Chapter XXVIII - No One Likes Apologising
When Taija woke up the Sun was shining through the curtains to her room. She wasn't certain what time it was, but given the time of year, she was pretty sure it was well into the day.
Consciousness returned slowly. Fighting. Tel… Alcohol… Oh Light. Her memories of last night weren't totally clear, but she remembered enough to be horrifically embarrassed. She'd gone and insulted almost every person she liked and some she didn't. Taija was no 'modern' aes sedai, but she still had a sense of dignity and she'd drunk that into submission before going on to trample all over it.
While Taija could, unfortunately, vaguely remember most of the night, some things were a little odd. She wasn't totally sure, but she thought she'd passed out in that bar, no inn. Possibly on young Mat. Fuck.
However, now she was in her own bed, in her shift. She didn't think anything had happened, thank the Light, but still, humiliation burned inside her.
Honestly, Taija would have preferred some proper pyjamas, but it was better than trapping some poor boy under her while she drooled on them. Because of course she'd have drooled on him. Tel told her, she always drooled when she fell asleep after drinking. Tel…
With an effort Taija stopped her thoughts from descending into a downward spiral. There were things she needed to do. She could process this later. If she let herself stop to think for too long she might end up back in an inn again. Once was inexcusable, ending up like that again would be unbearable.
Taija started moving, preparing herself for the pain of climbing out of bed, she wasn't a big drinker, but there had been other occasions in the past… but to her surprise she felt fine. In fact she felt better than fine, at least physically. Well rested, refreshed as if she'd had a fantastic night's sleep, not a night of deliberately drinking herself to the point of passing out to avoid thinking about… Moving on.
It didn't take her long to get dressed and perform her morning ablutions and then she headed out, she had things that she needed to do.
The first order of affairs was to find the girls. Taija couldn't remember everything, but she was rude to all of them. Nynaeve in particular… an image of her trailing along behind her wrapped in air flashed through her mind.
The woman had already suffered enough. Taija knew Nynaeve wrapped her dignity around her to help hold herself together and then she went and did that to her. There was no excuse. She wanted nothing more than to disappear, open a gateway to somewhere isolated and never have to show her face. Nevertheless she left her room to seek them out, what was it Rand said? Duty was heavier than a mountain and death was lighter than a feather? Sometimes it did feel that way.
Her first stop was the two adjoining rooms occupied by Elayne and Egwene. Taija hated having to apologise, the embarrassment of her loss of control made her cheeks burn, but nevertheless she tentatively knocked on one of the doors. A few seconds later a slightly guilty looking Egwene opened it, Elayne looking out from behind her. Taija only got a brief moment to wonder what she'd been doing.
"Taija sedai!"
She cut Egwene off, she'd thought about how to do this. In her time there were many formal ways to apologise, letting her carefully calibrate exactly how ashamed she was and how much of an obligation she owed the recipient of the apology. Here, she'd just have to do her best translation.
Taija bowed low at the waist, almost horizontal. The kind of bow she'd only give at the most formal of occasions or the most humiliating of missteps. "Egwene, Elayne, my behaviour last night was unacceptable and an embarrassment." She started to straighten to meet their eyes. "I apologise from the bottom of my h…"
She was cut off as something thumped into her, nearly knocking her over. Arms wrapped round her and then Elayne followed a second later, the two of them squeezing her tightly. Both of them talking over each other.
"It's alright Taija sedai, please don't apologise we're just worried about you."
"Are you alright? We're so sorry. How could anyone do that to you?"
"Please don't run away and try to kill Sammael."
"You must be so lonely."
"I'll learn the Old Tongue, Elayne's started teaching me."
Taija found herself reassuring Elayne and Egwene that she wasn't angry with them or going to do something stupid. Why were they crying? This really wasn't how she'd seen this going. Teenagers…
It took her a while, but eventually Taija extricated herself from their grasps with a combination of reassuring and apologetic words.
"I need to find the others and apologise to them too," she gave them her 'teacher' look. "An aes sedai must always take responsibility for his or her actions. I'll be back later for your lessons, but for now," she sighed and rubbed her forehead, "I need to live up to the title." Taija didn't give them time to protest, "we can talk more later, but first, please could you tell me where Nynaeve is."
It seemed her guess that they'd know where she was was right. Both looked a bit awkward, before Egwene spoke up, "I think she's on the North Beach, practising, but Taija sedai… Please don't judge her too much if she's a bit prickly, she's a stubborn woman."
