Chapter 2
Moiraine sees the fish on the table, and she can’t help the way she stiffens. The white fish is gleaming in the dim lights of the hall, its dead eyes mocking her. She knows, logically, that this fish does not have to be a slight to her person. It could very well just be that the university wanted to host the faculty with Tar Valon’s speciality. But she sees the empty seat two seats down from where she sits, and she cannot explain how, but she knows.
“Is something wrong?” Lan asks. She shakes her head, restraining herself from standing up and fleeing. She had known what she was signing up for when she agreed to the event, but now, so close to the moment that she had spent the past week in trepidation for, she suddenly wants to balk. It would not be cowardice, she tries to tell herself. It is not cowardly to want to leave this event with her heart intact and her soul her own. “When is this flaming thing starting,” she mutters to Lan, as aware as he is that they have only just sat down. From the corner of her eye, she spots Alanna coming down the table. Good. If Alanna is sitting next to her, then she won’t have to make insipid conversation with someone she hardly knows. “We’ve been waiting for-”
She never finishes her sentence. Dimly, Moiraine is aware that the rest of the room only pauses for Siuan's entrance, but her mind quiets so suddenly all she can hear is the thump, thump of her heart. She picks up her fork and knife, glares at the dead fish, and cuts into it as viciously as she dares to in public. She suppresses the desire to flee.
She feels more than sees Lan turn to her, and before he can ask– she doesn’t know if she can bear for him to ask– she says, shortly, “Tonight isn’t about her.”
If it were anyone else next to her, this would have led to more questions. Because it is Lan, though, it only shows her hand. She is well aware of this. She feels a small swirl of warmth when Lan doesn’t push, but it is quickly killed in the cradle by the next remark Lan makes. “Fishy,” he says, face completely stoic. She reads the amusement in the set of his mouth anyways, and she glares at him, every sense still hyper-focused on the woman approaching their side of the table. Siuan’s approach is a glaring signal, blaring in the corner of her eye.
“Enjoy it,” she tells Lan, telling herself to soften her voice. She chose to come, so this is her burden, and hers alone. “There won’t be much more of it when we return to the field.” Siuan passes by her, so close Moiraine can practically feel the swish of the president’s clothing against her back. She closes her eyes for a moment, the phantom feeling washing over her, and cuts another piece of fish. “When are our return tickets booked for?”
“The day after tomorrow.” Burn that man. He must be trying to get her to go visit family or friends. After all this time, he still seems to believe that she has any left that she would want to see.
“The event ends tonight.”
Lan’s voice is even. “I thought there might be people you would want to see in the city.”
“There are none. Please see if you can change the tickets.”
She doesn’t miss Lan’s glance up to where Siuan sits, although she hardly registers it. Two seats down, and yet she is burning at the idea that Siuan could be looking at her. Light, she is pathetic.
“There are people I would like to see.” Moiraine softens immediately. Of course, she berates herself. Lan has family. Lan probably has friends, as well, although he talks about his university days as rarely as she does her own. She has seen the way that Anjen and Stepin speak to him, with such old familiarity that if she were a different person she might have felt the green-eyed monster rear its ugly head.
“Of course,” she acquiesces. She could leave alone, but she is as uneasy leaving Lan alone in this city as he is leaving her. He doesn’t suggest it, either.
“Already planning on leaving us?” Alanna cuts in. Her eyes gleam with amusement. “You only just got back, Moiraine.”
“The city is far too loud for me,” Moiraine replies, cutting into a piece of her bok choy. She nibbles on it, delicately, but her stomach is still broiled in the sensation of seeing Siuan again. She hasn't even dared to look in Siuan's direction yet. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“For the sights, of course,” Alanna says, looking straight at Lan and winking. Moiraine lets herself give Alanna a half-smile, while Lan just raises an eyebrow. “The desert is so boring.”
“There are still sights there, you know.”
Alanna sighs, lifting her chin in gesture to the man sitting next to her. Ihvon, if Moiraine recalls from their conversation last night. New, but only to Moiraine. Apparently he had joined Alanna’s research team, and her relationship, half a decade ago. He is gesturing madly, deep in conversation with Anjen. An Andorran with no family connections in the city that she is aware of. But then Alanna has never needed to play Daes Dae'mar. “But are they as fine as the ones in the city?”
