AN - As usual, speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.

Chapter XIII - Taija Did Not Have A Pony When She Was A Child

The morning after her meeting with the Amyrlin, Taija made an early departure from Fal Dara with Aleksi, accompanied by a couple of pack horses carrying her much increased wardrobe and possessions. Lord Agelmar really had been generous after the battle at Tarwin's Gap.

Given the events of the previous day, sticking with Rand and getting far away from this pack of paranoid lunatics whose leader somehow overlooked that one of her lieutenants was a darkfriend sounded like a fantastic idea. Taija had, very briefly, considered whether to teach the Amyrlin and Moiraine how to Travel, but given how heavily infiltrated the aes sedai seemed to be, it was abundantly clear to her that they could not be trusted with it.

As for Aleksi, Taija had been a bit surprised that he was coming with her. There was no way she was leaving him in Fal Dara with the other aes sedai after what he'd heard and seen. Based on the behaviour she'd seen from them, it was even odds that they'd just have him killed to keep their secrets. However, after seeing how ill he looked at what happened to Liandrin and knowing his fear of aes sedai, she didn't want him feeling forced to accompany her.

Taija had offered to spin him a gateway back to Caemlyn or Ramshorn if he wanted it. He hadn't even hesitated though. She'd pressed him, pointing out how dangerous it would be and that just seemed to excite him more.

"I'm getting a taste for adventure!" He'd earnestly insisted. "I've gotten much better with my staff and bow. Anyway, who'll protect you from the world… and yourself, if I let you go off on your own? How on earth you managed to get the Amyrlin bloody Seat to attack you I don't know." It was at least nice that he felt comfortable enough to poke at her now.

In fact Aleksi had been outraged when they'd left the audience chamber and he'd accompanied a limping Taija back to her inn. While adrenaline was a powerful drug, once it wore off she knew that she'd be feeling her impact with the wall for a while. It was just luck that nothing had been broken.

Taija didn't want to give the aes sedai any credit, but to be fair Moiraine had offered to heal her. However, after her attempt at killing her, the chances of her letting that woman touch her with the Power were less than zero.

As the two of them rode away from the city Aleksi kept on chewing over what had happened the day before.

"So you really didn't do anything to provoke them?" It wasn't the first or even the second time he'd asked that. "I thought you were friends with Moiraine."

Taija nodded wearily. "No, I didn't. You were there and so did I. She somehow got it in her head that I was one of the Forsaken. Lanfear of all people!"

Again, not the first time, he muttered, "the Dark One and all of the Forsaken are bound in Shayol Ghul."

"Apparently not." Taija's voice was dry. "To be honest with you Aleksi, I'd thought they were all dead once I found out when this was. In the War, or failing that dead of old age although that would be too good a fate for any of them. None of them could have lived past 800, surely." She ignored his choking cough at the number. "Now I've found out that Lanfear is probably alive. I can't think of many worse things to learn. Presumably the others too. Light only knows what's they're doing now. I suppose once Rand gets this horn back I'm going to have to start thinking about about hunting them down." She sighed. As if it would be that simple or easy.

Aleksi goggled for a second at the idea of someone actually seeking out the Forsaken. "I… just find it hard to believe. My mother used to tell me Semirhage would get me if I didn't go to sleep on time. If I had a bad dream, it was Lanfear trying to break free…"

"I know, well knew anyway, someone who killed themselves with their own teeth when they heard they'd been captured by Semirhage's forces," Taija mused out loud. "They bit through they own wrist rather than wait to be delivered to her."

With a start she realised that Aleksi was looking ill. "Sorry… It's… I don't quite know how to explain. These people are myths to you. They're real people to me. I've met most of them at one time or another. You have your stories about the Forsaken. Friends, family, places I've been to and lived in were the victims in those stories!"

Taija forced herself to stop as she realised her voice was rising and Aleksi was looking more and more uncomfortable. "Again, I'm sorry. If you want to go home, I'll spin you a gateway right now. There's no shame in it."

Aleksi's face hardened. "No. I said I'd protect you, I'm not turning back. I just need to get my head round what's going on."

