Indian Summer

and i'll love you forever if i ever love at all

.

It was punishingly hot inside the Stone, the air heavy with trapped humidity and the breath of too many people. Aiel, Defenders, lords and lordlings, Aes Sedai and pretend Aes Sedai and stilled Darkfriend Aes Sedai, Dragons Reborn and ta'veren all crowded the place, filling it with interminable tension and evermore heat. Outside was not much better, but at night, on the battlements, there was some relief. A few stray breezes snapped off of the sea every now and again, and high up, under the relative chill of the stars and moon, it was not so bad.

Lan nearly blended into the night around him, his color-changing cloak bleeding into the darkness. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword, suspended at his hip, his gaze held over the wall by something Nynaeve could not discern. Perhaps he was staring at nothing but the pictures his mind played out for him, suspended in the night sky over the few flickering lights still blazing in the city below.

He turned toward Nynaeve as soon as she'd taken a step. She avoided his eyes as they searched out hers, choosing instead to tuck stray strands of hair behind her ear and tug at the sleeves of the green gown she wore.

Egwene had been making remarks to Elayne behind her back about the dresses, how she only wore them now in shades of blue or green or plain gleaming white, how she did it all just to please a man. They would wait until they were in love; at least, that was what Nynaeve told herself. Once they felt it, that undeniable compulsion to please and be held and loved, and all in the face of an inevitable and increasingly desperate future, they would see how quickly they leapt to soak up all of the time they could with their men. Once they were separated for weeks, months at a time, once it was declared that nothing could come of their union but death, once they surrendered him to someone else indefinitely, they would certainly feel the same way.

Nynaeve did not like to think she would surrender her principles and her pride for a man, and she did not believe that was what she was doing. She was merely making the most of the little time they were able to be with one another, only stretching every moment as long as it could hold before they had to move on to the next. She thought it was a natural reaction.

"It's late," Lan eventually said.

For a minute she thought he was going to attempt to send her back down to the small, cramped room she had been allotted, that he sometimes slipped in to share for a few brief hours. He had strange notions of her needing rest, relaxation, when all she felt she had done during their stay so far in Tear was rest. She longed to be out hunting the Black Ajah again, or even returning to the Tower to continue her studies, just to end her long spell of inaction. Questioning Joiya and Amico over and over again was not diverting, especially when the questions yielded no useful answers.

Instead, though, he held out his gauntleted hand to her, not quite looking in her direction.

Nynaeve tried not to hasten to his side, but couldn't help the quickness that fell into her step. She slipped her hand into his, feeling the rough leather of his gloves against her smooth palms, cracked and dried from the dense heat.

"Have you decided yet what you will do?" he asked her.

She shook her head. One of the few still-burning lights in the city winked out, quickly, without warning. A slight shiver stole over her. "Moiraine still has not told us what we should do. Tanchico is a gamble we are afraid to take. Either there is truth to what she says, and we go there with proper intent but no information, or it is a false lead or trap, in which case we waste time and potentially put ourselves in danger."

"Further danger," he grunted. She ignored him.

She continued, "Mat wants to leave. Perrin wants to stay with Rand, but his…Faile…wants to leave, and she means to take him with her. Elayne is all aflutter about something, and Egwene is consumed with her idea of her own importance. Meanwhile Moirane ignores us and we continue posing pointless questions to those dim-witted Darkfriends—"

Nynaeve realized she was twisting her braid tightly with her free hand when she felt Lan's cool blue gaze trained on her. She forced a calming, shuddering breath through her and relaxed her hand, flexing her fingers and dropping it to her side. She brushed aside the urge to clench it into her skirts.

"All in all, nothing at all has changed since last we spoke," she concluded.

Her voice was tired and defeated. She tried to keep the disappointment and fury out of it, but there was no help for it; indeed, she never had had much control over her emotions. They leeched into her words and colored all of her actions, guided her hand and even told her when she could or could not channel. Light! Her whole life was controlled, whether through the Pattern or her own handicaps or the man to whom she had unintentionally given her heart.

Several minutes passed before Lan responded in that slow, musing way of his, where in his mind he had obviously worked out the details of what he had to say and refused to see the gaping whole in the plan he'd laid. "If you are to go to Tanchico," he said, "I will accompany you."

"You will do no such thing," she scoffed. In a flashing fit, she released his hand and crossed her arms tightly, turning her back on him. "I am not a child to be coddled. I can look after myself."

"You need to be enraged to channel a thread." She heard his boots ring on the stone they stood on as he took an irritated step toward her. "How will you protect yourself in an unforeseen situation? Will you have time to grow angry before a Darkfriend leaps hidden from an alley to slice your throat?"

She felt her face and neck grow hot; really, he would be useful just for his unparalleled ability to fully incense her at any given moment. "I can look after myself," she repeated. "And Elayne will be there –"

"Elayne is a child," he snarled, with as much contempt as he had ever mustered. "You are not so far off her age –"

She rounded on him, spitting fire, her hand unconsciously tightening viselike on her braid once more. "I am old enough to understand what I can and cannot do!" she nearly shouted. A few nearby Defenders of the Stone, stationed strategically around the battlements, glanced over at the scene uneasily.

In a lower voice, she added, "So should you be. Your duty is to Moirane. I hold your ring only; she still holds your loyalty."

Even quieter, he said, "I gave you my loyalty and everything else when I gave you that ring."

All of her anger abruptly drained out of her with his soft words. She felt it like a rush, like a flow, almost akin to releasing saidar – she knew she was losing her power, or what would have given her power, and she felt almost empty without it. Her hand released her braid and Lan reached out to brush it back over her shoulder. Briefly, his fingers traced across the ring that rested in the swell of her breasts, the one he'd given her at Fal Dara with his signet embossed on it.

"I will go with you," he said, in that same way, in that same brook-no-nonsense voice, as if anyone could speak to Nynaeve al'Meara in a brook-no-nonsense voice. That was her tone, her inflection, her voice. She did not think she was losing herself, surrendering her pride or her passion; only that she was seeing more of herself in him, and feeling more of him within her.

She shook her head again, sighing, saying, "We'll speak more of this later. I am tired of discussing it."

Wearily she covered her face with her hands, and before she had even sensed he'd moved, Lan had enfolded her in his arms. His grip felt stronger than iron, and despite the stifling warmth she leaned into his chest, accepting the rough scrape of his tunic against her cheek and the slimy-slippery feel of her fingers knotting in his Warder's cloak as she returned the embrace.

In Emond's Field, she would have long been asleep at this hour, her fire banked and her quilt around her chin. In that life, the one she'd left behind, she was quite content, but she knew now that everything that had happened and would happen was welcomed and appreciated. The bad was taken along with the good, because in all of it, she'd found seeds of hope and of happiness.

This moment – indeed, all of her moments with Lan, fleeting as they most times were – overruled any lingering nostalgia for her uncomplicated life as village Wisdom.

There were very few sounds echoing around in that still night. The creak of the Defenders' armor as they shifted or walked a few paces back and forth, the distant and muted talking in the Stone below them, and Lan's deep breathing seemed to be all she could hear. At the very least, it was all she wanted to hear.

Below, she heard a voice that sounded distinctly like Egwene's. "Nynaeve?" she called, although it was muffled, heard through the hatch that had led onto the battlements. "Nynaeve, I think Moiraine will speak to us now…" Egwene's voice trailed off as she moved inside the Stone further away from where they stood outside of it.

She preempted Lan, knowing he would murmur something about her finding out what she needed to be told. She said, "In a minute. Just another moment like this."

Just a hundred – thousand – more, if she could help it.