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Afternoon sun is akin to a warm cup of milk before bed. After the fourth meeting of the day, after a morning's ride to Elman's Creek, Talia A'Roihan Sedai (she still marveled over the Sedai) sat comfortably in her chair, pouring over a letter from their eyes and ears in Cairhien. The overstuffed chair, old and battered, was the one frivolous item she allowed in the room. The rest was clean, organized, almost austere, at least in the small woman's eyes. Wooden boxes lining the shelves, each filled with their own treasures and secrets, a desk piled high with papers, although the Aes Sedai could tell you in a second where even the smallest scrap lay hidden. Paintings lined the walls, city scenes, to remind those who entered of the awesome responsibility of a cause.
Her eyes rested on Cairhien when the words began to swim in front of her eyes and she could finally admit her attention would not permit her to read another sentence. Too much had happened, all in a week. Black Ajah, leaving notes, leaving threats, Light, coming up behind her in the Library to whisper in her ear. She hadn't slept well in weeks, and then just days ago...
Her shoes, cornflower, uncomfortable dropped to the ground. Her legs swung up into the chair, tucking under her body childishly. It was silly, but who was there to see? An Accepted studied at the doors, no more appointments for the afternoon, and few knew about either of her current difficulties. If anyone did come, she would hear them in plenty of time. Even the Head of the Blue Ajah had to rest sometimes, she reasoned, laying her forehead against the plush fabric. It would wrinkle her dress (cornflower, long ivory lace at the sleeves that was forever threatening to dip into her inkwell), but she had done worse to dresses in her time.
In the light of the afternoon, Talia A'Roihan closed her eyes 'just for a moment', and slept...
"Why don't you dance anymore?"
Blue eyes snapped open. She straightened, blushing, if only a little. Who...?
Oh.
Sparkling eyes met hers. Red lips curved into an amused smirk. A vision sat on her desk, legs crossed at the knee. Red-gold hair spilled down her back, bright as the false jewels on her fingers and around her throat - rubies. The skin was tanned, slightly, the dress, red, and just barely covering her knees when she sat, too bold by half for those who lived here. Her attitude itself bold, as evidenced in the casual way she leaned over and mussed Talia's hair, clipped up as usual away from her face.
Herself - at nineteen. The scar that wound around her eye was still fresh, still very clear, even in the dimmest light, but to the Talia she had been in Cairhien, it hardly mattered. She was free, and alive, and able to do as she wished, within reason. She was young and beautiful and there was no end to the joy she could draw from, the attention she could command. And she knew it.
This young Talia worked in the Thunder Tavern, serving drinks, dancing on the tables when the spirit took her, and finding her money where she could. Its most important patron, as charming as he was criminal, had stitched her up and bought her this dress, claiming she would have them 'fainting at the door'. No doubt so he could pick their pockets.
This Talia gaped at the vision, and smoothed her hair, slipping into her shoes again. She was more exhausted than she thought.
"What?", she finally managed.
"You heard me.", the young woman said, firmly, tilting her head, charmingly. She had learned from years of experience that everyone, male and female alike, reacted very conveniently when they thought she was a brainless chit. In some hidden part of her mind, Talia the Aes Sedai still believed that. " Look at you! You're ready for a garden party at the drop of a pin. You put your shoes back on just because you thought I might be someone important..." Young Talia shook her head, hair bouncing against her shoulders. " Sad."
"This is how I'm expected to dress, now." Despite herself, she had to fight a smile. Imagine how they would react in the Hall of Sitters if she still dressed like that!
"Light, don't I know it? You're killing me, you know."
"Pardon?", Talia asked, leaning back, looking at her younger self. Was she really once so dramatic?
"I am not being dramatic, thank you very much, grandmother." The pretty young woman rolled her eyes, " I am being honest, like you once were. You don't dance, you don't laugh, you dress like a Saldaen... man!"
"I certainly do not!"
The young woman looked her up and down, pointedly.
"When you came home from your ride today, you wanted to stay dressed as you were, yet you went back to your rooms and changed."
"Because I cannot do everything I'd like, now."
"And why not? I believe I remember someone who looked just like you promising that once she was Aes Sedai, she would be different. She would not be so traditional."
Talia smiled at her younger self.
"That was before she grew up and realized that what is expected of an Aes Sedai is more than what is expected of a Novice. Anyway, it is not that I don't want to laugh or dance or any of those things... It's just..."
She shrugged. She had not said it aloud yet.
"Oh, I know. I hear nothing but, trapped in the back of your mind, as I am. Black Ajah. But you're not afraid of Black Ajah. You're afraid of the other stranger who crept up on you."
"You have no idea..."
"Yes I do. You've finally gone and done it with someone worthwhile. And you're terrified!"
Talia nodded, running a tired hand over her face.
"It just... dawned on me a few days ago. I know it's silly, that I didn't know, but I was just so busy..."
"And now you know for sure." The younger woman rose, lifted a cherry box from one of the shelves, dropped it on the table. The lid opened, scattering the herbs inside. Her medicine kit. Nothing, not even the miracles the Yellows performed daily, had convinced her to get rid of it. " And you're so frightened you're considering ruining everything."
"I don't know what else to do. I have a position of respect, and he is..."
