A/N: Written for Kyra who plays an amazing Mat.
Omens
The sun was beating down and the sense of lethargy from everyone seemed to add to belief that time had somehow stopped. Valan Luca's Travelling Show could have been walking on the spot for miles, for all the change in the dusty landscape that had been produced.
It was the Dark One's own touch that had lengthened the summer this way, by this time of year back in the Two Rivers they should already have been gathering crops and salting meat ready for the winter... but instead crops were withering and even dried meat was going bad in a matter of hours.
If that was all he had to worry about, he'd be a lucky man. It was a bitter thought, that he'd trade any amount of crop worries for those bloody women driving him mad. Those Light-blasted Aes Sedai who still treated him as though he were a blundering idiot who had offended their mother's and spilled tea on their finest silks, instead of saved them from the Seanchan. Now there was a thing to make a fellow's skin crawl. Those bloody sul'dam and damane, he thought the Aes Sedai were bad, but... Burn him, nobody deserved to be leashed and treated like a dog.
But worse than the Aes Sedai in his mind - and burn Thom for a fool if he said he was whining again - was that bloody woman. He didn't know how he could have ever thought of her as a boy, it was obvious now that even despite her mostly bald head she couldn't be anything but a woman. That heart-shaped face and curves a little less than he usually liked, with those eyes that could make any sensible man come over all wool-headed.
"What are you thinking about, Toy?"
Mat's head snapped up to look at Tuon, mouth working silently as he tried to think of an answer that wouldn't make him look like a moon-eyed ninny. Bloody women, always coming up behind you just when you didn't want them around. Selucia's fingers twitched and Tuon laughed, a musical sound as she flicked her fingers back at her Voice in amusement.
Mat felt his teeth grind. He hated it when they did that, always talking under his nose as though he was too fool to be included... probably laughing over whatever they imagined he was thinking about.
"Perhaps you were watching the ants, Toy?"
Why would any sane man want to spend his time looking at ants? Burn him if he knew. He opened his mouth to tell her as such, when he noticed how intently she was looking at them, a tiny furrow in her brow of thoughtfulness and concern.
"What is it?"
Tuon's look was unreadable, more of that silent speech as she conferred with Selucia and then straightened as though to walk away.
"Hey! Hey, aren't you going to tell me what you saw, Precious?"
He didn't even know why he was asking, it's not like he believed in all that supersitious rubbish, and it icertainly wasn't/i to keep her nearby, no matter what Thom said. But she didn't answer, just carried on walking as though neither she nor Selucia noticed his very existence.
Irritated, Mat flopped back down and stared at the ants wondering what omen they could be predicting. He had no clue, but there was one thing he did know was at fault for sure...
"Bloody women."