We Move On (attn: Natlya/Bella)

[Jack]

Two weeks before The Children MRP
Sojin Majere Gaidin The evening was rare for Sojin Majere. He had no drills to lead, Miahala was otherwise engaged with pouring over reports from the Blightborder and otherwise doing stuff Amyrlin Seats dreaded doing, and he had absolutely nothing to do. So what did one do when one found himself with nothing to do?

He sparred. The first person who came up against him was someone trained with a polearm, something the silver-haired Gaidin needed practice with. Needless to say, when the battle was done, his counterpart was on the ground, but not before she landed a few good blows herself.

Sebrina Calin Gaidin was one of the finest trained Warders in the Grey Tower Warder Yards, more so because she was captain of the guard at Camden Corelle before she signed the Warder books and started all over from scratch. Now in her late twenties, she could match most people with the wicked staff she carried, and the knife to boot.

“You lied to her, didn’t you,” the red-haired Gaidin said after the two had settled down on a nearby bench and shared a horn of mead. The sun was setting behind the two Warders, and both were dusty and a little bruised from their exercise. Since an event over a year ago, Sojin Majere had gone easy on most sparring partners.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Sojin asked, his sapphire eyes dancing as he passed the horn to Sebrina.

She punched him in the arm. “Ya told Riahana that what, a raccoon did it?” she murmured. “I saw ya fight, Sojin Majere, and I know for a fact that there was no squirrel, as ya told me, and no raccoon, as was reported to the whole Yards. The Whitecloak died because he was the lesser swordsman and ya refuse to acknowledge it. False humility doesn’t become ya.”

Sojin shook his head and murmured, “One does not go about broadcasting one’s ability with a flaming heron mark unless they’re that good. You earn a heron mark only if you are like Riahana or like Dax. Or Caden Ives.”

Another slug to the shoulder. “Ya do yerself a grave injustice, Majere, and if I were any kind of decent person, I’d dump this mead on yer head.” She grinned and took a swig. “But I’m not one to waste good mead.”

She passed it back to her fellow Warder, retrieved her staff, and stood. “But I’ll be going now,” she murmured. “I have other engagements to attend to this evening.”

“You mean an engagement with a certain redhead,” he said slyly. The other Warder blinked, blushed and slapped him upside the head. Before she could utter a word edgewise, he lifted a finger and murmured, “I don’t disapprove, Sebrina. But you know the conditions. Break her heart and I’ll break your legs.”

“Yes sir,” the short Gaidin murmured before sauntering off.

Sojin himself realized it was growing late, and per his semi-usual tradition, he stood, gathered his jian sword and took a brief tour of the Yards. Many of the recruits were drawing down for the night, finishing with their training and patrols about the Warder Yards, or completing an evaluation. He nodded to a few Gaidin who traveled his way.

And then his eyes fell on one particular Ji’val who apparently didn’t realize her time was coming to an end. The redheaded young lady managed good form with her sword, and seemed enthralled in whatever practice she was engaged in, but Sojin frowned slightly.

He knew that face all too well. He knew her from the ceremonies that came after the Second Seanchan Siege, from the reports circulated throughout the Yards, from the duty rosters when her name went missing for a few days. And he had heard reports of the young woman’s constant training in the wee hours of the morning. He’d thought to send a note to Ravak Gaidin, but the man must surely know one of his charges would be over-exerting herself.

“Ji’val Natlya Cade, stand down and sheath your sword,” he said. The command came more from a captain to a soldier than it did from a Gaidin to a trainee. He motioned with his head, indicating that she follow him on a path that would take them the entire route of the Yards.

“You’ve been training non-stop since you returned to these Yards from Mayene,” the silver-haired Gaidin said. “It’s admirable of you, even laudable, but when did you last stop to grieve over Soldier Morgan’s death?” He raised a finger to stall any questions or confusion over how he knew. “Jerid Walker Asha’man informed me shortly after the Soldier’s death, and the entire Yard knows what transpired that day.”

