It's not just nerd sniping but also a massive guilt trip that she's been ignoring this problem that will kill the people she likes.
A New Player in the Game (Wheel of Time)
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It's not just nerd sniping but also a massive guilt trip that she's been ignoring this problem that will kill the people she likes.
Ironically, the Aes Sedai would probably have become masters of TAR pretty quickly in canon if they hadn't been so bad at being taught by Nynaeve and Elayne. TAR is all about rejecting reality and substituting your own.
XXXVIII - The Weight of the World
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter XXXVIII - The Weight of the World
It was kind of impressive how fast Cadsuane took up a position in Rand's inner circle. She was practically a force of nature. After her rude entrance she seemed to turn on the spot while everyone was still off balance, suddenly respectful, albeit aloof, and more importantly offering good advice to Rand. The adeptness with which she seemed to be able to switch between behaviours was a bit frightening. As far as Taija could see, Cadsuane was everything that this time's aes sedai tried to be. Mysterious, domineering and manipulative. She hated it.
Still, she was without a doubt competent.
Regardless of Cadsuane, Taija was finding herself increasingly distracted by what she had felt linked with Rand. Every day it bothered her more. The fact that she'd just ignored the taint as an issue too. Yet another fuck up.
Taija even felt a bit guilty about her conversation with Moiraine. In hindsight she'd been coming to her with what she clearly thought was a major problem and Taija had reacted by threatening to kill her rather than listening to someone who, if she was honest with herself, would know much better than her. This really wasn't the person Taija was, or at least the person she wanted to be.
There was only one thing she could do. She needed to fix things. At first Taija made it her mission to learn more about the taint and men channeling. The Stone had an adequate library and while there seemed to be scant material on male channelers, there was still some, which she devoured. It was mostly unscientific garbage, but even that just made her feel worse. How stupid could she have been to ignore it? She didn't want to believe it though, maybe that was why she hadn't believed the taint was real. Only seeing what she wanted to see. Stupid. She needed to deal with reality as it was, not as she wanted it to be.
Homicidal madness in anything from weeks to a few years with a gradual descent and even if they managed to keep their sanity they inevitably died as their body rotted away. Story after story of men killing their families, their loved ones, whoever happened to be around them. Villages burnt. Armies raised and destroyed. Severed, hanged, burnt to death by mobs. It was horrific. Disgusting. Tragic. Another scar across her memories of her own time.
Apparently inevitable for both Rand and Aleksi. It played over and over again in Taija's mind.
Worse, every male channeler she ever knew. The lucky ones dead in the War. Antero must have died when the town hall collapsed, thank the Light. The unlucky ones mad, killing, burning, finishing what the Shadow started.
Taija wanted to vomit, curl into a ball and cry, but that wasn't an option. 3,000 years and no one had done anything to solve the problem. They gave up thousands of years ago, accepting the state of their world. There was no one else. She didn't think she could do the impossible, but if not her then who?
Taija had started thinking on the problem the day after Rand came to her and asked some oddly specific questions. She hadn't stopped since.
Why hadn't the aes sedai fixed the problem of the taint when it first came about? With the full resources of her society behind them and the War ending surely they could have done it. Had things really fallen apart to such a degree that they couldn't by the end of the War?
The research institutes, talented scientists, sa'angreal. What had gone wrong? Taija had to assume that things had fallen too far, which was a tragedy in itself. If the world she knew hadn't been able to save itself then there was no chance she could alone. So it must have already been shattered, it was the only way she could keep on hoping. Taija hated the thought of the glorious beauty that was her world in ruins, but it had to have been. It had to!
Despite her horror at the situation, there was something about the taint that grabbed her attention. It wasn't yet another obnoxious aes sedai, simpering noble or badly behaved teenager. To be fair the teenagers weren't that bad, they were just young. It was the sort of thing that she'd devoted her life to. Over 150 years spent analysing the foundations of the universe. Esoteric particles, wave functions, the Power. It was her bread and butter.
Taija was good at fighting, there was no question about it, but it wasn't her. Science was her first and last love and unlike every other love she'd had she hadn't lost it. She didn't get her third name before 200 for no reason.
This meant every spare moment was spent thinking about the taint. Remembering how it felt, the way it moved with saidin and trying to think about how to stop it. She'd even found a new favourite spot for thinking. An old tower on top of the Stone that was difficult to reach without Traveling. There she could sit and channel in peace, think about the taint, without being bothered by all the people who wanted her time.
Meals were brief, she made sure to wash regularly and she made time for the girls. Other than that, every minute away from the problem was a wasted one.
==========
While trying to work out what was going on with the taint was taking up almost all of Taija's attention, she made sure that she kept on working on the girls' training. It was sad that Egwene wasn't there too though, she hoped that she was doing well with the Wise Ones.
One of the first things Taija did was a proper debrief on the attack on the Stone. They fought Rahvin, which was a shock, but no one else she could think of would be both a male channeler in this time and dress like such a prick.
Taija was amazed at the fact that the girls held him off for as long as they did. Cadsuane was also clearly a very competent channeler. Taija could feel her strength and she wasn't in Rahvin's league, she was a fair bit weaker than Taija in fact, so she must have an angreal.
She took a few sessions to go over the girls' fight with Rahvin blow by blow, going into what they did right and what they could have done better. Overall she was really quite impressed, but there were a few things that she added to her teaching plans for them.
Taija spent as much time as she felt she could spare, more really, teaching them and it was pretty rewarding actually. The girls learnt like sponges, soaking everything up faster than she could hope for. Tactics, channeling, history and philosophy, Taija covered them all. If she was going to be teaching them then she was going to turn them into proper aes sedai.
Taija did wish she had more of a talent for healing though. Nynaeve seemed to have independently discovered or rediscovered how to do true healing. If she hadn't seen it Taija would have thought it was impossible at her level of training. She really needed someone who could help her develop and nurture her talent. Unfortunately she was stuck with Taija doing her inadequate best.
In lieu of that, one of the things Taija had them working on was inverting webs. While Siuan didn't have the patience to practice enough or possibly the talent for it, she was fairly sure that she could get them up to the level where they' would be fast enough to use the technique in combat, at least at a basic level.
Sometimes Aleksi sat in too. Particularly when Taija was talking about non-power related matters or discussing combat tactics. He was even more interested than the girls in a lot of what she had to say, or at least he did a good job of pretending.
It was after one of of those sessions that Aleksi followed Taija out. That wasn't unusual, but what was was how worried he looked.
"Taija, can we talk? In private." He looked around nervously.
"Of course," she didn't hesitate to swing into a side room and spin a ward against eavesdropping. "What's wrong? Tell me."
He took a moment to gather his thoughts, "it's about saidin." He began hesitantly. "Rand has a teacher. He took me aside and said he wanted me to have lessons too, that he could help me far more than Rand could."
Taija was a little confused, "well that's good news isn't it?" Why didn't Rand tell her though?
"Yes! Well, no. I don't know." He hesitated a moment and then it spilt out in a flurry of words. "It's Rand's new swordmaster, he's… he's not who he says he is. Rand made me swear not to tell you before he'd let me learn from him. I think he was a false dragon before, at least that's what Rand implied."
"Why would Rand be worried about that?" Taija was a bit confused. Was it because he was a former rival?
"Ha," Aleksi barked a laugh. "Sometimes I forget how much you don't know. False dragons are… not good people. They've brought destruction, war and ultimately madness to the world. Every sane hand is turned against them. He probably thought you'd hunt the man down and gentle him yourself."
"Oh…" She felt a little uncomfortable at the idea. "Wait though, you swore to Rand that you wouldn't tell me?"
Aleksi shrugged and looked embarrassed, "I'm your warder. Of course I was going to tell you. You know where my loyalties lie."
That made her smile. "Thank you Aleksi."
He still looked a bit nervous though. "You're not going to hunt him down and gentle him are you?" His voice dropped to a whisper, "I think he might be Mazrim Taim, he's definitely from the Borderlands."
Taija spoke slowly, carefully, remembering the words of the Aelfinn, "well… whatever his past don't they say that the Dragon breaks all ties? Perhaps he can redeem himself by helping you and Rand." She wouldn't say it to anyone from this time, but she had more than a little sympathy for men who declared themselves the Dragon Reborn, it might well look like a better option than just rolling over and dying or being severed. "Look, learn what you can from him and be careful. I don't want to interfere when you and Rand both need a teacher to survive. Let him keep his secrets. I trust you. Keep an eye on him and if he does anything to hurt you or Rand then tell me straight away. Otherwise… I think I don't want to know, let him have his privacy and we can all forget he was ever a false dragon."
==========
Taija still went to Rand's inner council meetings despite resenting the time away from thinking on the problem of the taint. An element of that was stubbornness. She knew Moiraine and Cadsuane would love to see her pushed out and she wasn't so distracted that she'd allow that, but also he was her friend and he might need her support if they were pushing too hard for their own agendas. That didn't mean she paid much attention in them though. Taija was ready to intervene if things got heated, but normally they were just talking about politics, ruling Tear, other no doubt important, but still boring things that she just didn't feel she knew much about.
She'd asked a question about the Seafolk a few days ago, which had apparently been deeply stupid. Taija had had to fight hard not to blush under the witheringly unimpressed look she'd received from Cadsuane. Not knowing basic things about the world was infuriating as was people thinking she was an idiot. It wasn't like they even had what would have been considered a basic education in her time! Cadsuane probably thought it rained because the Creator was crying or something like that.
However, Taija had more important and if she was totally honest with herself, more interesting and exciting things to do than to worry about that. It wasn't like it was in the good old days, but she was finally faced with the kind of problem that she'd dedicated her life to figuring out. If only it hadn't been so utterly horrifying.
That was why in many meetings while they droned on, she was just thinking about the taint. Taija knew she should pay more attention, but she just couldn't get her mind off it.
So she sat there, carefully spinning tiny, incredibly intricate, inverted webs. Quietly watching and manipulating them as she tried to figure out what could impact on the taint.
Her starting point had been a series of webs designed by Alemhok Tissa Adebir for separating out flows of the Power to allow analysis at the smallest possible level. She'd improved on them back in the day and she thought they might be the best starting point here. Before she could solve a problem like the taint, she needed to be able to measure it, to interact with it. Once she had that, she'd be able to manipulate it and then it would just be a matter of time to a solution. Hopefully anyway.
Spirit in ultra fine, layered sheets, threaded through with an interconnecting lattice of fire, air, earth and water. It was unlikely anyone else would be able to replicate something like this now, based on the lack of subtlety of the channelers of this time anyway, but that was fine. Concept first then replicability. Taija narrowed her eyes, if she upped the amount of fire on the transverse flows and also interwove more spirit into the lattice might that work better?
Suddenly she realised with a jump that the room had gone silent. When she refocused everyone was staring at her. Had she missed something? Why did they look worried? Except Cadsuane, she looked predatory.
Oh! Taija rewound vague memories, she thought they asked if she had anything to add. "Oh umm, no nothing from me, sorry." She mumbled the words, they were talking about some plot or another from a High Lord. Boring. Her mind was already going back to that little inverted web.
The glowing multicoloured lattice sat simultaneously suspended in the air in front of her, invisible to everyone else, and modelled in her mind at the same time. Perhaps this one would work, but she was sure she could improve it further. Taija was vaguely aware that she was biting her bottom lip, a bad habit when she was concentrating too hard, but she had much too much to think about to worry about that.
=========
Weeks went by in a blur as Taija focused her attention on the taint.
Rand was already getting too busy for her to experiment on him. He was more than willing to accommodate her when he had time, but she knew he had a thousand and one things pressing down on him. He seemed to be somewhere between king of Tear and the messiah and he had better things to do than stand there feeling the filth of the taint flow through him while she tried to feel it out.
Luckily Aleksi seemed to be learning prodigiously quickly. He must have had a fair bit of talent, although Taija suspected he was also pushing himself more than was safe. She'd say something, but she knew he'd just ignore it and, with the situation they were all in, getting strong, fast was probably a sensible risk to take.
It wasn't long before he'd learnt enough to be able to seize saidin on command and therefore also to enter a link with Taija and one of the girls. She felt just as bad making him stand there channeling the taint as she did with Rand, but she needed to feel it, explore it even though it turned her stomach. Every moment she wasn't working on it she was having to avoid imagining some of the very few living people she could consider herself close to dying horribly.
Taija drew on saidin through Aleksi, the trickle of Power that he could handle suffused with the oily horror of the taint. She was hopeful she was onto something this time. Channeling saidar she spun the web she'd been working on for the last week, placing the finely spun, intricate web of all five elements over the flow of the male half. It sunk into the bands of saidin and… her face fell. Saidin moved through it freely, as planned, but there was no interaction with the taint, just nothing.
She wanted to cry. What was she missing?! Taija could feel the taint, she could fucking see the taint in the flows, yet she couldn't find a web of saidar that would interact with it in any way. What was wrong with her?! She sat down with a thump, releasing both the link and saidar, head in her hands. She needed to think, there had to be a solution, there had to be. She couldn't be useless for this too!
Research was meant to be collaborative, it was resource intensive! Scientists didn't just sit there thinking clever thoughts until everything came together. She should be in a proper lab. Spotless white walls, surrounded by towering custom made detection and analysis ter'angreal. Not smooth stone and medieval tapestries. Taija wished she had her team with her too. Together they were the best in the world as far as she was concerned. She couldn't have done half the things she had without them.
There'd been Luan her number two. He'd been the rock the team rested on. Dead during the War.
Ilaria had been so young and bright, Belen had killed her, she hadn't even finished her doctorate. Taija could remember the sight of her intestines across the office floor like it was yesterday. Shinju, dead too. Sarita, the same day, dead. Mocktar, dead. Balla, dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead! The word repeated itself in her head. They were all dead, it was all down to her to solve this. Just her. Alone. She shuddered and blinked rapidly to clear the blurring in her eyes.
After a moment Taija felt a large hand on her shoulder, "when did you last sleep Taija?" Aleksi's voice was full of concern.
"Last night!" She immediately protested, but actually… "I I'm not sure…"
He nodded firmly, "you're going to bed. Now, and you're going to sleep until tomorrow morning even if I have to get Nynaeve to feed you some of her herbs."
"No I need to…" Aleksi cut off her protest.
"No arguing. Bed. Now, or I'll carry you there." Taija found she didn't have the energy to argue. "Come on Taija." He easily hauled her to her feet and tugged her along, an arm round her shoulders. She staggered a little, maybe sleep wasn't such a bad idea.
"Ok ok, I'm going," she muttered petulantly.
He just kept walking her along, "I know you're trying to save me and I can't tell you how thankful I am, but I'm not going to watch you kill yourself doing it."
"Mmrmph." Taija mumbled something incoherent. She was vaguely aware that people were giving her odd looks as they went by. She supposed it was a break of these people's decorum that he'd got his arm round her, let alone that he was taking her to bed. Idiots.
She was practically asleep by the time her head hit the pillow.
======
A few days later Taija was walking through the corridors of the Stone when Rhuarc suddenly appeared beside her. His disconcerting ability to sneak up on her aside, it was odd. He'd seemed to be avoiding her ever since their last conversation, although she hadn't been sure why. She'd had more important things to think about anyway. At least he slowed his pace to a more reasonable one for her.
"I see you Taija sedai." When Taija looked up at him he didn't seem desperately keen to be there.
"Hello Rhuarc, what's up, I mean how are you?" She should probably try to greet him the same way he greeted her. Another little thing to file away for when she had the headspace.
"I am well Taija sedai, I think that soon we shall be returning to the Dedicated Waste."
Now that was interesting. "Oh really, why is that? I thought that Rand was the man you were looking for? Your Chief of Chiefs."
Discomfort flashed across his stony face. Why did so many people in this time seem to put so much work on not showing their facial expressions?! "Whether Rand al'Thor is the Chief of Chiefs remains to be seen. It is for the Wise Ones and Rhuidean to determine the truth of the matter."
"But you think he is?"
Rhuarc's shrug didn't deny it, but neither did it confirm it. "What will be, will be." He glanced around almost looking likes he was nervous, but didn't say anything.
"Well I suppose I'll go with him, so it'll be nice to see Egwene again." The idea made Taija feel a bit more cheerful, she'd missed having her around.
Rhuarc nodded, "yes she is headstrong, but learning fast."
Taija raised her eyebrows, "how do you know that?"
"The Wise One Amys is a dreamer, so she passes on messages to me sometimes." Oh of course, that made sense. Quite convenient for them too, to be able to communicate fairly quickly without Traveling.
That seemed to kill the conversation though and they walked in a slightly uncomfortable silence. Still he didn't seem to want to leave. Was he trying to hit on her? Surely not. She was just imagining it, she must have been. He was being really awkward though. Then again awkwardness seemed to be standard for the Dedicated when they spoke to her.
Not that she'd be interested anyway. The very idea of getting with someone at the moment just made Taija want to curl into a ball and eat ice cream all night. Another thing lacking from this time. She couldn't be with someone that tall anyway, it gave her phantom neck ache just thinking about it. She was definitely just imagining it, for fuck's sake.
After a minute Taija threw him a bone, it was uncomfortable seeing the normally so impassive man looking awkward. "Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"
She was surprised to see him look around again, he really was uncomfortable about something. "I had hoped to speak more of the Dedicated to Peace."
He looked like he'd rather be talking about anything else. "You do?" That was not what she'd expected.
Rhuarc nodded firmly, "you said that you went out into the fields to hear them sing?"
This was definitely one of the stranger ways that Taija had had someone hit on her. If that was even what he was doing. She wasn't sure enough to turn him down, that would be awkward if he was really just curious. "Oh well I just went once, it was basically just fields, not very interesting really, too flat. They were doing a growing song, it was interesting I suppose, nice voices. M'Jinn was much more interesting. That's the city I stayed in for the visit. You should have seen their history museum, they had artifacts from the first age and it was much more interesting than songs." She realised she was babbling and Rhuarc seemed to be unsure how to react.
Wait a minute, wasn't he married? She was sure he'd mentioned that before. Would that stop him? She needed to get out of there before she made an idiot of herself by telling him she wasn't interested or something!
"Oh I've just remembered I'm meant to be speaking to Aleksi about something, I have to run, sorry!" Taija was already moving off at speed.
Chapter XXXVIII - The Weight of the World
It was kind of impressive how fast Cadsuane took up a position in Rand's inner circle. She was practically a force of nature. After her rude entrance she seemed to turn on the spot while everyone was still off balance, suddenly respectful, albeit aloof, and more importantly offering good advice to Rand. The adeptness with which she seemed to be able to switch between behaviours was a bit frightening. As far as Taija could see, Cadsuane was everything that this time's aes sedai tried to be. Mysterious, domineering and manipulative. She hated it.
Still, she was without a doubt competent.
Regardless of Cadsuane, Taija was finding herself increasingly distracted by what she had felt linked with Rand. Every day it bothered her more. The fact that she'd just ignored the taint as an issue too. Yet another fuck up.
Taija even felt a bit guilty about her conversation with Moiraine. In hindsight she'd been coming to her with what she clearly thought was a major problem and Taija had reacted by threatening to kill her rather than listening to someone who, if she was honest with herself, would know much better than her. This really wasn't the person Taija was, or at least the person she wanted to be.
There was only one thing she could do. She needed to fix things. At first Taija made it her mission to learn more about the taint and men channeling. The Stone had an adequate library and while there seemed to be scant material on male channelers, there was still some, which she devoured. It was mostly unscientific garbage, but even that just made her feel worse. How stupid could she have been to ignore it? She didn't want to believe it though, maybe that was why she hadn't believed the taint was real. Only seeing what she wanted to see. Stupid. She needed to deal with reality as it was, not as she wanted it to be.
Homicidal madness in anything from weeks to a few years with a gradual descent and even if they managed to keep their sanity they inevitably died as their body rotted away. Story after story of men killing their families, their loved ones, whoever happened to be around them. Villages burnt. Armies raised and destroyed. Severed, hanged, burnt to death by mobs. It was horrific. Disgusting. Tragic. Another scar across her memories of her own time.
Apparently inevitable for both Rand and Aleksi. It played over and over again in Taija's mind.
Worse, every male channeler she ever knew. The lucky ones dead in the War. Antero must have died when the town hall collapsed, thank the Light. The unlucky ones mad, killing, burning, finishing what the Shadow started.
Taija wanted to vomit, curl into a ball and cry, but that wasn't an option. 3,000 years and no one had done anything to solve the problem. They gave up thousands of years ago, accepting the state of their world. There was no one else. She didn't think she could do the impossible, but if not her then who?
Taija had started thinking on the problem the day after Rand came to her and asked some oddly specific questions. She hadn't stopped since.
Why hadn't the aes sedai fixed the problem of the taint when it first came about? With the full resources of her society behind them and the War ending surely they could have done it. Had things really fallen apart to such a degree that they couldn't by the end of the War?
The research institutes, talented scientists, sa'angreal. What had gone wrong? Taija had to assume that things had fallen too far, which was a tragedy in itself. If the world she knew hadn't been able to save itself then there was no chance she could alone. So it must have already been shattered, it was the only way she could keep on hoping. Taija hated the thought of the glorious beauty that was her world in ruins, but it had to have been. It had to!
Despite her horror at the situation, there was something about the taint that grabbed her attention. It wasn't yet another obnoxious aes sedai, simpering noble or badly behaved teenager. To be fair the teenagers weren't that bad, they were just young. It was the sort of thing that she'd devoted her life to. Over 150 years spent analysing the foundations of the universe. Esoteric particles, wave functions, the Power. It was her bread and butter.
Taija was good at fighting, there was no question about it, but it wasn't her. Science was her first and last love and unlike every other love she'd had she hadn't lost it. She didn't get her third name before 200 for no reason.
This meant every spare moment was spent thinking about the taint. Remembering how it felt, the way it moved with saidin and trying to think about how to stop it. She'd even found a new favourite spot for thinking. An old tower on top of the Stone that was difficult to reach without Traveling. There she could sit and channel in peace, think about the taint, without being bothered by all the people who wanted her time.
Meals were brief, she made sure to wash regularly and she made time for the girls. Other than that, every minute away from the problem was a wasted one.
==========
While trying to work out what was going on with the taint was taking up almost all of Taija's attention, she made sure that she kept on working on the girls' training. It was sad that Egwene wasn't there too though, she hoped that she was doing well with the Wise Ones.
One of the first things Taija did was a proper debrief on the attack on the Stone. They fought Rahvin, which was a shock, but no one else she could think of would be both a male channeler in this time and dress like such a prick.
Taija was amazed at the fact that the girls held him off for as long as they did. Cadsuane was also clearly a very competent channeler. Taija could feel her strength and she wasn't in Rahvin's league, she was a fair bit weaker than Taija in fact, so she must have an angreal.
She took a few sessions to go over the girls' fight with Rahvin blow by blow, going into what they did right and what they could have done better. Overall she was really quite impressed, but there were a few things that she added to her teaching plans for them.
Taija spent as much time as she felt she could spare, more really, teaching them and it was pretty rewarding actually. The girls learnt like sponges, soaking everything up faster than she could hope for. Tactics, channeling, history and philosophy, Taija covered them all. If she was going to be teaching them then she was going to turn them into proper aes sedai.
Taija did wish she had more of a talent for healing though. Nynaeve seemed to have independently discovered or rediscovered how to do true healing. If she hadn't seen it Taija would have thought it was impossible at her level of training. She really needed someone who could help her develop and nurture her talent. Unfortunately she was stuck with Taija doing her inadequate best.
