News [Open to One]

[Gawain]

~Concentrate, old man.~

It had been a long, long time since this trip had been made, but that shouldn't matter. Muscle memory, Power memory, almost the same thing for him. He once again shuddered at the feeling of the True Power, always there, always waiting for him to make a small miscalculation, once again beckoned. Steeling himself, he almost angrily shoved it aside and seized the Source. Saidin crackled and tore at him, but he gripped the Power like a comfortingly familiar sword-hilt and channeled. A vertical slit appeared before him, rotated, trailing fine blue electricity behind it, and formed a perfect circle. The air beyond this Gateway shimmered, and he was almost...almost....shocked to see that not much had changed. With no further compunctions, he stepped through....

A scant few seconds were spent, senses open to everything, before he settled himself. Taking a few strides, he sat down on the foot of the bed, reached into his overcoat, and touched an object. Only one person in all of the realms known to both mortal and immortal would take note of that slight, one-fingered caress. He smiled, removing his hand, and settled.

She would be there soon. After all of the years they had known one another, they knew each other as well as they knew themselves.

[Airtia S. Cauthon]

Whoever could say, with certainty, what Airtia was doing. Either it was pleasant and you were safe, or you were on the other side and your circumstances were pretty grim. At any case, what she was doing was not a concern for the now, but it was the fact that she stopped in her task once she felt a tug. It was ever so slight that it may have been ignored, but she knew better. How long had it been since she felt his presence?  This made it all the more curious as to why the call had come now.

Airtia pursed her lips together and pulled on her leather gloves before reattaching her dark red cloak and leaving what she had been doing. It could wait.  She blew out the rooms light and opened a gateway.

Less than a moment later Airtia Cauthon had stepped through the gateway and was now standing on the other side of the room. “How surprised I am tae see ye here,”  she said, a slow smile creeping upon her face. Airtia approached him, but she did not sit on the bed.  She reached a gloved hand out to him.  “T’as been a long while.”

[Gawain]

He smiled easily, breathing in her scent, and took her hand gently. "Too long, Airtia. You're a sight for sore eyes, as always. He rose, tugging her hand gently, and would offer an embrace. As was his habit, the parameters of that embrace would be defined by her.

"You know I've been muting my end of our Bond for a great deal of time now." A statement, not a question. He knew his wife was neither stupid nor inattentive. "There have been a few...odd...developments since last we spoke. We should talk...at length, I fear. Are we secure?" He couldn't see any weaves she may have laid around the room any clearer than a blind man could describe a flower. He would wait, of course, and allow her a moment. What he had to say would most likely be a little jarring. She would, were she open to the sensation, feel a slight tenseness coming from him, along with a warmth that could be explained by his seeing her once more.

[Airtia S. Cauthon]

Airtia drew him close as he had given her his hand, it let her examine him better, amongst other things. Though it had been a while since she saw him, he still felt different. When you’re bonded to someone there isn’t much about them that is ‘new’ or different, but there was something about him now which was exactly this. Her gloved hand moved slowly up along his back as she watched his face, nodding at the statement about the Bond.

This wasn’t the first time they hadn’t been able to feel each other through it, so it was nothing out of sorts, but now… “What ‘as happened tae ye? Nae one will hear ye here.” Of course her place was secure. Anyplace that she went would often get wards put up to keep people from easily seeing and hearing what was going on. It was for her protection as well as their own.

[Gawain]

They had never kept many secrets, and to be honest, his very nature was not one of being secretive. "I've never sought to openly lie to you...besides the fact that I love you, I'm sure you'd know a lie the moment it left my lips. I've news, and I am sure you will be pleased and a little shocked, but I'll get to that in a moment. I feel that you have the right to know why I am...different. Look into my eyes. The left one, specifically." She would know his eyes, and would be able to see the slightest change...this was no slight change.

Three black flecks floated within the sometimes blue, sometimes gold iris of the left eye. "You know what they mean." Again, a statement. "I have no explanation on how I touched...it...nor why every time I channel, I have to push it back. Perhaps a lingering touch of the Taint, perhaps the manner of my return. I know not, nor how. I only know that somehow, I am not the same. For that, I am sorry." He swallowed slowly, looking directly into her eyes. No secrets. He made that vow to her nearly twenty years ago, and though he was many things, he was no oath-breaker.

[Airtia S. Cauthon]

She knew it and almost immediately her hand dropped from him and she took a step back. Airtia’s face took on it’s Sedai cool and unreadable nature, though her hands at the side flexed before balling into a fist. He knew her alignment - at least it was hinted at - even if she never stated it out loud. “Gawain…” It trailed off as she took a sharp intake of breath.

