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cxsmiicc · 1 month ago

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and though i burn, how could i fall?

A fist seemed to clench inside of her chest, holding tight to things so delicate they threatened to tear. Arriving on her arm and then rushing off into the shadows with Ilyena. Politeness to the host was one thing, but this was entirely another. They had scarcely been here an hour before she had noticed him staring longingly at what she had assumed was the circulating hors d'oeuvres but had turned out to be the periodic flash of golden hair in the crowd as Ilyena Moerelle Dalisar mingled with the people who had come to show their love and congratulate her on earning a third name. Even Elan had shown, though likely only for her and Lews. That doe-eyed twit had never known the work that was supposedly a prerequisite for this great honour, not like she had. The flash of bitterness came and went, but the shame it brought along stayed with her until she took her leave, graciously excusing herself early to both Lews and his new bosom friend, stomach roiling as Ilyena took her hands and gave a hearty goodbye before immediately fawning over her man.

basically following mierin as she turns into lanfear because i was having thoughts and feelings

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ao3 link in title

A fist seemed to clench inside of her chest, holding tight to things so delicate they threatened to tear. He had found her. Again. People were beginning to talk, and even the merest whisperings were simply the tip of the iceberg. For what one dared to whisper, there were another ten surely thinking. Arriving on her arm and then rushing off into the shadows with Ilyena. Politeness to the host was one thing, but this was entirely another. They had scarcely been here an hour before she had noticed him staring longingly at what she had assumed was the circulating hors d'oeuvres but had turned out to be the periodic flash of golden hair in the crowd as Ilyena Moerelle Dalisar mingled with the people who had come to show their love and congratulate her on earning a third name. Even Elan had shown, though likely only for her and Lews. That doe-eyed twit had never known the work that was supposedly a prerequisite for this great honour, not like she had. The flash of bitterness came and went, but the shame it brought along stayed with her until she took her leave, graciously excusing herself early to both Lews and his new bosom friend, stomach roiling as Ilyena took her hands and gave a hearty goodbye before immediately fawning over her man. No, such petty jealousies would not do, she was above this.

Her entire world was shattered. He was gone. She had finally been happy, finally found someone who challenged her who she could challenge in return. And he had construed that as a hunger for power on her part. Somebody not bowing to him simply had to have something darker at play. The drive to meet him as an equal had led her to three breakthroughs in as many months, things nobody else had been thought to consider, let alone confirm. Wanting him to be his best was a lust for power, and she didn’t truly care for him, as he saw it. Let Ilyena deal with him. For those less than subtle glances at parties had long since turned to full blown canoodling whenever he thought he had successfully slipped away from her. One engaging conversation about the new weaves being perfected and he was gone by the time she turned, as was the sun haired sow. No no no. She wouldn’t stoop so low. Not outside of her own mind at least. For now she melted to the ground, ivory skirts pooling around her as though the tears she shed had formed an ocean of insurmountable grief around her, a shield against further hurts. After all, what could possibly break through this, let alone add to it. She was drowning in her own sorrow, a truly piteous scene to any who would have witnessed it. But the only one who possibly could have was the reason for its occurrence. The apartments they had shared that had once seemed so small were now never ending, her grief flowing to every crack and crevice so that she would never forget it. No matter which stones she turned it would be there, this emptiness and knowledge that even at her best she wasn’t enough for him and he would rather frolic with her . Perfect pretty little Ilyena with her three names and hair like melted sunlight and flawless parties. Not to mention her reputation. Delicate and sensible, the most well respected hostess in the highest social circles, and she did it all herself to boot! How could a physicist ever compare. How could the strongest female Aes Sedai ever possibly compare to someone so perfectly palatable. No, better not. No good could possibly come of comparisons.

