el'Nynaeve ti al'Meara Mandragoran (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
not_only_wisdom) wrote2006-08-05 11:40 pm
not_only_wisdom) wrote2006-08-05 11:40 pm
OOM: In her room
Nynaeve unbraids her hair by rote, washes her face in a basin of cool water, and slips out of her dress and into a plain cotton nightgown.
Then she sits on her bed, one leg hanging down, toes barely brushing the plush carpet, hands folded tightly in her lap.
It is so tempting, in this moment, to embrace saidar, draw it in until all she can feel is that overwhelming bliss, until there's nothing left of her but that joy. It has been like that once before, and some part of her longs to feel it again.
But no. She cannot afford to burn herself out--coward she might be, but not selfish, never selfish enough for that.
Never.
She swallows heavily, knuckles gone white as her hands clutch at each other. There will be bruising in the morning, she notes absently, but that is something easily taken care of.
There are so few matters that one might categorize that way.
Even fewer back home, where Rand fights madness and the fears of several nations, where Egwene holds hard to the reins of power in the fractured Tower, where Elayne seeks to win a crown, where Lan--
She swallows again.
--where Lan rides off to (death) war, and the Golden Crane (oh, Light, please let the Golden Crane ride) goes to meet him.
Meanwhile she is here, in this bar, twiddling her thumbs, and reading her books, and watching the universe end over and over and over again.
And it's all her own fault.
Light burn you, you bloody stupid coward.
Coward.
She won't forget again.
Then she sits on her bed, one leg hanging down, toes barely brushing the plush carpet, hands folded tightly in her lap.
It is so tempting, in this moment, to embrace saidar, draw it in until all she can feel is that overwhelming bliss, until there's nothing left of her but that joy. It has been like that once before, and some part of her longs to feel it again.
But no. She cannot afford to burn herself out--coward she might be, but not selfish, never selfish enough for that.
Never.
She swallows heavily, knuckles gone white as her hands clutch at each other. There will be bruising in the morning, she notes absently, but that is something easily taken care of.
There are so few matters that one might categorize that way.
Even fewer back home, where Rand fights madness and the fears of several nations, where Egwene holds hard to the reins of power in the fractured Tower, where Elayne seeks to win a crown, where Lan--
She swallows again.
--where Lan rides off to (death) war, and the Golden Crane (oh, Light, please let the Golden Crane ride) goes to meet him.
Meanwhile she is here, in this bar, twiddling her thumbs, and reading her books, and watching the universe end over and over and over again.
And it's all her own fault.
Light burn you, you bloody stupid coward.
Coward.
She won't forget again.