"Why would I judge her? I'm going to apologise to her, not the other way round."
"Just… I know Nynaeve well and she can say things she doesn't really mean." Egwene looked nervous, "I know she doesn't really hate you, she'd be furious if she finds out I told you, but you know she helped us get you to bed and it was her that healed you. She might not show it, but she feels terrible for you, she understands why you got how you did."
Maybe the 'modern' world wasn't such a bad place after all.
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Taija Traveled out to the North Beach. It was easy to find Nynaeve there, the light of saidar was glowing brightly around her. For someone with so little training she was impressively strong. One day, a day not too long from now probably, she'd match Taija for strength and then she'd just keep on growing. She still spun like a barely tutored child though.
Nynaeve didn't notice her at first as she stood there, her body language radiating tension and anger while she crudely spun web after web, muttering to herself as she did. Eventually Taija coughed gently.
Nynaeve jumped and the light of saidar vanished from around her as she whirled to face Taija. She'd have to make sure Nynaeve didn't turn that into a habit, releasing saidar like that could get her killed.
"Taija sedai." Her voice was flat.
Taija winced, this wouldn't be as easy as with the girls.
"Nynaeve, I…" Taija pulled herself together hiding behind ritual. Again she bowed low at the waist, almost horizontal, "my behaviour last night was unacceptable and an embarrassment." She straightened up and met Nynaeve's eyes. "I apologise from the bottom of my heart for it. I have lowered my eyes under the Light and I beg your forgiveness for it. I was under a lot of stress, but that does not excuse the way I treated you."
Nynaeve's looked Taija over for a couple of seconds, her face expressionless, then she relaxed a little. "Thank you Taija sedai, I appreciate it. I accept your apology, I realise you must not have been yourself. Just…" her expression tightened briefly, "please do not do that again. Self-control is vital for a channeler of your strength, without it you can hurt people without meaning to. Sometimes you have to set an example…"
Taija didn't like being lectured by Nynaeve, especially given the hypocrisy of her talking about self-control, but she wasn't going to taint her apology by saying that so she listened and nodded at appropriate moments.
By the end of her lecture Nynaeve clearly felt better about the world in general and Taija in particular. Her body language was more relaxed and her face less tight.
"I'll see you for you class this afternoon Taija sedai?" She phrased it halfway between a question and a statement.
"Yes, I look forward to it."
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After last night Mat had had enough of aes sedai for several lifetimes. He took a gulp of ale.
Oh, he could admit that Taija wasn't bad as aes sedai went. Unlike the others she didn't pretend to be the next thing down from the Creator and didn't walk around with her nose in the air all the time. She wasn't bad on the eye too, not a beauty, but pretty enough. If she wasn't an aes sedai he might even have thought about a dance and a cuddle, as it was, when you looked into her eyes… well he had more bloody sense than that.
At least he'd managed to persuade her out of going and killing her betrothed, one of the flaming Forsaken and wasn't that insane? Burn him if he was going to be involved in that!
Falme was really getting to be too much for him. Too many aes sedai here and then there was Rand, the Dragon Reborn. It didn't make any sense and he certainly didn't want to be around when Rand went mad and killed everyone.
Elayne had told him that Taija and Moiraine were both looking for him and so he'd made himself scarce. They might have their aes sedai tricks, but he was good at hiding from angry women and he didn't think they'd be willing to troop round Falme's inns looking for him.
He took another gulp of ale and looked around for another dice game. If he was going to leave Falme, he'd need enough money to tide him over.
======
Moiraine sat brushing her hair. It had been an eventful time, even by recent standards.
Thinking about Taija's rant at her was painful. The woman had clearly been suffering, she could only imagine the pain she must have been in, but to lose control of yourself like that. It was not just that it was embarrassing, it also brought into question the very nature of being aes sedai. The composure and self-control that being one of the most powerful women in the world required. If you could not be trusted to keep yourself under control like that then how could you be trusted to wield power that even kings and queens could only dream of?
Then today the woman had come and apologised. Moiraine could tell the apology was given through gritted teeth, carefully worded to obfuscate the fact that she had meant every word and only regretted saying them out loud. She had spent enough time in the Tower and around far more sophisticated players of the Great Game to see straight through word games of that kind.
Still, if there was one thing Moiraine could not see it was Taija running off to join her betrothed. In a world full of uncertainty and threats that was one relief. Siuan was not sure, but she had her reasons for paranoia, Moiraine was confident.