Jealousy was a slippery slope, and the traction decreased with every glass of wine. And therein lay the explanation for why she was traipsing alone through the gardens of Lews and Ilyena’s new mansion clutching an empty bottle. Carpe fucking diem. She had utterly embarrassed herself inside, to the point of fleeing. Draping herself over the happy couple with a neckline so low she was all but spilling out of it with each breath. Sultry whispers had turned to intoxicated incoherencies, slowly building in volume until she was yelling for the entire party to hear. And so drunk that making a gateway was utterly impossible. If Lews had truly wanted her home he would have channeled one for her himself, she thought bitterly. He just wanted everyone present to know what a good decision it had been for him to leave her. The psycho ex girlfriend who wouldn’t let him go. Insane with jealousy. Unable to admit that it was over. So bitter over being left for someone younger and shinier and newer she was willing to go to any lengths to get him back. Blood marred the perfect snow of her gown as she trampled a formerly neat line of roses and slit the skin of her ankle, bare from an hour into the party. She would walk. Walk until her head had cleared enough to channel. Walk until she could Travel home. And then nothing. Nothing awaited her there. Cold rooms, cluttered with trinkets of all kinds yet empty of everything that she truly wanted. He was gone. Engaged to be married to another. No longer hers.

The coldness in her rooms had become the new normal. Everything seemed, to her, to be tinted with grey. The colour, the little joys, both gone. Even her wardrobe changed from warm creams to sterile white, harsh in its purity. Yet still she threw herself into her work. Her research was all she had now. Charn had taken to pitying glances when he thought she could not see, which was enough to tell how truly pathetic she had become. Mierin Eronaile was nothing anymore, not without her heart.

Gradually, she came back to herself. Laughing at some Aiel proverb Charn had mentioned over a meal, truly relaxing in a patch of sun with copies of all of the latest papers that interested her, finding herself relieved to enter her rooms after a long day. That draconic shadow was slowly rising. Yes, she still held a candle for Lews, but one that did not burn quite so brightly as it once did. Life went on, and hers was finally looking up.

This… This was enormous. A new source of power, independent of saidin and saidar . Something entirely of its own. Figuring out how to harness this could change everything . Gone would be the days of Aes Sedai looking down on people who couldn’t channel, of the classism that was far too common these days. Just because somebody didn’t have the same abilities as you didn’t make them fundamentally less than you. It would do some of these people good to understand that. And, with the divide between the two powers gone, the things that one person could accomplish would surely rival the work of the strongest, most deft weavers of both halves together. Nobody else need ever feel powerless, or stuck, or alone. Everyone would be on equal footing, with strength and dexterity and rank. This would be her great pride, her grand contribution. Ensuring that nobody else ever had to feel lost, though granted in a different way than she had. To give power to the people who had none. That would be what she did for the world. Even the playing field.

It was gruelling. It was finicky. And most of all it was worth it . This research could change everything, if she could find a team to assist with the practical tests. Her area was theory, and she hadn’t personally carried out field research in decades. But this was hers . Nobody else could possibly do the drilling. Not only because of the personal connection, but simply because of the sheer power it would surely require. There was nobody to match her in that, and those who might come close were less than willing to aid her in any way. They had all sided with Lews.

They had found it. Beidomon had provided a unique perspective and asked all of the relevant questions for her to finally refine the search. It was somehow fitting that it should be here, in the Sharom. The very place all of these above it all researchers haunted with their lofty ideals and casual scathing comments of those below. The place she had so nearly lost herself in it all, forgotten who she was around all of these people with their ideas of who she should be. And now she would give people the means to take control of that themselves, to be more than just sheep, herded along this way and that by the pattern, by the dragon. To twist and mould themselves into whatever shape they chose, not what those around them were pressing them into. The power to choose whether or not they wanted it, not to be thrust into a role they struggled to perform. To give people more than they had.

“You’re from here, aren’t you?” she confirmed with Charn. He had been the one constant through the rocky period, the only person remaining by her side. Though that was quite literally his job description, he never acted with even a hint of judgement over her actions, and had seemed sympathetic if anything. She likely would have taken far longer to bounce back were it not for his constant presence, calming in the long silences where she would ‘work’ and he would pretend that the tea and handkerchiefs simply materialised beside her of their own volition rather than him having brought them at the first sign that she might need comfort.

“Yes, Aes Sedai. My family still farms these fields. They are bringing in the harvest now.”

