The Grey Tower

They both lapsed into silence then, but it was companionable. There was simply little good in theorizing too long, especially when they didn't have any proof to sway it one way or the other. It could be any number of things. It wouldn't stop them from contemplating, but it didn't need to all be given voice until they were able to know more.

And so the road continued on beneath the steady pace of their horses. Each one keeping watch around them, being vigilant, but all remained...quiet. Every so often, so idle conversation passed between them as well. It was...oddly comfortable. Only odd in that it felt like they had known one another for a lot longer than they actually had.

Miahala didn't mind in the least. In fact, she preferred it. No two were ever so capable in venturing to the unknown as those who found that sort of connection. She was grateful.

She also had the faint dreading of returning to the Tower, although she would not let herself think too long about it.

Eventually, however, they reached a point where the sun was making it's descent to the horizon and she wasn't keen to be traveling too deeply into the darkness the nearer they got to their destination. She suggested finding a place to make camp and it was agreed. They moved off the road--since obviously you shouldn't camp there--and she let Ravak do the Gaidin thing is finding the best place.

Once settled, they set about the same routine as the night before. At least this time, she knew she wouldn't come as such a surprise to him in the way she operated. She wasn't like most Aes Sedai, and she wanted it that way. She was Miahala.

Ravak

Miahala was not really any more comfortable than Ravak was, although she did her best to ignore it. It was a trait she had learned during her many years as a mother, since child-rearing brought with it many uncomfortable and downright painful things--the birth itself not least among them--but one had to endure, or ignore outright.

She looked at him as he spoke and then smiled faintly, nodding. "As you see fit," she agreed. It would be a considerably less enjoyable turn to the evening compared to the night before, but understood the necessity.

Dinner was heating up on the fire before them and she turned her attention back to the flames. The watching and the thinking and theorizing of the ride through the rest of the afternoon had left her...pensive, as she continued to wonder what the morrow would bring. The slight foreboding that had chanced on her when they arrived at the outpost had returned; or maybe had just remained.

She tried to understand where it came from, but couldn't seem to. Perhaps it was just now knowing what laid before them.

"I don't know I really have much of an appetite," she commented. "So help yourself. I think I'm going to try to get that sleep." He was sitting near her and she looked at him again, seeing the confusion in his gaze. Not wanting him to think it was his fault in any way, she leaned across the distance between them and kissed him. Not deeply, but it lasted longer than she originally planned.

When she pulled back, she gave him a small smile. "Wake me when it's my turn for watch?"

Ravak

Miahala did not wake at the sound of his voice.

There was a reason for that.

The wasteland before her was no longer the snow-covered site of Shienar, and yet it was. Set upon the top of the land was...a playing board, like the one she had seen so often before. Yet now there was no Caden. There was no shriek of the golden eagle. It was only the dull shades of dusk over a life-sized gameboard.

The pieces on either side were roughly of a size with her. Some taller. Some shorter. She stepped onto the first empty square. White. As she stepped forward, she saw a piece move. It came towards her, but only by one square. She stared at it curiously, and then watched as the roughly-hewn face carved into the top of the piece...screamed, and melted.

Mia's eyes widened and she stumbled back, onto another square. Another piece moved. Screamed. Deformed. She moved. Another followed, and screamed, and deformed.

Soon she realized that she was being chased around the board, one step at a time. It may have been a dance but for the horror of it all. She felt a sickness in her stomach that made her nearly lose everything she'd eaten for the past decade, but she kept in control and only moved to avoid the pieces coming for her.

She shuddered and stepped and turned and stepped, until...

...she came face to face with the largest of the pieces. With a wreath or crown of something upon its head. It growled and menaced, but she stood firm.

Something tickled her ankle. She looked down and saw a shimmer of green and gold. Something rose out of the white piece she stood on and she watched it with frozen fascination. It rose higher and higher until she recognized...a dragon. A golden and green dragon that she had seen, of a sort, not long ago.

It continued to rise until it was coiled around her, yet she was not afraid.

The head of the beast turned towards the giant game piece that loomed over her. The dragon roared and the piece was blasted back. It fell away and the whole board vanished with it. Until she saw only the landscape again, and a building. The building itself was nondescript, but it filled her with fear and loathing and disgust.

Shadows swarmed around it and the fear in her grew until she was almost choking. The dragon remained, but she still felt all of the air sucked out of her body. "Light," she gasped, just as the shadows leapt at her, claws ready to tear her apart--

Miahala sat bolt upright, clutched her face, and screamed.

Ravak

If there was one way to come out of a post-Dream haze, cold certainly was able to... It wasn't a method she'd try before, and didn't know if she could rightly thank Ravak for this time but it did bring her more quickly to her senses. She wasn't fully unclothed, thankfully, but it was still enough to feel near to cold water against her sweat-stained skin.

At any other time, she might have been annoyed. Now, however, she was grateful to see his face.

His apology and explanation were appreciated in some other point of her brain, but not the part that was forefront. She gripped both of his forearms and met his gaze. "It was a Dream," she said softly. "Not a dream like most people have, but...a Dream." She emphasized the word as she tried to get her point across. "I think...I think it was showing me more of what we face."

Blinking, she realized that she was verging terribly close to raving. She closed her eyes and forced a long exhale, bowing her head slightly. "I have had Dreams that told me of things to come for as long as I have been at the Tower," she explained without looking up or opening her eyes. "But they are always bloody cloaked in symbolism and sensation. I don't always know what they mean till it's past.

"This, though..." Now she opened her eyes, but she did not lift her head. She feared the wild look remained in her gaze and she did not wish to reveal that. "This felt like it was something coming, and soon. I saw a building, and disfigured things around it. Terrible creations of flesh and shadow." She frowned thoughtfully. The gameboard... What did that mean.

"And a dragon. I saw a dragon. It coiled around me and vented its fearsome rage at the largest of the figures. It sent it away..." Her mind roved desperately over all the images without a great deal of thought to what she was telling.

Ravak

A laugh strangled itself to death in her throat. Sleep? After a Dream? Right. He would not be aware of this, however, and so the noise never emerged and would only remain a dimly acknowledged emotion to her. In that moment, she also realized she was gripping his forearms and she immediately released them.

Mia took a slow breath and lifted her head to meet his eyes again finally, the wild look that had been in them just moments before. It was replaced by the usual calm blue-green hues.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice unnaturally soft. "There is something deep disorienting about Dreams, which is how I always know them apart from regular images during sleep. I don't know that the building was so much a tower. It was lower, but I believe it will be easy to spot." She brushed hair back from her face.

Then to his question, a proper answer. "I will not sleep more this night," she declared with confidence. "You should try to rest. I'm sure I startled you. I will take the watch from here. I am convinced that we will indeed need our rest for the morrow."

Ravak