you a promise to not be fully as stupid in the future as in the past." she smiled and awaited the explosion she was sure would come.

 

Receiving a lecture on the merits of Darkfriend hierarchy from a Dreadlord struck her as blackly ironic in the circumstances. If the other woman was trying to convert her she should at least be done the courtesy of the full thirteen Dreadlords and thirteen Myrddraal; that particular brand of slavery held no appeal. She had enough difficulty handling the Hall of the Tower without adding thirteen narcissistic sadists from the Age of Legends to her list of betters. No doubt they could teach her a trick or two, maybe even how to defend herself, and certainly it made tactical sense to be on the all-powerful side rather than against it, but … she had made her peace with the Tower long ago. How did people live with themselves when they turned traitor on the only cause they had sworn their lives to? She surely couldn’t.

 

To tell the truth it didn’t exactly surprise her that she wasn’t intimidating the other woman. Ordinarily she liked to think she made a certain impression, but that presence was a subtly calculated effect, fit for daily life but not extremes of desperation. How precisely she was supposed to intimidate a stronger channeller, and a Dreadlord to boot, on the Dreamwalker’s own territory while stripped and collared passed her by. The First Oath prevented her from responding in kind; no amount of oath-dodging would get through a lie of that magnitude. Aes Sedai did not know fear, not even with the collar icy against her throat and the cold terror that came from being trapped and exposed in hostile company, which was partly why it was so damn shaming to be petrified.

 

Some time soon she would wake up in her own bed, warm and safe, and hide herself in as many layers as she liked, and even double ward the already warded door and anything else she needed to do before she could let this fear go. She clung to that image: warmth, security, protection. It steeled her a little bit for another clash. And a clash was certainly upcoming. It escaped her entirely where Kitten had got the nerve to speak to Aes Sedai that way, much less to demand oaths from them, but the Dreadlord had better be a damn sight handier with this silver thing than she had proved to be so far if she intended to make an Aes Sedai talk … either that or make some of those implicit threats explicit.

 

“Is this about Semirhage?” Her voice held scarcely a tremble as she feigned surprise. “But I was a good Semirhage. Ask the object of my little piece of theatre.” She’d liked being Semirhage. It was an unpleasant thought, but then again, an entirely rational one. Semirhage had everything she didn’t: power, strength … courage. Why would a woman like that ever fear? No, she needed to think less about the paltry state of her own defences and more about how she was going to get out of this. Certainly it went against all the rules she had lived by to concede any point to a Dreadlord. “I don’t think I will be making you any promises, no. I think you may just have to make me.”

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[Liitha]

M'bela tilted her head "I must say its admireble to pass down the easy door out, specialy since you seem to have enough of your batle injuries already. Though with this pretty litle device i dont need leave scars do i?" she grined "And you think you made a good semirhage, interesting. Mayhaps i should need to find your victim later and let her have something to compare with, and then hear what she have to say about the mather, migth be it would teach her not to belive such litle lies again."

 

M'bela let it hang in the air as she watched the Aes Sedai, then set her feets boiling through the a'dam, to get her up and dancing. She enjoyed it futher as she let that go to give the woman a treatmeant of icewater flushing over the skin, then waited till she just seemed to get over that before puting her whole body back to boiling, following up with a good floging. She did deligth in the reactions given though she missed seeing blood, but it was bether this way, it would last longer.

 

She didnt speak as she gave the woman a pause while sipping some wine and pondering. She let the feeling of feathers caresing and tickeling every litle spot of the body go through the a'dam, oh how she started to like this device. But this was in the dream, mayhaps when she could feel a litle more comfortable around the real thing she should find herself a true litle pet, for now this would have to do. The feeling of needles pricking the skin was the next she sent through the a'dam. And then she stoped and waited. "Ready to throw up some show of amusement yet? or mayhaps just say the words and go home to sleep in your litle safe bed. Its not so hard you know 'I will not act or let anyone belive me to be Semirhage again', its all it will take and i promise that you will find yourself back in your cozy litle apartment again." M'bela peted the womans head in a way ment to apear as comforting, fully knowing how degregating it was.

