ooc: surprise! let's have fun old school style!

ic:

Light but where had this miracle of traveling been when he and Kit had been on horses for months?!? Here he was now, in Ebou Dar, and only a few days ago he stood in Illian at Con and Arette's wedding. It was unfathomable.

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" He asked Kit for the fifth or sixth time. She was scribbling busily in a book, so much so she'd forgotten the sandwhich he'd brought to her an hour ago, two bites taken out of the sad looking thing all dried now.

Her answer was just a nod and a wave of the hand, but through the bond she was all but throwing him out the door. Ragan sighed but in truth he was he was eager to go out with Iussi and see the wonders of his friend's home city. It had been literally YEARS since they'd raised glasses together or admired pretty bar maids and the truth was... well, he tried not to think about that truth.

The urges were tough enough to ignore around Kit in the late hours or when she needed him to be close emotionally. But now, with hours away from his Sedai and a wall blocking him from her mentally (one she'd put up for some unknown reason), he knew he might have time to visit a friendly woman for an hour or so, if he and Iussi weren't too gone in drinks & the Light only knew what else before dawn.

Walking down the stairs he met his friend at the door. "Seems I've been dismissed. Let's go see this town of yours."

-Ragan Morsad

Gaidin to Kit Sedai

Ragan watched silent, stoic as one might expect a proper warder to be when standing at a ceremony of any kind. His image, his unbreaking stance, was a warning to anyone who would think of harming Kit that he would spare them no mercy ... and so even here, especially here and now, he could not manage more than a small light in his eyes for the happy couple.

As they spoke their oaths of faith, loyalty, and love he found that his own eyes drifted to their corners to glance at the fiery haired woman to his right. She was so happy, so resplendant in her garb... perfect. He ached to reach out to her, to touch her and share in this gift from the mother, this moment of peace; but he could not.

As they kissed and the crowd cheered Ragan stiffened, his back rigged and hard as a crashing tidal wave on the shores. The void filled him and he welcomed it's emptiness to hide his unspoken desires and denied urges.

As a borderlander, rejoicing in the small and precious moments of peace should have have been something he embraced with all his heart... but as a Gaidin, his duty was clear. He was at war. The world was at war. A man did not rest at war simply because there was a lull in the battle. Yet, he couldn't help but envy those who felt they could now. Con deserved this time. He'd earned it. The Light willing he too would see days of peace before the Mother's last embrace.

----------- Across the Room -----------

Telcia took Iussi's hand and gently stroked his soft skin with her thumb as the oaths were given between her Gaidin and her Sister. Con, even though she could not feel him through any weave of any sort, was happy and it was very clear she'd never seen him so alive.

Mouthing the oaths to her husband beside her, she shared a smile and a brief kiss with him as the people cheered for the bride and groom. The children bounced and cheered and all seemed right with the world.

For once in a very long time, the Shadow's tight fist grip on the world seemed leagues away and the Light reigned without question over her and her true family who were (at long last) together once more.

After a short time the toasting & light-hearted remembrances began. Telcia waited for a long while but eventually came a moment when things lulled and she tapped her glass. Rising smoothly beside her husband and food covered children, Telcia smiled at Con and Arette.

"The road has been long my brother... beloved sister but, the Light willing, we shall travel it together eternally as we assembled here today are... family." The crowd sounded various noises of agreement and happiness at her opening statement.

"The tales I could bring to this table are perhaps not as equally funny as some, I've never been known for my humor, but I will say this..." A mischievous smile, one straight out of her novice days, grows across her lips during her pause.

"I have never known any more stubborn, blind, bull-headed," The crowd laughed as she listed off a group of normally non-flattering descriptions which fit both of her dearest friends to a tea and then went quiet as her seriousness returned in a harsh change of tone, "self-less, honorable, courageous, strong, noble people in my life. The Light cut you both from the same cloth and your marriage is bound to be full of laughter, love, and likely a LOT more arguements."

She let's the crowd laugh, "But I doubt either of you would have the other any other way; such is the way of happy marriages." She looks to Iussi. "I know." She smiles, her heart painted on her face for all to see in a very un-Aes Sedai way.

She looks back to the two seated before her, "Let's just hope the Light burned the cloth after you two!" She laughs with the crowd this time, raising her glass. "TO THE BRIDE AND GROOM!"

"TO THE BRIDE AND GROOM!" The crowd responds. Cheers erupt around the room and glasses are raised as, once again, the music starts and people begin to dance.

"Very well, Maegan." She nodded. "Nothing leaves this room & flowery words will be left out. We are agreed." With that the weave went up, a weave Livia would even feel and know that it was time to watch the children for her. It was a powerful circle of silence, a creation to ensure utmost privacy for her and the woman sitting across from her.

As soon as the ward was up, Telcia went to her waist purse on the table and pulled out of it the tiny, strangely shaped, glass vial with the flame of Tar Valon impressed upon it's bottom.

"Do you recognize this perchance? Have you happened upon a situation when the usual contents of this manner of vial might have been used by someone in our Ajah?" Telcia tried very hard to read her reaction but Maegan wasn't all readable frowns or smiles. She'd been chosen as Highest for a reason.

"It's poison." She stated blandly. "It must be consumed by the victim, it's sweet tasting, and it acts quickly. It forces the target to sleep and then... never wake." She sits down.

"The eldest Sisters of our Ajah may have made use of such a poison with the most difficult and unfortunate of souls to ever rot within our care. It's not a secret shared lightly as most of our Tower Sisters could not understand why we'd go to such terrible end to bring a soul peace." She chortled. "After over two centuries wearing the Crimson Banner the truth of it was only told to me recently when my own husband was taken as a hostage of the White Tower's 'study program.' But it is not from that occasion that I happened upon this particular empty bottle."

She leaned back in her chair, "This one was in the hands of a hired thug and a male channeler... the very same dangerous and likely shadow-taken fools who fed it to my children. I've check Maegan... as best as my contacts can tell me, none of those dead men have ties to the Tower or the Red Ajah unless they were personally aquainted with an individual Sister & it was unknown to all my eyes and ears even those still inside the Tower."

"Even the bottle itself is unique to our Ajah... the yellows use much plainer things and the Light knows they'd never sell such a thing or give it away lightly. Stolen... perhaps, I've considered such but we both realize how unlikely that becomes the more we stretch for reasonable answers." She paused for the Highest to give her some other reasons where it might have come to be in her would-have-been children's murderers hands.

"To seemingly jump away from the topic a moment, please bear with me... my husband, whom Perine assured me was sent to me, was picked up at the city gates by Sisters of the Tower & a handful of guards. He was told plans had changed and I would meet him at a recovery farm." She paused knowing how odd Maegan would find that falsehood.

"He knew the Sisters from the Tower so these were not imposters who kept him from coming to me & his children. It is only because he escaped in the night to come back to the Tower demanding the answers that he'd been denighed on his 'farm' that he found me at all. He had been kept prisoner, Maegan. Red Sisters... and others... lied. There was no such arrangement by Perine, by me, or even the Amyrlin Seat."

How Maegan reacted to these truths would determine if this conversation continued any further at all or if this ray of hope guttered and died before it even began.

Telcia looked down into her cup and found she was staring for a long silent moment at the reflection which rested there. Her sapphire eyes were younger in the image so much so that she might have placed an age to them for the first time in longer than she could recall, the edges of a mischievous and brilliant smile brushed them to sparkling and the sun colored her skin a closer shade to her Domani heritage. The girl in the cup wore white, she was new… she was pure; and here she was again; another beginning. It wasn’t real, she hadn’t turned back time on herself, but in her heart it felt as if she finally had.

If she hadn’t thought the women would think less of her she might have cried with joy. This was the moment she’d lived through everything for, she could feel it in her bones. Finally, after a lifetime of fighting the will of the Pattern she was flowing with it and not against it. It seemed impossible, for the handful of times she’d shared her story with anyone it seemed that no one had ever asked her for it. These women, perhaps out of fear or morbid curiosity wanted to know… they were eager to hear. Some part of Telcia dared to dream that there might be a hint of compassion or pity behind those faces for her situation; not that she required it now.

So strange, to think that now that it was freely given, she no longer required it.

“My tale is almost unbelievable even to me and, I’ve lived it. There are a good many shocking things which I shall admit to both about myself and the White Tower. I shall count on your discretion in these things except to those who absolutely must know about them. Lives of good people both in the tower and outside of it are still at risk… some of whom I still maintain contact with despite the many questionable events I’ve been involved in.”

