Author's Note: Familiar themed fluff for anyone in need of some warm and fuzzies.

Disclaimer: (insert sheepish grin here)

Dawn and Noon and Dusk

'But this was your idea,' Egwene hissed, wondering if she had heard the girl wrong.

Merisa worried at a leaf. 'I-I can't. What if he gets wind it was me behind it.'

'It is you behind it.'

'Maybe you misheard.' She abandoned the leaf and took instead to twisting her braid. 'Maybe he would have danced with you later.'

Maybe's were fine things, Egwene thought. Maybe she should have remembered Merisa could stir up trouble faster than Mistress Luhan's legendary pudding spoon. Maybe she shouldn't have got angry enough to agree to the stupid plan.

Maybe she should have kept her current opinion of Merisa to herself.

'I am not a turncoat!' Merisa flounced to her feet. 'And he probably would have danced with you if you weren't such a bossy little prig.'

Egwene gasped but Merisa had already darted into the night. 'Fine,' she muttered, crouching low so she could spy on the proceedings where the leaves were sparser.

The moonlight made the scene look all the more like something out of a book. The shales of the Winespring winked dreamy silver, the treetops barely stirred. Below danced a dozen or so couples, still graceful despite the many empty kegs now serving as seats for those waiting hopefully for a turn. Faces gleamed, skirts whirled, laughter rang bright and clear.

Egwene wanted to scream.

The reason for her predicament was dancing with Mira. Mira! A simpering, tattle-telling featherhead! Wil was smirking at the girl – Ashes, why did he think himself so grand and mighty? Oh, his eyes were nice enough, if a little dim, and his mouth was a pretty bow beneath a neat, straight nose. But it was a bland face, tasteless as new butter. A peppering of freckles would add flavour, or perhaps a cowlick in that seamless hair. Maybe a scar…

She thought it was a leaf tickling her ear until she gave a absent swipe and felt it wriggle.

'Light, Egwene,' came a voice between wheezes of laughter. 'No need to squawk.'

Later, she would admit that she squawked. Right now, however…

'You numbwit.' Fists clenched, she seethed at the boy grinning at her.

'Relax. Look.' He jiggled what looked like a tangle of wool on a string. 'Had Bode good and proper. Should have seen the look on her…hey!'

Egwene watched the 'spider' sail over the bush with some satisfaction. 'Why don't you grow up?'

Mat nudged past her for a peek through the branches. 'This coming from a girl spying on…ah, I should have known.' He sat back, hands tucked under his chin and eyelashes aflutter. 'The lovely Wil 'al Seen.'

'I was not spying,' she said, voice hot as her cheeks. 'I needed to ask him something.'

'In that case—' Mat cupped his mouth. 'Hey, Wil!'

Egwene yanked him back down beside her. Wil was craning his head this way and that, perfect brows furrowed. 'Shut up,' she hissed. 'What are you doing here anyway?'

'Following you,' he said, bold as you please. 'Looked like you were up to something. I've something of a nose for somethings.'

'Is that so?'

Mat nodded so solemnly she almost smiled. It would not do to smile at Matrim Cauthon. Nynaeve said never encourage the incorrigible.

'Are those mulch berries?' Mat's face turned crafty as he plucked a dark, sticky fruit from her stash. 'Only good for one thing in my experience. I knew it,' he crowed at her fierce blush. 'And fancy leaving me out. So, who's getting a pelting?'

'Don't be a woolhead. Merisa picked them for Bela.'

'Oh,' said Mat. Then, a little too airily; 'Where is Merisa anyway?'

Egwene snorted. 'I don't think so.'

'What?'

'Merisa wouldn't dance with you if Wil was splattered with a thousand mulch-berries.'

Egwene bit her lip, but Mat had plainly not heard her gaffe. 'Dance? Maybe not.' The moonlight caught the glaze in his eyes. 'A kiss on the other hand…'

Ha! As if Merisa, pretty, snoot-nosed Merisa, would be interested in the likes of Matrim Cauthon. Why, he barely came up to her shoulder!