“You should go visit them.” She truly wanted him nowhere near this experiment. Too many variables were always risky, and this was on a wholly different scale than anything else attempted in the Sharom. This place was built on Aes Sedai ambition, frivolity evident in the impracticality of the design. What place could be more perfect for the fray to have manifested itself.

“Today’s too important for you, isn’t it?” he answered, “I can go tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Tomorrow may be too late for him. Depending on how this experiment went, tomorrow may be too late for her also. “Tomorrow everything will be different.” There, a neat little truth wrapped up as palatable. Her hopes were high for this, of course they were, she had been the primary researcher and her record was immaculate. But proper caution should always be taken when dealing in unknown quantities, and she was not comfortable with risking the lives of people she cared for in any capacity. Part of the reason she had decided on today for the experiment was the fact of Lews being absent from V’saine entirely, along with Ilyena. Despite her surety in the research she had done and the methods they were to use, playing with human lives in the equation was not something she could do in good conscience.

“I know it’s not my place to ask…. But what is it? That you’ve found?” he asked.

“The thinnest part of the pattern. A place I think we can punch through and find what’s on the other side.” And the things that they would find….

“And what’s there?”

“A power, that can be used by men or women. The True Power.” The power to finally end the power imbalances in the current regime. “It will change everything. Can you imagine? Something anyone, anywhere can use. Not just Lews Therin and the Aes Sedai. Even you, your family. They wouldn’t have to bring the harvest in by hand.”

He chuckled at that, imagining a world so different to the one that he inhabited, “Yes, but.. it feels good to. I can’t explain it. To feel the wheat you grew in your hands, the soil you tilled beneath your feet… It feels good.”

She smiled at this, “Go. See your family. Sing your song.”

His grin spread wide as he turned to leave, asking one final question before he did.

“Are you sure?”

“There is nothing more important than holding on to the people you love.”

He went, and from the window she saw as he seamlessly joined the song, tending the fields with his family as they sang. And she went to conduct her experiment, to fight for their right to power.

Embracing the source, she saw him do the same. The two leaned into the familiarity of the One Power for what may well be the last time, drawing thick ropes of spirit to do the deed. Focusing on the True Source’s call, she accepted it, feeling Beidomon following suit. Twin weaves of saidin and saidar twined together, thickening before flattening in a flash that seemed to shake the magnificent building to its very core. Ignoring this, she kept channeling, the angreal tucked in her belt linking to its larger twin down far below and granting the blessing of continued power, keeping the flows growing and growing, and the rumbling to grow in congruence with it. She refocused on the call, emptying her mind of everything but it and her weaving, gently tying air and water into it as Beidomon did the same with fire and earth. Spirit was woven equally by them both. Best to play to their strengths under such high stakes. She reached , and reality seemed to splinter. Shards of memory flashed before her eyes, nights with Lews assuring her of her value to him and the adjacent days of his constant neglect. Being used after their separation, being ignored whenever Ilyena was present. Dread and anger and sickness and repulsion flooded her, but still she pressed on. Emotions were nothing but a hindrance to the goal, and could be dealt with when the straits weren’t quite so dire. The shards of existence seemed to rearrange themselves before her closed eyes, raising the question of how long had they been that way, how long since the horror of it all had forced the involuntary attempt to shield herself from it.

This time, everything shattered. She was flung from the sky, barely catching herself in time. The pathetically weak flows of air righted her before she could hit the ground, and formed a protective dome woven with fire to defend against the debris raining down all around. It was horrifying in its splendour. The Sharom, split into thousands of pieces. The empty sky above Collam Daan, bare. Her, somehow still standing after all of the destruction.

“soon….,” a voice whispered against her ear and she whipped around only to find nobody there, and wonder how on earth she could hear anything that soft amid all of the screams.

Needless to say, it had not gone to plan. Forget Lews and Charn, countless people in both the Sharom and Collam Daan itself had fallen victim to her hubris. And now she was to live with that. For as long as her supernaturally extended life lasted, she would have to find a way to cope with the fact that she was responsible for all of those lives lost. What other option was there? The Bore had been a terrible miscalculation, however well intentioned. She should have known that it was too good to be true, everything else had gone downhill so why would this one thing save her; why would her little miracle ever turn out to be anything other than tragedy.

