The Grey Tower

Kaira rolled over in her bed. Her consciousness hovered somewhere in that realm between sleep and wakefulness. What had she been dreaming about? Something warm and soft, suddenly torn away. A man’s scream. A woman’s voice… Kaira strained to remember, but the images and sounds faded away as she awakened. She was left only with a pounding heart and a sense of loss.

Slowly, her eyes opened. She stared up at the dark ceiling of her room. It was not real, she told herself. It was only a dream.

She sat up and brushed away the soft covers. Her room was small, and held just enough room for her bed, two small dressers, a desk, and a rickety chair. The window showed only the empty Tower grounds lit by the soft glow of the moon. The night was quiet. All was still.

Kaira sighed. She could wake up her father, but she didn’t want to disturb him from sleep. He needed his rest.

What she needed was just a simple walk to clear her head. One turn around the Warder Yards - that should suffice. She pulled a hooded cloak over her nightgown and put on her pair of well-worn walking boots. Quietly, she stepped out of her room, across the apartment’s sitting room, and slipped out the door.

The night air was crisp. Kaira breathed deeply. She was halfway to the Warder Yards when she noticed that the packed dirt ground was not empty. There was someone training in the Yards - a man, from his height and the breadth of those shoulders. Her eyes widened. She crept closer and stopped to watch. He looked familiar though Kaira wasn’t sure where she had seen him, and he didn't stop moving long enough for her to observe more closely. He was swinging something heavy - a warhammer. Light, that thing had to weigh more than her! Yet he lifted it effortlessly. She watched him from the fence, marveling at his strength.

His eyes flickered in her direction - and then passed right over her. Kaira frowned. He must have seen her! Surely the night was not so dark as to hide her in its shadows. Was he simply ignoring her presence?

Finally, Kaira could not stand it any longer.

“Aren’t you lonely?” she blurted out. Her voice seemed strangely loud against the silence of the night.

He had escaped. He had escaped! The M’Hael had never considered that the Warder Yards would offer him a taste of freedom, but any second he spent outside and away from that office was one to be relished. He still could not bring himself to look at that one particular corner of the room. The blood had long since been washed clean, but soap and water could do nothing for the specters that danced in his memory. The floor would always bear the imprint of trapped feet, the walls marred and gouge by Watari’s frenzied slashing.

The Amadician let out a soft sigh, adjusting his grip on the warhammer that was now his as he felt along the two knots in his mind, gently following the saidin wrought connections that joined him to his bondmates. Callie’s presence and awareness, had vague structure and shape. She was annoyed at something or other. He... knew, which emotions were hers and which were his. Jaryd’s... was different. Zeen felt the Altaran’s emotions as his own, and the smaller man felt Zeen’s emotions as his own. At this particular moment, the Green Asha'man - for he would always consider himself of that Ajah - could not tell if he was the one that was sad, or if it was Red that was.

Grimacing faintly, he swung at the nearest target dummy, feeling the odd pull and burn as his body and muscles were still protesting against the movements that were not yet natural to him. As he slowly put himself through the exercises that Callie insisted he do every day, the Asha’man allowed himself to think back.

---

“Zeen.”

The Captain-General snapped awake, shying away from the sudden, bright glare that assailed his senses. The chair he had positioned back on two legs and and propped up so carefully against the wall some hours before, slammed down with a jarring thud of sound. His eyes refused to focus and as he looked around blearily, he realized that he was already relaxing. The man that stood near him was no threat. He knew that as surely as he knew the sleeping woman on the bed beneath the warm blankets would live.

“Red,” the Amadician replied quietly by way of greeting. The hammer rested within easy grasp and though it had been a mere few days, Zeen found himself reaching for it as often as he seized saidin. Wise of them to send in his bondmate to rouse him. The last two that had tried had been tossed out into the hall by a startled, enraged, half-asleep Asha’man. Callie was in no condition to defend herself yet.

He tried to scrub some semblance of alertness back into his face, hands splaying over his cheeks. Through his fingers, he could still see Jaryd.

The Altaran’s expressive black eyes studied the Green, curiosity and a milder version of Callie’s exasperation - when she was awake - traveled across the bond. There was more... Zeen stilled, hands falling down to rest at his sides. He could neither make head nor tails of the emotions rolling off the smaller man. Apprehension. Amusement. Fear. Loyalty. Dread? His tired mind simply ceased to function and his expression reflected his confusion.

“What is it? What are you doing here?”

