Fanfic:Martyr's Pardon/Chapter One
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Although every fiber of her being all but vibrated with the need to move to action, Mouse knew that she should not go alone. It would be ill advised, as she had no idea what to expect. Yet, even knowing this, it was harder to figure out who she thought she should ask to go with her. It would have to be someone she trusted, because this was going to require delving down into her past, which she had shared with few.
Three people came to mind.
(Darrik was not among them. They were friends, but she knew that he had duties that he could not break to go with her... and she was not sure their friendship had developed to this sort of point anyways.)
She knew that, logically, Jerid would be one to ask, because of their agreement. Yet for the same reason she declined the offer from Miahala and Caden, she must not ask him. He was Master of Soldiers and would be needed here. She had no idea how long she was going to be gone. Plus, they had not tread into this territory, and while she felt that she could trust him, she wasn't sure she wanted to put it on his shoulders.
She also thought about Jip, but she had no idea what she'd be facing and it might bring them to something difficult for him. While he was a choice for already knowing her familial secret, she ruled him out quickly for the reasons of the unknown before her. Also, he was nurturing a possible promise and it would not do for him to suddenly head off with her for the Light knew how long.
That left the third name that had come to her mind, and yet it was also the one that brought the most apprehension for a great variety of reasons... the biggest being that she did not know if he would even agree.
Unbidden, her memory drifted back to that evening near the portal stone with the Indigo Asha'man, and to the many places that her mind and heart had gone to; the things that she had thought; the questions she had asked; the things that she had wondered about, and wished to know more of. No firm statements were made, but something settled into a sort of certainty in her mind and she was determined.
It was late afternoon by the time that all of these conclusions had been reached.
She went to the Infirmary.
Fortunately, she discovered that it was not too busy. She paused in the entry area and looked for the familiar face of the Yellow Asha'man who she had not spoken much to for a small while. She bit on the inside of her lip... until she saw him, and then she bit harder. Mouse lifted to her toes to be seen over a passing body, catching his eye and then signing, when the way was clear: Do you have a moment?
Lucan was standing amidst a gathering of Asha'man and Aes Sedai of the Yellow Ajah, conferring over the contents of a few journals, the priorities of the current patients, and the best procedure to tackle the afflictions of a thirty feet fall from the battlements. It was a proper mess, that one - yet Lucan had not expected it to turn out otherwise. The guardsman would claim that the wind made him fall, whilst never mentioning the letter he had received from the Black Ajah Head.
Fall, and be reborn in my hands. The choice of words had evidently been effective.
Not only that, but Lucan also knew that the guardsman's dark claim was sincere.
His pale grey eyes centered upon a new errant soul that had entered the Infirmary, and his gaze was about to return to his peers before they snapped back again. Her...
From across the expanse of the Infirmary, Lucan watched her hands move. The advantage of the signing language, which she had taught him over the course of many intimate hours, was that it transcended distance and din - discreet and most effective. Lucan had even begun to teach his own version of the language to his other peers - those that were never seen in his company.
Not turning his body away from the held conversation, he discreetly raised a tattooed hand and signed two words back to her.
Soon. Explain?
Mouse steeled her nerve against what she might find here, but it was with great calmness that she signed. She didn't like having to do this at a distance, so she kept her words as simple as she could as she did not wish to risk the moment. I do not know what I have done to give you offense, but I find that I must have done something for us to not have spoken in this long a time. Her face was casual, impassive, to any passer-by, but her eyes were emotive and gentle. Whatever I have done, I'm sorry. I should have come sooner, but my training hours have been long, and I thought it might be better for some of the rumor mill to have calmed down.
Her plea across the Infirmary struck a chord somewhere deep inside Lucan, but the gentle spark was eaten alive by the coiling beasts of his hatred - swallowed whole. Lucan did not sign back to her at first, but merely stared at her with expressionless eyes. He had a mind to tell her that he had no interest in her anymore, since she had made her choice to stick to the jellyfish - to wrap her arms around his spineless body and convince herself that he was something desirable.
