The day started as any other, but it had more of a purpose today.  The light stole across the covers and warmed her face and neck, the only parts of her visible.  Her hand came to her face and rubbed delicately at the corner of her eyes, instantly awake as soon as the light hit.  She dressed quickly in sea-blue silk, her shawl draped ceremonially across her shoulders, held in place at the elbows.  Rossa loved her shawl, not just for what it symbolised, but also for the colour.  It was pale blue and shot with silvery blues along the edges that made it look like the crests of ocean waves.  It reminded Rossa of the coastline around Altara that she loved so much. 

 

Slipping her feet into matching slippers, Rossa remembered what was going to happen today.  The locket that meant so much to her was fastened around her neck – that present from Nerome she never let far from her person.  On the occasions she could not wear it, it went into her belt pouch so she would have a little part of him close to her always.  It was an idiosyncrasy, perhaps one of the few ones that some might know about, but not one she would give up easily. 

 

The corridors bustled with activity at this hour of the day, and the kitchens would be busy if she wanted anything to eat.  As if she could eat a thing today.  Light!  Food could come later, when events had a chance to settle down.  Today was the first time she had seen Nerome since her Raising, and also, she had found out, since his.  He was a Tower Guard.  Both of them had risen to the ranks they aspired.

 

She would go to the Yards first, to see him, and then she thought she would wait for him so she could talk to him properly.  Rossa’s stomach fluttered like a butterfly trapped in a glass box.  Her hand clasped thoughtfully, she rested her chin on her hands and walked to the Yards.

 

Nerome’s first morning after a week as a member of the Guard, wasn’t a particularly eventful one but he enjoyed it nevertheless. He rose early, but dressed with care- the uniform was so much smarter than a Trainee’s garb and the red cloak…it allowed him to indulge in a sensation that was rare during Nerome’s life: a sense of importance, belonging. A crisp, cool breeze greeted him as he stepped out, feeling at any rate, a little taller than usual. The day before, he had been informed about what was expected of him now that he had been promoted  and he had listened attentively- he had decided that Nerome the Tower Guard would not blacken his reputation now that he had finally been given a chance to prove himself. The more intriguing and somewhat surprising fact that was imparted to him though, was that the next trainee to enter the Yards was to be his under his responsibility. Yesterday, he was mentee to Rosheen and Trainee under careful probing and guidance. Today, he was enlightened that he would do the same to another. Time was going to speed by quick in this new life, Nerome suspected. Time and change, he realized.

 

The first thing to do would definitely be training. He had been itching to do so since he had risen, a nagging at the back of his mind as he greeted others and thanked them when they congratulated him. Rather than stride down in long, impressive steps, Nerome followed the pull of the breeze. He began to run, ignoring the amused expressions that flitted by him. Today was his day, his choice and he would spend it as he saw fit. Breathing in the morning air, Nerome couldn’t help himself. To hell with Warder like reserve! A grin bloomed, stretching across his face as he reached the practice grounds.

 

The grounds were already bustling with activity. He watched for a few moments as scattered groups of trainees and their mentors set out to work, laughing occasionally as one floundered and stopping himself from hollering out the next when he felt a trainee was in error. He would get someone to teach to, he reminded himself. The newly discovered desire to help out surprised him- he had never expected that he would ever find pleasure in guiding anyone. Perhaps this was one of those changes that were coming about. Besides, if he truly was going to be getting a trainee soon, he better get around to training. Finding an empty spot, Nerome thought back to the first exercises Rosheen had taught him. Being familiar with the classes before the actual mentee arrived would be a useful asset, he felt.

 

It was as he sat there, under the shade of a tree a little distance from the grounds that he closed his eyes and began, as he had many months ago beside Shawn, the steps to achieving Spring. He could reach out to Spring with little effort now, but he had always enjoyed the longer, slower process he had encountered during his first few weeks of learning the Spring philosophy. He clamped the memories together in a ball as he had done so previously, different highlights of his life gathered as he drew the energy from them, reveling in the life it brought to him. While his eyes remained closed, he let his other senses enhance their abilities. There was the waft of the newly blossomed flowers, besides his own very light scent of sweat from the running he had done. More than flowers though, he loved the aroma of leaves and as he breathed in, he could almost feel the wetness early morning dew had touched the greens with. It was then that his ears suddenly pricked up- footsteps, and the crunching of a leaf.

His eyes opened with reflexive speed, widening a little as he saw who it was. He had expected it to be another member of the Yard, or perhaps a young boy telling him his mentee had arrived. What- nay who- stood before him now was a vision of blue. A memory flashed in his mind of a woman with the same face, the same eyes and in similar, if a little more dazzling attire. The one difference was though, that this woman had wrapped around her a fine blue shawl.

