Edana fumed all the way past the gate, waving a distracted hand at the guards on duty as she headed for the glistening water of the River. Her heavy braid swung as she walked, but the nearly violent swinging did little to lessen her irritation. Only her training kept the fury out of her expression, but she kept her eyes down just in case she wasn’t as successful with them. She didn’t stop ‘til the toes of her boots met the sandy shore of the River and even then, she turned and headed up the bank a little bit. When she found a spot that was partially hidden from view, she released the thin line of control she had over herself.

 

She glared up at the sky, shaking a fist. “Why? Have I wronged you in another life? Did I chose the Dark One the last time around and this is my punishment? Have I not suffered enough, already? Have I not paid very dearly for whatever sin you believe I have committed?” She slid a short knife free of the leather vambrace on her forearm and tossed it easily in her hand. The blade flipped end over end, but she paid it little attention as she paced the short expanse of beach between the bushes. She muttered under her breath, swiping at the taller limbs of the brush each time she turned. “If this is not what you wanted, you could just say so!”

 

She flicked her wrist and the blade buried itself in the trunk of a tree. She muttered as she retrieved it, already feeling the steam come out of her anger. She sighed as she slumped to the ground, her gaze falling on the water. The serene waves brushing the bank helped and she sighed as she watched the rhythmic…

 

She wrinkled her brow, seeing ripples where there shouldn’t be any. She drew the sword from her hip and stood, stepping lightly a little into the River. “Show yourself,” she said, a quiet menace in her voice. “Show yourself and confess your purpose or I’ll be forced to reckon with you…”

 

~Edana, the fuming trainee

Sandre's morning had been spent like every other morning since joining the trainees... a run to the river to bathe because he turned redder than a sunburn when trying to bathe in the bath house. The spot he chose was relatively concealed though that did not matter much. Besides, the river water was cooler. (And thats why I am here.... it is.... seriously) he thought as though still trying to convince himself.

 

He was calmly humming the tune "When your a soldier." and washing his toes when a dagger came from nowhere and buried itself in the trunk or a tree. His jaw dropped. "Of all the most inconvenient times.... and their aim was horrible!"

 

Quietly he pulled his sword, a master work bastard sword into the water. He didnt fear rust, the blade was tempered and waited a ways from where the dagger had struck. A woman came and pulled the dagger looking like she was angry enough to scare off a swarm of hornets. (Probably because she missed.)

 

Sandre threw a small pebble a short ways in front of her and at the same time began moving towards her under water. He heard her shout "Show yourself." and nearly drowned suppressing a laugh. He was not sure she would appreciate him "Showing himself" he positioned just in front of her. “Show yourself and confess your purpose or I’ll be forced to reckon with you…” He his head popped out of the water. " Oh you'll be forced to reckon with me." He said as his sword shot between her legs and he used the flat end to whack her on the bottom and send her flying over him into the cold river. (Thats going to leave a mark.)

Edana gasped as a man she vaguely recognized popped out of the water. " Oh you'll be forced to reckon with me," he said, giving her precisely no time to recover before she was flying past him and splashing into the River. Confound it! her mind screamed as she pushed off the bottom, her sword still clutched tightly in her fist. Are all the men in the blessed Tower insane or was she just lucky enough to find the ones who’d lost their senses? She turned in the water, going back down to the bottom until the movement over her stopped. She used the lack of movement to shift herself closer to him, curling her hand around his bare ankle, popping the hilt of her sword behind his knee, and jerking his leg out from under him. Only then did she surface.

 

Only then did she realize she’d grabbed a bare ankle. Only then did she very plainly see his clothes laid out on the bank just ahead.  Only then did she see scabbard lying empty next to his clothes. She closed her eyes, listening for his approach. If he’d dunked her in once, he’d do it again. Her face burned, and her fingers tightened on her sword. How in the name of the Creator had she landed herself in such a mess? “I’m sorry to have intruded,” she said slowly, her ears still pinned for the slightest noise. “If I had known you chose to bathe with fish, I’d have gone elsewhere…”

 

~Edana, now soaking wet and still fuming

 

Sandre was almost ready to laugh at the whole situation. Even when his ankle came out from under him and he went under he wanted to laugh. She was up to her waste in a fast flowing river in wet clothes and boots and all her equipment and was still throwing quips about fishes?