That did not mean there were no problems of course. The woman had far too much influence over Rand and she seemed to be spreading her tentacles into the girls too. In a better time and place it would not matter, Moiraine did believe that she only had the best of intentions, but here and now she was going to get them killed with her foolish ideas.
She might be an ancient aes sedai from the Age of Legends, and she certainly had the knowledge and power to back that up, but Moiraine doubted she would even have obtained the shawl in the White Tower. The woman was not equipped for the Third Age. Too soft, too flighty.
Unfortunately there was little she could do about it. Any overt action risked alienating Taija, which would be bad enough, but it also risked alienating Rand and the girls, which would be utterly disastrous. She would just have to deal with it, as she had to deal with every other problem the pattern threw her way. The Dragon Reborn must survive and he must succeed.
======
The days in Falme dragged on. Taija was working hard to keep herself busy, not giving herself a moment to think. She continued the girls' lessons and their progress was fast.
Pleasingly Aleksi had also been keeping himself busy. When she had the mental space Taija felt twinges of guilt for the way he'd dragged himself away from everything he knew, seemingly just to follow her. Regardless, he seemed to have struck up an odd friendship with Rand and Lan and they spent long hours practising various forms of fighting. Taija could only hope Lan wasn't rubbing off on them too much. He was far too grim.
Trying to fill her time, she also talked to people around Falme and learnt more about the world and the people who'd sworn themselves to follow a teenage boy. She even assisted in reconstruction efforts around the town, channeling to move rubble and rebuild some of the destruction caused by the battle that raged through it.
When Taija didn't have anything to occupy her, she Traveled to somewhere isolated and trained. Sprinting, blowing things up, experimenting with webs.
All of that meant that every night she fell into her bed too exhausted to think and it was exactly what she wanted.
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Elayne wasn't yet strong enough to make a useful gateway, but that would come. The other two could actually Travel now, although Taija had refused to teach them the full web until they were able to recite the five basic safety principles back to her word for word without the slightest hesitation.
More disturbing was Rand. Since the Battle of Falme he'd been becoming more and more withdrawn. He was clearly feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. His body language, the way he spoke, the haunted look in his eyes, they all told Taija of someone who was starting to crack.
She was fairly sure he'd been trying to avoid her, but he was easy enough to find when she wanted to, unlike Mat.
"What's up Rand?" The poor boy was clearly brooding again. He looked at Taija in confusion until she clarified. "I mean, how are you? What's going on?"
He sighed, "too many things. How can I do this? Everyone making demands, wanting things from me. People dying in my name, half the West on fire over what? Me!"
Ah. "Right." She nodded sympathetically. "That sucks," he looked confused again, "that's terrible. We're going for a walk." Without giving him the chance to argue, Taija spun a gateway and stepped through it. "Come on Rand!"
Hesitantly he followed her, looking around at the trees now surrounding him with a hint of confusion. "Where are we? Why did you bring me here?"
"We're in a forest," Taija smiled, ignoring his unamused scowl. "I brought you here because you need to get away. Here we can walk and we can talk with no one to bother us. When I need to get away from everyone and everything I find it relaxing to do this. Maybe one day you'll be able to too."
Rand scowled harder, "if I ever learn to control the Power. I try to embrace it and it slips through my fingers more times than I succeed. Even when I can hold it I can't make it do what I want half the time. Sometimes I try as hard as I can and nothing happens. Other times I hold it, but then I channel and everything goes wrong, sooner or later I'm going to hurt or kill someone. Then there's how it feels, every time I touch it, I want more, it feels like being truly alive, but at the same time I feel sick and disgusted." By the end of that his voice was raised, his breath harsh.
Taija gave his arm a comforting pat, "why didn't you tell me this before Rand? I might have been able to help." She thought it might be the first time he'd actually talked to her about channeling.
Rand shrugged and didn't meet her eyes, "you've been upset. Egwene told me why and I just didn't want to bother you or do anything that might remind you of… you know…" he trailed off awkwardly.
Light bless earnest teenage boys, "Rand you're a nice boy, but you don't need to worry about me, I'll be fine. Whatever problems you have I'll help you with them if I can." Taija resisted the urge to tell him that was what adults were for, that never went down well with young men or women.
"It's not like you can help me anyway. Moiraine already told me, saidar and saidin are different, a woman cannot help a man learn to channel. She said a fish might as well teach a bird to fly."
