Author's Note: My (very AU) take on the mystery behind Tuon's connection/preoccupation with a certain person. Special thanks to Shaiel for providing the inspiration - your review of a Time to Dance reminded me that I like Mat/Tuon fics. too :)
Apologies in advance for any confusion caused by this PWP, AU and rather wee little piece. Hope someone enjoys.
Disclaimer: I make no profit from the following and own nothing connected with RJ's mighty tomes.
Into the Sea
On the eve of her twelfth naming day, Tuon had a dream. Not an ordinary dream of feastdays or soaring on 'Raken-back or cresting the brine of the Aryth. This one was different. Special.
At dawn-break, in keeping with the tradition of an auspicious naming day, Tuon was taken to the seeress.
Tuon didn't like the seeress – her den was filled with strange smells and sounds, as though something dank and ancient crawled behind the cracked walls.
Tuon had been brought to the old woman once before, had sat in her dusty den of furs and worn silks when she was a child of seven winters.
Now the seeress looked twice as ancient, her rumpled chin drooping to her wheezing chest, fingers gnarled as old roots as they plucked at the cards.
The seeress's words were frail as gossamer and Tuon had grown drowsy, her mind fogged by smouldering ymenth that danced smoke before her heavy eyes.
Then, before the candles could gutter in their own tallow, the seeress had handed her something.
It was a shell; spat from the warmest shore of the Aryth, the old woman cackled. Strange words had been carved in its rippled surface. Although Tuon had learned a little of the Old Tongue, she did not recognise the words.
Tuon was not worried. She had been warned that the seeress was sometimes confused or spoke of things that could never pass.
Because of this, and because the seeress never asked, Tuon didn't speak of her dream. Indeed, until her sixteenth naming day, the girl had forgotten her midnight apparitions altogether.
Tuon closes her eyes. Her cheeks burn with shame. It is of little comfort that only the seeress will hear her words. She should not speak aloud, forever violate the hallowed vow of silence, yet the questions writhe within.
She twists the shell in her hand, traces a lacquered nail over the carved words.
Seeress, at night I see ravens in the black.
Sometimes I think they see me too. I watch the dark, catch a smile, a wink, the twitch of a moon-glossed wing.
That is how the dream finds me.
I am alone at first. Heat shivers grass warm and damp with dew. The air is heavy with mist. I know something is coming.
He wears black, of course. Black coat, black boots, black hat.
There we stand in that sun-soaked glade. His eyes are darkest carnelians.
When he speaks, oh, how I listen. His voice shames the sweetest breeze. He talks of things that slip through my mind like oiled fingers.
Do I know him? I feel that I must. For all his strangeness, I do.
But always he leaves.
How my ravens grieve, midnight on shadow. I count their sorrows 'til dawn.
Silence falls. Emptiness aches in Tuon, in that tiny hollow where dreams are hoarded. That hollow is not so empty now.
The old woman looks up. Her smile is limp, fathomless. Eyes dry as the faded drapes gaze into nothing.
Tuon departs, her hand still gripped about the shell. It is the morn of her sixteenth naming day. She can no longer afford the luxury of such childish folly.
'You have dreams? Speak freely, child. Tell me your visions.'
Tuon frowns. The old seeress is two winters in her grave yet Tuon is shaken by this new soothsayer; an anathema to her expectations, the creature is limpid eyed and smooth of skin, hair a sluice of gold.
Tuon sighs, absently runs a hand over her smooth pate, and speaks;
I have dreamed again, seeress. Dreamed of him
You wish me to speak further? I would not trouble you with truthless shades. And yet....yes seeress, divine their secrets. I yearn to know. I am not afraid.
It begins with light, a candle flutter. I am drawn to it helplessly as a moth.
The room is dark, a cell of fluttering shadows. He does not look up as I approach the table.
His hat is drawn low, the brim shielding his face. Only his hands move; turning, sifting, stroking the cards. A silver ring, carved and fluid, winks at me like some strange eye. He is waiting.
I sit as he spreads the cards, their faces pressed to the black wood.
He gestures at that fan of spines; once, twice, three times.
