The Lion and the Unicorn [Attn: Taya & Sira eventually]

[Isra]

“Death is merciful, for there is no return therefrom, but with him who has come back out of the nethermost chambers of night, haggard and knowing, peace rests nevermore.”

~HP Lovecraft

 

.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.

 

A solitary figure sat upon her horse with the grace and ease of someone many years in the saddle. Her cloak, dark grey wool, covered the unrelieved black of her gown; the hood was pulled up o’er her face. Long locks of hair, escaped from the hood of the cape, lay on her breast; decades ago they had been honey-colored. Now they were dark as shadows.

 

The dappled steed shifted, huffing. The woman laid a white hand on its neck, calming, reassuring. On that hand was a ring with a syrupy stone, bloodred. It had long since of necessity replaced the sinuous, biting serpent. The snake ring was hidden beneath her gown, twined ‘round her throat on a golden chain. But those in the city before her would recognize her without need of the snake for identification. The guards of the city, the merchants in the streets, the children running with hoops or lathes – all knew an Aes Sedai when they saw her face.

 

Her companion gained her side and Isra turned towards her, lowering the hood of her cloak to better study the woman’s face. If ever there were an Aes Sedai more inscrutable than Taya of the Green Ajah, Isra had not yet met her. Hazel eyes flickered to the small, golden-maned lion that glinted dully from the breast of Taya’s gown; lips thinned and memories chittered maddeningly, but Isra pushed them resolutely away. They were for later, in the dark watches of the night, when she could string them like beads before her and examine them one by one. Her companion piece to Taya’s lion, an ivory, horned horse, reared fiercely against the raven-black silk of her own gown.

 

The pair had set out from Tar Valon separately, with years between their departures. But together they would ride into the city again. And though for a while their party comprised five Aes Sedai and two Gaidin, only the Green and the White were left. Only. Gelinna. Silamandra. Futisa. Orin and Gavrin were all of them were gone, lost to the decay and madness and monsters of the Blight. Silamandra had been a strong weaver of Fire, as though the loss of three sisters and two Warders was not horrendous enough.

 

Gavrin had been Isra’s sword companion, her Gaidin, and his death left a festering, gangrenous wound that she did not know how to heal. There was no skill in the entire Yellow quarter that could put aside such pain as what she felt. But the Creator did as he pleased, and it was not for her to beg Gavrin’s life back. He had, besides, died serving her, and death was nothing without honor.

 

“Tar Valon,” she murmured expansively to the woman sitting next to her, as though Taya’s long absence would cause her to forget what the white city looked like. As though she hadn’t been gone nearly as long. The bridges spanned the ribbon river ahead of the two sisters, and the white city crouched beyond them. The sun sat in a dull sky behind, a jewel tarnished by clouds and dust. It seemed the appropriate welcome.

 

“The book,” Isra continued abruptly, with no small amount of caution. “I worry, Taya. Will the weavings we’ve laid over it be enough? Will the Amyrlin be wise and allow it to remain a secret?” The tattered tome, more homely than most books, with a hand-stitched spine and pages in wild disarray, was hidden in the depths of Isra’s saddlebags. It was to their good fortune that its outward appearance provoked no particular interest, for only those who delved deep into history and philosophy came to learn of its existence. And many of those never learnt its name. Isra drew in a deep breath and broached a topic she hadn’t thought would cause her so much hesitation, but she was still learning where Taya’s politics lay. “Must the Amyrlin know, Taya?”

 

She kept her tone light, although her hand gripped the reins of her steed fiercely. They had agreed never to speak of what they had found, but did that agreement extend as far as their Ajahs, or only to the wide world itself? And Lanfir Leah Marithsen had sat the Amyrlin Seat when last the White was in the Tower. If she did still, would Taya choose loyalty over discretion?

 

A small wind chased orange and gold leaves over the road, eddying around the horses’ hooves. Isra’s cloak took flight and settled, and the unicorn rampant was hidden in a fold of the grey material. If only secrets were so easily hidden, Isra reflected silently, moving the cloak so that the beast was evident again. If the ivory insignia did not now catch Taya’s eye and remind her of what they knew, of what despair the book held, of how dangerous the knowledge was and how desperate the quest to keep it hidden, she would cast it into the deepest ravine she could find and give up the world for lost.

 

.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.

