This is a missing scene, placed in The Fires of Heaven, Chapter 22, "Birdcalls by Night". I was always a bit curious as to why Moiraine didn't show up in time to help Rand with the Draghkar. When she did show up, it was in a robe and blushing. This is a bit of smuttiness explaining why (though I'm sure pure Moiraine had a very innocent reason. wink). It's interesting what the Aes Sedai might have been feeling in the time leading up to certain events. There's a mild spoiler alert for some allusions in her POV.
A Selfish Act
Moiraine shifted on her bedroll, glancing up to take in Lan's profile. Her Warder was seated next to her, eyes half lost in thought, half ready for whatever might come through the tent flap he faced. For some reason he had elected to remain with her. He was usually out patrolling at this time.
It was still early enough to warrant leaving her unguarded, as there were still Wise Ones up and about, but late enough to ensure that she would be left alone until morning. Unless something were to happen. It usually did these days.
She was used to feeling him out there in the night as both an extension of herself and as her protector. He would return to lay himself down outside the opening of her tent. She would have felt comforted by his presence. He would sleep only as much as his body required; always constantly aware. But Lan was changing his pattern. He decided not to conform for some reason, a reason she suspected had more to do with his guilt then mother henning.
Moiraine was as familiar with his habits as she was with her own. She was familiar with so many things about him, things he felt he guarded, and those he did not think to hide. But Lan had begun to change after the Wisdom tied those strings to his heart.
Her hand drifted up toward his face, slowly and lazily in the weak lantern light. She touched the first two of her fingers against his temple, just beneath the hadori. Her thumb tilted down to rest lightly against the softer skin under his eye. She felt the ridges and impressions on his skin that time had placed there.
But it was not only time that had aged him. What they had worked for, for so long, caused both of them to grow older than either could have guessed. Moiraine knew she possessed the smooth cheeks of an Aes Sedai, but she could feel this age they had between them pressing on her heart, blanketing her bones.
We have been through far too much together for any two people.
"I'd wager I could name the year each of these appeared on your skin, al'Lan." He stiffened as she spoke, moving his face out of her hand's range.
She let her hand drop back atop her woolen blanket as he moved away from her. Lan shifted some of the folded things placed against the opposite side of the tent wall, removing a thicker wool blanket from somewhere at the bottom of a pile.
"You are chilled, Moiraine." He spoke as if she would not have known. She felt a slight annoyance because at being told how she felt, though in actuality she had been thinking of other things.
He spread the second blanket out over her, tucking her in as if she were a child, or perhaps enfeebled.
Aren't you quite the Warder tonight.
The corners of her full mouth dipped down in a slight frown, her voice cooler than it had been as she spoke, "What causes you such anger that you would secure me so thoroughly, Gaidin? Have I taken a misstep I cannot recall?"
His mind closed itself off from her almost completely, his walls ridged and unmovable.
"If you will not tell me what has you up all hours of the night, Aes Sedai," Before Nynaeve, Lan never would have used that tone when speaking her title, "I will have to spend all of my time listening for any words you might speak in your sleep. When you do sleep." He paused, looking down at her with an almost dangerous glint in his blue eyes.
She began to rearrange the blankets, making herself more comfortable within them. When she was satisfied with their placement, she turned toward him, propping herself up on an elbow. The shift she wore left her arms bare to the tops of her shoulders. It was hardly decent, but this was Lan, after all.
As he watched her the dangerous look to his eyes softened somewhat. He placed a hand on her arm, covering her bicep and shoulder at once. "If you are delaying this much it must surely be spectacular. Or, spectacularly stupid."
It was Moiraine's turn to look dangerous. She did it with aplomb. "If you think you can goad an answer out of me, you are sorely mistaken. Whatever it is that I am doing, know that it is something I must do."
She frowned at his dissatisfaction, moving her free hand to rest close to his knee as if to assuage him. "I know my answer is vague. It is only that I cannot tell you all things. Some truths are meant for an individual alone."
Lan shifted away from her, giving her a view of the back of his head. His hair was streaked greyer then she remembered. She felt her heart clench inside of her chest, looking at him. There was too much time between them.
What does it matter that I will lose him, when I will be lost myself?
There wasn't time enough to mask the bond. She knew he was aware of her sudden change; the flash of pain she felt looking at him. In the back of her mind, Moiraine wondered how he would interpret her emotion.
He held still for a long moment as he was, then lunged down toward her. Both of his hands then went to grip her shoulders, pulling her face to him at the same moment his went to hers. The kiss was fierce, almost bruising, with nothing of weak sentiment about it.
She was stunned, unable to move, or resist him as he parted her lips with his tongue. Her jaw opened in reflex, allowing him to enter her in a mimic of something they had never done.
Her mind attempted to string a thought together, a few words she could hurl at him to make him stop. But that would require the use of her mouth, something that seemed to be occupied at the moment. She made a motion to shove him away, though she found she could not. She had never thought that this would happen, and knew he would never truly want her... but despite that she was curious. And there was something more, flickering at the edge of her consciousness. He thought that she wanted him. That was the first reason she thought of for why he would be doing this to her. He couldn't be wanting to use her. Lan was not that kind of man.