It was heart-warming that there was at least one person who had her back.

=======

A few kilometres out of Fal Dara Taija was pleased to be able to dismount and walk around on her own two feet. She knew there was going to be plenty of riding in her future, but if she never had to climb on a horse again she'd be delighted.

The two of them had a couple of hours to wait before a group of horsemen came trotting towards them. As they got closer Taija recognised Rand his two friends riding amidst a group of plate-armoured Shienaran horsemen. The Ogier, Loial, was also with them towering on top of an impressively large horse. The kind of creature Taija had seen pulling carts at historic reenactments. She sighed quietly to herself at the realisation that Loial would be traveling with them for the foreseeable future.

When the Shienarans reached her and Aleksi they reined up and their leader, a Lord Ingtar she thought, did a double-take before he bowed in the saddle placing a clenched fist across his heart. "Honour to serve Taija sedai, it is good to have you with us. I was warned you might look different, but your disguise is impressive."

"The honour is mine," Taija murmured before she awkwardly mounted her horse and guided it into their party. "Shall we go?"

As the group started back up again and Taija tried to adjust once more to the uncomfortable bouncing of her horse, she called out, "by the way Lord Ingtar, for now, please call me Alisa or Lady Alisa if you must be formal. The darkfriends mustn't know that I am with you and if you can avoid using my name then they might not realise you have an aes sedai with you at all. Especially with me disguising myself." She gestured vaguely towards her now blonde hair. "If the Light wills it, that could give us an edge if or when things come to battle."

Taija found the talk of lords and ladies more than a little awkward. It just wasn't the way the world should be. Why should some accident of birth give you power or status? What mattered was what you did for society. Another strike against this time's societies.

However, whatever she wanted the world to be like, she had to adapt to the realities of the time she was in, so she would do her best. At least aes sedai seemed to sit at or near the top of the hierarchy in this time.

Traveling with another face really did seem like a good idea. The number of times Taija had been caught by surprise since she found herself in this time was bothering her and she sincerely hoped that the next time something went wrong she would be the one catching out the enemy. She'd met a servant in Fal Dara named Alisa and it seemed like as good a name as any. Promoting a commoner to the nobility felt like a discrete way of thumbing her nose at the concept anyway.

Taija was also more than a bit worried by the revelation that at least one of the Forsaken was free. She didn't know any better until yesterday, but now she was kicking herself for being so blasé about using her real name and face. Hopefully she wouldn't come to regret it and, if she was very very lucky, one of the Forsaken might even make the same mistake.

========

Ingtar was setting a punishing pace and Taija was not enjoying it at all. Not being used to horses made it bad enough, but when she was already in some pain from her confrontation with the aes sedai it was like her own personal hell.

The fact that Aleksi seemed to have taken to the saddle rather well only added to Taija's irritation, although that was unfair to him of course. In fact he'd busied himself talking to anyone and everyone in the party. He did get a few jokes from the Shienarans about how a warder could be such a bad rider, but they were clearly banter and even the sullen Masema seemed to be willing to exchange a few words with him. Of course no one made jokes about Taija's riding, at least not where she could hear them.

While Aleksi seemed to be having a surprisingly good time, there was definitely something eating up Rand and his friends. They were avoiding him in what Taija assumed must be a teenage spat and in turn he was extremely untalkative.

She did notice that Rand seemed to be wearing much nicer clothing than before. Presumably Lord Agelmar had gifted him some the same way he had with her, which was nice. Regardless, he seemed to need space for now, so Taija gave it to him for the first couple of days, instead 'enjoying' the way she could feel aches in what must be every muscle and bone in her body.

In fact Taija ended up talking with Loial more and, despite her initial irritation when she first met him and her general grumpiness due to being forced to ride all day, he did grow on her. He was clearly a bright boy and a bit of a motormouth by the standards of the Ogier.

"So you say that the Ways were grown by male aes sedai during the Breaking using a ter'angreal?" The whole concept of the Ways was fascinating, although clearly far inferior to Traveling or even just going by plane.