 

“Rossa.” He named her, rising as he did. “Rossa Sedai.” He said with more force, his voice clearly giving away how proud he was of her. Bowing deeply as he had grown accustomed to do when he met with her, Nerome rose slowly, smiling broadly as he did. “Congratulations!” he said with feeling. The grieving girl he had run into, almost knocked over as a Novice, who he had admired and promised his sword to as an Accepted, was now Aes Sedai, gazing at him while clutching a shawl of blue. His heart skipped a beat. On impulse, he gathered her in a quick embrace. He had missed her, and seeing her again, it brought to him unsurpassed joy, but also the haunting reminder of their promise to each other. Letting her go, he looked down upon her with a more solemn gaze.

 

“I’ve been promoted as you can see.”

~Rossa~

 

Well, well, well.  Nerome was now a Tower Guard, when had that happened?  The Wheel wove as the Wheel willed, Rossa guessed, and it had woven a complex thread right then in making their raisings at a similar time.  They had come a long way.  His arms had encompassed her in a familiar embrace and made her smile, warmth touching her dark brown eyes.  He looked the part: dark hair neatly arranged and the clothes, well, the clothes indeed fit him very well indeed.  Rossa’s mother would have no qualms about her daughter’s taste!

 

“Nerome.”

 

She could not get over it, just as she could not control the smile that crept to her lips unbidden.  Her fingers lightly brushed the locket at her neck that bobbed with the racing pulse in her throat.  Breathe in, breathe out…  This was indeed a surprise. 

 

“The look suits you, Nerome.”  Rossa smiled and laid a hand on his arm before moving around him to see him from all angles.  “If I had my sketchbook, I would draw a little sketch of how pleased you look so that in a few years’ time you could look back on how you were.”  The look on his face was priceless.  “Seriously, Nerome, I would love it if you would sit for a portrait for me one day.”  Adjusting the shawl over her shoulders, Rossa once again thought of how far they had come. 

 

The curiosity about how hard a Tower Guard’s training was gnawed at her, and she hoped it hadn’t been too strenuous a test for him.  Someone broken was not going to be much use, but the Tower weeded out the weak with its rigorous programmes in place.  Nerome was definitely not weak, she decided.  “Was it hard?” 

 

Nerome grinned as he heard the words that came out of her mouth. Did he? He hadn’t realised he was that obvious in face and demeanour. She had come only instants ago and here she was, picking out so easily what he had been trying to grip, to look a little more respectable. Well, to hell with that then. His grin broadened and his eyes sparkled, puffing his chest and shoulders in mock magnitude as Rossa made little circles around him. He was pleased to know that she felt it suited him…epitome of vanity or not, Nerome had thought so too, but Rossa saying it just made it seem so much grander. He watched her too as she assessed him. Her eyes, alight with a mixture of play and deep thought, as if for a few moments her mind lingered elsewhere. Her lips curved into a smile, hinting that a laugh was to come.

 

He noticed it then, while admiring the freshly Raised Blue Sister. It looked…as if it had been there all along, amidst all the other little nuances that he loved about Rossa Venye. “You’re wearing the locket. It suits you.” He said it as it came, adding the last sentence in play with her earlier one. Oh, that day-night, rather- would come back to him at the oddest of times. On occasion, it would raise unexplainably low spirits, making him laugh during what had been an otherwise foul day. There were other times when he felt so beat, eyes stinging as the sweat touched the corners and calves weak, promising blue-blacks. It would come then too, as he stood panting.

 

Then, the pain would seem a little less; the hours of running in the sun would seem perfectly worth the price. Someone had once tried to tell him that was what it meant to love, but to Nerome, what it meant was something different. That something different was the chance to care. Infatuations would come and go. Flames would rise, flames would flicker, flames would die. Pure golden concern for someone else, it warmed him. There was more meaning to his life than to seek revenge, to draw blood and learn to brandish a sword without killing himself while doing so.

 

Laughing as he heard her mention sketching him, he responded smoothly but not without a jest. “Name the day, the time and I shall be there. As long as you don’t mind occasional squirming and frequent questions about the time, I’ll make an excellent first hand sketch.” Nerome knew she sketched, knew too that she bore some talent but had personally never seen her do so. He would like to some day though- he could picture her sitting in the gardens, pencil as her blade as she would look up furtively and then back down on her sketchbook. Idly he wondered what Rossa would be like, if he were to give her a weapon in hand. Had she received any formal training before? He didn’t think she’d told him so, no.

