not_only_wisdom | (no subject)

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It's a madhouse, it's a charnel house, and for the span of a moment Nynaeve is frozen, pulled in every direction at once.

Absently she hears the singing of the fayth, but there is no time to concentrate on it, no time to be discomfited by the strangeness of it all, or the harshness of the light, or the prickle of electricity in the air.

She takes a deep breath, drawing herself to her full height (as unimpressive as that may be).

"Well. We'd best start somewhere, and quickly."

She's already rolling up her sleeves, a habit developed so long ago it's not even worth mentioning.

And then she turns to her left, nodding over her shoulder for Moiraine, and begins to work.

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The bodies blur together, after a while. They always do. This one burned too badly to save, that one dying even as Moiraine reaches for him. The bleeding, the frostbitten, the bodies scorched from the inside out. Some are stone, others crazed or babbling or blank and bewildered. Moiraine and Nynaeve heal, or they can't, or they bandage, and they move on.

And Lan watches the room through narrowed eyes, and watches both women work themselves gradually closer to exhaustion.

Moiraine trades a silent look with Yuna as she comes to attend yet another death, and turns away from the lifeless corpse as the Lady Summoner begins her work.

She pushes her hair back out of her face, leaving a small smudge on her cheek, and starts toward another of the fallen-- and then pauses, glancing toward a disturbance among a small group of patients and monks.

Nynaeve, too, looks up from her most recent patient, face drawn and exhausted.

"Oh, Light, what now?"

Her hands are still careful as she finishes winding up bandages, pressing a cup of tea into a man's hand to help with the pain.

For some of them, it's really all she can do.

The woman in the center of the small group is shouting, striking out wildly at the people trying to subdue her. Two monks and a nun are on the ground, and the scuffling cluster is uncomfortably close to Moiraine. Not close enough for true danger yet, but Lan's hand is tight on his sword hilt.

And then -- a moving form, a wordless furious shout -- he spins sharply, lashing out with a fist at the wounded man lunging at Nynaeve.

"Lan!"

Nynaeve's voice is sharp with exhaustion and exasperation both, instinct rising in her as she wraps both her assailant and her husband in bands of Air.

The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rise, and she shakes her head as if to clear it, still holding tightly to both men.

"Don't. He's hurt badly enough already."

She sounds so bloody tired, pinching the bridge of her nose even as she releases Lan and steps forward to do what she can about the man who attacked her.

It takes her longer to Heal him than it should, she knows it, but--

It's been a long night, and it's nowhere near over yet.

"If he's conscious to hurt his healer, Aes Sedai, it helps no one."

No emotion in his voice. The words are pitched low enough that few besides Nynaeve could hear, but firm for all of that.

His eyes flick from Nynaeve to Moiraine to the struggling woman (finally, successfully grabbed by a burly Crusader with one leg bloody from a healed wound) and on around the room, never settling.

She has observed this, of course, all of it, and without a visible reaction-- even when Lan turns instantly away from the threat to her to defend Nynaeve.

His path leads apart from mine; now he has accepted it. It is better so; he could not have remained a man so divided, not to mention what yet lies ahead of him....

Moiraine sighs, very slightly, and then turns away as someone plucks her sleeve-- one of the acolytes who has been running back and forth with supplies, now looking very young indeed, and worried.

"Lady, if you would-- there are more wounded-- please--"

She nods, and there is nothing but calm in her serene tone as she answers,

"Then lead the way, child, and I shall do what I may."

Without a backward glance, the Aes Sedai glides after the acolyte, into one of the side rooms, and there begins her work anew.

Nynaeve looks up at Lan, hands neatly tying off a bandage.

She's not scowling, but there are strain lines around her eyes.

"Well I know it, Lan. But I just--it's already so difficult, here."

Her voice is very quiet, and she looks down and away, concentrating very hard on her task.

"I'll be needing more hot water."

She has to be even more sparing of her energy, now.

It hurts to have to avoid fights she might not be able to win, to avoid healing those she cannot definitely save.

But it must be done, and so Nynaeve presses on, sending for summoners when her own hands fail.

He can see Moiraine setting to work in the side room, another Healing weave flaring around her hands. Farther than he'd like, but still enough to see the level of strain in her posture. He'll be able to tell when she's pushed herself to exhaustion.

He knows, for her and Nynaeve both, that's a question of when. Not if.

He bows his head silently to Nynaeve, and goes for hot water.

Nynaeve works in grim, focused silence while Lan is gone, and continues in much the same fashion when he returns. After his third trip to fetch more water and bandages, her motions have become repetive and almost mechanical.

This helps, some, against the headache that is beginning to pound at her temples.

When Lan returns, she is seated at a patient's bedside, hands fumbling for her beltpouch and the herbs sitting within.

Surely she has enough for her own headache.

Surely. She needs to be able to keep channeling, or more will die than have already been lost. She knows that, deep in her bones.

But it is so hard to think, let alone form weaves.

Lan is gone longer than usual.

When he returns, it's to take one look at Nynaeve and cross swiftly to her side, his face darkening.

Low, "You need to rest, Nynaeve."

"I can't, Lan!"

Her voice, too, is low, but fierce all the same.

Even if it does make her wince in pain.

"There's still so many, I can't--"

Lan sets the kettle of water on the floor in front of her.

"You can't help them if you're too exhausted to see straight, my heart."

His voice is pitched for only Nynaeve to hear. But this, too, is a Warder's duty, and a husband's.

She doesn't sob, just buries her face in her hands for a moment, eyes squinted shut against the pain in her head.

"I know. I do know that. Just--"

She unfastens her belt pouch, holding it out.

"Can you give these to someone, please, I--they should be used."

"I will."

It's only a few moment's work to find a monk and press the belt pouch into his hand, explaining in a low voice how to brew and administer the pain-killing teas. Lan is no healer, but he listens.

Then to collect the two Aes Sedai. Moiraine, in the other room, has been watching her limits more carefully; though she has less power at her call than Nynaeve, she's little worse off. (Lan suspects he knows why. He's seen her exhaust herself to unconsciousness; if she didn't today, it's much more likely to be for his sake than any sudden discovery of self-preservation. He'll take what he can get.)

It's a slow progression they make, Lan with an Aes Sedai on each arm, supporting them in a way that's more like discreet half-carrying. But, slowly or not, they make their way across the room -- Lan meets Kimahri's eyes briefly, once -- and out the door.

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