 

 

OOC: I figured most of the flashbacks would occur when we reach Sirayn and tell her our story, but you do as you please of course =)

[Taya]

OOC: I’d say sorry for being late, but you knew I might be. *g*

 

IC:

 

Taya had been thinking a lot about the past. She supposed it was only natural, when the past had been rearing up before her, slow with menace. The closer she had come to Tar Valon, the higher the beast loomed overhead. She felt a shadow tailing her at all times, the shadow of memory…and its twin, the shadow of her future, dark still with the unknown.

 

She had imagined seeing Tar Valon again, the place she had called home for so much of her life. She had wondered how it would be, and most of her had concluded that it wouldn’t be pretty. The city itself was as beautiful as ever, of course. But Taya Gille had some amends to make within the city walls, and she wasn’t sure it would ever be possible.

 

From the moment she had first been faced with the prospect of returning to the Tower, Taya had felt fear. It had sprouted in the depths of her aged shell: fear mixed with uncertainty. She had also felt a surprising dose of elation and longing. The combination of feelings had been strange to bear. Now, though, she realised that matters had been simplified. There was no excitement in her, no sense of having returned home. She had missed so many people, had longed for those who had become her family since her ascension to the shawl. And perhaps things would be easy with those family members again. But she didn’t harbour much hope of being able to slip back into old routines. And she was not quite sure how she would find it facing those she had left behind, the ones who had received no explanation at all.

 

She thought about the past few months—cursorily, of course. She didn’t have the luxury at present of languishing in the ocean of details. She didn’t have the desire either, for such an undertaking would equate to living a nightmare. Yet even the cursory consideration of recent events made it clear in Taya’s mind that she and Isra already had more than enough to fret over. Sleep was a commodity at the best of times, and it had become significantly more so since Kandor. Still…sleeplessness was the least of her worries at present.

 

Isra was up ahead, since Taya had fallen behind to exchange words with a passing guard. He had spoken in a rich voice that reminded her of a lover she had had what seemed a thousand years ago. Her true love and Warder, long gone now. The guard had looked nothing like Eos, though. He had managed to show respect and swallow his fear—which was actually closer to wariness, Taya supposed—as he answered her queries. It was clear that he knew her status, even if she wore no Great Serpent on her finger presently.

 

With her business with the guard concluded, Taya followed Isra. The woman had paused a little way ahead, and now Taya saw her lay a reassuring hand on her steed’s neck. The horses were both uneasy. Taya’s long experience in the company of these animals had shown her that they easily picked up on their riders’ moods. She never found it reassuring when her own equine companion, Liselle, threw her disquiet back at her, no matter how subtly he did so. He maintained his battle readiness in spite of his apparent sensitivity to his companion’s moods.

 

Taya was surprised at how she had come to love this horse, he who was named after a famous Blue Sister who had almost gone rogue at various times in her life. Liselle the horse was by nature fiery and rebellious, and there were other ways in which he reminded Taya of the legendary Blue who should have been a Green—that was Taya’s take on it, anyway. The horse was also one of her only friends. At least he had been until Isra had come along and ended up sealed to her. That was, of course, a very long story for another time. And the word friend was of uncertain suitability. Yet it was the story that played on her mind most of the time, and it was the first word that came to mind.

 

She had always admired Isra, who in her view had been the epitome of a proper White Sister, when they had occupied the Tower together. Yet only out of the Tower, a long way from home in so many ways, had she by necessity come to know Isra a lot more intensely. And to trust her, she thought. She supposed only time would tell if the trust was well founded. She did have a feeling, but she had learned never to trust feelings easily. Still, there were points in Isra’s favour, namely that the woman was no fool. This in addition to what they had discovered in Kandor had made the two of them allies by necessity.

 

Taya pulled up beside the White now, and saw the woman’s head turn. Taya glimpsed the pin against Isra’s black silk, and it seemed in that moment that her own pin, the lion standing proud and regal, called to her from its home over her collarbone. Look at me, he said to her. Remember me! As if she could ever forget him. But he continued to speak, his voice calm in her head. I am the symbol of all that you have seen, and all that you must contemplate now. I will be with you, always.

 

She would sooner be rid of him, and all the facts that went with him. Since that was not a possibility, she had resolved to be friends with him, the character on this little pin she wore.

 

She could not befriend the knowledge she had gleaned, which nestled at the bottom of her heart like a cold serpent, an uncomfortable and constant presence. Perhaps it was waiting to strike. Or perhaps it never would. The uncertainty was the worst part of it all.

