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Egwene wished there was more than one dream ter’angreal in existence. She was getting awfully tired of carrying love messages back and forth between Rand and Elayne, but she was the only one who could seeing as Elayne and Nynaeve had taken the ter’angreal and no one here in the Waste except Egwene and the Wise Ones could enter Tel’aran’rhiod without it. Egwene was happy that Elayne and Rand had found happiness together, of course, and happy to do what she could to help them, but Light, the sappy nonsense they had her saying sometimes!
And the day Mat, of all people, decided to send a message to Elayne only made things all the worse. Rand and Elayne’s messages were embarrassing but made sense, whereas Mat’s most certainly did not, and not understanding something was worse than being embarrassed, in Egwene’s opinion.
“Could you repeat that?” she said, brow furrowed in bewilderment.
“Tell her that Rand would like to give Aviendha some feathers, but he won’t unless Elayne agrees,” Mat said, as if he were talking to a toddler. “Honestly, Egwene, it’s not that hard to remember.”
Rand was blushing like the sun, and even Aviendha seemed a bit flustered. What on earth was going on here? Why did Rand want to give Aviendha feathers, and why would Elayne care?
But that was the pitfall of being the messenger. Egwene had no right to inquire about the meaning of a message; she was only to deliver it. As Elayne had lectured her multiple times whenever Egwene had tried to pry into her strange questions to Rand about Mat’s wellbeing. Why Elayne would care about Mat’s wellbeing was another thing Egwene had never been able to fathom.
That night, Egwene dutifully recited Mat’s message word for word. Elayne’s eyebrows shot up. “Aviendha?” she echoed. Why was that the word that surprised her, rather than “feathers”? “You said she was sharing their tent, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Egwene said. She glanced sideways at the Wise Ones. “We think it best that she stay close to him, since it’s so important for him to learn Aiel ways properly.” That, and the Wise Ones wanted one of their own keeping an eye on him. Egwene could certainly understand that.
What she couldn’t understand was why Mat also shared Rand’s tent, when there were plenty of tents to spare and he could have had his own if he’d wanted. There had been a distance between them when they’d first arrived in Tear, and Egwene was glad to see that mended and the pair of them once more enjoying as close a friendship as they’d ever shared, but still. It was odd. Even back home, they’d never been this close.
Elayne was quiet for a moment, and then she smiled. “Tell them that I do agree, most enthusiastically,” she said.
A befuddled Egwene repeated this to the other three the next morning, and grew even more befuddled at the way Rand’s face lit up, Mat grinned, and Aviendha blushed. Aviendha! Blushing like a schoolgirl! Clearly, all four of them were not right in the head.
A few days later, the Wise Ones sent Egwene to fetch Aviendha from her tent before dawn, as they were hoping to squeeze in a bit of training before the party set out for the day. Egwene called softly through the canvas, not wanting to wake anyone in the nearby tents, but she got no response, so she pushed the flaps open and crawled inside.
Her jaw dropped at the sight that greeted her. Rather than each keeping to their own pallet, all three of them were curled up together under the blankets. Rand was lying on his uninjured side, one arm falling loosely across Mat, who was snuggled into his chest, and Aviendha was pressed against Rand’s back with her own arm draped over his waist.
“What under the Light is going on here?!” Egwene said loudly, and all three woke up with a start.
“Blood and ashes, Egwene,” Mat whined, rubbing sleep from his eyes as Aviendha swiftly put distance between herself and Rand, looking mortified. “It’s still dark out!”
“We were just—it was so cold last night, we were only trying to keep warm,” Rand stammered, his cheeks pink.
Egwene put her hands on her hips, though the gesture didn’t feel as effective while she was kneeling rather than standing. “Aviendha isn’t wearing anything!” she said. That in itself wasn’t unusual—Aiel tended to sleep naked, and had strange ideas about nudity in general—but for her to be snuggling with Rand while naked! At least he and Mat were fully clothed. “When I tell Elayne—”
Mat laughed. “Oh, do tell her,” he said. “And tell her about this too.” He cupped Rand’s cheek in his hand and leaned in to plant a kiss right on his mouth, making Rand splutter in embarrassment. But he didn’t actually push Mat away or give any indication that being kissed by him was out of the ordinary.