Moiraine is perfectly innocent as she replies. “Even better.”
Alanna gasps dramatically. “Moiraine Damodred!” She exclaims, pointing her fork at Moiraine. Moiraine takes a small sip from her glass of wine, just barely holding back from smirking. “What are you implying?”
“The desert has beautiful canyons.” Moiraine replies evenly. “Whatever were you thinking of, Alanna?”
“The desert’s got to you too, then,” Alanna says, eating a piece of her own fish. “If you’re making sex jokes at a dinner party.”
Lan nudges her. “Are you going to eat the fish at all?” He asks, gesturing to her untouched fish. She shakes her head, lets him take it off her plate, before turning back to Alanna. “I would never.”
Alanna just smirks. “When are you leaving, then, Moiraine?” She asks, her voice softening into something more real. “I do want to show you around. It’s been so long since you’ve come back.”
“Two days from now.” She replies.
“Well, you have to at least give me one night.” At Moiraine’s raised eyebrow, Alanna throws her head back and laughs. “See, I told you the desert got to you!”
“You flatter the desert.”
Alanna shakes her head, disbelievingly. “And this is why I need to get a drink with you. Come on, Moiraine. Don’t you miss your old friend? I know Kerene would like to get some more time to catch up, too.”
“I believe that is what we’re doing here, is it not?”
Alanna gives her an unimpressed look. “This is work.”
“I would hardly-” Moiraine almost stutters over her words, because in the corner of her eye Siuan stands and is moving closer to her with such intent that she nearly loses her breath. “Call this work,” she finishes.
Thankfully, Alanna doesn’t notice. “Not work?” She launches into a passionate protest of work and social events, but Moiraine doesn’t hear any of it because Siuan is standing right behind her now. The world has slowed again. Everything is a little dimmer, a little sharper, because she can almost feel Siuan’s warmth. Burn the Wheel, she suddenly decides. Moiraine can feel her will bending and breaking under the pressure of her pure want. If Siuan asks her, if Siuan talks to her…
“Lan. It’s been so long. Come grab a glass with me.”
It is as though cold water is doused over her. Irrationally, something like jealousy rises in her, so high she worries that if she opens her mouth it will spill out and over, drowning everyone around her. Lan presses a hand to her leg before he stands, but it burns with the strength of her jealousy instead of the comfort she knows he means. It is all she can do to turn back to Alanna and say, with barely restrained anger, “Do they have these events often?”
“You have no idea. I wish I’d escaped when you did, sometimes,” Alanna says, blissfully unaware of everything that Moiraine is feeling. She continues, for which Moiraine feels a sliver of gratitude for, before it is engulfed by the overwhelming feeling of loss.
She hadn’t considered this possibility. In all of the thousand, thousand possibilities she imagined, she had imagined Siuan mocking her, embarrassing her in front of everyone, ignoring her. Yet she somehow hadn’t managed to imagine the one that would hurt the most, the one where Siuan could pass by her without a second glance, on the way to greet an old friend who wasn’t her. As though they had meant nothing to one another. As though they were but colleagues.
She watches Lan and Siuan out of the corner of her eye, because she is nothing if not a masochist. She watches as Lan gives a small smile and Siuan pushes his arm. It hurts. It feels like someone has taken a burning tool to her soul, ripped it straight down the middle, and then handed it back to her. It hurts like she is standing there, holding two halves of her soul, with no way to put them back together. She’s the only one, it seems, that has been stuck in the past. Worse than that, above all else, all she wants is to be the one standing in Lan’s position at the moment. The indignity of it stings her like a slap across the face. She smiles at Alanna, answers another question, asks another question, but she doesn’t retain any of the information. She watches herself perform these motions from afar.
Siuan turns away, for a moment, and Moiraine catches Lan's eye. She doesn’t know what he reads in her face, but immediately his brow creases in worry. She should be worried, in some sense. Someone will surely see her distress and use it against her, a lesson well-learned from her childhood. But she can’t rein in the anguish that is slowly starting to spread from the tips of her fingers to the top of her head. She watches as Lan excuses himself from his conversation with Siuan, as Lan makes his way back to her. “Your tall, brooding man is back,” Alanna notes, her eyes twinkling.
She has enough strength of mind to give Alanna an unimpressed look. “You know he isn’t mine.”