"No no, well not entirely." Loial shook his huge head. "They started the process, but mostly they were formed using the Talismans of Growing, ter'angreal which they made for the Ogier."

Taija leant foward eagerly. "How fascinating! But you don't know how it works?"

"No sadly, that knowledge is lost. It's been many generations even among the Ogier, let alone in the short-lived lives of humans."

"You do realise I'm twice your age Loial?"

"Well you don't look it Lady Alisa."

Taija laughed. "You're too kind. Anyway I wasn't around when the Ways were made, obviously. However, from what you've said, I think those ter'angreal, you called them Talismans of Growing, yet? Those Talismans probably combine a dimensional breaching web with the reality altering properties of Ogier tree-singing to form a stable uhh self-perpetuating dimensional bridge to a pre-made sub-space micro-dimension. Or at least that's how I'd do it."

Taija clamped her mouth shut as she realised she'd said far too much in her enthusiasm. Loial gave her a look that said she'd completely lost him, it was a look she'd grown used to seeing over the years even without the added language barrier.

Then to her surprise Loial switched to her own language too. "I have cognisance that aes sedai possess myriad talents Lady Alisa, but you appear to speak the Old Tongue better than most. I am not sure I understand many of the words you use. Where did you say you were from?"

Taija was thrown by the sudden switch and a bit worried that she'd given herself away, but Loial mostly seemed to be excited at the chance to have someone to speak to in what he'd call the Old Tongue. "Thank you friend Loial, you speak it very well."

It wasn't a complete lie. Loial's accent was distinctly odd and his speech patterns and vocabulary were rather stilted, but he was clearly far more fluent than Elaida. That being said, Taija wasn't willing to give away her secrets to yet another person. So as Loial peppered her with questions she was careful to give away as little as possible, pretending to have to search for vocabulary to give herself time to choose her words.

======

The other bright point of those first two days of riding was learning about Hurin's talent. It was intriguing! Taija had never heard of anything like it in her time. However, the man wasn't very willing to talk about it. Like far too many people in this time, he was very wary about aes sedai, even if he was respectful. Taija suspected he might have a point, she could see some of those women carting him off to Tar Valon to study him. It was annoying though, she had no intention of doing that and she wanted to know more!

Still, she didn't want to push him too far. He was clearly uncomfortable with being asked about it, but at the same time too polite or respectful to just tell her to piss off. She'd have to make sure to be friendly to him whenever she got the chance and maybe he'd loosen up after a while.

Although Hurin was a bright point, the remains left behind by the trollocs whenever the party reached their camps were sickening. Taija wouldn't hesitate to kill them herself, but even darkfriends didn't deserve to be eaten by their erstwhile allies.

It was made worse by the fact that however fast and hard they all rode, they didn't seem to be gaining ground on the trollocs. Taija wondered whether she should offer to make a gateway for the group to get ahead of the darkfriends. Or even to just go and kill them all in the night without the rest of the party knowing.

In the end she decided not to. For the moment anyway. Travelling was possibly her best trump card now that she was sure the 'modern' aes sedai didn't know how to do it. Also anyone looking for signs of a channeler from her time could just look for gateways. Sickening fates aside, she didn't really care all that much about shadowspawn killing darkfriends. They'd made their bed and they could lie in it.

======

Taija eventually pinned Rand down during another interminably uncomfortable day of riding. The way he was avoiding conversation and moping around like a lost puppy was just getting irritating and she'd had enough.

After waiting for him to separate from the wider group, Taija clumsily directed her horse toward him, wincing internally at the jolting.

"Right! Enough is enough. What's up with you Rand?"

Rand looked at her a little confused and Taija realised she'd translated directly from her language. "I mean what's wrong. Why are you moping around and avoiding everyone?

He scowled at that. "I'm not moping!"

"Really?" Taija raised her eyebrows, Light save her from moody teenagers.

After a second Rand cracked. "Alright, perhaps a little," he sighed deeply and then looked around nervously.

It took Taija a moment to realise what he was worried about, but when she did she spun a quick web around the two of them and the sound of the group faded away. "Don't worry, no one will be able to hear more than a murmur."

