She headed for the gardens with a troubled look. She'd said to the Mother that she would rest up and then gather her supplies and party members to head out looking for her new prey before a fortnight was done, but had come across a bit of a problem.

Amarantha was troubled by her own thoughts. She had never been sent to bring in another Sister, or more than one, and though her experience with Povel had her wondering if it would be more difficult or not. These are Aes Sedai, she finally decided, and they are therefore more dangerous by far.  They have no madness, only a cunning, and these women will have more than most.

Beyond that, she was also troubled by the fact that she had yet to hear about Povel Dain's upcoming gentling. Amarantha had a suspicion--as well as the blatant observations and truths--that Toran was to stay at the Tower and be one of the new heads of the Warder program. She wasn't certain how he had managed it, actually, but kept silent until asked. She hadn't been able to speak with him at all since then due to his recovery, her duties, and now his own. It was strange, actually. She found herself becoming rather despondent over it.

But what had her anxious about the entire thing was the fact that Toran might try--no, she knew that he would do it regardless--to follow her on her mission. She wasn't certain that they would allow him, and wondered if there would be a large uproar over it. It's not what the Tower needs, she brooded darkly. And they can't afford to lose him just after placing him there. Though his presence might allow us to find and return with the Sisters that much faster...

She was no Grey. She had very little skill in the way of negotiation. She worked off of her logic and gut instinct, letting them go hand in hand for the most part. If trouble arose because of Toran's decisions, she wasn't certain she could smooth them over. It worried her endlessly.

And so she stalked for the gardens with a look of intensity on her face, all serenity forgotten. Those who curtsied to her went as unnoticed as those who didn't, and she didn't halt in her progress one whit to speak with anyone. She only knew that she needed a little bit of quiet to think in, and the gardens were the most quiet place she knew of.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Toran walked slowly through the garden. He had finaly escaped his position if only for a little while. He would have to get back to it soon. He still wondered how he had got the position. He hadn't been there long.

His thoughts wandered to Amarantha.  He had not seen her since arriving. Povel’s words echoed in his head: "She is just using you, fool, and when she is done... You will be no better off than me."  The words rang hollow in Toran’s mind.  There was doubt, there was always doubt. Has she been using me...?  He couldn't bring himself to believe it so he shoved the thought gruffly aside.

As he rounded a corner he ran straight into a woman. At first glance she was Aes Sedai so Toran smoothly slipped into being Devon. "Forgive me Aes Sedai. I....." He then straightened from his bow and saw who it was. Whatever else he was going to say was cut off as he stared in mute shock:  Amarantha stood before him, just as he remembered her.  "Fancy meeting you here," he said, leaving Devon behind.  His voice was once again determined, yet held a softness only the strained ear could hear.

Amarantha blinked and staggered backwards several steps as the taller man ran into her, her surprise as well as her status as Aes Sedai sharpening her tongue so that she almost gave him such a lashing as he'd most likely never received regardless of the bow and apology. That is, until she recognized him and heard his voice. Her mouth snapped shut and she smiled wearily at him as he said, "Fancy meeting you here..."

"Quite the shock, yes," she agreed with a nod. "I was just thinking about you, Tor--" She halted with a glance around, then finished with, "Devon. I had begun to wonder if you had forgotten about me." She smiled a bit more at him, more warmly than tiredly this time. He looks far better than he did when I last saw him, she mused with a release of tension. "You don't know how happy I am to see that you're better. I thought...you might die, you see." She frowned fiercely. "I really cursed myself for not being able to Heal you." She shook her head a bit, waving it off. "How have you been?"

"There was nothing you could do, and I lived. That is all that matters, right?"  He smiled slightly, then it disappeared. "I've been busy that’s for sure. Not much room for thinking while on the job." He shook his head slightly. "That is why I try to come here, to the gardens, as often as possible... They help calm me." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I feel like a caged wolf, so...so closed in.  I need my freedom, you know?" Thoughts of Povel skittered thruogh his mind but were soon blocked out. "You are well?" he asked, worry breaking through his emotionless calm.
 
Why is it that we must be so cold to one another? she asked herself sadly, knowing it was reflected in her large emerald eyes as she looked at him. "I am no longer Mistress of Novices. They wanted me to be Keeper of the Chronicles, but I denied them due to my personal belief that I couldn't do a proper job of it. So, I'm only a Sister of the Green Ajah now, and the Mother has called for the Sisters who helped Povel to be brought in to be dealt with." She looked away from him and distinct stubbornness stiffened her jaw as it clenched. "I'm to lead the group in a fortnight or less. The Blue Eyes and Ears have gathered some rumors from..." She closed her eyes and pain washed over her face briefly, then was gone into oblivion as she looked at him again serenely. "From Ghealdan. We leave for Ghealdan soon."

