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Lan was almost hyperventilating.
Moiraine pulled on the loop of his arm as she dragged him up the stairs “Lan calm down.”
“There was something in your drink.”
She pushed him through the door “I am well aware.”
“There was something in your drink and I did not catch it.”
“But I did Lan,” Moiraine locked the door behind them, “Sit down.” She pointed at the bed.
“You caught it. You caught it by taste… oh Light you caught it by taste.”
“Yes . That one is very cloying if you know what to look for.”
Lan’s legs seemed to go out from under him more of overwhelm than intentionally as he sat on the bed. “Light.”
Moiraine drew herself up to full height and apparently tried to emanate authority. “Gaidin, what I need right now is for you to get your panic under control.”
She could probably feel the bond thundering as Lan looked up at her.
“For me?” Moiraine touched his shoulder. “Please.”
Lan managed to take something approaching a deep breath. For her. For his Aes Sedai who needed him to be calm.
“Better, good..” She smiled encouragingly.
“You could have died, Moiraine.”
She frowned. “Based on their choice of intoxicant I expect they were aiming less at murder and more at making the young woman get suddenly very friendly.”
Lan’s chest tightened so hard it was painful. “I’ll kill them.”
“You will leave me unguarded to do that?” Moiraine asked sharply.
“I…” His eyes actually darted.
“I handled it, did I not?” Moiraine prompted. “They did not expect an Aes Sedai.”
“You did.” Lan’s heart rate slowed a little.
“And if we take them away from the magistrate, who just might actually do something now that a powerful person has been offended, and you extrajudicially murder them, what do we gain?”
Lan grunted sullenly. “I feel better?” He suggested.
Moiraine sat down next to Lan on the bed. “This really shook you, Gaidin, I can feel it.”
“It did.”
“How can I reassure you? I do not know really what you expect of me at the moment, but I am trying to help.”
Her emotions did feel confused. Lan should try not to make it worse. “How did you know to recognize that?”
“I learned that inns are a place to watch one’s drink almost immediately after leaving the tower.” Moiraine said, “Before even bonding with you.”
That made him feel the opposite of reassured, and Lan watched with frustration as Moiraine’s nose wrinkled from feeling that in the bond.
“It was just another close call.” Moiraine clarified quickly. “And I recognized that particular poison because my bro-...” she shook her head. “Well suffice to say it is easier to take a person hostage if they have consumed some.”
Lan stared at her, with his mouth actually hanging open for some reason.
“Children like to practice.” Moiraine clarified. “You cannot expect us not to have practiced.”
Lan blinked a few times, stared. Blinked some more, stared some more. “Cairhienin.” He finally said hoarsely.
“It was useful this time.” Moiraine said.
“I failed to protect you.”
Moiraine turned her body more to Lan. “You are feeling the Warder fear of losing me, are you not?”
“Yes.” Lan said, more gasp than word. “I never really” he took a ragged breath, “grasped what it would be, to not be enough to…” he trailed off.
“You did not almost lose me.” Moiraine said. “If I had failed to detect the tainted drink and become impaired, you would have noticed then and intervened. If not immediately, then certainly if I started to pay that kind of unexpected attention to men.”
Lan shuddered.
“And even had both of us failed in defense completely, well,” she shrugged, “they would have most likely left me traumatized, not dead. We would have continued our search for the Dragon. You would have helped and supported me through any damage or suffering, as the kind, good Warder I know you are. The outcome would be a horror, yes, but not fatal.”
“How,” Lan’s voice cracked. He took a breath and tried again. “How are you so calm?” He would never in all the ages expect a woman to be so calm in this situation.
Moiraine shifted her weight, not quite a squirm. “Well Lan, I have been a woman, and one in a family that plays Daes Dae’mar brutally, for all my life. Whereas you have been bonded to me only a month. It is new to you.”
Lan barked out a bitter laugh.
Moiraine slid a little closer to him and reached her hands to his shoulders. “May I rub your back? Would that be alright?”
Lan grunted in the affirmative and let Moiraine slide closer, bundling her legs underneath her.
“They say this sort of thing is good for the bond,” Moiraine commented as she tentatively got going, “And I am feeling a need on my end for some physical contact. I do not know if that is expected or not, yet I want to provide comfort to you.”
“I feel like I should be the one comforting you.” Lan said.
Moiraine’s hands were soothing, lulling. “This is.”
“I did not handle this well, Aes Sedai. I apologize.”
“You did fine.”
“I completely lost my composure.”
“I understand.”
Lan grunted.
“It is different,” Moiraine mused, hands making soft patterns, “When it is someone you care about rather than yourself. It hits sharper.”
Exhaling in longer and longer breaths, Lan tried to relax. Moiraine worked on his back for a while, until he was much looser and more comfortable. More importantly, he felt close to her again, felt that she was whole, and was able to sense her incomplete calm.
After a while Moiraine let her hands drop. She reclined back, laying looking at the ceiling with her feet swinging off the bed. Lan let himself down next to her. For a while, they rested, contemplating. Then Moiraine began to speak again.
“When I was a few years into training at the Tower, I was allowed to return home briefly for my father’s funeral. There was a “ her face twisted “Friend” she winced “ of the family there. Apparently he knew that a girl in the Tower had.”
Lan swallowed
“Caught my eye and he decided to rib me about it. With the usual side of blackmail and digging for information of course.” She sat up and then stood, walking a little away from the bed.