"Thank you Tai… Lady Alisa."

"If you call me Lady, I'm going to start calling you Lord Rand again." Taija softened her words with a smile, still she really didn't like these titles.

Rand grimaced, "fine, fine. So… before we left I spoke to Moiraine and the Amyrlin. It was… I don't know, it wasn't what I expected."

"You mean she talked about fish?"

Rand's surprised laugh choked off his next words. "Well, ha, yes, but she also knows I can channel."

"Well, yes, so do I." At least she didn't seem to have attacked him. Not that Taija had any intention of sharing her own experience with Rand.

"That's not the point and you know it! You don't understand what it means here and… she said I'm the Dragon Reborn."

Taija nodded. "Oh yes, she mentioned that too. It sounded a bit silly to be honest." She ignored the choking sound Rand was making. "I can see why it's upsetting for you, I'd be upset too, but I think you need to be careful how much you listen to these women, they're not as clever as they think they are."

"You don't understand though!" Rand's voice was rising. "They can't lie and they're telling me I'm him. Lews Therin Kinslayer! That it's my responsibility to save the world, all while I'm going mad and killing everyone around me!"

Taija winced and put a comforting hand on his arm. "You're right, I don't understand, not everything. But believe me, I understand how hard it can be when you're being pulled in different directions like this and told terrible things."

She paused for thought. "Not being able to lie doesn't mean they can't be wrong." Taija scowled briefly at the memory. "Also, you don't actually know they can't lie. I'd certainly find it useful if I could convince everyone I couldn't lie."

"But what if they want me to be one of their false dragons. That's what he's been saying in my drea…" Rand cut himself off, clearly feeling he'd shared something he hadn't meant to.

At first Taija made a joke of it, "well you wouldn't make a very good false dragon. I've met Lews Therin and you're nothing like him. He's much more full of himself."

Rand scowled, "you know that's not the point!"

"No, no I know that, but…" Taija's mind caught up with what he'd said before. "Wait, stop! Who's been saying this in your, were you going to say dreams?"

"Oh. It's nothing… I don't want to talk about it."

"No Rand. I'm sorry, but this is important. I need to know. What exactly has been happening to you in your dreams."

Rand sighed and looked down. "Since we left the Two Rivers I've been having dreams of Heart of the Dark, the Dark One. He comes to me in them and tries to persuade me to join the Dark, or to trick me or hurt me. Sometimes he tells me things about the aes sedai that turn out to be true. I'd thought it was just my own fears or maybe even the madness, but sometimes when I wake up there are still marks from things that happened in the dream…" He trailed off and mutely opened his palm to show Taija the shape of a heron burnt into it.

Taija hissed at the sight. "And you didn't tell anyone?!" Even as Rand recoiled at her tone she tried to moderate it. "No, sorry, that's not fair. I understand why you didn't tell anyone, but this is important and incredibly dangerous. So thank you for telling me. Now that I know, maybe we can do something about it."

She thought for a second. "Alright… Firstly I need more information. I think it's unlikely that the Dark One himself is coming to your dreams. I'm not sure that's possible unless you're a darkfriend. Maybe not even then. What does this Heart of the Dark look like?"

Rand seemed to relax a little at Taija's business like tone. "He changed. At first he had a burning face, fire coming out of his eyes and mouth as he spoke. He'd threaten me with doom for me and my friends unless I joined him, tried to trick me into doing things ranting about past ages and his inevitable victory. More recently though he's been different. No fire, smart, but strange clothes. Now he's been much more… coherent I suppose. Instead of threatening me he's telling me about what I need to do to save myself, offering me advice and telling me what the aes sedai will do to me."

Taija grimaced, this really was not good. "But what does he look like?"

Rand paused to think, "he's tall, with dark, straight hair, a neat beard, dark eyes and a large nose. He still says he's Heart of the Dark, but now he's always so calm, he actually sounds nice, like he cares and…" he trailed off for a second. "And his accent is a bit like yours."