[Bella]

The bark caught her off-guard, but she hid it well. She stopped her forms and her imaginary spar to turn and see Sojin Gaidin. Her hazel eyes flickered over his as she sheathed her sword, for a Ji'val did not ignore the dictates of a Gaidin. She bowed her head in respectful greeting, even if she wondered what he could possibly want with her. She was no bother to the Amyrlin's warder.

When he started walking, her red brows knit slightly but she fell in step with him. Strands of sweaty hair that had begun to cling to her forehead were brushed back to join the rest of it.

Natlya was not at all surprised that he knew, seeing as how everyone did, it seemed. She might be able to dredge up one or two Novices, maybe an infant in the nursery, who did not... Turning her gaze forward, she looked over the path they walked on and wondered why it was they all felt the right to nose into her affairs.

The Warder Yards were no better than the women's circle or the knitting group when it came to gossip and nosiness. "Is it not said that we all grieve in our own ways and in our own time?" she asked simply, far more respectfully than she felt.

[Jack]

If there was one thing Sojin learned in his years as a captain in the Band of the Red Hand, and as a Warder, it was how to read soldiers and trainees alike.

He knew because he would always be the former and used to be one of the latter.

So when Natlya responded the way she did, it was no surprise he could sense irritation, no matter how well it was hidden it might have been. People didn’t like prying, especially Warders who lost someone they cared for deeply.

“Aye, we do,” Sojin said as he passed the half-empty mead horn over to the Ji’val. “And the more we delay it, the more we bottle it up until it becomes a poison as lethal as a Myrddraal’s sword or a Seanchan’s arrow.”

He spoke with experience on both topics. He’d been on the receiving end of a Seanchan’s arrow once, and nearly died because of the poison it was laced with. Twice more he had been shot and nearly killed by Whitecloak arrows.

And he had seen friends die from a scratch received from a Fade’s blasted blade.

“What was he like, this Morgan Cade,” Sojin asked sincerely. “You must have loved one another deeply enough to take his name for yours, and travel to Mayene to bury his body.”

[Bella]

Perhaps what annoyed her most was that everyone seemed to assume she wasn't dealing with it. That her feverish training was just avoidance and suppression, which yes, in some ways it was, but to assume that's all it was... Well, it annoyed her. She had cried herself to sleep plenty of nights, and thought often about such things.

Grief chose its own paths, and she had been following hers. It just didn't look like how others' did, but that didn't mean she should have to change herself for them? She had never worried too much about how others saw her in the past, so why now?

His next question, however, surprised her. This was one that people hadn't really asked. They poked and prodded about how she was "handling" things, but few actually attempted to talk about the source of her pain. Her eyes lifted to him and the surprise, brief though it was, was clear before she looked forward again as they walked.

"He was an idiot," she said with a soft laugh, but one full of fondness. She laced her hands loosely behind her back and let out a long, quiet breath. "Talented, though. And with a good heart, despite what people might say of us because of our...past professions." People usually didn't think of thieves and con artists as "good" people. And maybe they hadn't been, but that didn't mean they were evil either.

She paused and choked up a little, but she swallowed her heart back down. "Yes, I loved him a great deal. I would have taken his name in life, eventually. I followed him to this bloody place. I didn't have to, you know, but I would not be left behind when he was here."

[Jack]

Sojin nearly laughed at the Ji’val’s first words on the deceased Soldier. From everything that his father had told him of his new favorite aide at the time, Sojin found that assessment hard to believe.

Studious, smart, a quick learner, and capable of so much more than what his old life would have brought either of them ...

And now the boy was dead. He’d died a hero, one who went unmourned in the greater shared suffering the Tower endured after the Seanchan breached Hama Valon and the Grey Tower defenses, but a hero nonetheless.

“From all that I understand, it wasn’t much of a choice in you coming here,” Sojin said after a moment, once Natlya had finished. “Attempting to pass a worthless copper-store item off as an object of the Power to an Asha’man was, perhaps, as you said, idiotic.”

He smiled. “But you two had flaming gual and daring,” he said with some appreciation. “And had you succeeded, I would have loved to have been in the room to see the look on that Asha’man’s face when he found out he had been beaten at his own game.”

