"Making Peace"
by mackatlaw
Rand looked at the rows of weapons, hanging shiny and sharp from the wall in front of him. Swords, knives, axes, halberds, everything a warrior could need. They hung proud on the display, mounted on wooden pegs, but they were meant for use. No glass protected them from hands, for a ruler should always be able to dispense justice when needed. He turned away from the weapons, though, and looked at the man beside him.
"Lan, tell me what would make a man give up his old ways in return for new? Why should I ever think we can make peace with the Seanchan?"
The Aes Sedai Warder was quiet. Inside the court chamber only a faint rustle could be heard, as the breeze blew fine, whisper-thin blue curtains from an outer window. Gold brocade covered the furniture, the tables and conference chairs. The front of the room had markings on the marble floor where a throne had been removed. The weapons were all the statement the Dragon Reborn needed to make of rulership. It was his habit to address the room from in front of them.
Lan finally spoke. "You're not asking me only if we can make alliance with the Seanchan. You know we can. Harder to meet them on the fields of diplomacy than in the strife of battle, but it can be done. I never thought to say this, but it's true now, I know. Words and treaties can be as dangerous, as deadly, as the blades on your wall."
Rand paced, hands tightly held behind his back. The red and gold of his brocaded tunic flashed as he passed by the sunlit window. The Warder held his tongue, watching Rand measuringly. The boy had grown up to be a man, and a dangerous one. Lan had taught him some of the skills he bore now, the nocking of an arrow, the turn of a sword, the block of a fist, but other talents were called for now. It remained to be seen whether Cairheien's new ruler could learn them.
"Even if I crushed them decisively," said Rand, "It would weaken us at a time when we cannot afford that. But if we take them to bosom, there may come a time when we regret our bed partners. Better near than far, though, and at least we will be close enough to watch each other carefully. There is so little we know about them. I'm not sure if I want to know more. I fear that I must."
"You have grown powerful. You have learned that the One Power is better than a sword, no matter how well you wield it," Lan said.
Here he looked sharply at Rand. "Mistake me not. A sword of the One Power is still a sword, if you only use it to destroy things. Can you create as well as tear down? If you can change your weapons from the physical to the diplomatic, you can build nations even as you bring down others, perhaps even enough to hold us together for the Last Battle. But none of that will help you unless you can find peace within yourself."
Rand turned, the sun lighting him from behind in the dark reds of the end of a day.
"There are things inside you that will tear you apart if you let them. Can a warrior ever be at peace? I think I have found mine, when I rest inside her arms. I do not know where your peace lies. It is not my place to guess. Until you do, you will be at war with yourself, and I fear that you will never truly make peace with others."
The Dragon Reborn said nothing as the sun continued to set, casting deep shadows of blood-red light on the floor. Of every instrument of destruction in the room, he was the most dangerous.
"Can you give up your old ways? I do not know. I only hope you can, or your war, and ours, will never end in anything but the final end."
Rand looked at Lan, and Lan met his gaze calmly until there was nothing more to say.