Alas, Lucan would not pass up a chance to make her realize her mistake - or rather the mistake he had made her realize after the Battle of Lights. Yet he had only hinted at what his feelings were, even if his feelings were fleeting things across a core that held no affection or love. Yet those ghosts of past emotions were all enlivened and acted upon - since those were all that he had left. The specters of feeling and emotion now rose to illuminate his mind - sparked by the memory of Kisane.
They came alive in the memory of their kisses, and then turned foul again by what she had done.
He signed again, unable to step away from his peers right away. Why? Something more?
Lucan wondered if there were other reasons to why she had come this particular day. Why now, when she could just have come to his study after-hours? His duty demanded his attention right then and he made no movement to step away from the gathering of Healers. He addressed a question that he heard spoken next to him, raising his deep voice and switching his serene face back to the group. "I can take care of the Guardsman. Leave him to me and I will leave the other three to you - given your fields of expertise. The First Weaver would hardly like that we conferred forever upon the best course of action instead of acting before unnecessary agony is caused by our dallying."
As he received nods and agreement, Lucan's eyes snapped back to Mouse - returning to her hands and switching from them to her eyes and down again.
There is something more, she began, visibly taking a deep breath. I came hoping that I might still have a friend in you. Unspoken was the thought that they were more than friends, but in deference to respectability and to not too much further excite rumor again, she wasn't going to assume his feelings nor say it 'out loud', especially as they were still speaking over a distance. I have to leave the Tower for a while. Something very important has come up.
No... That was out of the question. Lucan's spectral emotions flared up like a genital decease.
He signed, hastily: Wait. Then he stepped away from the gathering of Healers - just as they too parted in different directions. His stride and gaze was turned away from Mouse - towards the bed that held the stable yet broken man. He wrapped his tattooed hands around the Guardsman's skull and Delved him - the storm of Saidin at his beck and call.
The Delving told him that the man had multiple broken bones and internal injuries, though none were immediately life-threatening. Over time, yes, he would die, but not within the course of the day - especially not now when he was in the Yellow Ajah's care. Unconscious, he did not even feel the pain that roamed his nerves. Lucan had time aplenty. He turned his head towards Mouse and signed to her from many feet away. Follow me. Then he pulled the bed from the wall, rolling it over the mosaic tiles upon its small wooden wheels.
He pushed the bed through the door of a private ward and let the door remain open until Mouse stepped inside. Alone with her, Lucan closed the door behind her and made a move to grasp her shoulders in a beseeching way. Yet his hands stopped, dropped to his sides. He did not have the right to touch her, or would not - should she not desire his touch anymore. He would not make such a blatant mistake.
Lucan's eyes were somewhat imploring, somewhat hurt - yet nonetheless understanding. In order to not be heard from outside the door, he raised his rope-calloused hands and signed anew.
Have you come to say farewell?
She shook her head. No, I've come to see if you would come with me, she signed, her gestures quick and anxious, if you knew her enough to recognize them as such. She would not do so 'out loud', but something in her gaze was almost... pleading. She was, at least, relieved for the privacy. It's a private matter, but one that is very, very important to me.
Staring at her, Lucan felt relief that she would not escape out of his grasp altogether. Quite on the contrary, she was asking him to leave with her. A myriad of things flashed through his mind, concerning his tightening hold on the Tower's likeminded, as well as the question why she had come to him instead of the jellyfish. He had obligations to the Yellow Ajah too, but while his mind roamed through the possibilities to accompany her, he stalled by asking what the nature of this suggested journey was - signing in calm and precise motions.
All these many years, since before I came to the Tower, I thought that my parents were dead, she explained. She would not tell all, not until she was certain of his agreement, and probably not until they were outside Tower walls. I have, this day, found out that there is a chance they may be alive! I think I know where they may be, or where the path starts, and I mean to go and look for them. She paused and there came a solemn, stubborn set to her gaze. I will go alone if I must, but I would rather have someone dear to me come with.
