Defences

[Sirayn]

Denial, it turned out, was not necessarily the best plan ever to occur to her. On the one hand, when her fears and the weight of past memories got out of hand, she got to tell herself that it didn’t even matter because nothing had happened. On the other hand, this explanation would not have convinced the dead to lie still.

 

Rationally she knew that she had survived with at least one hand and a good part of her mind intact, that she had navigated Dumai’s Wells and other crises competently, that she had clawed her way to Captain General … so it couldn’t have been that bad. Her licence to suffer while recovering had expired. No more excuses. Irrationally, on a fundamental level she rarely accessed, she knew entirely the opposite. The worst damage had been done below the surface; mostly she remained in control of her subconscious, enough so that to the Tower she presented a serene front, enough to satisfy her Ajah; but other times she remembered iron and fire and her instincts clamoured fear so intense they couldn’t be ignored.

 

In the end, she had been taught from the moment she put on white that her will was the one overriding force that could never be undermined without her consent, and usually she could just about make herself do whatever she had to. It was just driving her insane. Slowly, inescapably insane, the kind of insane that slid into her mind, the kind of insane that dug its claws into everything -- so that when she read a book she would find herself ten minutes later staring into space as she relived some sharp piece of memory, so that she couldn’t sleep except that her dreams filled with nightmares, couldn’t let someone touch her but that she had to hold down the urge to flee.

 

Humanity was a luxury, she had told someone that once, but she had never known that as intimately as she did now. Aes Sedai should be flawless; perfection required machines, not heads stuffed full of doubt and irrationality, not hands stayed by mercy or words that wouldn’t come out in quite the right way. If she could have excised every scrap of useless, extraneous feeling with a scalpel she would have done so without a second thought. And though weakness couldn’t be severed -- not as easily as, say, a hand -- she gave it her best shot. She taught herself as best she could not to feel: to be cold inside as well as outside: to let nothing touch her. After all, nothing had even happened. And most of the time it worked just fine.

 

It still had a distressing tendency to crumble as soon as Aran made her touch him. He did it all the time … disturbing certainly, terrifying always, confronting instincts she couldn’t ignore; showing her, over and over again, that no matter how hard she fought she couldn’t master her subconscious; that her son still had his claws in her from the grave, that she couldn’t escape it, that she was his possession as much now as she had ever been. He seemed to think he was doing her a favour. Actually he was pointing out the complete futility of all her efforts. If the Dark One held out his black hand right now and brought her son back to life, to finish off the job he had started, she would be no better defended than she had been before. Less, even, because Aran was massacring her attempts to accept touch. Frankly she could see why Lyanna al’Ellisande had turned to drink to escape Aes Sedai life.

 

The one thought that terrified most her was that it could happen again. Not impossible; no amount of work would make her defences perfect. And this time she knew the price of defiance. This time she might not be so stupidly, suicidally insubordinate. Sometimes when all was dark and quiet she asked herself if she would make the same choice again; if she could put the Tower’s best interests before her own; and while her rational mind said yes, she had made that decision a thousand times before … her irrational mind said no. No more. There was a limit to her endurance. No wonder Jehanine had told her she should never have been Green Ajah. Jehanine had seen the truth.

 

It was a slow kind of torture. Every day she had to comply like a puppet while Aran systematically awoke all her most uncontrollable impulses: the need to escape, to hide, to protect herself: he didn’t even need to say anything, by doing it he ensured that she would punish herself, the shame and fear crippled her. She dreamed it sometimes -- trapped in a room too bare for hiding, far from any rescue, while some man wouldn’t stop touching her. If she had ever been able to stand even casual touch, she certainly couldn’t now.

 

The irony was that she couldn’t say why. Like the first time he had asked once or twice, but even if she had temporarily lost her mind enough to consider talking, she couldn’t have answered. Couldn’t say why she had no confidence and didn’t want to gain any. Couldn’t explain why people frightened and repelled her so intensely. Couldn’t fit clumsy words round the horror. She had been a coward, the Green Ajah should have disowned her, she had even confessed so that the Mother could punish her, but Lanfir hadn’t and she had never known why. Nobody else could forgive her; when Lanfir had done so she hadn’t been able to accept it; she certainly couldn’t forgive herself. She couldn’t move on without it. Couldn’t forget. Stuck in guilt and doubt and dread as thick as amber.