Before they could speculate on the nature of her departure she began to clarify, “I assure you that the Tower is not hunting me and I am in no way wanted for criminal acts… but I dare say if the newest woman to the Stole heard my name spoken in the walls of her Ivory Tower in the next lifetime,” Telcia chuckled in equal parts softly & wryly considering her words… ‘her Ivory Tower’… Sirayn’s Ivory Tower. How ironic things should have gone this way for her and her most successful protégé. Not only had the young, once wide eyed girl achieved her goal of being as famous and glorious as Arie Tarou, she had excelled the burnt out green’s legend. It was an act that Telcia never thought possible.

“Well, let’s just say it might be far too soon for her liking despite the fact that I held her to my breast as a daughter through tears of her novice and accepted years.” Her smile faltered remembering little Sirayn in those years, how close they’d been, how they might still have been if things had played out differently after the discovery of the Arches. Still, how much more would she have given up making herself what Sirayn and the Sisters of the Tower wanted when now, she was what the Pattern required?

“Shall we start at the beginning then?” She looked up to meet her new companion’s faces. “Or shall we cut to the quick of it? The short answers are these: I am a Red Sister who despite the many warning to the contrary, took a husband from among the Tower Guard. My husband is now a gentled male channeler. Both my marriage, a taboo, and my husband’s lamentable condition, proved tragic to my once successful and historically noteworthy career as Sitter in the Hall of the Tower.”

Perhaps some might have considered that the end of it, that was enough for most women to crawl under a rock and die quietly; but not Telcia. “I hid well an error of mine for some time, an error that has proved to be the greatest of all my acts in this world. You see, even before my husband’s condition could be discovered, my bride’s night was interrupted as from our ship on the river we spotted shadowspawn marching on Tar Valon. We raced back to warn the Amyrlin, knowing our duty all too well, and were successful in saving many lives. We fought for two days outside the city and both of us took our share of wounds but in the din of battle, I understandably did not think back to my night with my husband. Tea or preventatives were the last thing on my mind when people were dying. And so it was I became with children to add to my already considerable list of things the Tower would eventually take issue with.”

Again, this was enough for most… but there was still more. She hated revealing this truth but this, of all the things which occurred, was the salt in the wound that had set her at odds with so many even in her own beloved Red Ajah.

“However, all of these things were not enough for the Tower to turn me away. Talented women of the Tower have raised children in the walls and I am not the first to have a husband in the Tower’s history no matter how many traditionalist sisters felt I should have been ashamed. No, what set agitation to rage for the Sisters of the Tower was petty vengeance and fear of which I and my family are the victims of both.”

“A series of laws were passed by Sitters while others were out of the Tower. Advantage of allies was taken and what started as small slights grew until they became so abhorrent to all sides that the Tower itself… I regret… has all but shattered.” She let the weight of the unbelievable statement settle. She let the women remember and take in that she was sworn on the oath rod and couldn’t lie. She let them take it in and before they could react she continued.

“They changed Tower policy on male Channelers before my husband showed the signs and once he did he was the first and, I pray, the last to undergo the Tower’s new ‘study program.’ He was not allowed the gentling he or I begged for. He was given no mercy or consideration for his service or blood shed… not for his cooperation or even the fact that his family would need him once I was exiled into Andor … cut off from the Tower by order of the Amyrlin Seat without even an hour to say my goodbyes to my soon-to-be confounded Sisters let alone my desperate and lonely husband.”

“You see, as the sides argued for and against the gentling of my husband, I stood in the Amrylin’s presence and foretold the coming of the Dragon and her gentling for keeping the truth of him from the Hall of the Tower and the World.” She gauged the women’s faces for emotional reactions trying to understand how they felt about all this. “The Amyrlin and her Keeper insisted that my knowledge was a threat and they sealed me to the flame… an oath of deepest secrecy which could not be lifted until the truth was known. With this they gave to me some coin and sent me into exile immediately. I went straight from her office to the stables and into Andor. My sisters thought I had abandoned them in my shame and so even after my return to the Tower not once, but twice, my name never recovered even in my own Ajah. I wasn’t just untraditional now… I had been labeled by many, a traitor.”

“For nearly two years I lived in a village and learned the art of farming and helping the local wisdom. I raised my children as best I could, a former noble who barely knew how to get her hands dirty,” she forced a smile. “but I managed. My children, Jelene & Jamal, made each day bearable without my Sisters in the Tower. I felt like I’d lost so much but each day I realized just how much I’d really gained. So, I suppose you can imagine just how terrible I reacted to my children being kidnapped.”

“The village was besieged and during the chaos they disappeared. We buried the dead and searched for weeks for the children before the local residents began to suggest to me they were dead. I couldn’t give up though. I was mad with my desperation. Hearing a new Amyrlin Seat had come to power, and at the advice of a Sister who was also exiled, I returned to the Tower to seek it’s mercy again and find my husband. Sadly, he wasn’t there… an equally long and distressing tale. Needless to say I stayed and tried to rebuild my name as my fellow exiled Sister searched for my children and I sent out every resource I had ever gained to the task of finding them and my husband.” She shakes her head.

“A lot happened then. A window reopened for me, a way to rebuild my name as a Sister. A series of events that might have made me what I had once been… I nearly took the opportunity. I’ve known nothing else for more than two centuries now. But then my husband appeared one day and word came about my children and I had to make a choice. Abandon my husband to whom I gave oaths, abandon my blood… my children whom I gave more than words to, or leave the Tower. At the time I felt it was a question of who I was most loyal to. I’m sure they see it that way still.”

“However, the world is a cold place full of grays… the most difficult truth for a woman of a great white tower of light, is to know that there exists a whole world between them and the blackness of the Shadow. The world is full of lives that I’ve come to learn a great deal about and in the end, I feel, I’ve made my choices under the guidance of the Light… even if it is at odds with what the White Tower gave to me as truths. To stay would have only served my pride and while leaving meant giving up the chance to stand with the Tower in Tarmon Gaidon… it meant standing true to who I really am for the first time in too long. This, I’ve come to accept, maintains the deeper truth of what it means to be a Servant of All. I can only hope the Creator and, perhaps your Circle, can agree with my assessment.”

Telcia felt the years heavy on her now as she looked into the cup again, the tea shook as she did herself, and it appeared she had wrinkles and looked as old as she was in years. “Admittedly, there is much more to the tale… some even more startling than I’ve already shared: shadowspawn threats, discoveries of dark and ancient truths, so much more… but at the heart of it, simply put; I am retired because even if I were inside the Tower walls, to most I am little more than a resource and a loathsome one at that. But… perhaps here…” her voice trailed off.

“Does this answer your question of how I came to leave the White Tower?”

Ragan peace knotted his blade. He sincerely doubted he’d need to use it this afternoon. If he did, best not to think of such things. Kit had worked her hair over at least four times now using the One Power to hold it in such impossible ways that the Queen of Andor herself couldn’t possibly have been expected to be seen wearing. He wished she’d just accept that her happy face was all that her mentor would need despite the silence which had hung between them for so long and the difficult terms they’d left under.

That wasn’t to say that he didn’t think Con would have a moment of hesitation or more. To the contrary he could bank on it. However, true and loyal friends were precious commodities to Con. He knew this & if the rumors of Con’s departure from the White Tower were true, he could only hope that in their shocked feelings of injustice there would be some common ground to rebuild upon. Besides, while Con could never understand his fury with Arette… nor had he and Con built such an angry wall of animosity that Arette and Kit had. They, as men, had the good sense to just be silent after the initial harsh and disagreeable words. All that remained now was to see if the silence could be peaceably broken.

“How do I look?” She asked again. Ragan knew no matter what he said she’d redo it but, while he wasn’t the world’s brightest man, he knew better than to give a woman truth when she asked such questions.

“The Light’s truth Kit Sedai,” she hated it when he added her honorific unnecessarily but today it was necessary. She was stunning at this moment and trying to hide his emotions in the void was the only way to cope without her getting on again about him denying truth. If only she could understand his honor the same way she understood dead and forgotten lore. “You shine as brightly as the sun itself.”

Kit smiled so hard it threatened to split her face. Turning back to the mirror she stared at herself for a long moment and the smile faded as she let her power go and her hair fell in waves.

“What was wrong that time!?” Ragan asked, more baffled than before. “I thought you liked it that time?”

“I did.” She said regretfully. “But I can’t go in looking too good. It will be an insult to the bride.”

Exasperated Ragan flopped down dejectedly into a chair to wait her out. Defeated he just refused to fight this particular battle any further.

==

BACK AT THE DRESSING ROOM

==

Telcia let the weave close behind them as they re-entered Arette’s dressing area. Once again the two sisters hugged. “I’m so glad I was able to be here. I’ll have to send my sisters a very special gift for this one. It’s a debt I won’t fully be able to repay I think.” She pulls back, hands still on Arette’s shoulders.