 

He raised his head out of the water to get a better look at her. She heard him go back under and turned but he was already gone... and behind her again. (That sword of hers might get someone hurt.) He was sure the look on her face alone would have been adequate to castrate a naked man in the river. Rising behind her quietly he pulled her shirt half way over her head to blind her and retrain her arms.

 

"I bathe with them... but your going to learn to swim like them." he said as he wacked her bottom once more and sent her with the current. He saw her struggle a moment before she went under.

 

"Your going to have to get your boots pointed away from the current and start kicking or its going to.. nope too late." He smiled and said as her legs and boots began to come out of the water periodically as the current tumbled her. He wouldnt let her drown. He would reluctantly even give her mouth to mouth if needed. However she would either have to drop her sword and pull her shirt on or take it off and have it tangled in her sword.

 

Either way the threat would be eliminated until she calmed down... partially.

Edana didn’t have time to rant. She’d only had the chance to catch half a breath before the water was there again. She fought her shirt, reluctantly releasing her sword to pull it over her head as she tried to fight the current. In the back of her head, she heard her brother’s voice, “never fight a current, Ana,” he’d said as he threw her into the river behind their home in Caemlyn.  “Relax and turn your body so you’re angled within it. Nature will take care of the rest.” She’d caught pneumonia from that little lesson, but she was nearly grateful for it now. She forced her body to relax and let the current turn her. When she had control over the direction she was going again, she made it closer to the bank and out of the worst of the current.

 

She looked over her shoulder to see her shirt floating away with the rushing water and turned murderous eyes back on her assailant. She had a moment’s hesitation, being soaked and now nearly bare-chested,  but her anger won out. She pulled herself out of the water, coughing a little as her lungs released the river water they were holding. Her braid didn’t swing much this time, weighed down with water as it now was, but her stride was no less angry. She made it to his clothes before he did and smiled as she gathered the lot and began walking along the bank. “I swim just fine, dear sir. I’m think, mayhap, that your clothes may well float as nicely as mine.” She paused, pulling his shirt from the pile and slipping it on,  before dangling his pants over the rushing current. His shirt she left open, so angry that she wasn’t even considering her short clothes clinging to her torso. “Give me one good reason why the fish don’t need trousers…”

 

Sandre was concerned only a moment when her legs didnt come back up. When she popped up again and swam to the shore he watched in amusement. He actually felt bad for her... maybe even enough to apologize. That changed when she grabbed his clothes of course....

 

“Give me one good reason why the fish don’t need trousers…”

 

Sandre stuck the point of his sword in the mud at the bottom of the river and rested his hands and chin on the weapon as he looked up at her. Tan skin and eyes the blue of the sky and a a mouth full of brilliantly white teeth on a rogue-ish grin met her. "If you wish to I will be more than happy to follow behind you clad in the light and you wearing my shirt... might be fun trying to watch you explain it though I do try to avoid being caught naked on the yards more than once a week." He said.

 

He wasnt going to explain how he had ended up naked on the yards twice in the same week. His fellow trainees often had odd senses of humor.

 

 

"If you wish to I will be more than happy to follow behind you clad in the light and you wearing my shirt... might be fun trying to watch you explain it though I do try to avoid being caught naked on the yards more than once a week." Edana couldn't help it. The ridiculousness of the situation simply wouldn't let her keep a straight face anymore. She laughed. She had no doubt that smile had worked wonders on much more sophisticated women than she, but it only served to drive home how very silly this exchange was.

 

She was grinned as broadly as he when she reached the edge of the water, the waistband of his pants hooked on her finger. "I grew up with three brothers and have spent most of my life around the Queen's Guards of Caemlyn. Your nudity will not bother me, nor will it shock me. Perhaps if you smile big enough, the more sensitive ladies in the Tower won't notice it, though." She draped his pants over a bush and stepped back. "Perhaps you believe you've got something those men didn't have?"