It was so much worse than it had seemed. Months later, and still she was hearing subtle whisperings. People were somehow worse than before. What had once been veiled snipes were now open insults, and what had once been insults were turning into skirmishes. Elan was proposing new theories weekly as to the cause of this heightened aggression. She had not told him about the voice. It would only bring absurdity into his suppositions, and he was already touching on things he ought not to mess with.

Of course he was right. Elan Morin Tedronai with his recherché ideas. The bloody Dark One was influencing the pattern. And now she and the others known to have been on her team received double the looks, double the comments, and those who couldn’t defend against it were the targets of a number of physical assaults that were growing in frequency at an alarming rate.

Beidomon had burned himself out. His attempts at invisibility had been futile, he was too well known, which was much the reason she herself had not tried to simply disappear. He had been weaker than she, and saidin was easy to lose oneself to. She had simply turned up to work - in what was supposedly a temporary facility but people seemed to be getting awfully comfortable - and been greeted with the news. That made her the last standing member of the team that had been working on the Bore. The rest had all taken themselves out of play, unable to deal with the consequences. The snubbery by those they had once called friends, ranging from simply ignoring them as they walked into a room to outright hostility. It turned out to be easier to bear the second time. When everybody thought of you as a jilted lover willing to go to any lengths to get the man back, it was almost preferable for them to hate you for scientific ambition turned sour. At least then it was for her own mistakes, rather than what somebody else had decided to make of her.

She no longer had a place in Collam Daan. Indefinite research suspension. Indefinite. She was never getting her job back; not in this turning of the Wheel at least. Lews and Elan had both been standing among those gossiping about her, though on different sides of the group. The whispers had been masterfully crafted to be at a volume perfectly audible from where she stood below. Jealous jealous Mierin, risking everyone just to get the Dragon back. So hung up over him… How desperate. Imagine being so obsessed as to go this far. Some people really will do anything for power. Enough to drive her to insanity. The day any of these people got anything right would be one of great celebration. All of those stunts at his parties really were just the beginning. We should have known what she would turn in- Her laboured breathing drowned out the rest. It took every scrap of self control she possessed not to touch the source, to turn gracefully and exit, to keep her face blank. Let them say what they would. Let them hate her for something she was not. Let them find out what she was .

What she was, was tired. Tired of the looks. The comments. The outright attacks. Tired of this city. V’saine was not her home. She had been here because Collam Daan had been here, but that was no longer the case. Without her research she had nothing. Her life had been training, then raised to Aes Sedai, then research. And then Lews. He had been the catalyst to her downfall. And still she longed for him. Those precious years had been some of the best. Even with the ever-present caution, she had managed a brief period of happiness. How could she love someone who felt sick at the merest glimpse of the real her? Desperately, as it turned out. It was for him that she had repressed and hidden and culled the slightest hint of anything that had even a faint chance of repelling him. Mirroring only what he wanted to see. Leaving parts of herself in the dark. Cracking under his sudden scrutiny. In truth, their relationship had been slowly being chipped away piece by piece long before Ilyena had come into the picture. She had simply been the one to finally cause it to shatter. But that would not happen again. Those parts of herself, the jealousy and the obsession and the rage, everything incongruous with the serenity synonymous with Aes Sedai, were all that was left.

It was still there, the True Power. Still she could sense it, the knowledge gnawing at her as she sat. The silence fell heavy, the incandescence of her conflicting emotions roiling behind her eyes. Even now, the whispers would not quiet. Promising glory, power. Promising everything . Him. If she would only reach out and take it.