"The only man you've ever trusted, much less loved. And you're bound and determined to ruin it."
"I don't want to scare him."
"You were never afraid before - of anything. Why now, when you have every reason to be confident?"
The younger woman pushed the box off of the desk, letting it crack against the wall with a muffled clatter. Talia looked up, met the woman's eyes.
"What if I am like her? What if I hurt them?"
"You are nothing like her. She was a child in a woman's body, too thick-headed to do much more than smile and brush her hair. Whoever your father was must have had at least part of a brain, because you certainly didn't inherit yours from her..."
'Her', was spoken with a twisted mouth, as if the word produced a bad taste. It likely did. 'She' had not been the best of mothers. Light, she had not even been lucky enough to count with the most mediocre of mothers. Small was how Talia remembered her, and in other ways than size. Lovely, if cold, if uninspired, if selfish.
Talia spent the first years she could remember in a corner. She played with a doll some man or another (not her father, because she could remember a man giving it to her) had left behind one day. She brushed her hair like her mother, listened to her mother laugh and talk and shout and weep, when things had not gone well. She picked up broken bits of glass and held them to the light. Little more. Days flowed by slowly. No one spoke to her. A wonder she learned to talk at all. She learned nothing else. Reading and writing came later, during her captivity. Even her sense of place, her ability to understand where Cairhien was in the world, came later.
"She looked at her child crying and clinging to her, and she held her hand out for the money that would take me away. How do I know I won't be just as... absent? I don't need the money, but maybe my child will grow up taken care of by servants, because its parents are too busy to take care of it? How do I know I won't be that Aes Sedai mother who closes the door and works through the best years of her child's life?"
"You love Janos, that's how. You taught him to read, yourself. You see him constantly, and you love the boy."
"Of course I love him."
Talia shook her head, unmindful of the curls that fell to her shoulders. They did not go unnoticed. Her younger self smiled, caught a few of the strands that had not yet fallen free, and pulled them loose.
"Then stop being afraid - of everything. Smile again. Laugh again. Light, dance again. Be that woman you decided to be, and stop sparring with fear. This is the best time of your life. It's time you started acting like it." Young Talia leapt onto the desktop, kicking aside a pile of notes to be answered. " It's time you stopped acting like the end of the world had already come."
A smile slipped onto her lips, brightening the eyes that felt so heavy not so long ago. This was what she had been, once, what she still found herself slipping back to, at times. This Talia danced to beat the Dark One, and oh, had there been worse things than Black Ajah to worry about... Even at the worst, even after a night of stitching up drunken, apologizing men, after occasionally watching them carry away one who would not be able to apologize, they had been able to do that. They laughed, they reached for the light, they danced... And the darkness didn't matter as much, after that.
"I miss you.", she said, quietly, " Not everything... but the feeling you had. You were never afraid."
"I am you.", the vision said simply, and sat on the edge of the desk, again, " You have to wake up, Talia. You have to open your eyes and realize that the best thing you could do is take the life you have left."
"They could take me at any time. This child, too."
"Yes they could, but why do their work for them? Any Black Ajah that thinks we're an easy target is going to get a surprise. If you must have a responsibility, let it be this. Show those darkfriends what sort of Aes Sedai our kind can be. Get out there and teach those Novices, those Soldiers, that they're fighting for their lives, too." She winked, smiling meaningfully. " Drop that man's jaw whenever you can, and for the Light's sake... Teach that baby inside you that anything's possible." She stood, glimmering in the light, tossing her hair back, turning her shoulders - perfect. The women who taught them would have been so proud... Talia couldn't help but laugh. To think that had once been her, so sure, so light-hearted. To think that was still her, under mountains of duty. " Aren't you proof enough of that?"
Her eyes opened slowly, her eyelashes tickling the smooth blue of the chair. Later, but how much later? She sat up, and for the first time in weeks, felt like she really slept...
Everything was as it was before. The papers stood neatly in their piles, the boxes all in their positions. The child in question rested inside her. Nothing had been touched. But, Light, it was about to be...
Talia kicked her shoes aside, stood, and stretched. Her eyes paused on her work, enough to keep ten of them busy, on the cherry box, neatly arranged, on the door.
"Anything is possible...", she murmured, and wasn't it true?
That her mother could have decided to let her live in the first place? That she would be gifted with more than 'pretty'? That love lived in House Ytenzin, along with hate and victimization? That it could be found in rough taverns and simple farms and great Towers? That even here, where so much heart was bent on the end of their world, there was music, and light, and humanity? That there were boys who read with her and children who grew inside her and offered them all a second chance? That there were dear friends who knew every secret and good men who smiled and nearly broke her heart for loving them so much?
There is a lot to celebrate in the world.
She knows that. It has never really gone away, but stayed inside, hiding, waiting... For what?
To be ready, she decided, and she was ready.
Quick steps helped her to cross the room, quick hands to take the cherry box in her hands. Decisions...
She caressed the top, smiling at the time it had taken to choose these herbs, to pick them herself, at times... and threw the box at the wall. One decision made. Now for responsibility...
Talia leapt to the desk, kicked a pile of notes out of her way, and for the first time since coming to the Tower...
She danced.