Airtia backed away from him some more and turned to the side, her fingers tapping against each other. “So what does this mean? Hmm?” Now Airtia looked back over at him and spread her hands. “Ya ‘ave gone through many changes b’fore and e’en a few turns at deaths door.” Her eyes narrowed at him a moment and then she directed her attention back to that strange eye of his. “When did ye discover this?”

[Gawain]

"Right after I, in my arrogance, did not heed my training and idly sought to open a Gateway. Instead, I tore the Pattern and stepped through. I went a little off-track for a time. I began using techniques I had only heard about from my readings on the Chos-er, Forsaken. The...the "dark", as I've come to think of it, is there every time I seize Saidin. Every time. I only noticed the sa'a a few months ago. I have wanted to tell you for so long, but..." He trailed off, looking away and chuckling wryly. "I felt that I needed to protect you, as silly as that may sound." He glanced in her direction, then downward. "If it helps, I fight it. I have not lost myself, nor do I intend to."

A moment would pass, should she allow it, before he spoke again. "I tried to deny it, then I tried to expunge it. It's there, and it isn't leaving. Not willingly. But...I'm still me. I have no intention of losing another part of myself, nor will I lose myself entirely. Just tell me this-have I lost you?" It was a question he dreaded to ask, yet desperately needed to know the answer to...yes, he knew of her allegiance, and he didn't care. She was Airtia, and he accepted every facet of her willingly. But this....

[Airtia S. Cauthon]

“I’m here, yes?” It wasn’t as though she had to come when she felt that connection, and it wasn’t simply due to her being curious about it being opened again after all this time.

Tenting her fingers Airtia walked around to the other side of him as she considered all the possibilities this presented. On the one hand, this was great. There were so many things that could be learned from this, not to mention the extra boost to his abilities. There was always a price for power and strength, his simply happened to be a madness. That was the downside. That Gawain would completely loose himself. This was something she had to think about for a moment. Being who she was, Airtia pushed the emotional side of this away and looked at it for what it was: a male with power that needed to be directed. It could be to a good use.

She couldn’t ignore the emotional side forever. They had children together and had been through a lot. “Ye still ‘ave me,” said as she approached him again. “We ‘ave been through worse. But, Gawain.. Ye ‘ave tae know that iffy ye become a threat what I would ‘ave tae do…”

[Gawain]

"That's exactly what I needed to hear." The thought of losing himself to the power he now wielded, whether he wished to or not, had been a source of constant worry for him since its discovery. "If I lose it, you know what to do, and how to do it." Yes, he knew what and who she was, but instead of fearing it, it made him love her even more.

"I know you can and will do what needs to be done, should it come to that. I seem to be able to control it through force of will, which is a comfort. I seem to have instinctively stopped before I went too far." He was relieved for many reasons, one of the chief being that she had chosen to close the distance she had put between them after he told her. "As with the Power I already possessed, it will only be used if necessary, and only in defense of what I hold dear." She would know who and what that encompassed.

A small tilt of his lips belied both his relief and the other reason he had come to her. "You may wish to sit down for the next bit. No, it isn't bad news, quite the contrary, but it may be....jarring. I know it was for me."

[Airtia S. Cauthon]

Airtia’s left eyebrow rose in question when he stated she she ought to sit down for the next part of what he had to say. Mostly she was surprised that he’d think the news would be so shocking that she’d have to sit. He was only being concerned for her well-being.

“M’be t’was an simply instinct that made ye stop b’fore things got too far.” A simply statement that was delivered with a small tug of a smile to her lips. Airtia had not come too close, but she was enough and now she spread her hands in a bit of a shrug and did a roll of her shoulders. Thought it seemed as though this would cause for settling in for the night - right now anyway - she undid the clasp on her cloak. Letting it come loose, she caught it in her hand and then laid it across the bed.

“What tis the other news that ye ‘ave to tell me, Gawain?” If it was something that would be surprising, perhaps it would warrant action. She never liked being caught sitting when there may need be reason to stand.

[Gawain]

She always was hard to read. He smiled, and relaxed a little. "Well, you know how I'm a bad penny, what with the always turning back up? Turns out there's a tuppence. I have no idea how exactly, but Gareth is back. For the past few months, he has been living at the Wolf Head. He's bound there for a year....I didn't ask for specifics, as our friend V wasn't exactly in a very good place emotionally. But yes, Gareth lives."

He stopped for a moment, waiting for a reaction. He knew nothing would show on that Aes Sedai face, of course, and once again, he found himself wondering if they had classes in the Tower where all of the initiates stared into a mirror to practice that twice-accursed serene look. "I know, not a big jump from the whole 'hey, I touched Shai'tan's power and have a dash of pepper in one eye, ho-ho, what a laugh', but here I stand, still not Gentled, so....heh." Perhaps he had said too much again?

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