“I’ve never seen you like this before. I think being a goodwife will suit you far more than any other title you’ve carried before.” She walked over to the door. “The other gift will require you to close your eyes.” Telcia peaked out the door to be sure the flame red signal of Kit’s hair was visible. As soon as she was sure Arette’s eyes were closed she opened the door and waved Kit inside.

“In my arches, as you’ve learned, I once saw myself as Amyrlin Seat…” She begins, watching Arette’s brow furrow. “Well, I may not be Mother of the Tower, or possessing of even a third of her influence or command,” Telcia chuckled. “but some people don’t require an order from the world’s most powerful woman to come to their senses. You can open your eyes when you hear the door shut behind me Arette. I’ll see you in the wedding house. Come on Cina, Rana; let’s let mommy have time alone. We’ll go find your father & you both can help me give him his gift.”

Sparing a smile for Kit, who looked simple but very pretty today in her Andoran way, she nodded to the girl and swiftly swept out the door with the twins in tow, shutting the door firmly behind her. She hesitated only a second to hear Arette’s happy gasp. Tears welled in her eyes. Light but it was good to see family back together again.

==

OUTSIDE THE WEDDING HOUSE

==

Finding his old mentor was easily done. Getting to him through the swell of bodies laughing so hard, was. Ragan didn’t know these people and while some looked like they might be Con’s Kinsmen; he couldn’t be sure. In their way, all Illianers looked alike to some degree. Hearing their terrible thick accent being spoken so freely and by so many all at once was nearly deafening.

Perhaps happily, or regrettably, Ragan immediately began to draw attention while Kit was able to slip off without even being noticed. Sometimes he hated being a Shienaran. Certainly he stuck out in southern crowds but what gained as much attention as his top knot was his weapon and shield… both chosen with care to model the two of the men who he admired most in entire world. One man was dead some 10 years ago now, the other was turning to see what had caused a ripple of silence to flow across the sea of his kinsmen.

Years of drilling proper etiquette caused Ragan to act even without thought. Ending his warder’s stride a fisted hand raised up from his side and collided firmly against his chest where his heart lay beating. A slight bow made his life’s blood echo louder in his ears as he made oath in witness of the assembled and the Light, “Peace favor your blade now and always Master.”

He only wished that he could read and understand his mentor’s expression.

Ragan Morsad

Gaidin to Kit Sedai

Student of Thunder on the Ocean

Kit Sedai

Sister of the Brown Ajah

& ...

See around soon 'mate'... and no worries we got things well in hand.

*hugs*

Hey Freelanders!

I was just surfing the boards and wanted to start a little chat so what the heck; here goes:

What RPs do you like to read the most to READ? Do you find the Action scenes to be best (those filled with fights of all kinds, Channeling or Swords), Political (Hall RPs, Negociations, Manipulations, Backstabbing) or General Character Development (Romance, Inner Conflict, etc) or Others?

ADDITIONALLY...

What type to you prefere to write?

I ask both for fuel for Freelanders Staff (in organizing interesting to read/play in rps) and out of personal interest. So please, share! I look forward to your replies! :D

 

I can hear what you're thinking,

All your doubts and fears,

And if you look in my eyes, in time you'll find,

The reason I'm here.

 

And in time all things shall pass away,

In time, you may come back some say.

To live once more, or die once more,

But in time, your time will be no more.

 

In Time by Mark Collie.

 

How does a woman know the nature of a soul?

Is it weighed and measured just as the qualities of goods bartered for?

Is she the best to judge herself or can that alone be known by the Creator?

Did she think she was Light loyal because no other option had been shown to her?

Could her heart be more dark than she could easily admit?

His words kept coming and the less she could argue his logic with all she’d learned and seen in the world the more fearful she became. But why? Because the Dark One would swallow up the world? Did she really fear the Shadow because of that, or was there something else? What did she truly fear?

Questions of herself, her beliefs, her fears, and to what she held tightest to suddenly filled every empty place in her mind pushing aside other ‘more important’ thoughts. She hated this man for making her doubt one of the only things she’d ever really known for sure in her existence. She hated him for making things more complicated than they already were and for forbidding her, with baiting and switching of her children’s safety, to do it. This was likely his plan after all.

Or was that simply the easy and comfortable ‘truth’ she made for herself in this moment of panic?

For a long while she sat quiet, flashes of hundreds of memories flooding her mind like the barrage of fire and lightening on a battlefield that might well have been her soul. All the truths and lies she knew, re-examined with this new information in hand. In truth she’d questioned a lot these past years. Her faith in the Tower as an institution had been shaken and destroyed… replaced with a knowledge of her place in the Light and strengthened by her family & friends. Yet… here was a man with words that made her question the Light and promised she may yet lose the dearest of her family; her babies.

She hated him.

She wanted to kill him, perhaps that would stop his words from being true.

Maybe she could go back to her simple life if he was gone.

Her hand itched to reach for the Dagger around her neck.

She hadn’t promised him she wouldn’t attack him with her hands.

She could. She knew it.

Even as the imagined blood sprayed across the bodice of her gown, his words crashed down upon her like a great wave of a late fall storm: She would kill him. No words had ever rung more true to her and it was in this moment she, once again, looked inside. Had she been the character in some great being’s repeat performance of a play she’d endured for Ages; Free Will give so long as the play wasn’t disrupted too much.

Unable to look at him, disgusted by her urge to kill a man who had come to help her, she let’s her body slump once more. A new kind of exhaustion filling her. In a weary but confident tone she speaks, “I’m not a murderer.” As she said the words she almost wept for knowing they were true. “I’ve caused death in defense, by accident, even been an agent of destruction at the request of suffering man… but I’m not a murderer.” She had to prove to herself that she was good, that she was pure still in some way… “I will not help you to leave this cycle unless you ask it of me. You have my word on that.” She knew the promise would hold so long as her oaths did and some part of her hated that she’d said it; already thinking it was a mistake. Another, smaller and meeker voice, rejoiced.

“Some bindings give us freedom Master Felar and some freedoms bind. It is a wisdom I’ve learned from my Oaths. Ask your wife some time, I suspect she has a similar unique perspective to share with you on the matter. As Chaos is not inherently evil… neither can Order be. If this truth is to be accepted then we must also accept that it is we, men and women, who foul it up.” She slowly turns to look at him as she pulls away from him.

“Fades… Trollocs… Dark Friends and their senseless & murderous ways; no better than White Cloaks who zealously slaughter & terrorize people over that which they don’t want to understand. The White Tower who teaches women to serve all by separating them from that which they’re meant to serve; removing all humanity and joy from them until they are old bitter husks of what they once were, unable to empathize with anyone outside their sheltered empty world of books, fabricated half-truths, and vaunted self-importance.” The words came out in a torrent; rage pent up over what the Tower had done to her family, and her, for two centuries and longer if you counted Muirenn.

Light but it felt good to say it.

She really was free.

The weight of a Shawl and Ring were gone… but what had she traded them for?

“I’m not sure there is a good side where men are concerned, Master Felar. Perhaps there never was & the idea of the Light in this world is nothing more than a child’s story grown to the point of faith so that all men might have something to hope for in the face of adversity and strife.” She admits reluctantly. “But men need hope. They need something to assure them that a new day will come when the night is darkest. They need something they can wish to be that is something more than themselves; something good. If that light in all our hearts faded completely…” her voice trailed off into silence for a moment as she organized her last thoughts.

“I can not be a servant to or adherent to a Cause or Ideal which has used Tools such as the Dark One has used to win this war. Perhaps the world is as you say… full of terrible truths and things which I am not yet aware; I am certain, in fact, that it is. One day, no doubt, I may lament my inability to stop that which is cosmically beyond any one man to address.” she hesitates. “But for all that I can & can not change; in the end, knowing what I will and won’t stand for, this matters most. The nature of my soul, the power over that which I can govern… these things require my attention. It is for this reason alone that you have my word about slaying you despite the urges that I will not deny are present within me even in this very moment.”

Looking to her children she sighs, some hope refilling her as her dizziness abates. She wanted her answers, to who had endangered the children… to who killed Melanie and Jeleane… and so much more; but this had to end. She couldn’t keep at this and still face herself in the mirror when next she sat before it.

“We’ll meet again.” The words are a statement with the certainty of her foretelling, perhaps a minor one even now in this moment. “Give my best to Tania.” She looks to Rasputin with sincerity, a distant hope that there was yet a chance for him and Tania both to be saved from the fate they'd dove head long into for whatever pitious reason they'd chosen that path. “I mean that.”