Taija couldn't fully repress her shudder or a muttered curse. If one of the Forsaken was taking an interest in Rand did that mean they believed this ridiculous Dragon Reborn story too? "Right. Right. This is ok, this can be dealt with." She took a deep breath. "Firstly, Rand, thank you for telling me. Have you heard of the Unseen World? You might call it… I don't know… the World of Dreams?"

When Rand shook his head she continued. "Well, in short it's a sort of dream world that certain people can enter and use and they can also use this to affect other people's dreams. It's too complicated to explain much of it right now, but this is almost certainly how he's coming into your dreams. From what you've told me, you definitely don't have the Dark One in your dreams, which is good. But… you've just described Elan Morin Tedronai almost perfectly and there's no way you could know what he looks like."

Seeing Rand's confusion Taija clarified, "Elan Morin was Ishamael's real name."

Rand blanched. "One of the Forsaken is visiting my dreams?!"

Taija nodded slowly, she couldn't let the poor boy see how much this actually worried her. "Yes… Well, probably. This isn't good, I know, but it's not all bad news. I can ward your dreams every night from now on. He won't be able to visit you anymore. You'll need to learn how to do it yourself as soon as you can, but for now that'll do. He won't be able to touch your dreams again and now we know he's here so we can do something about him."

"Thank you… Alisa." Rand looked a little reassured which was good, but Taija couldn't help but feel a bit guilty for her false bravado. She might be able to ward his dreams while she was around him, but Ishamael wasn't a problem she felt in any way ready to face…

She sighed, she'd just have to do her best. "Now, tell me everything he's said. The man is a liar through and through, but maybe we can work out what kind of a game he's playing."

======

The next day they found an abandoned village, everything left in place as if its inhabitants just up and left in the middle of their lunches. Taija could tell that the men were getting increasingly creeped out and she had to admit that she was feeling it too. She thought she saw a woman in white in one of the windows for just a second before she disappeared, but she was probably just letting the stress and tiredness get to her.

The party ferried themselves across the river and on the other side they found two of the darkfriends tied and skinned, spreadeagled between the trees. Taija had seen a lot in the last five years, but that left even her wanting to empty her stomach over the grass. While Aleksi kept his lunch inside him, all three of the boys did vomit and some of the Shienarans looked queasy. However, none of them threw up, even though she learnt that the corpses were two of their former comrades.

Taija was surprised when Ingtar ordered the corpses' burial in remembrance of the good they'd done in the past and in case they were just prisoners. She had severe doubts and she could see that a few of the soldiers did too. However, no one said anything in response to his odd reaction.

Another day or riding brought them to a second empty village. Again the Shienarans feared an ambush and entered it cautiously, but there was nobody to be found. However, there were signs of a struggle, blood on the walls and the occasional dead body.

Everyone spread out to look for anything useful, but just before Rand went into one of the houses Taija shouted urgently for him to stop.

Rand hesitated, obviously confused, with his hand hovering over the door's handle.

"Wait Rand, there's something just a bit off about this…" she channeled a tiny flow of air into the door, making it swing open and her eyes widened. There was an intricate web of saidar spread all across the doorway and presumably through the house. She couldn't see all of it, but it looked like something to do with illusion and binding.

"Yes…" She murmured, lost in thought. "You definitely don't want to go in there, someone's left a trap, although I've no idea who'd even know we were coming. I think it's best to just leave it alone, it's just a farmhouse, probably nothing to see inside, but my best guess is there's probably a channeler with the darkfriends and we don't want to find out the hard way what they're doing."

Rand nodded and moved on while Taija went to find Ingtar to let him know what she'd seen and that his men should be on the look out for a potential enemy channeler.

She found him, Uno and Masema staring at yet another disturbing sight. At first glance it looked like a body in front of an old barn. Unpleasant, but nothing new. Then Taija realised it wasn't just a body. Someone had effectively crucified a myrddraal against the barn door. Nails pinned it there thought its hands and feet, while a pair of wooden stakes had been hammered through its eyeless face.

"Light, what kind of monster could do that to one of the eyeless?" Ingtar muttered in a shocked tone. Taija could think of one or two, but that wasn't something that was going to reassure any of the men.