“Well, either way. He looks like he has something to say.” Alanna leans in, a little closer, and whispers, all traces of amusement gone, “I don't know what he said. But you should know... You might have powerful enemies on campus, Moiraine, but you are not alone.” Alanna pats Moiraine’s hand, her jaw tightening with resolution. “And you have powerful friends, too.”
Moiraine smiles at her, her gratitude for Alanna’s loyalty and friendship a small bit of warmth staving off heartbreak's impending cold. “Thank you.”
Alanna pats her hand one last time and nods at Lan. “Okay, go talk to him.” She winks again. “I know you want to.”
Moiraine groans quietly, shaking her head at her friend, before she turns to Lan. “Was it about the funding?” She asks, watching as he sits back down and cuts into the fish as though nothing bad has happened. She hopes nothing bad has. She isn’t sure how she would react if something had happened to their funding, too.
Lan shakes his head. “Just wanted to catch up. You should go speak to her. Network.”
“Stop smirking at me like that.”
“You know,” Lan says, his voice almost bored. Moiraine almost wants him to stop speaking. “I think if you craned your neck a little further backwards you could turn your neck like an owl.”
Her cheeks flush with humiliation. “That is untrue.” She almost doesn’t care how obvious she had been, but she imagines Siuan knowing how stuck she is in the past and humiliation flares, bright and painful, in her chest.
“She’s not going to bite your head off, Moiraine. And we have the funding to think of. Go speak to her.” And it is a flimsy excuse, but Light, how badly Moiraine wants to listen to him. She could, she realizes. She could take this flimsy excuse that would barely warrant an email and go speak to Siuan. Her soul sings for it, and yet she sits, for another moment, a war waging inside her.
Siuan is still standing by the bar, sipping her whiskey. Moiraine knows, although she doesn’t turn back to look, because every sense of hers is heightened by the intoxicating proximity she has now to the object of all of her desires. She spears another piece of fish. It is still mocking her, its dead eyes unmoving. Somehow, its dead look is goading, and so she pulls herself together. She glares at Lan, unsure if she is grateful or infuriated by his encouragement, but she stands, nonetheless.
Siuan’s eyes are on her the moment she turns, and Moiraine’e eyes are anywhere but on Siuan. She worries that one look at Siuan and everything she has managed to hide inside will come tumbling out, that words will appear on her face for all to read. Instead, she looks down, as though she is worried she’ll trip in heels shorter than the ones she mastered in primary school, and waves over the bartender when she reaches the spot where Lan was standing moments ago. “One glass of rose, please,” she says, quietly. The bartender nods, and it isn’t until she has taken a healthy sip that Moiraine feels brave enough to set the glass down, take a breath, and turn. “Hello, Dr. Sanche.”
Siuan’s eyes are filled with something she doesn’t dare try to read anymore. “Hello, Dr. Damodred.” Even that last name, the one Moiraine wears with shame at times and pride at others, is poetry from Siuan’s tongue. Siuan takes a healthy sip from her own glass. It is whiskey, Moiraine notes distantly. Siuan still drinks the same drink. It should bring her comfort, but instead it is just sad. Another reminder of how far they've drifted. “How are you?”
“Fine.” Moiraine replies, taking another small sip from her glass. She puts the glass down, for good this time. The edges of the night are already fuzzy. She doesn’t need more alcohol. “How are you?”
“Tired,” Siuan smiles at her, as though to illustrate the point. Gone is the bright smile she had given to Lan. In its place is something more haggard, something a little tender. Moiraine’s hand clenches around the stem of her glass involuntarily, and she tells her stubborn heart to stop hoping. Siuan is just as she said. Tired. “This job… It’s like being thrown into a school of silverpike.”
Against her wishes, Moiraine snorts. “You and your fish.”
Siuan’s smile has, almost imperceptibly, softened. “Did you enjoy the fish?”
“Of course I did, Madame President.” It was like a knife that you stabbed into my heart, Moiraine doesn’t say.
“I hate that.” Siuan replies, soft and with none of the passion her words convey. “I’m not that. Not to you.”
Moraine’s heart is split into even smaller pieces. Her stupid heart beats, even then. “Who are you to me, then?”
“Siuan.” Siuan looks at her evenly. “Always. Just Siuan.”