Except that wasn't quite right. Even now, crouched beside her, Mat was half a head closer to the top of the bush. Hadn't he always been smaller than the other village boys? Yet he won that scuffle against Dav only a three-week ago, and Dav was nearly as tall as Ran…the taller boys.

'You leave Merisa alone.'

'I thought you said she wouldn't dance with me if Wil…hang on; why are you hiding back here to drool over that lackwit? All the other girls are doing it at the dance.'

The dance, the dance. She wished everyone would shut up about the stupid dance. 'Do you have your sling?'

'Does Cenn have a pickle in his ear?' At her puzzled look, he lifted his doublet so Egwene could see a gleam of polished willow.

'Give it to me.'

'Hardly.'

She could hear Wil's voice behind the screen of leaves; gloating, cocksure. 'Why not?' she demanded.

'You'll put out someone's eye – mine most bloody likely.'

'Mat—'

'Mat nothing - promised da I'll stay out of trouble or it's a month of mucking out sheds for me. Anyway, what did Wil do to get your pinny in a knot? Refuse a dance?'

She was on her feet before he could snicker.

It was almost a relief to hear him follow – she was itching to slap something.

'Egwene? Come on; it was just a joke.'

She whirled, dress sweeping her ankles. 'You want a joke? Here's a joke – a girl spends all day getting ready for a dance, primping and preening her stupid, stupid dress, pinching her cheeks and curling her hair and acting like a featherhead.'

Mat frowned. 'That's not especially funny.'

'And then she gets to the dance, and can't eat or drink with nerves, and walks up to a boy to beg a turn, in front of everyone, and the boy says he'd sooner dance with—with—'

'With…?' Mat prompted.

'A sheep,' she finished in a small voice.

Mat gazed at her, his eyes very earnest. 'I don't get it.'

The tears, when they came, burst from her with alarming force.

'Egwene, what is it? What's wrong? 'Wen?'

That did it, the use of his childhood name for her. She sobbed harder at how strange it sounded, how different from the sweet, piping way he once said it. For they were no longer children, were they? And how different would things be next year when her hair was knotted in a braid?

Mat was at her side, one hand awkwardly patting her back. 'Don't cry, 'Wen.'

'Why? It can't make me look any uglier.'

She heard the click of Mat's throat as he swallowed. 'You're not ugly.'

'Really,' she scorned.

'Rand doesn't think so.'

She glared up at him through tear-clumped lashes. 'The only reason they want him to marry me is because no one else will.'

'Don't be daft. Besides, Wil's just spiting you to get at Rand.'

'Why?'

'Because Rand's taller. And he's got blue eyes.'

'Grey,' she corrected.

'He's got broad shoulders and red hair and all the girls moon after him because he's not like Wil.'

'You sound almost jealous.'

Mat leaned close in a conspiratorial fashion. 'Don't tell anyone, but I had plans to marry him myself.'

She wasn't sure why she did it; maybe it was the russet flecks in his eyes, the peek of a chipped tooth, that tiny scar from the time he climbed the elm at Dell's Common. Because he was not Wil. Because he was not Rand. Because they were no longer children. Because, right then, he made her feel beautiful.

Mat jerked back as though she had dealt him a slap.

She would have to stand on tiptoe to do it again. When did he get so tall? She perched on her slippers, lips close to his…

'Unlike Wil,' he announced suddenly, clasping her free hand and spinning her at arm's length. 'I have no fondness for sheep. Shall we dance?'

In nights to come she would question whether she had actually kissed him. Even now, in the dreamy light of the stars, she could almost deny the buzzing warmth on her lips or the faint glisten on his.

'Can you imagine the ruckus?' he declared as he spun her 'til her skirts swirled. 'If you stepped out with anyone other than Rand?'

'Mat, I—'

'It's a good thing Wil didn't want that dance – who knows where it might have led?'

She tore free of him, face burning. 'Light, can you never be serious?'

Mat stared at the ground. When he spoke, his voice was very low. 'Rand spent a fortnight saving for that hideous red coat. He hasn't danced with anyone all night. He sent me looking for you. That's serious, Egwene.'

'He has never showed an inclination.'