======

That night when the group stopped to camp, Taija saw Ingtar hand Rand a bundle and talk with him. A little while later there was a heated, but whispered argument between Rand and the boys.

After a minute Taija got up to go over to them. Frankly she'd had enough of them sulking at each other.

To her mild surprise Perrin and Mat seemed to try to put themselves between her and Rand, blocking her view of whatever it was that he was holding. Hadn't they been arguing with him before?

"What's going on here?" Taija tried to peer past them. Why couldn't she be a bit taller?

It was Perrin that answered. "Nothing Taija sedai, just a slight disagreement between friends, nothing worthy of your attention."

"Hmm, I'll be the judge of that." Taija sharpened her tone, "also, it's Alisa or Lady Alisa. Remember that, it might save your life."

Perrin's weak attempt at fobbing her off didn't do much to discourage Taija. However, when she tried to just go around them he physically stopped her, pushing lightly on her already bruised shoulder with his oversized paw on her bruised shoulder, making her grimace from the spike of pain.

There was a moment of silence. Taija looked down at his hand covering her shoulder and back up to his eyes which were slowly widening. She was fairly sure she heard Mat mutter, "burn me," off to Perrin's side.

Carefully controlling her temper, he was just a boy, Taija reached up, placing her hand over Perrin's, and pushed it off her. Her voice was ice cold. "Touch me again without my permission and I'll make you regret it."

He winced snatching his hand away as if she'd set it on fire and Taija took the opportunity to step around him.

Rand was standing there, holding a banner in his hands, just staring morosely down at it. Taija walked up to him and took in the white background with a sinuous red dragon embroidered across it, Mat and Perrin trailing nervously behind her, apparently intimidated out of any further protests.

"Hmm, not bad work I suppose, fairly close to the original, but missing a few details." Rand kept staring at it, so Taija continued. "Let me guess, Moiraine left this for you? Got Ingtar to give it to you?"

Rand nodded.

"For fuck's sake." Taija swore, unconsciously switching to her own language. Mat twitched and took a step back at the words and Taija needed to remind herself to keep her temper under control around these boys. Why was everyone so terrified of aes sedai in this time?!

After a moment's thought she sighed deeply. "Alright Rand, probably best if you just put it away. No one can force you to do anything you don't want to. I'd offer to destroy it, but given the way everyone seems to get about this, it might actually be useful some time."

Mat interrupted her at that point, whispering frantically. "Wait?! You're an aes sedai, aren't you going to do something to him? G… He can ch… I flaming well told him not to let you see that blasted thing, I bloody well did. He must already be mad letting you…"

Taija cut him off with a raised hand. "You mean this whole Dragon Reborn thing? Why would I do anything to him? The whole thing's ridiculous. You can't go around treating people badly because of backwards mys..." She stopped herself before she said anything too offensive about their beliefs.

"Look." She took a deep breath. "Prophecy is vague. It's been translated and repeated a hundred times. Who knows what it really means in the end. All you can or should do is judge for yourself and be the person you want to be and not worry about what some scholar wrote down two thousand years ago. Clearly Moiraine wants Rand to… no that's unfair. Clearly Moiraine believes certain things about Rand, but that doesn't mean that she's right or that they even matter if she is."

Mat muttered, "Light only knows what kind of aes sedai you are."

He blushed when Taija shot him an unimpressed look and replied, "the best kind, obviously."

Afterwards Taija returned to her bedroll equally irritated with pretentious, manipulative 'aes sedai' and stupid teenagers.

======

At the end of the next day the party stopped to camp next to a weathered stone that protruded only slightly from the ground. The faint remains of carved symbols could be seen around its base. There was something vaguely familiar about it, although Taija couldn't quite put her finger on what.

As she settled down for "bed" on the hard ground, her mind drifted back to her own time, as it did most nights. The bright lights of Adanza during Spring Festival. Dancing underneath the blooms of cherry blossom. No death or shadowspawn. Just lovers, friends, happy people swirling around each other while aes sedai painted the sky with wild displays of colour and imagery. Better times. Happier times. She missed them.