*Disclaimer: If you have ever read Robert Jordan, you know that the Tuatha'an etc…do not belong to me. Branthell is mine, as well as the soldier, Alaina, and Alric.

**Twenty-Five Years Ago**

"You filthy Darkfriend. You sold your soul to the Dark One!" A curly haired young man whispered in the ear of the straight black haired man he held.

"Branthell…I know your voice. Come with me." The black haired man crooned.

"Never Paitr. I know you and your kind." Branthell snarled into the man's ear. Branthell brought the dagger up to slit the man's throat just as a young boy of five walked into the alleyway. He had the same straight black hair of Paitr and the same light green eyes. He must have been the Darkfriend's son.

"Father, I…" The young boy stopped as he saw a curly haired man bring a dagger up and methodically slit his fathers throat "Danni….." The father whispered as the knife slid along his exposed skin.

The boy ran to his father and fixed Branthell with a look of pure fear and a new emotion, hate, bubbled up out of the depths of those innocent green eyes. Branthell had stolen the boys innocence, but the boy did not know of the evil deeds his dark friend father performed. Perhaps Paitr had been a good man once, but the deeds of a dark friend spoke more loudly than Paitrs past. Branthell looked upon the boy, Danni, for only second before escaping through a drain nearby.

****Two Weeks Later****

"Commander, see that?" The commander of the Whitecloak troop looked off to where the younger officer pointed. A small cloak was stumbling and weaving down the road. To the eyes of the commander, it looked like a child. "Officer, that is a child. Bring him to me." The commander raised his white gloved hand signaling the troop to a halt.

The young officer dismounted and circled around the child so as to come by the front. "Hello my child." The child looked up and the officer could see the child's cracked lips and bloodshot eyes. He opened his mouth but his throat was so dry he could not speak. The officer took the flask of water hanging at this belt and handed it to the child. He greedily gulped the water.

"Gently." The officer grasped the flask and helped pour out a smaller portion into the child's starved lips.

"Thank you sir." The child handed the flask back to the officer.

"What is your name my child?"

"Danni." the child replied looking up with anxious green eyes. Could that be a hardness is this youths eyes? The soldier dismissed the thought immediately. "Danni, see that man on the horse? He would like the help you. Will you come with me?" The soldier held out his hand to the child and the child reached his small hand out and grasped the soldiers hand.

******The White Tower*******

A woman with a red stole emblazoned with the Flame of Tar Valon closed the door and quickly wove a ward against eavesdropping. She looked at the curly haired man in front of her. "You have done well Branthell. Your payment is here." She handed a small burlap purse full of silver to the man.

"He had a son Aes Sedai. He saw me kill his father."

"Yes," she said briskly, "We know of Danni. He will be taken care of." She already knew the Whitecloaks had the boy and truly did not care. The dark friend was dead and that was all the red sister cared about.

"I am through with you Aes Sedai. I will not longer do your dirty work." Branthell threw the purse on the table to his right and walked out the door. The Aes Sedai did not care, there were plenty of men just like Branthell that would eagerly kill for money. Branthell was different because he killed to rid the world of Darkfriends, he committed a necessary evil to get rid of a great evil. The Aes Sedai watched the man go. "The Light shine upon you."

*****Danni*****
Danni started up out of a solid slumber as he remembered the murder of his father. He had small satisfaction in knowing that he had slaughtered Alaina as she begged for Danni to follow the Way of the Leaf. The cow even forgave him. She was only a Tinker, she knew nothing. The power of the Dark Lord was all encompassing. His poor father never deserved to die. What had his father ever done to that man Branthell?

"Nothing." Danni said aloud. Since the Whitecloaks had adopted him as one of their own, Danni was trained as one. He learned how to fight in the street as well as the gentlemen's game. He threw himself to his studies with a fierce abandon that shocked his saviors. The whole time, Danni searched for Branthell. He hoped to run across the man and kill him in the same way the killed Danni's father. Revenge drove his whole existence until one day a man came to him at night.