 

She settled onto the bank, crossing her legs under her and slowly lacing his shirt up her chest. Would he step out of the water or was all his bravado was just a show?

 

~Edana, letting her humor get the best of her

Sandre was thankful for the flame and the void because that water was freezing. (At least she was laughing though.) He was not anxious to get out in case she started laughing again. (I dont feel the cold, I dont feel the cold, I dont feel the cold.)

 

He did not let his nervousness touch his face of course. Stepping out lightly he stood a few feet in front of her and even went as far as to stretch. "I am glad you came to reason on this." He said as he pulled on his pants. "Because there was no way I was going to follow you back to Yards naked."

 

The look on her face was of course priceless.

Edana watched him stepping towards the bank and fought with everything she had not to avert her eyes. Was the stretching really necessary? He's trying to make you blush, she told herself, steeling her resolve. If he could play this game, so could she. If her eyes never left his, that was completely his fault, however. He'd had no intention, huh? She wondered a moment how much longer he'd have lasted in that frigid water, before setting that thought aside. It wasn't in her nature to be irritable, after all.

 

"It would've been entertaining, though." She grinned, but that was only after his pants were back on. "Do you suppose anyone would believe the truth? I guess the better question is whether anyone else knows you prefer the fish for company over the bath house. If they did, I'd wager the truth would be easier to believe..."

Sandre could only throw his head back and laugh. "Some know that I value privacy." That was true, but not the complete reason he did this. "I wouldnt have followed because of what they would have thought happened. It was more like you wouldnt have been able to convince anyone what they think happened didnt... and they would have thought better of you for it."

 

He stamped on his boots and made sure his feet were settled be before sheathing his weapon and throwing the strap around his bare chest. "You could almost use that shirt as a night gown. Or fit another person your size in it."

 

He ran his hand through his wet hair as his mind went to the gutter a moment and he looked away. "They would have asked me of course how you were and I couldnt have lied to them."

 

He looked to the river to give her a hint of what his answer would have been.

 

 

Edana's grin only got wider. He had a nice laugh. His pointed reminder about what people would've thought sobered her up pretty quickly, though. Images of Liam's laughing face filled her thoughts and she clenched her hands before she could stop herself. Her brother's taunts, drunken as they were, filled her head, along with the laughter that echoed in the tavern that night. She knew he'd needed stitches when she left and some little part of her hoped she hadn't done any serious damage.

 

"They would have asked me of course how you were and I couldnt have lied to them." She blinked up at him, her thoughts so scattered she didn't understand him. She followed his gaze, then shook her head. His meaning sank in and she let him have the blush he was apparently after. Her cheeks flamed and she closed her eyes, racking her mind for a suitable response. None came to her lips, so she turned the conversation another direction, instead.

 

"I'm Edana," she said, meeting his eyes again. "I'm new enough here that most anyone in the barracks wouldn't know who I was to begin with."

When she blushed he realized he had won the battle. Though that was not really what he was after. She was just really pretty when she was smiling was all. Besides, she had come in a rage so making her feel better was... really what he had been for all the new trainees lately.

 

"Im Sandre Kaldun. A trainee here. I would have known you before we ever met." He smiled and looked her in the eyes a moment before turning towards the river.

 

"Lets go find your shirt and sword Edana. I know where they will have gone. I only spend every morning and sometimes night here."

 

As they started down the river bank he did not want to fall into that eerie silence that he usually lived his life in. "Im from Andor... the Kaldun House supplies the Queens Guards with the iron used for their weapons and armor and their heavy cavalry which are trained on our lands in Shienar." He turned to see if he had been boring her to sleep yet. "I was... the prodigal son. Kaldun's for some reason have exceptional memories and I was being raised to one day command armies... our house would never admit but we descend from an Aes Sedai and her Warder. However... I messed that up."He smiled and turned towards her. For once he wasnt trying to analyze someone he was with.

Edana nodded, glad that he changed the topic as they moved down the river a bit.  "Im from Andor... the Kaldun House supplies the Queens Guards with the iron used for their weapons and armor and their heavy cavalry which are trained on our lands in Shienar." Edana looked up, knowing he'd recognize the symbols on the sword they were about to fish out of the river. She'd given up her position with the Queen's Guard, but she hadn't reliquished her sword. "I was... the prodigal son. Kaldun's for some reason have exceptional memories and I was being raised to one day command armies... our house would never admit but we descend from an Aes Sedai and her Warder. However... I messed that up."