With that she begins to tend to her children, the glass vial she’d shown to Felar all but forgotten about, lost in a sea of her darker urges, fears, and unanswered questions about life, the soul, and a most uncertain and terrifying future that lay ahead.

Light bless her husband he actually looked at Arette with the eyes of a man appriciating a pretty woman. Of course she found it terrible funny when Iussi noticed her noticing him and he looked appologetic. Fool man! Didn't he know how much a woman needed reassuring on her wedding day? For Arette, no doubt, the look from Iussi would prove her radience; after all, those two hated each other by in large. They never gave each other anything near compliments and if he did, Arette would know it for genuine. Chuckling, she kissed Iussi goodbye & gave the children's hands to him. "Don't forget to tell Con I wish to speak with him before the ceremony begins. I want to give him his gift."

As soon as he was gone she walked over to her Sister again and kissed her on the cheeks. "Oh Arette!" She sighed. "You have no idea how much I've missed you. You're," She pulled back to look at her friend from head to toe, her hands still on her shoulders. "Beautiful isn't strong enough of a word for how you shine today." A smile spit her face wide, nearly ear to ear; her eyes glowing with sincereity & love.

She was relieved to see Con's family (she assumed that was who this veritable horde of women had to be by the look of them) was willing to leave Arette alone with the only family she had here. "I have so much to say, so much ..." She seems sad for a moment shaking her head and closing her eyes, but it's pushed away quickly behind a smile once more. "...but today is a day of great happiness for all of us and The Light and I won't color it with anything but red for you both." Walking back to the door she hesitates only a moment.

"So..." She locks it. "I have three gifts for you. The first will require you keep the children in your lap & hold them tightly. This has a nasty habit of cutting anything that get's in it's way." Her eyes sparkle with mischief as she chooses a direction of the room that wouldn't be damaged by the opening. "Now, do watch closely. You should be able to repeat this. You're strong enough I think."

Telcia took hold of the intense heat that was Saidar and breathed slowly & purposefully. Rising onto her tip toes she moved her hands as if she were conducting an orchestra; slowly at first with increasing speed and bravado. If someone who was not a channeler were to see the petite woman at work they might think her mad, beautiful, & frightening as she seemed to crackle with energy even to the naked eye. Her efforts flooding the room with energy as her eyes focused with a deadly intent on the flows of spirit that would let her bend reality in on itself.

She'd done this once today but the placement of threads had to be 'just so' in order for the desired result to come into being. Maegan had given her this gift and it was by this silvery thread's light that she was brought to her friend's side this happy day. The thin line came into physical being and Arette's eyes went wide as it began to yawn in a most fascinating way. Telcia's heart quickened as she bent the energies and tied the flows with wrist thick threads that would hold for quite a long while. Falling back onto her heels and exhaling slowly she finally turned to Arette.

"There." She said gently, the portal humming before them both no wider or taller than a doorway. "Gift number one is that... a weave, rediscovered by the Tower not too long after we left." Before Arette could ask how she simply added, ""Seems some are still loyal to the Cause even in dark times like these. Now we can visit each other any time we like... or other things... should it ever be necessary. Either way, say goodbye to saddle sores." she laughed and gave Arette time to react before adding, "The second gift is on the otherside."

Waiting for Arette to walk through the gateway with her children, she followed close behind. From a hard warehouse floor into a soft grassy field that seemed to stretch on for miles.

Flowers peppered the green and yellow reeds and a stream wound slowly towards a pond nearby. Distantly farms could be seen and a great distance away the mountains of mist loomed. She'd read about this place and visited it once with a small group of Tinkers she was lucky enough to be invited to walk with in her younger years as a Sedai. Being that her sister once called this place home it only seemed appropriate that she now bring her here for her wedding hour prayers. Walking up beside her friend she whispered, "I know how much going home meant to me even if the circumstances weren't as happy as yours are today." Laying a hand gently on her shoulder she adds, "I'll watch the children if you'd like to go pray."

Telcia didn't say it, but she knew in days to come they would need every prayer that Arette could invent to say today. Perhaps, here away from the rest of the world and so near perfection of nature, the Creator would listen. Perhaps the Dread Lord had been wrong... Light, send that he's wrong.

Telcia rose smoothly when the higher ranked woman entered the room and nearly did not hide her shock at the woman's aged face. There was time readable by her eyes and skin and... Light! Were they lead by a woman so young; but no, how could that be? She should have ended her aging by now.

“I am Helena Mahin.” the woman offered her hand and no titles, just a welcome & so Telcia responded in kind. "I'm Telcia Dyfelle, thank you for your invitation to visit." She extended her hand, the one her Serpant Ring should have sat on still, and shook the other woman's with just as much firmness as would be polite for the social situation.

“I trust that Livia has told you that you are to keep whatever knowledge you have or gain here about the Kin to yourself?”

Brushing a stray hair from her face, she hadn't been using weaves of air to keep her appearance perfect as she use to since arriving in Ebou Dar, she smiled. "Of course." She knew they'd be concerned both from Livia and from her own logic. Only the insane didn't have a fair to middling respect/fear for the reach & influence of the White Tower... even all the way in Ebou Dar. One Sister, with the right application of political savvy and power, could make life very difficult for a group such as this & perhaps bring a good many of them back for training.

Of course, she had no such intentions.

"I'm to understand that until you and your Circle decide anything with regard to myself, even my husband is not to know anything more than he must to keep him from inquiring further about my visits to this farm." She nods slowly & glances about herself and towards a window that looked out onto the yard. "I do grasp the need for secrecy. Especially now that I've seen this with my own eyes. Truly impresssive Mistress Mahin, impressive indeed! A simple guise for a very necessary thing, I should think."

Looking back to the woman. "Livia has told me a few things about what I could expect here but I think you'll find that she's left me with some questions though. Perhaps, intentionally. I hope in time to have those answered. I confess some unschooled excitement over the idea of being able to teach others & learn new things myself, once more. It's been far too long."

Sipping her tea, and making sure not to come off as she if she was dumping too much information onto the woman all at once she finished; "But I'm prattling on." She chuckled briefly & softly. "I'm sure you have much more you require to know about me." Nodding she added; "I think you'll find that I have few taboo topics despite what you might guess about a woman in my position so please, don't hesitate to ask whatever you require."

ooc: Wrote this in a rush, hopefully it's not too big of an info dump. I just wanted to give you enough material to make a good post with. LOL. *hugs*

The children were fascinated by Maegan but uncertain as well. After all, were they suppose to listen to her? Telcia kneeled down to their level and kissed each one’s brow gently she ushered them off to their toy room so that her and Maegan could have some privacy in the den.

The role of Aes Sedai fell over her like an old and comfortable glove, well-worn with time and perfected with ease. Calm and seemingly emotionless she gestured to a seat so that Maegan could be comfortable and immediately she began setting about making some tea. Light alone knew when Livia would be back and now, unlike a moment earlier, Telcia felt better because of that.

“I hope you will forgive me and my home’s appearance Highest, I had not expected you so very soon. In truth I’m quite at a loss. It’s so rare for one of your station to be so far away from Tar Valon but to have been in this area already and intercepting my pigeons….” She smiles and shakes her head slowly. “Truly surprising indeed! I pleasant shock, but a shock none the less.”

Pausing only a moment she went on. “I’m glad you were able to pull away from your duties long enough to come speak with me. I’m afraid there are many grim things that require our attention and can not wait any longer.”

“Jamal put that muddy cat outside this instant… JELENE NOT THE GLASS VASE NO!!!” The weave of air caught the vase before it could shatter all over the floor. The children were running wild through the house. Livia had gone out to fetch a few things from the store and Iussi was away with the boys for a couple hours. Telcia knew it was unlikely she’d finish the month’s sales figures while they were out but despite this knowledge, she tired anyway. The result was the children getting into things when she wasn’t looking.

Outside the rain poured and thunder clapped and so it was a small miracle she’d heard the knock at the door at all. Scooping up Jelene under one arm and a mud covered Jamal in the other… still holidng the vase in a band of air she opened the door with another thread of air only to receive the shock of her life.

Weeks before she should have been there… there she stood. “Mae-Mae Sede!” Jelene squealed with utter elation, clearly remembering the woman from the illusions Telcia had wove during story hour.

“Hello Highest.” Telcia blinked only once before moving quickly out of the way to let her Sister enter.

"Don't call me that." She says too abruptly letting her smile falter a moment. "Please. It's not right. Not any more." She walks away from Iussi over to the bed and sits down.