 

But I am not alone, she thought as she met Isra’s gaze. I hope.

 

Isra turned forward again, eyes sweeping across the cityscape. “Tar Valon,” the woman murmured. Indeed, Taya responded silently. And what am I doing here? What will the Greens have to say to me?

 

Never mind that. More important was what she and Isra would say. And who they would say it to. Is there anyone we can trust?

 

“The book,” Isra said, tentatively. Taya’s heart leapt, though it was hardly surprising that Isra’s thoughts had returned to this matter. Neither of them could avoid thinking of it for long. Taya sat utterly still on Liselle, waiting for Isra to continue. “I worry, Taya. Will the weavings we’ve laid over it be enough? Will the Amyrlin be wise and allow it to remain a secret?”

 

Taya’s eyes travelled to the other woman’s saddlebags, and she imagined seeing steam rising from the spot where the book rested. It still seemed amazing that such a plain-looking book could inspire such dread. Even now her chest had tightened again.

 

Before she could say anything, Isra drew a deep breath and added, “Must the Amyrlin know, Taya?”

 

Taya wanted to let her eyebrows rise, but kept her face blank instead. She stared straight ahead and responded, “She must know.” She looked at Isra and added, “About our losses. And about these.” She leaned down to pat her own saddlebags, which contained old charters and other items that would be of immense interest to any Aes Sedai, let alone the Amyrlin Seat. Taya said nothing about the truly important item, though, the one Isra had. She knew that her silence on that matter was as good as a suggestion that they hide the book away somewhere, confined for their attention alone.

 

Even as she contemplated her omission, she thought about how some might call it treasonous. And, she supposed, it was. But treason didn’t have to be a morally desolate act. Sometimes it could serve the greater good. She hoped that Isra saw eye to eye with her this time. She had on so many other important points, so Taya held out hope.

[Isra]

.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.

Taya did not look in her direction, and silence settled with the wind. The warrior sister stared straight ahead, although Isra knew her gaze was focused inwards rather than on the city sprawled before them. The White, for her part, kept her hazel eyes on the fierce woman before her. All the while her hands knotted themselves in her horse’s reins, her knuckles sharply white.

 

“She must know,” Taya answered finally, and Isra nearly cried her shrieking thoughts aloud. She had never been one to deny emotions, always finding it as logical to give them their due consideration along with everything else. She could be cold as winter when necessary, as absent of feelings as a corpse, but did not deem it necessary to live her life so hollowly. And in this instance her emotions rose and rose and threatened to spill over every edge, leak out of her mouth and eyes, curl her fingers into claws.

 

But Taya, turning, continued. “About our losses. And about these.” She gestured to her saddlebags, filled with all else they had wrested from the lord of the Kandor manor, repossessing in the name of knowledge and the White Tower. It had taken a good deal to persuade him, and promises made that only the Amyrlin herself could keep, but the sisters had been certain that taking such action was worth it.

 

Isra had never felt such relief, had never been so drained that she nearly slumped over the dappled neck of her horse. Her bones were suddenly gone to water. “About our losses,” she repeated. “And about the other documents. Of course. She will be told of them.” A nod of agreement and Isra flicked the reins, urging her horse forward again. She did not press for more concrete agreement from Taya; the woman had given the best that Isra could expect, and she had come to know the Green as a woman little given to political games. If Taya wanted to inform her Ajah of the book and its contents, there would be important reasons behind her decision.

 

Isra only hoped, if it came to that, the decision would be discussed with her first. So that I may throw myself from the highest tower within the hour, she thought grimly.

 

Forcing her attention away from what they carried and instead onto what lay before them – literally and figuratively – Isra gazed long on the city of Shining Walls. Within lay the White Tower, where she had trained and schemed, politicked and taught. Too many years had passed since her last visit, and she felt off-balance, unsure. She had no inkling who her Ajah Head was, or who the Sitters were who commanded the Hall.

 

Nothing to be done for that now, she thought, wishing she’d kept up her spider-like web of informants and gossips when she’d abandoned the Tower. But it had not seemed important at the time.

 

The gates of the city loomed, all spun-glass-glitter in the dull sunlight. A guard held up his hand and the pair of sisters reined to a halt before him. Only a moment passed before the flicker of recognition, acknowledged by a bow. “May it please you to enter, Aes Sedai,” he murmured, all respect. They did so.