 

Edana nodded, returning his smile. It was just impossible not to. Did he know that? "My father was Captain of the Queen's Guard in Caemlyn. My brothers were training for the Queen's Guard, too. It was a natural thing for me to follow them." She left out the rank she'd attained, hoping that he'd take for granted that the Captain's sword they were about to rescue was her fathers'. That she was a bit of a prodigy, as well, she'd have to leave out. Not many guardsmen made it to Captain by age 20, after all. "So, why is it that such a winning smile finds itself hanging out with the fish every morning?"

Sandre looked away as though looking for the spot in the river. (She hit a sore spot.) Taking a deep breath, he continued. "I was fourteen when we were in Saldea... commanders through out the Borderlands were planning for the summer attacks and had gathered in Saldea to trade whatever they had extra and discuss numbers and who could cover what passes and make what patrols. My father supplied iron and food and so needed to be there. I met a woman... a Green Ajah though I did not know that at the time... I spent days with her, she was... incredible. I knew if she was in the command tent she had to serve some as a Commander of some sort to some country. We played stones a lot but she never beat me, never came close. Then we wagered that I would come work for her Queen. I felt it was safe and it would give me a chance to be around her. I lost."

 

Sandre turned red blushing furiously and thankful he was turned away. "She showed a little bosom to a fourteen year old and I completely forgot about the stones game and lost. Then she told me where I would be serving... as another rank and file in the Tower Guard. Naturally my father was furious. He... sent me away for a whole year. I traveled the world learning from various commanders that had agreed to teach me. After that year he tried to make it up to me. I turned him away then and stayed away until I came here."

 

Regaining his composure he looked straight ahead again. "I didnt talk to anyone at that time so I am still uncomfortable with it. Others spent their free time with friends but I am so awkward that I just trained. Before long the other trainees... well some of them took that as how we are suppose to be and so I started talking again when they came to me for help."

 

Soon his smile returned. (Does life get any better? Beautiful river, green fields, attractive woman. Never thought I would be here. A memory to make you smile when you die.)

 

"My first teachers were a few of the Queens Guards. A few Captains. One was like a brother to my father. I wont forget him, may he shelter in the creator's hand."

 

As he came to one spot he kicked off his boots and pulled up the legs on his pants and waded out until it was about knee deep. "Theres a sand bar here where the currents strength ends abruptly." He said as he reached down into the water and pulled out Edana's sword. (Captains marks. Doesnt surprise me, some swords spend generations in use. Almost everyone in Caemlyn has ancestors who held rank.) He waded back to shore and would have wiped the sword dry... had he a shirt.... instead he passed it back to her. "Your going to want to oil that."

Edana listened, glad to focus the attention away from herself. She hadn't had to answer questions in a while and wasn't eager to start now. "That's horrible," she murmured as he spoke of the Aes Sedai who'd tricked him. "I have spent a year wandering, myself. Circumstances made me leave my post in Caemlyn, so I've taken odd jobs here and there." She smiled, accepting her sword and watching his expression for any hint of recognition. It was completely missing from his expression, so she relaxed a bit. Either he didn't recognize the symbols or he'd accepted the sword as her fathers'. At some point, she knew she'd have to clarify that.

 

She turned a smile back to him that was much brighter than before. She had a feeling she'd just made a friend. It was a welcome relief from the isolation she'd been feeling over the last year. "What is it you're most angry about, Sandre? That the Aes Sedai tricked you or that you wagered your future away and lost?" She used his shirt to wipe the blade free to silt. "For me, I'm most angry that the future I had built for myself was taken away by my own brothers. You see, I outranked them when I left. Evidently, it bruised their male pride for their little sister to gain a rank that had been denied them. I heard rumors start to spread about how I'd attained that rank. They were false, of course, but the sidelong glances started, anyway. We'd come home from an escort trip last year and quite a number of us that had been on the detail celebrated being home with a mug of ale in our favorite tavern."