"I've forsaken everything Iussi... and tonight I was afraid that I'd ruined what I had here with you with my stupid need to feel important and... useful. It was careless of me not to have seen what was happening before this point. I was just so consumed with the need to be successful at this new life, not because of you or Livia but because of my own pride. I guess I never realized how much Arette & the other villagers really did to help us on the farm." She sags her shoulders a bit and folds her hands into her lap.

"It looked so easy compared to all the other things I'm good at that everyone says is so hard. I guess I just lost perspective." She shrugs. "It took me lifetimes to master my other talents, I guess I just was belittling the importance of this role by thinking I could do it without any real practice or teaching."

She covers her mouth with her hand and closes her eyes. "Oh Iussi!" she sobs immediately falling into Iussi's arms who, she noted briefly, was right there to catch her when she needed holding. "What if I mess up? I don't have time to learn all this or to do it!" She shakes her head.

"Jelene and Jamal need a mother today!" She protested. "I've been so scared..." blinking she looks up at Iussi. "...and Livia, she's just so good at it all. I've hated her for how easy it seems to be for her and all she's tried to do is help me. I've been absolutely rotten! I'm ashamed at how I've treated the woman you call mother Iussi. You may feel like you have messed up our family business but that's nothing compared to what I've done... I nearly ruined our family."

Iussi wiped away her tear and pulled her face up to look into his eyes. He seemed to strong, so sure of himself in that moment no matter what he might have been feeling inside.

For a moment they just looked at each other and then Telcia cracked a smile followed by a laugh. "We've been silly, haven't we?" She hugged him again, almost amazed at how he let her vent her pain and fears waiting for her to find her feet and direction again.

"We're lucky Fate sent us this course," she began as she pulled away from her husband. "I would have hated the woman who bonded you forever & envied her or the most perfect Gaidin she'd found in you." She kissed him gently and spoke against his lips, "We're here... for now. This is our home. We'll make a life here, one that is filled with more than just preparing for war too. We'll welcome it and embrace it for however long the Light will allow us to have it." She kissed him again. "May the Creator send that its a long time to come."

Iussi didn't know which one of the many things Telcia said to tackle. There was so much of it now when she let it all rush out. Maybe it was the best if he just listened and then commented what he remembered. They had to be the important things. The kisses he replied eagerly made him dizzy but he did his best to cling on his senses. "I... umm... you haven't ruined anything and you are the best possible mother there is. And maybe a happier mother since you will from now be doing what you really like and what you are already good at. Light knows that this house was never meant to be run by just one woman and Livia has years of experience of doing that and being the mistress of the house. And as for Bonding, I would have never Bonded anyone but you and since that wasn't possible... and still isn't, I suppose... it's past now like you said. But I do thank the Light that I bumped into you on my first day on the Yards since after that I couldn't have even thought of becoming tied to any other Aes Sedai. And like it or not, you still have the right to that title."

She smiles. "Be that as it may, I think you shouldn't use the phrase outside of private situations for now. I'm sure it would only draw attention we don't need right now, or the kids. Besides..." She smiled. "if I keep that great serpant ring tucked away for now I can cling to the hope you'll replace it with a moonstone some day soon." She kisses him.

"Now, let's leave this talk for now... and get to making up. It's late and if I know the kids they'll be up early and I want my rest at some point, even if it's only a few hours."

Making up... Iussi brightened visibly. And she wanted a wedding ring. That he could arrange but later, much later. As their mouths met, he began to disrobe her with practiced gentleness.

Make love to me, so you make love to a man

Let your hips to bang my hips

Make love to me and make love hard

Take me to the end on a private line

 

My skin is in vain, find it some use

Be tender, senselessly tender, take me with care

Put/love me back into condition, sew me together with serious strand

 

My life depends on you and the favour of your love

Let me come, let me be filled with your love

 

Rakastele Mua by Zen Cafe

Telcia accepted the cup, though it felt like another person doing so. Sipping slowly and breathing through her freshly cleared nose, she tried to ignore the faint ringing in her head and the bone deep hunger that the healing had left. She could scarcely recall what she'd spoken now. Words, phrases but it didn't make any sense at all. It was as if she'd foretold just for this man; the understanding wasn't suppose to be hers at all. The only thing she could rationalize was that this meeting, somehow, was destined by the Creator and planned in the Pattern for longer than either had been alive.

Could it be she was suppose to help this man somehow?

Wetting her lips, her eyes avoiding his, she tried not to protest against his words. Instead, she hoped, that talking with him would give her a better sense of him and what her role here really was. What did the Light require of her? Had her part been played in the Foretelling or was this the first of many future meetings with this man or others like him? Was she strong enough to be the tool for such a miracle? Did she dare hope that she might help save this man's soul and with him a Sister of the Tower? Or was this just how the Shadow slipped too close to the soul of the weak to poison the heart with honey lies?

"It seems ages ago now," She whispers into the cup. "I was in white still when I took my introduction to Saidar classes." She chuckles softly, careful not to hurt her throat or head any further with shaking.

"Come to think of it, Arette taught that class." She pauses thinking of how to share this carefully guarded secret of her past. "A lot of my teachers figured I was destined for the Brown Shawl. In truth, I meant to wear one until..." She couldn't bring herself to share that detail.

"I changed my mind." She decided that was more diplomatic. "The Sedai, they weren't fond of me at first, I think. Beyond the fact that I had a blood relative in the Tower already & reminded them of lives they denied themselves; I challenged things in my own way for the time before I learned what it meant to be an Aes Sedai of Tar Valon... and again after I remembered who I was once more." Lowering the cup she stares into it still.

"One lesson comes to mind now; Arette had started topics about Saidin and Saidar... the Age of Legends... the Shadow and the Light. We were supposed to write a paper on the topics and discuss it the next day. I sat up all night thinking; I confess a sleepless night full of curious ideas which I still hold onto in a fashion even now. Oh, yes, my ideas in class the next day did win me Arette and Mellyn's appreciation but my thoughts written on the paper won me a trip to the Mistress of Novices."

"Pull... and Push." She breathes the phrase. "The Light and Darkness were represented upon the Great Seal, not just Saidin and Saidar; that was what I had written. Not that Saidin had been evil per say, but the iconography was symbolic for the necessity of two forces moving in concert to propel the Wheel of Time forward... the Wheel which weaves the Pattern, a Pattern read by Fortellers, Dreamers, Viewers and others of that fashion."

"The theory continued pridefully to state that perhaps the Age of Legends wasn't a state of perfection... but an unnatural state that one Age prior had created and the Age of Legends people had either forgotten about or had secreted away. That if the Age of Legends had been so very perfect, what need was there for more power? Was that not a display of greed or envy? Are these not emotions we associate with the Shadow? I pointed out that, perhaps, the force existed long before any bore had been dug and had been subdued somehow by the people of that time or the Age before leaving the world in a terrible place of misbalance to the side of Light which likely had problems we haven’t even considered." She let her words sink into her own mind for a moment, the first time they'd been spoke aloud in over two centuries.

"The theory had proposed that the Shadow had a purpose, created by the Creator to help life continue onward in spite of our own unnaturally destructive urges. That death, all dark things, they had purpose in our lives and the world. Well, needless to say, to them the paper was an unforgivable sin & so it was burned. The only record of its existence remains with me, in here." She touches her head. "Were it not for the Yellows I'd still bear the scars from that birching." She sighs.

"I've never repeated that story to anyone but the two women I loved as I love my own blood family... the two I tried to ask you about before I lost my senses. Jeleane and Melanie." Setting the cup aside she slowly looks up, to avoid feeling faint, and into his eyes deeply & truly for the first time. The act left her feeling naked to him, as if she was somehow more venerable than she already was. It was an act of trust, the only bit she could force herself to at the moment.

"Master Felar… even in the wild, where a Lion keeps the balance on a herd of Deer, the Lion is still a foe not to be trifled with. One doesn't simply jump to the service of a Lion without expecting the Lion to one day turn on them when it best suits the Lion's needs."

"I know I don't know you well enough to say this for a fact... but I think we both are aware that something bigger than us brought us to this strange place in Time. I hope that you're not going to ignore that fact or be overly generous in your estimation of how much control either of us may have over it either now or in the future. Just as I'd hope that you won’t continue to be with your estimation of your power to keep the Lion at bay should its eyes fall upon you and see you for prey."

"You've helped me today & you've protected my children... I know you are all too aware of what that might mean to me." She drops her voice again letting her fingers absently trace along her bottom lip. "We're pawns in this war, you & I. We can only do what is right in our hearts & regardless of our choices the Wheel will turn... unending; but you DO have a choice. You always have a choice. I’ll not forget that, or what you did here today.”