One hand was on his hilt of his jian, the other holding the horn of mead. “He sounds like a good man, Morgan, and one who might have done well as an Asha’man, or continued on as a thief had you two not been caught.” He smiled in spite of himself. “And thieves are not always what ones make them out to be in the beginning. Your love’s captor was a thief once, so long ago, in the Rahad. I’d imagine he tried so hard to become the man he is now, the man who considers himself the soldier of the Tower, but he’s too rigid and full of duty and honor to be anything else. And a tad touched in the head, I’d imagine, mostly of being full of himself.”

It was no secret Jerid Walker was the silver-haired Gaidin’s father, and that they had become closer in intervening years. But it was also no secret that Sojin Majere was a person who challenged the Indigo at every turn on every flaming stupid decision.

“I lost someone I loved when I was your age,” he murmured. “I lost my first wife, before I came here, when I rode with Matrim Cauthon’s army. She was a wilder, someone who didn’t pop up on the White or Grey Towers’ awareness. She bonded me our first night we were intimate -- quite on accident -- and we were married a fortnight later. We had a baby boy, Gideon, and we were happy for a brief time.”

He spoke evenly, almost as if it had happened to someone else, but there was a trace of bittersweet sorrow.

“How did you two meet,” he asked Natyla. “Many thieves I’ve known, at least those outside Ebou Dar, turn on each other at a second’s notice if there’s a copper’s profit in it. You’re an oddity, and a welcome one to that for your former profession.”

[Bella]

As she listened, she glanced at him sidelong. Not with pity, since she would not give what she so loathed, but it was...a surprise to her that he revealed so much. He didn't know her from any other Ji'val, except via a few outer connections. All the same, she could appreciate his understanding and even beyond. Nat could not have imagined what she would've felt like had there been a child.

His next question made her smile slightly again, and then even laugh softly. The sound was quiet, little more than punctuated breath, but the flickering in her eyes betrayed some of the emotion.

"I tried to steal from him," she said with some amusement and fondness. "By all rights, and perhaps with any other, I would've lost a hand at best. Chances would be a lot more, but I don't know... He liked something about me. Maybe he just thought I was cute." Her eyes flickered back to him. "Either way, he didn't damage me. Instead, we decided to take on the world.

"That's basically what we did. We were inseparable. Less and less were we common thieves, more and more doing more complex games on people who could afford it. We challenged each other." She spoke without any trace of remorse or shame for her past life. It was not pride she spoke with, but fondness for that period of time, more for the one she spent it with. "We were a good team." These last words were spoken softer.

[Jack]

Sojin listened with no small amount of appreciation for the details Natlya told him. In the end, it was the actions and reactions that defined people. A noble-born captain could be great in leading a House, but mediocre in leading an army, while a common-born man might be more suited because of his connection and background to other soldiers because of the connections he made.

From Natlya’s perspective, this Morgan Cade was just an ordinary man who had a kind heart, and was exceptional when it came to their chosen profession. The way she spoke of him brought a light to her eyes and a laughter, however, small to her lips.

“You made each other better,” he said, taking a small sip from his mead horn. “Simone and I were the same, but opposite sides of two coins. She was a Tinker I fell in love with while we were tasked with trailing her caravan. Her parents disapproved of our relationship and marriage, but couldn’t deny their only daughter’s heart. And she always stayed true to her upbringing. When she settled in a small village and we had orders to defend it against raiders and Shaido.”

His sapphire eyes were clear and in the present as he spoke, but he remembered every detail. “She told me I was welcome under her roof and our bed, but that my sword would remain in the barn, lest I sleep there as well. I challenged that assertion once, and found that mules make poor sleeping fellows. I would have left my commission to raise a family with her, to be a farmer or merchant, or return to Tar Valon with her so she could become a Novice and I her eventual Warder.” He smiled wistfully at that, even chuckled. “And then the Shaido hit the village while we were out pursuing Dragonsworn bandits, and she and our son died.”

