Lovely Temptation [Attn: Cat]

[Craig]

Elia

The moment Tristram ceased his channelling, all of the warmth and fuzziness slipped away. It was like getting out of a warm bed and entering the cold, except realising that the bed was a fiction.

The duplicitous snake.

Well that explained why Malth was looking so pleased with his fat self. Elia was glad she hadn't lost all sight of reason and had sent the odious toad away none the wiser. She wasn't going to use him again she decided. Ambition was fine, so long as it didn't threaten her.

She returned her attention to the issue at hand. Tristram was making puppy eyes and apologising. It may have been quaint, had he not just meddled with her. She wasn't about to let that slide, whether she was Elia Sedai or Deyeniye. A shield of saidar slithered around the soldier. There was no shocked reaction, so the boy must have let his grasp of saidin go.

When Elia spoke, it was like being hit by shards of ice. Cold and dispassionate only began to approach it. "Don't lie." If he thought he had gained some sort of vantage over her, she was about to disabuse him of that fact. "You did well for your first attempt, but if you wish for a second, you will not lie to me again. Are we clear?"

[Cat]

Tristram

Damn.

It was tempting to pretend that he had absolutely no idea about what she was talking about, but that, he felt, would work just as well as his previous ruse had, and so he dropped all pretence of being sorry for himself and simply shrugged his shoulders, the grin back on his face. Her reaction wasn’t going to stop him from feeling pleased with what he had done.

Oh, he knew he should probably be shaking in his boots, but the fact that she had done nothing to retaliate beyond a few cold words was enough to bolster his confidence. She clearly wanted something from him, and that, in his mind, gave him leave to push. He didn’t think about how he was suddenly Shielded. That seemed to be the first thing every Asha’man and Aes Sedai did whenever one of their pupils didn’t do exactly as they said. He could always, at the end of the day, walk away.

“Was my acting really that bad?” he said instead. “I thought it was rather good myself, but that might be why I was never cast as a lead in a play, but I promise I won’t lie again. It was just that you seemed so unaware and I just wanted to test it. I was aware that something was wrong when you did it to me, and…” He shrugged his shoulders again. “Excitement got the better of me.”

[Craig]

Elia

The ice was still present when Elia next spoke. "I will hold you to that promise," she warned. "You've started to touch on the emotional side of this talent, nudging someone in doing what you wish for them to do. You wanted me to be happy, and so I was happy. But the illusion only lasted as long as the weave did in your case."

The Indigo rose up from her chair, giving Malth's empty seat a thoughtful glance. "You sensed something was wrong because I allowed you to. Blunt strength in the Power is one way to achieve goal, but it is messy. Much like sending in an entire army." Elia moved behind the chair and lifted it, carrying it a short distance so that it was resting with its back against the wall.

She walked back to stand behind her own chair. "Dexterity and precision are other ways to get what you want. 'A knife in the dark can be worth a thousand swords at dawn'. I could overwhelm you into floods of tears with brute force, or talk you into revealing your darkest fears, or even make them come to life in your dreams." She smiled coldly.

Elia took hold of her chair and placed it alongside the first. This little get together was over in her opinion, but she didn't want to frighten the poor man off. 'There's no point laying out bait if you scare the fishes away with your oars'. The Light knew who she grasped that saying from, but it must have been a Tairen. Dax?

The Shienaran's beautiful face softened, almost looking friendly if not for the hard glare still present in her eyes. "We shall do this again at the same time next week, assuming you can follow two simple rules. The first is that you will not mention this meeting to anyone. The second is that you will not try and practice what you've been shown. There are repercussions if this little lesson gets out, for both of us. If you think the Master of Soldiers is scary, try standing in the Hall of the Sitters." Elia felt her spine crawl at the mention of the Hall. Just admitting to the knowledge of Compulsion would be a harrowing experience. It may not amount to a sentence of stilling, but it wouldn't fall far short.

She drew herself out from thought to focus on Tristram. "Do we have an agreement?"

[Cat]

Tristram

There would, Tristram knew, be a way to tie off the weave. You could tie off other weaves, after all, so why not this one? With it, you could make someone permanently happy or sad, or anything you wanted them to be. He wasn’t sure he’d ever go that far; he didn’t want to change people forever, but he couldn’t deny that it was an enticing thought. It really would solve all his problems. He’d never have an issue again. He just needed to learn how.

And that meant not putting a foot wrong.

He kept his face carefully blank as he watched the Aes Sedai, making no move to help her. He could have, of course, but kissing her arse clearly wouldn’t work. He would, for once, be himself. Or as close to himself as he ever let anyone ever get. He didn’t want to mess this up… any more than he already had. There was still that question of why she was teaching him, and the thought that perhaps there was more to it than she claimed. If she was already as mad as she seemed, why didn’t she just let him go? He was sure there were plenty of others who would like to learn the weave.

Maybe it all came down to his blunt strength, and he couldn’t help but grin at that. So far, he had proven to be fairly strong in the Power. Perhaps you had to be stronger to be able to do the weave. Blunt strength didn’t always have to be messy, after all. It could be combined with other things to make it even more powerful. The possibilities were endless, and this was one of the reasons why he had come to the Tower. Sometimes you needed blunt strength to get what you wanted; sometimes it was the only thing that people would listen to. The stronger you were, the more likely people were to pay attention, especially when it came to the One Power.

In the end, he just nodded and sketched a quick bow, biting back on urge to say that he found the Master of Soldiers the opposite of scary; that he actually rather liked to spend time with the man. Elia Sedai, he had come to realise, was someone who liked to feel like every single one of their words held weight. He had absolutely no intention of telling or practicing on anyone. He knew that he often seemed careless, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew when to push and when not.

“You have my agreement,” he said with another smile, “so it’s another date. I look forward to spending even more time with you.”