Nynaeve cannot Travel to Malkier without knowing the land. No one is quite sure if the land will look like it is supposed to, either, after the Blight, which makes skimming difficult.

So they ride.

Theirs is a large party, with plenty of people and plenty of horses. There isn't a real reason for Moiraine and Nynaeve to ride double, each taking turns guiding the horse or dozing against the other's back, but they do it anyway: Thom and Lan seem to find it reassuring, that they are in the same place.

It is patently ridiculous. Moiraine, head against Nynaeve's shoulder as the new Queen of Malkier fusses at someone for being too loud – I have faced the Dark One and you will be as much mincemeat if I say so, let the woman sleep – does not actually mind.

"What seems to be the problem?" Moiraine asks into Nynaeve's back, deciding not to remind Nynaeve that she too had faced the Dark One.

"People want to talk to you," Nynaeve says with a sniff.

"Maybe they want to talk to you."

"That too."

Moiraine does not laugh, but only because she has had years of practice. She does sit up straight and flick a bit of air through her hair to put it in place.

The Malkieri as a whole treat her interestingly. It isn't their fault – there isn't any protocol for former warder/Aes Sedai pairs in the Tower, let alone outside. Lan let it be known that she was important, somehow, but Aes Sedai advisor doesn't quite cover it and many of them look at her as if they have heard all of the stories the novices like to circulate about her, and of course, because they are Malkieri, the men never meet her eyes.

Lan has stopped meeting her eyes too. It's a habit she thought she broke him of, but here he is as if they are once again strangers and he is about to throw her into a pond.

She might be exaggerating. They know each other too well now to behave as if they are strangers. Still, the lack of eye contact grates on her nerves. She is used to Lan being the person in the world she can trust the most, and she is used to being the person in the world he can trust the most.

Moiraine likes it less than she thought she would, not having Lan to lean on.

"Don't mope," Nynaeve orders, and Moiraine considers being angry for a moment before letting it go. It is surprisingly difficult to be angry with Nynaeve these days: it might have something to do with facing the incarnation of evil together and putting it back in its place.

"Was I moping?" Moiraine asks.

Nynaeve turns her head so Moiraine's nose almost touches her cheek and eyes her beadily. Moiraine surprises herself and Nynaeve when she pecks a kiss onto Nynaeve's cheek and raises a brow.

It has been years – decades – since she was at all playful. Nynaeve harrumphs and turns back, but she is blushing a little. Moiraine raises an eyebrow at Lan, too, when he circles back around with his newly ever-present entourage.

She can feel Thom's amusement through the bond, a steady, pleasant thing. Thom's feelings are so unlike Lan's that it is often startling. For all his talk of romance, she doesn't feel it through the bond. She might prefer it that way – she is not, after all, a green. Or maybe Thom's love is always like this, light and protective and hardly at all romantic. She can understand why that would be doubly appealing to someone like Morgase, after Taringail.

Sometimes she wonders what she would have felt from Siuan.

"Moiraine Sedai?" one of the men behind Lan asks. "What are your thoughts?"

This is what she gets for thinking too much: entire missed conversations. "My thoughts are hardly worth mentioning at the moment," she says, drawing on those years of Aes Sedai mystery.

Nynaeve snorts very quietly. Moiraine is sure only half those present hear.

"Camp just on the rise, then," Lan says, probably for her benefit. The corner of his mouth is crooked up. "See to it."

The entourage rushes off. She assumes it means no one worries for his safety when he is with them.

The horse shifts under them as if it would like to misbehave, but both she and Nynaeve know horses. Lan watches them with a larger smile.

"Someone will set up our tents," he tells them, Mandarb still as a rock underneath him. She misses her own horse with a sudden pang.

"Aldieb will arrive with the first relief train from Cairhien," Lan continues as if he can still read her as well as he ever could.

"I can set up my own tent," Nynaeve informs him.

"Rank has its privileges, Nynaeve," Moiraine says. "Take some advantage."

Lan laughs outright at that and the sniff that follows as he dismounts, which is new. She would love Nynaeve just for that, Moiraine thinks, but Nynaeve has probably always been an overachiever, so Nynaeve has also helped her to save the world and stood beside her in actual hell. It had been for Rand, true, but hadn't Rand been why Moiraine was there too?

He offers her a hand down first and she stares down at him.

"I can dismount," she says.

"Rank has its privileges," he and Nynaeve say at the same time, though they use very different tones, so Moiraine sighs and allows it, as does Nynaeve when her turn comes.


A Note from the Author: As is usually the case, I don't have much of an explanation. This is a thing. It's happening. The chapters will all be connected but not without time gaps.