Egwene gaped at them for a moment longer, then threw up her hands in exasperation and left the tent. Pity that crawling out of a tent was much less dignified than storming out of a room would have been. And she had to crawl back in anyway to tell Aviendha that the Wise Ones wanted to see her, so overall, not as impactful an exit as she would have wished.
Nynaeve was not having a good time of it in Ebou Dar. Bad enough that Mat had wormed his way into the trip, but to make matters worse, Elayne no longer agreed with her that he was an insufferable lout! And Aviendha and Birgitte always took his side! Every time Nynaeve pointed out how infuriating he was, Elayne would shrug noncommittally, Aviendha would shout at her for besmirching his honor, and Birgitte would watch it all with amusement.
They had all gone mad, and now Nynaeve stood alone, the only thing protecting their mission from the meddling hands of Mat Cauthon. The man himself was behaving even worse than Elayne, Aviendha, and Birgitte combined. He was always smiling and obeying Elayne and being polite to Nynaeve—clearly scheming something, lulling them into a false sense of security so that he could…what? His goal was what Nynaeve hadn’t yet figured out, but she would. She was onto him. The others may have been fooled, but oh, she was onto him.
One night after a particularly trying meeting with Merilille and the other Aes Sedai, Nynaeve stomped back to her rooms in a foul mood. Elayne should have been with her for the meeting, but the fool woman had been nowhere to be found. She had better be back in their rooms now, because she was going to be getting a piece of Nynaeve’s mind.
Nynaeve stomped into the sitting room and scowled when she saw that it was empty of anyone but Birgitte and Olver, playing Snakes and Foxes. “Where’s Elayne?” she said.
“In her room,” Birgitte said. “But I’d leave her be if I were you.”
Nynaeve ignored her and stomped over to Elayne’s door. Snippets of conversation floated out from behind it. “…told me of the day he gave these to you. He is very foolish, even for a wetlander,” Aviendha was saying, with an utter fondness Nynaeve had never heard in her voice before.
Someone laughed. Was that—? “Yes, he is a bloody woolhead, isn’t he? But we love him even so.” That was Mat’s voice! What was he doing here? He was supposed to be staying downstairs with the Band.
“We do,” Elayne said warmly. She lowered her voice, a conspiratorial note coming into it. “And he’s a very good kisser. I wish we’d had a chance to—to do more than kiss in Tear, but we had so little time together.”
“You will be very satisfied with him,” Aviendha assured her. “He is a selfless and attentive lover, and—”
Nynaeve had heard more than enough. She burst through the door, causing them all to jump and stare at her. “What’s all this?” she demanded. “Elayne, Aviendha, I thought better of you than to engage in such—such indecent gossip! But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Mat has been a bad influence on you, though I don’t know what could have possessed you to…to…”
She trailed off as she fully took in the scene. All three of them were sitting in the bed, right in a line, Mat brushing Elayne’s hair and Elayne brushing Aviendha’s. For some reason, Aviendha was holding a handful of feathers, but Nynaeve was more concerned about the fact that Elayne was in a nightgown and Aviendha a shift (Nynaeve had bullied her into wearing one to bed after a few too many times running into her waltzing around their sitting room without a stitch of clothing on), and Mat too was dressed in nightclothes.
Were they preparing for bed? All three of them? In one room? One bed? What under the Light for? Aviendha and Mat had their own bedrooms, why would they want to sleep in Elayne’s instead? And what had they been talking about? It must have been Rand, seeing as he was the person Elayne had kissed in Tear, but why would she talk about such private matters so freely with Aviendha and Mat? And—Light, did that mean Aviendha knew what Rand was like as a lover? How?! And what had Mat meant by “we love him”?