She’d been falling and falling and searching for some purchase upon which to stand when all the sudden, in a flash of cold, the world rose up beneath her. She shuddered, sputtered, and choked on the lava that had been filling her body’s many orifices.

She hurt everywhere and as the pain slowly was beginning to abate the feeling of having run across the face of the world from ocean to the spine, filled her every limb. She was bone weary, more deep and true than she’d ever been. Her voice filled her mind but the words weren’t clear, nor could she bring herself to care about what she had said exactly though she knew at one time it had been of the utmost importance to do so. For now all that mattered was that she’d been pulled back from the brink of death…

Pulled.

Again. It was a feeling she’d hoped not to experience again until her time was done. That day, clearly, was not today.

Soft linen pulled across every line in her flesh, gently wiping the now cooling blood from her face so she could breathe. Her eyes felt caked with it through and she couldn’t make all the worrisome thoughts be silent long enough to recall who it was that held her.

His hands were gentle despite their size… his… a male had saved her. Was it? Could it be? “Why,” her voice was weak. “…did I wait so long?” She wheezed questioningly as she pulled her eyes apart, their lashes sticking to each other tight, filling her bloodshot and blurred vision with bits of drying lymph and blood.

“Skechid,” She breathed the name. “Brother." There was a love in the tone, a love that carried the weight of words never spoken. Her lips moved to speak again but instead she closed her stinging eyes and fell more deeply into the arms that held her and lay quiet for a time, organizing stray ideas and memories as the hands worked with an expert ease upon her.

She could hear other soft breathing nearby. Her Children. Jelene, Jamal. They were sleeping. She had put them into that state with the One Power. Yes, that was it. They were in the carriage waiting for her to return. They had been out signing the Laughin deal and…

Rasputin’s face filled her mind, him standing cold through the crowd, him pulling the drapes shut, his words about the Shadow, her promise, and his warning. She trembled and gooseflesh covered her arms as fear returned and she knew it wasn’t Skechid who held her. She could scream for having let herself be so vulnerable but no, it wasn’t all her, it was the will of the Light. It was the pattern that decided when, where, and how. She’d been the fool for not sending him away sooner and instead trying to fight the course of time and fate. It had nearly killed her once before and once again it seemed to have done the same.

Turning her head she opened her eyes to see her children sleeping quietly on the seat across from her a bit tussled but no worse for the wear. With the weave they were under they’d sleep a long and deep healing rest through almost any disturbance. Turning she looked back up at her unexpected savior. Her eyes, pained as they were, now beginning to see him more clearly.

“You…” She sounded hoarse still but her tenor would have let him know she could see him for who he was now. The you was almost as accusitory as it was a statement of who she was talking to. “saved me.” She swallowed. “Why?”

The question was as valid as any she’d ever asked. He was Shadow. She was Light; sworn enemies. She had power and would use that power against him and his allies on day and in this moment weakness he could have been completely rid of her without having left any evidence of his own passing or involvement. She, like other foretellers before her, would simply have died from the shock and strain of her vision.

For one brief moment she was herself, able to feel and think and speak and then it all shut down. Something heavy pressed upon her mind and heart until she could feel the blood in her body pressing and rushing and trying to reach outward as if she might explode. Her vision went dark and suddenly she had no energy at all but could feel herself move and act in ways that shocked her. Helpless to resist the desire of fate and creation any further, her foretelling rushed out of her like a dam being broken by a massive wave larger than Dragonmount itself.

Her white eyes settled upon the thrown form of her companion, her pupils rolled completely up under her eyelids; her voice clear, calm and commanding spoke in a perfect dialect of the Old Tongue not heard in this part of the world for many lifetimes. While it could not be proven without her pupils, it seemed as though her gaze was locked keenly upon the man across from her as the first utterances resonated in a deeper tone from the very bowels of her diaphragm.

{Old Tongue} "I see you Scourge."The word was clearly a name, not a description and the phrase was a greeting as much as it was a declaration of the man's inability to hide from the voice's all seeing eyes. "We sit again together to share in the bounty of balance as it was, as it is, as it will be again. Dark Archon your words whispered honey light hope, impossible in these times and here I sit... Scion of Light shrouded in darkness by your hand, to share dark tidings in this the time of tides."

If the voice knew fear, or understood the position it was in, it was undetectable outwardly. An assurance came across in the tenor of the voice, a knowledge that were the form it spoke through to shatter and fade; some things time alone could not change.

"Hear me & know... Listen & You Will Be Prepared... Heed & Survive to Thrive with the thin times come again & balance is in children's hands once more;" If one were so inclined, if it was even possible, the figure that once belonged to the mind of Telcia Dyfelle became more focused and intense; leaning in closer to the man before her.

"Stallion is steeped in Shadow." She passes one hand over the other causing the dim light there to shadow and shade her own palm. "Roses wilt in its shade." She closes her hand suddenly and tight, snapping it like the solemn finish to a killing blow. Deadly in it's fatal decree.

"Bloodrunner shall arise anew." She lifts her head as if he might see her eyes from their seats tight under her eye lids. The look is near madness made physical. "Scourge shall fight for what was won." Then smoothly, as if she knew how she looked to him, her head tilts to the side slowly, as if she herself were amused by the words coming out of her lips; as if she did not know them until the very instant they were spoken.

"Even now," Slowly, as it to assure him she meant not to attack him, she reached upwards and pulled her marriage dagger from it's sheath. "Heart's Legacy teeters," Laying her finger on its edge she traces the line slowly and intimately like a lover. "...precariously... on the precipice... of Fate's... dull... & aged edge." At the end she pulls her finger away with only the tiniest nick into her flesh & the blade clatters to the floor, forgotten.

"Blood feeds blood." She offers to him her hand.

"Blood CALLS blood." She manages a twisted smile as blood begins to ooze from her nose & ears staining her free strands of blonde/silver hair pink on contact.

"Blood is, and blood was, and blood shall ever be... this I foretell." {/Old Tongue}

As I understand it they would be. I would check with James on that one to be sure. James, do we have a write up for this rp or should your 'wenches' touch base and get to writing so we can get the ball rolling as it seems there has been some hold ups on it in the past?

Let me know who needs to be involved and what you need done and we'll knock it out.

*hugs*

ooc: Since some parts of the west rps with the seanchan didn't occur now due to changes (as I'm to understand) I will ommit Telcia's former knowledge of ageless faces being something to do with the Oaths which Kit had indicated she suspected due to the Seanchan's women not having it. So feel free to point and laugh at the silly aes sedai when it comes up her in out loud voice eventually. :)

ic:

The silent girl didn't make Telcia feel any more relaxed. A channeler, perhaps she was one of these Kin, but she was silent as a grave. How very strange! She appeared to be quite young yet so clearly she hadn't been a channeler very long, her ageless face hadn't settled upon her.

Glancing to Livia she followed the woman's lead carefully and was certain she wouldn't allow herself to speak out of turn or spook these already secretive women. Likely they were worried she might bring the wrath of the Tower upon them and have them all shipped back for Novice training.

Honestly though, if they had appropriate teachers as Livia said they did, Telcia wasn't sure that was the best option. In truth, with the Black Ajah running about and all the fast approaching conflicts in the world including Tarmon Gaidon... perhaps a secondary stronghold of Light-Fearing Channelers wasn't a bad idea. Let the shadow focus on the Tower of Ivory and ignore the 'wilders' of The Kin until it was too late.

The though made her smile around her tea cup for a brief second. Livia, burn her, noticed and seemed to be puzzling over what might have made her smile. An Aes Sedai smiling, to some, was as reassuring as the Dark One himself smiling... happily Livia knew her a bit better than all that. Still, good tea wasn't enough to normally make Telcia smile with satisfaction as this most recent thought had.

"A beautiful day for the trip." Telcia remarked quietly to Livia as the girl exited the room to check on something else, presumably. "At least it's not drizzling again." She glanced towards the window, remaining silent for a moment, her thoughts traveling to her family only briefly.

"Hopefully Iussi doesn't spend the afternoon feeding the children sweets." She remarked gently. "They'll be no living with them tonight if he does."

She was just about to ask what was taking the women so long when she stopped herself. Silently she scolded herself, for not the first time, and went over her mantras again. She wasn't an Aes Sedai. The world needn't rush on her account any more. She was but a simple merchant woman, mother and wife. No one rushed for such people as her, not any more.

Telcia waited a moment before stepping back inside, she hoped that her reappearance wasn't too sudden. Livia's words about her husband's disdain for his work and Iussi's defense of her was all she really needed to hear to know that his wasn't the only ego large enough to blind. How could she not have realized that he didn't care to take control of his father's businesses at all?