“I wasn’t sure if…” Moiraine trails off. She resists the urge to flee or to take another sip from her glass. Siuan is looking at her like she’s going to shatter her heart further. “Congratulations, Siuan. You deserve the seat.”
“You didn’t come to the ceremony.”
“I wasn’t sure you wanted me there.”
Siuan scoffs. “I sent you an invite, didn’t I?”
“You’re president now.” Moiraine replies, softly. She leaves the latter half of the sentence unsaid.
Siuan just looks sad, now. Sad, and older. Light, Moiraine can’t stop the way that her eyes want to roam over Siuan’s face, cataloging every small thing that is different about her. The way that there are lines now, small creases that speak to every emotion that Siuan has felt in the seven years since they have seen one another. Siuan stands a little taller, her eyes a little more hooded. “I am, aren’t I?” Siuan sighs. “Sometimes I wonder if this was a good idea.”
“You were made for the job.”
“Don’t flatter me.”
Moiraine shakes her head. “I wouldn't.”
Siuan takes another sip of her whiskey, sets her glass down, and turns to Moiraine. She is standing a little taller, a little straighter, and with a twinge of her stubbornly persistent hope Moiraine realizes that Siuan just shut something away from her eyes. “Alright then. Let's get down to business. Why are you here?”
Moiraine straightens, too. She is speaking now to the president of her university, and from the hardness in Siuan’s eyes she’s not sure what outcome this conversation will lead to. “The project that I’m working on right now.”
“Has something happened?”
Moiraine looks out. Lan is watching them, although he isn’t looking at them. His head is tilted, engrossed in conversation with Stepin, but she knows he is watching. She sees others watching, too, though none of them hide it as well as Lan. The rumors of her falling out with Siuan have spread like a wildfire, and Moiraine is hyper aware of the eyes on her. “Nothing yet. The funds from my grant, though, will run out in five years.”
Frowning, Siuan asks, “Do you want the university’s support for more?”
“That would be helpful.”
“I’ve read your reports and updates when you send them,” Siuan waves hand carelessly. “That shouldn’t be an issue.”
“I know Liandrin is thinking of conducting similar research in Tear.”
Siuan tilts her head. “She’s got another thing coming if she thinks I’m going to let her get her slimy fingers all over Tear.”
Moiraine smiles at that. “I didn’t think so. But,” she shifts a little closer to Siuan, lowers her voice. Siuan stiffens, almost shrinks from her, and immediately Moiraine wants to turn tail and run away. Swallowing her humiliation, she says, more cold than she thought she was capable of towards Siuan, “I have more data on the Dragon Reborn. I think, before the fund runs out, I will have enough from Rhuidean that I will be able to return to the Borderlands to aid their fight against the Blight.”
Siuan looks astonished. “Light, Moiraine. That's- What have you not been reporting?”
“I wanted to tell you in person.”
“Who else knows?”
“No one yet. I have yet to tell Lan. A few of the post-docs onsite are analyzing some of the data, but I’m not sure they know what it is yet.” She hesitates, for the first time. “This is very confidential, of course.”
Siuan looks insulted at that. “Don’t you know me better than that?”
“I had to be sure.” Moiraine lets her tone fall into something like an apology, though she doesn’t word one. She doesn’t know if she can lie to Siuan, and she isn’t sure she wants to. “Can you stop word from spreading until I get the data to the Borderlands?”
Siuan nods. “Of course.”
Moiraine lets out a sigh of relief, and finally, finally lets herself smile at Siuan. She didn't realize how stiffly she was holding herself until she lets herself relax. “Thank you.” She chuckles a little. “Lan will never admit it, but he will be glad to go home.”
Siuan, though, goes silent. When Moiraine turns back to look at her, Siuan is staring at her, her eyes dark and something terribly easy to decipher in them. She looks, in other words, enraptured. Moiraine’s surprise is quickly washed away by a fear that grips her so strongly she nearly flinches away. She recognizes Siuan’s look, but her small shard of heart that still beats for Siuan is too afraid to even begin to think about what it means. “Do you…” Siuan’s voice trails off. She clears her throat. “Can we take this conversation to somewhere more private?”