There, it had been said. Now just to wait to see how he answered.
When she had explained, Lucan had made his choice. He had come to understand that Mouse must have realized her error in choosing the Ji'alantin and now sought to cross the bridge she had burned. Lucan smiled inwardly, because she had not only managed to burn the bridge but the entire land beyond it. Now she was to return, and find herself in an inferno unlike none she'd seen before. She was but a spread-legged rodent - however alluring - and Lucan would gain all the time in the world to make her realize what she done to him.
To be exact, what she had not done with him, and instead chosen Jip Gaidin as her lover.
An image of her skin being peeled back from her face flashed before his eyes, and Lucan smiled as he signed his answer. You should know by now that your will is sacred to me. Yet it is not only due to this honor of choosing me that I will accompany you. We might not have spoken much since the Battle of Lights, but the whole Tower still remembers how I feel about you.
Never doubt that I would rather die than deny you anything.
Relief flooded through her, though it was laced with a little anxiety and for more than one reason, but she smiled all the same. Thank you, she signed. How soon can you be ready to leave?
Lucan considered her inquiry as well as her reaction - dissecting the play of emotions across her face. She had rightfully feared that he could have turned her down, but in accepting, he had learned somewhat more about how dearly she craved his company. He signed back, his smile suggestive yet solicitous - kind as well as intimate. I can reassign patients and duties rather quickly now that the Tower knows peace. I will be able to leave on the morrow, if that is not too early for you?
That works fine. I will meet you in the stables, on the morrow, Mouse signed with another small smile and a grateful look before she turned and headed out.
As she left, Lucan's eyes lingered upon the door - and his smile remained. The difference lay in the way his eyes transformed - and made the smile a sinister grimace of dark promises.
The Sige will learn the cost of betraying me, he thought, wondering how many she would dare tell that he would be accompanying her. Given the rumors of old, and how they had grown uncomfortable for them both, she was not likely to tell anyone. That would leave lesser administrative consequences when he returned from the journey...
Alone.
Lucan turned around to his unconscious patient with his smile lingering. His eyes turned white in the sharp sunlight entering from the window. He would have a busy night ahead of him, while he made arrangements that would explain his absence in the Infirmary. For the Yellow Ajah would never learn the truth about his leave-taking.
Slamming his hand down upon the Guardsman's forehead, Lucan sent the very advanced Healing Weave into the body via the optical nerves. The body spasmed, arched, and the Guardsman sucked a deep breath when he was reborn to a new kind of life. After it was done, Lucan ran both his palms across his stubble - stared down into the watery wells of his eyes. The Guardsman was blinking rapidly, pupils dilating and focusing on the features above him.
"You are reborn in the Great Lord's embrace," he said, "and I am your new Master."
Mouse had been at the full extension of nervousness for the entirety of the night and day to come, as between the two of them they could not make all arrangements final and actually set out until late afternoon. Mouse had sent a note to Jerid to explain that she had to depart on a personal errand, but that she would return as soon as she was able. She'd arranged with Darrik for any training she could not settle in some other manner.
She told no one of the reason why she was leaving, though mentioned to Darrik alone that she was traveling with Lucan. He was her friend and was discrete. He understood.
With everything done as best she could, she finally was able to meet Lucan in the stables. Things moved quickly from there, departing the Tower via a Gateway that would deposit them safely near Murandy but in an area that would allow them 'cover'. They would ride a ways, camp, and then ride into the cities they needed come the morrow.
Evening seemed to have come quickly for the pair after they had set out from the Tower. Once dark began to loom, they agreed to make camp. Eight years in the Tower had not erased the memories of living in the wilderness and Mouse found the idea of 'camp' still a comparative luxury to how she had once lived.
