How You Survived the War
i think you can choose to love
Lan set his knee between her thighs, trapping the yellow silk of her dress and leaving her unable to squirm free. His smile was roguish – more a deeply satisfied smirk than a smile. He was aware that she couldn't get away from him. She leaned back against the chaise and wrapped her arms around his neck. His head ducked, his lips finding the hollow of her throat, and, surprising herself, she laughed. It was the smallest sound, barely discernable, but he hummed against her skin in approval.
"What was that?" he whispered. His hands wrapped around her waist, his long fingers searching for the ties at the back of her dress. She could feel his calluses through the thin silk she wore, and she shivered, gooseflesh rising all up and down her arms.
"Nothing," she gasped, another unintentional laugh slipping past her defenses. He gave up on the back of her dress, settling instead for her sleeves, which he eased down her shoulders. She struggled in vain against the iron grip of his knee as he exposed her breasts, mumbling something in approval. "Lan, we can't – there are too many people around here. Rand stays up til all hours, the Maidens are always –"
He easily ignored her, lightly kissing her breasts while his hands attempted to ease her dress the rest of the way off. She was physically far inferior to him, but maybe she could use her tried-and-true Wisdom sternness on him. Trying to assume an air of austerity, she snapped, "al'Lan Mandragoran, you'll stop this right now."
He sat up, face contrite, and Nynaeve felt a brief thrill of victory before he leaned in and kissed her, obliterating her drive and determination. Blood and ashes, she thought distantly. If Rand walks in, the fool deserves what he finds. Lan's quest to discover the trappings of her dress ended when he tore at the fabric, the fine silk shredding with barely more than a suggestion from his practiced fingers, and she lifted her leg to wrap around his waist, her fingernails digging through the thin tunic he wore --
"Nynaeve," Rand snapped, sudden and cold, sharp as a snap of lightning.
She sat up stiffly on the chaise she had fallen asleep on, rubbing at her eyes. He was blurry and indistinct before her, although his steel-colored eyes stood out clearly. She blinked several times, wiping the sleep from her vision. Rand solidified before her, a tower of a man in a black coat with black embroidery lancing up the sleeves. That blasted ter'angreal poked out of his pocket where he thought she couldn't see.
"What in the Light do you want?" she mumbled thickly. She hastily rearranged her skirts, fearing for the split silk, but found that her dress was unspoiled and ever-modest, albeit a bit wrinkled and twisted from being slept on. "It's early yet."
He turned his back to her, which she was grateful for. She couldn't take those eyes looking at her anymore, like he could see what she had been dreaming. It hadn't been so long ago that she had smacked him around Emond's Field for similar fancies – or, at least that was what she was telling herself. He still needed her, even now. That counted for something.
"We meet with the Seanchan today," he said, voice impassive. "I want to plan everything to the minute. Be in the throne room in an hour."
He strode from the room without a backward glance. His leaving seemed to lighten the atmosphere of the small drawing room she had dozed off in, and she was able to relax for a moment, and think back to what she had dreamed. She tried not to dwell on Lan during her day-to-day activities – she would never accomplish anything if she did – but it appeared she couldn't shake him at night.
She leaned back against the chaise with a sigh, covering her eyes with a hand. "Lan," she whispered. "Wool-headed fool. You had better come back to me; I won't see your death become another advantage to him."
--
To his back, Lan heard the soft sounds that accompanied a fairly large group of men bedding down for the night. Leather creaked, metal rapped against metal as swords were laid aside, and spoons banged against stew bowls. Quiet murmuring back and forth made the night seem almost peaceful, as if this were a hunting expedition and not a suicide mission.
He wished still that the only sounds he heard at night were his own, his whispering to his horse as he settled in for a few hours' rest, rhythmic striking of his whetstone against his blade. Nynaeve had seen that he only had had a few nights of those to himself. Almost as soon as he'd set out, men had come to him, pledging their swords against the Shadow. Now he was responsible for the deaths of these men, many of them barely more than children, or with full heads of silver hair. Foolish, ridiculous woman. She didn't understand what she was meddling with.
Still, Lan couldn't help but run the yellow sash through his fingers for the fifth time that night. He'd taken it from her saddlebags on the day she had left him in Saldea to ride across the entirety of the Borderlands and reach Tarwin's Gap, when she was asleep in bed, her dark hair tangled and loose, her body shrouded in the bed's white sheets.
He toyed with the dangling fringe on the end, imagining it as it had hung from her shoulders and draped across the small of her back, where he'd kissed a hundred times…
He sighed, leaned back with the sash in his hands, and looked up at the stars.