Sojin had pursued justice -- or vengeance -- when he personally led the assault on the Shaido. Fifty black-veiled Aiel, however well skilled, could not stand against three hundred horsemen united under a single banner. The sharp pain of a newly-forged bond was enough to drive him into focused rage.

“I was eighteen when I came to this place,” he murmured. “The Lord Caden Ives took an interest in me, honed my skill with a sword. Master Jip taught me in one spar not to put all the pressure of one’s self for past mistakes.”

His smile was bittersweet. “I met Saphire en’Damier, the flaming First Sitter of the Green Ajah. You’d never seen a woman with a record for more injured partners in the Yards except a skilled and frustrated Ji. She was there when I found out Jerid Walker was my true father, and I was intent on borrowing her partisan to injure the man. She got me drunk, bedded me, and made me her Warder. Needless to say, I was encouraged to go through the ranks fast.”

His sapphire eyes grew distant for one brief second. “She was eight months pregnant when the call came from one of the borderland towns she was so fond of, and rather than council her, she insisted on helping. It was that last moment that the One Power evaded her, when we were going through a gateway created by an Asha’man to evacuate after the village was overrun. We held the line and a Trolloc mace found her belly. We lost our unborn children. And despite our love, that we were a good team came into play when I asked to be released from our bond. I ran, first into the arms of another Aes Sedai’s bond, and then back to the Band of the Red Hand for ten years.”

His eyes flickered as he looked at Natlya. He liked this Ji’val, saw a lot of potential in her. It was a shame most seemed to focus on the grief she suffered, rather than the person she was and could become.

He recognized the patterns, and recognized she was in her own stage of grief and struggle. So instead, why not talk to or with her than at her?

“It was twenty years before I was bonded again, and it almost didn’t happen because I feared I was going to fail that channeler, like I did my last one,” he murmured. “She was dying in my arms when I told her to bond me, at a borderland outpost. She’d been poisoned by a Trolloc arrow and she was fading, and all I knew was that if she bonded me, used the strength of that bond, even if it meant my own death, she’d go on, and do more good than anyone I could ever know. I will be with her until my dying day.” He was a pragmatist; he knew channelers would outlive all others. The bond’s bittersweet blessing was manifold, but it did not grant longevity.

He stopped then and offered the horn of mead to the Ji’val. “How do you remember Morgan?” he asked. “I know it’s only a short time, but honoring the memory of our loved ones sears them into our hearts. Every year since my wife and son’s deaths, I lit a candle, with their portrait, and offer a prayer to wherever they’ve been reborn, for the Creator to shelter them and guide them in their next lives.”

[Bella]

Little by little, Natlya found herself unwinding. She had been living like a coil spun too tight, but speaking of Morgan and listening to the Gaidin she had been so annoyed at so short a time ago eased her. Even if he was that Asha'man's son... Well, that wasn't his fault. He just talked, shared and asked her to share. No one had asked about Morgan, out of consideration for her grief or uncertainty...but he did.

She found she liked it, and she liked the talking, and the listening. He'd suffered more than she could imagine at this point. Morgan death had nearly pulled her under, and they had only been young lovers. Not bonded. (Although she knew that had they lived and been raised, they would've been.) And no children... She couldn't imagine what he'd survived.

In truth, she didn't really want to try. She had enough weight to bear in her own mind and heart, she didn't need his. And he wasn't asking her to.

Nat took the horn with a small smile, thanking his quietly before taking a drink and giving it back to him. The sip was nice, a bit of warmth down the throat, but she wasn't going to indulge further. "I have yet to find what suits me, us," she admitted. Her words slipped more easily than they had in a while. She stared at the path they idly tread upon, thinking.

"It would be suiting but probably frowned upon if I stole something..." she said, an almost impish light flickering in her hazel eyes as she looked at him again, just the corners of her lips twisting up, showing she wasn't seriously...mostly. She moved on before he replied, though, and laughed softly as her eyes turned forward. "I don't know yet, but I will remember him, ultimately, with love, and joy.

"Neither of us had happy beginnings, and no endings can be, but we brought light into one another's lives. I will remember him for that, and in what way will show it."