Things Fall Apart; The Centre Cannot Hold [Attn: Sojin Majere Gaidin]

[Bella]

Miahala Ives Sedai She was getting way too good at this.

Several times, Mia had "escaped" her rooms without the notice of her guards before appearing again precisely where she had been expected to be, trailing suspicion but never anything more than a feeling that could be substantiated. Yet since her little excursions never went far or did much, they weren't much fulfilling and did little to counter the drudgery of her life as the Amyrlin.

How has anyone ever survived this? I think I'd rather face a Trolloc horde than the Hall of Sitters while wearing that bloody stole... This thought was something flowing through her mind repeatedly, in some variant or another, pretty much every day. It resounded in images through her mind as well, to the point she was starting to have trouble recognizing dream from Dream.

And thus, tonight was different. It was going to be different.

A long, carefully worded letter had been left in her study. Yes, she had left a letter. She certainly wasn't going to ask permission of anyone to do as she pleased. She knew that her Keeper could manage in her stead--the woman had been in her job longer than Mia had been in hers--and Durent could watch over things as needed as well. No one would miss her too much for a little while.

Tonight, she had a plan and she would see it through, or die trying. Don't speak too soon. Setting herself on this course, she had yet again slipped unnoticed from her chambers. The path from her room to the stables was so familiar to her feet that she might as well have closed her eyes and let her feet run along the track she'd begun to groove in the corridor.

The night was early yet, the darkness that vague dark blue that said the sun was not far away yet but the stars were already demanding they be given their due. Into the dark stable, she heard the night stable-boy snoring quietly on his stool in the corner; this was his usual post and she moved quietly, not waking him as she engaged in her routine.

Seren's halter was placed upon him with it's lead rope. She fetched the bridle in one hand and then slid her saddle over that same arm. With that side of her body now thoroughly unencumbered, she took up the lead-line and opened the well-oiled door. Leading the large horse from his stall, he followed with a placidity that belied his size and look.

Out of the stable and then through the little used gate not far from the main gate, but secluded just enough for a wily Aes Sedai to escape into the forest and tack up her horse...

[Jack]

Sojin Majere Gaidin Sojin guided his roan mare slowly toward the Tower, through the forest where he had come from his last meeting with a Seanchan envoy. His time away from the Tower was growing in frequency, as he was being recalled more and more to the Caralain Grass.

His hands were loose on the reins, giving Tsyn some leeway. Sojin was confident in his ability as a cavalryman and trusted his horse. For five years, they had been a team, with her bloodline traced back to those raised by Saldean nobility.

This last time he had been gone two weeks. An Aes Sedai on a diplomatic mission was kind enough to weave a Gateway just far enough outside of the Tower to allow him some time to his thoughts.

The Gaidin sighed quietly, watching from beneath his wide-brimmed hat as he studied the area around him. The silver-haired warrior used the ride these fields when he was still a trainee and a newly-minted Warder.

When you were bonded to an Aes Sedai, he thought briefly.

He was dressed in hunter's greens, which somewhat hid the mail armor he wore underneath. The ancient broadsword was strapped to his back, and a slender blade strapped to the side of his saddle. A set of throwing knives were likewise located over his body. For all the world, he might have been a soldier returning home to Hama Valon.

His sapphire eyes scanned the area as he neared the Tower. The massive walls would be looming over him soon, like a beacon of hope — and trap that claimed more lives than he could recount. When he was gone, he longed to be within the halls. And when he was here, he was anxious to be useful.

And it had claimed the life of someone recently that hit him hard. And more so, Jerid Walker Asha'man.

The Gaidin was headed for one of the least seldom used gate, one he knew well from when a few unbonded channelers might escape. And one he used when he didn't want his comings and goings to be documented.

It was from that direction that he saw the shadow move in the distance, and a hand reached for the jian strapped to his saddle. He could easily charge and cut down a threat if he was required, but thought better of it. Tsyn could trip over a branch.

So instead, he dismounted and slowly led the mare, with one hand on his broadsword hilt.

And then he was in the glade, his eyes on the person who was making a daring attempt from the Tower.

He nearly swore.