 

All things considered an extremely subdued Sirayn waited for her daily dose of aversion therapy. The usual room stood empty and silent around her; the comforting stillness wouldn’t last. She kept her eyes on the ground, though her mind showed her other images, and reminded herself uselessly for the hundredth time that nothing had even happened. An Aes Sedai wouldn’t care even if it had. They did not indulge in sentiment. So she waited, said nothing and showed nothing.

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[Wayfarer]

The weeks had been interesting as far as Aran was concerned. Disregarding Aramina turning on him as she had due to her ignorance, there was the matter of Sirayn. Over the weeks she had become more pliable, she argued less frequently if at all. On the otherhand, he was fairly certain that he had fixed nothing. The idea of these exercises apart from helping her defend herself was to force her to push things out, to deal with them. Instead she was still suppressing them as best she could, her lack of resistance compared to their initial beginnings revealing much in that manner.

 

So, after a month of practice it was time to change things up. Not only to put more pressure on her, but also to teach her things that were more relevant. He had worked on her punching and kicking technique, disdaining knife use altogether for the moment. She needed to be able to do more than just use a knife, or the moment she was without one she would be useless. That was why he was carrying a very large mat as he walked throughout the Tower. As far as he knew he'd managed to do so unseen, it was all about picking one's timing, and entrace for that matter.

 

He was a little late as a result, but Sirayn had waited for him which was good enough. He was surprised that she hadn't taken a seat for herself at least, after all this time he'd managed to get a number of items for the room. A bag for punching and kicking, a couple of seats, a beam for balance, and now he was going to add a mat to the list of things he'd secreted in. Laying it down and rolling it out, it was a good dozen by a dozen feet in length and width. He'd get more as time went, but for now this one would do. Turning about to Sirayn, he smiled.

 

"Today we are going to begin learning something new. You aren't strong, so you are going to learn to use an opponent's strength against them. So you will be learning grapples, and how to use someone's force to pull them off balance and dump them on the ground. At the same time you'll also learn how to fall, so if you are taken off your feet you can quickly get back up. Come over here and stand where I am."

 

Moving aside and allowing her the space, he held up both his arms before him. "I'm going to run at you to grab you in a moment. The initial instinct is to push back or to run, but instead I want you to do this. I want you to step to one side like so and leave your other leg out to trip me, and then with your hand I want you to snag my arm from underneath and pull across, sending me towards the mat. Alright? Good."

 

Walking away a good score feet, Aran held his hands up and nodding at Sirayn began running towards her at full pace. The faster he ran, the easier it would be for Sirayn to yank him over her leg and onto the mat.

 

 

Aran

Tower Guard

[Sirayn]

Nobody so unimpressive and whom she outranked by such a margin had inspired such fear and revulsion in her since the Solin affair. Any fool could have worked out that he was a Darkfriend, only they would look at a forkroot conspiracy and see nothing but a means to blackmail, but she hadn’t expected the inventive little touches that made this so unbearable; his insistence on touching her made sense only as the product of sadism and while that shouldn’t come as a surprise to her, she had had her fair share of Darkfriend encounters along these lines, she had never yet worked out an effective defence. Maybe none existed. Maybe she could do nothing but endure it as long as she could.

 

Despite her hard-earned knowledge to the contrary, old instincts told her that if she made herself small and harmless he might not touch her any more, so she kept her eyes down and said nothing when he arrived. It was a subject of some bitter irony to her that she was acquiring the same captive-to-captor responses -- the downcast eyes, the subdued obedience and the silences -- as she had when Solin and his Dreadlord friend painstakingly taught her to fear them. Being effectively a prisoner in her own home she could do nothing about it other than keep her fears to herself and do exactly as she was told. She hated every minute with a silent, bitter intensity.

 

Near a year ago she had promised herself that she would never permit another person to touch her against her will. Never again: it put too much dread in her to even contemplate, she needed that reassurance to armour her. Once had been one time too many. To tolerate a slower but equally remorseless version of the worst nightmare she could imagine required a frankly inhuman level of resilience and if she had ever had the courage to face it she certainly didn’t have it now. That she couldn’t even prevent people from touching her against her will proved what a bloody failure she’d been as an Aes Sedai. Anybody who claimed to wear the shawl as of right should have got themselves out of this by now; logic therefore informed her that she was approximately as valuable as a bent spoon. It was intolerable. And she had no option but to tolerate it anyway.