Taija smiled faintly at that, "Moiraine is a very intelligent woman, but she doesn't know as much as she thinks she does. She's not completely wrong, there are limits. I can't see or feel how you channel. I certainly can't teach you how to spin webs. However, I do understand the basic principles of how a man channels and those I can explain to you."
"How do you know that? I know you know more than Moiraine, but you're still a woman."
"A proper education." She felt a flash of irritation and loss that she ruthlessly suppressed. "In my time every channeler had to undergo basic education, sort of like the White Tower, but more formal, more organised. Part of that was channeling theory, understanding the basics of the way the Power works for both men and women." Her voice took on a more distant tone, "also we talked. You understand the world wasn't like it is now, broken and dysfunctional. Men and women worked together, learnt together, cooperated. I had male friends who were aes sedai, I had lovers who could channel," Taija ignored him choking next to her, these people were really very conservative, she also carefully didn't mention Tel, "we talked, especially when we were young. Channeling was new, so exciting and we wanted to talk about nothing else."
Taija hauled herself out of her reminiscence with a sigh, "anyway it was a different world. So, tell me, what do you do when you want to hold the Power?"
He hesitated, "my father, Tam, taught me something called the flame and the void. I imagine a flame flickering in my head and then I feel everything, all my emotions and feelings, everything, into it. When I've done that I sometimes feel saidin at the edge of the void and I try to open myself to it, like Egwene described from her lessons."
"Well there's your first mistake." Taija gave him a gentle smile. "I've never heard of this flame and the void, but the principles sound familiar. All channelers have a meditative technique to open their minds to the Power. Egwene and Elayne imagine themselves as flowers opening to the Power, I visualise a beach with waves lapping at it. It sounds like yours does the job for you too. However, your mistake is trying to imitate Egwene. Saidar and saidin are fundamentally different. Women embrace saidar, we have to accept it and guide it rather than try to impose ourselves on it. Men are the opposite. You need to seize saidin, take control and dominate it, otherwise you'll never be able to use it properly, if at all."
Taija kept talking, gently lecturing Rand about the basics of channeling for men. As ever he listened carefully, taking in her words intently. She hoped she could at least teach him enough not to kill himself.
If Taija was honest, she was a bit nervous telling him anything. It's not that she didn't want to help, but most of what she told him came from half-forgotten classes and late night conversations with dreamy young men during her teens. As for trying to actually help someone who was learning to channel without a teacher, well. Taija thought they called them wilders nowadays, but there wasn't even a word for them in her time they were so rare. All she really knew was a half remembered statistic that learning to channel by yourself had a fatality rate of well over 75%.
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Teaching Rand helped to fill Taija's time, but some things still brought back painful memories. Both Rand and the girls were sensitive about asking her too much about the past, she tried not to show it, but she was fairly sure they could see the pain in her eyes. Nevertheless, the topic came up sometimes.
"How do you become an aes sedai Taija sedai?" Elayne hesitated, "I mean in your time. I know there are tests nowadays although they are kept secret, but your kind of aes sedai."
Taija paused in her demonstration of how to twist a web of illusion to provide camouflage, thrown off a bit by the question. "Well, it was both simple and difficult at the same time."
"What does that mean?" Nynaeve sounded unimpressed by the answer.
Taija shot her a look, "it was simple because in theory all you had to do was have a panel of three aes sedai decide that you were worthy of the title. It was complicated because to get a panel to agree you had to prove yourself in various ways."
"So like the tests now?"
"No, not really. I don't know exactly what's involved now, but it wasn't a test. It was more… showing that you were worthy of calling yourself a 'servant of all'." She thoight back to her own panel. She'd only been 22, considered very young to apply for the title. A man and two women sat on the raised platform, long, formal overcoats with high-collars showing their status as aes sedai. Taija could remember how impressed she'd been at the golden globes on the collar of the panel chair's black coat showing she had earnt her third name. "You had to submit a…" she searched for the right word and couldn't quite find it, "a list of what you had done to contribute to society. You also had to survive an interview in which they'd question your actions, attitudes and moral outlook."
Taija pursed her lips, "if I'd gone in with the sort of attitude that aes sedai nowadays have, I'd probably have failed immediately. There was a lot more emphasis placed on the serving part of the title, but having it was a great honour. One most channelers sought in my day, even if it took them a century to get there."