Instead he simply cleared his throat and said, “What is it with Greens popping out without so much as a say-so, and no Warder to boot?”

He scanned the area, as if looking for a Warder, suspecting that somehow the Amyrlin Seat didn't have one.

“I'd have half a mind to ask you to reconsider whatever you're about to do, but I've not a right to ask,” he mused, turning to his horse. He scratched the mare's black head. “Mind some company, Aes Sedai?”

[Bella]

With a sigh that doubled as a laugh, Mia rested her hands against the saddle whose girth she had just cinched up. "It is not hard to see why they say the Gaidin and Gaidar of the Grey Tower are among the best trained in the land," she said as she glanced sidelong at his presence in the dim light.

They had not seen much of each other since the chance meeting in the gardens had led to passion in his quarters. She had seen him when she'd visited Jerid, as friend and not Anyrlin, after Bryn... Mia knew the pain of losing a child. It had not been a happy visit, naturally, and she'd spoken little to Sojin.

And now, some time later, here they were.

His offer did not surprise her, and yet it did... "Whether your right or not, you know well that it would be fruitless. I'm too stubborn." A flicker ran through her piercing gaze as she smiled faintly. "I do as I will." She paused. "You seem just returning, would you truly wish to depart again? I'm bound for Saldea. I'm..." She hesitated. "I'm not going home, for that is here, but I'm going to the land my roots stretch to."

[Jack]

Sojin cocked his head at Miahala's words.

She did as she would, and no one could argue with her. Well, they could argue with her, but what was the point? She was Amyrlin Seat of the Grey Tower and and one its most powerful Aes Sedai to boot.

The silver-haired Warder merely inclined his head.

“Aye, I agree you're stubborn,” he said with a small smile. “And I understand the desire to remove one's self from time to time.”

His sapphire eyes flickered in the direction of the Tower and then back to Miahala. While he looked forward to rest after a long few weeks of politics, he wasn't exactly looking forward to what lay ahead of him.

“I'm returning from two weeks of playing diplomat between Seanchan and my father's family,” Sojin said. “Chances are once I return I'll either be recalled within a few days, or sent somewhere by Jerid Walker.”

Since Bryn's death, Jerid Walker had become more closed than normal, only fully confiding in his Warder.

“I wouldn't think anyone would miss my presence for a little longer,” he said, looking back Miahala. “I could do with a change of scenery, and self-reflection is good for the soul.”

His eyes danced as he added, “And I think you could use the company of someone who won't remind you every two seconds that the Amyrlin Seat shouldn't do unlady like things..”

[Bella]

As she held his gaze, a faint light danced in her own. The two glimmers finding and meeting one another, and dancing together. That faint smile, the economical gesture, curved her full lips. "They might think it, but you must know that none of them would dare to actually say it to me..." The glint and the smile somehow took on a wicked overtone without her changing a bit.

Mia turned to face him a little more fully. One hand on the horn of her saddle--a saddle for riding stride, of course, she never had and never would side-saddle--and then the other on an ample hip; a hip that he'd certainly seen more of than was present now.

She eyed him for a long silent moment, considering many things. The Green had certainly enjoyed their time together, but did she really want to spend some weeks with him, the journey and seeing her family and the time she'd need to find the middle again? After a few moments of statue-still, silent reflection, she decided that she was satisfied with the thought.

Bowing her silver-threaded, auburn-haired head slightly though without taking her eyes off his, she offered him another small smile. "I would indeed be pleased for your company, Sojin," she said. Her tongue rolled around his name as she said it, almost like she was tasting the word. "I suppose I could use someone to watch my backside, eh?"

That light in her eyes glimmered again in her porcelain features.

[Jack]

Sojin almost chuckled at Miahala's response but reserved himself to a quaint half smile.

He indeed know one or two people who might be foolish enough to put foot in mouth without engaging their brain beforehand. Those people usually ended up either “assigned” to very remote locations or wished they had been devoured alive.

No, looking at older Green in the pale moon light, Sojin murmured, Miahala was right. Most thought such things but were probably wise enough not to cross the line.

“I wouldn't know … I 'requested' of Amora Sedai shortly before her seconding seating to the Amyrlin Post what she give her daughter more breathing space,” he smirked. “It … did not go so well.”