She glanced at the gardens around her in melancholy. "I know you're busy in your new position, and I will not ask you to come along because of it. If you choose to, then you may do so at your own risk, but...." She sighed deeply and looked up at him, her face relaxing a little to allow in more of that pensive tension that had brought her to the gardens in the first place. "You are a good man. I..." She shook her head and moved towards the fountain behind him. "Nevermind. You know how I feel. Or I hope you do."

She sat on the fountain edge and reached out with the long, slim fingers of one hand to touch the surface of the water. It was cool, yet not cold, and felt like living silk to her. She tried to empty her thoughts as she watched the falling water, but the roiling, wiggling surface was just like her mind. And now, Toran... would he want something like that? No, no he wouldn't.  She looked up at him briefly and then away again with a hint of colour tinging her cheeks. Not after all he's been through. I dare not ask.

Toran was silent for what seem forever. "I.... I am going," he said as if the whole Tower wouldn't be able to stop him. He wanted to say something else but couldn't bring himself to do it. Every person he had those 3 words to was dead. He reached out as if to lay a reasuring hand on her shoulder, but seeing it was shaking he didn't. Instead he ran the shaky hand through his hair and started to pace. "The cannot deny me... I will not let them." The words were on the tip of his lips. What am I thinking? Anyone and everyone I have ever loved was taken from me. I cannot afford to love, i'm a bloody curse!

The reality of the thought dawned on him, and it was like a vice slowly crushing his life. He was glad she was not looking. She was still gazing into the water, oblivious to his distress. He wanted so badly to tell her how he felt, but he couldn't and wouldn't: she was too important to him.  He firmed his voice. "I vowed to protect you untill my death. And I will..." His voice was little more than a whisper. His feeling were laid bare to her disposal. Try as he might he could not put back the Towers that had sustained him so long.

Amarantha closed her eyes and sighed, letting her breath out slowly. She'd both hoped and feared that he would join her in this. But she had to know something--well, more than one thing in all actuality.

She steeled herself for what she knew would come and looked up at him with a firm green gaze. "Why are you here? You came to see Povel executed and then planned on leaving, but now you've accepted the position of a high ranking Warder. You seem to be staying, but I want to know why." She stood and held his gaze as she walked towards him. "If it's only honour towards me, rest assured that I can find that same honour to protect me until death in a Gaidin that I bond. You...you have already said that you dislike this Tower, and the thought of bonding again pleases you as much as Povel's continued existence does."

She was angry suddenly and didn't know why, and her chin lifted as her eyes flashed dangerously. Her voice was low and quiet so that only he could hear, however. "So why are you here, Toran? If it's for no other reason than your word, rest assured I will bond a fitting Gaidin before I leave so that you don't have to worry with protecting me and your honour. If you've already decided you want nothing to do with me, tell me so that I can stop this farce where it stands and go lick my own wounds. You know my feelings for you. If you don't love me in return, then leave me be." Defiance shone from her face and form as her fists clenched. "But never tell me that you're here to protect me until you die, because I can find that with any Warder that I bond. And I would have thought that you were more than a simple Gaidin to bond considering you didn't object to the kiss I gave to you." She finally looked away as pain flashed through her expression. "What do you want from me? What more do you want me to give you besides my heart and soul, Toran, because it's obviously not been enough for you."

Her words kinfed through his heart and soul. There had been a time when he would have stood up to such harassment with ease, but now he just stood in silence. He saw the look in her eyes and seemed to retreat further into himself. "I want you to hate me!" he sneered. There was a dangerous blaze in his eyes now. "I want you to tell me you never want to see me again, and that if you did you would kill me.."

His face turned darker still. "I have no honor Amarantha. I killed farmers for protecting their families. I killed hundreds of men because they saw the truth while I was blinded by lies. A man like that can never regain the honor which he lost." His eyes had a haunted look about them now. "I love you, so deeply that I know nothing can become of it. Every other person I have loved is dead. Every single one of them I buried! I will not have that fate happen to you. I would rather die a thousand deaths, than to cause you even a little pain." His voice broke as he lost control. He fought to regain control of the situation but it was a rushing river. He was shaking uncontrolably, and his eyes were roaring blue flamed fires. He wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms and tell her it would be all right. He wanted to kiss her, to feel close to her once again.