In lieu of that, one of the things Taija had them working on was inverting webs. While Siuan didn't have the patience to practice enough or possibly the talent for it, she was fairly sure that she could get them up to the level where they' would be fast enough to use the technique in combat, at least at a basic level.
Sometimes Aleksi sat in too. Particularly when Taija was talking about non-power related matters or discussing combat tactics. He was even more interested than the girls in a lot of what she had to say, or at least he did a good job of pretending.
It was after one of of those sessions that Aleksi followed Taija out. That wasn't unusual, but what was was how worried he looked.
"Taija, can we talk? In private." He looked around nervously.
"Of course," she didn't hesitate to swing into a side room and spin a ward against eavesdropping. "What's wrong? Tell me."
He took a moment to gather his thoughts, "it's about saidin." He began hesitantly. "Rand has a teacher. He took me aside and said he wanted me to have lessons too, that he could help me far more than Rand could."
Taija was a little confused, "well that's good news isn't it?" Why didn't Rand tell her though?
"Yes! Well, no. I don't know." He hesitated a moment and then it spilt out in a flurry of words. "It's Rand's new swordmaster, he's… he's not who he says he is. Rand made me swear not to tell you before he'd let me learn from him. I think he was a false dragon before, at least that's what Rand implied."
"Why would Rand be worried about that?" Taija was a bit confused. Was it because he was a former rival?
"Ha," Aleksi barked a laugh. "Sometimes I forget how much you don't know. False dragons are… not good people. They've brought destruction, war and ultimately madness to the world. Every sane hand is turned against them. He probably thought you'd hunt the man down and gentle him yourself."
"Oh…" She felt a little uncomfortable at the idea. "Wait though, you swore to Rand that you wouldn't tell me?"
Aleksi shrugged and looked embarrassed, "I'm your warder. Of course I was going to tell you. You know where my loyalties lie."
That made her smile. "Thank you Aleksi."
He still looked a bit nervous though. "You're not going to hunt him down and gentle him are you?" His voice dropped to a whisper, "I think he might be Mazrim Taim, he's definitely from the Borderlands."
Taija spoke slowly, carefully, remembering the words of the Aelfinn, "well… whatever his past don't they say that the Dragon breaks all ties? Perhaps he can redeem himself by helping you and Rand." She wouldn't say it to anyone from this time, but she had more than a little sympathy for men who declared themselves the Dragon Reborn, it might well look like a better option than just rolling over and dying or being severed. "Look, learn what you can from him and be careful. I don't want to interfere when you and Rand both need a teacher to survive. Let him keep his secrets. I trust you. Keep an eye on him and if he does anything to hurt you or Rand then tell me straight away. Otherwise… I think I don't want to know, let him have his privacy and we can all forget he was ever a false dragon."
==========
Taija still went to Rand's inner council meetings despite resenting the time away from thinking on the problem of the taint. An element of that was stubbornness. She knew Moiraine and Cadsuane would love to see her pushed out and she wasn't so distracted that she'd allow that, but also he was her friend and he might need her support if they were pushing too hard for their own agendas. That didn't mean she paid much attention in them though. Taija was ready to intervene if things got heated, but normally they were just talking about politics, ruling Tear, other no doubt important, but still boring things that she just didn't feel she knew much about.
She'd asked a question about the Seafolk a few days ago, which had apparently been deeply stupid. Taija had had to fight hard not to blush under the witheringly unimpressed look she'd received from Cadsuane. Not knowing basic things about the world was infuriating as was people thinking she was an idiot. It wasn't like they even had what would have been considered a basic education in her time! Cadsuane probably thought it rained because the Creator was crying or something like that.
However, Taija had more important and if she was totally honest with herself, more interesting and exciting things to do than to worry about that. It wasn't like it was in the good old days, but she was finally faced with the kind of problem that she'd dedicated her life to figuring out. If only it hadn't been so utterly horrifying.
That was why in many meetings while they droned on, she was just thinking about the taint. Taija knew she should pay more attention, but she just couldn't get her mind off it.
So she sat there, carefully spinning tiny, incredibly intricate, inverted webs. Quietly watching and manipulating them as she tried to figure out what could impact on the taint.
Her starting point had been a series of webs designed by Alemhok Tissa Adebir for separating out flows of the Power to allow analysis at the smallest possible level. She'd improved on them back in the day and she thought they might be the best starting point here. Before she could solve a problem like the taint, she needed to be able to measure it, to interact with it. Once she had that, she'd be able to manipulate it and then it would just be a matter of time to a solution. Hopefully anyway.
Spirit in ultra fine, layered sheets, threaded through with an interconnecting lattice of fire, air, earth and water. It was unlikely anyone else would be able to replicate something like this now, based on the lack of subtlety of the channelers of this time anyway, but that was fine. Concept first then replicability. Taija narrowed her eyes, if she upped the amount of fire on the transverse flows and also interwove more spirit into the lattice might that work better?
Suddenly she realised with a jump that the room had gone silent. When she refocused everyone was staring at her. Had she missed something? Why did they look worried? Except Cadsuane, she looked predatory.
Oh! Taija rewound vague memories, she thought they asked if she had anything to add. "Oh umm, no nothing from me, sorry." She mumbled the words, they were talking about some plot or another from a High Lord. Boring. Her mind was already going back to that little inverted web.
The glowing multicoloured lattice sat simultaneously suspended in the air in front of her, invisible to everyone else, and modelled in her mind at the same time. Perhaps this one would work, but she was sure she could improve it further. Taija was vaguely aware that she was biting her bottom lip, a bad habit when she was concentrating too hard, but she had much too much to think about to worry about that.
=========
Weeks went by in a blur as Taija focused her attention on the taint.
Rand was already getting too busy for her to experiment on him. He was more than willing to accommodate her when he had time, but she knew he had a thousand and one things pressing down on him. He seemed to be somewhere between king of Tear and the messiah and he had better things to do than stand there feeling the filth of the taint flow through him while she tried to feel it out.
Luckily Aleksi seemed to be learning prodigiously quickly. He must have had a fair bit of talent, although Taija suspected he was also pushing himself more than was safe. She'd say something, but she knew he'd just ignore it and, with the situation they were all in, getting strong, fast was probably a sensible risk to take.
It wasn't long before he'd learnt enough to be able to seize saidin on command and therefore also to enter a link with Taija and one of the girls. She felt just as bad making him stand there channeling the taint as she did with Rand, but she needed to feel it, explore it even though it turned her stomach. Every moment she wasn't working on it she was having to avoid imagining some of the very few living people she could consider herself close to dying horribly.
Taija drew on saidin through Aleksi, the trickle of Power that he could handle suffused with the oily horror of the taint. She was hopeful she was onto something this time. Channeling saidar she spun the web she'd been working on for the last week, placing the finely spun, intricate web of all five elements over the flow of the male half. It sunk into the bands of saidin and… her face fell. Saidin moved through it freely, as planned, but there was no interaction with the taint, just nothing.
She wanted to cry. What was she missing?! Taija could feel the taint, she could fucking see the taint in the flows, yet she couldn't find a web of saidar that would interact with it in any way. What was wrong with her?! She sat down with a thump, releasing both the link and saidar, head in her hands. She needed to think, there had to be a solution, there had to be. She couldn't be useless for this too!
Research was meant to be collaborative, it was resource intensive! Scientists didn't just sit there thinking clever thoughts until everything came together. She should be in a proper lab. Spotless white walls, surrounded by towering custom made detection and analysis ter'angreal. Not smooth stone and medieval tapestries. Taija wished she had her team with her too. Together they were the best in the world as far as she was concerned. She couldn't have done half the things she had without them.
There'd been Luan her number two. He'd been the rock the team rested on. Dead during the War.
Ilaria had been so young and bright, Belen had killed her, she hadn't even finished her doctorate. Taija could remember the sight of her intestines across the office floor like it was yesterday. Shinju, dead too. Sarita, the same day, dead. Mocktar, dead. Balla, dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead! The word repeated itself in her head. They were all dead, it was all down to her to solve this. Just her. Alone. She shuddered and blinked rapidly to clear the blurring in her eyes.
After a moment Taija felt a large hand on her shoulder, "when did you last sleep Taija?" Aleksi's voice was full of concern.
"Last night!" She immediately protested, but actually… "I I'm not sure…"
He nodded firmly, "you're going to bed. Now, and you're going to sleep until tomorrow morning even if I have to get Nynaeve to feed you some of her herbs."
"No I need to…" Aleksi cut off her protest.
"No arguing. Bed. Now, or I'll carry you there." Taija found she didn't have the energy to argue. "Come on Taija." He easily hauled her to her feet and tugged her along, an arm round her shoulders. She staggered a little, maybe sleep wasn't such a bad idea.
"Ok ok, I'm going," she muttered petulantly.
He just kept walking her along, "I know you're trying to save me and I can't tell you how thankful I am, but I'm not going to watch you kill yourself doing it."
"Mmrmph." Taija mumbled something incoherent. She was vaguely aware that people were giving her odd looks as they went by. She supposed it was a break of these people's decorum that he'd got his arm round her, let alone that he was taking her to bed. Idiots.
She was practically asleep by the time her head hit the pillow.
======
A few days later Taija was walking through the corridors of the Stone when Rhuarc suddenly appeared beside her. His disconcerting ability to sneak up on her aside, it was odd. He'd seemed to be avoiding her ever since their last conversation, although she hadn't been sure why. She'd had more important things to think about anyway. At least he slowed his pace to a more reasonable one for her.
"I see you Taija sedai." When Taija looked up at him he didn't seem desperately keen to be there.
"Hello Rhuarc, what's up, I mean how are you?" She should probably try to greet him the same way he greeted her. Another little thing to file away for when she had the headspace.
"I am well Taija sedai, I think that soon we shall be returning to the Dedicated Waste."
Now that was interesting. "Oh really, why is that? I thought that Rand was the man you were looking for? Your Chief of Chiefs."
Discomfort flashed across his stony face. Why did so many people in this time seem to put so much work on not showing their facial expressions?! "Whether Rand al'Thor is the Chief of Chiefs remains to be seen. It is for the Wise Ones and Rhuidean to determine the truth of the matter."
"But you think he is?"
Rhuarc's shrug didn't deny it, but neither did it confirm it. "What will be, will be." He glanced around almost looking likes he was nervous, but didn't say anything.
"Well I suppose I'll go with him, so it'll be nice to see Egwene again." The idea made Taija feel a bit more cheerful, she'd missed having her around.
Rhuarc nodded, "yes she is headstrong, but learning fast."
Taija raised her eyebrows, "how do you know that?"
"The Wise One Amys is a dreamer, so she passes on messages to me sometimes." Oh of course, that made sense. Quite convenient for them too, to be able to communicate fairly quickly without Traveling.
That seemed to kill the conversation though and they walked in a slightly uncomfortable silence. Still he didn't seem to want to leave. Was he trying to hit on her? Surely not. She was just imagining it, she must have been. He was being really awkward though. Then again awkwardness seemed to be standard for the Dedicated when they spoke to her.
Not that she'd be interested anyway. The very idea of getting with someone at the moment just made Taija want to curl into a ball and eat ice cream all night. Another thing lacking from this time. She couldn't be with someone that tall anyway, it gave her phantom neck ache just thinking about it. She was definitely just imagining it, for fuck's sake.
After a minute Taija threw him a bone, it was uncomfortable seeing the normally so impassive man looking awkward. "Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?"
She was surprised to see him look around again, he really was uncomfortable about something. "I had hoped to speak more of the Dedicated to Peace."
He looked like he'd rather be talking about anything else. "You do?" That was not what she'd expected.
Rhuarc nodded firmly, "you said that you went out into the fields to hear them sing?"
This was definitely one of the stranger ways that Taija had had someone hit on her. If that was even what he was doing. She wasn't sure enough to turn him down, that would be awkward if he was really just curious. "Oh well I just went once, it was basically just fields, not very interesting really, too flat. They were doing a growing song, it was interesting I suppose, nice voices. M'Jinn was much more interesting. That's the city I stayed in for the visit. You should have seen their history museum, they had artifacts from the first age and it was much more interesting than songs." She realised she was babbling and Rhuarc seemed to be unsure how to react.
Wait a minute, wasn't he married? She was sure he'd mentioned that before. Would that stop him? She needed to get out of there before she made an idiot of herself by telling him she wasn't interested or something!
"Oh I've just remembered I'm meant to be speaking to Aleksi about something, I have to run, sorry!" Taija was already moving off at speed.
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Taija in her element. The scholar faced with an interesting problem.
Here Taija is, with a problem, a need, and the motivation to solve it.
Downside is, she's missing her world even more. With an internet equivalent, probably, and more importantly, collaborators. A wholeass community of peers and individuals who got her, and her passion for her field.
Also, teenagers and their secrets. Modern aes sedai playing games. And misunderstandings up the wazoo. Jfc.
Thanks for sharing.
Here Taija is, with a problem, a need, and the motivation to solve it.
Downside is, she's missing her world even more. With an internet equivalent, probably, and more importantly, collaborators. A wholeass community of peers and individuals who got her, and her passion for her field.
Also, teenagers and their secrets. Modern aes sedai playing games. And misunderstandings up the wazoo. Jfc.
Thanks for sharing.
Chapter XXXIX - Click, Boom
As usual speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter XXXIX - Click, Boom
Rand was sitting through yet another meeting. This time with Rhuarc and Lan to discuss the disposition of the Defenders of the Stone and the Aiel. However, his mind was elsewhere.
At first he hadn't been sure about Cadsuane, but he had to admit that she'd grown on him. Not only was her usefulness undeniable, but after that strange, initial rudeness she'd also become far more polite and helpful slotting herself neatly in among his advisers. She could still be abrasive, but she gave good advice and seemed to be much less focused on trying to manipulate him than Moiraine. She also had a talent for ferreting out secrets and a thorough understanding of a huge range of subjects.
Of course Rand wasn't stupid. He was well aware that she was aes sedai, a modern one anyway, and that he needed to look at everything she said and did three times to weed out hidden agendas. However, useful was useful and he certainly needed skilled advisers.
The only real fly in the ointment seemed to be Taija. He mentally corrected himself, the problem was Cadsuane's feelings about Taija, not Taija herself. Cadsuane seemed to have a grudge against her and he simply could not work out why. He'd asked her more than once and each time she'd said that the affairs of the aes sedai were for them alone and not to be questioned by outsiders.
That seemed to be her response to anything to do with Taija. He could see that something was eating Taija up from the inside too, which wasn't helping. He'd asked her what he could do to help and she'd just said not to worry about it and that he had enough on his plate, but he could see how distracted she was from, well, everything. The worry painted across her face when she thought no one was looking. He wasn't even sure she was noticing Cadsuane's petty sniping. In a way he hoped she wasn't.
His conversation with Cadsuane just before this meeting had been particularly odd. He'd asked, well no, he'd ordered her to stop her sniping at Taija, and didn't it feel strange to be giving orders to aes sedai.
She'd just smiled and told him not to worry, she knew Aleksi could channel. While he'd been spluttering protests she'd told him that he had nothing to worry about with the man, she accepted the situation there and wouldn't interfere, but since Aleksi was safe she would be resolving the situation with Taija so that there would be no need for any further conflict.
He hadn't been sure what she'd meant by that and then she'd left with a reminder that while she supported him as the Dragon Reborn, the affairs of aes sedai were for them alone, but that he shouldn't worry she would bring her conflict with Taija to an end as requested.
It had been bothering him ever since, surely it was good that she was going to resolve things. Except that what you heard an aes sedai say wasn't always what they meant. Resolve could mean all kinds of things, bring an end to…
"Mother's milk in a cup!" He sprang to his feet, already moving to the door. "Sorry, I have to go!" Light take him, if he was right and with Taija in her current mental state there'd be blood on the floor. Probably Cadsuane's. He broke into a dead run towards the room he knew Taija liked to use for her lessons. If he was right Cadsuane was about to do something very stupid.
=========
About a week after her very odd conversation with Rhuarc, Taija was sitting in the room that she'd commandeered for lessons with the girls.
Teaching the two girls was essentially the only break that she got from her efforts at solving the problem of the taint on saidin. It was a pity Egwene wasn't there too, but she never ceased to be amazed by the speed at which Elayne and Nynaeve picked things up. They even put up with her various lectures on philosophy and being aes sedai with decent grace.
Today, as he often did, Aleksi was sitting in too as she wasn't really focusing on saidar. In fact, they'd somehow managed to get her diverted into an explanation of movies and how they worked. Taija knew exactly what they were doing when they tried to distract her away from her planned topic and onto something more exciting. Still, sometimes she needed a break too and even in her current, fragile emotional state she couldn't deny that she was getting some entertainment from trying to explain her favourite romcom to them. It wasn't the overall concept that was a struggle, but more the context it was all set in. It was bittersweet thinking about it, but she was feeling relaxed.
"No you see he was late because his car broke down and the mechanic was…" Taija trailed off as the door swung open and Cadsuane strode in. "Oh hello Cadsuane sedai."
Hard eyes in an unsmiling face took in the scene, but she didn't say anything when Taija greeted her with a polite, if slightly cold, smile, so after a moment Taija just ignored her and continued. Frankly she'd had enough of the woman anyway.
"Anyway the point was apparently meant to be an allegory for the impact of technology on relationships," she found herself slipping into her own language to try to explain, "but I just thought it was funny."
She heard a loud sniff come from Cadsuane and with a sigh she turned her attention back to her. "Can I help you Cadsuane sedai?"
Cadsuane took a step towards Taija, her eyes slowly scanning across the room's occupants. "This has gone on long enough," there seemed to be genuine anger in her voice and Taija found herself taking an instinctive step back.
"Excuse me?" She ignored the irritation flaring up inside her.
Cadsuane took another step forward, but this time Taija didn't retreat. "This," she gestured around the room. "You are making a mockery of the very concept of aes sedai girl. Did you really think this would be allowed to continue without consequences? Do you think this is funny?" The light of saidar sprung up around her, far too bright. As Taija had thought, she clearly had an angreal. Taija immediately embraced the Power herself. With her own angreal she had the advantage on strengt, although unless something had gone badly wrong with the webs she kept on herself Cadsuane wouldn't know where she stood.
Suppressing the bubbling fury within her, Taija kept her response calm, "my name is Taija, you may call me Taija sedai or Taija Kosola Miranen if you want to be formal, just as I do you the courtesy of calling you Cadsuane sedai." She nearly added 'despite my doubts about your worthiness for the title', she needed to stay polite. She didn't want a repeat of her conversation with Moiraine where she ended up threatening to kill her. Unhelpful and probably unjustified. Someone needed to be the adult here.
Cadsuane snorted, she was still advancing on Taija. "Did you think I would not find out your secret? If you had any idea what you were doing you would know that I can sense whether or not you can channel." She spun a web of spirit and slammed a shield into place on Aleksi. He jumped and suddenly looked worried.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, but if you think you can walk in and insult me, threaten my friends…" On the other side of the room the light of saidar sprung up around Nynaeve and Elayne. Taija immediately snapped at them, "release it, now!" A moment later the light winked out again. "This, whatever idiocy it is, is between me and Cadsuane sedai. You are not to involve yourselves."
Cadsuane gave her a thin smile at that, "the first wise thing that I have heard you say since I arrived in the Stone. Typically the White Tower would severely punish anyone who claims to be aes sedai; however, out of respect for your friendship with the Dragon, I will settle for a public apology and recanting of your position." Her body language and tone made it clear that she both thought she was in an utterly dominant position and that she was doing Taija a huge favour.
Who the fuck did she think she was? Taija had been working herself to the bone trying to save their whole world from a problem they'd singularly failed to deal with for millennia. She was putting up with the White Tower aes sedai claiming a title they didn't deserve. She'd ignored Cadsuane's constant sniping. She needed to stay calm. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I was awarded the title, I am aes sedai. I have a better claim than you ever will. If you want to speak to me then show a modicum of respect. Otherwise you can leave." She couldn't help but muttering afterwards, "and preferably fall down a crevice." She was failing at staying calm.
"Ah finally the lamb shows some teeth." Cadsuane's smile was predatory. "You think you are so clever girl with your little story and your ridiculous attempts at the Old Tongue. You do not even realise, I know your secret, I have your lover shielded, you have nothing." Of course Taija knew he was shielded, she could see it. Wait. Lover, what? Her mind caught up with the implications.
"If you try to sever him, I will kill you before you can finish spinning the web." In an isntant Taija's tone went from angry to deadly serious. Cadsuane was in her personal space and Taia had to look up a bit to meet her eyes, but she did her best to convey that she meant every word of it. So much for getting through this without threatening to kill someone, but the voice of reason was fading away to the back of her head behind the rising flames of her anger.
Cadsuane just smiled at that, irritatingly unconcerned. "You will learn respect girl, I will teach it to you. Firstly though, the runaways need to be dealt with. Nynaeve, Elayne, this charade is over. You will be disciplined appropriately for running away and following that I shall continue your education properly. You will go to my rooms now and await my return when I have finished dealing with Taija 'sedai'." She layered sarcasm heavily onto the last word.
"No." Elayne and Nynaeve hadn't moved an inch, but Taija still said it. "Nynaeve and Elayne are my apprentices. They stay with me unless and until I release them or they decide they do not wish to learn from me. Unlike your White Tower's degenerate version, real aes sedai don't need to force people to obey them. We lead, we inspire and most importantly we serve." She stepped forward almost touching Cadsuane. "You people squat in the ruins of a once great institution perverting everything it stood for while you scavenge for the scraps of a civilisation you'll never even understand!" By the time she stopped talking she was practically spitting the words furiously.
"A pretty speech," Taija realised she'd put Cadsuane uncomfortably close to her, but she couldn't step back now, not without showing weakness. Despite her mocking words Cadsuane sounded genuinely angry. "Every word you speak will only increase your punishment. I would suggest you stop."
"Stop? Stop?! Who the fuck do you think you are…" Taija's world suddenly went white, why was she on the floor with her head ringing. Did Cadsuane just hit her? Cadsuane just slapped her! Hard.
The girls had embraced saidar again, Taija knew them well enough to see even through blurred vision that they were about to attack Cadsuane. It was hard to think with the absolutely white-hot fury that was roaring through her now, but she just about had the composure to snap at them, "no, this is between me and Cadsuane." No title for her anymore.
Taija hauled herself to her feet, her head still spinning a bit from the impact. She was well past losing her temper now. Homicidal rage burning through her. But no, she wouldn't kill her. However, she was going to make her wish she had. Taija exaggerated how woozy she felt, letting herself stagger backwards a little to create distance. Clutching her head. Was that blood from her lip? She was going to wipe that self satisfied smirk off Cadsuane's face!
Cadsuane continued, her voice oozing smugness. "It seems that you do not wish to choose the merciful option I offer. Very well then, I…" Taija spun five different webs all inverted. The woman was too strong to just shield, so she went for her legs with air, for the eyes with spirit and earth and three more webs of air from behind. "…shall have to teach you a firmer lesson." Cadsuane continued as if nothing had happened. Taija's webs just dissipated when they touched her, fell apart as if she'd released them. What. The. Fuck.
She realised she was just standing there staring when Cadsuane continued, "ah yes. You thought young Aleksi could save you. Like I said, I know your secret, he cannot channel for you now. Do not worry, I shall not do anything to harm him, but this farce is over." Cadsuane spun air into two webs, one to hold Taija in place and the other to cane her from behind, nothing overly harmful, just painful and humiliating.
Without even thinking Taija sliced them with inverted fire and spirit and Cadsuane jerked as the flows snapped back into her.