 

Thousands of years passed between that first gate and the skybound spire of the White Tower, thousands of years in only minutes. Isra felt the weight of the decades past on her shoulders. Whether acceptance or scorn awaited her within, there was nothing she could do to delay the inevitable further. She wondered if Taya was having similar thoughts, expected that she was.

 

Casting off her cloak, folding it into one of the saddle bags, she approached the Tower unconcealed by hood or wings of fabric. Alabaster skin and dark hazel eyes stood in stark contrast to the raven-gown and raven-hair. The black of her hair had been precaution against discovery by any associates of the Shadowspan they’d fought in the Blight, as had the hiding of the snake ring. For a while her eyes had been bluer than ice, but they had not suited her and she’d dropped that illusion once she was secure in her distance from Kandor.

 

Reaching the court of the Tower with her companion, she dismounted slowly, her eyes traveling over the familiar site. A groom waited nervously, his hand on the reins of her steed. Isra summoned another man to carry the saddlebags from Taya’s horse, wanting them taken with them to the Amyrlin’s chamber rather than the Green sister’s room. She gave up one of her own as well, but clutched the other to her side, not trusting it to anyone’s hands but her own.

 

She glanced once at Taya. Nodded. Straight-backed, the warrior sister at her side, she entered the Tower as though it had been only days since her departure and not years. Novices, still as young as they had always been, as unsure and polite and shy and darting, hurried on errands or to chores. Accepted followed more slowly, their status a comfort.

 

A short journey to the White quarters, the careful hiding of the book, the laying of more weaves over it, and the two sisters were on the way to the White Tower’s seat of power. Remembering Lanfir Leah Maristhen, expecting Lyanna al’Ellisande as her Keeper to answer the door, Isra rapped smartly on it.

 

Taya looked like the battle sister that she was, and Isra schooled her face into the wintry hauteur of a White. The groom carrying the saddlebags, unaware of the omission, fidgeted behind the sisters as the trio awaited an answer to their summons.

 

.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.v^v.

[Sirayn]

Figures had never been her fixation, but all Aes Sedai should have a basic grasp of mathematics, and the underlying concepts had a certain elegance. It occupied her mind most satisfactorily as she worked. Papers lay scattered over her desk in apparent disorder, numbers and symbols in orderly columns, annotated at crazy angles as if a spider had gone pattering in her good black ink: ink on her fingers, ink on the papers, ink on her desk even; brows furrowed, she chewed her quill absently and thought.

 

Planning a military campaign was harder than it sounded. She had discovered that a good two centuries ago and it had remained true ever since; even with her supposed intelligence, at least she considered it an improvement over the green stripling she had been, and the amassed skill of her Green Ajah life it taxed her concentration. Not enough to make her give up of course. If she couldn’t go along herself -- and how she burned for that, to be back in battle where she belonged, directing divisions like pawns on the internal chess board only she could see -- she had to settle for giving those who fought in her place as good a chance of victory as she could manage.

 

Logistics and details and contingencies complicated each other like half a hundred spiderwebs. Later she would have to draw a line beyond which the law of diminishing returns took effect; in the end nothing she did could make victory certain, success in such a difficult campaign could not be snatched like an apple from a branch, but for the moment she pushed those traitorous thoughts away not wanting to accept how futile her best efforts were. For now it satisfied the discontent in her heart, convinced her that if she couldn’t bring war to the Shadow herself she could at least play a necessary part, and she ignored the lurking fear that she would never see battle again.

 

Tower Law worked in ways she had to find ironic or else weep. How else would the Green Ajah’s Captain General, supposedly the best and most skilled war leader the Tower had, be raised to the Amyrlin Seat where she was specifically prohibited from danger? That particular law had written itself on her memory in words of fire. Unless the White Tower be at war by declaration of the Hall of the Tower, the Amyrlin shall seek the Lesser Consensus before placing herself in the way of any danger, and she shall stand by the Hall’s decision … It burned her even to think of it. Trapped here in Tar Valon, a crippled spider spinning her webs, when the war that would decide the world’s fate raged on without her? No, she did not intend to stand for it. One way or another she would break the chains of tradition. Let it only be before Tarmon Gai’don.