Moiraine had obliquely referred to her romantic situation enough that Lan suspected the woman in question was Siuan Sanche, but he could not actually be sure.
“He congratulated me.” Moiraine continued in a tight voice, “On making such full use of the … amenities, but suggested that if my tastes ran to Tarians, an innkeeper's daughter might smell less like fish.”
“Light almighty.” Lan said, moving to standing and circling around so he could see Moiraine’s face.
Moiraine nodded wryly. “I lost my temper and snapped that Siuan would never be anything so crude to me but I would call myself lucky to be counted as an amenity for her, since she was going to exceed my entire house.”
“Well that is certainly something.” That confirmed what he’d been suspecting about Moiraine and Siuan then.
“Of course I almost immediately regretted revealing so much of my feelings.” Moiraine continued, “And I knew they would be used against me. I was also still rather furious at him. So I stole some of his papers and made some strategic alterations, hoping to get out ahead of the matter before he could bring anything about my involvement with Siuan to light.”
Lan stared at her.
She must have felt his reaction because she clarified. “You have to understand, Lan, that while my taking advantage of another novice would occasion either praise for my prowess,” she grimaced “or no response from my family, my feelings of affection for her were extraordinarily dangerous to her. They might have tortured her to get her to abandon hope of influencing me, or even killed her. Hoping to discredit the information was not a disproportionate response.”
“Hoping? It didn’t work.”
“My switching of the papers resulted in his death, actually. So you see I know about having violent reactions when someone one loves is threatened. ”
Light.
“Lan?” Moiraine said a few moments later. “Say something please.”
“Caihienins.” He managed hoarsely, shaking his head.
"What do you mean by that?"
"You're a hard woman Moiraine."
"I did overshoot a little." She shrugged. "Inexperience."
Lan breathed out, heavy and hoarse.
“You disapprove?”
Lan was fast out of clarity for what he felt.
“I see.” Moiraine felt tense, oddly mortified in the bond. “I think I will go to bed early tonight, if you have no objections. It is hardly as if I can go back downstairs and dance some more.”
“Moiraine I…”
“We will leave first thing in the morning.” ‘
“Don’t be like that.”
“Like what Lan? I am not putting anything on.”
“No, but you’re shutting me out.”
“This was a bad night. Tomorrow will be better.”
“Moiraine, please.”
She froze.
“I don’t disapprove. Light, if someone implied that I was mistreating someone I loved like that, I probably would have ended up in a swordfight on the spot.”
“Oh.”
“But the bond feels so calm Moiraine. I’m all over the bloody place and it’s like you’re trying to decide what to order for dinner. Well up until you thought I disapproved at least. I did not expect that calm, even on an Aes Sedai.”
Moiraine nodded.
“And I just… I don’t know.” No one had told him when he accepted Moiraine’s bond that the bond was going to be so confusing.
Moiraine turned her head a little back towards Lan, but not all the way so that her face was in profile. “I always think about that story, the family friend and Siuan, when I get too close to experiencing sexual violence. I do not know why. I do not bring the memory to bear on purpose, and it does not precisely apply but… those young men were congratulating each other, as the man I killed tried to congratulate me..”
Lan had a sudden intense urge to hug Moiraine.
“It is just… I was expected to be like that. Anyone who knew my family thought I would be like that. It would never occur to them that I spent years tripping over my tongue in front of Siuan with giddy nerves and fear that some move of mine or some turn of the Wheel would bring her even a little displeasure.,” She shook her head, “No. The expectation, the baseline assumption was that if I wanted Siuan I was going to just decide ‘well it is not like she can say no is it?’Seduce her if she will have it, and if she does not, oh well, take what I want, regardless.”
The bond finally admitted some feeling. It felt unbelievably sad.
“What must it be like to grow up in the Borderlands, where they know that no good person does something like that?” Moiraine looked straight at Lan, intensely. “What must it be like to grow up in the sort of family that is expected to produce good people?”
Before even consciously deciding to, Lan stepped closer to Moiraine. “Can I touch you?”
“What?”
“I’m having an almost painful urge to hold you.”
“Oh.” Her eyebrows moved up and slightly together. “Go ahead then.”
They settled awkwardly into the hug. Lan wasn’t sure if this was something they should do more of, that bonded people needed. Perhaps they would get better at it. “Regardless of what any fool says about you or your flaming horror house, I expect you to be a good person.” He said into her hair. ‘In fact I expect you to be a flaming hero. I’ve been proud to be bonded by you since the moment it happened, and I expect that your behavior around the woman you love to be giddy, woolheaded, silly, loving, and absolutely kind beyond reproach.”
Moiraine made a little giggling sound and the bond lightened.
“And I don’t care if your house consists entirely of fades and drackar, you have expectations to live up to now, as my Aes Sedai.”
The small frame in his arms relaxed a little. “Thank you Gaidin.”
“Was that the right thing to say?”
“Something like it.”
“Good. Now back to the matter of the men who attacked you and the impending end of their lives.”
Moiraine half chuckled. “Light, you are incorrigible.”
“Warder’s prerogative, Aes Sedai.”
“You do have to be able to control yourself, Lan. Could you watch me bluff my way past a searching Whitecloak Questioner, for example? You may eventually have to.”
“Don’t give me assignments you know I’ll fail, Aes Sedai.”