That might have been the moment to try to deescalate the situation, Cadsuane had some kind of unknown defence and Taija had just proven that she wasn't just a victim, but she was too angry. All the stress, the insults and now this. She couldn't keep it in any longer. Webs of saidar spring up around her looming and diving in towards Cadsuane.
"I'm spending every waking moment trying to save my friends' lives, doing things with the Power that you can't even start to understand you pathetic half educated barbarian, let alone copy and I get this." Taija gestured towards her, words spat out.
She bombarded Cadsuane with air, fire, spirit, spinning them together into esoteric webs, although careful to avoid anything actually lethal or that might hurt the girls or Aleksi, to try to get around whatever protection Cadsuane had as she went on. "Do you even know what I'm doing? What I've gone through? Of course you don't!"
Taija's webs just faded out of existence when they touched her. What in the Light was going on? Cadsuane wasn't cutting them, she wasn't deflecting them, Taija could see what she was channeling! Taija was still talking though, shouting even, she couldn't stop. She needed Cadsuane to know what she really thought of her. "You just swan around calling yourself aes sedai while serving no one."
Cadsuane must have had a ter'angreal of some kind. Something Taija hadn't seen before. She was channeling too, throwing a tangle of webs at Taija, splitting her flows multiple ways. Powerful, but simple. Crude. Slow. Taija sliced them. "You can't even get out of the way of someone who's trying to help. Even just standing aside. Instead all you can do is interfere, obstruct. Desperate for control. Pathetic! You're a perversion of the very concept of being aes sedai."
Cadsuane started to look worried as every web she formed was immediately sliced. Ha! "Do you even know how hard it is trying to do anything with the taint? I'm sitting there trying to work something out when I should have a whole team with me! Except they're dead, every single one of them!" Why were her eyes going blurry? "I should have an institution, friends colleagues, ter'angreal. Instead I'm just left doing it myself. My friends' lives in my hands and only if I can do something impossible. Something even my own civilisation couldn't do! Do you even know what friends are?!" Taija was ranting, but she couldn't stop.
Cadsuane was throwing a storm of webs at her even while she looked around trying to work out who could be slicing them. So much power, but no subtlety, Taija cut them, noting somewhere in the back of her head that Cadsuane still wasn't trying anything lethal, just painful.
Cadsuane took a step towards Taija, she didn't want her in arms reach though, not after she'd already hit her. Taija had stopped bothering to try to touch her with the Power it wasn't working, so she grabbed a chair with a web of air and threw it at her, forcing her to stagger back. It didn't seem to move her as much as Taija had expected though.
Cadsuane was still limiting herself to multiple webs of air, frustration and anger clear on her face now, aes sedai composure failing as she shouted at Taija. "You are only making things worse for yourself girl. Stop this madness, tell whoever it is that enough is enough!"
Taija didn't think she could stop even if she wanted to deescalate things and she didn't. "I hate this time! I hate that everyone I know is dead or worse and I hate that every time I try to help I have to work my way around manipulative bitches like you playing fucking stupid games." As she screwed her eyes shut for a second, hoping to clear the blur in them, Taija was vaguely aware that she was screaming in her own language. She nearly missed slicing one of Cadsuane's webs before it touched her. Sloppy, failing, just like she had been every day since she linked with Rand.
Taija grabbed three more chairs in webs of air and flung them at Cadsuane hard enough that each of them shattered over her, nearly knocking her off her feet. Yet she seemed to be unhurt. That should have hospitalised her. How many fucking ter'angreal did she have?! It was the fashionable hair jewelery it had to be. Another stolen treasure from Taija's time, although she'd never heard of anything that just made webs dissipate.
Suddenly Cadsuane was flinging far more serious webs at her. All of the elements mixed in. Taija sliced a web of fire and air that would have burnt her arm off, sliced a blade of air, sliced earth and water sent into the stone floor beneath her feet. It was a storm of saidar, but she was its eye, untouched by anything.
Taija wanted to hurt the smug bitch. Make her feel a fraction of what she was and Cadsuane had just taken off the gloves. "I just want to go home! Not be here finding each revelation worse than the last!"
With flows of air she demolished a pair of tables, ripping the legs from them in a fraction of a second and slammed the now flat surfaces into Cadsuane from each side. She thought she could use lethal webs on her without consequences? She'd fucking learn.
"Why can't I even have the smallest of pleasures without fucking aes sedai trying to take them away from me? Why can't I work it out? I don't want my friends to die!" Taija whipped the tables hard into the wall, Cadsuane sandwiched between them. Wham! Her webs faltered even as Taija sliced everything that came near her. She whipped her back into the other wall. Wham! Back again. Wham!
The light of saidar wavered around Cadsuane and the storm of webs around Taija abated. Wham! Taija sank to her knees unable to stop herself sobbing. Wham! Why were they all like this? Wham! The light of saidar winked out around Cadsuane. Why was everything on her? Wham! She just wanted to see her friends, to find out Tel had never really turned to the Shadow, to see Adanza one more time.
Taija jolted as her webs of air were sliced and snapped back into her. She looked up through tear-filled eyes already spinning several nasty webs to see Rand looking absolutely furious. "What in the Light are you doing?! Stop this madness!" His shout was shockingly loud.
She'd never seen him look this angry. She didn't even know how to answer, what was she thinking? The girls and Aleksi looked terrified, horrified. She needed to get out of there, she couldn't deal with it.
Without conscious thought Taija spun a gateway to her spot on the tower and threw herself through it, forcing it closed behind her before anyone could do more than gape.
========
Taija must have been up there for at least an hour, staring down at Tear, sitting on the edge of the vertiginous drop. At least the air was fresher up there, away from the smells and sounds of a medieval castle. Her lip was painfully swollen and she was fairly sure she had a red handmark across her face.
Why was she such a fuck up? She couldn't help her friends, she didn't seem to be able to handle actual grown-ups, the only people she had any real relationship with were in their twenties at best, and she was failing utterly at dealing with the taint. Everything had made so much more sense in her own time.
All she really wanted was to be back home. Even if it was in the middle of the War. Even if Lanfear had already killed her family. At least she'd had friends, comrades a feeling that she could actually make a difference. A society that wasn't perfect but at least felt like it meant something. Somewhere where she could fit in and be valued rather than be the constant outsider. At best an odd relic of a bygone era. At worst an alien inconvenience to be removed or worked around. She was just useless here, failing. What was even teh point?
Taija was disgusted at the way her self-control was fraying too. Every decision seemed justified at the time, but she'd just battered an old woman to the point that if Nynaeve or Moiraine didn't heal her she'd need months of recovery. Sure, she was provoked, but she was better than that. Better than these people.
Taija stared down at the ground a long way below her dangling feet, her hair fluttering in the breeze. None of them understood, not really. Most of the people she really liked, which was painfully few, were basically children. They looked up to her, needed her to be strong, wise, to help them. And she wanted to. Of course she did. She'd put her life on the line for them, she'd killed her way through small armies for them.
It wasn't enough though. Taija's mind was pulled inevitably back to the sick, slick feel of the taint. To Tel's scarred, snarling face and hate filled eyes. Was this how Tel felt? Was this what drove him to betray everything both of them had ever stood for?
No! There was no excuse. He had friends, supporters a cause that meant something, a world to protect. Taija crushed the momentary feeling of sympathy. He'd never had to face what she was and regardless, she would die before she turned to the Shadow. It wasn't even a question.
She looked down at the ground again.
Taija wasn't sure how long she sat there alone in her thoughts. The whole reason she liked this place was that no one seemed to know about it and anyway they couldn't get there without a ladder or Traveling.
That was why she jumped so hard she nearly fell off when she saw a pair of hands appear over the edge shortly followed by Lan's stone faced visage. Did he just climb up the outside of the Tower?! Was he insane? He could have died! He wasn't even sweating!
Taija's surprise stifled her instinctive response to snap at him to go away and leave her alone and she settled for something milder. "What are you doing here Lan?"
He finished hauling himself up and sat down beside her before answering. "Duty is heavier than a mountain, death is lighter than a feather." It was that phrase of his that Rand liked to repeat. He didn't look at her as he spoke, just looking out over Tear like she was.
"I don't want to hear it. You don't understand, how can you?" Taija was so tired. Tired of this time, tired of constantly trying and tired of being alone.
Lan didn't answer for a while and then began to speak, his piercing blue eyes staring out at the sky. "I was born in Malkier, into the royal family as the heir to the throne." He took a breath, even behind his stoic mask Taija could see he didn't like to talk about it. "When I was just an infant the trollocs came. Hordes beyond count descending on my homeland."
"Malkier's border forts had been stripped bare, a betrayal as it turned out, and the trollocs overran them in hours. My parents placed my father's sword in my infant hands and sent me south with twenty of the best swordsmen in Malkier." His hand unconsciously dropped to the hilt of his sword. "Five of them survived to see me to Shienar."
Taija winced at the thought that she'd nearly decided to go Malkier after reading an outdated book in Caemlyn, but didn't interrupt. This was by far the most words she'd heard Lan say at any one time.
"I grew up amidst the remnants of my culture, feted as the heir to a lost kingdom, but reminded of what was gone at every turn. My parents' retainers brought me up in the Malkieri way, placing the burden of duty on the shoulders of a child. Even today every Borderlander looks at me and wants to know when I will be raising the Golden Crane banner of Malkier and leading them back to retake my country. A wasteland that has been overrun by the Blight. The Seven Towers have fallen, the Thousand Lakes are poisonous and infested with creatures of the Blight. The Aiel call me Man Alone because I represent the last of my people."
"I'm sorry." Taija mumbled, she really shouldn't have been wallowing in her own grief.
"I do not tell you this to lessen your own struggles. I cannot claim to understand more than part of your pain and the world you come from. I was not there, I still have some remnants of my people, but I can understand part of it. Sometimes it can seem almost impossible to keep going, but always duty asks ever more." His voice was level, almost musing.
Lan continued. "Since I met Moiraine I have been dedicated to her and her mission. I had not thought I could be diverted from my duty to Malkier, but she had a higher duty. We have spent the last twenty years seeking the Dragon Reborn because nothing is more important. Rand al'Thor must survive and he must succeed. We have given up everything for half our lives to help him, when every hand in the world would be turned against us for it. Duty is an unrewarding mistress with myriad demands, but how can we let it go?"
Had Moiraine sent him? Taija hated herself, hated this time, for even having to think about that sort of thing. He seemed to read her mind though.
"Moiraine has not sent me here to speak to you. If she knew I was here she would be furious. I am here to speak to you as al'Lan Mandragoran not as Moiraine's warder."
"Fine." Taija's response was short, rude really, but he ignored that.
"I want you to understand, your efforts are not in vain. I see the sacrifices that you make, the pain you deal with. Others do too." He huffed slightly. "I know you and Moiraine have your disagreements, but even she respects what you do. It can be hard to deal with someone who is so outside one's expectations."
Despite her mood Taija found herself responding. "It's… it's just hard. I've barely had time to even think about things. Well under a year ago I had a fiancé, I was living in what you call the 'Age of Legends'. Then suddenly it's gone. Dust blown away by the winds of time. The continents aren't even the same shape as in my time. Yet there's always more for me to do. I can't even take the time to mourn because I need to make sure my friends survive only I don't know if I even can."
Lan nodded, "when I say duty is heavier than a mountain it is not a mere platitude. I look at you and I see strength, you will succeed, true blood of Adanza."
Taija sighed and the two of them subsided into something one might, at a stretch, call companionable silence.
Chapter XXXIX - Click, Boom
Rand was sitting through yet another meeting. This time with Rhuarc and Lan to discuss the disposition of the Defenders of the Stone and the Aiel. However, his mind was elsewhere.
At first he hadn't been sure about Cadsuane, but he had to admit that she'd grown on him. Not only was her usefulness undeniable, but after that strange, initial rudeness she'd also become far more polite and helpful slotting herself neatly in among his advisers. She could still be abrasive, but she gave good advice and seemed to be much less focused on trying to manipulate him than Moiraine. She also had a talent for ferreting out secrets and a thorough understanding of a huge range of subjects.
Of course Rand wasn't stupid. He was well aware that she was aes sedai, a modern one anyway, and that he needed to look at everything she said and did three times to weed out hidden agendas. However, useful was useful and he certainly needed skilled advisers.
The only real fly in the ointment seemed to be Taija. He mentally corrected himself, the problem was Cadsuane's feelings about Taija, not Taija herself. Cadsuane seemed to have a grudge against her and he simply could not work out why. He'd asked her more than once and each time she'd said that the affairs of the aes sedai were for them alone and not to be questioned by outsiders.
That seemed to be her response to anything to do with Taija. He could see that something was eating Taija up from the inside too, which wasn't helping. He'd asked her what he could do to help and she'd just said not to worry about it and that he had enough on his plate, but he could see how distracted she was from, well, everything. The worry painted across her face when she thought no one was looking. He wasn't even sure she was noticing Cadsuane's petty sniping. In a way he hoped she wasn't.
His conversation with Cadsuane just before this meeting had been particularly odd. He'd asked, well no, he'd ordered her to stop her sniping at Taija, and didn't it feel strange to be giving orders to aes sedai.
She'd just smiled and told him not to worry, she knew Aleksi could channel. While he'd been spluttering protests she'd told him that he had nothing to worry about with the man, she accepted the situation there and wouldn't interfere, but since Aleksi was safe she would be resolving the situation with Taija so that there would be no need for any further conflict.
He hadn't been sure what she'd meant by that and then she'd left with a reminder that while she supported him as the Dragon Reborn, the affairs of aes sedai were for them alone, but that he shouldn't worry she would bring her conflict with Taija to an end as requested.
It had been bothering him ever since, surely it was good that she was going to resolve things. Except that what you heard an aes sedai say wasn't always what they meant. Resolve could mean all kinds of things, bring an end to…
"Mother's milk in a cup!" He sprang to his feet, already moving to the door. "Sorry, I have to go!" Light take him, if he was right and with Taija in her current mental state there'd be blood on the floor. Probably Cadsuane's. He broke into a dead run towards the room he knew Taija liked to use for her lessons. If he was right Cadsuane was about to do something very stupid.
=========
About a week after her very odd conversation with Rhuarc, Taija was sitting in the room that she'd commandeered for lessons with the girls.
Teaching the two girls was essentially the only break that she got from her efforts at solving the problem of the taint on saidin. It was a pity Egwene wasn't there too, but she never ceased to be amazed by the speed at which Elayne and Nynaeve picked things up. They even put up with her various lectures on philosophy and being aes sedai with decent grace.
Today, as he often did, Aleksi was sitting in too as she wasn't really focusing on saidar. In fact, they'd somehow managed to get her diverted into an explanation of movies and how they worked. Taija knew exactly what they were doing when they tried to distract her away from her planned topic and onto something more exciting. Still, sometimes she needed a break too and even in her current, fragile emotional state she couldn't deny that she was getting some entertainment from trying to explain her favourite romcom to them. It wasn't the overall concept that was a struggle, but more the context it was all set in. It was bittersweet thinking about it, but she was feeling relaxed.
"No you see he was late because his car broke down and the mechanic was…" Taija trailed off as the door swung open and Cadsuane strode in. "Oh hello Cadsuane sedai."
Hard eyes in an unsmiling face took in the scene, but she didn't say anything when Taija greeted her with a polite, if slightly cold, smile, so after a moment Taija just ignored her and continued. Frankly she'd had enough of the woman anyway.
"Anyway the point was apparently meant to be an allegory for the impact of technology on relationships," she found herself slipping into her own language to try to explain, "but I just thought it was funny."
She heard a loud sniff come from Cadsuane and with a sigh she turned her attention back to her. "Can I help you Cadsuane sedai?"
Cadsuane took a step towards Taija, her eyes slowly scanning across the room's occupants. "This has gone on long enough," there seemed to be genuine anger in her voice and Taija found herself taking an instinctive step back.
"Excuse me?" She ignored the irritation flaring up inside her.
Cadsuane took another step forward, but this time Taija didn't retreat. "This," she gestured around the room. "You are making a mockery of the very concept of aes sedai girl. Did you really think this would be allowed to continue without consequences? Do you think this is funny?" The light of saidar sprung up around her, far too bright. As Taija had thought, she clearly had an angreal. Taija immediately embraced the Power herself. With her own angreal she had the advantage on strengt, although unless something had gone badly wrong with the webs she kept on herself Cadsuane wouldn't know where she stood.
Suppressing the bubbling fury within her, Taija kept her response calm, "my name is Taija, you may call me Taija sedai or Taija Kosola Miranen if you want to be formal, just as I do you the courtesy of calling you Cadsuane sedai." She nearly added 'despite my doubts about your worthiness for the title', she needed to stay polite. She didn't want a repeat of her conversation with Moiraine where she ended up threatening to kill her. Unhelpful and probably unjustified. Someone needed to be the adult here.
Cadsuane snorted, she was still advancing on Taija. "Did you think I would not find out your secret? If you had any idea what you were doing you would know that I can sense whether or not you can channel." She spun a web of spirit and slammed a shield into place on Aleksi. He jumped and suddenly looked worried.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, but if you think you can walk in and insult me, threaten my friends…" On the other side of the room the light of saidar sprung up around Nynaeve and Elayne. Taija immediately snapped at them, "release it, now!" A moment later the light winked out again. "This, whatever idiocy it is, is between me and Cadsuane sedai. You are not to involve yourselves."
Cadsuane gave her a thin smile at that, "the first wise thing that I have heard you say since I arrived in the Stone. Typically the White Tower would severely punish anyone who claims to be aes sedai; however, out of respect for your friendship with the Dragon, I will settle for a public apology and recanting of your position." Her body language and tone made it clear that she both thought she was in an utterly dominant position and that she was doing Taija a huge favour.
Who the fuck did she think she was? Taija had been working herself to the bone trying to save their whole world from a problem they'd singularly failed to deal with for millennia. She was putting up with the White Tower aes sedai claiming a title they didn't deserve. She'd ignored Cadsuane's constant sniping. She needed to stay calm. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I was awarded the title, I am aes sedai. I have a better claim than you ever will. If you want to speak to me then show a modicum of respect. Otherwise you can leave." She couldn't help but muttering afterwards, "and preferably fall down a crevice." She was failing at staying calm.
"Ah finally the lamb shows some teeth." Cadsuane's smile was predatory. "You think you are so clever girl with your little story and your ridiculous attempts at the Old Tongue. You do not even realise, I know your secret, I have your lover shielded, you have nothing." Of course Taija knew he was shielded, she could see it. Wait. Lover, what? Her mind caught up with the implications.
"If you try to sever him, I will kill you before you can finish spinning the web." In an isntant Taija's tone went from angry to deadly serious. Cadsuane was in her personal space and Taia had to look up a bit to meet her eyes, but she did her best to convey that she meant every word of it. So much for getting through this without threatening to kill someone, but the voice of reason was fading away to the back of her head behind the rising flames of her anger.
Cadsuane just smiled at that, irritatingly unconcerned. "You will learn respect girl, I will teach it to you. Firstly though, the runaways need to be dealt with. Nynaeve, Elayne, this charade is over. You will be disciplined appropriately for running away and following that I shall continue your education properly. You will go to my rooms now and await my return when I have finished dealing with Taija 'sedai'." She layered sarcasm heavily onto the last word.
"No." Elayne and Nynaeve hadn't moved an inch, but Taija still said it. "Nynaeve and Elayne are my apprentices. They stay with me unless and until I release them or they decide they do not wish to learn from me. Unlike your White Tower's degenerate version, real aes sedai don't need to force people to obey them. We lead, we inspire and most importantly we serve." She stepped forward almost touching Cadsuane. "You people squat in the ruins of a once great institution perverting everything it stood for while you scavenge for the scraps of a civilisation you'll never even understand!" By the time she stopped talking she was practically spitting the words furiously.
"A pretty speech," Taija realised she'd put Cadsuane uncomfortably close to her, but she couldn't step back now, not without showing weakness. Despite her mocking words Cadsuane sounded genuinely angry. "Every word you speak will only increase your punishment. I would suggest you stop."
"Stop? Stop?! Who the fuck do you think you are…" Taija's world suddenly went white, why was she on the floor with her head ringing. Did Cadsuane just hit her? Cadsuane just slapped her! Hard.
The girls had embraced saidar again, Taija knew them well enough to see even through blurred vision that they were about to attack Cadsuane. It was hard to think with the absolutely white-hot fury that was roaring through her now, but she just about had the composure to snap at them, "no, this is between me and Cadsuane." No title for her anymore.
Taija hauled herself to her feet, her head still spinning a bit from the impact. She was well past losing her temper now. Homicidal rage burning through her. But no, she wouldn't kill her. However, she was going to make her wish she had. Taija exaggerated how woozy she felt, letting herself stagger backwards a little to create distance. Clutching her head. Was that blood from her lip? She was going to wipe that self satisfied smirk off Cadsuane's face!
Cadsuane continued, her voice oozing smugness. "It seems that you do not wish to choose the merciful option I offer. Very well then, I…" Taija spun five different webs all inverted. The woman was too strong to just shield, so she went for her legs with air, for the eyes with spirit and earth and three more webs of air from behind. "…shall have to teach you a firmer lesson." Cadsuane continued as if nothing had happened. Taija's webs just dissipated when they touched her, fell apart as if she'd released them. What. The. Fuck.
She realised she was just standing there staring when Cadsuane continued, "ah yes. You thought young Aleksi could save you. Like I said, I know your secret, he cannot channel for you now. Do not worry, I shall not do anything to harm him, but this farce is over." Cadsuane spun air into two webs, one to hold Taija in place and the other to cane her from behind, nothing overly harmful, just painful and humiliating.
Without even thinking Taija sliced them with inverted fire and spirit and Cadsuane jerked as the flows snapped back into her.
That might have been the moment to try to deescalate the situation, Cadsuane had some kind of unknown defence and Taija had just proven that she wasn't just a victim, but she was too angry. All the stress, the insults and now this. She couldn't keep it in any longer. Webs of saidar spring up around her looming and diving in towards Cadsuane.
"I'm spending every waking moment trying to save my friends' lives, doing things with the Power that you can't even start to understand you pathetic half educated barbarian, let alone copy and I get this." Taija gestured towards her, words spat out.
She bombarded Cadsuane with air, fire, spirit, spinning them together into esoteric webs, although careful to avoid anything actually lethal or that might hurt the girls or Aleksi, to try to get around whatever protection Cadsuane had as she went on. "Do you even know what I'm doing? What I've gone through? Of course you don't!"
Taija's webs just faded out of existence when they touched her. What in the Light was going on? Cadsuane wasn't cutting them, she wasn't deflecting them, Taija could see what she was channeling! Taija was still talking though, shouting even, she couldn't stop. She needed Cadsuane to know what she really thought of her. "You just swan around calling yourself aes sedai while serving no one."
Cadsuane must have had a ter'angreal of some kind. Something Taija hadn't seen before. She was channeling too, throwing a tangle of webs at Taija, splitting her flows multiple ways. Powerful, but simple. Crude. Slow. Taija sliced them. "You can't even get out of the way of someone who's trying to help. Even just standing aside. Instead all you can do is interfere, obstruct. Desperate for control. Pathetic! You're a perversion of the very concept of being aes sedai."
Cadsuane started to look worried as every web she formed was immediately sliced. Ha! "Do you even know how hard it is trying to do anything with the taint? I'm sitting there trying to work something out when I should have a whole team with me! Except they're dead, every single one of them!" Why were her eyes going blurry? "I should have an institution, friends colleagues, ter'angreal. Instead I'm just left doing it myself. My friends' lives in my hands and only if I can do something impossible. Something even my own civilisation couldn't do! Do you even know what friends are?!" Taija was ranting, but she couldn't stop.