Much of their time thus far had been spent in silence, since Mouse was lost in her own thoughts and not quick to drop the reins to speak, and Lucan was trying to acclimatize himself with sitting on a horse - Atha'an Miere as he were. The undeniable difference lay in that a ship was a sturdy surface where you adjusted your footing upon, whilst the sandlapper beast he had between his legs was not stationary at all. It moved like the ocean itself, and the tides chafed him raw.
I will endure, Lucan told himself angrily, trying to find the way the shore-bound had managed to master this kind of travel. He knew the human body like the back of his hand, just like the interaction between such corporeal forms, but he had to learn the best way to co-exist with the animal - even if he wanted to flay and eat it after but a few hours.
The small benefit of leaving the Tower behind was that he could freely abandon the drab black coat and breeches that he had to wear in the Infirmary. Beyond his duties to the Yellow Ajah, he could dress the way he wanted, and had quickly decided to free himself from all garments that were uncomfortable. As he rode, he was barefoot and bare-chested, wearing his seafaring breeches with the wide ankles and his unknotted red sash. He had run his arms through his father's white merchant's coat - the one he had worn all his life and earned him his salt-name: Riven Sail.
Yet even if he was comfortable in his threadbare, torn coat and the Void protected him from the worst afflictions of the ride, he still felt each heave of the horse's back.
They set up camp, and soon were sitting before a fire. Thankfully.
Lucan, Mouse began after several moments of staring into the fire. I know that I did not give you much information about why we're out here. I very much appreciate your willingness to help me, as there are not many I would trust with this, and even less of those few who would be able to leave the Tower on the task.
Looking at Mouse's gestures in the firelight, Lucan's jesting smile came on instinct - accompanied with the obvious words. "If you are referring to my ability to follow you being the reason I am here, I am hurt. Who would not want to spend a life on the road together with you?"
In truth, Lucan was saddle-sore and loathed the countryside, but he did not let it show too much in order to make her think he would endure it for her sake. Besides what he might and might not make her feel, the pain and fatigue was easily mastered, and he had prospects for this journey that merited the cumbersome way of transporting oneself upon the back of an... animal. He had no illusions about Mouse not seeing his cramping awkwardness in the saddle with those Gaidar eyes of hers.
Mouse smiled softly. Although there were still moments when the predator-prey instinct rose up in Mouse, much of that had faded in the wake of all that had come to pass. These past months had bred other sorts of uncomfortable emotions, but she felt much gentler now that they both had gone past them and that he agreed to come with her.
Something of a new addition to it was a faint glitter of guilt behind it all, because she knew this was not his best way to travel... but they could hardly sail a boat down dry land, and walking would be far less economical to travel. She appreciated that he tolerated it, for her sake.
I did not mean that your ability to come was the reason I asked you, she signed.
She was, of course, still a little nervous for bringing him with her on this journey, but she imagined - given her history - that she would feel nervous bringing anyone into this circle.
I have to trust someone, sometime, she thought. She had kept her secrets long enough.
The other things that had settled in her mind around Lucan, not truly known to her but present in her mind, formed much of her behavior now as well. His agreeing to come had only finalized it all and now she was acting subconsciously upon them.
It was anxious-making to take this step with him, as it would be one of the only ones left to finishing something they had begun and not completed. She wondered, briefly, if she should complete it, because she had no idea where she would land when it was said and done... but it was too late now.
There are some things about me that I've not told you, she began again. Please do not feel offended, as I have told very, very few people about this. It has long been a secret for me and my burden to bear.
Instantly, Lucan's mind was acutely affixed upon her signing, yet on the outside he smiled in a reassuring way and began to poke the fire with a stick - since that was what he imagined that the sandlappers did.
Mouse paused, resting her hands against her chest as she took a slow, deep breath and looked down at the ground to collect her thoughts. You may have surmised, but my name is not Mouse. At least, that was not the name I was given upon my birth. Mouse looked up and met his gaze now. Her own eyes, so large and dark, glistened softly with now unhindered emotion in the firelight as she met Lucan's pale gaze. My name is Lysira Viathene. This one she had to spell out.
