Pankration

[Wayfarer]

It was with a jaunty step that Aran set off for the White Tower. It had been an hour or two since lunch, plenty of time for his meal to settle and for him to think about what lay ahead. Sirayn, one of his newer projects, had proved to be rather stubborn. It wasn't unexpected to find some level of resistance, but in Sirayn's class it had almost prompted her to make a suicidal decision which would also drag down those who served her in the same moment. Aran couldn't really say he approved, beyond the fact that she was being difficult with him, it also said some very interesting things about her. One word in particularly stood out from all the others.

 

Brittle.

 

Strong willed, very strong willed, yet at the same time very inflexible. Damaged also came to mind, her reaction to his presence revealed alot of hurt beneath the surface of her strong facade. She'd been rather short with him, in fact she'd been rather short in general. He would have said that that was the reason for insistence on title and such, but that wouldn't have been entirely accurate. What it was... well, he had his suspicions, but it always bore more looking into before he tried to make any judgement about it.

 

Smiling at a couple of Aes Sedai as he walked by them up the stairs, he got a welcoming smile from Fayth but the other one whose name he didn't know merely frowned. Aes Sedai might think themselves above those around them but in truth they were no better or different than anyone else. Titles and positions didn't make people, and that was one truth he had found no matter where he had gone and who he had met. Sirayn was no different and that was why he could outdo her, because she believed she was different and that she was above others. Aran had his doubts as to whether that was something that was fixable, but it always bore keeping in mind.

 

There it was, Sirayn's door. Simply helping himself, he closed the door behind him with his usual impudent grin plastered on his face. The ageless look was decidedly neutral, though the eyes were a touch frosty. Sitting at a desk, she was pouring over different papers of varying degrees of importance no doubt. Chuckling, he wandered over to the table as he looked at the paper. "Anything interesting?"

 

 

Aran

Tower Guard

[Sirayn]

No matter how long she stared at the papers spread out in front of her she couldn’t make sense of them. Outwardly everything looked as it always did; half a hundred reports scattered across her desk, a few books piled haphazardly, ink on her fingers and concentration in her furrowed brow; but when she looked over the sheaf in her hand, though her gaze tracked the densely written lines, she read no more than a few words. It concerned the refugee situation in Cairhien, she had figured out that much, but that and many other topics had lost all their interest for her overnight.

 

Partly remembering distracted her too much to fully focus on the spidery script. Some bloody Aes Sedai she made; she couldn’t stop thinking about bright flowers and sunshine and the glitter of tears, the sound of silence and bitterness, how much reliance and -- affection, she supposed, though that was a deceptive term -- she had invested in Aramina. Ultimately it had all been for nothing. Like a flawless mirror Aramina had given her back images of what she should have been, had filled up a secret place inside her that craved acceptance, a luxury she couldn’t afford. She would have to manage without it now. Times had changed.

 

Darker than that she remembered how Aran had made her touch his hand. She didn’t even want to think about it; another vivid little piece of fear and humiliation to be stuffed into her memory as far back as she could; but she had never been much good at forgetting and every time she relaxed it would steal into her thoughts again, the sensation, the crawling fear that he might make a move at any moment. An echo of that coldness touched her now. Stupid to feel defenceless in her own bloody quarters, where anyone who walked through the door could meet the One Power, but the knowledge that Aran might enter at any moment and it would be back to touching again horrified her. She really ought to ward that door heavier than she did. Knowing from the alarm ward when anyone entered was no longer sufficient.

 

The other part making it difficult to concentrate on her work was simple. How much good had all her hard work done her when it counted? She did not let people touch her, absolutely did not, Corin Danveer had had to poison her to get his opportunity and even then she had pushed him away twice as hard for his bizarre, dangerous presumption. But until she came up with a good plan -- and she was mulling over a few -- she had no way to prevent Aran doing whatever he wanted to her, save by killing him, and it terrified her. Why had she toiled so long to marshal her defences in lands far from here when she couldn’t stop a Tower Guard from touching her at his leisure? Discouraging was too gentle a word.

 

Naturally enough Aran pushed in the moment she might have got down to some actual work. Triggering all her wards, cluttering up her orderly quarters, peering at her work as if he had any right to intrude on her private affairs: it would be difficult to find anyone who hated Aran more than she did at that point. She gathered the papers together and locked them in a drawer safe from prying eyes, warded them as an afterthought, trying not to wish he would stand further away.