 

“Was it hard?”

 

He had known she would ask him something similar. It had been there in the sudden, subtle change in her eyes. Or perhaps that was just the shadow the trees above had cast he reflected, amused. He didn’t need to ponder about her question, it had been hard, of course it had been hard, but they were in Tar Valon, both sealed to the White Tower now. The people of the Tower did not get welcomed unless they were of some level of skill. “Of course it was, but the harder it got, the more enjoyable it was. Rossa, there’s just something about the blood rush, the exhilaration of speed and success. It changes a person, and there’s no place I’d rather be.”

 

He paused, hesitated for a moment before continuing. Rossa showed no visible signs of how difficult the test to Aes Sedai had been-twice or thrice as hard as his own, he imagined-but then, that was Rossa. All diplomacy and then layers of steel, just around her mouth and eyes. Now, he looked into those very eyes and asked her in turn. “What about you?” He hadn’t been there the last time he remembered, sudden guilt flashing through. “I would imagine that it’s a challenge but…what did it make you feel?” A blunt question, that required a blunt answer. Nerome wondered how Rossa would reply, eyes set on her in askance.

 

~Nerome Seshir

~Rossa~

 

“It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  I am getting too used to leaving people behind.”

 

Light, but it hurt to say that, truth or not.  She studied the grass for a long time before once again meeting Nerome’s considerate gaze and even then, Rossa did not feel comfortable.  It was not something that she could or would easily forget, just as to this day she had not forgotten what had happened when she was Raised to the banded skirts of an Accepted.  Rossa played with the fringe on her shawl, lost to a moment of reminiscence.

 

She remembered how her test for the Arches had focussed on Nerome, her child that she knew she would never carry and how everything had been taken from her.  Cruel flames were relived in memory every night as a Novice claimed her mother and sisters once more, to be replayed in dreams she had no control over ever since.  The test for the shawl itself, once completed, had given her a sense of triumph and completion, although she did not mention to the newly appointed Tower Guard about the latter.  He did not need to know every little detail of her plans for revenge.  Likely he would only try to talk her out of it, and Rossa knew what had to be done.  Some things a woman just had to do alone.

 

She had overcome it though.

 

“While at times it had seemed like the bleakest night, I was able to face it.  I am Aes Sedai.”

 

Her back was as straight as a rule the geography master would have used to teach about distances back when she was a girl in Ebou Dar.  Her poise spoke of elegance, her gaze a mask of practiced serenity.  Only someone that knew her and loved her would know the miniscule tightness around her eyes was not concentration, but distress.  Moreover, only someone like Nerome would understand that only half of her composure was a result of Aes Sedai training.  The rest of it was ingrained in her far earlier.  Cairhien was a rival to the intrigues of Ebou Dar when it came to Daes Dae’mar, but it could not hold a candle to the White Tower, and now both of them were trained in it’s ways.  Rossa felt solidarity with the man, so handsome, so responsible, and put a hand to the locket for comfort.

 

“Sometimes our lives forge us to steel,” Rossa began, looking at Nerome suddenly “and sometimes our lives are woven into the pattern in a way we did not expect.”  Now, she was fully aware of how much like an Aes Sedai she sounded.  If she had not been feeling the way she was presently, she would likely have laughed at that point, but it was still too new, too fresh in her mind to forget.  Taking the test, being Raised, wearing the shawl and greeting the sisters of her Ajah, the Blue Ajah, had reminded her of the test for the Accepted again, and it would not leave her mind for some reason.  She performed a Novice exercise, the bank containing the stream, and pressed on.

 

“I remember the night you gave me this.  The ball,” she trailed off, thinking of that night and how hard it had been to part from him “was one of the most wonderful points in my life.  Light knows there have not been many.”  Looking at his suddenly serious face, Rossa smiled.  “You understand me.  Life, I believe, has been full of hardships for both of us.  We understand each other.”  Some of her good humour was restored when she saw his eyes flicker with memory and then twinkle with his true nature surfacing again.  How could she be sad with him around?  He was her anchor, a grip to reality.

 

“I remember you and I made a promise.  A promise that I should bond you as my Warder when we were both Raised to our full ranks, myself as Aes Sedai and you as Tower Guard.”  She shot him a wry look.  “The Wheel must like us, to have woven our elevations at almost the same time.”  He grinned at her, and she returned the smile.  “My question to you now is, will you still honour that promise and be my Warder?”