[Sirayn]

Easy door out? That line showed how little the Dreadlord truly understood about the Green Ajah. Surrender was in no way the easy way out. It might put an end to her current difficulties, and Light only knew she wanted out before this little dream got any closer to her nightmares, but submitting to a Dreadlord took a high price and she knew better than most how hard it was to recover pride and self respect. It was always possible that her Ajah might forgive her if they knew about the leash and collar, Tel’aran’rhiod, and the Dreadlord with her constant stroking, but that would require her to explain to them which she certainly couldn’t do; no, her fellow Aes Sedai did not need to know, she could punish her own failings harshly enough. By her reckoning even a Dreamwalker could do very little to her that was worse than the shame of surrender.

 

Unfortunately the other woman noticed her unwise comments about the target of her showmanship. The implied threat chilled her; she imagined Tayline on a leash -- Tayline with her courage and her commitment, Tayline to whom she had confessed her horrors after the business with her son, Tayline who had comforted her when she should by rights have turned away -- and her heart turned over. Admittedly she had been a little rough with her friend herself, nobody deserved to be met by even a false Semirhage, but she had been convinced that the young lady was Black Ajah at the time and now she knew otherwise she intended to protect her from the consequences of her own mistakes. She wanted to flash back that nobody would hurt Tayline, they’d go through her first, but managed to bite her tongue figuring that any comment would only increase the likelihood of someone paying a little visit to her friends.

 

Then she remembered something that made her mouth curl in a slow, cold smile. Let the woman pay Tayline a midnight visit. She wouldn’t find a crippled old soldier, weak in the One Power and defenceless in Tel’aran’rhiod, oh no. She’d find a skilled Dreamwalker trained to the highest level by Aiel Wise Ones and fully strong enough in some interesting elements to cause her all sorts of damage. In fact … yes, some ideas were beginning to come together in her mind … let the Dreadlord come back as many times as she liked. Of course that required her to survive this little encounter intact, but after Amiarin Lucif had taken her apart, could a lesser Dreadlord match the blackest of her memories? She got her chance to find out.

 

One moment she was calculating what else this silver collar might stop her doing; the next fire hit her in a scorching tide. It crisped all her scheming in an instant. She burnt, speechless, too racked to think. Sensations piled up in a rapid-fire barrage: incandescent heat flashed to ice cold so intense it froze a gasp in her throat: shivering, she clawed at herself, couldn’t break through the illusion: back to heat again, searing and pitiless: then a hail of blows to make her jerk and shudder helplessly, got an arm up to protect herself and then only barely remembered it wouldn’t work: trying and failing to stitch thoughts together, every time she got hold of clarity something hit her again. Ten seconds’ worth of merciful stillness to scrape some wits together, then a feather-soft, prickly stroking over every inch of her skin, strange and intense, then a sudden onslaught of precise pinpoint pain like a thousand needles …

 

Afterward it took long moments for the message to filter through to her that it was over. Only when some time had passed without further pain did she relax even fractionally; tension drew tight as a wire, she hurt fiercely, battered and beaten and defeated. Her throat burned when she caught her breath. She had bitten her lip earlier trying to keep silent, tasted copper and bitter shame. She felt like a wrung-out rag. So much for Green Ajah strength. Teeth gritted she pushed herself off the ground and couldn’t even make it to her knees. She hated this weakness, Lanfir would never have been weak, she wasn’t worth half a Lanfir. If anyone found out they would laugh. The image of what Aramina sur Dulciena would say if she ever heard that her supposed leader had been so pitiful stung enough for her to make it to her knees at lest, though she shook like a leaf, even that small effort exhausted her.

 

Being stroked like a puppy on top of so much was damn near unbearable. Pain she could just about stand, but to be collared and stripped and beaten, to be humbled taxed the limits of her endurance, and for the other woman to touch her like that … casual, asserting her dominance, taking possession … made her skin crawl. She wanted to hide. Needed to hide. Couldn’t. “No.” Her voice scraped. She didn’t want this woman anywhere near her, didn’t want to be hurt any more, didn’t want to be touched any more. “No, don’t, I’ll promise.” Lanfir would be ashamed of her. How had she ever made it to the shawl?

