Just a widdle one-shot since the Wheel of Time is FAR to complex for me to attempt a proper fanfiction. This is the result of an over-active imagination, and WAY too many hours playing Kingdom Hearts.

Enjoy.

One Sky, One Destiny

The Stone was quiet; the city of Tear nestled in the south of the land bearing the same name seemingly calm today, as though all the world held its breath. Strange things were happening, expected, and yet unexpected at the same time.

A man could fall from a window and walk away fine, while his brother could abruptly slip on a clean floor and split his head. Wine bottled only months before would be vinegar, weevils invading a jar of flour fresh only an hour before. The dead would roam the streets, fading like specters with no mind for the living; or rather, those who simply had not succumbed to the elements and given up their painful existence.

What was life in this land? Not only in Tear; but Andor, Altara, Cairhien, Illian, Arad Doman, and all other lands stretching from the Aiel Waste to the oceans and beyond across those fast waves. Threads were plucked from the pattern with each passing hour, the cloth fraying along the edges. Fragile moments in time were losing themselves forever in the darkness.

And he, he stood at the center of it all. As his birth had marked the beginning, his death would signal its timely end. Well, for this age at least. There are no ends, just as there are no beginnings; merely continuations. Only further chapters in the endless story, and countless strands woven into an eternal tapestry of time and truth.

Min was elsewhere within the Stone, he could feel her, that tiny knot of stubborn resolve and mild amusement humming contently in the back of his skull. He felt dim regret that the other two to whom his heart was bound were not closer so that he could feel them more clearly. The fourth, and original, bit of consciousness he flatly regarded and bluntly dismissed without hesitation. He had sent her away some days ago, if she were to be ill, let her be ill elsewhere and not in his sight.

'Someone's been in here, look, look about you now, you horrid madman you!' A voice piped up, frantic and fevered as it whispered in his ear, making him feel tense and filling him with the need to jump about in panic. 'Someone's been in here! Someone has been in here and has tampered with my things!'

'Silence, madman!' Was his harsh, mental reply, his teeth gritting stiffly to make his jaw jut out in irritation and anger. 'They are my things as this is my head! Be quiet!'

The first voice nattered off in his skull, their skull. Words becoming wails, names he did not know being wept by the voice before at last he was able to quiet the words of Lewis Therin, his long dead predecessor.

However, mad or no, the wailing voice was right. Someone had been in here without his knowledge, and what was more, it was without the knowledge of the guards stationed outside. The wards he'd woven with Sadin were unbroken across the window of the wide chamber he and Min shared together, and the Maidens outside had reported nothing. They didn't allow servants to enter his chambers anyways unless perhaps someone such as Min were there to watch them. But someone had defiantly been in here.

He could sense energy in the air, something soft, mystical even. It hovered like a pale white smoke in the wide expanse of floor between the thick, dark posts of his shared bed and the wide, barred window which looked out across the city of Tear. It felt like nothing he had felt before, neither Sadin, nor Sadar, the two parts of the One Power.

Was that possible? To wield a power which was neither side? He watched to touch it, he wanted to know what it was, see if he could feel it and hold it himself. A new weapon? Or was it a very old, ancient one, lost with the Age of Wonders?

But for the energy, that warm, gentle haze, only one last detail was amiss within the entire room. The richly coloured rugs across the floor had not been disturbed, no wrinkle in the deep red of the bedding unaccounted for.

All that was there which had not been before, was one crisp, green envelope. It was sitting on the small table where he and Min dined each morning, left sitting on its back as the dishes had been cleared before he had gone off to attend to business for a few hours elsewhere in Cairhien.

On its pale, olive surface sat a small stamp, it looked as though someone had taken the pen with which they had been writing and had drawn three circles, one large one in the middle, and two smaller ones just off to each upper corner. Each circle was covered in to leave the dark pattern clearly visible.

'W-why can't I move! I want to pick it up! I want to see that letter! Damn you, cursed, madman! Let me go! This is my body; my form!' The voice suddenly wailed once more, his head dipping down in surprise as his remaining hand was half-up towards his face before he stopped the motion. He was in control, not some faint, madman's voice. He need only see the golden dragon-head etched into his right hand to remember that truth. 'I cannot die now, not yet! No foolish minion of the dark would send a trap in paper this late in the game. Let go!'

'I said silence!' He boomed internally, his voice drowning out the wails of the ancient man, 'You are the Dragon two-thousand years dead! I am the Dragon Reborn, living to fight the Dark One! Obey me when I tell you to be silent!'

A shriek as if in fright and a keeling wail, the voice once more fleeing into the dark recesses of their shared mind. He saw his chance and took it, reaching out for the power he needed not only fight against in itself to control, but also that same wretched voice.

Oh, that ice fire, that blistering ice. Mountains crashing down upon him as torrents of raw force sought to drag him under and devour his entire being. Sadin rushed through him, heightening his senses, filling that gap a missing hand left in him. Opening his eyes from where they had closed while he was grasping for Sadin, colours seemed more vivid, lines distinct. He could hear the soft, subtle noises of the Maidens sitting outside his door; smell the faint aroma which seemed to follow Min around. He felt better.

Crossing the room in a few quick strides, he took the letter up in his right hand, jamming his thumb under the flap before gripping it with his teeth and tearing through the tinted parchment. Sitting himself down on the bed, he wiggled the two pieces of creamy parchment out from within their thin casing. They unfolded in his hands and he lifted it up without sensing anything even the slightest bit out of the ordinary. For all he very well knew at this point, it could have been something from Min, or Cadsuane.