“I was sent.” Jaryd’s lips quirked up into a smile that somehow managed to be both mirthless and entertained at the same time. “I am to accompany you back to the Tower. You have been summoned before the Hall.”

“Summoned before -” He was looming, towering over the Red Asha’man. He did not remember jumping to his feet. “Whatever bloody for?” The thunderous scowl was not directed at his bondmate, but it did nothing to lessen the intensity of Zeen’s glower. “What under the bloody Light did I do to displease them now?”

“You have done nothing to displease them,” came the mild, provocative answer.

“Then what?” the Amadician demanded. “If it is not to scold me like a wayward child, or punish me for transgressing some law, or to reprimand me because I offended some nobleman’s overblown sense of importance, then what could they possibly want with me?”

Jaryd’s face twisted in a strange way and those black eyes bore straight through into Zeen’s soul. The question hung heavily between them. The Altaran’s head tilted in a manner that was very reminiscent of Katrie. Zeen frowned, his patience fraying until... no. His eyebrows shot up even as his face went slack. No. No no no no...

“Red, no!” The amusement, apprehension, fear, loyalty, dread... pride...?... all came rushing back. The Green took a step back. And then another. And another. “No,” he repeated, glancing around as something akin to panic reared its head. “I cannot.”

---

But he had. He actually had. Blood and bloody ashes. He could hear that one-eyed bastard’s laughter still. Rodric flaming Amadeo. It was because of that bald headed goat kissing son of a Trolloc that Zeen had been on his knees, washing feet while he begged for the honour of serving. Jaryd had been one of the last to stand for him, and - no. Unruly brown curls shifted as the M’Hael shook his head. He did not want to think about that anymore.

As the hammer struck against the training dummy, the impact sent shuddering tingles through his hands and up his arms. The sensation would lessen eventually, or so Callie said.

An out of place flicker of movement drew his attention for a moment. A girl. Watching him from along the fence. And not merely any girl. This one he knew. It was difficult not to recognize the child, given who her parents were. Who one of them had been, he corrected himself. But that was over and done with. What happened now was none of his affair, so long as the Tower was not jeopardize again. Zeen shrugged inwardly and refocused on what he was training his body to do...

...only to have it shattered by the girl’s loud and not at all subtle question. He sighed quietly, leaning some of his weight down on his weapon as he settled the head gingerly against the ground, angling the spike away from himself.

“I am not lonely,” he answered finally, studying the child with impassive silver-grey eyes. No, with two others living inside of his head with him, he was never lonely. If one were to ask if he desired company, however... well, that was an entirely different set of needs and wants, and not something he would speak with a child about regardless.

“Should you not go back to bed?” Zeen asked pointedly, his brows lifting slightly. “Before your father catches you out here speaking with me?” Ravak Darrow was not fond of him, at all. And that was being kind. Somehow, the Amadician doubted that the Gaidin Captain would be pleased in the least to find out who it was that his daughter was speaking with. Zeen did not relish the idea of that particular confrontation.

Kaira remained oblivious to any tension that the man showed, or any of the antagonism directed at Ravak. What did her father have to do with anything? She was preoccupied with staring at the man's weapon. Light, just how long was that spike? It had to be longer than the span of her hand - nay, both of her hands! She imagined the training dummy replaced by a man. Struck with such direct force, and with such a great weapon... Her imagination could not take her any further and she was left wondering if any man could take a hit and still stand.

Then she blinked and startled as she realized he had asked a question.

"He won't catch me," said Kaira. "And I'm not sleepy."

As she spoke, she felt the irrepressible urge to yawn. What luck! Her expression twisted oddly as she struggled to stop her mouth from opening wide. She swallowed, hard, and her cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment.

"I am not sleepy," she repeated. "But I will go back to bed. I just had a bad dream and wanted some air. I don't... I can't... I'm a little afraid that the dreams will come back."

The girl shuddered.

"Do you know how to keep bad dreams away, er... um..."

Kaira faltered and glanced up at him beseechingly. She was far from shy, but there was something lurking in those silver-grey eyes that dampened her impulsivity, even if it did nothing to quell her curiosity. Under that impassive gaze, she did not dare to directly ask the man his name. Some part of her felt as though she should recognize him. She puzzled over this oddity and hoped that he wouldn't rat her out to her father.

Silver-grey eyes studied the girl intently. Zeen was not entirely sure how to address her, or... what to say at all, really. He eyed her warily, weighing the merits of simply leaving. Annoyance flashed through him. He did not wish to leave. He had come out here to train, and he was not about to be run off by a small curious human.