 

“Don’t do that.” She remained curt. “If you keep opening doors without permission you’ll lose your fingers. You can’t sense a ward at ten paces like an Aes Sedai can. Learn to knock.” Idiot, she added inwardly.

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[Wayfarer]

Laughing as she quickly put her papers away, he knew that by doing that he'd forced her to put her work away more quickly than if he had just asked her to finish up. It was a simple way to get her moving, and move she did, in fact that was probably the fastest he'd ever seen her move. Her admonishment was answered with a cheeky grin on his part, lose a few fingers indeed. As if she would put such a ward on her front door, the worst she'd come across was Muirenn's and he'd paid that back in kind by marking the door for her trouble. "You already know I'm coming, there doesn't seem to be a point. But, now that I am here, howabout you fetch those daggers and show me to this place that we are going to train? The sooner we get started the sooner we can finished. The sooner we are finished today, the sooner I can go and drink. Lets go."

 

Frankly she didn’t give a damn if he lost the aforementioned fingers due to an advanced case of stupidity. Served him right for messing around in Aes Sedai quarters without exercising proper caution. It seemed a little uncharitable even for her to hope that it was on her personal wards that he sustained the injury in question, although she refrained from pointing out the ward on her bedroom door, not wanting him to get any ideas into his scheming little Darkfriend head. Instead she took the daggers off the shelf and exited her quarters, sealing the door again behind them, then led the way down into the lower levels of the Tower; a chattering little voice at the back of her head told her exactly what people were thinking of her, but even she recognised it was a touch on the ridiculous side to leap to conclusions because she had been seen in public with someone in high afternoon. Servants kept the empty part of the Tower covered up and clean although nobody used it; she had picked somewhere where their footsteps in the dust wouldn’t draw attention, just an ordinary room, safe from prying eyes. Unfortunately not safe from prying Darkfriends, but one couldn’t have everything. “Here.”

 

It was a large room, that was something that Aran approved of immediately. The room was bare, not a single piece of furniture to be found but that was something Aran could fix later. If some chairs, a table or even a lounge went missing over the next week in the Tower, chances were that it would find its way to here. A single window brought light into the room and wandering over to it, he noticed that they were still a few levels above the ground. Good, it was as close as they were going to get to undisturbed as they could manage. Turning back to Sirayn, he smiled as he walked towards her then proceeded to fall to both knees, though he disdained sitting on the back of his heels. "Kneel down infront of me. No no, closer than that. We're going to work on something a little different today."

 

She went cold again immediately when he spoke. Here they went again; she was going to get herself a new set of memories to forget as soon as possible. What under the Light was wrong with maintaining proper distance? It was only appropriate for an Aes Sedai and, besides, she couldn’t remember her first mentor back when she was in whites having insisted on proximity all the time. Maintaining a wary distance, she kneeled on the floor about as far away as she could discreetly manage, smoothing her skirts as she did so. She was shorter even when they were sitting on the bloody floor, it was ridiculous, Aran wasn’t even average height himself. She remained silent.

 

Gesturing for her to sit the mock daggers aside, he held up both of his hands before himself, palms facing towards her. Smiling as he let himself relax, he liked this exercise amongst others. Not only did it teach a person to relax its power over muscle, it was also good in this particular case because it enforced contact on Sirayn again. She looked like she had an inkling that this exercise was going to require it because she seemed uneasy already in the way that she held herself. No matter, it was something she was just going to have to learn to deal with as they went, and maybe even accept but then that was perhaps an overly ambitious expectation. "Put your hand and stump against my hands. Don't push just yet, just hold them there."

 

Touching again. It put a shiver in her and she stamped out the urge to pull away; the space between them had shrunk while she wasn’t looking, that had to be why Aran was too close all of a sudden, not a product of her fear. It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, to back off, to stall for time in some way but… last time she had ended up having to tolerate it anyway, what good would it do, what use was it being an Aes Sedai if she had to let people do this? It just made it all the more obvious that this was the way to wind her up. She murdered several sharp remarks and managed to hold her tongue. Keeping a steady face, though it cost her in inward effort, she reached out toward him until their skin just about touched… this was far, far too intimate, she didn’t want this, didn’t want it at all and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Yes, she had had plenty of nightmares like this.