 

She paused, dropping her eyes to the blade in her hand and picking the silt out of the details cut into the blade with a methodic precision. "My oldest brother had had too much to drink, so when he started his accusations, I laughed at him. When my other brothers joined in and some of my fellow Guards did, too..." She shrugged and sighed. "A fight broke out and I left. Truth be known, I started the fight and I know at least one of my brothers needed stitching up before I left. I couldn't face them, knowing what they thought of me. The rumors were bad enough, but from my own brothers?" She shook her head and raised her eyes to his. "So you see, I am angry that my future was stolen from me. What are you angry about?"

 

~Edana

Sandre shook his head as they started walking again to find her shirt... she probably didnt care that much about it but... not like the trainee stipend was that great. He could have bought her almost every shirt in Tar Valon with what he had stashed away in his chest in the barracks though he wouldnt tell her that. He wouldnt also tell her that the gold he used for his masterwork sword and armor was replenishing quickly with a few good investments. Her question though. What was he angry at?

 

"I was angry that they make the world dance like puppets... I never considered my own loss in it all. A good commander never does. I was angry about the soldiers who would die for lack of a good commander, the widows and orphans that would come of it. The villages that would be burned and the people who would be afraid to be out after dark and the criminals who werent."

 

There was still fire in his voice though not like before. When he first came it would have been enough to send him swinging his sword at some unfortunate training dummy or a lathe at some unfortunate trainee... who was probably also wasnt that brilliant for sparring when he was in that mood.

 

"Why did your brothers do that to you? Did your lover at the time actually hold rank? I suppose thats none of my concern... but you will be safe from those rumors here. The only way you are getting out of the trainees is through Thera and good luck seducing her." He couldnt help but laugh at that. He wasnt sure how well Edana knew her but as far as Thera's reputation was for being tough as nails went, most trainees didnt try out of fear of both her and her husband and the rest for fear they wouldnt survive it if they succeeded. Sandre tried his best for a long time to get just a smile out of the woman so he at least would feel like he wasnt some huge burden to her for being here but.... cats and dogs.

 

"Its just..." He shook his head again. He couldnt believe someone would do that to her. Firey temper though she seemed to have."I dont know... I came from a loyal family."

 

He stopped and looked her in the eyes. Part of him did want to know but the other part wanted to make sure that he hadnt used his sword to leave a welt on the bottom of a married or betrothed or even taken woman. (Twice even!)

 

 

She nodded, understanding his explanation. It was a lot to rest on your conscience. "Perhaps you not being there would encourage another, more reluctant, commander to step in?" It was the only thought that had given her solace when she'd turned away from Caemlyn. There was always another person to fill the shoes of a Captain. In that way, she was rather dispensible.

 

Edana sighed. "I thought my family was loyal, too." She kicked a rock, but kept walking. "I didn't stay long enough to find out why, to be honest. I left before I had to look in their eyes, knowing what they thought of me. I had no lover, ranked or not. It's never really been an issue for me, as focused as I have been on my training and, later, on my..." she paused. She'd nearly said command. She needed to be more careful, perhaps. She shrugged and left it out. "At any rate, it's over. Perhaps some day I'll find the answers to my questions, but, for now..." she shrugged again, meeting his gaze. "I'm old enough to find my own way. And Mistress Thera cannot be more frightening than my father. Captain Keller's legacy is known all over Andor, after all!"

(Keller.) he thought. (Captain Keller...) "Yes I know... my family mourned your father. My father most of all. He spent an entire week in prayer and fasting. I was in the castle when it happened..." He avoided most of the truth at that time (I mourned your father Edana...) The pain in his eyes he hoped she would take as sympathy for her. He hoped.

 

"Ah!" he said as he spotted her shirt and walked over to pick it up. It was wet as expected. It was shaping up to be a rather cold day. He lacked a shirt and her clothes were just wet. "I have a place I use for a camp on occasion a little farther down... its secluded but theres a fire pit already dug out and lined in stone... if you trust me enough to get dry in a private location. If its too soon we can walk back to the Yards. It will take longer but you will have protection from scary trainees you only met a few hours ago.... if there were any of those around." The last he added jokingly.

