The Grey Tower

Jerid Walker eyed the trainees from his perch on the catwalks above the Tower’s sparring yards.

There were a few Drin’fa’ji and Ji mixed in with the unbonded Warders, all of them learning the finer points of combat.

His gold-flecked gold-green eyes flickered as he watched the near-fluid movements clash with the awkward style of those just beginning their lessons.

He might as well have been a statute, dressed in hunter's garb, his youthful face almost emotionless. At nearly six feet, he was still as slender as his days as a thief in the Rahad, just as alert. The twin long knives at his side were extensions, ready to be used on a whim.

The only thing marking him as an Asha'man was the indigo cord and the silver sword and gold dragon pins at his lapel.

A smile touched his youthful lips as his mind flashed back. It was the only sign of emotion.

Three of his Warders had been trained in these yards, as had one of his sons.

Those memories held bittersweet and tragic notes.

His son Sojin Majere had escaped the destruction of Walker Manor at the Caralain, taking along with him survivors of a Seanchan attack that sought to remove any trace of Jerid Walker from the world.

Lysira was gone, the bond between them snapped in two when an attempt to use a Portal Stone backfired and resulted in complications. It had been the death keel to a marriage that was already at its end, and with it her decision to leave with their son.

He had left Corsedai in a drug-induced sleep in order to protect her from an offensive on a Black Ajah trap meant to turn him. When the dust had settled and nothing but rubble remained, the bond had been dissolved and Jerid presumed dead.

A decade later, he had returned just after House en'Damier's exile from Whitebridge. With that return had come the bonding of a new Warder, Sienna Calin. She too was gone, dead years after the the manor's fall at the hands of Dreadlord.

The smile vanished, replaced by the calm, emotionless calm the Asha'man had become known for over his very long life. There was no mistaking him as a soldier or man who could act mercilessly if necessary.

How many years ago had it been since he entered the Tower as a run-away thief from the Rahad, a fugitive from the Seanchan? He had lost count. It had been decades beyond recollection since he was reunited with a family he had barely known, and a family that turned out to be a Andoran noble one at that. It had been years since the birth and death of his first children, ascension as Master of Soldiers and Keeper of the Archives, the birth of two more sons, and then a third and fourth.

The loss of a lover that had placed a gaping hole in his and Lysira's marriage, one almost repaired but irrevocably damaged.

Then came the Portal Stone, a melding of a different Jerid and reality seemed to twist and then coalesce.

And then there was the fall of the Caralain, a thousand years of history gone in an act of pride and survival by Jerid's design. Nothing remained except ruins and a Portal Stone. Not even the Seanchan forces survived.

And now, he had decided to return home after thought of being dead for years. With him came resurfaced rumors associated to the death or disappearances of more than a few channelers. A Green, a few Reds from the White Tower, Asha'man from the Black Tower. Even an Indigo like himself.

It hadn't earned him any favors, not even among the few people he knew that still resided here. Oh, he had been given the proper respect his age and former status accorded him, even his reputation as one of the Tower's more formidable battle channelers.

But he was also aware of the would-be shadows that failed to keep up with him. Eyes and ears from nearly every Ajah surely must be following him, and those belonging to the Fang and Flame.

A wise move, one Jerid had executed all his time as an Asha'man. His return might mean only one thing. Trouble was brewing and he was here either to examine it or stir it up before he vanished again.

One group of Warders and trainees wrapped up their sparring sessions, only to be replaced by others.

How many still remained that had been trained by Lord Sigmund or by Caden Ives?

Perhaps very few.

On impulse, he turned and walked from his place on the wall overlooking the sparring grounds. His view of the Yards for the day was done.

Silently he strode through the Tower grounds, exposed in an overcast day and a slight, cool breeze. Very few crossed his path, or wisely chose to steer clear of the Indigo who had become a living, dreadful legend in his own time.

His first loyalty had been to the Tower, above and beyond the Amyrlin Seat, M'Hael or even his own Ajah. It was a loyalty questioned by others, but still a truth he held to, even if other truths no longer held an oath over him.

Jerid's feet took him through the Tower corridors, up the stairs of the great wheel. At first he considered returning to the apartments set aside for him. They were modest, a single room, a decent common room with a hearth and window overlooking the Indigo courtyard. But he didn't head there first.

His stride took him to the intersections adjoining the Green and Blue halls. The corridors were silent, with a few Sisters or Brothers eyeing him cautiously, almost as if expecting him to slip into the shadows and vanish like a Fade or Old Grimm himself.

Jerid stopped at one intersection, at an alcove that overlooked the Green Ajah courtyards, and he smirked. Gone were the days that he had friends in this Ajah, when he could have a vigorous debate over drinks.