 

Well, she managed to follow his instruction again and this time without complaint. He could feel the tension in here on the end of her fingers, it was costing her alot to be able to do it and keep a composed face at the same time. That was something they were going to have to work on, and if she couldn't relax with him there was always the option of bringing in someone else. That would bear more thinking on later if it came to it. For now they had this to discuss. "Very good, though you really need to loosen up alot more. Can feel your tension through your hand. No, don't focus on it, thats the whole point of relaxing. This is important because this will help you understand a great deal of everything else you'll be taught. Now, I want you to grab hold of my wrist with your hand, and with the stump I want you to push against my wrist. As hard as you can, try and push me over."

 

This was going downwards fast. Why under the Light did he keep doing this? She hated every moment of it, had to concentrate hard on not moving away, not making herself safe again. Planning wasn’t doing her enough good; she had to end this farce before she went quietly insane. Relax? He had to be joking. Perhaps if he stopped this disturbing insistence on touching her all the time she might be able to relax if she worked at it. Light only knew she didn’t want to grab him, what if he did the same back, what if … no, her imagination showed her all sorts of possibilities, she could go on like that forever. She had to steel herself quite hard before she dared to take hold of his wrist, a careful uncertain contact. Still nothing happened. He was just biding his time until he moved, she knew that, a small cold fear hidden inside. Reluctantly she pushed against his hand.

 

"Harder. Don't be such a woman." That got some effort. It was amazing how even Aes Sedai felt insulted at being called women, thats what they were after all. Smiling as she pushed as hard as she could, it was now time for the next part of the lesson. Strength was not merely muscle or power, true strength was much much more than that. "Alright, now you're to continue pushing and what happens next is normal, try not to fret." Rather than pushing back with his wrists as such, he instead leaned forward and only used enough force to keep his arms where they were. Leaning forward, Sirayn started moving further and further back until she was needing to hold on to remain upright.

 

It took them approximately two seconds to establish, for about the tenth time, that her pushing had almost no effect on a trained Tower Guard. She didn’t care for that fact at all, in fact she found it rather intimidating, but no doubt mockery would follow if she let that show too much. Again biting her tongue rather than comment she continued to push. It scared the hell out of her when for reasons as yet unknown to her he started to push back; she managed to strangle the urge to jerk back like a startled deer, but the pressure and his strength, and he had told her “continue pushing” as if he wasn’t trying to unbalance her … if he wanted to he could make her fall, if he wanted to he could do just about anything and Light if this didn’t end soon she was going to hit something.

 

Letting her hang there for just a moment so she could appreciate the powerless nature of it, Aran, pulled her back up. It was one of the most important things to learn when it came to what he was going to teach her, power was not to be found in strength. That was the same approach she would have to learn with what he taught her now. But first, now it was her turn to experience it. "Let go now. As you can see, despite all your might, you couldn't topple me even when you held me. Now hold up your arms as we are going to repeat the exercise but this time reverse roles. I'll start to push, and all you need to do is relax and hold your position. When you are ready, I want you to lean forward. Don't think about pushing me, you're leaning forward to the ground." At that, Aran nodded and took her wrists and began to push with increasing force.

 

Panic had her so tight that she couldn’t even dredge up a smart answer. Ordinarily she got more sarcastic the more pressure was on her but there was a point at which excessive fear overloaded her ability to seek distractions elsewhere. She hated his touch, hated the strength os his grip, hated the steady unrelenting pressure; if she could shrink herself right into a hole in the ground she would. She was an Aes Sedai, supposed to be so bloody tough and while she had stared down Corin Danveer even under forkroot she couldn’t stand for someone to as much as hold her wrist. If she did as he wanted would he go away sooner? She really didn’t have the nerve for this. Give her charging Trollocs any day, at least she could kill them cleanly, even a Hall debate she’d take over this. Reluctantly she leaned forward, though every memory she had told her insistently to pull away. She hoped to hell this wasn’t going to last much longer.

