Post-Halloween

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is working. Very seriously. She is not mooning over her new relationship with Gideon even a little bit; she has too much work to do.

She is, however, wearing a skull with accents of deep, almost black purple, with a starburst or floral pattern just below her temple, that she has never been seen to wear before.

Other than that sentimental embellishment, however, she is entirely focused on Obaeg's Toward a Common Haemographology. She is making copious notes in the margins--courting future simian fury--and thinking that she should have found this for Moiraine before they started working on her weave notation.

Comments

[blue_ajah]

"It may be so," she murmurs. "She may have sought to encourage you to know yourself; to understand what lies inside you."

"To be composed does not mean to be devoid of emotion."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "That, I suppose, is why I raised this topic. I mean... there were multiple aspects I wished to share. But..."

She presses her thumbs together hard to control the urge to fidget; following the exercise set her as a child to soften and harden one distal phalange and then the other.

"I am conscious," she says wretchedly, "that to be compared to the Reverend Mother cannot be interpreted as anything but an insult." She stalls out for a moment.

[blue_ajah]

"It is understandable," Moiraine tells her, gently, "to have complicated feelings toward her, given everything."

[we_bring_hell]

Her gaze skitters around, ultimately landing somewhere around Moiraine's knee.

"She was a murderer," she whispers. "And she loathed the sight of me."

"I am by no means a judge of parents." Her voice is a little stronger now; not a lot. "But if I could. Choose the, the qualities."

Oh, she's so bad at this.

[blue_ajah]

She is quiet, listening, giving the younger woman both her full attention and the space to find her way through what she is trying to say.

[we_bring_hell]

She looks up, then meets Moiraine's gaze again. "I appreciate all you have done for me--listening, teaching, patience and kindness. I see much in you I would emulate, and so much that I have..." She swallows. "Lived without," she says finally.

"I know our time together has been brief. But I do not wish you to be... unaware. Of what you have come to mean to me."

[blue_ajah]

Surprise flickers in her glance, followed by stunned realization.

"Harrow," Moiraine says, after a moment. "I... do not have -- I have not had children of my own."

The serene tones of her voice are as gentle as before, and warm.

"But I should be proud to have a daughter like you."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow lets out a huff of breath; it's not quite a laugh, but it's hard to describe what else it could be. A spasm of emotional relief, perhaps.

Her eyes are bright; she brushes at them embarrassedly. "I--"


No. Not able to talk just yet. She tents her fingers over her face and takes long, slow breaths.

[blue_ajah]

There is a slight rustle of silk as Moiraine rises from her seat and moves to the chair beside Harrow, rather than the one across from her.

She puts an arm around her shoulders.

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow lets out a long, sad breath, and allows herself, very deliberately, to sag against Moiraine, careful not to stain the Aes Sedai's silks with any of her paints. At the same time she lowers her hands.

"I am undone," she says simply. This is the point where Gideon said, 'too many words, bitch.' But she has no formula as simple as one flesh, one end for this.

"I will be well in a moment. Thank you. For--" Her throat thickens, as it always does when the stupid, hurting animal of her body wrenches control.

"Thank you," she whispers.

[blue_ajah]

"You are welcome," she murmurs, and does not move away. "And welcomed, both."

[we_bring_hell]

From someone who uses language as precisely as Moiraine, that's as good as a poem.

"I abhor presumption," she says eventually, which is such a dumb, dumb Harrow way of picking back up the threads of the conversation. "And you need not feel that I expect you to... to do anything other than what you have already done. It is simply... a secret I no longer wished to hoard."

[blue_ajah]

"I understand," Moiraine tells her. "Do not be concerned."

[we_bring_hell]

Buried deep in the bedrock of Harrow's soul is an axiom that vulnerability leads, inevitably, to rejection. Two counterexamples enough isn't enough to uproot it; but the ground is softening.

She savors for a moment the companionable weight of Moiraine's arm. "My devotion to the Locked Tomb is not something I wish to see changed." The words come slowly, as she picks her way through the minefield "But I believe Griddle is right, that it need not be the only and all-consuming passion of my life. I believe that is what She wished me to take from her message, too. I hope so."

"I love her," she says softly. "But I believe I must know the true consequence of her waking. It is a truth I cannot shy from. And if the cost is what I have been taught to fear... then I will pray in truth, may the rock not be rolled away. May my wait to see her face be as long as possible."

[blue_ajah]

"I think this is a wise decision," the Aes Sedai tells her. "For more than one reason."

"For one-- I am an Aes Sedai of the Blue Ajah. Blues are devoted to causes, and pursue justice. It is often said that we lose ourselves in this, or can. Such loss can be damaging indeed."

She is well aware of the irony, even as she says this.

[we_bring_hell]

"I have been raised to give my life in service, as you know," she says. "And I hope I may serve my people as successfully as you have served yours."

"But I must ask, if you will forgive me--have you been able to find that balance? I would be curious to hear as much as you would share."

[blue_ajah]

Moiraine smiles, and there is something more than a little rueful about it.

(Don't you think you've done enough?)

"Better than in the past," she says. "I must caution you that the whole of it is a long story, but I will speak, if you truly wish to hear."

[we_bring_hell]

"As much as you would share or as little," she affirms.

[blue_ajah]

"Let me see," she muses. "It helps that I have already told you much of the history, and of Rand, and of the Last Battle and the events that unfolded around it, beginning with Gitara's prophecy."

She gently squeezes Harrow's shoulder and sits back, signaling to a waitrat as she does. She does not, however, move back to the seat across the table, but remains at Harrow's side.

"From that day, you might say that I was very much focused on my cause, and on what was necessary to achieve it. No matter the cost, in some cases."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "The stakes you described are vast."

Even the Resurrection was a single star system--humanity would have survived without the Emperor.

[blue_ajah]

"I have been called a hard woman. I do not disagree. I am as hard as I have to be; as I believed I had to be."

A waitrat hops up on a chair and waves a paw at Moiraine, who nods at it, then points to herself and to Harrow. It squeaks assent and scurries off again.

"I was married to my battle, as Lan was married to his, and we worked together in common for over twenty years. There was neither room nor time for anything else."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods again, slower. Harrowhark puppeted her parents' corpses for 7 years for the Ninth and to save herself from an arranged marriage; to be as hard as you have to be makes all the sense in the world to her.

What's the alternative? Failure? Unthinkable.

"But then you won."

[blue_ajah]

"First, I arrived here," Moiraine reminds her.

[we_bring_hell]

"I remember," she says. "They believed you dead, until Rand came here. You worked with him in secret... and then you 'found a way to buy time'." She pronounces the inverted commas distinctly, acknowledging Moiraine's previous euphemism for what is no doubt a complex story.

And afterwards--as a result?--she could not return home.

[blue_ajah]

"Yes," she says, simply, as the rat returns with a pitcher of spring water, cucumber slices, mint leaves, and a pot of tea, along with glasses and cups. Moiraine accepts the tray and begins to set everything out on the table.

"When I first came here, it was a relief to escape my imprisonment, even for a time. The Aelfinn and Eelfinn are not pleasant. They ... feed ... on those they capture, like me."

Her voice remains steady as she says this.

"But I have never been good with enforced idleness."