A hand brushed against the handle of one his long knives, and a trickle of saidin filled him.

He wasn't alone near the alcove any more.

“There was a time when I would watch my children and grandchildren play in these courtyards,” the youthful Asha'man murmured in an Ebou Dari accent. “And there were days when one did not walk up on this Asha'man unannounced.”

((OOC: *yoink* Mine.))

A smiled ghosted over the porcelain features of Miahala Sedai. "There were times when an Indigo would not be so possessive of the Halls of the Green," she said, the faintest trace of humor in her deep, resonant voice.

The woman slipped out of her own shadows and approached with her hands loosely laced before her. The green of her high necked dress much like the style she had always worn before... Well, before her death. It covered all of the scars but a small one upon her cheekbone, the only marring of her otherwise ageless face.

Wandering the halls, lost in her own reflections, she had seen him pass and recognized a face from the long ago past. It was too much to resist speaking with him. Twenty years was a long time, but she remembered everything, eventually.

"Jerid Walker," she said, bowing her head to him although those blue-green, pride of Saldea eyes remained on his. "You are not the only one who once watched their children play there. I watched children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren." The smile remained at the corners of her mouth. "Greetings to you. It's been a long time, but it is good to see a face I well remember."

For a brief heartbeat, Jerid's mind split into two decisions as he heard the very familiar voice. One was to grasp more of saidin and grip his knife.

The other was to at least relax somewhat at the approach of someone who had once been a dear friend.

Jerid didn't turn immediately, but berated himself for the indecisiveness that had seized him. It could have cost him dearly in the past, especially if this particular Aes Sedai's other half still stalked one half-step in front of her.

Miahala.

Jerid had been gone the day Miahala Ives had been attacked, gone to Andor to see to affairs of his House, his Warder Corsedai at his side. He had only spoken briefly with her just after she and Caden Ives had returned and on decidedly … civil terms.

Had he been present inside the Tower, perhaps things would have been different. There would have been a time when any shadow in the Tower would have been detected and Jerid would be there to intercept. When Amora had been ruled as Amyrlin in her first reign, the Indigo had stopped at least two assassination attempts and committed support of House Walker's bannermen to her rescue when the White Tower had kidnapped the Grey Tower's children.

But then Miahala's death had also occurred at a difficult time.

His mind had still been split asunder.

The Jerid Walker that had lived most of his life in these halls had been … merged with one of another, mirrored world, the curse of a Portal Stone encounter gone awry. It sheered the bond with Lysira and tossed a stranger into her life. The Lysira one Jerid had known had died along with their son Caden, and found himself with a stranger bearing his wife's face and a son who was still alive.

And that Jerid had suspicions about Miahala and Caden Ives … the death of someone who had been denied the justice of the Hall for crimes committed against Tower Born. His own children and grandchildren.

The two souls had slowly merged, a dual identity held in check by a sort of survival over the intervening decades. Both put the past behind them to move on.

Jerid turned ever so slightly, hand removed from the knife handle. Saidin still lingered in him, however.

Gold-green eyes met an Aes Sedai who might be as old, if not older than he. She hadn't changed much, except for the scar across her cheek. A souvenir of her death, he supposed.

He smiled briefly at the familiar face of a person he once rode to battle with in the Battle of the Lights as a Dedicated. One who went into battle with him at the Caralain the night the Fiery Serpent attacked his family.

“These halls have been more kind to me in the days I returned than those of my own Ajah,” Jerid said matter-of-factly. “Though I fear neither have welcome of me these days. The suspect death of a Green Sister with Black in her ledger is still something that doesn't bear merit.”

He paused and smirked.

“That and this place always felt more welcoming,” he murmured. “It seems that the Indigo could never figure out what to do with one of its own who had more affinity for battle than some Greens and could risk a brawl with Saphire Sedai. I almost feel I missed my calling.”

He tilted his head, taking a half-step forward with hands in plain view.

“Sister Miahala Ives,” he murmured in kind return greetings. “I recall my own grandchildren playing with a young Haeden on a day full of sunshine so many years ago. Those had been good days.”

Days best remembered as good, before things turned.

His grandchildren were safe. Daimen and Caitlin had married into Tar Valon families, and his youngest Sabrina lived under Caitlin's roof. His oldest grandson, Morgan, a former Warder trainee, now served in Mat Cauthon's military.

Of his children that still might live, Sojin had escaped the Seanchan siege of the Caralain, sent by Jerid to rule as High Seat of House Walker at its estate in the Mountain of Mists. His son estranged son Solin, Sojin's twin, had been bonded to a White Tower Green.

Young Caden, not so little any more … Jerid removed himself from his son's life to let Lysira and her new love raise him as their own. The Indigo had no place in their lives any more. Of his and Catieri's son, nothing since her death.

