blue_ajah | (no subject)

(no subject)

[After this.]

When Dale leaves, Moiraine sees him to the door and locks it after him, then returns to the sofa, where she curls up as she had been wont to do as a novice and sits quietly for a while, lost in her own thoughts.

Eventually, something occurs to her, and she glides down the hallway to her bedroom once more. This time, she retrieves Raven's feather from the pinewood box and holds it lightly in her hand, stroking it with the tips of her fingers.

How I wish I could speak with you.

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She nods, then turns her face into his shoulder and stays very still for several moments.

"I know," Moiraine says at last, slightly muffled. "But I do not wish for you to ever think that I would take you for granted."

Raven leans over to rest his cheek against her hair, the rest of him remaining unmoving save for the slow rise and fall of his breathing.

"Moiraine."

His voice is warm even as his smile is crooked.

"Sometimes, I am thinking, that is how love works."

He tugs her a little more tightly against him, arm wrapped firmly around her shoulders.

"Also family, yes?When we are needed, we come. Dire circumstances are not so much a necessity."

She laughs at that, soft and low.

"Then it is fortunate that the circumstances of this day are not what I would call dire."

Raven snorts, very quietly.

"That is not always for saying much."

Not for either of them, really.

"Perhaps not, at that."

She tilts her head in order to look up at him.

"And yet."

"And yet."

He doesn't quite laugh, just leans into her a little bit.

"You are, perhaps, not so much wanting me to guess."

"No," Moiraine murmurs. "No, I am not."

A soft breath.

"I spoke with Morpheus last night, Raven. In the Dreaming."

There is a moment where Raven goes stock-still.

Stone-still, even.

Something vast moves behind his eyes.

He does not blink.

"It was not so much a choice, that?"

Hers, his -- who can say?

"It was," she reassures him. "One might consider it an invitation; but he made it clear that if I did not wish his presence, he would depart."

Raven wrinkles his nose.

"Possibly he is for learning. That is, I think, not so bad a thing."

That Moiraine was not expecting him goes without saying.

"You are also for learning, yes? Then and now. So."

Moiraine gives him an exasperated look.

"Raven. You know perfectly well what I am capable of learning."

Raven gives her an exasperated look back.

"Possibly not for this conversation, I am thinking. I was not so much there."

Or was he?

"No, indeed you were not," she informs him, then lets out a quiet sigh and leans her head against his shoulder once more.

"And no. I would say that we have both learned, in the sense that you mean. The past is past, and will stay that way."

"It is often better, so."

Time travel is not for amateurs.

"But what will come, I think, is always changing."

"The Wheel weaves," she murmurs, not without a flicker of amusement.

Raven merely laughs, shaking his head.

He does not, however, let go of Moiraine.

"People are for making choices. It is not always so much the same."

She shakes her head, but does not argue.

"It has been some time."

Softly said.

"So much has happened, Raven. Both today, and over the past year and more."

"That, I am thinking, is how you know you are alive, yes?"

At this he moves away just enough to tilt her face up toward his, black eyes wide and bright.

"Things are always changing. Sometimes that is not so bad a thing."

"No," she agrees. "Sometimes it is not. Although it is often an uncertain thing."

"That, too, is not so bad."

Raven's grin is crooked.

"Certainty is very boring.

Moiraine sniffs.

"It is almost a certainty that you would think so."

After a measured pause, and with perfect serenity, she adds,

"Although I cannot precisely say that I disagree with you."

Raven laughs, bright and wild and warm.

"That, I am thinking, is only surprising for other people."

You know, almost all the people not in this room.

"Still, it is not so bad a thing to hear."

He will be smug later. So very, very smug.

"Which lack of certainties are not boring you today?"

"In a sense, it feels as though almost all my life ahead of this day has become uncertain."

There are very, very few people with whom the Aes Sedai is this open.

"Or perhaps since you gave me the choice of returning to Milliways, in fact."

Raven's smile is crooked and almost sweet.

"Freedom, too, has its price. But even the terror is mostly for being worth the cost."

He has never had much love for cages, has Raven.

"But you do not so much have to love it. It is new, yes?"

"Not so new as you might think; I am not ta'veren," she points out.

"But I was there to hear the day that Gitara spoke the Foretelling of Rand's birth, and knew what it meant. I knew what had to be done. I could not turn away, not from that-- but it was my choice to make and to pursue."

For all the many long years, no matter the price.