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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"One choice, perhaps, that set all the rest."

He doesn't laugh, just wrinkles his nose a very little.

"The certainty of stubbornness, yes? Also necessity."

Raven's smile goes crooked again, though it does not match the darkness of his gaze.

"Possibly now it is time for the other side of the coin."

Moiraine tilts her head in order to look up at him, a flicker of suspicion in her glance.

"The other side of the coin from necessity? Do you mean whim?"

Raven tilts his head, the angle sharp and painful.

He does not blink.

"You are not so much a stranger to that, I do not think. Even if you are not so much for trusting it, either."

"... how I wish you could have met Siuan Sanche. She would have set you straight in almost no time at all," Moiraine informs him.

"But I do take your meaning, I believe."

"Or your meaning."

He reaches out to ruffle her hair, fingers gentle as they slip between the strands.

Raven might also be laughing.

Quietly.

"But sometimes they are almost the same thing. So."

She wrinkles her nose at him, but does not dispute it.

"In any case," she says, after a few moments of silence. "I suppose we shall see what lies ahead."

"I am thinking," Raven says, crooked smile returning, "that it will not so much be the same as what lies behind."

And that is not even close to being a terrible thing.

"Light send that may be so," the Aes Sedai responds, dryly.

Raven laughs.

"It is, perhaps, not so much the Light."

And then, of course, he pokes her.

With his foot.

"It is not so much you in this case, either," she retorts, and shifts to tuck her feet up beside her on the bed, out of reach of his.

He snorts.

"You are not so bad at wishful thinking, perhaps."

It is cute.

A slight smile curves her lips, and her dark-eyed glance sparkles with some secret knowledge.

"Perhaps. As you will."

And that is when Raven, pint sized and heavy, launches himself at his sister.

Ticklish is as ticklish does.

But at least he does not turn her clothing pink.

(Yet.)

Somehow, it is almost as though she has expected this.

(Perhaps it is only that she knows her brother.)

Even as she laughs, Moiraine opens herself to saidar, and as the faintest golden corona appears around her (to eyes that can see it here, in this world, that is), a weave of Air whirls around Raven, catching him up, spinning him around, and setting him on his feet.

Moiraine smiles serenely at him, and releases the weave.

Raven just laughs.

"Mostly it is as you will, Magpie."

Her grin is, for a moment, sharp, even as her eyes are bright.

"If not you alone. So."

Edited 2012-07-24 04:33 (UTC)

She inclines her head to Raven, still smiling.

"You have a point."

Raven laughs again.

"I am for having many points. Except, I think, when they are having me."

It is really not a surprise.

She shakes her head at that, and gets to her feet.

"Are you hungry? I do not believe that I have cookies on hand, but I am sure that we could find something."

"Or possibly something will be for finding us."

Raven fishes around in her pocket, looking for cookies.

(Or possibly eyeballs.)

"But it is not so terrible. I am always hungry."

"I know that, as it happens," she informs her. "It is why I asked."

"You, I think, do not so much have a need for that."

Still.

Moiraine arches an eyebrow, and waits.

Raven makes a face.

"If you are not for telling, I am also not."

Surprise!

She lets out a small huff of breath, smooths a hand down her skirts, and starts toward the kitchen, calling back to Raven,

"I believe that I shall have a cup of tea, and you are welcome to have something as well."

Raven laughs.

"I am, I think, welcome to many things."

And then, just to test her luck, Raven darts across the room to perch on Moiraine's shoulder.

Someone has to make sure she does not substitute coffee in at the last minute, surely.