He would never truly hurt her either. There were times she had hurt him, and meant to do it. It brought her shame to remember that, with his body so intimately close to hers, knowing she would lose everything soon enough. Her body went limp in his grasp. Her arms felt weak as she moved them to his back, wanting to hold him to her.
His grip on her shoulders loosened as the pressure of his kiss also let up. He backed away enough to allow them both a breath before dipping down to take her lower lip between his lips, scraping his teeth against it lightly. The pain was very slight, but it sent an odd electric spark down her chest, into her stomach. As he continued to kiss her, lighter now, she felt her skin flush. Her mouth felt swollen. Her eyelids did not seem to want to open.
It wasn't so much that it was Lan, she told herself, but that it had been so long. It was better to lie to herself then admit that she was afraid, afraid of losing him and of what that would mean.
But, he knew what he was doing to her. She knew he could feel those reactions through the bond. His hands began to seek out more of her body, lingering over the areas that brought new sensations. She had no idea she liked her collarbone to be touched in just that way, before.
Lan's mouth did not leave hers' for long. That would have given her time to speak, for her mind to put itself in enough order to resist what they were doing. Moiraine's body trusted his long before her mind would ever except the notion of this. She knew this suddenly, even as she was surprised to find her own hands roving over his chest, working at the laces of his tunic.
His fingers had pulled the top of her shift down, revealing a pale breast. She shivered as his lips trailed a kiss down the side of her jaw, across her arched throat. Moiraine turned her head to the side as she felt his tongue at the underside of her bosom, her face half hidden in her hair.
He was teasing her. Goading her into a reaction. It was unconscionable of him to keep doing this to her body, to have left her mouth free to speak, to stop him. She wouldn't now, and he knew it.
Arrogant man.
Moiraine lifted her hips as he slid her shift the rest of way down her body, his lips and tongue following the path of exposed skin downward. Through the bond, Moiraine felt his warmth, and caring for her. There was not a touch of amusement, or satisfaction in his demeanor.
His hands felt deliciously rough to her bare flesh. His large body had somehow gotten between her legs. He was still fully dressed, though his shirt was untucked and the laces were haphazardly undone. She was completely unclothed. She was vulnerable in more ways then just in the flesh.
She caught herself before the moan escaped from between her lips. Moiraine pushed away from him long enough to embrace Saidar, not wanting the extra sensation the One Power would bring over her already sensitized skin. Her hand held his head away from her thigh as she wove together a ward to keep any noise from escaping the tent.
Unfortunately that would keep the sounds of the outside from reaching them as well, but just for this once she wanted to be selfish. She wanted Rand to deal with whatever would happen by himself, just this once. There were so many others around him now, even some that she might have trusted. He was doing so well now.
It won't be for long...
She let go of Saidar and curled her fingers through Lan's hair, removing his hadori along the way. Without it, she knew, he would feel almost as naked as she actually was. She couldn't take everything from him.
Moiraine felt Lan's tongue touch the most intimate part of her, and her body sank back into the blankets. She opened to him as he held her to his mouth. She tried to relax into the sensations, to quiet her mind and it's ceaseless turning.
His breath tickled her, the vibration of his voice causing her to shudder involuntarily, "Don't think anymore, Aes Sedai."
He bit the inside of her thigh for emphasis, causing her to buck and gasp. She looked down, finding his blue eyes staring levelly back up at her. She could not see much more of his face. His tongue was back at her sex, languidly making circles. Moiraine wanted to hold his gaze, unable to help showing the pleasure he was causing her. It embarrassed her slightly to know Lan could see her, but it was easier to focus on the pleasure this way.
A person could lose themselves in those eyes. Other women had told him that. She understood it now.
She could feel his arousal, but when she moved her leg to brush against it he shifted his hips away. He felt determined to her, his tongue keeping it's slow pace until she began to rock her hips, then quickening his tempo further when she moaned aloud. It was the only way he would let her participate in their lovemaking.
She tilted her head back, rolling her thighs outward as she spread them further. Lan began rubbing at her with his fingers, slipping his index finger inside of her. He curled it up, like a motion to come closer. She knew her body was on display to him, arched and open atop the blankets, but she didn't care. She trusted him.
Moiraine let herself feel.
Her hands went to his shoulders, gripping them tightly. She felt alive.
Some time later, after the ward went down, they heard the sounds of the battle. Lan, already dressed, swept quickly out of the tent. Moiraine barely spared enough time to cover herself in a dark robe before going out to join him.
When Rand asked what had kept them, where they had been, Moiraine hoped he couldn't see her blush in the darkness.
"I have never explained all that I do or do not do." She kept her voice measured, but could not keep her agitation from affecting Lan. Rand could have been killed.
She'd been selfish. She couldn't afford to make another mistake like that. It was almost time.
"I cannot hold your hand forever. Eventually, you must walk alone."
Ridicule, Ranting, and Reviews welcome.