 

“I swear,” she began with some difficulty, “that I will-“ never flinch, never waver: an old thought, an old time, an older memory. She was not going to be a coward. She refused, she absolutely refused, to be a coward. Rather any amount of pain than to be ashamed of herself. She braced herself: “I swear that I will make no binding promise to this woman. Because she’s a lying Dreadlord and I will not add stupidity to my failings.” Beaten and weary Sirayn smiled and her smile was a savage glint in the silence. “Looks like I can’t promise you anything even if I wanted to. Shame about that.”

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[Liitha]

M'bela followed her with her eyes and waited as it seemed she where about to submit, only to hear her do the oposite. "tsk tsk, that was stupid, now how am suposed to let you go?" she smiled at the woman. "You do know that things happening in here happens for real as well, should i shield you and let you go back to your sleep you would still be shileded, as well should i kill you in here you will never wake from your dreams." She tilted her head, "Since you dont seem to be able to help yourself even when a stick is put out for you to float on, mayhaps we will have to make it so you can come stay in my supervision. I think you would make a good pet"

 

Aes Sedai couldnt break an oath but they where good at working themself around them. "You know unlike me Semi makes quite the healer, if i should still you then you would have to leave the tower, and i am sure she could heal my broken toy after we traped you again, though then for real" she grinned looking at the woman and what impact those words would have on her.

 

She’d raised a Dreamwalker, of course she knew the dangers of Tel’aran’rhiod, though she bit off a sharp comment along those lines. No need to give little Kitten any hints about the type of reception that would await rogue Dreadlords who ventured into the Tower again … always assuming that she survived to tell the tale. Survive she intended to, tonight’s events had set a hard job in front of her, but not at any cost. She forced herself to relax; she needed to wait, keep calm, recover her strength for the next round she now judged all but inevitable.

 

It chilled her to the bone to hear Semirhage, that mistress of pain, whose name was still whispered to frighten children, called so casually by a nickname. She nearly reached for mockery again and inquired if she had been any more disrespectful to Semirhage than her alleged follower but managed to bite her tongue; it tempted her badly to provoke the other woman, get a tiny bit of her own back, but someone had to play the long game here.

 

Amiarin had threatened worse. Not only that, but her old enemy had even made part of her worst threats come true, so this new Dreadlord was at a disadvantage in the fear-inducing stakes. That thought she clung to. “The Black Ajah should keep you better informed.” Sirayn kept her smile firmly in place. “Even should you still me I wouldn’t be the first Aes Sedai to be healed by her own kind. I’d suffer losses, of course, but when you’re as weak as I am, would it even register?”

 

M'bela smiled, "very well my litle pet there is other ways, so thank you for informing me, i am afraid it will be a litle more dangerous for you, but i'll watch you well. " she smiled, "now i dont know of any black ajah, that must be your imagination, i do know you have some children who started walking the dream from time to another, but they know far from all."

 

She put her finger under the womans chin, and looked into her eyes. "In the end it would be easier anyway for me regardless of the danger to you, to just bring you through this world to me. A couple ravens to the bligth and they should be able to send me some of my kin and a few fade's, say 13, doesnt that sound a lovely number." she smiled, "so would you like to come live with me pet, i promise you that you will get the dibs on finishing the first Aes Sedai we capture with your help my litle toy" she peted the womans head and ran her hand down the side of her face, resting it on the womans rigth cheek.

 

The constant, relentless touching exerted a special kind of pressure on her no matter how she did her best to ignore it. Maybe to an outsider it looked harmless, just stroking her hair or caressing her cheek, but her skin crawled and she shook with the effort of keeping her revulsion and fear under wraps. She couldn’t even think straight while the other woman kept doing that; the next time Kitten ran a gentle hand down her cheek some dark horror twisted in her so intensely she had to bite her lip not to cry out. She hated it. As soon as she got out of this nobody was ever going to touch her again.

 

Partly she concentrated on that to keep herself from hearing and understanding the implied threat. Thirteen Fades! All Aes Sedai feared that prospect. Thirteen Fades and thirteen Dreadlords could turn her to the Shadow against her will, poison her life’s work, force her to betray the only cause she had sworn never to forsake. She would rather die and for once general strategy agreed with her: far better for the Tower that she be dead than that she be turned against it. Frankly death held few fears for her compared to betraying the Tower. Ordinarily she would be well capable of digging her own grave through provocation … but Kitten had proven not easily provoked and she risked provoking the Dreadlord to turn her rather than kill her outright.

