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May. 9th, 2005 08:26 pmShe no longer has nightmares. Not since the Tower of Ghenjei, not since returning to Dream's care. What mortal dreams she does have in sleep are untroubled by such fears.
(Save, of course, for the long horror of those days when Nyarlathotep was ascendent, but when the nightmare is present both in sleep and while awake and is in itself a once-beloved visage, matters might be expected to be different.)
It makes it more difficult now, in a way, although she will not tell him so.
* * * * *
Every night when she sleeps, every morning when she wakes, Dream is at her side, one pale hand lightly resting on shoulder or hip. He counts her breaths as if to mark out time by the moments of her own existence, confirming his own reality so. It helps him, she knows, after the shock of being thrown unexpectedly back into the Outer Dark-- and he is improving, becoming a little more stable with each day that passes.
She is not.
Some of her days are spent in the Library, reviewing everything she can find on the Pattern itself and its weaving. ("I will require a presence at Milliways," Destiny had said. "... you will be one of mine, as much as Dream's. More, in some ways.") In addition to the books and scrolls she reads, there is also always at hand one particular work-- Studies of Tel'aran'rhiod, by Corianin Nedeal. When she can stand the whisper of the turning pages no longer, similar as it is to Destiny's voice, Moiraine leaves the Library and walks in a mountain forest, or along a diamond-starred beach by an ocean of tears.
She avoids the Garden.
As she walks by the water, words echo in her mind. Roland's voice, reminding her: There is always a price to change ka. Lan, speaking in grave tones: When the price is high, that is how you know it is worth paying. Her own: Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain. The Wheel weaves. All of it is true, and none knows it better than the Aes Sedai.
"We believe that the dead may find shelter in Light in the palm of the Creator's hand," she had told Roland, and he had told her of a prayer, asking that the fallen be surrounded with light. She had always thought this would be so for her -- how could she not? -- until the day she had asked Death to take her from the turning of the Wheel, and return her to Morpheus. She had already committed to it -- Destiny's dry whisper had merely sealed it, irrevocably.
Done and written. When your story in the book is complete, Moiraine of the Aes Sedai, the bargain will be completed.
It is hard to breathe, she finds, and there is a darkness that lies over her vision. There is no physical reason for it, she knows, other than an awareness of what she has agreed to, winding around her like a woven rope around her throat, cutting off her breath. The weight of silence and of her own thoughts presses in on her, stifling her, and she finds herself in need of mortal company.
A short time later, the Aes Sedai vanishes from the Dreaming, for Milliways.
(Save, of course, for the long horror of those days when Nyarlathotep was ascendent, but when the nightmare is present both in sleep and while awake and is in itself a once-beloved visage, matters might be expected to be different.)
It makes it more difficult now, in a way, although she will not tell him so.
* * * * *
Every night when she sleeps, every morning when she wakes, Dream is at her side, one pale hand lightly resting on shoulder or hip. He counts her breaths as if to mark out time by the moments of her own existence, confirming his own reality so. It helps him, she knows, after the shock of being thrown unexpectedly back into the Outer Dark-- and he is improving, becoming a little more stable with each day that passes.
She is not.
Some of her days are spent in the Library, reviewing everything she can find on the Pattern itself and its weaving. ("I will require a presence at Milliways," Destiny had said. "... you will be one of mine, as much as Dream's. More, in some ways.") In addition to the books and scrolls she reads, there is also always at hand one particular work-- Studies of Tel'aran'rhiod, by Corianin Nedeal. When she can stand the whisper of the turning pages no longer, similar as it is to Destiny's voice, Moiraine leaves the Library and walks in a mountain forest, or along a diamond-starred beach by an ocean of tears.
She avoids the Garden.
As she walks by the water, words echo in her mind. Roland's voice, reminding her: There is always a price to change ka. Lan, speaking in grave tones: When the price is high, that is how you know it is worth paying. Her own: Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain. The Wheel weaves. All of it is true, and none knows it better than the Aes Sedai.
"We believe that the dead may find shelter in Light in the palm of the Creator's hand," she had told Roland, and he had told her of a prayer, asking that the fallen be surrounded with light. She had always thought this would be so for her -- how could she not? -- until the day she had asked Death to take her from the turning of the Wheel, and return her to Morpheus. She had already committed to it -- Destiny's dry whisper had merely sealed it, irrevocably.
Done and written. When your story in the book is complete, Moiraine of the Aes Sedai, the bargain will be completed.
It is hard to breathe, she finds, and there is a darkness that lies over her vision. There is no physical reason for it, she knows, other than an awareness of what she has agreed to, winding around her like a woven rope around her throat, cutting off her breath. The weight of silence and of her own thoughts presses in on her, stifling her, and she finds herself in need of mortal company.
A short time later, the Aes Sedai vanishes from the Dreaming, for Milliways.