Rand,

That was a slight surprise, his name sat at the top of the page and to the left, nothing else accompanying it as his eyes scanned down the page towards the flowing calligraphy below. The ink was thick and dark, high quality as it seemed to shine from the light coming through the closed window.

I won't go an' add on your last name and the titles I know you've probably collected by now. It might be a bit improper I know, but we both know the important ones, and any that I probably don't know I'm sure you can recite by heart.

Who was this person? Who was writing as though they knew him? They didn't, or shouldn't have, they'd written nothing yet to make him feel as though he should remember them. So then, why was this person speaking as though they were familiar with one another? Forsaken?

I know that you're under a lot of stress right now. Everything seems to be coming apart at the seams on some levels, and yet on others the pieces are sliding cleanly into place. And then just to make things more difficult there are always those questions with no answers, those circumstances where we can only allow the chips to fall where they may, no matter how badly we think or feel that we can stop them.

There was no name at the bottom of the second page, for that matter, the entire second sheet was entirely blank. What trickery was this? He blinked and looked away from the words, looking only at the lines. What he'd read in the beginning was still there, but the words cut off abruptly at the bottom. Was this to keep the message to his eyes alone? He could sense nothing of the One Power within the ink or paper, what was this?

But you need to remember at least one important thing; you're not alone. Even in your darkest hour, when all bets are off and when any and all comrades you have left are face-down in the dirt, you're still not alone.

Do you know how many people have died in your world? Do you think about the-

He stopped; his turned his face away from the page. Did he know how many were dead? By the Light, burn him if anyone could total them all. Blood and bloody ashes, did he think about it? Women, children, men of all ages, all walks of life. All dead, their blood on his hands, covering him so thickly his skin was blackening from the stains.

Do you think about them each night before you sleep? People will tell you it's not your fault, that you couldn't have done anything to stop it. But their words sound hollow to you, don't they?

Who was this person? He couldn't help himself now, Lewis Therin was silent in his mind, the madman's eyes watching through his own, running across the page as swiftly as the letters could form. Who was this person? Which of the Forsaken was he, to see into his thoughts, or to have the luck to fire blindly and strike a target within him?

You're not alone. Because I understand those same feelings. And I know others who do as well. I've sent children to help me in my fights, I've seen them twisted by the darkness I've wanted only to destroy, and it carves into me each time. So, you're not alone, Rand. You're never alone.

Even if everyone you see turns their back on you, even if those who remain by your side fall, you're not alone. There are other worlds fighting just like yours', Rand. Do you see the stars at night time? Do you see them falter and then twinkle out like dying flames? Those stars, those worlds, those blips of light in the endless darkness… Your world is just like them. Your world is fighting, your world is surviving.

Your world; is not alone.

The sky stretching above your head when you look up is the same one I see when I gaze at the stars. There are so many worlds, but they all share the same sky. One sky, one destiny.

Sincerely,

At the bottom, again, that same symbol; three black circles, a large one in the middle with two smaller ones at the top corners. No name, no titles, only that symbol.

He turned the second page over as if in surprise to find the letter complete. Other worlds? Stars going out? What was this? He returned to the front page and looked at it once again, finding it blank until he began to read once more. He read it over a second time, and then a third.

This… it wasn't from the Forsaken, the Dark Lord, or anyone whom he could possibly ever meet. Why did this feel so familiar? This person? It was as if he were speaking to someone he once knew, or should have known. How strange.

Picking up both pages from his lap, he placed them one on top of the other and folded them as best he could with his single hand, lifting the parchment up and abandoning their casing as he stood. Should he burn this now that he had read it? It would be dangerous in the wrong hands, he knew it. It delved into his thoughts just enough to give any Dark Friends enough of an edge to try digging deeper.

A hot flash sliced through the air once he stepped away from the bedding, Sadin engulfing the green envelope in flames hot enough to leave not but white ash in their stead. This wasn't safe to keep. Holding the letter up in front of him, he moved his fingers into the creases carefully, unfolding the creamy parchment enough to see the three circles one last time.

A second flash of Sadin burst through the air as he let the papers drop, flames so strong they burned white engulfing the thick paper and oily black ink. The flowing penmanship blackened and crumbled, leaving only a second slight dusting of white across the thick rug.

Slowly, the sound of his boots moved towards the window, clacking against the hard wooden floor as he left the thick rug's boundaries and stood at the window, unconsciously rubbing the stump of his left hand. Slowly, from his south-facing window his eyes trailed up, starting from the muddied streets below him and before the stone, trailing down to crowded wharfs and docked boats of any manner of size and shape. Up, across the horizon, out to the Fingers of the Dragon, the River Erinir's delta. Towards the sea and then into the sky which merged seamlessly with the water. His eyes moved higher and higher, to where the sky was touched with faint golds and bronzes, evening was approaching the southern coast of Tear.

Tonight… he would count the stars. And count however many others there were looking back at him.

Not much of anything, I know, and very short to boot. But meh.

Yes yes, I jacked lines from Kairi's letter. But never fear! I don't even remember how to describe Rand in detail, so don't worry about any creepy cross-overs from me.

If you read it, review it? Odd idea, maybe, but meh.