Cadsuane was throwing a storm of webs at her even while she looked around trying to work out who could be slicing them. So much power, but no subtlety, Taija cut them, noting somewhere in the back of her head that Cadsuane still wasn't trying anything lethal, just painful.
Cadsuane took a step towards Taija, she didn't want her in arms reach though, not after she'd already hit her. Taija had stopped bothering to try to touch her with the Power it wasn't working, so she grabbed a chair with a web of air and threw it at her, forcing her to stagger back. It didn't seem to move her as much as Taija had expected though.
Cadsuane was still limiting herself to multiple webs of air, frustration and anger clear on her face now, aes sedai composure failing as she shouted at Taija. "You are only making things worse for yourself girl. Stop this madness, tell whoever it is that enough is enough!"
Taija didn't think she could stop even if she wanted to deescalate things and she didn't. "I hate this time! I hate that everyone I know is dead or worse and I hate that every time I try to help I have to work my way around manipulative bitches like you playing fucking stupid games." As she screwed her eyes shut for a second, hoping to clear the blur in them, Taija was vaguely aware that she was screaming in her own language. She nearly missed slicing one of Cadsuane's webs before it touched her. Sloppy, failing, just like she had been every day since she linked with Rand.
Taija grabbed three more chairs in webs of air and flung them at Cadsuane hard enough that each of them shattered over her, nearly knocking her off her feet. Yet she seemed to be unhurt. That should have hospitalised her. How many fucking ter'angreal did she have?! It was the fashionable hair jewelery it had to be. Another stolen treasure from Taija's time, although she'd never heard of anything that just made webs dissipate.
Suddenly Cadsuane was flinging far more serious webs at her. All of the elements mixed in. Taija sliced a web of fire and air that would have burnt her arm off, sliced a blade of air, sliced earth and water sent into the stone floor beneath her feet. It was a storm of saidar, but she was its eye, untouched by anything.
Taija wanted to hurt the smug bitch. Make her feel a fraction of what she was and Cadsuane had just taken off the gloves. "I just want to go home! Not be here finding each revelation worse than the last!"
With flows of air she demolished a pair of tables, ripping the legs from them in a fraction of a second and slammed the now flat surfaces into Cadsuane from each side. She thought she could use lethal webs on her without consequences? She'd fucking learn.
"Why can't I even have the smallest of pleasures without fucking aes sedai trying to take them away from me? Why can't I work it out? I don't want my friends to die!" Taija whipped the tables hard into the wall, Cadsuane sandwiched between them. Wham! Her webs faltered even as Taija sliced everything that came near her. She whipped her back into the other wall. Wham! Back again. Wham!
The light of saidar wavered around Cadsuane and the storm of webs around Taija abated. Wham! Taija sank to her knees unable to stop herself sobbing. Wham! Why were they all like this? Wham! The light of saidar winked out around Cadsuane. Why was everything on her? Wham! She just wanted to see her friends, to find out Tel had never really turned to the Shadow, to see Adanza one more time.
Taija jolted as her webs of air were sliced and snapped back into her. She looked up through tear-filled eyes already spinning several nasty webs to see Rand looking absolutely furious. "What in the Light are you doing?! Stop this madness!" His shout was shockingly loud.
She'd never seen him look this angry. She didn't even know how to answer, what was she thinking? The girls and Aleksi looked terrified, horrified. She needed to get out of there, she couldn't deal with it.
Without conscious thought Taija spun a gateway to her spot on the tower and threw herself through it, forcing it closed behind her before anyone could do more than gape.
========
Taija must have been up there for at least an hour, staring down at Tear, sitting on the edge of the vertiginous drop. At least the air was fresher up there, away from the smells and sounds of a medieval castle. Her lip was painfully swollen and she was fairly sure she had a red handmark across her face.
Why was she such a fuck up? She couldn't help her friends, she didn't seem to be able to handle actual grown-ups, the only people she had any real relationship with were in their twenties at best, and she was failing utterly at dealing with the taint. Everything had made so much more sense in her own time.
All she really wanted was to be back home. Even if it was in the middle of the War. Even if Lanfear had already killed her family. At least she'd had friends, comrades a feeling that she could actually make a difference. A society that wasn't perfect but at least felt like it meant something. Somewhere where she could fit in and be valued rather than be the constant outsider. At best an odd relic of a bygone era. At worst an alien inconvenience to be removed or worked around. She was just useless here, failing. What was even teh point?
Taija was disgusted at the way her self-control was fraying too. Every decision seemed justified at the time, but she'd just battered an old woman to the point that if Nynaeve or Moiraine didn't heal her she'd need months of recovery. Sure, she was provoked, but she was better than that. Better than these people.
Taija stared down at the ground a long way below her dangling feet, her hair fluttering in the breeze. None of them understood, not really. Most of the people she really liked, which was painfully few, were basically children. They looked up to her, needed her to be strong, wise, to help them. And she wanted to. Of course she did. She'd put her life on the line for them, she'd killed her way through small armies for them.
It wasn't enough though. Taija's mind was pulled inevitably back to the sick, slick feel of the taint. To Tel's scarred, snarling face and hate filled eyes. Was this how Tel felt? Was this what drove him to betray everything both of them had ever stood for?
No! There was no excuse. He had friends, supporters a cause that meant something, a world to protect. Taija crushed the momentary feeling of sympathy. He'd never had to face what she was and regardless, she would die before she turned to the Shadow. It wasn't even a question.
She looked down at the ground again.
Taija wasn't sure how long she sat there alone in her thoughts. The whole reason she liked this place was that no one seemed to know about it and anyway they couldn't get there without a ladder or Traveling.
That was why she jumped so hard she nearly fell off when she saw a pair of hands appear over the edge shortly followed by Lan's stone faced visage. Did he just climb up the outside of the Tower?! Was he insane? He could have died! He wasn't even sweating!
Taija's surprise stifled her instinctive response to snap at him to go away and leave her alone and she settled for something milder. "What are you doing here Lan?"
He finished hauling himself up and sat down beside her before answering. "Duty is heavier than a mountain, death is lighter than a feather." It was that phrase of his that Rand liked to repeat. He didn't look at her as he spoke, just looking out over Tear like she was.
"I don't want to hear it. You don't understand, how can you?" Taija was so tired. Tired of this time, tired of constantly trying and tired of being alone.
Lan didn't answer for a while and then began to speak, his piercing blue eyes staring out at the sky. "I was born in Malkier, into the royal family as the heir to the throne." He took a breath, even behind his stoic mask Taija could see he didn't like to talk about it. "When I was just an infant the trollocs came. Hordes beyond count descending on my homeland."
"Malkier's border forts had been stripped bare, a betrayal as it turned out, and the trollocs overran them in hours. My parents placed my father's sword in my infant hands and sent me south with twenty of the best swordsmen in Malkier." His hand unconsciously dropped to the hilt of his sword. "Five of them survived to see me to Shienar."
Taija winced at the thought that she'd nearly decided to go Malkier after reading an outdated book in Caemlyn, but didn't interrupt. This was by far the most words she'd heard Lan say at any one time.
"I grew up amidst the remnants of my culture, feted as the heir to a lost kingdom, but reminded of what was gone at every turn. My parents' retainers brought me up in the Malkieri way, placing the burden of duty on the shoulders of a child. Even today every Borderlander looks at me and wants to know when I will be raising the Golden Crane banner of Malkier and leading them back to retake my country. A wasteland that has been overrun by the Blight. The Seven Towers have fallen, the Thousand Lakes are poisonous and infested with creatures of the Blight. The Aiel call me Man Alone because I represent the last of my people."
"I'm sorry." Taija mumbled, she really shouldn't have been wallowing in her own grief.
"I do not tell you this to lessen your own struggles. I cannot claim to understand more than part of your pain and the world you come from. I was not there, I still have some remnants of my people, but I can understand part of it. Sometimes it can seem almost impossible to keep going, but always duty asks ever more." His voice was level, almost musing.
Lan continued. "Since I met Moiraine I have been dedicated to her and her mission. I had not thought I could be diverted from my duty to Malkier, but she had a higher duty. We have spent the last twenty years seeking the Dragon Reborn because nothing is more important. Rand al'Thor must survive and he must succeed. We have given up everything for half our lives to help him, when every hand in the world would be turned against us for it. Duty is an unrewarding mistress with myriad demands, but how can we let it go?"
Had Moiraine sent him? Taija hated herself, hated this time, for even having to think about that sort of thing. He seemed to read her mind though.
"Moiraine has not sent me here to speak to you. If she knew I was here she would be furious. I am here to speak to you as al'Lan Mandragoran not as Moiraine's warder."
"Fine." Taija's response was short, rude really, but he ignored that.
"I want you to understand, your efforts are not in vain. I see the sacrifices that you make, the pain you deal with. Others do too." He huffed slightly. "I know you and Moiraine have your disagreements, but even she respects what you do. It can be hard to deal with someone who is so outside one's expectations."
Despite her mood Taija found herself responding. "It's… it's just hard. I've barely had time to even think about things. Well under a year ago I had a fiancé, I was living in what you call the 'Age of Legends'. Then suddenly it's gone. Dust blown away by the winds of time. The continents aren't even the same shape as in my time. Yet there's always more for me to do. I can't even take the time to mourn because I need to make sure my friends survive only I don't know if I even can."
Lan nodded, "when I say duty is heavier than a mountain it is not a mere platitude. I look at you and I see strength, you will succeed, true blood of Adanza."
Taija sighed and the two of them subsided into something one might, at a stretch, call companionable silence.
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- Location
- Earth
Cadsuane played stupid games and won stupid prizes. Like a broken back
Editing error from the quest here, I think.
Only to Aleksi. It would be hugely immodest and no one ever asks.
Edit: very well educated people might well know the significance for someone from her time, but that's only relevant if they know her background. So Cadsuane and Moiraine would probably be at least vaguely aware of what it means for an Age of Legends person. But there are plenty of modern cultures that use three names without the significance so it doesn't stand out as such.
Out of interest do you not find it weird reading this without knowing the setting?
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Catharsis.
Because Cadsuane was the ideal, what modern aes sedai strived to be, and everything Taija's aes sedai weren't.
It's good I think, having Taija flush out that particular poison, air her grievances even if she was just voicing her thoughts out loud. It's out there in the world now. Her people are dead, what remained was worse than dead.
There was no going back. There was her apprentices, and the taint, and the way to save Rand and Aleksi and every male channeler going forward. No more games.
Also, Lan, and the nature of grieving and the duty and burden of carrying the memory of a whole people's. It's nice, if terribly tragic, that someone got it, understood, even in some small way, and not feel alone for a moment.
Thanks for sharing.
Because Cadsuane was the ideal, what modern aes sedai strived to be, and everything Taija's aes sedai weren't.
It's good I think, having Taija flush out that particular poison, air her grievances even if she was just voicing her thoughts out loud. It's out there in the world now. Her people are dead, what remained was worse than dead.
There was no going back. There was her apprentices, and the taint, and the way to save Rand and Aleksi and every male channeler going forward. No more games.
Also, Lan, and the nature of grieving and the duty and burden of carrying the memory of a whole people's. It's nice, if terribly tragic, that someone got it, understood, even in some small way, and not feel alone for a moment.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, that's very nicely put, captures some of the emotions very well.
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
And Cadsuane missed, in the moment, that Taija noticed the girls channeling and told them not to without otherwise being informed.
She has the story all worked out in her head, and was not willing to admit she might not be right.
She has the story all worked out in her head, and was not willing to admit she might not be right.
Turns out that 300 years of being able to largely just bulldoze reality into submission gives you issues about noticing when you're wrong.
- Location
- Earth: Universe Meta - 1
To be fair, Taija has a talent that is stupidly impressive that we saw here. She can be drunk out of her mind, or crying her eyes out but still channel inverted webs.
It's probably much easier to believe someone else was helping Taija than that she could figure out how to bypass defenses which gave a fallen problems while having a breakdown.
At least Rand was able to keep things from being worse.
Interlude XVI - The Modern Perspective
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Interlude XVI - The Modern Perspective
Cadsuane allowed herself a grim smile. Al'Thor had been appropriately warned and reassured, it was time to deal with the biggest problem in the Dragon's camp. Taija could not be allowed to continue to undermine both him and the very status of aes sedai. She allowed herself a grim smile, the conflict would certainly be resolved once she was done with her.
She knew where the girl was of course. She was always in the same room at this time, 'teaching' the runaways. It would be good to put her in her place, not that she would take any pleasure from it, a necessary chore. She was not a cruel woman, but she was a woman who would do what needed to be done.
She pushed the door open and strode in assessing what was going on at a glance. The runaways were sitting at desks, giggling over something while Taija had perched herself on the edge of a table at the front of the room, oddly enough the usually dour woman was smiling. Well that would not last. Aleksi was there too, in some ways an inconvenience, but probably better to nip this whole thing in the bud from the start.
The whole scene illustrated the problem of course. The runaways were just playing around instead of learning or doing chores. Taija looked deeply inappropriate sat on a table in men's breeches of all things, even loose ones. As for having a man who could channel attending lessons with initiates of the White Tower, well she had nothing at all to say on that.
"No you see he was late because his car broke down and the mechanic was… Oh hello Cadsuane sedai." The girl looked over from whatever she was talking about, her smile turning frosty. It was ridiculous that they sat here listening to her as if she had anything worthwhile to say. Was it the way she peppered words of the Old Tongue into her speech, like a pretentious noble, but without the education to back it up? She was not going to return the woman's greeting, this was not going to be that kind of conversation.
Taija continued to witter on, turning back to her audience, when Cadsuane did not answer her. "Anyway the point was apparently meant to be an allegory for the impact of technology on relationships, but I thought it was just funny." Cadsuane spoke the Old Tongue well enough, she was fairly sure some of those words were just invented.
She sniffed, loudly. How could the girl sit there with a straight face talking such nonsense? It was incongruous hearing the Old Tongue from an uneducated peasant, but that would be something she could investigate once this had been dealt with. Perhaps some of the old blood in her? More likely, given her accent in the language and improper behaviour, she just learnt some words from a liaison with someone in the past.
With a sigh that made her exasperation clear Taija turned her attention back to Cadsuane. "Can I help you Cadsuane sedai?"
Cadsuane took a step towards her, calculated to be intimidating. She was watching the others in the room like a hawk. She would need to manage their reactions or this could turn into a real mess.
She would at least give the girl the small credit that she made an effort to be polite even if she did a shockingly poor job of concealing her dislike. Nevertheless she could feel the anger bubbling inside her at the way the girl mocked what it was to be aes sedai. "This has gone on long enough."
"Excuse me?" Taija took an instinctive step away from Cadsuane, even if the girl had been able channel it was doubtful she would have had the strength of character to attain the shawl.
Cadsuane took another step forward, it was important to keep the girl off balance if she wanted to end this quickly and painlessly. Still, the way she was pretending not to understand was infuriating.
"This," Cadsuane gestured at the runaways and Aleksi. "You are making a mockery of the very concept of aes sedai girl. Did you really think this would be allowed to continue without consequences?" Her mind went back to the giggling when she had arrived. "Do you think this is funny?"
Cadsuane embraced saidar drawing fully through the angreal among her ornaments. The fool girl did not even react, further confirming her inability to channel. Any sensible woman would have been visibly on guard and embracing the True Source themselves if they could channel, or quailing at the sheer amount she held.
Instead the girl just threw more defiance at her. "my name is Taija, you may call me Taija sedai or Taija Kosola Miranen if you want to be formal, just as I do you the courtesy of calling you Cadsuane sedai." The contemptuous twist of her lips when she put the title at the end of Cadsuane's name was infuriating. Who did this girl think she was? Surely she must know that she was finished and she was just making things worse for herself. A small part of Cadsuane's mind tried to remember which cultures used three names. Her inability to place the girl's accent truly was irritating.
Never mind that. She snorted in disgust at the girl's behaviour, advancing steadily towards her. "Did you think I would not find out your secret? If you had any idea what you were doing you would know that I can sense whether or not you can channel." It was time to take action, but first she needed to make sure that young Aleksi did not interfere. She wove spirit and pushed a shield into place on him. Too easy, he had not even been embracing saidin, more fool him.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, but if you think you can walk in and insult me, threaten my friends…" Ah now the girl was angry. Soon she would realise how much trouble she was in.
To Cadsuane's side the light of saidar sprang up around Nynaeve and Elayne. She made a mental note to increase their punishment. They were clearly far out of control, thinking to threaten an aes sedai, but before she could chastise them Taija snapped "release it, now!" A moment later the light winked out again. "This, whatever idiocy it is, is between me and Cadsuane sedai. You are not to involve yourselves."
Cadsuane gave the girl a thin smile at that. "The first wise thing that I have heard you say since I arrived in the Stone." Odd that the girl had known though. Probably a good guess. A surprise that the runaways listened to her too. Cadsuane was committed now though. She dismissed the little warning bell that had started to ring in the back of her head. "Typically the White Tower would severely punish anyone who claims to be aes sedai; however, out of respect for your friendship with the Dragon, I will settle for a public apology and recanting of your position."
Cadsuane felt she needed to make the offer to maintain her relationship with al'Thor, but the girl was almost certainly far too arrogant to take it, not understanding how incredibly jealous it was compared to the normal punishments for impersonating an aes sedai. If she had had any sense she would have made herself scarce the very second Cadsuane entered the Stone. When she did not this became inevitable.
The girl did a poor show of hiding genuine anger. Or perhaps a good show of pretending to hide false anger? It did not matter, either way she replied calmly, but forcefully. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I was awarded the title, I am aes sedai. I have a better claim than you ever will. If you want to speak to me then show a modicum of respect. Otherwise you can leave." She dropped her voice, but not enough, "and preferably fall down a crevice."
Anger surged through Cadsuane, ruthlessly kept under control as it always was. The sheer arrogance of the girl, when she should be begging for mercy and then adding an insult in the Old Tongue, as if she would not understand, although it was a poor insult as such things went. "Ah finally the lamb shows some teeth." Cadsuane gave her a distinctly unfriendly smile, time to put her in her place, reveal what she knew. Then she would crumble. "You think you are so clever girl. You do not even realise, I know your secret, I have your lover shielded, you have nothing."
Instead of crumbling the girl looked confused, even as Cadsuane loomed over her. Confused and then furious a second later. "If you try to sever him, I will kill you before you can finish spinning the web." She met Cadsuane's eyes, not a hint of fear in them.
The alarm bells began to ring a little bit louder. Something was just not right with this girl. Surely she did not actually believe her own story? It must be her own painful ignorance of the world, she did not even know to call them weaves. There was no way that anyone with the slightest idea of what she was getting herself into would look Cadsuane in the eyes and make a threat like that.
"You will learn respect girl, I will teach it to you. Firstly though, the runaways need to be dealt with. Nynaeve, Elayne, this charade is over." And not a moment too soon. "You will be disciplined appropriately for running away and following that I shall continue your education properly." No more of this ridiculous rubbish and playing around, they would learn and with Cadsuane's help one day they would be great, not like the soft weaklings the Tower seemed to produce these days. "You will go to my rooms now and await my return when I have finished dealing with Taija 'sedai'." She could not resist layering sarcasm onto the last word.
"No." At this point Taija's denial was not unexpected, but Cadsuane noted with annoyance that Elayne and Nynaeve also had not moved an inch. "Nynaeve and Elayne are my apprentices. They stay with me unless and until I release them or they decide they do not wish to learn from me. Unlike your White Tower's degenerate version, real aes sedai don't need to force people to obey them. We lead, we inspire and most importantly we serve." Taija stepped forward standing almost nose to chin with Cadsuane. "You people squat in the ruins of a once great institution perverting everything it stood for while you scavenge for the scraps of a civilisation you'll never even understand!"
Cadsuane was struggling to follow the girl's nonsense. Ruins of a once great institution? What would she even know? More ridiculous attempts at seeming mysterious. "A pretty speech," the girl really was furious, practically spitting on her. It made Cadsuane furious in turn, this continuing defiance could not be tolerated. Did the girl think she could out-bluff her? "Every word you speak will only increase your punishment. I would suggest you stop."
"Stop? Stop?! Who the fuck do you think you are…" As the girl slipped into her badly accented Old Tongue, Cadusane decided this had gone on long enough. She had put up with far too much from the girl and she was showing no signs of recognising her true position, so it was time to take action.
Crack! The impact of Cadsuane's pale hand on her dark face rang out across the room actually knocking her over. For a moment Cadsuane wondered whether she had hit her too hard. It would be embarrassing to have to heal her, she could not be seen to allow her anger to dominate her actions, no matter how infuriating the girl was.
The runaways embraced saidar again and Cadsuane prepared herself to put them back in their place a bit earlier than she had planned.
"No, this is between me and Cadsuane." Ah the girl was practically red with rage. Not totally surprising, although Cadsuane had hoped for submission rather than more anger. Cadsuane watched her haul herself to her feet. Tougher than expected. She was staggering though and clutching her head. This would be over soon.
Still, defiance would need to be punished. It was just a matter of time now though. The girl had started to understand the consequences of her defiance. "It seems that you do not wish to choose the merciful option I offer. Very well then, I shall have to teach you a firmer lesson."
Cadsuane watched the girl's eyes widen, she seemed to be frozen to the spot. Here it was, the moment when she would break. "Ah yes. You thought young Aleksi could save you. Like I said, I know your secret, he cannot channel for you now. Do not worry, I shall not do anything to harm him, but this farce is over."
Cadsuane wove two weaves of air, one to surround the girl and hold her in place, the other to deliver her a light thrashing. She would not hurt her badly, but she clearly needed to be educated about the realities of her position.
The jolt of her cut weaves snapping back into her was both painful and a nasty surprise. Who did that? There was no one else in the room! Aleksi was shielded, the runaways were not holding saidar. Cadsuane scanned the room again anyway, sudden nervousness running through her. Had she missed something?
"I'm spending every waking moment trying to save my friends' lives, doing things with the Power that you can't even start to understand you pathetic half educated barbarian, let along copy and I get this." Taija gestured towards her, she looked confused even through her clear anger. "Do you even know what I'm doing? What I've gone through? Of course you don't!"
However disinterested she was in the girl's ranting, Cadsuane was not going to just stand there and be further insulted by this girl. Still looking for the unknown threat she channeled, sending more weaves towards Taija. Yet everything she threw towards her was sliced. But by whom? Where were they? What had she missed?!
Taija was still ranting while apparently standing there doing nothing. "You just swan around calling yourself aes sedai while serving no one." Cadsuane tied off the shield on Aleksi and increased the amount of saidar she was throwing at the woman. Splitting her weaves as many ways as she could, bringing them in from different directions. Every single one was sliced, almost instantly. This was impossible, no one was that fast! Who even was it? "You can't even get out of the way of someone who is trying to help. Even just standing aside. Instead all you can do is interfere, obstruct. Desperate for control. Pathetic! You're a perversion of the very concept of being aes sedai."
Surely it could not be a man. Al'Thor had been channeling for months, Aleksi was shielded. Without false modesty, Cadsuane was as strong as almost anyone in the world and she had an angreal. No one could be doing this if they could not see her weaves. Surely not. It could not be the girl. She could not even channel. Had she misjudged the situation that badly?