Nynaeve stamped her foot. “I should have known!” she said. “You three have been acting so foolishly for weeks, I should have known a man was at the root of it! Light! I don’t know what’s going on here, but—”
“And you never will, seeing as it’s none of your business,” Mat said with an infuriating grin. He resumed brushing Elayne’s hair. “Goodnight, Nynaeve.”
“Close the door on your way out,” Elayne added. “And for Light’s sake, knock next time.”
Nynaeve was so frazzled that she did turn on her heel and stomp back out, even though she should have stayed to make sure they knew how improper their…whatever they were doing was. Slamming the door did make her feel a tiny bit better, though.
Birgitte was wearing a look of immense smugness. “Told you to leave her be,” she said. “First-sibling bonding time is sacred.” Nynaeve glared at her with such ferocity that Olver squeaked that he was tired and scurried off to the safety of his room.
Birgitte frowned as she felt her awareness of Elayne wink out. What did the bloody fool think she was doing, masking her bond on the eve of the Last bloody Battle when they were camped out mere miles away from Shayol bloody Ghul? Birgitte had been more than lenient all those times Elayne had wanted privacy with Mat and Aviendha, and Rand that one night he’d been in Caemlyn, but there was a time and a place for privacy and this was certainly not it.
She made her way to Elayne’s tent, hoping to catch her before whatever activities she was about to embark on had fully gotten started. But Elayne wouldn’t want the guards by the tent’s entrance to know that she was entertaining personal visitors, and it was possible that Birgitte might stick her head in and then have to beat a very hasty retreat, which the guards would certainly find odd, so instead she went around to the back of the tent. Maybe there would be a gap in the flaps that she could look through to see whether it would be safe to enter. If not, she would shout from outside for Elayne to unmask the bloody bond.
Birgitte scanned the canvas and located a small rip. Making sure no one was in the vicinity to see her spying into her own Aes Sedai’s tent, she held the rip open with her fingers and put her eye up to it to squint inside.
Birgitte had been correct in assuming Elayne’s reasons for masking the bond, but at the moment nobody was undressed too far, thank the Light. Aviendha was still entirely clothed, Elayne was down to her shift, and Mat and Rand had been rid only of their shirts—it seemed they’d been in the middle of undressing and then gotten distracted.
Rand was rubbing his hand over Elayne’s belly, looking tearful, but smiling. Elayne’s expression was much the same as she covered his hand with her own. Aviendha sat behind them, one arm around each of them and her chin on Rand’s shoulder, and Mat was sitting in Rand’s lap with his legs over Elayne’s. Rand’s free arm was wrapped around Mat’s waist, and Mat was holding the end of it, not seeming to mind the fact that there was no hand there.
Rand’s eyes widened in surprise, awe crossing his face, and then his smile widened too. Perhaps he’d just felt the babies kick? He was saying something, but Birgitte couldn’t hear. Elayne must have had the sense to ward the tent against eavesdropping, at least.
Elayne said something back; Birgitte thought she saw her mouth form the word Papa. It looked like Rand was crying now, but still beaming. Aviendha nuzzled his cheek, Mat kissed his jaw, and Elayne laced her fingers through his atop her belly and said something else.
Rand replied, and Elayne laughed and reached for something on the table by the bed. That bloody handkerchief full of feathers that she kept on her person at all times, for reasons Birgitte had never understood. Elayne opened the handkerchief and showed Rand the contents, and he laughed too. Birgitte had met him only a few times (in this turning, anyway), and she’d never seen him laugh before. Now that she had, she thought the expression seemed more natural on his face than the Dragon Reborn’s cold aloofness did.
Maybe she could let Elayne keep the bond masked a little longer.
She stepped back from the tent. Elayne had told her to get some sleep, but Birgitte would join the guards at the entrance just until the bond was unmasked again. Although first she was going to find a needle and thread to stitch up that rip in the tent. Wouldn’t do for people to go about spying on Elayne’s personal business.