 

She was doing well, holding up under his touch as she was. She was doing even better as she leaned forward towards the floor, the result being that Aran was pushed backwards towards the ground. Falling backwards, he noticed the problem even as he moved back inexorably. She wasn't relaxed, as she leaned forward she was actually tensing up as she did it. Well, no one got it right the first time, but with Aran holding onto her wrists and falling back she was going to end up ontop of him and she would most likely panic if that occured. Letting go of her wrists as he fell back, she teetered for a moment and would have followed him if he didn't push up off one hand and steady her by her shoulder. "Whoa. Thats it." Letting her sit back, escaping his touch as quickly as she could, he decided not to comment on her reaction as he spoke on what had happened instead. "You were too wound up. Thats why you almost fell ontop of me whereas if you'd been relaxed you would have easily held your ground. Do you see the difference though? If you had pushed against me you would have fallen. By simply holding your position, you were able to stay upright and then by leaning towards the ground rather than at me, you could force me backwards."

 

Too much touch, too much pressure, the proximity paralysed her. She couldn’t make herself do as she was told properly; if he let off even for a moment she might fall onto him and she couldn’t do that, couldn’t trust him not to drop her, didn’t want to. By the time he finally let her go she had probably frightened herself as badly as she was likely to manage; it was a bloody miracle she’d stood that as long as she did. This time she did pull back, too quickly to pass off as innocent, and moved away to sit out of reach into the bargain. Her stupid irrational panic smoothed out a bit more the further she got away from him. He wasn’t going to touch her again, she comforted herself with that thought even knowing it was a lie, not ever again, it was safe now. It took a good minute for her to be sure her voice would be entirely even in proper Aes Sedai fashion. “Is this a demonstration of why not to take on a Tower Guard? I already knew you were stronger than me. Congratulations.”

 

Frowning at Sirayn, Aran realised that she hadn't even heard what he had said. That or she was ignoring it, either way he was going to be forced to repeat himself. For an Aes Sedai, she could be remarkably stu- no,just afraid. That was something only time would fix as she became familiar with him, even if resentful for it. Maybe she needed a slight slap across the face to wake her up. "For an Aes Sedai, you make a remarkable victim. Instead of realising that you just forced me backwards despite me pushing against you, all you can think of is the first part of the exercise? There are many forms of power, sometimes it can be brute strength where a person can simply trounce another by virtue of raw force. Yet there is another way, one which will suit you I think because you don't have that brute strength, nor do you have the time to learn to be faster than an opponent."

 

Smiling, Aran thought about his next words before uttering them. "In this exercise, you are learning how to look beyond an opponent. When you focus solely on your opponent and throw your energy 'at' them, you will lose in a physical contest. If you look beyond the opponent, if you do not resist but use your own opponent's force, then you can defeat them. For example, when you forced me back, I was the one doing all the pushing. I pushed myself backwards, you merely changed your position. The only reason you nearly fell is because you seized up, you couldn't relax. So, we will continue doing this exercise for now, and probably for many days until you can learn to do so." Holding his hands up so she could take hold and push against his wrists, he nodded to her. "Your turn to push."

 

It all sounded very convincing to complete idiots. Since the Solin business she had had plenty of opportunity to find out at first hand what was useful in a desperate situation; it would take a halfwit to learn no lessons at all from a series of unfortunate little incidents, and whatever else one might say about her, she did at least possess fractionally more than half a wit. At no point would any of this had been remotely useful. Unlike, say, a cunningly disguised sa’angreal or about twelve hundred fellow Aes Sedai. Her increasing frustration with this stupid, stupid process only doubled when Aran kindly let her know that they’d be doing the same all over again; more unnecessary touching, more fear until she reached some mythical state of relaxation. As incentives go it didn’t exactly encourage her.

 

She kept telling herself she was never going to let anyone touch her again. Then she kept breaking that promise. Some day, somewhere, she was going to learn to defend herself so well that nobody would dare raise a hand to her again. Until then she had to deal with her stupid, unbearable fear … and even thinking of doing that all over again, of relying on him even the slightest bit, took her in a hard grip. She pulled away, immediate and unthinking. “No.” Still not enough distance. Unless she left the room she’d probably never put enough distance between them. How she had worked up the courage to touch him in the first place she didn’t know -- when she still remembered the duel, or Amiarin Lucif or even the forkroot episode how was she supposed to relax? “No. No more. I’m crippled. I’m never going to be any use at this again. Even if I were it’d be useless to me. Case closed.”