Growing horror painted itself across Cadsuane's face as she leant into saidar, feeling the strain from drawing on it as hard as she could. Taija's screaming rant battering at her ears, was the girl crying? She would have her crying soon enough if not. "Do you even know how hard it is trying to do anything with the taint? I'm sitting there trying to work something out when I should have a whole team with me! Except they're dead, every single one of them!" What about the taint? Team? None of this made any sense. "I should have an institution, friends colleagues, ter'angreal. Instead I'm just left doing it myself. My friends' lives in my hands and only if I can do something impossible. Something even my own civilisation couldn't do! Do you even know what friends are?!"
Surely it could not be the girl. It could not be. Cadsuane franticly looked around trying to find the other channeler. There was no one. It must be the girl. A ter'angreal? Painful memories of the Black Hills, of Norla, sprang up. Fear came with them.
Even with the battering feeling of so many weaves snapping back into her Cadsuane stepped forward toward Taija, this needed to stop. She had clearly misjudged the situation. Badly. She clamped down on the fear bubbling up inside her. They needed to stop, talk.
A chair smashed into Cadsuane with a thump forcing her to stagger backwards, fortunately the impact merely painful with the six pointed star in her hair net spreading the impact across her whole body.
In frustration she shouted at Taija. "You are only making things worse for yourself girl. Stop this madness, tell whoever it is that enough is enough!" She should have paid more attention to Moiraine's cryptic warning, they would be having words after this! With a thought she tried to activate her fish ter'angreal, to pull whoever it was into a link, but there was nothing. Nobody in the room other than her was holding the One Power.
Tears were streaming down the girl's cheeks. "I hate this time! I hate that everyone I know is dead or worse and I hate that every time I try to help I have to work my way around manipulative bitches like you playing fucking stupid games." Cadsuane had given up on being angry, now she was just worried about being in a condition to walk out of the room when this was done. Also, she realised, the girl's Old Tongue was far too smooth through that accent, far too fast.
Suddenly three more chairs flung themselves at her. Far faster than the first, hurtling across the room and shattering painfully over her, nearly flooring her. Those could have killed her! Even with the ter'angreal she might need healing after this. Freed from the constraints of the third oath by the lethal attack, defensive instincts took over. It could not be anyone but Taija doing this and she was trying to kill her!
What a mess she had made of this. She would have to salvage what she could of the situation afterwards, but for now she just needed to survive.
Cadsuane smoothly switched from painful and humiliating weaves of air to the full array of her skills. Fire, earth, blades of air. Any of them potentially lethal. She did not want to kill the girl of course, but it was clear that if she did not use every weapon at her disposal she would be the one who would end up dead. Still, everything was sliced invisibly, snapping back into her. Only Taija seemed distracted, for a moment she screwed her eyes shut and one of Cadsuane's weaves nearly took her feet from under her before being sliced.
Taija was still ranting in that odd accent with occasional words Cadsuane did not recognise, screaming at her. "I just want to go home! Not here finding each revelation worse than the last!" The woman was clearly distraught and completely out of control.
To each side of her Cadsuane saw a table spring into the air almost instantly rotating onto its side the legs shredded from them in moments. It was frighteningly fast and she instinctively slammed weaves of air between her and the tables.
Her blocking weaves were immediately sliced and for the first time in a long time Cadsuane felt true terror. As the tables slammed into her from each side with a crunch she remembered what Taija's clipped accent reminded her of. The man she had fought in the Stone, only he had been nothing like this!
Then she was flying through the air with no more time for thought. Wham! Pain!
"Why can't I even have the smallest of pleasures without fucking aes sedai trying to take them away from me? Why can't I work it out? I don't want my friends to die!"
She was flying back the other way. Wham! Her vision blurred, the six pointed star ter'angreal could only do so much. Wham! Overwhelming disorientation and pain, she could not keep channeling. It was all she could do to hold onto saidar.
Wham! Her arm broke with a crunch and saidar fled her grasp. She was flying again. Wham! Something else broke. Flying, she was going to die. Wham! Flying and then suddenly the pressure around her was gone leaving her to fall painfully to the floor, an agonising collapse onto the remains of the two tables.
Tears of pain rolled down her cheeks and it took every bit of Cadsuane's prodigious willpower not to scream when she hit the ground.
Rand's furious shout was shockingly loud, "what in the Light are you doing?! Stop this madness!"
Through blurry eyes she saw Taija disappear through a gateway and Rand stand over her. His face was hard, angry. "What did you think you were doing you Light-blinded fool?!" He visibly struggled with his temper for a second before getting it into control and gesturing someone over. A second later Nynaeve joined him looking down at her. "Nynaeve, please could you heal her," he asked with a sigh.
Cadsuane saw Nynaeve hesitate for a moment and then her face hardened. "No. She talked about consequences. She'll live. It'll take a while but she'll heal on her own and then maybe she'll learn her lesson. If she gets worse I'll reconsider it."
"Nynaeve, please…
She cut Rand off with a disapproving look. "If she's so useful you can't do without her, get Moiraine to do it."
=======
Moiraine had been shocked when a servant had come running to her, asking her to attend Rand immediately. She had been even more shocked when she had walked into the ruins of the room Taija had taken over and found Cadsuane lying on the ground, clearly in a great deal of pain, with Rand looking as angry as she had ever seen him.
Clearly Cadsuane had decided to poke the bear. She would have been more amused if it had not been clear that things had gone much further than she could possibly have expected. This was not the humiliation and loss of position that she had anticipated. It had looked like a full scale battle had taken place in the room and Taija had outright tried to kill Cadsuane. Of course she reflected ruefully that was unlikely to be the case, given Cadsuane was still alive.
Rand had politely asked her to heal Cadsuane, his voice had been perfectly controlled although she could feel the anger bubbling underneath. Of course she had immediately done so. It had not been a situation she had wanted to insert herself into, she would rather have put her bare hand in a wasps nest, and the quickest way out was to do exactly as Rand asked without questions.
As she had channeled the healing weave into Cadsuane, watching the woman's body repair itself under her eyes Rand had stalked out, with a brief word of thanks and a command, not a request, to send Cadsuane to his apartments as soon as she was able to stand.
The boy was clearly growing into his role and she was not sure how much she welcomed it right now.
It was a couple of hours later that Cadsuane had come to her rooms. Of course she had fetched tea for the woman, it was clear that they needed to talk.
Once they both had their tea they sat facing each other, both perfect models of aes sedai serenity. Moiraine took a sip of tea from her cup of finest sea-folk porcelain and looked over it with hooded eyes while Cadsuane took a sip from her own.
She let the silence stretch. Cadsuane was infuriatingly composed, her facade back in place despite everything. Moiraine did not think she could have kept her composure so well after what Cadsuane had been through.
The girls had been distressingly unwilling to tell her what had gone on, another issue to lay at Cadsuane's feet. At least they had been willing to talk to her before. She could have told the bloody woman that trying to force them away from Taija would not work. Perhaps she should have told her, not that she would have listened.
Fortunately Aleksi had been more willing to explain what had happened. He had been absolutely furious on Taija's behalf, but at least that fury had been directed at Cadsuane not aes sedai in general. She probably had the time he spent with Lan to thank for that.
Eventually Cadsuane broke the silence, a small victory. "So. The Age of Legends." Her voice was dry, displeased.
Moiraine took another sip of her tea. "Indeed. Did she tell you?"
No," Cadsuane grimaced slightly, "I might have worked it out afterwards from what she said, but al'Thor took the time to… educate me."
Moiraine raised an eyebrow, "educate you?"
"Indeed. It seems he was displeased with my actions and felt that I needed it explained to me exactly what the situation was and how tenuous my position had just become." She was all cool arrogance as ever, Moiraine could not believe the woman could maintain her attitude in the face of what had just happened.
"I take it you explained the error of his ways to him?" Of course the fool woman did, she had not encountered a problem she could not bully her way out of in almost three hundred years.
"Of course I did not!" The sudden sharpness in Cadsuane's voice took her aback. "I made a grave error of judgment, that does not mean I am completely addled. He told me to consider myself lucky that Taija had given me such a thorough beating as it allowed him to turn a blind eye rather than punishing me." Her knuckles tightened around the handle of her cup. "I nodded, smiled and thanked him for his forbearance."
Moiraine sat back slightly, mind whirling. It seemed she would have to reconsider some of her plans. "I see. That is… remarkably tolerant of you to accept that from the man."
Cadsuane took another sip, "I was allowed to labour under the misapprehension that she was an imposter, pretending to be an aes sedai." The look she gave Moiraine made it clear who she blamed for that. "In part the failing is mine, I allowed my assumptions to dominate my thinking and lead me into foolish action with potentially disastrous consequences. Are you aware the girl…" she hesitated, "no, woman, has killed one of the Forsaken?"
"Mmm…. Yes." Moiraine eventually nodded.
Cadsuane muttered something that might have been a curse. "Very well." She hesitated and then sighed. "Perhaps I should follow Taija's example and dispense with the word games we have become so used to, so allow me to be blunt. It is clear that you do not trust me, presumably you believe I may be Black Ajah." Moiraine had to hide the surprise at such a blunt statement. She would have expected Cadsuane to explode at even the suggestion that the Black Ajah was real. "Obviously I believe this is unjustified and I serve the Light, as I believe you do. However, without a degree of trust we will fail to work together."
Moiraine folded her hands together, not denying Cadsuane's words. "What exactly do you propose?"
"We need to reconsider the way that we deal with the woman. I do not ask you to trust me, but I do ask you not to actively undermine me and I shall do the same for you. Hopefully, with time, you will see that my goals are the same as yours. Al'Thor must be allowed to develop, free of anyone else's control and he must be guided to ensure that he fulfils his potential and is ready to face the Dark One."
Moiraine considered for a moment. "That is acceptable to me." She was as cool as ever, giving nothing away beyond her words.
"Good, now we need to discuss Taija. Or what is it she called herself? Taija Kosola Miranen." Cadsuane paused. "Oh."
"Oh?"
"I just realised why she put so much emphasis on her full name. In the Age of Legends it was considered a great honour to be awarded a third name, that is why she sounds the way she does when she says it. I wonder what she received it for."
Moiraine shrugged delicately, "I confess I do not know."
Cadsuane's smile made Moiraine feel she had just walked into a trap. "Indeed and this illustrates the problem. You have clearly severely mismanaged your relationship with her. What do you actually know of her?"
It was an effort to stifle her instinctively angry response to that, but that would be giving Cadsuane exactly what she wanted allowing her to turn the conversation back on Moiraine. "I hardly think you are in a position to criticise after your behaviour since arriving."
"Hmm, deflection. A bit too obvious though." Cadsuane leaned forward. "You have mismanaged your relationship with her from the start. We have a genuine aes sedai from the Age of Legends dropped into our laps, one of apparently prodigious power and skill, and you have somehow managed to develop an enmity with the woman. You have not even got the excuse of having provoked her into attacking you."
Cadsuane paused watching Moiraine with an unreadable look in her eyes. "Oh Light you did!" Moiraine carefully kept her face impassive until Cadsuane snapped, "come on, out with it! I can hardly take amusement from your misfortune after my own actions."
With a sigh Moiraine explained. "Siuan Sanche and I, we thought she was one of the Forsaken, everything pointed to it."
"I suppose I can hardly judge you for mistaken assumptions, I can see how such a mistake might be made."
Perhaps Cadsuane was actually serious about working together, Moiraine had expected her to leap on the point. "Siuan and I were linked and I had my angreal. We had her shielded. She somehow broke the shield and had us both shielded in turn within a few seconds. She never even blinked." She had to a suppress a shudder at the memory. "Then Liandrin walked in. We begged her for help, telling her Taija was Lanfear. She knelt and swore allegiance to her. She said it was an honour to serve one of the Chosen!"
Cadsuane hissed at that, it seemed even her composure could be broken. "Then what happened?"
Moiraine grimaced at the memory. "She lost her temper completely and started screaming in the Old Tongue. At the same time she grabbed Liandrin with air and simply… smeared her across the room. It was so fast I barely saw it happen. Just a flash of movement and… bloody bits of bone and flesh pasted across the floor."
"Light." Cadsuane breathed the word without even thinking. Perhaps she was comparing it to what had happened to her. Then she was all brusqueness once again. "Well it is certainly clear that you have handled the woman badly. You will of course do what you wish, but I shall deal with her appropriately."
Despite herself Moiraine had to ask, "are you sure that is wise? What do you intend to do to her?"
Cadsuane's smile was a little frightening. "Do to her Moiraine? Why this is exactly what is wrong with your thinking. I shall do nothing to her. I shall apologise profusely for my behaviour and offer her whatever assistance I can give her."
That was… unexpected. "You will?"
"Of course. My goals are aligned with hers, why would I oppose her strength when I can help to guide it. She is alone in this world, clearly dealing with it poorly. She is friendly with al'Thor. If I was able to correctly interpret some her ranting, she is trying to find a solution to the taint. I doubt it is possible, but she has already proven herself able to do the impossible so who can say. Either way, she will react better to the hand of friendship than to whatever it is you have been doing." Cadsuane's smile did not reach her eyes. "Remember saidar. If you fight it it will overwhelm you. If you wish to succeed the first thing you must do is surrender to it."
Interlude XVI - The Modern Perspective
Cadsuane allowed herself a grim smile. Al'Thor had been appropriately warned and reassured, it was time to deal with the biggest problem in the Dragon's camp. Taija could not be allowed to continue to undermine both him and the very status of aes sedai. She allowed herself a grim smile, the conflict would certainly be resolved once she was done with her.
She knew where the girl was of course. She was always in the same room at this time, 'teaching' the runaways. It would be good to put her in her place, not that she would take any pleasure from it, a necessary chore. She was not a cruel woman, but she was a woman who would do what needed to be done.
She pushed the door open and strode in assessing what was going on at a glance. The runaways were sitting at desks, giggling over something while Taija had perched herself on the edge of a table at the front of the room, oddly enough the usually dour woman was smiling. Well that would not last. Aleksi was there too, in some ways an inconvenience, but probably better to nip this whole thing in the bud from the start.
The whole scene illustrated the problem of course. The runaways were just playing around instead of learning or doing chores. Taija looked deeply inappropriate sat on a table in men's breeches of all things, even loose ones. As for having a man who could channel attending lessons with initiates of the White Tower, well she had nothing at all to say on that.
"No you see he was late because his car broke down and the mechanic was… Oh hello Cadsuane sedai." The girl looked over from whatever she was talking about, her smile turning frosty. It was ridiculous that they sat here listening to her as if she had anything worthwhile to say. Was it the way she peppered words of the Old Tongue into her speech, like a pretentious noble, but without the education to back it up? She was not going to return the woman's greeting, this was not going to be that kind of conversation.
Taija continued to witter on, turning back to her audience, when Cadsuane did not answer her. "Anyway the point was apparently meant to be an allegory for the impact of technology on relationships, but I thought it was just funny." Cadsuane spoke the Old Tongue well enough, she was fairly sure some of those words were just invented.
She sniffed, loudly. How could the girl sit there with a straight face talking such nonsense? It was incongruous hearing the Old Tongue from an uneducated peasant, but that would be something she could investigate once this had been dealt with. Perhaps some of the old blood in her? More likely, given her accent in the language and improper behaviour, she just learnt some words from a liaison with someone in the past.
With a sigh that made her exasperation clear Taija turned her attention back to Cadsuane. "Can I help you Cadsuane sedai?"
Cadsuane took a step towards her, calculated to be intimidating. She was watching the others in the room like a hawk. She would need to manage their reactions or this could turn into a real mess.
She would at least give the girl the small credit that she made an effort to be polite even if she did a shockingly poor job of concealing her dislike. Nevertheless she could feel the anger bubbling inside her at the way the girl mocked what it was to be aes sedai. "This has gone on long enough."
"Excuse me?" Taija took an instinctive step away from Cadsuane, even if the girl had been able channel it was doubtful she would have had the strength of character to attain the shawl.
Cadsuane took another step forward, it was important to keep the girl off balance if she wanted to end this quickly and painlessly. Still, the way she was pretending not to understand was infuriating.
"This," Cadsuane gestured at the runaways and Aleksi. "You are making a mockery of the very concept of aes sedai girl. Did you really think this would be allowed to continue without consequences?" Her mind went back to the giggling when she had arrived. "Do you think this is funny?"
Cadsuane embraced saidar drawing fully through the angreal among her ornaments. The fool girl did not even react, further confirming her inability to channel. Any sensible woman would have been visibly on guard and embracing the True Source themselves if they could channel, or quailing at the sheer amount she held.
Instead the girl just threw more defiance at her. "my name is Taija, you may call me Taija sedai or Taija Kosola Miranen if you want to be formal, just as I do you the courtesy of calling you Cadsuane sedai." The contemptuous twist of her lips when she put the title at the end of Cadsuane's name was infuriating. Who did this girl think she was? Surely she must know that she was finished and she was just making things worse for herself. A small part of Cadsuane's mind tried to remember which cultures used three names. Her inability to place the girl's accent truly was irritating.
Never mind that. She snorted in disgust at the girl's behaviour, advancing steadily towards her. "Did you think I would not find out your secret? If you had any idea what you were doing you would know that I can sense whether or not you can channel." It was time to take action, but first she needed to make sure that young Aleksi did not interfere. She wove spirit and pushed a shield into place on him. Too easy, he had not even been embracing saidin, more fool him.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, but if you think you can walk in and insult me, threaten my friends…" Ah now the girl was angry. Soon she would realise how much trouble she was in.
To Cadsuane's side the light of saidar sprang up around Nynaeve and Elayne. She made a mental note to increase their punishment. They were clearly far out of control, thinking to threaten an aes sedai, but before she could chastise them Taija snapped "release it, now!" A moment later the light winked out again. "This, whatever idiocy it is, is between me and Cadsuane sedai. You are not to involve yourselves."
Cadsuane gave the girl a thin smile at that. "The first wise thing that I have heard you say since I arrived in the Stone." Odd that the girl had known though. Probably a good guess. A surprise that the runaways listened to her too. Cadsuane was committed now though. She dismissed the little warning bell that had started to ring in the back of her head. "Typically the White Tower would severely punish anyone who claims to be aes sedai; however, out of respect for your friendship with the Dragon, I will settle for a public apology and recanting of your position."
Cadsuane felt she needed to make the offer to maintain her relationship with al'Thor, but the girl was almost certainly far too arrogant to take it, not understanding how incredibly jealous it was compared to the normal punishments for impersonating an aes sedai. If she had had any sense she would have made herself scarce the very second Cadsuane entered the Stone. When she did not this became inevitable.
The girl did a poor show of hiding genuine anger. Or perhaps a good show of pretending to hide false anger? It did not matter, either way she replied calmly, but forcefully. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I was awarded the title, I am aes sedai. I have a better claim than you ever will. If you want to speak to me then show a modicum of respect. Otherwise you can leave." She dropped her voice, but not enough, "and preferably fall down a crevice."
Anger surged through Cadsuane, ruthlessly kept under control as it always was. The sheer arrogance of the girl, when she should be begging for mercy and then adding an insult in the Old Tongue, as if she would not understand, although it was a poor insult as such things went. "Ah finally the lamb shows some teeth." Cadsuane gave her a distinctly unfriendly smile, time to put her in her place, reveal what she knew. Then she would crumble. "You think you are so clever girl. You do not even realise, I know your secret, I have your lover shielded, you have nothing."
Instead of crumbling the girl looked confused, even as Cadsuane loomed over her. Confused and then furious a second later. "If you try to sever him, I will kill you before you can finish spinning the web." She met Cadsuane's eyes, not a hint of fear in them.
The alarm bells began to ring a little bit louder. Something was just not right with this girl. Surely she did not actually believe her own story? It must be her own painful ignorance of the world, she did not even know to call them weaves. There was no way that anyone with the slightest idea of what she was getting herself into would look Cadsuane in the eyes and make a threat like that.
"You will learn respect girl, I will teach it to you. Firstly though, the runaways need to be dealt with. Nynaeve, Elayne, this charade is over." And not a moment too soon. "You will be disciplined appropriately for running away and following that I shall continue your education properly." No more of this ridiculous rubbish and playing around, they would learn and with Cadsuane's help one day they would be great, not like the soft weaklings the Tower seemed to produce these days. "You will go to my rooms now and await my return when I have finished dealing with Taija 'sedai'." She could not resist layering sarcasm onto the last word.
"No." At this point Taija's denial was not unexpected, but Cadsuane noted with annoyance that Elayne and Nynaeve also had not moved an inch. "Nynaeve and Elayne are my apprentices. They stay with me unless and until I release them or they decide they do not wish to learn from me. Unlike your White Tower's degenerate version, real aes sedai don't need to force people to obey them. We lead, we inspire and most importantly we serve." Taija stepped forward standing almost nose to chin with Cadsuane. "You people squat in the ruins of a once great institution perverting everything it stood for while you scavenge for the scraps of a civilisation you'll never even understand!"
Cadsuane was struggling to follow the girl's nonsense. Ruins of a once great institution? What would she even know? More ridiculous attempts at seeming mysterious. "A pretty speech," the girl really was furious, practically spitting on her. It made Cadsuane furious in turn, this continuing defiance could not be tolerated. Did the girl think she could out-bluff her? "Every word you speak will only increase your punishment. I would suggest you stop."
"Stop? Stop?! Who the fuck do you think you are…" As the girl slipped into her badly accented Old Tongue, Cadusane decided this had gone on long enough. She had put up with far too much from the girl and she was showing no signs of recognising her true position, so it was time to take action.
Crack! The impact of Cadsuane's pale hand on her dark face rang out across the room actually knocking her over. For a moment Cadsuane wondered whether she had hit her too hard. It would be embarrassing to have to heal her, she could not be seen to allow her anger to dominate her actions, no matter how infuriating the girl was.
The runaways embraced saidar again and Cadsuane prepared herself to put them back in their place a bit earlier than she had planned.
"No, this is between me and Cadsuane." Ah the girl was practically red with rage. Not totally surprising, although Cadsuane had hoped for submission rather than more anger. Cadsuane watched her haul herself to her feet. Tougher than expected. She was staggering though and clutching her head. This would be over soon.
Still, defiance would need to be punished. It was just a matter of time now though. The girl had started to understand the consequences of her defiance. "It seems that you do not wish to choose the merciful option I offer. Very well then, I shall have to teach you a firmer lesson."
Cadsuane watched the girl's eyes widen, she seemed to be frozen to the spot. Here it was, the moment when she would break. "Ah yes. You thought young Aleksi could save you. Like I said, I know your secret, he cannot channel for you now. Do not worry, I shall not do anything to harm him, but this farce is over."
Cadsuane wove two weaves of air, one to surround the girl and hold her in place, the other to deliver her a light thrashing. She would not hurt her badly, but she clearly needed to be educated about the realities of her position.
The jolt of her cut weaves snapping back into her was both painful and a nasty surprise. Who did that? There was no one else in the room! Aleksi was shielded, the runaways were not holding saidar. Cadsuane scanned the room again anyway, sudden nervousness running through her. Had she missed something?
"I'm spending every waking moment trying to save my friends' lives, doing things with the Power that you can't even start to understand you pathetic half educated barbarian, let along copy and I get this." Taija gestured towards her, she looked confused even through her clear anger. "Do you even know what I'm doing? What I've gone through? Of course you don't!"
However disinterested she was in the girl's ranting, Cadsuane was not going to just stand there and be further insulted by this girl. Still looking for the unknown threat she channeled, sending more weaves towards Taija. Yet everything she threw towards her was sliced. But by whom? Where were they? What had she missed?!