Sixty years Lini had been looking after the Trakands, and now four generations. One would think that by now she would have grown used to seeing someone she’d raised from a babe become a mother to a babe of her own, but it never felt any less strange. Strange in a good way, though. Even if it seemed only yesterday that it had been Elayne’s swaddling clothes she’d been changing, and even if that Cauthon boy would still be on leading strings if Lini were his mother. Knowing how to fly was only half of it; one oughtn’t let a bird leave the nest until he also knew how to land.
But childish as Mat was, he was a very affectionate father and husband and a dutiful First Prince of the Sword, and that made up for his other faults in Lini’s eyes. She could remember all too well what it had been like when Elayne and Gawyn were small, with a father who had no interest in them and a mother who had no time for them seeing as she’d been trying to patch Andor together after a nasty Succession and her useless lump of a husband had never lifted a finger to help her with either their country or their children. Yes, despite the outlandishness of it all, Lini was glad that Joiya and Owyn had four parents. Perhaps the Aiel did have the right of things in some ways.
Four parents, and all doting and capable ones, at that. Aviendha had a sensible head on her shoulders, and she respected Lini’s wisdom and advice, as she should. Rand was a good boy, so much so that Lini found it hard to believe he’d once been the Dragon Reborn (she was one of the few who’d been trusted with the truth of his identity). Mat was the only one Lini hadn’t had to teach the common sense basics of caring for an infant—he said he’d helped raise his younger sisters—and for that, he’d won her approval. And of course, Elayne had grown into a wonderful, kind, devoted woman, both as a mother and as a queen. Not that Lini would ever tell her so; crowns didn’t fit on big heads.
She entered the Queen’s apartments to wake everybody for the day and take the twins into the nursery while their parents were working. While three of their parents were working—Rand always spent the day with Lini and the children, except for when she shooed him off to do something else so he wouldn’t go stir-crazy. She wasn’t used to a Trakand child having a parent with no other duties but caring for them, that was for certain.
Lini gave a perfunctory rap on the bedroom door and opened it. All six of the room’s occupants were awake already, as was usually the case since the babes were still young enough that they slept restlessly. Even worse with twins, seeing as in addition to waking multiple times throughout the night, they probably also woke at different times from each other. It was a wonder their parents got any sleep at all, but whenever Lini suggested keeping the twins in the nursery overnight, she was refused. Well, on their own heads be it if they wanted the little ones to grow so accustomed to falling asleep with their parents nearby that they threw fits every night when they did begin sleeping in their own room. Actually, on Lini’s and the other nurses’ heads be it, since they would be the ones dealing with the problem whilst the four parents slept on next door, blissfully unaware.
At the moment, Rand was lying in the middle of the bed with Joiya on her tummy on top of his chest, and Aviendha and Elayne were beside him, Elayne lying back against Aviendha and bouncing Owyn in her arms. Mat was sitting up on Rand’s other side and appeared to be telling the twins a story, though he cut off at Lini’s entrance.
“Up, up, everyone,” she said with a clap of her hands. “Time to face the day.”
“We are adults, you know,” Mat said.
Lini raised an eyebrow. “So you would be out of bed before lunch if I didn’t come to wake you, would you?”
“Well…”
“He would not,” Aviendha agreed. “But the rest of us certainly would.”
“Five more minutes, Lini?” Elayne wheedled, just as she had when she was a girl. “So that Mat can finish the story.”
Lini surveyed the six of them. Ah, but it was nice to see a family spending quality time together. “Five minutes and not a second more,” she said, and Elayne beamed and promised they would be ready in five minutes exactly.
Mat resumed the story as Lini left the room. “And then, Mummy kept those feathers for months and months and months because she loved them so much, even though they weren’t a flower…” Lini closed the door, shaking her head. Light knew where that fool boy came up with all his stories.