It was surprisingly warm in Shayol Ghul. Not unpleasantly so, not at first, but she was forced to remove her outer garment. Once she entered the Pit of Doom however, she wished she hadn’t. Even with the sweltering heat, another layer of fabric would have provided some futile sense of security in this hellscape. Every colour imaginable raced across the sky alongside some she couldn’t put a name to nor remember upon looking away, forming a swirling, riotous mass. The suffocating heat rose from the true pit below, turbid lava spewing debris as it churned, each bubble wafting a blast of hot air directly at her. The allure of the True Power, always there ever since the accident, was impossibly strong here. Enough of it was present in the air alone to have her struggling to keep from drawing on it, which should have been an impossibility. The True Power belonged to the Dark One, and He surely kept it on a short leash. No Aes Sedai could hope to access it and admit to doing so, not now that everybody was aware of exactly what it was she had unearthed in her hubris. But it was palpable in the air. It seemed like it would be so easy to just reach for it. It burned her lungs as she breathed it in, the heady mixture of the lava’s sulphurous odour and power and the very essence of the Dark One all together.

And then she finally heard that voice as more than a whisper, and the rest of the visit all blurred into a haze of pain and promises and power. The one and only distinct aspect was the voice, like liquor dripping from stalactites, raw and hungry and strong .

That voice made her swear fealty, stripped away some core part of her, and gave power in its place. That place somehow replaced her white skirts with shimmering black, darker than the human eye could comprehend. And that hungry part of herself was finally quiet.

The True Power had been there before, but never like this. Thrumming beneath her skin, ever present yet never visible. Making itself known despite this. Those she passed on her way through the capital shied away. Those whose eyes had the misfortune of meeting hers all but tripped over their own feet running away. The silence of the evening streets was deafening after the sheer volume of Shayol Ghul. Everybody in Paaran Disen knew who she was and what she had done. And now what they had all been thinking for so long was finally true.

The doors to the Hall all but flew off of their hinges when she entered. Why should she lower herself to their level any longer when she so clearly no longer belonged there. It was all exactly as it had been the last time she had visited, opulence for its own sake. Shimmering walls refracted the light from a chandelier large enough to live in, all superficial sparkle and cheap glitz to impress the masses. And the Creator had a sick sense of theatre, as Lews was once again present. Good. Let him see her as she was, now, rather than as a product of the stories that were sure to spread of this day. She stormed through the foyer, rendering speechless those who tried to question her with a wave of her hand. The True Power was excruciating in its might, even drawn in these small quantities. She longed to test it properly, how much the Great Lord would allow her to draw, how it interacted with saidar , if the weaves were entirely the same or required certain tweaks to work properly when woven from this new power. Maybe Elan would consent to some experiments with saidin , he was surely curious. Later. When her current business had been seen to.

The Speaker was at a loss for words. Her entrance had certainly made an impression. Hair slicked back with the sweat from the Pit of Doom and eyes blackened with ash. Old tears marking clear lines on her cheeks. Her customary white turned to deepest black. This was who was left. The woman scorned. Privately, at first. Gradually learning what to show to him, to everyone else, and what to turn inwards. What parts of herself were unwelcome in his perfect world. Until he made it public. Prancing around with her . And of course, these things never seemed to impact the man’s reputation. No, let her be known as someone unable to keep a man rather than him as a scoundrel. Blame her for his shortcomings. Well, that had been one constant during their relationship, even at its peak. Mierin, keeping Lews Therin home again. No matter whether she had actually been responsible or not. The faraway look in her eyes at this preoccupation prompted the Speaker to finally open her mouth.

“So it is true.” Contempt twisted her mouth as she spoke, “You have given yourself to the Shadow.”

“Well, that would explain this .” She punctuated this with a blast of the True Power, shattering the door she had neglected to close behind her into slithers.

The other woman’s shock at not being able to see the weave was worth every second of agony holding onto the power brought.

“Mierin Sed-”

“No.” She cut her off with saidar this time, and her relief was evident even while mute. “Mierin Eronaile died with the Sharom. You buried her under rumour and hearsay and blatant lies. And Mierin Sedai was gone before even that. You made sure that I had no friends left among the Aes Sedai. Nobody to turn to. Except for Him. Not only does the Shadow accept what I am, they embrace it. No, no longer am I Mierin.”

“..What are you, then?”

She opened a gateway the size of the now broken door and uttered one last word before stepping through.

“Lanfear.”

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