Taija was still ranting while apparently standing there doing nothing. "You just swan around calling yourself aes sedai while serving no one." Cadsuane tied off the shield on Aleksi and increased the amount of saidar she was throwing at the woman. Splitting her weaves as many ways as she could, bringing them in from different directions. Every single one was sliced, almost instantly. This was impossible, no one was that fast! Who even was it? "You can't even get out of the way of someone who is trying to help. Even just standing aside. Instead all you can do is interfere, obstruct. Desperate for control. Pathetic! You're a perversion of the very concept of being aes sedai."
Surely it could not be a man. Al'Thor had been channeling for months, Aleksi was shielded. Without false modesty, Cadsuane was as strong as almost anyone in the world and she had an angreal. No one could be doing this if they could not see her weaves. Surely not. It could not be the girl. She could not even channel. Had she misjudged the situation that badly?
Growing horror painted itself across Cadsuane's face as she leant into saidar, feeling the strain from drawing on it as hard as she could. Taija's screaming rant battering at her ears, was the girl crying? She would have her crying soon enough if not. "Do you even know how hard it is trying to do anything with the taint? I'm sitting there trying to work something out when I should have a whole team with me! Except they're dead, every single one of them!" What about the taint? Team? None of this made any sense. "I should have an institution, friends colleagues, ter'angreal. Instead I'm just left doing it myself. My friends' lives in my hands and only if I can do something impossible. Something even my own civilisation couldn't do! Do you even know what friends are?!"
Surely it could not be the girl. It could not be. Cadsuane franticly looked around trying to find the other channeler. There was no one. It must be the girl. A ter'angreal? Painful memories of the Black Hills, of Norla, sprang up. Fear came with them.
Even with the battering feeling of so many weaves snapping back into her Cadsuane stepped forward toward Taija, this needed to stop. She had clearly misjudged the situation. Badly. She clamped down on the fear bubbling up inside her. They needed to stop, talk.
A chair smashed into Cadsuane with a thump forcing her to stagger backwards, fortunately the impact merely painful with the six pointed star in her hair net spreading the impact across her whole body.
In frustration she shouted at Taija. "You are only making things worse for yourself girl. Stop this madness, tell whoever it is that enough is enough!" She should have paid more attention to Moiraine's cryptic warning, they would be having words after this! With a thought she tried to activate her fish ter'angreal, to pull whoever it was into a link, but there was nothing. Nobody in the room other than her was holding the One Power.
Tears were streaming down the girl's cheeks. "I hate this time! I hate that everyone I know is dead or worse and I hate that every time I try to help I have to work my way around manipulative bitches like you playing fucking stupid games." Cadsuane had given up on being angry, now she was just worried about being in a condition to walk out of the room when this was done. Also, she realised, the girl's Old Tongue was far too smooth through that accent, far too fast.
Suddenly three more chairs flung themselves at her. Far faster than the first, hurtling across the room and shattering painfully over her, nearly flooring her. Those could have killed her! Even with the ter'angreal she might need healing after this. Freed from the constraints of the third oath by the lethal attack, defensive instincts took over. It could not be anyone but Taija doing this and she was trying to kill her!
What a mess she had made of this. She would have to salvage what she could of the situation afterwards, but for now she just needed to survive.
Cadsuane smoothly switched from painful and humiliating weaves of air to the full array of her skills. Fire, earth, blades of air. Any of them potentially lethal. She did not want to kill the girl of course, but it was clear that if she did not use every weapon at her disposal she would be the one who would end up dead. Still, everything was sliced invisibly, snapping back into her. Only Taija seemed distracted, for a moment she screwed her eyes shut and one of Cadsuane's weaves nearly took her feet from under her before being sliced.
Taija was still ranting in that odd accent with occasional words Cadsuane did not recognise, screaming at her. "I just want to go home! Not here finding each revelation worse than the last!" The woman was clearly distraught and completely out of control.
To each side of her Cadsuane saw a table spring into the air almost instantly rotating onto its side the legs shredded from them in moments. It was frighteningly fast and she instinctively slammed weaves of air between her and the tables.
Her blocking weaves were immediately sliced and for the first time in a long time Cadsuane felt true terror. As the tables slammed into her from each side with a crunch she remembered what Taija's clipped accent reminded her of. The man she had fought in the Stone, only he had been nothing like this!
Then she was flying through the air with no more time for thought. Wham! Pain!
"Why can't I even have the smallest of pleasures without fucking aes sedai trying to take them away from me? Why can't I work it out? I don't want my friends to die!"
She was flying back the other way. Wham! Her vision blurred, the six pointed star ter'angreal could only do so much. Wham! Overwhelming disorientation and pain, she could not keep channeling. It was all she could do to hold onto saidar.
Wham! Her arm broke with a crunch and saidar fled her grasp. She was flying again. Wham! Something else broke. Flying, she was going to die. Wham! Flying and then suddenly the pressure around her was gone leaving her to fall painfully to the floor, an agonising collapse onto the remains of the two tables.
Tears of pain rolled down her cheeks and it took every bit of Cadsuane's prodigious willpower not to scream when she hit the ground.
Rand's furious shout was shockingly loud, "what in the Light are you doing?! Stop this madness!"
Through blurry eyes she saw Taija disappear through a gateway and Rand stand over her. His face was hard, angry. "What did you think you were doing you Light-blinded fool?!" He visibly struggled with his temper for a second before getting it into control and gesturing someone over. A second later Nynaeve joined him looking down at her. "Nynaeve, please could you heal her," he asked with a sigh.
Cadsuane saw Nynaeve hesitate for a moment and then her face hardened. "No. She talked about consequences. She'll live. It'll take a while but she'll heal on her own and then maybe she'll learn her lesson. If she gets worse I'll reconsider it."
"Nynaeve, please…
She cut Rand off with a disapproving look. "If she's so useful you can't do without her, get Moiraine to do it."
=======
Moiraine had been shocked when a servant had come running to her, asking her to attend Rand immediately. She had been even more shocked when she had walked into the ruins of the room Taija had taken over and found Cadsuane lying on the ground, clearly in a great deal of pain, with Rand looking as angry as she had ever seen him.
Clearly Cadsuane had decided to poke the bear. She would have been more amused if it had not been clear that things had gone much further than she could possibly have expected. This was not the humiliation and loss of position that she had anticipated. It had looked like a full scale battle had taken place in the room and Taija had outright tried to kill Cadsuane. Of course she reflected ruefully that was unlikely to be the case, given Cadsuane was still alive.
Rand had politely asked her to heal Cadsuane, his voice had been perfectly controlled although she could feel the anger bubbling underneath. Of course she had immediately done so. It had not been a situation she had wanted to insert herself into, she would rather have put her bare hand in a wasps nest, and the quickest way out was to do exactly as Rand asked without questions.
As she had channeled the healing weave into Cadsuane, watching the woman's body repair itself under her eyes Rand had stalked out, with a brief word of thanks and a command, not a request, to send Cadsuane to his apartments as soon as she was able to stand.
The boy was clearly growing into his role and she was not sure how much she welcomed it right now.
It was a couple of hours later that Cadsuane had come to her rooms. Of course she had fetched tea for the woman, it was clear that they needed to talk.
Once they both had their tea they sat facing each other, both perfect models of aes sedai serenity. Moiraine took a sip of tea from her cup of finest sea-folk porcelain and looked over it with hooded eyes while Cadsuane took a sip from her own.
She let the silence stretch. Cadsuane was infuriatingly composed, her facade back in place despite everything. Moiraine did not think she could have kept her composure so well after what Cadsuane had been through.
The girls had been distressingly unwilling to tell her what had gone on, another issue to lay at Cadsuane's feet. At least they had been willing to talk to her before. She could have told the bloody woman that trying to force them away from Taija would not work. Perhaps she should have told her, not that she would have listened.
Fortunately Aleksi had been more willing to explain what had happened. He had been absolutely furious on Taija's behalf, but at least that fury had been directed at Cadsuane not aes sedai in general. She probably had the time he spent with Lan to thank for that.
Eventually Cadsuane broke the silence, a small victory. "So. The Age of Legends." Her voice was dry, displeased.
Moiraine took another sip of her tea. "Indeed. Did she tell you?"
No," Cadsuane grimaced slightly, "I might have worked it out afterwards from what she said, but al'Thor took the time to… educate me."
Moiraine raised an eyebrow, "educate you?"
"Indeed. It seems he was displeased with my actions and felt that I needed it explained to me exactly what the situation was and how tenuous my position had just become." She was all cool arrogance as ever, Moiraine could not believe the woman could maintain her attitude in the face of what had just happened.
"I take it you explained the error of his ways to him?" Of course the fool woman did, she had not encountered a problem she could not bully her way out of in almost three hundred years.
"Of course I did not!" The sudden sharpness in Cadsuane's voice took her aback. "I made a grave error of judgment, that does not mean I am completely addled. He told me to consider myself lucky that Taija had given me such a thorough beating as it allowed him to turn a blind eye rather than punishing me." Her knuckles tightened around the handle of her cup. "I nodded, smiled and thanked him for his forbearance."
Moiraine sat back slightly, mind whirling. It seemed she would have to reconsider some of her plans. "I see. That is… remarkably tolerant of you to accept that from the man."
Cadsuane took another sip, "I was allowed to labour under the misapprehension that she was an imposter, pretending to be an aes sedai." The look she gave Moiraine made it clear who she blamed for that. "In part the failing is mine, I allowed my assumptions to dominate my thinking and lead me into foolish action with potentially disastrous consequences. Are you aware the girl…" she hesitated, "no, woman, has killed one of the Forsaken?"
"Mmm…. Yes." Moiraine eventually nodded.
Cadsuane muttered something that might have been a curse. "Very well." She hesitated and then sighed. "Perhaps I should follow Taija's example and dispense with the word games we have become so used to, so allow me to be blunt. It is clear that you do not trust me, presumably you believe I may be Black Ajah." Moiraine had to hide the surprise at such a blunt statement. She would have expected Cadsuane to explode at even the suggestion that the Black Ajah was real. "Obviously I believe this is unjustified and I serve the Light, as I believe you do. However, without a degree of trust we will fail to work together."
Moiraine folded her hands together, not denying Cadsuane's words. "What exactly do you propose?"
"We need to reconsider the way that we deal with the woman. I do not ask you to trust me, but I do ask you not to actively undermine me and I shall do the same for you. Hopefully, with time, you will see that my goals are the same as yours. Al'Thor must be allowed to develop, free of anyone else's control and he must be guided to ensure that he fulfils his potential and is ready to face the Dark One."
Moiraine considered for a moment. "That is acceptable to me." She was as cool as ever, giving nothing away beyond her words.
"Good, now we need to discuss Taija. Or what is it she called herself? Taija Kosola Miranen." Cadsuane paused. "Oh."
"Oh?"
"I just realised why she put so much emphasis on her full name. In the Age of Legends it was considered a great honour to be awarded a third name, that is why she sounds the way she does when she says it. I wonder what she received it for."
Moiraine shrugged delicately, "I confess I do not know."
Cadsuane's smile made Moiraine feel she had just walked into a trap. "Indeed and this illustrates the problem. You have clearly severely mismanaged your relationship with her. What do you actually know of her?"
It was an effort to stifle her instinctively angry response to that, but that would be giving Cadsuane exactly what she wanted allowing her to turn the conversation back on Moiraine. "I hardly think you are in a position to criticise after your behaviour since arriving."
"Hmm, deflection. A bit too obvious though." Cadsuane leaned forward. "You have mismanaged your relationship with her from the start. We have a genuine aes sedai from the Age of Legends dropped into our laps, one of apparently prodigious power and skill, and you have somehow managed to develop an enmity with the woman. You have not even got the excuse of having provoked her into attacking you."
Cadsuane paused watching Moiraine with an unreadable look in her eyes. "Oh Light you did!" Moiraine carefully kept her face impassive until Cadsuane snapped, "come on, out with it! I can hardly take amusement from your misfortune after my own actions."
With a sigh Moiraine explained. "Siuan Sanche and I, we thought she was one of the Forsaken, everything pointed to it."
"I suppose I can hardly judge you for mistaken assumptions, I can see how such a mistake might be made."
Perhaps Cadsuane was actually serious about working together, Moiraine had expected her to leap on the point. "Siuan and I were linked and I had my angreal. We had her shielded. She somehow broke the shield and had us both shielded in turn within a few seconds. She never even blinked." She had to a suppress a shudder at the memory. "Then Liandrin walked in. We begged her for help, telling her Taija was Lanfear. She knelt and swore allegiance to her. She said it was an honour to serve one of the Chosen!"
Cadsuane hissed at that, it seemed even her composure could be broken. "Then what happened?"
Moiraine grimaced at the memory. "She lost her temper completely and started screaming in the Old Tongue. At the same time she grabbed Liandrin with air and simply… smeared her across the room. It was so fast I barely saw it happen. Just a flash of movement and… bloody bits of bone and flesh pasted across the floor."
"Light." Cadsuane breathed the word without even thinking. Perhaps she was comparing it to what had happened to her. Then she was all brusqueness once again. "Well it is certainly clear that you have handled the woman badly. You will of course do what you wish, but I shall deal with her appropriately."
Despite herself Moiraine had to ask, "are you sure that is wise? What do you intend to do to her?"
Cadsuane's smile was a little frightening. "Do to her Moiraine? Why this is exactly what is wrong with your thinking. I shall do nothing to her. I shall apologise profusely for my behaviour and offer her whatever assistance I can give her."
That was… unexpected. "You will?"
"Of course. My goals are aligned with hers, why would I oppose her strength when I can help to guide it. She is alone in this world, clearly dealing with it poorly. She is friendly with al'Thor. If I was able to correctly interpret some her ranting, she is trying to find a solution to the taint. I doubt it is possible, but she has already proven herself able to do the impossible so who can say. Either way, she will react better to the hand of friendship than to whatever it is you have been doing." Cadsuane's smile did not reach her eyes. "Remember saidar. If you fight it it will overwhelm you. If you wish to succeed the first thing you must do is surrender to it."
Yeah. Expected that. Cadsuane's strength had always been her adaptability and her ability to pivot to change. Her being alive this long in the modern era was testament to that.
Her character's really fascinating that way. Flexible, and ruthless about it.
Still can't help with all the games and manipulation though. The epitome of the modern aes sedai.
With the way the White Tower has fractured though, there's precedence in separate factions of channelers calling themselves aes sedai. Maybe Taija will rebuild, maybe she won't.
Thanks for sharing.
Her character's really fascinating that way. Flexible, and ruthless about it.
Still can't help with all the games and manipulation though. The epitome of the modern aes sedai.
With the way the White Tower has fractured though, there's precedence in separate factions of channelers calling themselves aes sedai. Maybe Taija will rebuild, maybe she won't.
Thanks for sharing.
- Location
- Earth: Universe Meta - 1
Lan to the f***ing rescue again. He really does have one of the rarer powers for people who associate closely with the Aei Sedai. Being a responsible adult who isn't a dick.
I was going to say something similar. The good news is that, for everything else, she actually does want to help.
I am curious if she really does take the lesson about arrogance and assumptions to heart or not though. Almost dying and loosing the respect of someone important because of it is the sort of thing that could shake anyone.
Rand is growing into a good leader in his own right. I also wouldn't be surprised if Tel is helping him there too. Not in an advisory capacity or even as a mentor, but rather an information source. Explaining what a leader is, how they act and similar. Which Rand's madness ghost would likely agree with. At the same time, Tel may be biased, but he can inform Rand about some of The Dragon's flaws.
I was going to say something similar. The good news is that, for everything else, she actually does want to help.
I am curious if she really does take the lesson about arrogance and assumptions to heart or not though. Almost dying and loosing the respect of someone important because of it is the sort of thing that could shake anyone.
Rand is growing into a good leader in his own right. I also wouldn't be surprised if Tel is helping him there too. Not in an advisory capacity or even as a mentor, but rather an information source. Explaining what a leader is, how they act and similar. Which Rand's madness ghost would likely agree with. At the same time, Tel may be biased, but he can inform Rand about some of The Dragon's flaws.
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
It is going to be so annoying for Rand. Getting thoughtful advice and having the voice in his head rejecting it, claiming it is a plot, and setting him up to fail, but not being able to actually call out problems.
Interlude XVII - Tel v Asmodean
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue
Interlude XVII - Tel v Asmodean
The day after Tel's surrender to Rand
Tel tentatively reached out to grasp sadin. After the agonising pain that had come from his connection to the Gre… no the Dark One being cut, he'd been scared to even try for the first day. He had no idea how Lews Th, no, Rand had done it, but it was what it was. In a way it was actually very helpful. It left him with no chance of backsliding and also, he suspected, would make it harder for the Dark One to take revenge. A connection could go two ways after all.
Freedom. What a refreshing thought. Or was it freedom? He'd committed himself to something a long way from what he would have called freedom.
With a thought he seized hold of the raging torrent that was the male half of the Power, allowing only a trickle into him. The boy standing over him, distrust in his eyes and saidin filling him to bursting held Tel back from any more than that.
Saidin was as it always was, a storm of ecstatic power to be mastered and shaped, but now… He wanted to scream, to vomit, to cry. He'd thought what he'd heard about the taint was an exaggeration, but this was worse than he'd been told. Slick, oily filth oozed over him. He could taste it, feel it in every pore. How was Rand even able to tolerate this? It was horrific!
With a shudder he released saidin and met Rand's eyes. "T t that was the taint?" He couldn't believe he actually stammered. He was too thrown out of sorts by the feel of the taint to even be angry with himself for his momentary weakness.
Rand just nodded.
Fuck. Death was all he deserved, but channeling… that. Going mad or rotting to pieces. That wasn't going to happen, he couldn't allow it to happen. In a sudden movement Tel stepped close to Rand, gripping the man's arm tightly and looking straight into his eyes. He realised a moment later that he could have just gotten himself killed, but that didn't feel important right now.
"Rand, listen to me very carefully, this is possibly the most important piece of advice I'll ever give you." He spoke each word carefully, emphasising how absolutely, deadly serious he was. "I know you don't trust me and you have no reason to, but please, take my advice on this, I beg you. I want you to go to Taija, right now. You need to ask her exactly what it was she did before the War of Power. Make her talk about it, pretend to be curious, tell her you saw it in a dream, I don't care how, just get her talking! Then you are going to tell her about the taint, every horrible detail that you can. I'm sure you've been telling her it's not that bad. Grinning and bearing it and pretending to save her sensibilities. It's what I would have done." Wasn't that an irony! "Don't. Make her understand in any way you can."
"Why would I do that?" Rand protested. "What's the point? It just gives her another thing to worry about and she's already struggling under everything that's happened to her. No thanks to you." He muttered the last part.
Tel shook his head suppressing a flash of anger. Rand was right. "You don't even know what you have in her." He ignored the pain at what he'd lost, no thrown away. He'd had her support once. "You do realise this is exactly the sort of thing she got a third name for? In her mid hundreds. In an obscure field. While being bad at politics. Do you even have the faintest idea how impressive that is? No, of course you don't. Look, I'll explain that properly another time, but there is no one in this Age or the last that I would rather have thinking about the problem." Rand still looked dubious. "Just go, talk to her, now. Please!"
A couple of weeks later
Tel looked defiantly up at Rand, at first meeting his eyes without flinching, but then after a second he looked down. He was trying to redeem himself, not show defiance or assert dominance. The young man was in a foul mood about something, but when Tel had asked what was wrong he'd just snapped that it was none of his business. It had rankled, but he hardly had room to complain. Rand didn't trust him and he couldn't blame him for that.
"How can I trust you?" The younger man barked. "I don't even know the half of what you've done. What I do know sickens me." He laughed humourlessly. "Yet I'm stuck here, dependent on you for my survival. Dependent on someone who betrayed their cause twice over."
Tel winced. "I've sworn to follow and obey you Rand." He knew it was inadequate as a response, his word, once a treasure he'd doled out sparingly, was worth less than mud now. So, he sighed and tamped down on the resentment bubbling up inside him. "If I was playing some kind of elaborate game, it would be a very strange one. I had you at my mercy and then I placed myself at yours. I've taught you without hesitation. You've cut me off from the G… the Dark One's protections. I can't see what I could possibly gain from this." He grimaced, "other than my faint hope of being able to make up for my crimes. Haven't I obeyed every command you've given me?"
"Hrmph," Rand grunted in response, clearly unsatisfied by Tel's answer. "And if I told you to clean my apartments using a paint brush? Would you still maintain your facade of humility?"
Anger flashed across Tel's face before he firmly strangled it. He had known this wouldn't be easy. "I would tell you that there are better uses for me and then if you nevertheless insisted, I would do it."
"Hrmph." Rand grunted again and then stalked out without another word.
Tel stood there for a moment. How dare the boy speak to him like this? And then just storm out as if Tel had caused him offence! This was more than Lews Therin at his worst! Yet it was no more than he deserved. Before the War menial labour had been a common punishment for trainee channelers, to illustrate to them that if they were going to waste their instructors' time their own would be wasted and because pointless labour was the very opposite of what it meant to be aes sedai.
He thought back to his own early education in the Power and the following years he'd spent bouncing between athletics development camps and the tutelage of various aes sedai. He'd been a headstrong youth.
It enraged him to have the reincarnation of the man he had blamed for so many of his woes speak to him like this. But. He needed to suck it up. There was no way back other than accepting the consequences of his actions. In full. Nothing else could ever be enough. If he was honest, nothing could ever be enough, but he would do what he could. He'd given up once, never again.
He was going to need to find a paintbrush. Also a bucket of water and soap. This was going to truly suck. However, Tel would be damned a second time over if he wouldn't do the best job he could do.
Another couple of weeks later
"So that's enough about logistics, I can see your eyes are glazing over." Tel ignored Rand's scowl. "If you're feeling well enough rested, we can work on fine control in channeling. You've got more than enough Power, but someone who knows what they're doing will just out spin you with no trouble. The first exercise I want to work on helps develop faster spinning skills. We'll combine it with a new web as well. It's pushing far too fast really, but I think you can handle it."
Shortly after Cadsuane's fight with Taija
Tel was angry beyond reason. Did they not know what Taija must be going through?! Obviously he avoided her as much as he could, but he kept his ears open, saw her occasionally from a distance. She was a wreck. This gang of teenagers might not be able to read her, most of them had the emotional intelligence of a spoon, no that was unfair, but they were still basically children with all that entailed.
Rand had forbidden him from speaking about her, which didn't help. He could see why. The boy wanted to protect her from him, but it still rankled.
"How did you allow this to happen al'Thor? What were you thinking?" He was almost spitting with rage, his promised subservience all but forgotten. "Can't you see what a mess she's in and then you let your pet aes sedai loose on her?!"
Fortunately Rand chose to overlook his disobedience of the command not to speak about Taija, he seemed nearly as angry as Tel in fact, although his anger was directed elsewhere. "How was I flaming meant to know she'd do something so insane? She bloody well decided Taija couldn't channel and went to teach her some discipline. I put a stop to it as soon as I found out!"
"Lucky for her that you did from what I heard," Tel couldn't help but feel a bit of pride, misplaced as it was given everything that had happened between them. Beating the absolute shit out of what was apparently the top aes sedai of this age, who had a paralis net no less. Taija probably didn't even know what a paralis net was. "That reminds me, we need to think of a way for you to tell Taija about Cadsuane's paralis net to make sure she knows what's going on there.
Rand nodded sourly, "of course." There was clearly more on his mind though, "it's just so hard to know what's going on in her head. She won't talk about her problems or what's bothering her and the sometimes someone just pushes her too far. I've dealt with Cadsuane, I don't think she'll be causing problems with her again." Tel wasn't so sure about that, he'd seen that kind of woman before, but he held his peace and didn't interrupt. "It's everything else though."