 

Moments later her object lesson in why the Tower Guard should be disbanded resumed. Every time she convinced herself that just this once it could be all right, that it wouldn’t hurt too much, and every time it got worse instead. Rather a thousand Trollocs than being trapped in a room with someone who kept touching her. Unfortunately she didn’t get that option, who knew, maybe that wouldn’t have humiliated her enough for his taste; instead she got yet another game designed to frighten her as much as possible.

 

Takedowns. The cold grip of fear got a little tighter. Not only were they back to the touching again, but just in case she didn’t have enough difficulty dealing with it, she got force behind it as well. She pictured herself even trying to take down a fully trained Tower Guard and had to drop the image; her imagination presented speed and force and strength only too convincingly. They had been stronger than her when they came for her in the darkness. If she let him grab her, and the thought terrified her, what might he do? She couldn’t go on imagining the possible consequences or she would lose her nerve entirely. But when she looked at the task ahead bleakly she knew she would never do it.

 

As a highly skilled member of the Battle Ajah she had a range of options when dealing with a violent threat. She could kill as directly or as unobtrusively as necessary, fast or slow, messily or without leaving a mark. She could cripple for life in a variety of interesting ways. She could incapacitate temporarily or for as long as she thought fit. She could prevent her assailant ever reaching her without harming him in the slightest; she could simply put him to sleep right where he stood; he was a dead man walking if she ever got it into her head to harm him.

 

What she couldn’t do was allow him to touch her. Nevertheless, because she had no choice, she positioned herself as obediently as a puppet. In the back of her mind memories chattered: telling her that if she let somebody seize her she might never escape, showing her tiny glimpses of last time somebody did that -- fire waiting, her own blood black in the wavering light, shadows and a hand raised against her … damn it, she needed to concentrate. She was an Aes Sedai and a Green Ajah soldier; she should have better courage than this. Steeling herself, she waited while he backed off.

 

Intellectually she had been expecting him to come for her. Her instincts knew nothing of the sort. He was going to seize her: she hadn’t wanted any of this, she had done her best to protect him, even risked her career on that illegal gentling, but her son had turned on her all the same: she’d told him to snap out of it and exerted all the control she should have had as his mother and instead he’d brought fire and iron and darkness, sharp staccato images that lit up her imagination like fireworks, too much fear overloading everything.

 

Her supposed courage failed her. Her nerve broke and she was backing away before rational thought caught up; no touching, no holding, no way she could let him anywhere near her. She didn’t feel anything like safe until she had put a good distance between them and even then she had to take slow calming breaths to steady her racing heart. She was shaking. Wanted to hide, couldn’t hide, nowhere to escape to. It took what seemed like a long while for her unthinking, automatic reaction to let go; finally she got herself together enough to turn away, as close to hiding as she could get, and resumed feeling wretched.

 

How abysmally, unforgivably craven could one Aes Sedai be? She couldn’t believe that anyone took her shawl at its face value when they should have seen the truth written all over her -- that she was stupid enough to fall prey to Darkfriend blackmailers, that she was a dreadful coward, that the prospect of one person touching her beat all her Aes Sedai determination hands down. And yet even when she knew it was inexcusable and she had a duty to overcome it as best she could she just couldn’t defeat it. Basic, primitive terror had been hard wired into her on a level so fundamental she didn’t know how to undo it. She and fear weren’t even on speaking terms; rational thought did her no good at all. She had absolutely and miserably failed this particular test and while she was still trapped in this nightmare she couldn’t see any future but more of this abject failure.

 

In the end, partly because she had had it hammered into her at an early stage never to admit defeat but mostly because she didn’t have a choice, she returned to her previous position. She said nothing, didn’t trust herself to speak, beaten and humiliated and still stupidly terrified. So she stared at the floor again instead and waited for round two.