And then to learn he had a daughter who had come to the Tower in search of him when he had left for the Caralain, one he had never met and had vanished from the very grounds soon after.

“A familiar face is always good to see, because I've not seen too many in these past few days, and fewer still marginally friendly,” he said.

His smile turned into one of wry.

“At least one ghost is welcome back,” he said. “The one that haunts the Indigo Hall isn't welcome in any part.”

And then his tone grew somber as he raised his hand his cheekbone, recognizing the pain behind Miahala's loss.

“Tell me, old friend, how does return suit you,” he said after a moment.

The pair of them standing there in that corridor was like a history book laid open on the ground, wind ruffling past page after page with the text dancing: the past never sleeps, the present can't sit still, and the future is but a mirage that refuses to form. The air was heavy with their histories, and their past torments and the shared pain of their current days. The burden of their returns.

Neither revealed anything, too long among the Tower echelons to do so by chance, yet the looks exchanged revealed all.

"That depends upon which return you speak of," she said easily, yet heavily, though the presence of this particular person helped ease her some. She had not the burden of other lives melding with her own, other selves and other futures, to concern her. All she knew was that the Tower was so...young now and she felt a little lost among their numbers, but this face was one she could see back to the days before. She took some comfort in that, if only superficially. "I cannot say I like returning from the dead, and it seems to disconcert others as well." Sorrowful humor danced in her eyes.

She paused, taking a deep breath and keeping her head high, as she always had. Miahala had only ever been bowed once, and it did not last.

"But this place is home, and always will be. So despite everything, this return is good."

Memories of her children danced through her mind. Most of them dead and buried now, since few had followed in their Channeler parents' footsteps. Sadira lived and was out in the world, as was Haeden. Both long gone from children, and she had not been able to find where they were to reach them. She knew they would be home at some point, and she would see them then.

"And you, Brother Jerid Walker," she said, trying to chase the ghosts from her gaze and failing, "it sounds like your return does not treat you comfortably, except here in these halls?"

Jerid could scant recall the time he had come close to death in his very long life. All those years growing up in the Rahad as a thief fighting the Seanchan and on through the years as an initiate in the Tower.

But for everything that he had heard, Miahala had actually died, or as close to brush with it as could be humanly possible.

It might unnerve most, but then Jerid was an Indigo and a Healer, used to all matters of strangeness.

And death had always come as a risk for both of them. Both were soldiers, even if their approach to battle was different.

His gold-green eyes lay still, almost evaluating the Green's words, noting the almost absent hint of bittersweet sorrow.

“I've found that Death has a strange sense of humor in these dark times,” Jerid murmured, his eyes turning back to the window. “And a constant companion.”

It showed when the Fiery Serpent attacked the Caralain decades ago, killing his daughter, most of his grandchildren, and many of his brothers and sisters. And again when the Portal Stone splintered him instead of killing him outright.

Leave the past behind, Walker. Look forward and away.

“Home,” he murmured, echoing Miahala's comment. These stones had seen so many stories, told so many whispers. He could walk blindfolded down them, remember each stolen kiss, every argument held with a Green or Blue or White.

Even his own Ajah Hall had once held some small joy. There had been Llewellyn and Daimenin first, then Aric and Liana. But they were gone. Perhaps only C

His gaze returned to Miahala.

“Not even these halls welcome me as much as they had in the past, old friend,” Jerid said. “My Warder and I tracked down a Green Asha'man serving as an advisor to a minor lord in Murandy, but exploiting an unstable portion of the kingdom … well more unstable than Murandy typically tends to be.”

His eyes hardened slightly. “He had Black in his ledger. Sienna died in the assault and the Dreadlord found out death could be a very slow process.”

Jerid twisted the jade ring on his scarred right hand, the one missing the tip of a pinky and ring finger. Scars both from long ago, during a rescue of another, more spirited Green Ajah First Sitter.

“There's a few missing or dead among our ranks and I'm not exactly being considered as an innocent party,” he murmured. “I think many in most of the Ajahs sense justice was denied them in the Hall.”

His eyes flickered, the equivalent of a shrug.

“You're right. This is home and I intend to stay as long as I'm needed,” he said. “I won't let ghosts frighten me off.”

Miahala had lived too long to judge anyone without knowing more. Something told her that the man would not be involved in such things with truly innocent people, but then, few who beyond the age of children were ever truly innocent. Although she felt she herself had lived a just and somewhat righteous life, she would laugh at herself and choke on her Oaths to call herself innocent.