Well maybe here was another way that he could make himself useful to Rand and help to undo some of the pain he'd inflicted on Taija. The rage was already fading as he put his thoughts in order.
"Alright, we should probably discuss how to deal with people like Cadsuane, but first if you want to help Taija, you're going to need to understand her better. I can't tell you everything, but I've known her for a long time." He sighed. "Firstly you need to keep in mind that she's under an incredible amount of stress. She's basically lost everything, every single one of her friends has been dead for 3,000 years. Her whole civilisation, everything she knew, everything she fought for is long gone. I think it's hard to understand for someone who wasn't there."
Rand interrupted coldly, "is this a roundabout way of trying to make me feel sympathy for you? Because it won't work."
Tel shook his head stifling a flare of anger, it wasn't an unreasonable thing to say. "I made my choices and I'll pay the price for them. Taija didn't, but she's paying anyway." He took a breath and composed his thoughts again. "What this means is that she's going to be more prone to sudden bursts of emotion, whether it's anger or sadness. There isn't much that you can do about that, but there are some things…"
Tel continued with telling Rand what he could about how to work with Taija. It hurt, drawing on his memories of the fifteen years he'd spent with her, but that was no more than he deserved. At least the pain was, in a way cathartic, allowing him to do a small part to improve her life.
"… Finally, you need to keep an eye out for signs that she's hitting her limit. She will absolutely run herself into the ground and then struggle with frustration because she's not concentrating. The warning sign that you need to look out for is that she'll stop talking to anyone that she doesn't have to and just withdraw into herself as much as she can. She'll do the same when she's really concentrating on something, but then she'll often chew on her bottom lip or stick her tongue out a little and look a bit cross-eyed. Best not to bother her then. When it's stress she'll look like she's trying to curl in on herself and get snappy at small things. If that happens, the best thing to do is feed her some chocolate, give her a hug and then make her go to bed."
Tel paused, "do you have chocolate? I don't think I've seen any." He paused again, "also she's quite picky about who's allowed to touch her, so be careful with the hugs. Maybe Aleksi?"
He sighed, this was getting silly. "Look, the key point is she will absolutely work herself to the point where she forgets to eat or sleep. If she looks like she's pushing herself too hard, make sure someone brings her food and makes her eat and that she's pushed into bed each night. If you can do that she'll be alright."
Interlude XVII - Tel v Asmodean
The day after Tel's surrender to Rand
Tel tentatively reached out to grasp sadin. After the agonising pain that had come from his connection to the Gre… no the Dark One being cut, he'd been scared to even try for the first day. He had no idea how Lews Th, no, Rand had done it, but it was what it was. In a way it was actually very helpful. It left him with no chance of backsliding and also, he suspected, would make it harder for the Dark One to take revenge. A connection could go two ways after all.
Freedom. What a refreshing thought. Or was it freedom? He'd committed himself to something a long way from what he would have called freedom.
With a thought he seized hold of the raging torrent that was the male half of the Power, allowing only a trickle into him. The boy standing over him, distrust in his eyes and saidin filling him to bursting held Tel back from any more than that.
Saidin was as it always was, a storm of ecstatic power to be mastered and shaped, but now… He wanted to scream, to vomit, to cry. He'd thought what he'd heard about the taint was an exaggeration, but this was worse than he'd been told. Slick, oily filth oozed over him. He could taste it, feel it in every pore. How was Rand even able to tolerate this? It was horrific!
With a shudder he released saidin and met Rand's eyes. "T t that was the taint?" He couldn't believe he actually stammered. He was too thrown out of sorts by the feel of the taint to even be angry with himself for his momentary weakness.
Rand just nodded.
Fuck. Death was all he deserved, but channeling… that. Going mad or rotting to pieces. That wasn't going to happen, he couldn't allow it to happen. In a sudden movement Tel stepped close to Rand, gripping the man's arm tightly and looking straight into his eyes. He realised a moment later that he could have just gotten himself killed, but that didn't feel important right now.
"Rand, listen to me very carefully, this is possibly the most important piece of advice I'll ever give you." He spoke each word carefully, emphasising how absolutely, deadly serious he was. "I know you don't trust me and you have no reason to, but please, take my advice on this, I beg you. I want you to go to Taija, right now. You need to ask her exactly what it was she did before the War of Power. Make her talk about it, pretend to be curious, tell her you saw it in a dream, I don't care how, just get her talking! Then you are going to tell her about the taint, every horrible detail that you can. I'm sure you've been telling her it's not that bad. Grinning and bearing it and pretending to save her sensibilities. It's what I would have done." Wasn't that an irony! "Don't. Make her understand in any way you can."
"Why would I do that?" Rand protested. "What's the point? It just gives her another thing to worry about and she's already struggling under everything that's happened to her. No thanks to you." He muttered the last part.
Tel shook his head suppressing a flash of anger. Rand was right. "You don't even know what you have in her." He ignored the pain at what he'd lost, no thrown away. He'd had her support once. "You do realise this is exactly the sort of thing she got a third name for? In her mid hundreds. In an obscure field. While being bad at politics. Do you even have the faintest idea how impressive that is? No, of course you don't. Look, I'll explain that properly another time, but there is no one in this Age or the last that I would rather have thinking about the problem." Rand still looked dubious. "Just go, talk to her, now. Please!"
A couple of weeks later
Tel looked defiantly up at Rand, at first meeting his eyes without flinching, but then after a second he looked down. He was trying to redeem himself, not show defiance or assert dominance. The young man was in a foul mood about something, but when Tel had asked what was wrong he'd just snapped that it was none of his business. It had rankled, but he hardly had room to complain. Rand didn't trust him and he couldn't blame him for that.
"How can I trust you?" The younger man barked. "I don't even know the half of what you've done. What I do know sickens me." He laughed humourlessly. "Yet I'm stuck here, dependent on you for my survival. Dependent on someone who betrayed their cause twice over."
Tel winced. "I've sworn to follow and obey you Rand." He knew it was inadequate as a response, his word, once a treasure he'd doled out sparingly, was worth less than mud now. So, he sighed and tamped down on the resentment bubbling up inside him. "If I was playing some kind of elaborate game, it would be a very strange one. I had you at my mercy and then I placed myself at yours. I've taught you without hesitation. You've cut me off from the G… the Dark One's protections. I can't see what I could possibly gain from this." He grimaced, "other than my faint hope of being able to make up for my crimes. Haven't I obeyed every command you've given me?"
"Hrmph," Rand grunted in response, clearly unsatisfied by Tel's answer. "And if I told you to clean my apartments using a paint brush? Would you still maintain your facade of humility?"
Anger flashed across Tel's face before he firmly strangled it. He had known this wouldn't be easy. "I would tell you that there are better uses for me and then if you nevertheless insisted, I would do it."
"Hrmph." Rand grunted again and then stalked out without another word.
Tel stood there for a moment. How dare the boy speak to him like this? And then just storm out as if Tel had caused him offence! This was more than Lews Therin at his worst! Yet it was no more than he deserved. Before the War menial labour had been a common punishment for trainee channelers, to illustrate to them that if they were going to waste their instructors' time their own would be wasted and because pointless labour was the very opposite of what it meant to be aes sedai.
He thought back to his own early education in the Power and the following years he'd spent bouncing between athletics development camps and the tutelage of various aes sedai. He'd been a headstrong youth.
It enraged him to have the reincarnation of the man he had blamed for so many of his woes speak to him like this. But. He needed to suck it up. There was no way back other than accepting the consequences of his actions. In full. Nothing else could ever be enough. If he was honest, nothing could ever be enough, but he would do what he could. He'd given up once, never again.
He was going to need to find a paintbrush. Also a bucket of water and soap. This was going to truly suck. However, Tel would be damned a second time over if he wouldn't do the best job he could do.
Another couple of weeks later
"So that's enough about logistics, I can see your eyes are glazing over." Tel ignored Rand's scowl. "If you're feeling well enough rested, we can work on fine control in channeling. You've got more than enough Power, but someone who knows what they're doing will just out spin you with no trouble. The first exercise I want to work on helps develop faster spinning skills. We'll combine it with a new web as well. It's pushing far too fast really, but I think you can handle it."
Shortly after Cadsuane's fight with Taija
Tel was angry beyond reason. Did they not know what Taija must be going through?! Obviously he avoided her as much as he could, but he kept his ears open, saw her occasionally from a distance. She was a wreck. This gang of teenagers might not be able to read her, most of them had the emotional intelligence of a spoon, no that was unfair, but they were still basically children with all that entailed.
Rand had forbidden him from speaking about her, which didn't help. He could see why. The boy wanted to protect her from him, but it still rankled.
"How did you allow this to happen al'Thor? What were you thinking?" He was almost spitting with rage, his promised subservience all but forgotten. "Can't you see what a mess she's in and then you let your pet aes sedai loose on her?!"
Fortunately Rand chose to overlook his disobedience of the command not to speak about Taija, he seemed nearly as angry as Tel in fact, although his anger was directed elsewhere. "How was I flaming meant to know she'd do something so insane? She bloody well decided Taija couldn't channel and went to teach her some discipline. I put a stop to it as soon as I found out!"
"Lucky for her that you did from what I heard," Tel couldn't help but feel a bit of pride, misplaced as it was given everything that had happened between them. Beating the absolute shit out of what was apparently the top aes sedai of this age, who had a paralis net no less. Taija probably didn't even know what a paralis net was. "That reminds me, we need to think of a way for you to tell Taija about Cadsuane's paralis net to make sure she knows what's going on there.
Rand nodded sourly, "of course." There was clearly more on his mind though, "it's just so hard to know what's going on in her head. She won't talk about her problems or what's bothering her and the sometimes someone just pushes her too far. I've dealt with Cadsuane, I don't think she'll be causing problems with her again." Tel wasn't so sure about that, he'd seen that kind of woman before, but he held his peace and didn't interrupt. "It's everything else though."
Well maybe here was another way that he could make himself useful to Rand and help to undo some of the pain he'd inflicted on Taija. The rage was already fading as he put his thoughts in order.
"Alright, we should probably discuss how to deal with people like Cadsuane, but first if you want to help Taija, you're going to need to understand her better. I can't tell you everything, but I've known her for a long time." He sighed. "Firstly you need to keep in mind that she's under an incredible amount of stress. She's basically lost everything, every single one of her friends has been dead for 3,000 years. Her whole civilisation, everything she knew, everything she fought for is long gone. I think it's hard to understand for someone who wasn't there."
Rand interrupted coldly, "is this a roundabout way of trying to make me feel sympathy for you? Because it won't work."
Tel shook his head stifling a flare of anger, it wasn't an unreasonable thing to say. "I made my choices and I'll pay the price for them. Taija didn't, but she's paying anyway." He took a breath and composed his thoughts again. "What this means is that she's going to be more prone to sudden bursts of emotion, whether it's anger or sadness. There isn't much that you can do about that, but there are some things…"
Tel continued with telling Rand what he could about how to work with Taija. It hurt, drawing on his memories of the fifteen years he'd spent with her, but that was no more than he deserved. At least the pain was, in a way cathartic, allowing him to do a small part to improve her life.
"… Finally, you need to keep an eye out for signs that she's hitting her limit. She will absolutely run herself into the ground and then struggle with frustration because she's not concentrating. The warning sign that you need to look out for is that she'll stop talking to anyone that she doesn't have to and just withdraw into herself as much as she can. She'll do the same when she's really concentrating on something, but then she'll often chew on her bottom lip or stick her tongue out a little and look a bit cross-eyed. Best not to bother her then. When it's stress she'll look like she's trying to curl in on herself and get snappy at small things. If that happens, the best thing to do is feed her some chocolate, give her a hug and then make her go to bed."
Tel paused, "do you have chocolate? I don't think I've seen any." He paused again, "also she's quite picky about who's allowed to touch her, so be careful with the hugs. Maybe Aleksi?"
He sighed, this was getting silly. "Look, the key point is she will absolutely work herself to the point where she forgets to eat or sleep. If she looks like she's pushing herself too hard, make sure someone brings her food and makes her eat and that she's pushed into bed each night. If you can do that she'll be alright."
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
Say what you will about Tel, but sometimes, he is right. The wheel may weave other options, but if you don't trust to fate, trust to a generational genius.
- Location
- Earth: Universe Meta - 1
Yeah, because Rand was pissed too.
Good to see a redemption arc that makes sense. Tel is prideful, so in many ways this is the equivalent of torturing himself for his sins. On the other hand, he is given significant freedom and is actively helping to defeat the Dark One.
It also underscores how no one realized Cadsuane was so far off the mark.
The Wheel helps those that help themselves.
He's prideful and also practical. He chose an approach that let him make a real difference while also going against everything that made him go bad (desire to be in charge/pride and hate for LTT). So yes deliberate self-flagellation combined with how to best serve the Light.
If she was less of an aes sedai and had talked with people (and if Moriaine hadn't been fucking around) she'd have been set straight before it got that far.
Chapter XL - Problem Solving the Age of Legends Way
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter XL - Problem Solving the Age of Legends Way
The day after Taija's fight with Cadsuane she woke up emotionally drained. In fact she was just feeling exhausted, both physically and mentally. As well as the impact of the confrontation she'd just been working herself too hard.
Her to-do list was already overloaded and now she needed to add working out more ways to get round that woman's bloody ter'angreal onto it. She really couldn't rely on being able to cut all her webs like that in the future.
Still, there was something cathartic about smashing her into a wall repeatedly. Taija wouldn't lie to herself and say that she didn't intensely dislike the modern aes sedai. Well most of them anyway, there was always Bennae.
When she eventually hauled herself out of bed and started getting ready to face the world, there was a knock at her door shortly followed by Aleksi holding a teapot and what looked like a pair of buns on a plate. He gave her a smile and placed them down on her desk.
"Good morning Taija. Before you do anything else today, you're going to eat the buns and drink the tea." While he was smiling his voice brooked no disagreement.
"You don't need to ba…" Taija's definitely not petulant protest was ruined by her stomach rumbling. "Fine." She groused and poured herself some steaming hot tea. A few seconds later, her mouth full of sugared bun, she mumbled, "thank you, I appreciate it."
It didn't take her long to munch her way through the buns and after that Taija felt much better about the world. She was more awake and finally felt like she could deal with thinking about the taint again.
Maybe she should have a rethink? She'd been pursuing her current line of thinking with no success for too long now. Perhaps Alemhok Tissa's web wasn't the right base for what she wanted to do. The question was, what else could work?
Taija was already deep in thought as she went round her lush room collecting cushions and piling them up in an empty corner. However, she still allowed herself a moment to survey her work before she nodded and settled into the nest she'd created. Perhaps if she went back to first principles and then built up from there?
It didn't feel like very long later that Taija heard Aleksi's raised voice outside her door, although it was muffled by the thick wood. She scowled at the disruption to her concentration, but before she could settle back down the door opened and Aleksi stepped inside in looking thoroughly annoyed before closing it behind him. Actually, why was he hanging around outside her door in the first place?
"Cadsuane is outside." His anger made his words short. "She wants to see you and isn't taking no for an answer." He glanced at Taija's nest of cushions, but visibly decided not to comment. Probably wise of him.
She sighed and draw more of saidar. "For fuck's sake. Just what I need."
Aleksi nodded his agreement and turned back to the door, "I'll try to send her away again then."
"No… no I'll see her, she's just going to keep on bothering us if I don't, so send her in." Taija definitely didn't sound exasperated.
While Aleksi turned and headed out again Taija acted fast. First she got up and sat in a chair, smoothing her coat down. Then she quickly spun a series of inverted webs. First a web of illusion to hide her nest of cushions, Cadsuane didn't need to see that. Then around her a number of small objects, coins and bits of jewelery floated into the air and moved to the corners where they hovered, difficult to spot. If Cadsuane was coming looking for a fight the gloves would be off this time, she wouldn't leave the room alive.
Taija held the items against the wall and ceiling, but with webs on the edge of coming together. All it would take was a thought and they'd put enough power through the objects to accelerate them to ridiculous speeds. Attacking an aes sedai who'd had time to prepare the terrain was never wise.
A second later, when Cadsuane came into the room, she found Taija sat behind her desk, fingers folded together and elbows on the table, looking serious and professional. Taija resisted the urge to sigh at the sight of her, she really didn't want to have to talk. If she was honest, she'd probably prefer to just batter the woman into the ground with saidar again.
"Cadsuane," she twitched when Taija left her title out, "why are you here?" Her voice was blunt and uncompromising.
Beyond that twitch Cadsuane didn't show any sign of annoyance. "I wished to speak with you about yesterday actually."
Taija gave her an unimpressed look. "Really? I think we both made our positions clear, it doesn't feel like there's much more to be said. Was that all?"
She sighed. "I am not accustomed to this. However, I owe you a sincere apology. My behaviour was unacceptable. I was working on incorrect assumptions, but that was not a sufficient excuse. I accept full responsibility for what happened yesterday and wish to say that I am sorry." Despite the sigh, her face was still serene in the way of modern aes sedai. "Young al'Thor has explained your situation to me and that you are a true aes sedai from the Age of Legends." Taija suppressed a grimace, why did these people insist on calling it that? "Now that I know the truth, it is clear to me that the words I said to you were cruel and incorrect. My only excuse was that I had no idea of the truth. If I had known I would have welcomed you as an equal and a valued ally. As it was I thought you were an ignorant youth who could not even channel, seeking power through deception."
Taija gave her a flat stare, "would you still be apologising if it had turned out that you were stronger than me?"
She didn't blink, "I would like to think so."
"Hmm, fine. Apology accepted." Taija was surprised that she'd come to her and apologised like this. Pleasantly so. Maybe Rand made her do it. That didn't mean she had to like the woman though. "Was there anything else?"
If she was irritated by Taija's shortness with her, she didn't show it. "Only that I wish to offer my help with whatever you are trying to do. I realise you will have little trust for my advice, but perhaps I can help in other ways. If I understood you correctly, you are trying to solve the taint?"
Taija's anger faded as her mind went back to the problem that had been bothering her so much. "Yes, I'm trying." She emphasised the last word.
Was that a hint of wonder in Cadsuane's eyes? "And you really think you can? Even when no one in 3,000 years has been able to make the slightest difference? Even when your own society broke before it could be fixed?"
Taija felt a brief flash of anger at the implied criticism of her people, but Cadsuane seemed to be genuinely asking so she put it aside. "I don't know… I don't think things were really the same by the time of the Breaking. So many more years of war, so many more dead. Things were already starting to fall apart when I…" Taija trailed off briefly. "I need to believe that because…"
She seemed to understand. "Records of the Breaking are scant, but it is clear that many of the marvels of the Age of Legends…" That name again! "…had been lost by the end of the War. I cannot truly imagine what it would have been like during the Breaking, but I would think that distrust and the sheer level of destruction would have made any efforts futile."
Taija shrugged, it was a topic that she hated thinking about. "I hope so. I'm one woman, alone. In my time there would have been a huge team of experts, working together with resources, ter'angreal and the backing of every aes sedai on the planet." She paused. "In fact, I think there would have been several such teams both working together and competing to see who could solve the problem fastest. It would have been the entire world united to find a solution." The breath left your lungs in a huff, "I won't lie, I really don't know if I can solve this, but what can I do other than try?"
"Well I will say you do not lack ambition Taija sedai." Cadsuane gave you a searching look, then continued. "I will not claim to have your education in the Power, but I am not lacking in knowledge and skill myself. I will put myself at your disposal to offer whatever assistance I can."
"Thank you." Taija wasn't sure what Cadsuane could realistically do, but maybe there was something. Even if it was just having a decently powerful assistant to do basic tasks.
Cadsuane smiled thinly at her, "just let me know. Now, I should be going." She turned to leave and then paused. "You should be proud of your warder, not many men will stand up to me like he did, his loyalty is to be commended. Did you bond him shortly after you arrived in this time?"
"Bond him?" Did she mean when did he agree to be her warder? "I'm not quite sure when he became my warder, it just sort of happened."
They stared at each other in mutual incomprehension for a second. "I mean the warder bond, the weave that connects every warder to his aes sedai."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." There was meant to be a web? "You're saying that aes sedai place a web on their warders? Why?" Cadsuane looked confused at Taija's reference to a web. "A weave. I mean a weave, we call, called them webs."
"Oh. Yes." Taija could tell Cadsuane was doing her best not to look at her like she was an idiot. "The warder bond allows an aes sedai and her warder to feel a small part of what the other feels and gives some additional benefits to the warder such as greater vitality and the ability to sense shadowspawn. An aes sedai and her warder can also find each other wherever they are."
That felt… Deeply intrusive. Taija tried not to shudder. "So every warder is 'bonded' to their aes sedai with this web?"
Cadsuane nodded. "Every single one, did they not have this in your time?" She seemed surprised at the idea.
Taija shrugged, "it seems there are still some new things for me to discover. I've never heard of such a thing." She'd have to talk to Aleksi about this. Much as she liked him, there was no way she wanted that kind of intimacy with anybody.
"So you are not bonded to him?" Taija shook her head. "Would you like to see the weave? It would seem unfortunate not to be able to share more with your…" She searched for a word, "friend."
Wait was she implying Taija and Aleksi? Couldn't a man and a woman just be friends in this time? On the other hand she did really want to see the web. That would actually be interesting, perhaps she really was trying to be helpful. "He's just a friend," Taija corrected her, "but if you can do it without a subject, then yes please."
"Of course." It wasn't immediately clear whether Cadsuane meant her relationship status or the web, but she embraced saidar.
Taija tensed slightly ready to kill her where she stood if she made the wrong move. Fortunately she just spun a complex web of pure spirit, one of the more complicated things Taija had seen modern aes sedai spin actually. Still relatively crude, but ever so pretty.
"How fascinating," she breathed. Taija was already leaning forward, Cadsuane half forgotten, as she studied the web. Mentally tracing the flows through their intricate pattern she unconsciously murmured her thoughts, "so this is probably a quantum tunnel to provide the connection, yes… Presumably that lets them tap into the channeler's strength… Hmm…" Her attention fell on a complex swirl, it looked oddly familiar and she spoke up a bit. "The upper anterior counter-clockwise knot connecting laterally to the quantum tunnel, what does that do?"
Taija glanced up at Cadsuane who looks utterly bemused, "I am sorry Taija sedai, but I have no idea what you just asked me."
With a sigh she pulled herself back to the current world and tried to imagine she was speaking to a first year student. "This bit here," she pointed at a section of the web. "I was wondering what it did?"
Cadsuane actually looked a little embarrassed, frustration in her tone. "I am not sure… I can explain what the weave does, but I have never sought to break it down in such depth." Taija wondered if she could even if she wanted to, but it didn't matter.
"It looks a lot like parts of the web for compulsion. Does this bond give the ability to force a warder to do things?" She already suspected the answer. Disgusting. Another unpleasant surprise of this time.
Cadsuane answered slowly, "yes… It is little known, but it is possible." She saw Taija's expression darkening and hurriedly added, "but bonding a man against his will is considered by the White Tower to be as bad as a man forcing himself on a woman. One of the greatest crimes an aes sedai can commit."
"I see." Taija noted that she didn't say whether the men were aware of that part of the bond or how common its use was once they were bonded. She hadn't told her about it until she asked after all. "This has given me much to think about Cadsuane sedai. Thank you for your time, I will consider about how you can help me with the taint."
"Thank you Taija sedai." She gave Taija a polite nod before turning to leave again.