Edana searched his expression for sarcasm. Her father had many friends and it was hardly the first time she'd seen the sympathy in a stranger's face when they learned who her father was. His expression held a hint more than the usual amount of sympathy, but if he was there when it happened...

 

He averted his eyes and headed back towards the water, so she let it drop. He fished her shirt from the bend and she smiled. "If you get too full of yourself, I can always see if river water makes my sword easier to handle. I owe you a few bruises somewhere along the seat of your pants, if memory serves..."

 

She followed where he lead, unlacing his shirt while his back was turned and slipping her wet shirt back on. She let it hang loose, the laces open. Lacing it up wouldn't serve any better purpose. She handed him his shirt, a little sorry to see his chest covered again. "Your shirt, Sandre," she smiled as she passed it to him.

 

~Edana

"If you get too full of yourself, I can always see if river water makes my sword easier to handle. I owe you a few bruises somewhere along the seat of your pants, if memory serves..."

 

Sandre could only laugh at that. "I dont think you want to start settling today's debts with me Edana. I was the one who was seen completely naked remember?"

 

He turned towards the copse of trees he knew of and continued walking.

 

"Your shirt, Sandre,"

 

He returned her smile and threw on his shirt. At least it was warmer... It was a fair walk to the camp but not as far as it would have been back to the yards. When he came to it he picked up a stick. From a distance it looked like a clump of trees and rocks on both sides of the river. There was no clear path in that wasnt obstructed with nettle thorns or itchweed or a large tree or boulder. However Sandre had walked this path before and moved any nettle and itchweed aside. They came to a boulder of course and Sandre, without thinking turned around and lifted Edana by the waste on to the boulder where you could see the clearing inside. (She was so soft and warm) Stunned by his own thoughts he shook his head as though arguing in his own mind. That thought was foreign. He didnt pay attention to such things.

 

After climbing up himself he jumped down into the clearing... well if you could call it a clearing. It was once a house. The flag stones were still on the floor though grass was growing between them. The fire pit was in the middle of the floor which was more of a Borderlander design. Only one wall stood, opposite of the river and part of the roof hung from that offering cover in a quarter of the house. The other three walls only went two or three stones high, but you could see the river since the wall facing it was completely gone.

 

Going under the little corner of the house with cover Sandre gathered some wood and tinder he had left on a previous camping trip and used flint and steel to coax a fire. Sandre laid out on the flag stones by the fire, glancing on occasion over to Edana who had taken a seat by it. He was contemplating in his mind when things like beauty and the warmth and feel of a woman started to matter to him again. He wasnt sure he liked it. It meant that he would trust again. He put it out of his mind and wrestled it into control. He had to stop looking at Edana. The firelight and the open shirt had another effect on him he wasnt sure he liked. When he felt comfortably in control again he broke the silence.

 

"Ive always been a man in control of every aspect of his emotions and reactions. I chose to never grow attached to anyone. I chose not to see gender of male and female but rather see everyone as people. This morning though in fact I had my day planned to be completely different. Yet being around you I seem to lose myself. I dont plan days or training I plan how to make you smile again. Its unlike me so...." He looked towards her fear and worry written on his face. His cool composure completely gone in a near panic as he knows that with this particular woman, he would never be able to go back to what he was. "Dont betray me ok?"

 

Maybe it was a stupid thing to say. However again he found a woman he enjoyed being around, last time he was in fact betrayed. Yet this time she knew betrayal as well. Still inside he was in a panic and his mind screamed at him to run. He looked away and shut his eyes. (The flame and the void. The flame burned, feed all emotion into it.) At least his breathing went back to normal.

Edana grinned at his laugh as very clear images of his nudity flashed in her thoughts. He turned away and she breathed a little easier. Had he caught her blush this time, too? When they came upon the boulder, she thought to turn back, but his hands around her waist made her gasp. Her hands landed on his shoulders in reflex and the muscles shifting under her hands made them tremble as he stepped away. She stepped down off the rock quickly, hiding the flush she was sure rode high on her cheeks as she took in the beauty of the sight around her.