 

She was staring down the barrel of genuine and extreme danger. And she knew bleakly what she had to do. The knowledge damn near choked her; any reasonably intelligent Aes Sedai could see the obvious course and how it burned her. It went against every principle she held dear, demanded that she humble herself for this Dreadlord’s amusement, in fact ordered that she do anything she could to avoid being turned. She couldn’t stand it. Defiance she could do, humility she couldn’t.

 

If it wasn’t so blindingly obvious that her pride ruled her she wouldn’t be in this position. She had done this herself with her inability to bend. Didn’t want to surrender: couldn’t do it: had to. She took a slow breath, unwinding her fierce tension as best she could, forced out words like poison. “What was it you wanted me to do?”

 

 

M'bela smiled, "thats bether toy" her fingers stroked gently through the womans hair. "Promise yourself then to not be such a fool again to play one of the Chosen, i think that is even bether then the other." she nodded. "Indeed i dont think i would like someone else playing with my toy." she bendt down and placed a soft kiss on the womans forehead. "Your such a preacious litle thing, arent you." she setled back to give the woman a chanse to speak the words.

 

This time she couldn’t control the shudder that gripped her; revulsion both at the stroking and at what she had to do for the Tower’s sake ran too close to the surface for a better pretence. Panic and fury beat in time with her racing pulse. It took all her battered will not to flinch away when the Dreadlord kissed her -- briefly, gently, yet the implied threat terrified her. She had been through too damn much to let anyone do that and feel nothing. Not long now until she could go home, a pathetic attempt to comfort herself, turning savage as she imagined what Lanfir would have said: an alleged Aes Sedai cowering in fear, ticking off the moments until she could flee like a coward.

 

Blood and ashes. She had done everything she possibly could to get through this with her pride intact and nothing to reproach herself with but it just couldn’t be done; she had given in, she was a craven, she had shamed the fine old name of the Green Ajah. Yet at the same time she had to avoid turning -- a totally unacceptable risk she just couldn’t permit. She wanted to hit something. Instead she forced herself with an immense effort to bow her head like a supplicant, like a bloody coward, and say dutifully: “I promise I will not tell anyone I am a Forsaken.”

 

M'bela nodded satisfied, "Good girl" she smiled down at the other, somehow she where reluctant of leting go, it was so much fun with this one. But time wasnt rigth, not now, mayhaps she would get a chanse sometime to amend it out in the real world, she did have that a'dam afterall. Her hand slid down the neck of the woman resting a litle on her shoulder. "I guess this is goodbye for now then, a shame, i would have let you warm my bed, something about your eyes make you so much more then one would think at first look" her hand slid down again stoping short of the womans bosom and then trailed up again till she could place a finger under the womans chin. Oh yes this one had much fun yet in her, M'bela loved wearing down resistance in her victims, though this one had the potential to become so much more. She leaned forward and whispered into the others ear, "behave yourself till next time my pet" with that she let the a'dam and shield loose at the same time as she steped back and into her own body leaving the dream.

 

_______________

[Sirayn]

She couldn’t stand to watch. Like a child she shut her eyes as if doing so could make the Dreadlord go away. Removing sight narrowed her world down to darkness; she felt the slow, inexorable trail of the other woman’s fingers against her exposed throat all the more intensely, felt the now uncontrollable shivering, the prickling terror that washed through her. Her pulse was starting to speed, her breathing to quicken and she fought the overwhelming need to pull away. She shut her eyes tighter as those fingers slid lower over her bare shoulder. Maybe the Dreamwalker could feel fear through those fingertips, transmuted into something tangible by the rapid frantic beat of her heart, maybe hear that tiny inward voice begging no no no. Couldn’t hide, couldn’t escape, she felt bitterly exposed. Just as she imagined her nerve had to break the Dreadlord lifted her chin instead and whispered goodbye. Then everything slid into darkness.