"So any channeler could become an aes sedai if they had the right attitude?"
"No not really," she shook her head. "You also had to demonstrate a level of channeling skill, but it wasn't about strength. In fact I think the average aes sedai now is probably stronger in the Power than the average aes sedai in my time. Even a very weak channeler could be awarded the title if they could show they had the knowledge and the skill in spinning their webs." She sighed sadly, "of course I don't suppose there will be anymore now, given it's just me left." After a moment Taija spoke quickly before the encroaching darkness inside her could come too close. "Now come on girls, back to work!"
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The situation in Falme trundled along for over a month before Taija started to feel she needed to move. It was harder and harder for her to keep her mind off things sitting there acting as a glorified school teacher to Rand and the girls, interspersed with occasional sniping matches with Moiraine.
To her surprise, Moiraine turned out to have been pushing Rand to leave Falme. It seemed that she was worried about the local powers moving to crush the latest 'false dragon'.
Somehow Taija found herself sitting in what was essentially a council of war. Moiraine was urging Rand to go Illian.
"To survive and unite the world as the Dragon Reborn you need nations behind you. At the moment every King and Queen will oppose you, wherever you go. If we stay here we will be crushed so we need to move." She stood, her tone becoming more urgent. "You need to go to Illian. We have the Horn of Valere and if you bring it before them they will rally behind your banner without hesitation. You need an army and you need a nation behind you if you are to lead the Light."
Taija wasn't totally sure why Elayne was included in this council, perhaps Rand asked for her to be, they seemed to have gotten friendlier over the last month. To be fair the girl was a princess too, so perhaps it was just a rank thing in a feudal society. Regardless, she had her own view. "Andor is the largest, most powerful of the nations. It can give you more support than any other and you yourself are Andoran. While Queen Morgase might not welcome you if you came by yourself, with my support and that of an aes sedai she would throw the power of Andor behind you. Better to rely on the good sense of my mother and our connections to her than a guess about the Horn of Valere."
Rand himself preferred to go to Tear. "The Prophecies of the Dragon say that the Dragon will be reborn when the Stone of Tear falls to him and he wields the sword that cannot be touched. I don't want armies fighting on my behalf, I want the killing and dying to stop and for that I need to be acknowledged as the Dragon Reborn… Or to find that I'm not."
Moiraine and Elayne were both dead set against that, although Moiraine was able to talk over Elayne's protests. "How will you be able to take the Stone of Tear without an army? It is a fortress that has stood since records began. You are the Dragon Reborn, but that will not protect you if you choose to act like a fool."
Rand and Moiraine ended up bickering for a while, with Taija keeping quiet in the background, until eventually Rand turned to her. "Taija sedai," he put some emphasis on your title and she wondered if he was trying to make a point to Moiraine. "What do you think I should do?"
Taija held up her hands, palms out, "I'm sorry Rand, I don't know your world well enough and I've never been much of a strategist. Whatever you decide to do, I'll support you in that."
Moiraine gave off a vaguely smug feeling at that, although it didn't show on her face. "Taija sedai is correct, you need to listen to the advice of those who know best. I have decades of experience of such matters and, while young Elayne is understandably biased by her relationship to her mother, she also understands the need to establish yourself before you go haring off after the Stone of Tear."
Rand nodded at Moiraine, "nevertheless, I wish to hear Taija sedai's opinion."
Taija paused to think for a few seconds before she spoke. "Rand, like I said, I'll support you in whatever choice you make. I don't want you to think that I'll be angry if you ultimately choose a different path to the one I would choose." Her voice was earnest, he needed to understand that she really meant it. "That being said, I think Tear is the best idea for now. I just don't feel as optimistic as Moiraine and Elayne about rulers or nations backing you up and you'd be putting yourself in a very vulnerable position if things went wrong in Illian. The Stone of Tear is meant to be an unbreachable fortress, so I can't see that an army would help with it." She paused, "also an army would be a target for any of the Forsaken. On the other hand, trying to sneak into the Stone might actually work where any army wouldn't."
She shrugged, ignoring the look Moiraine was shooting at her. "That's what I think for what it's worth."
Rand politely thanked Taija everyone else, but it was clear that he wasn't going to be making a decision that night. She could see that Moiraine was annoyed that her advice wasn't being followed as she stalked out shortly afterwards. Taija exchanged a few more words with Rand and the others before heading to her own rooms, Aleksi shadowing her.