 

Raising an eyebrow at Sirayn, there were several possibilities that came to mind very quickly on how to deal with this. They came to him quickly because he'd contemplated the possibility that at any time she could try and back out or refuse to do something she was instructed to do. There were different ways of dealing with such things, and Aran held no hard and fast rule on how he would deal with it. In this case, he decided that persuasion would be of better use. He still had other options afterwards if nothing else. "And this is precisely why you should be doing it. Aes Sedai shouldn't be victims, and right now you think of yourself as one, a cripple, useless. So, you are going to do it until you learn that you are no longer useless and that being crippled does not make you a victim. If there were a ter'angreal that could be waved about to make things better, then we could do that. Since there isn't, you're stuck doing it the hard way. You might never use any of this, but the fact that you can is what is important. Unless you want to be a victim all your life? So afraid of a person's touch that it would have you flee? Now lets continue." He waved his wrists at her.

 

No, she told herself, no more. She could easily surrender like a coward, let herself get trapped into thinking that she had no choice but to permit these frightening touches, but after how she had felt… how long could she actually stand that before she snapped? And snap she must not. Light only knew what a reasonably intelligent Darkfriend might make of anything she said, the forkroot episode or even Amiarin Lucif, there was a thought to chill the blood. No, as far as Aran was concerned the name meant nothing to her; there had never even been an Amiarin, they had never met, nothing had ever happened. “How sweet. You want to help me.” She raised a brow herself mirroring his gesture. Even so short a time with some distance between them had levelled off her mood considerably; she felt better already, more secure, ready to fight on her own terms. “You’ll have to excuse me if I find your reasons a little implausible. Tell you what, let’s not continue.”

 

Smiling, Aran decided to prod a little more differently this time. He had given her the chance to do the right thing by herself by appealing to her, now she needed a shove. "I help everyone, it is what I do. But you are going to do this regardless, and why is that you ask? Beyond the fact that I can arrange for you to be stilled and ruin everything you've ever done, the other reason is because of this." Aran reached forward only for Sirayn to shy away, and in that act she knew that she had betrayed herself, again. "That is why you're going to keep doing it. Not because you refuse to willingly, but because you surrender to your fear with these protests. Afraid of me? A mere Tower Guard? If I reached again for you right now, I have little doubt that you would shy away or be screaming on the inside. The only way that will change is if you force yourself to face it, or you can try and run from it. But if it isn't me doing this, it will be someone else and I doubt they will be as... kind, as I am." Aran held up his wrists once more to be taken.

 

The moment he reached out to her she knew she was beaten: fear so sharp, so sudden that she had to pull away, it only lessened when she had put enough distance between them that she couldn’t be so casually touched. Looking at the space between them now, every inch prompted like a chain reaction because she couldn’t take so much as an outstretched hand without retreating, she recognised for the first time that her private fears had got out of hand. That she couldn’t get over it, couldn’t forget, she accepted as a fact of life; it had been months and she still dreamed of it, the images still vivid, all the associated fears lying below the surface. That kind of memory did not go away. But it could be buried.

 

She had to draw a line where it came to damaging Tower matters. Her personal failings could not be allowed to interfere with practicality; she would not tolerate an Order member cowering like a frightened child and to permit the same from herself was rank hypocrisy. She needed to cover it up better, to hide it deeper, so nobody would ever need to know. If nobody found out as long as she lived and it passed into forgotten history like so many other times that would be an end to it. Nothing had happened; she tested that one out on herself experimentally. It didn’t convince.

 

Nothing had happened. She had never met Amiarin. She had never cried when the boy took his revenge; there had been no revenge. No excuse for her cowardice or anything else. For some reason she felt older and tireder than she had done in some time, but she had no reason to flinch from his touch, why would there be a reason? Aes Sedai were flawless; nothing ever got past their defences. She need fear nothing. Nothing. Iron had nothing on the control she had to find before she touched his hand -- and all for no reason.

 

Smiling as Sirayn took his wrists, he nodded at her. She would learn, she would become better in some way. If she wasn't improved in some way by the time he was done he would be very surprised, not to mention disappointed. Then again, he knew what he was doing, and what he didn't know he could always wing. "Very good, its good to see that there is sterner stuff in you. Now, push."

 

The training began once more.

 

 

Aran

Tower Guard

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah