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[blue_ajah]

[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.

Comments

[blue_ajah]

She inclines her head to Raven, still smiling.

"You have a point."

[creator_raven]

Raven laughs again.

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

It is really not a surprise.

[blue_ajah]

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."

[creator_raven]

"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."

[blue_ajah]

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

[creator_raven]

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

Still.

[blue_ajah]

Moiraine arches an eyebrow, and waits.

[creator_raven]

Raven makes a face.

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

Surprise!

[blue_ajah]

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."

[creator_raven]

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.

[blue_ajah]

She evinces no sign of surprise as he lands, but merely sighs.

"You are indeed, as you well know, you vain creature."

She raises her hand to stroke his feathers, and glides from one room into another.

[creator_raven]

He flutters his wings and makes himself comfortable.

"Knowing me, I am thinking, is not always so bad a thing."

Just sometimes.

(Most times?)

[blue_ajah]

"I would not disagree."

She takes down two mugs from the cupboard shelf, and fills the kettle with water.

Moiraine sets it on the stove and considers it for a moment before flipping on the burner.

[creator_raven]

Raven in no way looks smug.

Unless someone is paying attention to him, that is.

Plus Moiraine's shoulder is comfortable.

Why would he move?

[blue_ajah]

While the kettle heats, she opens a blue ceramic canister, and measures out tea for both cups.

"If you prefer otherwise," Moiraine tells him, calmly, "this is when you should tell me."

[creator_raven]

"Tea, perhaps, is not so much a thing I am picky about."

Cookies, however, are another matter.

Pie is so-so.

[blue_ajah]

The Aes Sedai sniffs at that, but does not comment.

She places the prepared cups beside the small stove, and studies the steam now rising from the kettle with a critical eye.

[creator_raven]

Raven flutters his wings, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he does so.

The steam obligingly forms the shape of a bear.

An angry bear.

This angry bear is then eaten by a giant bird.

Surprise!

[blue_ajah]

A soft breath of laughter escapes her.

"Oh, Raven."

[creator_raven]

Raven caws his own rough laugh, even as a second, larger bear attempts to devour the bird.

Where did the flock of cousins come from?

No one knows.

Except whatever vicious mind is controlling all that steam.

Clearly.

[blue_ajah]

"Now you are showing off," she tells him, as the kettle begins to cry.

Moiraine lifts it from the burner, which she switches off, and pours both mugs full so that the tea may begin steeping.

Most in Milliways who observed this would wonder at the lack of a teapot from which to steep and pour, but she seems untroubled by it, at least outwardly.

[creator_raven]

"Not so much that, I do not think."

The steam above the mugs is not quite so exciting, it would appear.

For now.

[blue_ajah]

"What, then?"

Even as she asks it, she absently strokes a soothing hand over his wingfeathers.

[creator_raven]

Raven caws another laugh.

"Possibly that should be for being obvious."

Hey, she laughed first.

For a given value of 'first'.

[blue_ajah]

"And yet," she counters, "if one presumes to know all from observation without inquiry, one may often be wrong."