He closed his eyes, "I need to know you hate me so that I can die and find rest. I need to know you are safe and will be forever." He was silent for a moment. "Amarantha, I love you more than anything. I want to be with you, but I cannot. My love is a poison, you must understand..." He couldn't express himself right. He spoke one last final time, and his voice was that of a dead man. "I need you to be happy. If I must die to make such happen I will." Her last line had hurt deeper than the others. It was like when he found Sara at the lead of those chasing him. He hated the fact he had hurt her, his hand reached out to her turned back, then fell limply to his side as he waited for the biting words that would seal his fate.

"I can't hate you," she told him simply. "If you want to make me happy, find some other way than dying or trying to make me hate you. I refuse to do so." She wrapped her arms around herself tightly. "I will take the pain you seem to want to force upon me and I will not hate you. If you say you have no honour, at least you haven't taken me by force. Death and murder can be rationalized by the world at large, but what rationale does a man have for forcing himself on a woman, Toran? You may think you have no honour, but you can find ways to make up for what you have done. Your actions towards me have been honourable. It is a beginning." She wheeled on him and brushed a bit of her hair from her face, looking up at him with a tiny
shake of her head. "You can either die a man who was trying to redeem himself the best he could, or you can die with nothing. And as long as you love me, and I love you, you have something. Something to build on." She straightened sharply with a return of her earlier defiance. "And you will find that I don't die so easily as you think, Toran al'Nain," she said with a hint of indignation. "I make life dance to my tune, not the other way around." She stepped closer to him, still holding his gaze. "Would that I could bond you, my love, or that you would allow it. I could find no other Gaidin that I could trust more to protect me than you."

Toran’s eyes burned with anger now. "I don't want to cause you pain, Amarantha. Don't you ever think that. I want to keep you safe. I want to shelter you and keep you safe from everything. I want to protect you from myself most of all! To know I have hurt you pains me more than when I found my family slaughtered. I have thought of ending my life every night since Povel killed them. To end this hell I'm forced to live would be bliss. But I lived for vengence then, and now I live for you. When I realized I loved you everything else seemed somehow secondary." He felt his walls of protection build back up as he regained his old composure. He was tired of hurting. He was tired of being vulnerable, and the thoughts made his eyes burn with a cold blue fire.

Amarantha's feet left the ground to hover an inch above. His voice was low. "Have you forgotten something m'love? I am damned to go insane. Who knows, I may just rot away.  Who's to say I will not paint these halls red with blood yet? I have read the books. I'm no fool, I know what awaits me at the end of this road.

“If I left here I could go back to Tear and play Lord again. I could never be happy, though, not without you. If you cannot hate me, then I will stay. I will let you bond me. I could not bear the thought of leaving you unprotected, or in the care of another man. I need your promise, however. With the bond you will be the first to know when my sanity slips. You will tell me, then release me of the bond. I will not risk hurting you." She was looking him directly in the eyes as he still held her with saidin. She was so close he could almost...

He strengthened his resolve and lowered her to the ground. He hated what he had said; he did not want to think that he might have hurt her. He wanted to protect her more than anything. And he would--bonded or not, he was hers heart and soul. He had signed his fate to her, once again leaving himself unprotected and vulnerable.

The brief surprise that she had felt at being lifted with saidin faded quickly, and she held his gaze as he spoke. When he was finished, and she was back on the ground, she stated firmly, "I am doing you a favor, then, by asking to hold your bond? I'm to be the early signal for when you begin to go mad?" Her green eyes narrowed dangerously at him as she stepped up to him and glared up at him, almost touching him. "My love, you seem to forget that my entire life is based around killing and death, when it boils down to it, even if that death is the death of the Dark One and his minions. I love you too much to allow you to harm yourself or me or the Tower, and I have my duties to the Light to protect all of this from you when you go mad. I will love you while I can, as much as I can, and when it's time to do what needs to be done then it will get done. I promise you that. I can't not promise it to you, Toran. If we are to continue warring with all that is Dark, we cannot allow the Tower to fall or be harmed." She shook her head a bit, still holding his gaze, though her own softened. "But I will not see you fall in that way.  You will die with dignity, if you so wish, and perhaps that will be enough for you in the end, to give you enough honour to satisfy you so that you don't feel so worthless as you seem to feel."