 

Sirayn Damodred

Retro Head of the Green Ajah

[Wayfarer]

Frustration. That was certainly one of the emotions that Aran felt as he watched Sirayn take her position once more, averting her eyes and trying to pretend that she had not run. They had worked for weeks and the first time he applied real pressure she broke. The source of his frustration, yet not all the frustration was directed at her. Perhaps he had pushed too soon, but he had feared that the training had not been intense enough to achieve the intended results. Now he doubted his decision a little, but it was still salvagable with some work. Maybe.

 

Walking over to her, he paused midstep as she backed away from him. It wasn't much, but the half step revealed that her inner turmoil was still roiling uncontrollably. A different tact perhaps, distracting yet pertinent. A way to make her think, allow her to focus and assert reason over emotion. "Let me ask you a question, you do not have to answer me but answer yourself. Why do you ignore your fear?"

 

Each step closer meant danger; she shrank back, cursing herself, hating this intensely. Her own cowardice disgusted her. The rawest recruit would not shame herself so. She hadn’t even deserved to be Aes Sedai anyway, she owed the Tower better than this, if her Ajah ever found out they would disown her. Lanfir would never have forgiven her if she’d known. Yet she felt it all the same -- the stupid, unbearable urge to escape, to hide her weakness and her shame where nobody would see them … somehow, somewhere, to find courage.

 

Maybe she wasn’t ever going to get over this. Maybe she would never be a good Aes Sedai. It was a corrosive thought but she couldn’t shake it. Slow, calming breaths; she controlled herself inch by inch, pushing down panic, trying to remember how to be impassive and cold at all times. Aes Sedai should wear their composure like armour. Instead she got fear. She didn’t understand any of this, the touching, the questions, and she didn’t want to either. She forced irony through the treacherous shake in her voice. “What fear?”

 

Denial. It couldn't last forever but the sooner they pushed through that, the sooner they could be done with all of this. The shake of her voice though, still threatened, still a problem because that was the part that made all of this so difficult to address. Sitting down on the floor, Aran laid back and put his hands behind his head. A not so intimidating position, maybe it would help her. "Using a question to slip around your oath doesn't change anything. We both know your fear, but why don't you question it? Its been in you for a long time, its not going anywhere as it is. Why not try something different? Attack it rather than ignore and hope for the best."

 

Little knots of tension eased as he moved away from her and lay down on the floor. She didn’t quite have the words to express why that lessened the immediate threat: smaller, further away, less threatening. Nobody was going to touch her again, she told herself for what had to be the hundredth time, nobody would even come close. She clawed for the proper Aes Sedai calm -- futile now, everybody and their mother had to know that she was a dreadful coward, but at least she could pretend to herself that she hadn’t made a fool of herself to a Darkfriend -- and finally got her voice flat and even. “What do you want?”

 

Aran had to repress the urge to say 'I asked first', flippant and his usual answer to such inquiries. But, perhaps there was a more politic way to phrase it. That or he could simply tell her that she was evading, which she was. There was no incentive for her to answer there though, maybe the carrot would work now. "When you can answer my question, you will be ready for my answer." Of course, there was the chance that she would simply convince herself that he would not answer, or there was something else afoot that had nothing to do with the real circumstances. But it was worth a try all the same.

 

Not getting an answer did not surprise her; she had no idea why anyone would be so obsessed with touching her and her dislike thereof, but since he was almost certainly a Darkfriend, his motivation was immaterial. Maybe he was doing this for the sheer pleasure of watching her squirm. It didn’t matter. Every word he said was a lie, all this claptrap about attacking things was for the benefit of whatever Darkfriend scheme he had and his intentions meant nothing so long as she resisted them. “Forget it.”

 

"I don't suppose if I told you to ignore your fear, you would then actually try and deal with it? You have an inhuman dedication to resisting anything and everything that this time is dedicated for, and no doubt you've rationalised it so you don't even acknowledge the true root of your resistance." Lifting his head up slightly as he regarded Sirayn, different places to push and prod presented themself, needing only a direction and will to be manipulated. "In fact, why don't you tell me what your reasoning is?"

 

She wanted to leave. Her quiet, dark room where nobody ever went called to her; there she could shut herself into the calm until she felt peaceful again. It wasn’t security of course, nowhere was safe, but at least it was empty. “This time is dedicated to making a fool of myself for your amusement so you don’t destroy my career. I am unclear on what part of the above has turned you into an amateur therapist.”