The story was more a reflection of his own stedfast refusal to bow to some conditions.

He shrugged and studied the Aes Sedai studying him. Where some might see an Amyrlin Seat and nothing else, Sojin saw the woman beneath the stole. And he had seen a lot more beneath her clothes during the time shared in his bed — she was flesh and blood and full of fire.

It was something that no man could forget unless they were fools. What was here and now, the offer he had made, came with his own acceptance that he didn't expect to be anything more to Miahala than a companion on her journey.

And then her acceptance of the offer came and he grinned wryly.

“Aye, and such a fine backside to pull from any trouble should it occur, Light forbid,” he said, shifting his eyes playfully as if trying to get a peek.

Trouble always followed Greens, and they were going into Saldaea and the Borderlands. That alone increased the chance of them coming across something not so pleasant.

After a moment, he reluctantly pulled his gaze from Miahala and then hoisted himself effortlessly back onto Tsyn. The mare nickered slightly, eyeing the Aes Sedai before Sojin patted her neck.

“At your leisure, Miahala,” he said.

[Bella]

There was an easiness to her spirit when she was around him that she appreciated. It could have been that he didn't treat her like the Amyrlin, like a frightening resurrected legend, or even like a Green warrior. He treated her like Miahala, and while he wasn't the only one to do so, something about that combined with a convenient compatibility of natures just put her a little more at peace around him than she usually was.

Flashing him a smile, this time not the economical gesture but the real thing, she turned back to Seren and lifted her booted foot into the stirrup, hauling herself up and into the saddle with the strength and smoothness of a longtime horse-woman.

Mia nudged her heels gently into his side and he rode up alongside Sojin and his mount. She was gaze to gaze with him. "To Saldea, then," she said simply and then took the lead. Seren seemed to want to steal glances at Sojin's mare, and Mia wondered if the horses were gonna be a little too attentive to one another on this trip. (It made a strange sort of sense, though, in deeper thought.)

"You know they say that the Blight Border is among one of the most unpredictable and dangerous places that a person can travel to," she said, her face placid but eyes flashing and voice lilting in a strange way that most would be confused by but some would recognize as humor, "and they are right, it is among the most...but I know one even more unpredictable and dangerous."

Pausing, she laughed softly. "Any home of the Sha'hal clan. My family is scattered through out the nation, with some spilling over into Shienar, though those are mostly of my own direct line where as Saldea has Sha'hals from my brothers and sisters. I was one of six." She knew there was no need for idle chatter, but she wanted him to know what he was getting himself into.

A trolloc had nothing on a determined Sha'hal matron.

[Jack]

Sojin grinned slightly as Miahala engaged him in idle conversation, his sapphire eyes darting between her and area around them.

At the same time, Tsyn emitted a blow and Sojin sensed a shift as her mare turned her head and shook her head slightly.

He nudged his horse about and just slightly ahead, though still within Miahala's line of gaze. He was a Warder after all, and it would not do to completely forget he should be ahead of her, even if by a fraction.

And it would do no good for Tsyn to spark something. She could be aggressive at times.

“You mean to tell me that there are worse things than Trollocs and Fades near the Blight Border?” he asked humorously.

“So what you are saying is to prepare for a battle of wits, dancing on the edge of a blade, and resisting the urge to draw steel,” the Gaidin said with a smirk. You did not draw a blade in Saldaea unless you meant to use it.

He tilted his head and murmured.

The silver-haired Gaidin knew the answer, of course. He and his twin brother had grown up in Tar Valon, in the shadow of the White Tower.

In that city, nobility held only minor sway compared to the Aes Sedai, and no major decisions were done without some consent. Caleb Ashe, their foster father, was one of the few to disagree with Aes Sedai.

“Try growing up in Tar Valon, where Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah kept a constant vigil on your family home to see how you and your brother developed and took an interest in your everyday life,” Sojin murmured. He smirked and added, “Perhaps that's why I prefer consorting with Aes Sedai of the Green and Blue Ajahs, and why Solin bonded a Grey Aes Sedai.”

