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

[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."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow has spent enough time among the faceless nuns of Drearburh to know two significant pauses when they cross her path. "I can imagine that's true," she murmurs.

As Moiraine continues, she takes a moment to pour tea for the Aes Sedai, before preparing a glass of vaguely-minty water for herself.

[blue_ajah]

She smiles her thanks, and takes a sip of the tea.

"Well. Suffice it to say that I involved myself with matters here to a great extent. And in the process, I made friends, and more than friends, and learned things."

[we_bring_hell]

"Lady Ingress mentioned such things--cadres of people, she said, taking an interest in each others' problems across worlds."

[blue_ajah]

"Indeed. Such involvement, in a way, is how I first became aware of certain matters in Twin Peaks. It is not, however, how I came to relocate there."

She lays her hand against the side of the teacup, drawing in its warmth.

"That was after I tore myself from the world of my birth. For a while."

[we_bring_hell]

She frowns. "Tore in what way?" She says it in a way that seems more than figurative language.

[blue_ajah]

"I have told you about Lews Therin and the seal that was created for the Bore," she murmurs. "And that it was imperfect."

"It was weakening too quickly. If it tore open too soon--"

She shakes her head.

"Here, in this place, I learned to weave with more complicated things than the weaves of my own world alone. The Pattern is formed of the threads of lives, Harrow. I took the thread of my own life, from my birth world and its Mirrors, pulled it free, and used it to reinforce the edges of the seal."

[we_bring_hell]

"To weave with your own soul," she murmurs. "God's teeth."

To think she thought she had anything to teach Moiraine Sedai about necromancy!

[blue_ajah]

"Well, I do not think I could have done so with another's," she points out, practically. "But I knew myself well enough."

[we_bring_hell]

"Yes,"she says, almost to herself, "exactly."

"Forgive me." She shakes her head. "I was struck by certain similarities. But how did you survive it?"

[blue_ajah]

"I did not expect to," she says.

"But as it happens, the years I had spent here created a new thread, a new life. And I was able to return to it."

[we_bring_hell]

The Fourth House indeed, she thinks.

"How did you come to live in Twin Peaks?"