 

"Evasion." That was the simplest way to describe the answer he had been granted. There was also another way to describe it which he added as an afterthought. "Also simple minded." The answer at least. "If I wanted entertainment, there are far superior ones available to me, like sleeping. Smacking my head against a wall repeatedly would probably be less painful. You still haven't answered what you suspect to be my true motive. Well?"

 

Evasion? He was a blackmailing, Darkfriend sadist and the only objection he had to her was that she didn’t want to be forced into humiliating confessions about how much she feared him and why? It seemed useless to lay out all her speculation about his allegiance; either he laughed it off, in which case she knew he was the nonchalant type of Darkfriend, or he took offence, in which case she knew he was the kind of Darkfriend who thought she was stupid enough to be fooled. She was beginning to reconsider the merits of having her career destroyed. Maybe she could go retire somewhere quietly and never be touched by anyone again. “Let me know when you’re finished, I do have some actual work to do.”

 

"How do you justify your silence and evasion? An Aes Sedai's strength is in truth, as much as Aes Sedai may split hairs to the finest degree, that much remains true. The truth could free you, not telling me the truth but allowing yourself to see it. Yet you choose this, you choose your pain. Not this training, but your unwillingness to confront that which makes it painful. There is truth in the saying that any person's worst enemy is themself." Sitting up, he rested back on his hands as he continued. "You do nothing to me with your refusals and self inflicted ignorance, you only wound yourself."

 

All this philosophy stuff had come straight from the writings of Lothair Mantelar if her memory served her. She had never considered before now that he could be a Whitecloak spy. Child of the Light, Darkfriend, it made no difference in practical terms, although it did move her to ask if Mantelar’s estate was pursuing him in a court of law. “That’s a pity, I can think of prime candidates for wounding round here.” Dry tones and literary parallels: she felt a little more herself, though her skin still crawled and that quiet room continued to recommend itself to her. “You’re a blackmailer. I don’t think I need to justify anything to you.”

 

"Oh please." Now there was something that had to be addressed. "Your attempt at higher moral ground is laughable. We both know that you are more than happy to apply the same methods and worse to others in order to achieve the greater good, even when those people haven't agreed. The only difference here is that the shoe is on the other foot. You're the one with the incapacitating fear that you refuse to combat, the one whose distrust of others runs so deep that its a wonder that you function at all. You are the one that needs a shove this time, as opposed to all the people you've decided what was best for. Instead of doing something about it, you wallow in your weakness, then blame me for what existed before I was even aware of it. But you're right, you don't need to justify yourself to me. You need to justify you to yourself."

 

Having lived over two hundred years, known thousands of people and done thousands of deeds, some of which she was proud of and some of which she was not proud of, it didn’t take a mathematician to figure out that whoever this joker thought he was and however many of her acquaintances he had harassed, intimidated, bribed or poisoned with alcohol, he knew essentially nothing. She had done nothing that was not for the Tower; she carried that certainty with her. “I’m afraid that what you think of me is not high on my list of matters to address.”

 

Aran snorted. There were some moments where he wondered whether it was possible to complete this task he had set for himself. Whether a woman who naturally ignored anything that challenged her could be changed. "Then what of how you think of yourself?"

 

She gave him a blank stare. “What does that matter?”

 

Raising an eyebrow at Sirayn, Aran was quick to respond. "It doesn't?"

 

Arguing with Darkfriends was always a losing battle. It remained clear to her, as it should be to anyone with two thoughts to rub together, that the only relevant point about an Aes Sedai was how good an Aes Sedai they were; she had neither time for nor interest in anything else. All this obsession with messy, irrational emotions just took up valuable time. When the Tower had an obligation to save the world, why under the Light would she care what she thought of herself? “Really, this is getting tiresome. It’s reassuring to see that the fine folk of the Tower Guard have nothing better to do than blackmail Aes Sedai, but I’m afraid nobody else is going to take over my work, so I would appreciate this session ending. Soon.”

 

Laying back down as he used his hands for a pillow, one would have had to be deaf not to catch his sigh. She wasn't stubborn, which he could appreciate, she was damaged. Not brain damaged, which he was tempted to believe, but just damaged. There was no point pushing any further today. "This IS tiresome." If you were a Tower Trainee you would have been thrown out for being so unstable, a danger to everyone including yourself...