Moiraine’s throat has suddenly gone too dry for her to formulate a response. She just nods, instead, letting Siuan lead her out of the hall. Siuan’s strides are long and purposeful, and Moiraine’s brain vaguely registers that Siuan has taken her to the same booth that Lan had sat in with her last night. Siuan gestures for her to sit so she does, helpless and desperate for something she can’t even name.
“I’m surprised you asked me for this.” Siuan says, softly, not looking at her.
Moiraine surprises herself by chuckling, the sound dry. “Who else could I have asked?”
“After-” Siuan shrugs. “I didn’t think you would trust me again.”
Moiraine wants to tell Siuan that it wasn’t her fault. That there was nothing she could have done. But instead, what comes out of her mouth is, “You can’t fail again. Not this time.”
Siun lets out a sigh, still looking at her hands. “You should have been the PI on that project. You would never have let the data get leaked.”
“If I had been PI, the data would have never been decrypted.” Moiraine says simply. She knows that Siuan knows that it is true, too. She could have kept the data safe, because Moiraine would never have let anyone else touch it. But if Siuan had never let anyone else see it, the data wouldn’t have been decrypted so quickly. Logically, she shouldn’t blame Siuan for doing what she had to do. Logically, she shouldn’t be sitting alone with Siuan, their history a heavy scent clinging to their every move. Logically, Moiraine should have told Lan to change her ticket so she could leave as soon as the event is over.
“Are you trying to absolve me?” Siuan’s voice is watery.
“No.” Moiraine says. She couldn’t, as hard as she has tried.
Siuan looks at her, finally. “Then why did you come back, Moiraine? You know as well as I do that anything you wanted to ask me for could have been over email. Even this, this Dragon Reborn business, could have been done virtually.” Her eyes broker no space for a denial. “Why did you come back?” Siuan’s breath hitches. “Why are you doing this?”
Moiraine tries to shrug. At some point during this conversation, although she can’t pinpoint when, tears had started welling up in her eyes. They are silent and stubborn, turning the world blurry and unrecognizable. “I-” She takes a deep breath. She doesn’t know what she wants to say. “I got an invitation.”
“Fish guts.” Siuan replies. “Don’t do that. Not to me. What do you want, Moiraine?”
Moiraine tries to find some way to deny her, deny the way that Siuan is looking at her now with tears welling and eyes so bright they are Light itself. She tries, Light help her, but in the end, she’s never been able to say no to Siuan. She laughs, a wretched thing, and a tear finally struggles through and falls.
“You,” she says, as sincere as she can be. “Only you, Siuan.” She shrugs, desperately trying to hide the heartbreak that never healed. “When have I ever wanted anything else?”
Suan is on her feet in a flash, and before Moiraine can move away, before Moiraine can protest that this is in public, Siuan is on her knees before Moiraine, capturing her hand. “You can have me.” Siuan whispers, entreatingly. “I am yours.”
Moiraine shakes her head. Siuan’s words massacre any defenses she might have had, but she grasps at the final strands of rationality that she can still remember. “No, Siuan. We- We broke what we had. It can’t be fixed.” Moiraine wonders if there is anything more humiliating than making a fool of oneself, and then refusing the one thing that would have made it worth it.
“Then we’ll make something new.” Siuan’s voice is impossibly sure. “Give us a chance, Moiraine." She catches Moiraine's hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles. She is beautiful, worshiping and sacred at once, as she looks up into Moiraine's eyes and says, each word carefully enunciated: "I am yours, in this turning of the Wheel and the next. Yours in every turn of the Wheel.”
Siuan is so ardent, so alive, so brilliantly incandescent. Moiraine’s last defenses crumble in the face of her light, and she shakes her head, already leaning forward as she whispers, “As I am yours.” She closes her eyes, a whisper away from Siuan’s lips, and whispers again, “As I am yours.”
Soft lips find hers, and finally, finally, tears fall.
Their tears mix with one another’s until Moiraine can’t tell which are hers and which are Siuan’s, but the taste of Siuan’s lips is a sweet welcome home that Moiraine didn’t even know how much she ached for. “I love you.” She whispers, when they break apart for air, not caring that anyone could walk in on them right now.
Siuan smiles at her, clear even through Moiraine’s haze of tears. “As I love you.” She replies, and Moiraine rushes to cover her lips once more.
Hours, years, minutes, seconds pass.
Siuan makes a small sound, something desperate and pathetic, and Moiraine is decimated.