 

She woke speechless and shaking in a darkened room. Fear gripped her so tight she couldn’t think. Somebody was here in the room with her; she knew it like she knew her own name, terror so intense she didn’t dare move, she hid like a mouse from the hawk. Finally the silence stretched long enough to lessen that bone-deep certainty and she dared to relax. Shudders racked her. She felt cold and exhausted, battered stupid, thoughts barely beginning to surface. Shame and restless dread coiled through her. The sight of her own bare skin repulsed her and she straightened the blankets with shaking fingers and pulled them up to her chin, hiding everything beneath heavy layers of cloth. There wasn’t even anyone in the room and just the thought that somebody who came in, past all her defensive wards, might be able to see anything petrified her. She lay unmoving and stared up at the ceiling until the trembling stopped.

 

Her fingers remembered cold smooth metal at her throat. She lifted a hand, frankly scared and needing to reassure herself, found … nothing. No collar. Nothing to show that the Dreadlord had even touched her much less leashed her. Nothing had happened. It had been the product of an overworked and overstressed imagination. Nobody truly understood Tel’aran’rhiod; maybe she had been wrong in what she learnt long ago, maybe research had moved on since then, maybe people could tell her she had dreamed the whole encounter. No need to fear a trick of the mind. She’d been a coward, if her Ajah ever found out they’d disown her, how could she even begin to explain it? Much better that it had never happened, like the messy business with Solin had never happened, just nightmares to put away and never think about again. But her fingertips stayed on her throat.

 

Eventually she left her safe solitary bed, pulled on a heavy robe over her shift and belted it shut, and went in search of the only person she could rely on. Nobody stirred in the corridors which gave her a few minutes’ opportunity to compose herself; a Captain General should not be seen to fear. Finally she let herself into Aramina sur Dulciena’s quarters. Her entry probably tripped half a dozen alarm wards but it remained a quieter method than banging on the door until the other woman woke up. Briefly she lit a couple of lanterns and filled the room with golden light, took a seat while she waited for Aramina to join her. For some stupid, stupid reason she wanted that intensely -- not just because they had work to do but because she needed company, needed reassurance, needed comfort and security. It was a fool’s thought. Aes Sedai didn’t need anything.

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[TaeaDawn]

There were few things Aramina expected to disturb her sleep in the middle of the night. The wards on her room were not on that list. She sat up and got out of bed, careful not to disrupt the sleep of the man beside her. She quickly threw on a shift and robe to cover herself and began moving into her quarters, the one power drawn and at the ready.

 

It was with a great deal of surprise that she looked into her sitting room and found Sirayn Sedai sitting in one of the chairs, the room lit for all the world as if she had been waiting for Aramina to come to her.

 

She felt very aware of her loose hair and lack of attire while before the Captain General but she pushed the thought aside. If she wanted a presentable Aes Sedai, she shouldn't be stealing into her rooms when the night was quite old.

 

Still, there was something in the stillness that bothered Aramina. Something that made her fearful for the woman before her, the woman she as bound to by oath and choice, by deed and purpose. She came into the room and instead of showing her shock or concern she nodded to the other woman as she worked a quick weave to heat the water in her kettle. Setting it on the table between her two chairs she pour a cup for Sirayn. "Tea?" She asked as she took a seat and poured a cup for herself.

 

Aramina

 

[Sirayn]

Despite the uninvited guest at such a late hour, the woman whom privately she considered her second in command did not so much as raise a brow. It steadied her somewhat; kings might fall and shadow move across the world, but Aramina sur Dulciena would never lose that calm, and while she remained unmoved her Captain General could do no less. If she could be a good Aes Sedai under the relentless pressure of Tower life then so could even a coward like Sirayn Damodred.

 

Half her thoughts had remained behind in Tel’aran’rhiod … collared, beaten and bitterly furious; realising all over again that her duty to the Tower compelled her to take whatever steps she could to avoid the thirteen Dreadlords and thirteen Myrddraal she’d been half promised already … and even thinking of it now made her fingers rise to her throat, tracing the line where the collar had lain against her skin. It disorientated her all the more to have her fellow Aes Sedai pour tea as if they were bargaining over the price of grain. The contrast between Dreamwalking nightmares and Aramina’s well-mannered calm jarred her. Distantly she recognised that she was slipping into a haze of exhaustion and subdued shock; needed to pull herself together, she’d had worse and they had work to do.