Before he could say a word to her she cross thed room briskly, embraced his face between her open palms and then kissed his lips with fierceness and then twice more with soft brushes. Leaning her forehead against his, her eyes shut, holding in tears of foolishness and joy she whispers, "I'm so sorry."

Telcia heard the name of the Forsaken and she repeated the comforting mantra that had been sung to her like a hymn since the time of her entrance to the Tower. Words used to comfort scared novices and fearful, blind, and foolish servants... sealed away, indeed.

Instinctively, her hands held to her children a bit tighter and the twisting in her stomach was becoming increasingly painful, to the very point that between it and the warning being given, she didn't realize she'd broken into a thin sheen of sweats.

The monster went on explaining despite his sworn aligiance to the Shadow, and as he outlined the danger he had put his family in to come here, she couldn't help but feel pity for the thing. He had, after all, been a man at some point... a father and a husband. Her own fears filled her; how easily might the tables have been turned in another weaving of the Pattern?

Knowing how she felt about her own family she wasn't sure she could return his favor. That, in and of itself, might have seemed an innocent and honest assessment... but it was also frightening. It meant she might be a colder and more vile murderer than the man before her.

"I realize the danger you're in, that your family is now in and I thank you for the risk you've taken." She eeked out in a more frightened tone than she had hoped to speak in. Trying to steady the tremor in her voice she continued, "... it's not too late though. It's never too late. Not for you or for Tania."

She could already sense the rejection of her offer coming and so she thought better of pressing the topic and quickly added, "If something ever changes, I'm sure you'll remember my offer still stands."

What protection could she offer him really? She could bearly think of how she would protect her children and they had not sworn oaths or made themselves known to the Shadow as this man had. The horrible thing of it was that the most mercy and help she could probably offer to him was a slit across his throat the moment he had resinded his oaths of the shadow and prayed for forgiveness; for surely the shadow would not give a merciful or swift death for the betrayal. However, death would likely come... eventually; and that WAS a terrible thought.

Light but her head spun now. She could scarsely focus. It was as if the walls of the carriage were breathing and she could hear the sliding of cloth on cloth filling her ears. Rubbing her temple she forced herself to focus and continue, "I could ask a thousand questions about the Forsaken, could come up with a dozen things that might matter in the hour it might come for my children but... I doubt that will avail me little. However, there are four questions that have bothered me for some time now and perhaps you have answers to them."

Her muscles tightened, she felt fit for a bed and a long rest, her eye sight blurring now and distant sounds seemed to boggle her mind now; all heard as if they were speaking through water though. She'd never tried to ignore it like this before; now that she could call this pain by it's name, she marveled at how long she'd forced it back. She couldn't lose focus now, not even for a second or she might never see her children again.

Saliva came slower to her mouth than before, making it hard to speak. Surely the look on the man's face that broke his icy facade, meant that he knew something wasn't right with her. She held her hand up to forstall a question and stop her from getting her own answers.

"Ah... I,..There were two girls who shared a room with me at the White Tower when I was a novice one by the name of Melanie Tarou and the other Jeleane. For some time now I've feared their deaths weren't the simple accidents they were claimed to have been. I... I have had too many reasons to suspect that Melanie was pushed and that someone helped Jeleane to burn to cinders but never a reason why or a suspect. Knowing about the Black Ajah gives me possible answers, but if you were to confirm for me, if you knew..." She worked her lips again forcing wetness to her tongue which felt as if it was sleeping in a dune of sand.

"My husband," she tried to clear her throat as the next came out scratchy. "Held at the Tower until gentled but then he was sent to a farm that could have been a prison instead of to me as my Ajah Head claimed he was. Lied to... like me. Kept from me even as the disappearance of my children drove me back to the Tower to find him gone & my Ajah Sisters seemingly unaware of why."

A trembling hand reached into her purse and pulled out a small glass vial that bore the Flame of Tar Valon on it's base. "And the last... poison. Someone gave this to a man who kept my children. He gave it to them in the hour of their rescue and nearly sent them back to the Creator's sheltering palm." Her voice was gravel by this point, pain evident on her face and in her eyes. "...who..." she forced the word, eyes locked on his, determined to hear his answers and see him gone before a word of this latest Foretelling crossed her, now, dry lips.

A thousand thoughts raced through her mind. Tania Ramsey a Black? Oh Light, no! Arette attacked because of her children somehow & she made deals with the Shadow? How deeply had she been dragged into this? What did the Shadow want? What game was this? Could he make her forget things? If so why all this trouble? A master of the mind surely could simply have made her aware of the warning without revealing himself so either he is lying about the mind mastery or his connection to her is suppose to be strengthend by this talk. He meant to build trust, especially with the free offer of information, but to what end?

He, no doubt, knew she was weighing and measuring the words of the oaths. She could never give her word lightly and most especially not to a Dark Friend. Looking down at her babies again she knew the full weight of her responsibility to them. She knew how much they meant to her and to the world and she wished nothing more than to simply wake in her bed and find this all had been a terrible nightmare.

Closing her eyes, looking up and opening them she found the man still sitting before her. "I see." She managed, testing her numb tongue and mind. "You know the face of my enemy and if I do not make these oaths in complete, I will go on in ignorace ... which is, unacceptable. However, if I make the oaths... I can tell no one of this and thusly only improve my lot in life only by knowing the name of the monster who forces me to be ill with fear every moment I'm not with my children." She shakes her head sadly.

"A sorry prize for one who dared to wear the Crimson Banner and claimed to be a stout defender of the Light. It seems that the Pattern means for my failure as an Aes Sedai to be complete and utter despite centuries of work to avoid that very fate. I suppose it's true, there is no avoiding a foretelling..." She let's out a self-disgusted snort and let's her eyes look down on her babies again trying to take comfort in the choices she'd made.

True to his word Rasputin remained utterly silent. In fact, she wondered if he was even breathing as he waited motionless for her own inner demons to win the war that he'd only had to make the first & last mortal strike in. It seemed she had no leverage but the sad prayer that he was bluffing about the mind wiping but, unfortunately, it seemed a reasonable claim. How else could they have gone so long in the Tower without being known?

"I'm a fool for trying to win a game of Snakes and Foxes." She mutters wrily, her fingers playing in Jamal's hair and the other hand resting on Jelene's back. "There is no advantage to be had here, no true one. And by this I learn, and in the same act show you, the price of my immortal soul." The last is spoken in dispair, as if she had always believed that there was nothing for which she'd give her soul. Now she understood Sirayn's own brand of madness and her dedication to the Tower. Now, it finally made sense and she found her fears for the future of the Tower to be founded in fact. As easily as she had been manipulated, discovered, and likely controlled... so could anyone else who had a price.

She hated herself in that moment but could not bring herself to any other realization accept the bitter acceptance of the fact that she would go anywhere, do anything no matter how depraved or vile... in the name of her children. It was a terrible moment moment, no more than a heart beat or a breath, that seemed to span an eternity. It was the moment that Telcia truly saw the face of her enemy, the face of the Dark One, and what horrified her most was that he looked back with her own eyes.

No, people didn't 'fall' to the shadow; by the point they were in the reach of it's darkness... they leapt. Willingly. And in that, there was power, great and terrible power. It was for this reason, good men had to fear. And no other. The shadow has nothing left to live... or die for. It's mission is all and to it, it's members are soul bound loyal without compulsion or requirements. This is the power of the Dark One and if she was to fight it, she'd have to review carefully all the things she had ever considered she *knew* about it.

As she let her head lift slowly she came to look upon him with a deep hate and resignation, her voice overflowing with venom that might have shaken even Muirenn to her very core with the completeness of it's abyssal tone. "But you may also take back to your Master, with this news, the bitter warning that should anything happen to my children... I will have ample time to wage a full and complete war with no concerns or hesitations such as love or mercy for my enemies."

Beneath her both children shifted as if they could feel her agitation. Closing her eyes and pushing the overwhelming emotions from her mind again, she made herself calm and seemingly without care. Ice.

"Now, the matter of oaths;" She drew breath, "I will not communicate to anyone in any way that I have seen you here in Ebou Dar today or that we have communicated in anyway on this date." But if I ever see you again we shall rework our deal or not if you are a fool...

"I shall not communicate the information I receive from you today unless there is a reasonable way I can have learned it to share with others in order not to expose your involvement; nor will I share anything I've learned about you during this visit." She paused and continued.