 

Softly uttered words, but the meaning behind them remained razor sharp. Green irises transformed from curious to something more veiled, for there were some feelings that were born only to be locked away. On the inside though, he harboured unsteady comprehension. Shock glided off his veins as he registered these words, but it was not the meaning that had stimulated such a private response. Rather it was a case of marvel, for he only could marvel at having found someone in his life that knew and was troubled by mysteries so close to his own.  She didn’t know that though, and Nerome knew that it was his time now more than ever to step down from the spotlight thriving on foolish pity and reckless revenge. He would listen now, nod when he could sense she needed to, and voice an opinion when she would falter. The surge of responsibility for the young Altaran tightened in his heart, binding him to her. He didn’t say a word as she paused, and her dark brown eyes adopted a look he had come to know so well.

 

Some things never needed to be spoken aloud. Rossa’s answer came in between many considering silences, spaces of time where her eyes and posture were enough to fill the connecting loops. The flickers of change in the intensity of her stare, or the way she would roam, similar to her train of thought. They were enough. Clandestine symbols of how hard it must’ve been for her, but he didn’t want to sooth her by holding her tightly or letting out sentences that proclaimed her strong, built of spirit that wouldn’t be broken. These things, Rossa already knew. 

 

“We understand each other.”

 

That brought a smile to her face, a speedy lightening that he responded to without consideration- that was how natural it was. His own eyes glimmered as she smiled, and if someone else had been watching them now, Nerome reasoned that they would need little proof for the statement Rossa had just made. He trained his thoughts at the grass, watching the little wisps rising up.  It was omnipresent in their relationship, perhaps even the real reason that their connection had fastened. Any other trainee might’ve found her that morning, and he could’ve chanced upon any Tower initiate. Light knew, they were men and women who were faced with the toughest challenges at the founding of their new life. Many of the Novices must’ve given in to the tears, while many Trainees were prone to taking long walks to reflect. Fate had churned his path to cross with Rossa’s, and in her he’d discovered a mirror of the rose and thorn game play his life had been. Indeed, they understood each other. Looking back up at her, he was only slightly startled by the new expression on her face. It wasn’t one he had seen on her face before, which made it all the more. Nerome knew what was coming.

 

“My question to you now is, will you still honour that promise and be my Warder?”

 

He had been laughing seconds ago at the observation she had made, and while the laugh did fade, his smile remained. It was a proud smile, but you couldn’t call it a beam. It was one that was reserved only for Rossa, a knowing smile that she would know to be better than his smirks and grins. Light, if anyone else saw his this way, they would think him drunk on some mischief’s dabbled water. He kneeled and looked up at the Blue Sister with a mixture of love and calm.

 

“Under the light, by my sword, I vow to serve you. I vow to fight for you, with you, and protect you at all costs. I pledge to honour the bond.”

 

~Nerome Seshir

Tower Guard

Promised to Rossa Venye, of the Blue Ajah.

Proud. :)

 

~Rossa~

 

He would be there, as well.  For all his posturing at times, Nerome was probably at his most honest when he wore the expression he currently did.  She could look into those eyes and see a tidal wave crashing against a cliff edge before she would see any sign of retreating for her.  His smile was also just for her.  So.  They were both now of adequate rank to bond each other.  They could see each other more often.  Even if marriage were forbidden, they could still enjoy each other’s company.  Rossa twitched her skirts slightly and leant forward to offer Nerome her hand.

 

“You are going to get stuck down there if you are not careful, Milord Seshir.”  Rossa’s voice held a tinge of amusement to it.  He took her hand and she pulled him to his feet.  That felt better.  It always felt better to look at someone equally rather than having the balance of power shifted.  Both of them knew what the future would hold for them in terms of their careers, or vocations rather, and Rossa liked to keep things on an equal footing.  While an Aes Sedai/Warder bond was supposed to be a partnership, there were moments of deference called for in certain situations.  In order for as little resentment as possible, both parties had to know where they stood and what was happening.  So she looked up into his eyes and smiled.

 

“Nerome Seshir, I too would bond you.  I would protect you with my body and what powers the Light has given to me.  I too pledge to honour the bond.”

 

Rossa embraced Saidar and began to form the Weave she had been taught.  It was relatively complex and she didn’t want to get it wrong, so she bit her lip to make herself remember the importance of the task at hand.  She did not want to accidentally bond a passer-by, or a tree.  Carefully looking at Nerome, she spoke once.

 

“Are you ready?” 

 

She waited for his nod, and then laid the Weave.  She watched it settle into him and smiled as she felt the effects mingle with everything else she could feel.  The Three Oaths, so new to her still, felt tight on her body, but this felt different again.  It settled, and suddenly she could feel Nerome there.  She looked into his eyes, and felt the love behind them.