Danni had been drinking heavily. This night was the anniversary of his fathers' merciless slaying and he wanted to forget the pain. He sat alone at a table until a dark unshaven man approached and asked for a seat.

"Care to tell me about your trouble friend?" Danni looked up and seeing the man slap a coin on the table to buy another drink. Danni related his tale and the man replied, "I can help you. Meet me here tomorrow night." And the unnamed man left.

Tomorrow night came and Danni found himself meeting the man and following him to a dark back room of a house down a quiet alley. Danni could smell fresh blood but he followed the man anyway. The mysterious man had paid for more than enough ale at the tavern to put Danni under the weather.

The man was leading Danni with a candle in his hand and Danni followed the pinprick of light more than anything else. Suddenly the light stopped and Danni stopped in front of a door with a blood red design on the door. A blood curdling scream came from behind the door and from that point on Danni only remembered vague pictures. Another man, tall and handsome, asked Danni if he would give up his soul to get revenge upon Branthell and he replied yes. A few other vague pictures and Danni remembered no more until he woke up the next morning in his own bed. He thought the had only dreamed the last two days until he looked down at the device burned blood red into his chest. It was no bigger than an inch but hurt like the sun. Danni did not know, but he was already doomed.

*****Branthell******

Branthell walked away from the fight and remembered the young soldier from two years ago. A deeper memory tugged at him, but he could not place it. Branthell walked back to his single wagon and closed the door. As he slid the bolt home, he undid his sword belt and slid it to the floor. Tears coursed down his face as he remembered Alaina's last words. " Forgive him, he is lost. I love you." She had struggled with breath after those words and then slowly died in his arms. Alaina had so much more courage than the did. She even valued a life such as his and that of the boy who killed her. Branthell suddenly remembered the last murder he had ever performed. A boy had witnessed, a boy with black hair just like the soldiers from today. The picture of his last victim's face fused with that of the soldiers from today and he suddenly recalled the name. "Danni…He killed my wife, because I killed his father." Branthell sank to the floor in grief for his dead wife, for all the men he killed in what he was told the Name of the Light, and for the young soldier Danni, whose life he had destroyed.

Some time later, maybe minutes, maybe days, a knock came at his door. Branthell struggled with his grief and answered the door. It was the leader of the Tuatha'an caravan Alric. " Branthell, I see this encounter has caused you much grief." Branthell looked at the man and wordlessly handed the sword over. Alric took the blade. The blade was a fine blade with a heron mark on the scabbard but left off the actual metal of the sword. "I know what to do with this."

"I killed his father." Alric looked at Branthell. "He killed my wife and now I join the Tuatha'an completely. I want no more violence. His eyes were filled with the most hate I have ever seen. He did not know of the filthy Darkfriend deeds his father had done. I had no respect for life. Alaina taught me to live. She lived each moment with such passion and now I am here and she is gone."

Alric quietly left Branthell to himself. When a man comes to the sudden catharsis that Branthell had been led up to today, he needed peace to accept his new life."

***Memory of Alaina****

The sun had been shining all day. Alaina lay on the grass with the sun shining upon her radiant hair. "Branthell, these are the moments we live for." He looked at his love and saw tears slowly coursing down her face. She was looking at a lone dove flying through the air. The dove was a pure white and shining from some inner light. The breeze at the same time was gently rippling the lake creating a crystalline shimmer in the air. Under the dappled shade of the tree, Alaina explained the Way of the Leaf as she saw it and in it's simplicity Branthell then wished he could accept.

"These moments are made of heartbreaking beauty. The beauty is so near and so close to perfection we are forever changed by it. The Creator sends these small pieced of heaven to us. To follow the Way means to embrace these moments in entirety and see them everywhere. Those that follow the Way drink these moments in like a king drinks fine wine. Oh Branthell, I love you. When I am gone, please follow the way."

Branthell looked down at his wife and saw the only perfection he thought he would ever see. A tear flowed down his face and he looked away ashamed.

***

Branthell carried this perfect memory with him forever, and as he looked out the window of his wagon, he saw a pure white dove flying through the air and he wept for the simple love of life.