She was definitely going to have to talk to Aleksi about this. There was absolutely no way she would bond him or anyone else though. What a vile idea! She could probably tweak the web if she really wanted to to remove the compulsion elements, but regardless she didn't want him or anyone else in her head.
She should probably have a word with Lan too. It would no doubt piss Moiraine off if she found out, but she needed to check that he did consent to being bonded. Also that he was fully aware of the potential consequences.
Thinking of Moiraine, Taija did need to speak to her too. She really had let things go too far there. She had good reasons to dislike her, but after her conversation with Lan it was harder to deny that her problems with Moiraine were at least in part due to cultural clashes and misunderstandings rather than a fundamental difference in goals. She probably owed her an apology for threatening to kill her too.
Life could be so difficult. She'd do it tomorrow, enough hard conversations for one day. For now she wanted to think about the taint.
=======
The next morning Taija went for a run as she tried to do at least every other day, Traveling out to grasslands somewhere far from Tear. Then after she'd washed and mentally shored herself up she headed for Moiraine's rooms.
There was a pause after she knocked on her door and then she heard Moiraine's musical voice, "come in."
Taija sighed to herself and stood up straighter. Chin up and game face on. Without hesitating any more Taija pushed the door open and stepped in. "Moiraine sedai, sorry for bothering you. I was hoping we could speak."
Moiraine's gaze was as serene as ever, but there was a certain coolness in her voice. "Of course Taija sedai, what can I do for you?
Taija resisted the urge to grit her teeth. "I wanted to apologise actually. I know we've had our disagreements, but I was out of line when you came to speak to me about Aleksi, I shouldn't have threatened you like that." She ran her hand awkwardly through her hair struggling to meet Moiraine's eyes. This sort of thing was never easy, even in her own time.
Moiraine blinked a couple of times. "Thank you Taija sedai, I appreciate that." Other than that she didn't react. Taija suppressed a flash of irritation, she really disliked modern aes sedais' aloofness and serenity. How was she meant to know what to say to them when they barely reacted to anything?
The silence extended until she broke it, "I was hoping we could clear the air between us. We should be able to work together better than this. I know you've spent your life working to find the Dragon, Rand, and have been devoted to helping him since you found him. Equally, you know I'm as devoted to the Light as anyone. Yet we try to avoid each other and half the time can barely exchange a civil word."
Moiraine didn't interrupt, just sat and listened so Taija continued, shifting uncomfortably under her gaze as she spoke.
"I think part of this is… cultural clash. I'm not stupid." Taija didn't give her the chance to contradict her. "I realise that there are things about the way I behave that are… wrong or annoying to your kind of aes sedai. It's not deliberate." She hesitated, she was trying to be honest. "It's mostly not deliberate. But you have to understand that social rules, normality, expectations were different in my time. Equally, many things that today's aes sedai do are, or would be, considered extremely poor behaviour for aes sedai in my time. I'm not saying they're wrong," she hurriedly added, although obviously she thought they were, "but it can't help but affect the way I see them. It might be helpful to just sit down and talk about what things we do that annoy each other and how it makes us feel. Then we can explain why we do things. I don't expect either of us to necessarily change our ways, but perhaps if we understand each other better we can move forward with a bit more harmony."
Moiraine just looked at her for a couple of long seconds and then grimaced, the first proper expression Taija had seen from her since she came in. "I must say you are full of surprises Taija sedai. This solution you offer is perhaps an excellent example of what you have just said. It is not something that any aes sedai from this time would ever suggest." Taija opened her mouth to justify yourself and Moiraine held up a hand to stop her. "I am not saying I will not do it, just that it perhaps illustrates the problem. I appreciate your apology. In the spirit of openness that you suggest I too shall be open with you."
Her eyes seem to pierce into Taija as she continued. "I was attempting to use your own methods when I came to you to speak about Aleksi. To talk about the risks in full so that we could have an open discussion as I had judged you would prefer. I did not appreciate the death threats when I was trying to reach out and play by your rules. I know you pride yourself on your receptiveness to logical argument, but your reaction to me was anything but that."
A flash of anger shot through Taija, how dare she turn this around onto her?! A moment later she'd ruthlessly suppressed it. She was trying to resolve things like an adult rather than with sniffing and obscure comments. Also Moiraine did have at least a little bit of a point.
Taija nodded and chose her words carefully. "That is fair, I dismissed your arguments because they didn't fit with what I wanted to be true and I shouldn't have leapt to death threats, I'll repeat my apology for that." She'd still kill her if she tried to sever Aleksi though. "However, I'd ask you to look at it from my perspective too. We already had a strained relationship and you came in and seemed to be trying to convince me that we needed to immediately sever the best friend I have left alive." She certainly wasn't going to elaborate on how terrified of being alone she was even without that. "I've spent time researching the taint and your time's views," she just stopped herself from saying prejudices, "on male channelers. I understand your perspective better now, but there are other solutions."
Moiraine looked away for a second, her lips turning down. "Very well. I did approach you in the wrong manner. I should have been clearer that I did not intend to be a threat to your friend. That would make anyone react badly."
Talking to people could be hard and uncomfortable, but sometimes it really did work. "Thank you Moiraine sedai."
She hesitated, "you mentioned other solutions… Cadsuane mentioned you were seeking a way to remove the taint. Do you really think it is possible?" There was just a hint of wonder, or maybe hope in her voice.
Taija shrugged awkwardly, "to be entirely honest with you, I don't know. I think so… I think there must be. There has to be. But… the real question is whether I can do it. I think your people gave up a long time ago, but there would have been huge efforts made during the Breaking with no success, so…" Taija clamped down on the despair that threatened to bubble up. "In the end I have to try because I don't think there's anyone else. I can't just stand by and watch it destroy Aleksi and Rand along with every other man unlucky enough to be born with the spark."
"A noble goal…" Moiraine seemed a bit lost for words, Taija wasn't sure she believed she could do it, but then she clearly reached a decision. "If there is anything that I can do to help you with it, all you need to do is ask and you will have my support."
Taija doubted she could be of much help, but it was a nice gesture. "Thank you."
There was a moment of more companionable silence and then Moiraine sighed. "So, back to business. Shall I go first?" Without waiting for an answer she continued and Taija braced herself for her criticism.
========
For anyone looking for more WoT fanfiction, Tyranniod Overlords on SpaceBattles has started writing an interesting looking one based in the Age of Legends during the Collapse. A rather more dystopian take than Taija's experience, but the world is a big place and she was a successful up and comer. Do check it out. All Legends End (Wheel of Time AU) (discussion welcome)
Chapter XL - Problem Solving the Age of Legends Way
The day after Taija's fight with Cadsuane she woke up emotionally drained. In fact she was just feeling exhausted, both physically and mentally. As well as the impact of the confrontation she'd just been working herself too hard.
Her to-do list was already overloaded and now she needed to add working out more ways to get round that woman's bloody ter'angreal onto it. She really couldn't rely on being able to cut all her webs like that in the future.
Still, there was something cathartic about smashing her into a wall repeatedly. Taija wouldn't lie to herself and say that she didn't intensely dislike the modern aes sedai. Well most of them anyway, there was always Bennae.
When she eventually hauled herself out of bed and started getting ready to face the world, there was a knock at her door shortly followed by Aleksi holding a teapot and what looked like a pair of buns on a plate. He gave her a smile and placed them down on her desk.
"Good morning Taija. Before you do anything else today, you're going to eat the buns and drink the tea." While he was smiling his voice brooked no disagreement.
"You don't need to ba…" Taija's definitely not petulant protest was ruined by her stomach rumbling. "Fine." She groused and poured herself some steaming hot tea. A few seconds later, her mouth full of sugared bun, she mumbled, "thank you, I appreciate it."
It didn't take her long to munch her way through the buns and after that Taija felt much better about the world. She was more awake and finally felt like she could deal with thinking about the taint again.
Maybe she should have a rethink? She'd been pursuing her current line of thinking with no success for too long now. Perhaps Alemhok Tissa's web wasn't the right base for what she wanted to do. The question was, what else could work?
Taija was already deep in thought as she went round her lush room collecting cushions and piling them up in an empty corner. However, she still allowed herself a moment to survey her work before she nodded and settled into the nest she'd created. Perhaps if she went back to first principles and then built up from there?
It didn't feel like very long later that Taija heard Aleksi's raised voice outside her door, although it was muffled by the thick wood. She scowled at the disruption to her concentration, but before she could settle back down the door opened and Aleksi stepped inside in looking thoroughly annoyed before closing it behind him. Actually, why was he hanging around outside her door in the first place?
"Cadsuane is outside." His anger made his words short. "She wants to see you and isn't taking no for an answer." He glanced at Taija's nest of cushions, but visibly decided not to comment. Probably wise of him.
She sighed and draw more of saidar. "For fuck's sake. Just what I need."
Aleksi nodded his agreement and turned back to the door, "I'll try to send her away again then."
"No… no I'll see her, she's just going to keep on bothering us if I don't, so send her in." Taija definitely didn't sound exasperated.
While Aleksi turned and headed out again Taija acted fast. First she got up and sat in a chair, smoothing her coat down. Then she quickly spun a series of inverted webs. First a web of illusion to hide her nest of cushions, Cadsuane didn't need to see that. Then around her a number of small objects, coins and bits of jewelery floated into the air and moved to the corners where they hovered, difficult to spot. If Cadsuane was coming looking for a fight the gloves would be off this time, she wouldn't leave the room alive.
Taija held the items against the wall and ceiling, but with webs on the edge of coming together. All it would take was a thought and they'd put enough power through the objects to accelerate them to ridiculous speeds. Attacking an aes sedai who'd had time to prepare the terrain was never wise.
A second later, when Cadsuane came into the room, she found Taija sat behind her desk, fingers folded together and elbows on the table, looking serious and professional. Taija resisted the urge to sigh at the sight of her, she really didn't want to have to talk. If she was honest, she'd probably prefer to just batter the woman into the ground with saidar again.
"Cadsuane," she twitched when Taija left her title out, "why are you here?" Her voice was blunt and uncompromising.
Beyond that twitch Cadsuane didn't show any sign of annoyance. "I wished to speak with you about yesterday actually."
Taija gave her an unimpressed look. "Really? I think we both made our positions clear, it doesn't feel like there's much more to be said. Was that all?"
She sighed. "I am not accustomed to this. However, I owe you a sincere apology. My behaviour was unacceptable. I was working on incorrect assumptions, but that was not a sufficient excuse. I accept full responsibility for what happened yesterday and wish to say that I am sorry." Despite the sigh, her face was still serene in the way of modern aes sedai. "Young al'Thor has explained your situation to me and that you are a true aes sedai from the Age of Legends." Taija suppressed a grimace, why did these people insist on calling it that? "Now that I know the truth, it is clear to me that the words I said to you were cruel and incorrect. My only excuse was that I had no idea of the truth. If I had known I would have welcomed you as an equal and a valued ally. As it was I thought you were an ignorant youth who could not even channel, seeking power through deception."
Taija gave her a flat stare, "would you still be apologising if it had turned out that you were stronger than me?"
She didn't blink, "I would like to think so."
"Hmm, fine. Apology accepted." Taija was surprised that she'd come to her and apologised like this. Pleasantly so. Maybe Rand made her do it. That didn't mean she had to like the woman though. "Was there anything else?"
If she was irritated by Taija's shortness with her, she didn't show it. "Only that I wish to offer my help with whatever you are trying to do. I realise you will have little trust for my advice, but perhaps I can help in other ways. If I understood you correctly, you are trying to solve the taint?"
Taija's anger faded as her mind went back to the problem that had been bothering her so much. "Yes, I'm trying." She emphasised the last word.
Was that a hint of wonder in Cadsuane's eyes? "And you really think you can? Even when no one in 3,000 years has been able to make the slightest difference? Even when your own society broke before it could be fixed?"
Taija felt a brief flash of anger at the implied criticism of her people, but Cadsuane seemed to be genuinely asking so she put it aside. "I don't know… I don't think things were really the same by the time of the Breaking. So many more years of war, so many more dead. Things were already starting to fall apart when I…" Taija trailed off briefly. "I need to believe that because…"
She seemed to understand. "Records of the Breaking are scant, but it is clear that many of the marvels of the Age of Legends…" That name again! "…had been lost by the end of the War. I cannot truly imagine what it would have been like during the Breaking, but I would think that distrust and the sheer level of destruction would have made any efforts futile."
Taija shrugged, it was a topic that she hated thinking about. "I hope so. I'm one woman, alone. In my time there would have been a huge team of experts, working together with resources, ter'angreal and the backing of every aes sedai on the planet." She paused. "In fact, I think there would have been several such teams both working together and competing to see who could solve the problem fastest. It would have been the entire world united to find a solution." The breath left your lungs in a huff, "I won't lie, I really don't know if I can solve this, but what can I do other than try?"
"Well I will say you do not lack ambition Taija sedai." Cadsuane gave you a searching look, then continued. "I will not claim to have your education in the Power, but I am not lacking in knowledge and skill myself. I will put myself at your disposal to offer whatever assistance I can."
"Thank you." Taija wasn't sure what Cadsuane could realistically do, but maybe there was something. Even if it was just having a decently powerful assistant to do basic tasks.
Cadsuane smiled thinly at her, "just let me know. Now, I should be going." She turned to leave and then paused. "You should be proud of your warder, not many men will stand up to me like he did, his loyalty is to be commended. Did you bond him shortly after you arrived in this time?"
"Bond him?" Did she mean when did he agree to be her warder? "I'm not quite sure when he became my warder, it just sort of happened."
They stared at each other in mutual incomprehension for a second. "I mean the warder bond, the weave that connects every warder to his aes sedai."
"I have no idea what you're talking about." There was meant to be a web? "You're saying that aes sedai place a web on their warders? Why?" Cadsuane looked confused at Taija's reference to a web. "A weave. I mean a weave, we call, called them webs."
"Oh. Yes." Taija could tell Cadsuane was doing her best not to look at her like she was an idiot. "The warder bond allows an aes sedai and her warder to feel a small part of what the other feels and gives some additional benefits to the warder such as greater vitality and the ability to sense shadowspawn. An aes sedai and her warder can also find each other wherever they are."
That felt… Deeply intrusive. Taija tried not to shudder. "So every warder is 'bonded' to their aes sedai with this web?"
Cadsuane nodded. "Every single one, did they not have this in your time?" She seemed surprised at the idea.
Taija shrugged, "it seems there are still some new things for me to discover. I've never heard of such a thing." She'd have to talk to Aleksi about this. Much as she liked him, there was no way she wanted that kind of intimacy with anybody.
"So you are not bonded to him?" Taija shook her head. "Would you like to see the weave? It would seem unfortunate not to be able to share more with your…" She searched for a word, "friend."
Wait was she implying Taija and Aleksi? Couldn't a man and a woman just be friends in this time? On the other hand she did really want to see the web. That would actually be interesting, perhaps she really was trying to be helpful. "He's just a friend," Taija corrected her, "but if you can do it without a subject, then yes please."
"Of course." It wasn't immediately clear whether Cadsuane meant her relationship status or the web, but she embraced saidar.
Taija tensed slightly ready to kill her where she stood if she made the wrong move. Fortunately she just spun a complex web of pure spirit, one of the more complicated things Taija had seen modern aes sedai spin actually. Still relatively crude, but ever so pretty.
"How fascinating," she breathed. Taija was already leaning forward, Cadsuane half forgotten, as she studied the web. Mentally tracing the flows through their intricate pattern she unconsciously murmured her thoughts, "so this is probably a quantum tunnel to provide the connection, yes… Presumably that lets them tap into the channeler's strength… Hmm…" Her attention fell on a complex swirl, it looked oddly familiar and she spoke up a bit. "The upper anterior counter-clockwise knot connecting laterally to the quantum tunnel, what does that do?"
Taija glanced up at Cadsuane who looks utterly bemused, "I am sorry Taija sedai, but I have no idea what you just asked me."
With a sigh she pulled herself back to the current world and tried to imagine she was speaking to a first year student. "This bit here," she pointed at a section of the web. "I was wondering what it did?"
Cadsuane actually looked a little embarrassed, frustration in her tone. "I am not sure… I can explain what the weave does, but I have never sought to break it down in such depth." Taija wondered if she could even if she wanted to, but it didn't matter.
"It looks a lot like parts of the web for compulsion. Does this bond give the ability to force a warder to do things?" She already suspected the answer. Disgusting. Another unpleasant surprise of this time.
Cadsuane answered slowly, "yes… It is little known, but it is possible." She saw Taija's expression darkening and hurriedly added, "but bonding a man against his will is considered by the White Tower to be as bad as a man forcing himself on a woman. One of the greatest crimes an aes sedai can commit."
"I see." Taija noted that she didn't say whether the men were aware of that part of the bond or how common its use was once they were bonded. She hadn't told her about it until she asked after all. "This has given me much to think about Cadsuane sedai. Thank you for your time, I will consider about how you can help me with the taint."
"Thank you Taija sedai." She gave Taija a polite nod before turning to leave again.
She was definitely going to have to talk to Aleksi about this. There was absolutely no way she would bond him or anyone else though. What a vile idea! She could probably tweak the web if she really wanted to to remove the compulsion elements, but regardless she didn't want him or anyone else in her head.
She should probably have a word with Lan too. It would no doubt piss Moiraine off if she found out, but she needed to check that he did consent to being bonded. Also that he was fully aware of the potential consequences.
Thinking of Moiraine, Taija did need to speak to her too. She really had let things go too far there. She had good reasons to dislike her, but after her conversation with Lan it was harder to deny that her problems with Moiraine were at least in part due to cultural clashes and misunderstandings rather than a fundamental difference in goals. She probably owed her an apology for threatening to kill her too.
Life could be so difficult. She'd do it tomorrow, enough hard conversations for one day. For now she wanted to think about the taint.
=======
The next morning Taija went for a run as she tried to do at least every other day, Traveling out to grasslands somewhere far from Tear. Then after she'd washed and mentally shored herself up she headed for Moiraine's rooms.
There was a pause after she knocked on her door and then she heard Moiraine's musical voice, "come in."
Taija sighed to herself and stood up straighter. Chin up and game face on. Without hesitating any more Taija pushed the door open and stepped in. "Moiraine sedai, sorry for bothering you. I was hoping we could speak."
Moiraine's gaze was as serene as ever, but there was a certain coolness in her voice. "Of course Taija sedai, what can I do for you?
Taija resisted the urge to grit her teeth. "I wanted to apologise actually. I know we've had our disagreements, but I was out of line when you came to speak to me about Aleksi, I shouldn't have threatened you like that." She ran her hand awkwardly through her hair struggling to meet Moiraine's eyes. This sort of thing was never easy, even in her own time.
Moiraine blinked a couple of times. "Thank you Taija sedai, I appreciate that." Other than that she didn't react. Taija suppressed a flash of irritation, she really disliked modern aes sedais' aloofness and serenity. How was she meant to know what to say to them when they barely reacted to anything?
The silence extended until she broke it, "I was hoping we could clear the air between us. We should be able to work together better than this. I know you've spent your life working to find the Dragon, Rand, and have been devoted to helping him since you found him. Equally, you know I'm as devoted to the Light as anyone. Yet we try to avoid each other and half the time can barely exchange a civil word."
Moiraine didn't interrupt, just sat and listened so Taija continued, shifting uncomfortably under her gaze as she spoke.
"I think part of this is… cultural clash. I'm not stupid." Taija didn't give her the chance to contradict her. "I realise that there are things about the way I behave that are… wrong or annoying to your kind of aes sedai. It's not deliberate." She hesitated, she was trying to be honest. "It's mostly not deliberate. But you have to understand that social rules, normality, expectations were different in my time. Equally, many things that today's aes sedai do are, or would be, considered extremely poor behaviour for aes sedai in my time. I'm not saying they're wrong," she hurriedly added, although obviously she thought they were, "but it can't help but affect the way I see them. It might be helpful to just sit down and talk about what things we do that annoy each other and how it makes us feel. Then we can explain why we do things. I don't expect either of us to necessarily change our ways, but perhaps if we understand each other better we can move forward with a bit more harmony."
Moiraine just looked at her for a couple of long seconds and then grimaced, the first proper expression Taija had seen from her since she came in. "I must say you are full of surprises Taija sedai. This solution you offer is perhaps an excellent example of what you have just said. It is not something that any aes sedai from this time would ever suggest." Taija opened her mouth to justify yourself and Moiraine held up a hand to stop her. "I am not saying I will not do it, just that it perhaps illustrates the problem. I appreciate your apology. In the spirit of openness that you suggest I too shall be open with you."
Her eyes seem to pierce into Taija as she continued. "I was attempting to use your own methods when I came to you to speak about Aleksi. To talk about the risks in full so that we could have an open discussion as I had judged you would prefer. I did not appreciate the death threats when I was trying to reach out and play by your rules. I know you pride yourself on your receptiveness to logical argument, but your reaction to me was anything but that."
A flash of anger shot through Taija, how dare she turn this around onto her?! A moment later she'd ruthlessly suppressed it. She was trying to resolve things like an adult rather than with sniffing and obscure comments. Also Moiraine did have at least a little bit of a point.
Taija nodded and chose her words carefully. "That is fair, I dismissed your arguments because they didn't fit with what I wanted to be true and I shouldn't have leapt to death threats, I'll repeat my apology for that." She'd still kill her if she tried to sever Aleksi though. "However, I'd ask you to look at it from my perspective too. We already had a strained relationship and you came in and seemed to be trying to convince me that we needed to immediately sever the best friend I have left alive." She certainly wasn't going to elaborate on how terrified of being alone she was even without that. "I've spent time researching the taint and your time's views," she just stopped herself from saying prejudices, "on male channelers. I understand your perspective better now, but there are other solutions."
Moiraine looked away for a second, her lips turning down. "Very well. I did approach you in the wrong manner. I should have been clearer that I did not intend to be a threat to your friend. That would make anyone react badly."
Talking to people could be hard and uncomfortable, but sometimes it really did work. "Thank you Moiraine sedai."
She hesitated, "you mentioned other solutions… Cadsuane mentioned you were seeking a way to remove the taint. Do you really think it is possible?" There was just a hint of wonder, or maybe hope in her voice.
Taija shrugged awkwardly, "to be entirely honest with you, I don't know. I think so… I think there must be. There has to be. But… the real question is whether I can do it. I think your people gave up a long time ago, but there would have been huge efforts made during the Breaking with no success, so…" Taija clamped down on the despair that threatened to bubble up. "In the end I have to try because I don't think there's anyone else. I can't just stand by and watch it destroy Aleksi and Rand along with every other man unlucky enough to be born with the spark."
"A noble goal…" Moiraine seemed a bit lost for words, Taija wasn't sure she believed she could do it, but then she clearly reached a decision. "If there is anything that I can do to help you with it, all you need to do is ask and you will have my support."
Taija doubted she could be of much help, but it was a nice gesture. "Thank you."
There was a moment of more companionable silence and then Moiraine sighed. "So, back to business. Shall I go first?" Without waiting for an answer she continued and Taija braced herself for her criticism.
========
For anyone looking for more WoT fanfiction, Tyranniod Overlords on SpaceBattles has started writing an interesting looking one based in the Age of Legends during the Collapse. A rather more dystopian take than Taija's experience, but the world is a big place and she was a successful up and comer. Do check it out. All Legends End (Wheel of Time AU) (discussion welcome)
- Location
- U.S.
...The leading researchers on the physics of the One Power were Taija and Lanfear, right? Neither of whom was helping during the Breaking, obviously. And Taija's research team had been killed before that point. The fate of Lanfear's was probably no better.