Chapter Text
Moiraine rode West. It must have been West, judging from the way the sun’s last rays clung to the horizon. She couldn’t make out much else through the mesh of tears that kept rising and spilling over. They stung her face in the wind. Her cloak billowed outward, offering little protection from the cold. It had been years, decades, since she had felt truly cold. Her comfort, her energy, her dignity... all lost to her at the same time as her access to the Source. her breath hitched at the thought, pain spiking in her throat as she tried to swallow, willing the tears to stop coming. They didn’t, of course. Nor did the self-pitying thoughts that ran around her in circles when she couldn’t sleep at night.
Her teeth clenched, she rode on. She had never needed to sleep so often before, and she hardly had time to begin now. Her exhaustion was a reminder of how weak she had become. Of the fact that her body hurt when it never had before. Climbing into her saddle, she had bumped her shin on the thick leather, and now, hours later, it still throbbed. Her back, thighs, and arms ached badly from the constant friction. Tears filled her eyes. She used to love riding. Would she ever be able to take pleasure in it again?
On and on. The ache grew steadily worse and more difficult to ignore. She shifted her bags so that they supported her lower back, breathing a small sigh of relief when the pain subsided somewhat. She could go farther and faster than this. She gave Aldieb a nudge in her flank, and the mare broke into a sprint.
A mistake. She cried out in anger and pain, surprised by the sudden lightning shock that struck up her spine and lodged at the base of her neck. She pulled the reins and Aldieb halted, sending attendant shocks flickering across her back. She gritted her teeth. She wouldn’t let herself cry. Not now. If she let herself fall apart, she would never get to Rand. And everything that had happened with Lan would have been for nothing.
Lan. Another spike of tears, another jolt of anger. He didn’t deserve her rage. He was only trying to help. It was one thing to tell herself what she knew to be true, though, and another to reckon with the anger she felt toward her former Warder, mixed up with ribbons of guilt and that hot, hot shame that was so much harder to stomach. The burning tightness in her neck and her throat would not slacken.
He had been careful with her in the months since the Eye. Waiting on her as though she were a noblewoman, and not the person with whom he had slept on the ground for twenty years. Appearing around corners and at her door, behaving as though she would break. Flashing her that wide smile, closer to a grimace, when she deigned to appear in the courtyard, as though it were some kind of notable achievement. Jumping to his feet with a question on his tongue whenever she approached, as though he was the one who had lost control over his body and his mind. Flinching whenever she would finally snap. Never reacting in kind, the way he once would have when they argued, but avoiding eye contact as though he was afraid of what he might see.
In the last twenty years, their disagreements had been rare. In the past months, they seemed to occur daily. He didn’t like her sleeping in, not understanding that she needed to be asleep more than she needed to be awake. He forced her to take meals with him and the others, not noticing how awkward and painful it was for her, and that everyone, including him, looked at her with pity. It was humiliating. He still seemed to believe that the two of them could last on their own, suggesting constantly that they resume their search, or, better yet, that they involve Siuan. He didn’t know how to react to her anger, and she didn’t know what else to give him, and being alone, finally, was far preferable. The rage churning in her gut roiled on, outweighed only by her pain, and her frustration at being forced to cut the night’s journey short.
She unfurled her bedroll and brushed debris off of the wool blanket within. It smelled like thousands of nights of embers and honey wine. And Lan. She flinched.
The night was warm enough, and anyway, she didn’t have the energy to start a fire. Her exhaustion would take her through to the dawn. Even if she woke up covered in frost. She sighed. That would mean a very cold morning ride.
Without the Source, her body seemed to have developed a thousand roaring, pestering needs: cold would lead to stiffness in her joints, which would lead her to perform strange, compensatory movements that would do nothing but exacerbate her pain. The sun might melt the frost in her hair, but the combination of dampness and cool wind could give her an ear infection. She could go hungry now, but in a few days’ time, she wouldn’t be strong enough to cling to Aldieb’s back.
She shook her head. It didn’t matter. Her body might be useless, even obstructive, but that didn’t mean she had to concede to its every whim. She lay down and closed her eyes.
Her mind drifted to the thousands of nights she had spent lying on her back, looking at stars, while Lan fiddled with a rabbit or a pheasant. To the smell of roasting meat and the Malkieri herbs he stored in his saddle bags. Her stomach growled, and she groaned in frustration. She turned over in her bedroll, swallowing a couple of sips from her flask, willing her hunger to subside and her pain to let up. It almost worked.
Her cries surprised her when they came. They tore up from somewhere deep inside of her, hurting her ribs and her throat. She was hungry and cold, and she missed her friend. She missed her friend. She wished she had been kinder to him when she left him. She wished she could feel his arms around her and his voice in her ear, telling her that it would be alright. Shivering in her cloak, she wished that he would come and find her, knowing that the last words she had spoken to him had broken his trust so that it couldn't be repaired.