She reached up and caressed his cheek with her fingertips tenderly. "You saved my life more than once. The least I can do is help you save your soul before the madness takes you from me." She smiled ever so slightly, though it lit up her eyes with a faint warmth. "Will you accept being bonded to me as my first Gaidin, Toran al'Nain? Do you promise to hold my life above your own should the need arise? Will you fight by my side for the Light until you cannot fight any longer? Will you become a true brother to battle?"

Toran nearly stepped back from her touch. His eyes still burned dangerously.  He took her hand in his briefly, with the thought, Light, she is beautiful.  He stepped back from her and released her hand.  His head was tilted to one side as if listening to a voice only he could hear, then his sword was out in a flash, and the razor sharp blade slid along his left palm.

Crimson blood fell from the wound. He made a fist and held it over the heron marked blade. The crimson blood ran down the length of the tilted blade. He met her gaze, and the blade slammed into the ground, then he dropped to a knee before her.  "My life for your life." I live to protect you.  "My death for your life." I will die for you if it means you live even another second longer. "Your life is my life." As long as you live so shall I. "Your death is my death." I will die in vengeance or heart at your death. "By my blood, blade, and hope of rebirth and salvation, I swear it.  I am yours mind, heart, and soul....." His left hand was holding the hilt causing blood to drip from the pommel. His midnight blue eyes met hers, and they no longer held the dangerous gleam but one of determination instead and--from any other man--what could be said was love.

His eyes had held hers as if they would never let her go. She could see from her peripheral vision the cut he made, and the kneeling he did, and she could hear the words he spoke, but her eyes were locked onto his own and her thoughts were simply a maelstrom. He's willing, she thought privately. More than willing, actually. She wasn't certain whether she should be insanely giddy in delight or simply stunned that he wanted her in this capactiy as well as any other.

It really didn't matter, to tell the truth. She was held by his gaze, and as his last syllables faded into the air she remained standing in silence for a long while, just looking at him, into him. His soul flashed briefly in his gaze before being covered by the determination and--yes, she saw it now--love that eclipsed any other emotion he might have felt at that time. She knew innately that if he were frightened on any level, he would take pains to hide it from her. But he loves me, and that is enough, she decided firmly.

The thought broke her reverie. She reached out to him, still holding his gaze, and laid her slim, pale hands on either side of his face. Her touch was almost negligible, as if she wielded feathers instead of hands, and she channeled the weave she had been wondering if she would ever use at all.  It flowed from her into him, and she felt it settle before she let it go.

....And she blinked, catching her breath, at the feel of him in her mind. Her already large emerald eyes widened noticeably at the strange sensations as she slowly sank to her knees in front of him. She watched him for a long moment, her emotions going from curious to shocked to delighted one after another in rapid succession. She began to smile without knowing she did it, a smile which turned into a fully fledged grin quite swiftly. She laughed a little and looked away, blushing a dusky pink in the knowledge that he could feel her emotions readily now regardless of how serene she kept her face.  He should feel the love I bear him, then, she realized suddenly, and it caused her to blush almost crimson. Oh, Light, he can't feel *those* emotions, can he?? The ones even I try to keep hidden when he's around?

She glanced up at him with a sheepish grin and shrugged a bit, still knelt in front of him. "This is...strange," she told him with a small laugh. She shook her head slightly. "This will take some getting used to, won't it?"

Toran frowned at first, then smiled slightly. Events seemed to be flying out of control, yet as long as he was with Amarantha, and she was safe, he didn't care. He knelt in shocked silence just staring at her.  She glanced up at him with a sheepish grin and shrugged a bit, still there in front of him. "This is...strange," she told him with a small laugh, then shook her head slightly. "This will take some getting used to, won't it?"

"Yes it will, my love," he said after a moment of silence. His eyes were still locked onto hers. They were searching for something. He hoped she could feel the love he felt for her. He never seemed to express himself right with words, and when he tried his words were twisted and thrown back in his face. He felt her love, and so hoped she could feel his. Standing slowly, he held out his right hand to help her to her feet. She took it and she slowly stood. Toran said nothing. He was at a loss for words. He loved this woman more than life itself, and now he could stay with her as long as he stayed sane.

He sheathed his bloodied blade, using saidin to clean the blade, hilt, and pommel. His left hand was balled in a fist, forgotten as the new sensations flowed from one mind to another. Toran broke the uneasy silence which had settled on the two. "I love you," he said. His voice sounded as if he thought she might argue the fact. As she turned to speak he kissed her, letting all the love for her flow into this one kiss as if it was the last he would ever get.