 

"We are done for today, but as you leave you may take this thought with you. If you cannot master your fear, then your fear shall remain your master. If you want to be a slave to it, and a slave you are, then continue to ignore it and a slave you will remain. Continue to pray that it will just magically go away, pretend it doesn't affect you and that you are above it, deny the obvious. Do it and endanger yourself and those around you by indulging in such a foolish weakness instead of taking hold of the hand that is offered." There was a certain level of resignation in his voice, deceptive in that by the time their next session came, he would recover, but for now he was just tired.

 

On balance, she preferred the meddlesome, self-righteous phony philosopher to the sadist who seized on any excuse to touch her, but admittedly the balance was a little skewed due to her fervent hatred of any kind of contact. She thought it probable that she would have preferred a year with the inmates of a lunatic asylum to another hour stuck with this madman. Possibly the only positive point to come out of today’s minature disaster, apart from the opportunity to find out all over again just how much she feared being touched, was the interesting discovery that he could be successfully stonewalled … at least by a sufficiently determined person.

 

Next time, unless he did her the favour of falling off a roof in the meantime, she intended to explore new definitions of unhelpfulness. Being obstructive was a skill she had had plenty of time to practise. Until then she was only too glad to take herself, her stupidity and her private cowardice off to somewhere she wouldn’t be plagued by people -- fools and liars, flatterers and schemers, madmen, Darkfriends and undesirables of all colours. Peace and quiet. That was what she needed.

 

Watching as Sirayn made her way to the door, something occured to Aran that caused him to speak. "Just so you're aware, we'll be making up the time lost during tomorrow's session. Since you don't drink from the water barrel here, be sure to bring your own."

 

“I’m afraid I can’t fit more time for you into my busy schedule. Don’t waste time if you don’t want it wasted.”

 

"You will be here." There was no question in his voice, simple certainty that said quite plainly that there was no alternative.

 

"Or what? You'll touch me again?"

 

"If the current incentive for your participation isn't strong enough, I can always up the ante."

 

"Up it all you like. If I can't work, I'm useless as an Aes Sedai anyway."

 

"Ah, so you do have an opinion of yourself."

 

Light but this one was a halfwit. She spoke in slow, clear tones. “I am a busy person. I have a schedule to keep to. You arranged to meet me a certain time every day, which I have made time for, but I have fixed appointments and work which cannot be cancelled or rearranged. I will no longer be a useful Aes Sedai if I cannot perform the basic duties of an Aes Sedai. Threaten all you like.”

 

"Well you'd best make a choice then, either stay here and finish your alloted time today, or you make up for it tomorrow... That is rather odd, you cannot rearrange your schedule? One would almost think that your work pulls your strings rather than the other way around." Aran might have maintained a straight face, but there was a hint of amusement nevertheless. She'd put herself in the hole she was in, now he'd push again.

 

She had no idea if or why she was supposed to be upset that her work was more important than she was. Perhaps the crazy man had never had an appointment he couldn’t cancel -- which indicated to her that he had never been raised Tower Guard, at least -- but she was a working Aes Sedai and she did not have the luxury to lie around drinking and preaching all day. “Today’s session is over. You said so. I don’t have extra time tomorrow. Perhaps if you wanted to use your time today productively you should have … used your time productively.”

 

"Perhaps if my student was capable of self control and combating her irrational fear, it would have been more productive." There was no mistaking the sharp reproof there. There would be no dancing out of this, while he was patient he had his limits. "Your bickering is childish, either decide to finish today or make up for it tomorrow. If you cannot make the decision, I will make it for you. Well?"

 

Having insults slung at her by a blackmailing, sadistic Darkfriend did not exactly sting her. Some people could hurt her very deeply with a single word; this lackwit was not one of them. “I choose neither. If you are incapable of understanding that Aes Sedai have commitments, I will understand it for you.”

 

"I understand that you hide behind your commitments as much as you are obligated to them." His face blank at first, a small smile came to him as he got to his feet. "But, I tell you what, I'm a reasonable man. We will compromise, you no doubt need to go to your quarters to work. We can talk there while you do your work. Why, we might even have lunch together. Yes, that sounds like a good idea. Lead the way, Sirayn Sedai."

 

 

Aran & Sirayn