 

She moved in a circle, happy to put thoughts she shouldn't be having out of her head and focus on something more concrete. When she felt the warmth of the fire, she moved towards it, eager for the warmth the dancing flames would provide. HIs voice brought her attention back to him and the warmth suddenly had nothing to do with the fire. "Ive always been a man in control of every aspect of his emotions and reactions. I chose to never grow attached to anyone. I chose not to see gender of male and female but rather see everyone as people. This morning though in fact I had my day planned to be completely different. Yet being around you I seem to lose myself. I dont plan days or training I plan how to make you smile again. Its unlike me so...." Her throat closed up and her chest tightened. He felt this, too? Her fingers fidgeted with the hem of her shirt and she wished she'd thought to lace it up before now. "Dont betray me ok?"

 

She closed her eyes, dropping her gaze to her feet. How could his lips echo her thoughts so well? It took a moment to gather herself enough to answer him, but only because she had to look at him again. He wasn't smiling, anymore. The raw emotion in his eyes did strange things in her chest. "How did you...? I could never..." she started, raising her eyes to his. "I could never inflict that much pain on another person. I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing what that feels like. And I..." Light, when had she become to inarticulate?! "I didn't plan my day to turn out like this, either."

 

She watched the firelight flicker in his eyes and dance across his cheeks. He will be my undoing, she thought, nearly feeling her willpower dissolve. I just want to see his smile again. Quick, throw a joke out, anything to keep this from heading down too serious a path! Her mind searched for something witty, but all that came out was, "I don't think I could survive another betrayal. Please..."

(Shes worried about me betraying her?!... of course she would. Her own brothers did. Sandre this woman has made you lose your wits.)

 

"You will have to worry more about me doing something incredibly foolish to make sure you are not betrayed by anyone every again... much less myself."

 

He sat up. Looking at her through the flames he was not sure how to make her relax again. A boyish grin took his face.

 

"If that was worrying you what else are you hiding from me?"

 

He was still hunched over meekly knowing what was at stake but still grinning. He somehow felt that she would in fact never betray him. That lifted mountains from his shoulder he never knew were there.

 

"Or to I have to be unclothed again to make you open up?"

"If that was worrying you what else are you hiding from me?" Her eyes widened and then immediately dropped to her sword. Did she dare tell him and risk having her low standing here at the Tower thrown back at her? She slowly pulled the sword free of the scabbard again and looked down at it, watching the flames dance up the blade. "Or to I have to be unclothed again to make you open up?"

 

She looked back at him, seeing his rakish grin spreading across his face again. "It's mine," she said, unable to keep the words from tumbling free of her lips. "The sword isn't my father's, it's mine." She held her breath, realizing that it seemed like such a silly thing to be worried about. "I don't want anyone to know. Everyone takes shots at a Captain when they're brought low and I don't want to spend every day proving that I've earned these marks."

His grin never left. "You will quickly find that you will not be judged here on your past deeds. Good or bad. So the sword is yours. Be proud of it, but dont expect too much of a reaction from it. You have a chance to make a new life and a new home for yourself. The depth that it becomes that is up to you."

 

(She was hiding a sword?)

 

"I have a confession for you too though I am not sure you would appreciate this one... I cared for your father. I mourned him as well. For what its worth, he loved you. You and your brothers."

 

Sandre got up and walked around the fire and sat next to her. The fire was a tricky thing, the way light seems to cast a shadow to make other features stand out. He took her hand which was still cold and shivering. Then he looked into the fire.

 

 

Edana nodded, though her shivering fingers still caressed the markings up the blade she rested on her knees. "I have a confession for you too though I am not sure you would appreciate this one... I cared for your father. I mourned him as well. For what its worth, he loved you. You and your brothers."

 

She felt her lip tremble and knew it had nothing to do with the chill in the air. She was her father's daughter, had been doted on while he was alive. For all his gruffness, her father had been a great man. "How did you know him?" she whispered softly. She'd known that a little piece of her had never stopped mourning her father. She'd visited his grave when she'd earned her Captain's marks, after all. What fingerprint had he left of this smiling man's life?