 

Mechanically she took the offered cup. “Thanks.” She kept it short; if she let up an inch everyone would realise how shamefully weak she had been, maybe it could be heard in her voice. Frankly she wanted something stronger to drink, but she’d sworn off the hard stuff long ago and times of severe stress were not good times to begin drinking again. She sampled the tea, found it suitably hot and strong, and did her best to relax. No threats here, no collar, no Dreadlord. Nobody was going to touch her; she managed not to pull her heavy robe more tightly round herself at the thought. Nothing but silence and civilised talk. It ought to be safe here. She couldn’t quite convince herself.

 

Scraping some wits together, she slanted a glance over her cup, which turned out to be a mistake. The lanterns painted Aramina in subtle shades of gold. Something about the loose brown curls and the robe, the lack of powder and paint, or maybe just the wavering light made her look softer somehow -- less the poised diplomat, master of Cairhienin intrigues, more the rumpled waker from sleep -- and for maybe the first time her Ajah Head realised in more than an intellectual way that Aramina was beautiful. She didn’t care to think like that often, politics and war were the only ways she knew how to deal with people, but that recognition she felt like a touch. Disturbed, she looked away.

 

“I -- apologise for the lateness of the hour. It was,” she picked her words carefully, “unavoidable.” Perhaps she ought to spill everything. It would be the responsible course to take; two heads being better than one, perhaps the other woman would read something into the nightmare that she herself had been too frightened to grasp. That would be common sense. She got as far as opening her mouth and then couldn’t go on: couldn’t find the words to describe it, didn’t want to, feared too much that if she dug up all that fear and fury again Aramina would scorn her. Her Banner Captain had never done that before but when everyone else had turned on her it seemed unwise to expect Aramina to be any different. And the thought of Aramina sur Dulciena asking her why exactly a Captain General succumbed to disgraceful fear was just too much to face.

 

Eventually she managed: “We’re going to need some books. And ter’angreal. And about a dozen Aes Sedai volunteers.”

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[TaeaDawn]

Aramina tried to let Sirayn take the lead and waited in silence for the other woman to speak. It was a difficult thing though. She was thankful for the years of training that had given her the ability to absorb what she needed from her environment and for the natural facade that came to her, as easy for most as the face they had been born with.

 

As she set about making the tea she hoped Sirayn didn't notice the nervous movement of hands or the questionsing looks directed at her. There was something going on and though Aramina didn't know what, it had to be something important to have her in Aramina's quarters in the middle of the night in her robe.

 

The tea was presented to her guest and as Aramina took the seat beside Sirayn she let her gaze fall to the two small portraits on her mantle, hidden behind other things, it was only a trained eye that would notice them. No doubt Sirayn had seen them many times before when she had been in these rooms, but the woman was smart enough to respect Aramina's wish to leave them hidden.

 

She took a sip of her tea as Sirayn began talking. Her thanks were expected of course, but there seemed to be something else Sirayn had been about to say but had stopped. She watched her then and nearly lost her facade at Sirayn's last words.

 

“We’re going to need some books. And ter’angreal. And about a dozen Aes Sedai volunteers.”

 

She stopped her tea half way to her lips and put it down to take a moment to let it sink in before she spoke. "Books we have in plenty and i'm sure you are resourceful enough to find anything else you would need. But what is it we are undertaking?" She asked, careful to keep her voice solid and clear of her curiosity. "What matter is so important to need that many volunteers with ter'angreal?"

 

Aramina sur Dulciena

[Sirayn]

Bright light held back the shadow as the lanterns blazed on. Aes Sedai calm, somebody she could rely on, the illusion that she could protect herself and those around her: she hadn’t realised how intensely she needed this little piece of civilisation. It eased the unsteady fear that still shook her. No collar, she told herself again, tightened her grip on the delicate cup to stop her fingers creeping to her throat again. Only a fool would need to keep reminding herself as if the collar might appear by magic and her never notice. The collar had gone and Kitten with it, nobody was going to touch her, she could afford to unwind a fraction. She didn’t even remember how.