It was a much kept secret that Sojin didn't speak much of his brother, or his childhood in Tar Valon. He had left when he was 15 to join the Band of the Red Hand, and did not look back. When he became a trainee in the Grey Tower Warder Yards, what little contact the twins had ended.

“Why are you returning to Saldaea instead of Shienar,” he asked. He tilted his head and added, “Though in truth, if I probably needed time to contemplate, it would be retreat to the Caralain instead of Tar Valon.”

In truth, he felt more connection to his father's family than his mother's. Even with the marriage with member of a Seanchan nobility, they were less … complicated.

He cast a look at Miahala and smiled. Perhaps that was why he liked this Amyrlin Seat.

[Bella]

She returned his smile, thinking that his Tar Valon comparison may well be apt, but she'd put her gold on a Sha'hal matron versus a White Tower Sister absolutely any day. She came from a fierce breed, for better or for worse. Often for both, even simultaneously.

"I was born in Saldea and it's what sings in my blood. Where my roots are grown in." She looked off ahead, thoughtfully. "By my second husband, I bore three children; all were Tower born. Sadira took after me as a channeler and is now of the Blue, like her father. Tarvin and Tianna, twins, did not have the spark. Tianna returned to Saldea, of my birth, while Tarvin went to Shienar, of his father's birth. It's that Jolstraer line that lives there. The Sha'hal blood grows out of Saldea." She paused. "If you've ever met a Grey named Derren then you've met Tarvin's son."

It did not go unnoticed to her that he had spoken of his youth, and his own twin, which he did not do. She felt honored by the briefest of confidences and did not wish to press it. "And so to learn again of who I am, Saldea is where I must go."

[Jack]

Sojin was a soldier first. Whatever training Caden Ives, Lord Sigmund or any other master Gaidin bestowed upon him after, it only supplemented his first and later years in the calvary.

As such, he learned to listen when a noble spoke, if only in the hopes of humiliating the poor fool later on. Light knew it would become an invaluable skill, especially as an officer and later when Warding an Aes Sedai, if for very different reasons.

And where most men would raise an eyebrow at the mention of three children —Light, he knew she bore more — Sojin only smiled slightly, knowingly.

His own parenthood was brief. Gideon died along with his mother — Sojin's wife — only a year into his life, and the unborn twins Sojin and Saphire would have raised were never to be because of a Trolloc mace.

In many ways, he envied Miahala, simply for the fact that she saw her children grow up. In some ways, he envied his own father for the same thing, and for the children who did grow. He loved his younger half-brother deeply, but since Bryn's compassionate speech, he'd desired Cade to live a much … less intrusive life.

Life happens, and your younger sister dies, he thought. From what he heard, his brother's security had been stepped up, including a new Sa'Ji'dar assigned to him. Light, if was the one he hoped it was, mayhaps the young man find some joy. Of course, if Cade fancied others … well, Sojin hoped his brother found some joy.

“So you're going home,” Sojin murmured after a few minutes. A slight pressure to Tsyn's sides and he was riding beside Miahala neck and neck. “I almost envy you, having kin who is Grey. I'd pity the diplomats who would have to deal with him.” He grinned. “There's been some pressure among the Grey about an advisor to House Walker to balance out the influence of the Seanchan marriage now that they've promised to follow Jerid Asha'man's orders. If Derren is of your blood, they'll be begging in two days to accept compromises not to be idiots.”

Walker Manor was almost rebuilt, but the squabbling continued. His nephew had finally accepted that a Grey Tower advisor was needed — an Asha'man — but Balen rejected it. The man valued peace, not bickering and politics.

He looked sidelong at Miahala and murmured, “Something tells me you haven't done this before, skipping out in the middle of the night.”

His eyes scanned the area, noting certain markers as they passed. They were alone. “He trusts you, otherwise there would be six Aes Sedai and Asha'man following us.” Jerid Walker might have been grieving, but his spies were everywhere. “He once faced a Seanchan Dreadlord who slipped past Amora's defenses in her study. He was waiting.”

He looked at Miahala directly and added, “Chances are you're either the slyest Amyrlin Seat in Tower's history, or the First Seeker knows who you are and pulled in every card he has left to leave you be.” He cocked his head. “It's probably both.”