Workin' On Our Night Moves

[Avyanna Sarat]

Avyanna sat on the edge of her bed, a lacquered nail tracing lines idly on her green satin cover. Tonight, would be a true test of her skill. It wouldn’t be too different from Rhalin, tapping into a hate someone already had was a specialty of hers. The part that gave her pause though, was the uncertainty. She knew the Asha’man would be in the world of dreams tonight, she trusted Moranna’s information on that. Her only concern was, knowing he was using a Ter'angreal, he would surely plan to awake after his duty was done and rid himself of the object before shielding himself safely in his dreams.

That wasn’t so different from Rhalin either; she would use the same tricks on Terron. She simply needed to make him believe he had woken up, disposed of the Ter'angreal and gone back to sleep. It wasn’t an impossible feat; she had done it before.

How many times was she going to remind herself of that before lying down? The sun was starting to set, and she knew she needed to hurry. She couldn’t follow him if she couldn’t find him and he would be easiest to find in the Black Tower before he left.

If she failed, there would be other nights, she reassured herself. Then she cringed. Avyanna was disgusted by her own effort to make failure acceptable. Moghedien would not find it acceptable. Too many failures might make the mother question her worth, and Avyanna longed to rule by her side as one of the new chosen.

She took a deep breath and then climbed under the covers, adjusting her white sleeping gown for optimum comfort. It had been a gift from Moranna, who had wanted to see her in white. She smiled slightly to herself about that. Then she closed her eyes and steadied her breaths, and when she opened them again, she was in the Black Tower. She altered her form, appearing as a semi transparent Asha’man who was unconsciously flickering in and out of Tel'aran'rhiod. Where would he appear in the tower? The less experienced one was in the dream world the more likely they were to enter it near their body in the waking world, but Terron’s sleeping quarters were currently in the borderlands and so he would be traveling from there. She instead went to the War Council's audience chamber, hoping that was where he would go to make his report. It made sense to her, but for all she knew, these Black Tower brothers gave reports in their bedchambers instead.

I will find him, and I will not fail. She told herself.

[Terron Aravell]

Terron had never truly been comfortable in Tel’aran’rhoid. Though all Asha’man had basic training in the World of the Dreams, for some reason it had always held greater danger for him than for his peers. He was no natural Dreamer, to enter Tel’aran’rhoid by instinct and shape it to his will with no more effort than waving a hand, but the world had always reacted to his thoughts a bit more sharply than for others. Asha’man Evian, who had been his teacher and who had first introduced him to Tel’aran’rhoid, noted from the substance of the projections that he had unwittingly created at times that the World of Dreams seemed to react to his anger, and that the only reason that Tel’aran’rhoid would react so strongly to it was if there was an overabundance of it in his mind.

So before Terron went into the World of Dreams, he always had to sit down and meditate, calming himself before falling asleep. And when he arrived, he would usually continue to meditate even more, breathing the scents on the gentle breeze, watching the wings of a butterfly, anything to distract him from his perpetual anger, which truth be told was partially slaked out on the field of battle against Trollocs.

But he had forgotten to do it today. Thankfully nothing untoward had happened whilsts in the Black Tower, and the meeting with the Captain General had been short, which allowed him to simply focus on reporting the ongoings in the Borderlands (today, Kandor, nothing much to report, the Blight maybe expanded southward by a few paces, a few raids on outlying villages that the Asha’man had been able to quash) without too much problem. Still, once the meeting was over, Terron took the first opportunity to vanish outside the walls of the Black Tower, and with a wave of a hand, set the field in front of him on fire with a wave of a hand.

No need to embrace the power. Just will it to happen, and the entire yard burst into flames. And then he relaxed his will, and the yard was back to the original green state, and Terron sagged to the ground, his mental state exhausted to keeping the turmoil in his brain from leaking free.

[Avyanna Sarat]

Avyanna made her way to the War council's audience chamber quickly. She continued to flicker in and out in her Asha'man disguise until she arrived there. Fairly certain that even an accidental unaware intruder would interrupt the meeting in a way she would like to avoid, she became completely invisible and waited. She stood silently in the corner, listening to the report, but gaining little information her own contacts hadn't already supplied to her.

When the two men abruptly disappeared she cursed and jumped to Saldaea, but felt little hope in finding Terron without a better knowledge of his quarters. In fact, the man had probably already woken up and she missed her chance.

On a whim, she made another stop in Caralain, hoping against hope the Asha'man was wandering around in a fog of nostalgia. He didn't seem the fuzzy memory type, but she didn't want to go home empty handed so soon.

She was shocked to find the entire yard ablaze, but smiled as she located the source. Oh this was almost too easy. She couldn't fathom why he needed to let loose in such a manner after so bland a meeting, but it would work to her advantage. As the flames disappeared and he fell to his knees, she felt giddy with anticipation. This man was really in an unfortunate state of mind. How fortunate for her.

Before he could recover and disappear again, she decided to make a move. Her plan of creating the perfect storm was forgotten as she decided not to wait and trick him into thinking he was only dreaming. The men surely knew less than she about the way Tel'aran'rhiod worked. While she would prefer he think he was dreaming and all of this came from his own head, she doubted he would realize it was the work of another. Or at least, she hoped. If he suspected, she would be in great danger and didn't want anyone on her tail. She had enough to worry about. Failing was one of those worries though, so she decided to take the chance.

Hoping he would think he was still responsible, she created the burnt charred bodies of his family members laying where his flames had been. Slowly she had them rise, their corpses losing appendages to crumbling ash as they did so, but their faces all remained intact. He could not fail to notice their movement, and when he looked up she had them begin to laugh as they slowly came towards him.

"He can't do anything right can he?" One said to another.

"What sort of man tries to kill his own family?" asked another.

"He was never truly one of us anyway." Piped up a third, the fringe of her shawl had melted to the flesh of her arms, appearing like tiny worms clinging to her blackened skin.

Avyanna would have liked to add Sana to the mix, but wasn't sure if that was the best idea with their bond.

The fourth walking corpse was however, Deshion and he spoke to his son, full of contempt.

"I should have killed you the moment you sprang from your mother's womb, I never wanted a son, but even with the lowest of expectations, you somehow manage to disappoint me still."

Avyanna didn't wait to see what the Asha'man did. This was enough for one night. She slipped out of Tel’aran’rhoid to sleep in her own bed, dreams shielded.