'And you'd notice if he did?' His grin was too tight. 'Light, 'Wen, half the village would give their right arm to step out with you.'

'Then why don't they—'

'Because you are promised to Rand.' She stepped back from the force of his glare, but it was Mat who looked away first. 'Even Cenn's not stupid enough to miss the way he gawps at you.'

'He does not,' she murmured. Gawp? Would Rand ever do such a thing? And would she have noticed it if he did? Scenarios unravelled at frightening speed; all the times he happened to be around when she needed a bucket carried, a spider ousted, a lamb rescued from bramble. And all those blushes, those small, secretive smiles – all those things she had blamed on him being…

'Shy?' She had forgotten Mat until he flung the word back at her. 'You don't see him tripping over his tongue around anyone else.'

'Why are you championing him?'

'Because you're meant for each other, everybody—'

'Says so?' she finished bitterly. 'Don't I have a say?'

'Rand works hard – he'll make sure you have a good home, a good living. He'll give you the best, 'Wen.'

'Maybe the best isn't always what they say.'

'And you would risk finding that out?' he demanded. 'Marry a bloody Coplin or a Congar out of spite?'

'There are others…'

'Fine. Choose Wil, then.'

'I hate him.'

'All right, Perrin - though he won't be so pretty once Rand's finished with hi...' Mat bit his lip in the manner of one who'd said too much.

'He's warned Perrin off? Why are you blushing? It's true, isn't it? I bet he's even told you to keep away.'

'Don't be daft.'

'He has, hasn't he? Light, of all the—'

Mat had walked to look down at the village, arms hugged about himself. 'He's my friend.'

'And I'm not?'

'What's your point, 'Wen?'

'Point?' She stalked to his side. 'My point is he has no right telling people what to do.'

'Friends sacrifice things for friends.'

'It not much of a deal if they ask of it.'

'Friends don't have to ask,' he snapped.

From anyone else, that would have raised a smirk. But things ran deeper than she suspected even she knew. The three were an enigma, so familiar now that no one paid any mind to how inseparable they were, how one would sometimes talk for the other, or all would laugh at something no one else could see or hear. Light, sometimes she would forget it was Rand or Mat or Perrin she was talking to, as though they were one soul split into three; different as dawn and noon and dusk, yet part of a distinct whole.

If only they were one…

She was still blushing at that rogue thought when Mat asked, 'You ever hear of a blood promise?'

Of course she had; she and Merisa had pricked their fingers together as younglings. Strange how babyish it seemed to her now.

'We have one, the three of us.' He was still looking at the dancers below. The breeze riffled his hair, stroking it from his brow. His profile was very fine, almost delicate. In repose he was beyond handsome. 'Even then, we knew what Rand was going to ask.' His lip quirked. 'And still we made a pact on it.'

'You sound almost sorry.'

'Not unless I sit still for long enough to think on it.'

'And the promise?'

'We kept it. Always will.' His eyes sought hers. 'Do you understand, 'Wen?'

She turned from him then, piling her hair atop her head so the breeze could kiss her neck. Below, Cenn was tottering around the kegs, waving his stick as Hari Coplin made off with his cap. There was Perrin – sweet, dependable Perrin – enduring the attentions of Hari's three daughters, each plainer than the last.

And Merisa…Merisa was in Wil's arms, simpering up him at through her lashes.

'He's at the Winespring,' Mat said quietly, rounding her to scoop some berries and stuff them in the cup of his sling. 'And he's been looking for you for the better part of an hour.'

'Wait,' she gasped as Mat drew back his aim. 'Won't you get in trouble?'

He cracked open his aiming eye and shot her a brilliant grin. 'I almost did.'

She ran at full pelt, but it wasn't until she reached the inn that she got truly breathless.

'Egwene, would you…' Rand dithered in the doorway then steadied himself with a smile. 'Would you like to dance?'

She let herself be led amid the whirling couples, still giddy with the realisation that she did love him. And to love him was to love them.

'Egwene.'

Deep inside her, something clicked snugly into place; three parts of the same soul.

'You look beautiful.'

Smiling, she placed her hand in his, knowing she would settle for this one - knowing in her heart than one would truly be all.