 

Piles of paperwork and tomes towered around her as, draped in her seven-striped shawl, Sirayn contemplated the far wall distractedly and calculated how to beat the Hall at its own game. Though that specific Tower Law concerned her most at the moment, surrounded as she was by the symbols of a war she couldn’t attend, in the long term she meant to make other changes; ones she had not trusted to paper yet, certainly hadn’t confided them in her Keeper, she was keeping those for a different day. But not too long in the future.

 

Through the half open door she glimpsed her new Keeper at work greeting visitors. Unobserved herself, she took the opportunity to watch Marahja do Igone a’Remei; a slim woman of average height, dark-haired and brown-eyed, high birth written in her fine strong bones. Since the Grey Ajah had seen fit to put her in the difficult position of being a stranger’s Keeper in a tense situation worldwide, it seemed safe to assume that Marahja Sedai was a political mastermind of some sort, but the woman remained very much a mystery to her. She needed to unlock that Aes Sedai composure and figure out who she was dealing with before she dared make any moves with this sister at her elbow all the time. The Grey Ajah had been cunning to hamper her with a politically motivated stranger.

 

The object of her thoughts tapped at her door and let herself in shortly afterward. They exchanged the guarded courtesies of two masters at their respective trades. “It’s Taya Gille and Isra Alisandair for you, Mother.”

 

It was rare that she be moved to a display of feeling, but on this occasion, Sirayn felt justified in returning an incredulous stare. “It’s who and who?”

 

“You must know them-“

 

She waved away the interruption: “No, I know who they are.” For a given value of know. The gulf of rank and age had been too great for her to ever be close to Taya Gille, though she had looked up to the older sister greatly, once upon a time she had learnt all she knew from the then future Captain General. As for Isra, she rarely crossed paths with the White Ajah, but anyone worth their salt had heard of Isra Nimriel d’Ilin Alisandair. Frowning over the implications she put her ink and quill away, stacked books even as she thought.

 

Both had been away from the Tower for some time, missing the entire Caladesh affair, they hadn’t even left in company if she remembered rightly. During her brief term as Captain General she had heard once or twice that Taya was in the Borderlands; nobody had reported anything else of interest and she’d had too much on her plate to give it much thought, but the White Ajah did not journey to the Blight border as her own folk so often did and now she wondered … why appear together? And why now? If it had been anyone else she might have discounted it as a coincidence. But such senior Aes Sedai, well respected in their own Ajahs, did not ordinarily leave the Tower and in such dangerous times their comings and goings had to be studied carefully. Political consequences, while important, were near the least of her concern with the Black Ajah still at large.

 

On the long, harrowing journey to Tear, the first Black Ajah Hunt, she had been among the lowest of the Hunters with many others to guide and guard her. Even in recent times, when the second Hunt had been gathered, she had had an Amyrlin and a Keeper in whom she could place her faith: the great Lanfir and Lyanna, a pair the Shadow should rightly fear, whose orders she could follow willingly. Now … there was no such buffer between herself and ultimate responsibility. Nobody would pay up if she gambled wrongly. Nobody would come to her rescue if she made the wrong call. As the Amyrlin Seat, nominally the most powerful woman in the world, the Tower’s salvation and that of the Light was her job and hers alone.

 

As such she’d be damned if she let the two Aes Sedai out of her sight before she knew exactly what was going on. Difficult discussions would come first, she didn’t doubt that. Unless their eyes and ears were good they had come expecting Lanfir Leah Marithsen, not a crippled old soldier without half their distinction, and if she herself could see that was an unfair trade then they wouldn’t be any too thrilled about it either. Taya especially might be hard to handle … she had known the two dead women long before anyone else still living. The Green Ajah had fallen far and hard when it lost its most talented leaders.

 

“Send them in.” She spoke without turning as she finished tidying her desk. Once her Keeper had gone she crossed briefly to a mirror, straightened her skirts as if smoothing out her appearance would help any, though she wished like hell it was Lanfir looking back at her. It wasn’t and it never would be … but she was the Amyrlin; she might be short and crippled and in this company no doubt she was in the shadow intellectually as well, but she wore the seven-striped stole as of right and nobody would take that away from her. She was the Watcher of the Seals, the Flame of Tar Valon, and one day she would lead the Tower into the Last Battle whether people liked it or not. So she waited for the returning Aes Sedai calmly, giving them back their own impassiveness, and greeted them with the traditional words:

 

“The Light shine on you, daughters, and welcome back to the White Tower.”

 

Sirayn Damodred

Watcher of the Seals

Flame of Tar Valon

The Amyrlin Seat