"It would be unseemly for any son or daughter of the Grey Tower to be frightened away by any ghosts," she said simply. She had been welcomed back with surprising warmth, for one come back from the dead, but she wondered (at times) if maybe she oughtn't have been; no one knew anything about how or why she was alive now, not even herself, and that was perhaps the most frightening of all. "Did you come back to these Halls as I did, in seeking that home, or have you returned with purpose?" She kept herself suitably vague.

((OOC: Sorry this took so long and is a little lame. The kid is trying to send me to the asylum...))

Jerid almost smiled at Miahala’s comment that initiates of the Tower shouldn’t fear ghosts. Almost.

Ghosts, either those living, walking or dreamt up from the past, could be a powerful motivator to commit some truly egregious acts of stupidity or desperation.

After all, the myth of the demon of Ebou Dar had led the Seanchan to attack Walker Manor. And all had paid dearly for the act.

“Why did I come back,” he murmured, almost a question of himself. “Shadows are falling all around, my old friend, stretching from the Spine across the Aryth Ocean to Seanchan itself. If there's to be a war waged against it, then it would be best to have someone who has stalked and stood halfway in those shadows on the side of the Light.”

He smiled briefly. “And there is a part of me that desires to return home, to what few friends do exist here.”

Jerid took a half-step toward Miahala. “Even an old friend I had been saddened to have heard and thought had been lost and gladly would welcome to share a mug of ale with and share stories of the better times with.”

(OOC: Not a problem. The job has been doing the same to me as well. That and my nephews and niece do that their parents too.)

The truth was that Miahala had returned to the Grey Tower so she stopped hiding in her family estate in Saldea, but she had really just traded one kind of hiding for another. She had made the journey, but interacted with no one she didn't absolutely have to. She had begun to speak with others here, but she still was...out of touch. The Green really didn't know anything of what was going on in the world outside, and what had happened in the two decades past, except that Tarmon Gai'don was not upon them, yet.

The truth was...Mia felt incredibly lost. She was alive. She knew the same purpose she had lived for before still existed, but it did not burn as hot in her breast as it once had. Was there a place for her in this world now? She didn't know.

And the truth that she could not deny but resisted the out loud admission of: she missed Caden Ives with a power beyond life or death, and it was what she could do nothing about. He had followed her into death, and she was back but he was not. How was that fair? How was that just, or reasonable? What was she supposed to do with that? She'd had a mission, an almost divine drive and purpose, once...and he had been one half of it. Now she was a lost, incomplete spirit wandering haunted halls.

Was she a lost cause as well?

None of this did she say aloud, of course. She listened to what he said, and his words were what made her think of all this--thoughts and feelings that passed in the blink of an eye that did not blink--and made her...wonder.

Still, his brief smile and the way he stepped toward her and not away did a little to hearten her rather morose inward reflections. She returned his expression upon her lips, and a little in her eyes. "My old friend, I think that's the best offer I've had since..." Her smile increased on one side of her mouth with morbid humor. "Well, since I was dead."

((OOC: If you think about it, jobs are a little like children... *smirks*))

Jerid watched Miahala, recalling the both independent and coldly fierce warrior and also caring mother he once knew.

The reserved woman before him might have seemed a shadow of the legend that had once walked these halls, but Jerid saw it differently.

A Green existed whose fire had dulled but not died completely. Most might not see it, but the Indigo had the rare insight into most Ajahs.

Where most might have squawked or paid lip service to the idea of Ajah unity, Jerid had embraced it and made inroads on his own. Where Amora en'Damier had breathed a dream as Amyrlin Seat, he strove to make it a reality.

His old friend seemed lost, a trait most might not pick up on, but he sensed it. He knew. He had been lost more than once, and had the benefit of dear friends to guide him back on path.

And you would be the person to do just that? No, he couldn't be.

Jerid couldn't do much more than reconnect with an old friend and fellow solider.

He made a motion toward the Indigo Hall.

“Life and death are but part of the Dream,” Jerid said wistfully, almost knowingly. “It's something we can also speak of, if you desire philosophizing. But I do have a jug of oosquai from a very old and wrinkled Goshien Aiel friend, if you care to join me now."

There was something comforting in the idea of spending time with someone who could understand, at least better than almost anyone else that she could conceive of. Miahala had always prided herself on her independence, but the idea of companionship was too much for her to pass up. Not that she would have been inclined to, anyways. After all, why turn down a free drink and conversation?

She gestured to say if he led, she would follow. Economical in her words and gestures, as always.

"Would that I could speak of death at great length and philosophize about it, but alas, I remember very little," she said wryly. "Just that I was an idiot." She laughed faintly, a dark and mirthless sound. "Not that I would say as much to just anyone, but it is the truth without any obfuscation or embellishment or whatever else we Oath-bound are meant to do with our statements." The halls were empty and she felt safe to speak at least this frankly. "And as for my resurrection, I know even less of that."