 

Instead she sipped tea and watched Aramina sideways under dark lashes. As always, the other woman’s composure both fascinated and daunted her, something strange and yet fragile, to be admired but not touched. If she was to speak the truth of this to anyone it would be Aramina sur Dulciena … but she felt such shame, which at the very thought tightened its grip on her that she couldn’t give serious consideration to spilling everything; though rationally she knew she had no basis for this belief an inner certainty told her that it was obvious just how much of a coward she had been and Aramina was merely too polite to point it out. Light only knew she couldn’t face that.

 

So she began a different story instead, approaching the real matter obliquely, from an angle. “I raised a Dreamwalker once. She came under my care as a novice, just a child, not yet adjusted to the Tower. None of us knew then what she would come to be. So I looked after her, as best I could,” another flash of memory: black stitches like spiders, blood on her hands, screaming: her best hadn’t been very good at all, “but in time … she came into her gift.” Far better for her young charge had Tayline never become a Dreamwalker. She had had neither the power nor the right to arrest that process, much to her useless fury. “So,” she resumed steadily, “though I have no skill myself, I know a little about Tel’aran’rhiod -- and I recognise when a wall needs holding.

 

“And one needs holding now. I dare say you can ward your dreams, but I certainly can’t, and while we all know there aren’t many Aes Sedai quite as pathetic as me,” perhaps a shade too much venom there, “there are enough who can’t manage the weave.” Including a friend of hers. She had parted from Jaydena for good, closed the book on that chapter of her life, and did not regret it a moment; but she would need far more callousness than she possessed to feel nothing at the prospect of Kitten paying her a little visit. “There are other security risks as well. Doors can be opened. Documents can be read. Not something we can continue to permit.

 

“Knowledge being power … we’re going to enter Tel’aran’rhiod. Then we’re going to learn it. Then we’re going to conquer it.” Conquer it so she never woke from confused dreams to a Dreadlord and a waiting collar. Conquer it so she never had to fear the night again. Conquer it so some day she could trap that woman in her own damn territory and teach her a little something about intimidation. “We’re going to drive out the enemy Dreamwalkers and stake our claim to Tower territory in the World of Dreams itself. If at all possible, we’ll overhaul the Aiel and the Shadow’s Dreadlords as Tel’aran’rhiod’s foremost powers. In six months’ time I plan for us to have several dozen trained Aes Sedai Dreamwalkers on a nightly rotation.”

 

Once this particular wall was being held perhaps she could fool herself she had done something worth her exalted rank. Maybe she could even forgive herself for surrendering to a bloody Dreadlord. She made it stark: “We will be the next masters of Tel’aran’rhiod.”

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[TaeaDawn]

Tel’aran’rhiod. The World of Dreams. As a novice she had been taught the words and it had sent them all into nightly whispers about whose dreams they would visit once they all learned it. Of course, there had been no fear yet, no understanding of what it truly meant to be part of the White Tower and the endless war it fought. Those whispers had been about boys and men and pranks. To Aramina, the world of dreams took on a more horrid vision. Nightmares walking, she remembered being told once. Aramina had enough nightmares of her own. She didn’t need to seek them out. If anyone else had come to her she might have said no, as politely as possible of course. But this wasn’t anyone else. No matter that she was sworn to Sirayn Sedai. The woman had never had to remind Aramina of her vows and she would never have to. Her vows had been spoken to Sirayn only because she asked it of Aramina. Aramina followed because her passion for the Tower was matched only by Sirayn’s. A belief she held that day and continued to hold more than 100 years later.

 

There was no way to say no to Sirayn, not for Aramina. She had set her sails long ago, and Sirayn was the guiding star that led her day and night to the harbors that she needed to call. She nodded her head then. “It is a daunting task, but one that I think we have long forgotten. We ask the Tower Guard to watch our walls and yet we have let this one fall ourselves. I will follow you into Tel’aran’rhiod and learn to hold this wall against our enemies. Do we have anyone in the Tower that has knowledge of this world beyond what our books tell us?” She asked. She was already wondering which Brown Sister she could discretely ask about their books on the World of Dreams and any diaries or personal journals of sisters who once knew that world more intimately.

 

Aramina sur Dulciena