The first I choose with trembling fingers. It whispers free of its brethren. The second has a language of its own but the third is silent.
Slowly, oh so slowly, he shows me their faces.
The Hanged Man, smiling as his greets his fate.
A Tower, mortified and aflame, figures tumbling from its burning turret. I can almost hear their many-throated screams.
Finally, the World, a cracked bauble of fear and chaos.
I look up. Three pairs of eyes sear me. My host smiles as twin ravens crouch and snap on his shoulders.
I feel their breath as hooked beaks dart for my eyes....and so I wake.
The seeress smiles and closes her eyes. Tuon is silent as the woman intones her readings, scatters knuckles of bone on silk, flutters cards with the practiced grace of a racketeer.
Tuon's hand barely trembles as she plucks a card from the seeress's palm. The Hanged Man's smile is almost vulpine.
'Dear one.' The Seeress's touch is ice. 'Your husband deals the truth.'
Tuon stifles the shell in her palm, its cleft a tiny mouth of mute outrage.
She smiles, nods, leaves, her mind whirling with the coming Corenne. And she never dreams of him again.
Some time later, Tuon found herself in a strange place, a place where familiarity was rare enough to make her crave its comfort.
In her hand sat a humble treasure; a shell of pink and ivory. The carved words had neither faded nor revealed their secret tongue but the shell tasted of home and, if she listened hard enough, the sweet lull of the Aryth whispered from its pale mouth.
She started when something growled in the dark, shivered from the huge, hunkered cages, a beast within beasts.
'Who's there?'
He strolled to the wagon with all the slack-limbed insouciance of a cat, leaned against a spoked wheel.
'What are you doing here?'
'I could ask the same of you.' He tilted his hat so the moonlight touched his face. He was smiling. 'But I think I'd like to keep my head in one piece.'
Tuon smoothed her brow. Even his accent infuriated her, that loose, low brogue that reeked of haystacks and farmyards.
She stood, drawing on disdain to overcome her meager height. 'Read this for me.'
'A please wouldn't go amiss.' Predictably, however, curiosity overcame his pique. He stepped closer, close enough for his scent to reach her.
That horrid ring glittered as he reached for the shell. Something like recognition sharpened his features.
'It's a longgu,' she explained.
He nodded, absently it seemed. He turned the little treasure in his hands before reading the inscription. 'Your destiny stands before you.'
She snatched the shell, stepped back. 'How can you read that?'
'You're welcome. Light, do you have to be such a bloody brat?'
'How?' she snarled.
'These boots pick up more than just mud you know.' His eyes were very dark, very bright. 'Some people actually learn when they travel.'
Whirling, Tuon stormed from the lout, telling herself that it was anger heating her face, pounding her heart.
She could still feel his touch on the shell. She faltered, stopped, turned to see him still standing there. As she watched he flipped a snide little wave.
Your destiny stands before you.
She almost ran to her cabin. Her foot had barely touched the steps when a snarl jolted her. Feral eyes burned in the dark slats between the wooden tiers.
Tuon stared, absurdly jubilant that her accusation of the cages being so flimsy had been proven true.
'Hie. Hie you hateful thing.'
She almost sagged with relief when a fox loped into the moonlight.
It panted at her then slid into the undergrowth, its parting yap ringing almost like laughter. No, not almost.
She hurried up the steps and into the cabin. Plucking the flimsy drapes, she saw a tall shape detach from the shadows. She could almost see the laughter still hanging from his lips.
'Your destiny stands before me,' she heard herself breathe and, sometime later, as a fox yipped softly in the dark, Tuon sighed on her narrow bed and gave herself to a dream.
Ymenth is based on soporifics that supposedly induce trance and premonition.
Longgu is a tool of ancient Chinese divination (although shoulder-blades and turtleshells were mostly used. Apparently).
Would the Seanchan use a seeress/soothsayer? I don't see why not. Divination exists in WoT without the use of Saidar/Saidin (a la darling Min) so I doubt the practice would be outlawed. Still, if in doubt, cry AU :P
Thanks for reading.