The very corners of his mouth twitched as her statement of not being sleepy was followed by yawn that she took monumental effort to stifle. Zeen’s expression softened a little as Kaira spoke of bad dreams. Unfortunate for her, and yet that was something he could relate to. He suffered from them. As did Red, Tia, Avyra... Light, and now this child. Was there no one in this Light cursed Tower that did not have nightmares?

His brows lifted as she fumbled inelegantly over how to address him. Did she truly not know who he was? The Amadician’s lips quirked upwards in a brief smile of amusement. How surprising, and utterly refreshing. “Your father knows me as the M’Hael. You, however, may call me Zeen.”

He could practically hear the sniffs of disapproval at his lack of propriety from any number of Sitters and Heads of Ajahs that sat with him in the Hall, but the Asha’man could not bring himself to actually care.

“As for keeping the bad dreams away...” He eased his weight off the warhammer, and hefted the weapon over his shoulder meaningfully as his voice trailed off. Zeen let the weight rest there for a moment before swinging it back down and settling the shaped head against the ground once again. The curved spike glittered malevolently.

“I have not quite figured out how to stop them, but being out here helps. Running laps also helps.” He spoke quietly, hands tightening around the leather wrapped portion of the haft. “Anything that redirects my focus onto something other than the thoughts and memories hammering away in my mind. And if I cannot find some semblance of peace, then I am given the tea.”

Grey eyes went flat, shifting from silver to dull granite, and his mouth twisted. “I do not recommend that particular route for you, little Kaira. You are too young.”

Kaira’s face furrowed in thought as she tried to reconcile her memories of the M’Hael with the man standing before her. She had only seen him from afar, and he had always seemed so distant… so formal…

She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes up at him. He was even taller up close.

“You look different without clothes,” she said, matter-of-factly. "Aren’t you cold? I’m cold.”

She clutched her cloak around her. Then she grimaced and peered into the darkness. “Training? Running laps? Does that really help? But it’s dark, Zeen. And if I get sweaty, then I will have to ask Rina to draw me a bath in the morning. Then Daddy will find out that I’ve been out of bed. What's this tea that you're talking about?”

Then she gasped with a sudden realization. “Hey! You know my name! But I didn’t even introduce myself. I don’t… how…”

Kaira sighed.

“I should be used to it by now,” she said, reluctantly. “Everyone knows something about me, when I don’t know anything about anyone else. But I’m still surprised that you know my name! I mean, you're the M'Hael and all...”

His lips twitched, the very corners of his eyes crinkling. “Yes, I suppose there are quite a few of us that look different with their clothes on,” Zeen chuckled quietly. “I dislike having to wear the coats, and I find that shirts only get in the way when I am training. And no, I am not cold.”

What the Amadician neglected to say was that his still felt the cold, but as a channeler, he had learned how to ignore it. Not that there was much point in telling the small human; she would learn of it or she would not.

“Training and running laps helps me, truly,” he said quietly. “It stills my mind. It gives me the chance to focus simply on being in the moment. It tires my body out so that I find sleep and rest a little easier. It is indeed dark, but not all of us have the luxury of being able to train during the day. And sweating is an unfortunate side effect of exerting oneself, I am afraid.” His lips twitched again. “I suppose we cannot have Ravak Darrow knowing that you are out of bed, now can we?”

The Amadician’s head tilted to the side as he considered the girl’s statement. “And why would my being the M’Hael mean that I would not know your name? There are not many children here at the Tower. And I do not mean it in the sense of Novices and Soldiers. I mean that literally. Have you noticed an influx of children, actual children of Tower members, such as yourself? No? I have not either. Given that, is it truly so surprising that I would know of you?”

He deliberately did not answer her question about the tea. For her sake as well as his. She was surely too young to be taking it. And he did not wish to speak further on his own experiences with it. Zeen sighed inwardly. He somehow did not think that this inquisitive girl would leave him in peace unless he left... she seemed lonely. Perhaps she was. He doubted that the nightmares helped any. The former Green shook his head slightly, setting the warhammer down on the ground. He crossed the distance to the fence and plucked his shirt up, quickly donning it.

“I cannot promise that this will help ease the nightmares, but would you like to take a walk with me?” Grey eyes overlaid with a metallic sheen smiled as he bowed a little, his arm extending towards the gardens before he offered it to Kaira. “There are flowers and fountains that I hear are meant to be soothing and there is nothing there out in the dark that will hurt you, I swear it. Perhaps it might help you sleep?”