Lucan stopped poking at the flames, his pale grey eyes yellow like a snake in the firelight. He was not scowling, but his mind was a maelstrom of information passing before his eyes. He knew that name.
I know precious little of my parents, but I know that they were of the Grey Tower and that they had enemies. All of my childhood was spent moving from place to place, running and hiding from someone I didn't know. When I was eight, they took my father. When I was twelve, my mother went to find him.
Staring at her, Lucan was thinking that he already knew the end of this story - yet now the crucial key to its loose end had come oh-so clear to him.
For thirteen years, I have not seen or heard from either of them. The woman whose care I was left in died a year after my mother left, so I spent four years living on my own, day to day. I had enemies just by being the child of my parents, until I found the safety... relative safety... of the Tower. Here she smiled ruefully. I have spent all of these years under the belief that my parents were dead. I have kept my true name from almost everyone to protect myself, and have lived with the pet name my mother gave me.
Until now, she went on. Her hands trembled delicately, or as delicately as work-worn hands - small though they were - could.
With a little help from Miahala Sedai and Caden Gaidin, I have reason to believe that my parents are alive. I think I know where they may be and if they are alive, I must find them. She paused and exhaled slowly. I believe they are, or will have recently been, in Murandy... and I think I know where, though I do not know the name of the town, but I remember it from my youth.
Feeling his blood coursing through his veins like fire, Lucan stared at her - yet he forced his emotions from ever reaching his face. When you look into a mirror, Bythos... What do you see? His dead Master's words. Mouse would only see his smile animating his features, for Lucan had been taught well. Lycos al'Seraphim had said; If all I can see is your eyes, how do I know you are even there?
Master had taught him that Mouse could not truly see Lucan if he did not want her to. She would not learn what her fireside companion thought about her being right under his nose for all this time, and not knowing that she was the missing link of a puzzle that had irked him for some time now.
Garin had not told him enough - not nearly enough to make the connection.
"So if your name is truly Lysira," he said to her, smiling a little, "I suppose you have kept it to yourself for good reason. The necessity to protect yourself against the enemies of your parents, the Viathenes, must still be important - even if they are still alive. I suppose you still want me to call you Mouse, then?"
She gave a faint transient smile. You may call me what you will in private, though for now I would prefer Mouse when there are others around, she replied. It still felt odd to think of anyone calling her Lysira, but it was her name and she had shared it with him. She would not deny him it, if he chose... just within boundaries. At least, until I know what the result of this journey is.
"I understand," said Lucan and nodded, shifted his seat to ease the pain from the day he had spent in the saddle. "Regardless what the future might bring, I think I will probably still call you Mouse - since that is the name you first gave me. It is the name in my dreams, and they are not likely to change."
To this, she did not reply anything but kept her gaze upon him, shimmering softly in the fire light.
"You must surely at least guess at what they portend," he said to her and looked out into the moonlit wilderness, appearing not to be comfortable with the topic, even if he reveled in how he had the means of the past to affect the present and future. "I did save you, you know. Twice. At least that should be some kind of measure for my dreams."
Before they began to dig too deeply into a topic that could both be beneficial and troublesome for Lucan, he returned to the mission he had agreed to partake in. His own personal mission was something all together different, and his ambitions had changed upon the revelation of who her parents were. At least Mouse would be reunited with them before all their threads were rewoven into the Pattern.
"As for your mother and father... Given how there are more villages and towns along an eastern route, I suggest we head that way on the morrow. Perhaps your memories will come alive if we travel through more common roads." Lucan may be Atha'an Miere, but he had been taught the lay of the land in the Grey Tower, and as Asha'man he had to know the nations.
Yet as the Fiery Serpent, he also had to know their weaknesses - where to strike in order to accost the most harm.
Yes, Mouse replied. She stared off down the dark paths around them, lost in her own thoughts again as she signed, that sounds best.