"I will not channel upon you while you are in my presence this day, and I will do nothing to bring harm to Tania or your children or grandchildren should any exist. These things I swear to you in the name of the Light and under the eyes of the Creator..." she whispers after the oath is sworn, "...may it have some measure of mercy upon me..."

If Rasputin had been capable of registering surprise, his eyes would have gone wide as he felt the sheer amount of power unleashed. He knew she was one of the stronger sisters that the Tower had once had under its authority, but knowing and experiencing it were two different things. There were few who could have pushed him as she did, but he held firm. Feeling her air weaves dissipate upon his wards, it was the shield that concerned him most. Rather than trying to force it back on her, he simply held it with all his might, not letting it slip even a smidgeon closer to him than he was prepared to tolerate.

It seemed far longer than it was, but there came a point where she realised her effort was futile and she relented. Unable to smile with any feeling, Rasputin disdained affecting a warmth he was unable to feel from within the void as he spoke. "Very good. Now, I am here to give you a warning or two for your children's sake, as well as some information. In return for that, you shall give me several promises. You will not communicate to anyone in any way that you ever saw me or we spoke. You shall not communicate the information I give to you or have revealed with me unveiling myself to you or anyone else. You will not channel upon me, and you will most certainly not attempt to cause harm to my family. If you can agree to these things, as Arette did, we shall continue. If not, I'll wipe your mind of the memories of our meeting and it shall be as if it never happened."

“Before,” she began in a calm stately tone, “this goes any further I think it wise that my children take their daily nap now. You wouldn’t want to underestimate their ability to remember and mimic and I refuse to give you further need to visit again.” Deftly she wove to thin threads of spirit and held them at the ready to set weaves upon the children to speed them off to dreams. Harmless but effective enough to keep them save from being accused of knowing or communicating too much later. “By your leave?”

The man across from her nodded but once, his eyes as cold and empty as the barren lands just north of the Borderlands, and indicated he had no issue with her request. Turning first to Jamal she smiled at him and said in a gentle motherly tone as she laid the weave upon him, “Hush now… rest your eyes a while and when we get home I shall take you out to play with the ducks near the pond.” She ran her fingers through his hair as he smiled and his eyes sagged lazily shut with no concern that there was danger about at all; confident in his mother ability to protect and care for him.

She wished she felt as strongly.

Jelene watched Jamal fall to sleep and looked defiant about a nap, her pouty bottom lip already sticking out in an angry way. “Not tired!” she demanded and the weight of guilt filled Telcia. She was doing something she’d never wanted to do but it was for their own good.

“Of course not,” She reassured. “Perhaps though you could keep an eye on your brother for me in the World of Dreams and see that he’s unharmed?” She offered. “I would hate for him to wander off and find some sort of adventure without you.”

Jelene smiled. “Want TarTar!” She squeeled and Telcia couldn’t help but smile. The girl had actually remembered the name of the world of dreams from the story she’d told a night ago! Simply amazing. Indeed, it was best the children sleep through this.

“Of course. Close your eyes now.” She kissed Jelene. “Mommy loves you both very much.” And with that she let the weave fall upon her daughter and within moments the girl, also, lay her head on her other leg and slept peacefully.

Reassured her children were safe she looked back to the monster in the carriage with them. “There is no form to Chaos… I would ask you how I’m to trust a word you speak but I’m certain the answer would be something suitably dire or cryptic in the realm of a simple… ‘you don’t or you can’t’ … so I’ll save you the trouble.”

“Men don’t travel hundreds of leagues simply to offer information they don’t have a personal need to share… most certainly I can’t believe someone in the service of your Master would do anything out of the kindness of their heart and so I’m forced to the conclusion that you are willing to make agreements and caveats as well.”

“If I agree to these terms will you agree to spend the afternoon with me in conversations so long as the conversations fall under the aforementioned terms you’ve laid out?”

Watching Telcia with her children reminded Rasputin of his own. Not Cara, the girl whom he had with Tania in this life. Another lifetime ago, when he had a wife who had born him five children. Children he had been able to raise and watch as they matured. So unlike Cara who he saw so little of, but one did what was necessary. But then Telcia turned to him and the usual disdain a lightlover had for one of his allegiance poured out. How little she knew, heart in the right place but serving the wrong master. But he was secure in his faith, that was what mattered.

"No. I will stay as long as I can, but I would rather not attract attention. For your sake as much as my own, I'm here for the safety of your children. You know me for what I am, so you may deduce what my wife is. For the sake of one mother for another she has sent me here, much as she sent me to Arette who is now in Illian. I had to relocate her after her home was attacked. She is with Con's family for the meantime." That much information he could give away freely, in hopes that would encourage her to make the right decision.

"But, I will hear oaths and promises before I continue. And do not try to split hairs with them, if you cannot give the oaths in whole then don't give them at all."

Rasputin Felar

M`aeshadar

Telcia Dyfelle

Mother

Telcia controlled herself admirably despite the utter fear that ran cold through her blood. With Jamal in hand and Jelene pulled up onto the seat she threw together the strongest shield she could muster, attempted to tie it off, and began thick ropes of air to hold the mad man in place.

Mad Man.

Male Channeler, like Jamal might one day be… like his father before him. Oh Light! She couldn’t let them know how scared she was. She couldn’t let them see her mistreat him. She couldn’t throw them to safety though; they would have to stay here.

But what would this man do? Could she hold him alone? Light but he was old for a Channeler. He should have rotted away by now but he looked just fine, as handsome as the first time she saw him leaving the Keeper’s Office. How could that be possible without…

The thought made her want to sick-up, to flee with her children under her arms and fire blazing a trail behind them to engulf the unnatural and twisted being who sat an arm’s reach from them. The twisting in her gut got worse and as she stared across the carriage the ropes of air fizzled and faded … and the shield, failed to make contact with him no matter how much of the power she took into and redirect.

The sweetness of Saidar burned and ached in her, pulsing like her heart behind her eyes and in her throat making her body temperature rise. Surely, she prayed, he’d fail to hold the shield at bay… but as time went on and the heat became near unbearable and the fear of burning out settle upon her more firmly than the fear for her children and her soul… she let the weave die without a word.

If they were going to survive, she would have to use her brain and not her brawn. Her only positive thought through it all was the hope that this man (who might be one of the Forsaken for all she knew at this moment) wasn’t nearly as politically savvy as she.

Telcia hesitated. She didn't like going alone with any many to any place, but most especially men she didn't know in towns she was still becoming aquainted with. Yet, how could she refuse him? A son or grandson of a servant of the Tower and one Arette had trusted so implicitly?

"Of course." She managed. "There is an Inn near here called The Tradewinds who has a wide variety of teas and whose drinks aren't as watered down as some you'll find nearer to the inlet. I think we can find a quiet room there if the topic is a brief one."

Again she pauses before adding, "However, I would be a most terrible hostess if I didn't offer the hospitality of the Dyfelle Mannerhouse to you. It's not as lovely as the Queen's Palace but I'm sure we could make you more comfortable than most inns would be able for the duration of your visit. In fact I'm certain my husband would insist on it if you've traveled all this way just to share some news with us." She motions towards her carriage offering him to join her for the short trip, her driver already opening the door for her as she approaches. "Just this way Master Felar."

Telcia shook hands firmly with Master Laughlin over the still wet ink on a contract scroll. Nearby several men in his employ nodded in approval and even one or two clapped. The deal was fair, tighter on her end than she would have preferred but Iussi’s father had been in ailing health for some time and had lost his bargaining positions within the major trade circles some time ago. Lucky for her, Iussi’s stunts at the races in the name of the Queen and her socializing both inside and away from The Kin, had proved most advantageous.

Taking her copy of the parchment and rolling it carefully into the scroll case, she stepped lively back towards her carriage. The city streets of Ebou Dar were bustling and the port hummed with life, the smell of salty winds and sunshine filled the air; all in all it should have been a perfect moment, but something wasn’t quite right. Telcia couldn’t put her thumb on what “it” was but it was strong enough to make her pause and look slowly around the area, her hand drifting towards her dagger as her heart began to race just a bit faster than normal.

Women, children, dogs, cats, fish, carriages, horses… and him. Her eyes locked on his even through the endless ebbing sea of people and for a moment it was like they were the only two people in the world. She knew him… but his name, what was it?

She struggled for the name even as the mountain of a man strode towards her with a carefree but focused gait. It was only as he paused before her and bowed, that she knew what to call him by thanks to memories of what must have been his father or grandfather... Rasputin; “Good Master Felar, what a most,” she hesitated and smiled, still trying to shake the growing feeling of unease in her stomach. “…unexpected surprise. What brings you to Ebou Dar this fine afternoon?”