[pfsb] preparations and expectations

[blue_ajah]

When Moiraine arrives in the bar, her outward composure is flawless. She will do what must be done, and will accept the consequences of her actions... or her inaction, as the case may be.

When the price is high, that is how you know it is worth paying.

She settles at her preferred table and accepts tea, fruit, and a little bit of bread and cheese from the attentive waitrats.

Her glance is thoughtful, almost considering, as she observes the room.

Comments

[acrookedpath]

He may not be entirely sober by now, but he remains under no illusions that they are simply talking, no matter what Moiraine might say. Still: he has never met a silence he did not wish to fill. And explaining the basics of cultivation that she could learn from anywhere -- that cannot be enough to call this a fair exchange.

"I will help him as best I can from afar," he says with a shrug, and downs a little more wine. "When he is working in our world, and we cannot fight side by side."

[blue_ajah]

She nods again.

"Is he a necromantic cultivator as well?"

[acrookedpath]

"No."

His mouth quirks, much like a shrug of its own.

"Only me."

[blue_ajah]

"Only you," she repeats.

A beat of silence.

"Why?"

[acrookedpath]

"Because I was curious."

There's no change to his tone, or his crooked smile.

"And others weren't."

[blue_ajah]

"Curiosity."

Perhaps unexpectedly, Moiraine offers him a rueful smile, and there is something both wistful and sad about both her expression and tone as she adds,

"That is a powerful thing indeed."

[acrookedpath]

He wasn't expecting that reaction. An attempt to pry further, yes; that flicker of sorrow, though --

He eyes her. "You seem to speak from experience," he says.

[blue_ajah]

"I do," Moiraine tells him, "although I was not thinking of my own, despite where it has led me in the past."

(Rhuidean being only one example of many.)

"I was thinking of Verin Sedai." There is something complicated about the shades of meaning in the sound of her words, something that speaks of memory, regret, and loss intertwined.

"You will not have met her. She never came here."

[acrookedpath]

He folds his arms atop the table, leaving the wine bottle at his elbow.

A measure quieter: "What was she like?"

[blue_ajah]

"Kind," she says. "Motherly, to some. I first met her when I was but a novice. She was there when I was raised Aes Sedai."

She curves her fingers around her teacup, somewhat absently, then gestures at her dress.

"Verin was of the Brown, as I am Blue. Browns are seekers after knowledge, more than anything else, but few, if any, pursued it to the extent she did. She was brave, and determined, and did much to save many."

[acrookedpath]

He nods. The past tense is unmistakable; briefly, he wonders if this Verin perished in her relentless pursuit of knowledge. It would not surprise him.

"Then I am sorry I will not meet her," he says, no louder.

[blue_ajah]

"I am, too."

Remembering her tea, she takes a sip while she weighs her next words.

"She paid a high price. As did you, I believe, from what you told me before."

[acrookedpath]

One corner of his mouth lifts. He pulls the wine back to himself for another sip.

"I did," he agrees. "Perhaps more than I realized, if I am still marked as you say. Lan Zhan pestered me for a long time about resentful energy harming the body and temperament. So did others, as if they could not fathom another reason why my temperament had soured. But..."

Another shrug. There's a brittleness to the smile now.

"He was right, it seems."

[blue_ajah]

This is unsteady ground, she knows.

(Then we will face it together, Lan Wangji had told the man sitting with her now, as she had listened in silence from across the table after explaining her theory on resentful energy and thanergy. You are not evil.)

She does not offer Healing, not now. Everything had fallen apart before when she had, after all, and it is unlikely he would accept it from her - at least at present.

"It must have been very important," she murmurs.

[acrookedpath]

"It was."

He meets her eyes.

"I do not regret it. Discovering this path, and forging onward through the brush. It let me protect others. To correct what injustices I could, for a time."

[blue_ajah]

She holds his glance as she inclines her head to him in acknowledgment.

"I think," the Aes Sedai says, very quietly, "that in some ways, you and I may be more alike than either of us realized."

[acrookedpath]

"Why do you say that?"

It's not -- guarded. Not exactly. But it is obvious Wei Wuxian does not entirely know what to make of this declaration.

[blue_ajah]

"Each Ajah, within the structure of the Aes Sedai as a whole, devotes itself to a particular interest or task," Moiraine tells him. "I am of the Blue."

She brushes her fingertips deliberately down the sleeve of her dark blue dress.

"Blues are seekers after causes, and for action in the interest of justice."

A beat of silence falls between them, before she adds,

"For the sake of such things, sometimes the forbidden must be done."

[acrookedpath]

He had been easing his way into a slouch, the longer the sat here and the more wine he drank. Now Wei Wuxian straightens, eyes widening fractionally.

This is something else she could have told him before now, mutters the corner of his mind that remains unimpressed with Moiraine's secrecy. And it is hard not to wonder if her parceling out these slivers of common ground comes with an ulterior motive. A way to reel him in, to gain his trust.

And yet.

The smile on his mouth doesn't look so brittle or empty anymore.

"Perhaps we do have more in common, then," he says quietly.

Perhaps you understand.

[blue_ajah]

She smiles back at him, and pours herself another cup of tea.

[acrookedpath]

As she does, he lifts his bottle an inch higher as if in a toast, and downs more wine.

Poor Lan Zhan, he thinks, with wry amusement. First Wei Wuxian speaks to Moiraine on his own, offering up whatever information she likes, and now... well, at least he is not so far gone that Lan Zhan will have to carry him. But the room is certainly blurrier than it was when he first sat down. Oh, well.

"What forbidden things did you fall into?" he asks. "As you pursued justice?"

[blue_ajah]

"Oh, a few, at least," she says. "Defied orders to return to the White Tower, so that I could seek the Dragon Reborn, for one - although I suppose I defied those sorts of orders multiple times over the course of the years. There were many who did not wish him found, much less prepared and ready for the Last Battle."

She picks up her teacup.

"Learned and used and taught a weave forbidden since the Breaking of the World, for another. If they had been able to catch me at the time, I might have been stilled just for knowing it."

[acrookedpath]

He may not know what stilled means, precisely, but he can guess easily enough from the context. Wen Zhuliu's implacable face swims behind his eyes for an instant.

"What did the weave do?"

[blue_ajah]

"It is called balefire," she tells him. "It destroys things so utterly that it burns the threads from the Pattern itself, going backwards in time. The stronger the channeler, the more power is poured into the weave, the more is undone."

[acrookedpath]

Wei Wuxian puffs out a long breath, staring at Moiraine.

"Backwards in time," he repeats. "So if it were turned on a person, they would cease to have ever existed?"