creator_raven | (no subject)

(no subject)

It has been some time since he has seen at least one of his sisters.

Given this one's tendency to get lost in her own head, Raven is likely not best pleased.

Possibly that is why Moiraine will find her study door tugged open, and her couch full of obnoxiously cheerful Bird.

Also cookies.

More cookies than even Raven can eat in a day.

There is no tea.

"You are not so much for hermiting, yes?"

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It is entirely possible that the slippers no longer have anything to do with Moiraine's feet.

Or possibly Raven is just bored.

Regardless, there is another pair dropping down into her lap even as Raven sets the tea to steeping.

See the trouble he goes to for his sister?

This time, she makes no comment at all.

In fact, the Aes Sedai appears to ignore them entirely.

This would be the point at which they attack her face.

Fuzzily.

Raven has nothing to do with it.

Golden light leaps into being around her again, and the slippers vanish in a flash.

"Enough."

There's audible tension in her voice. Moiraine stands up and stalks across the room to her desk, where she stands with her back to him and her hands pressed flat against the wood.

Raven refrains from rolling his eyes.

Barely.

Then he sets her teacup on the desk, right between her hands.

It takes maneuvering.

His voice, when he speaks, is soft.

"It is not so much a game, I do not think."

She does not move.

"Is it not? What, then?"

He watches her, head tilted.

"You are for remembering Maggie, yes?"

"It is not likely that I would forget her."

She glances sideways at him.

"No."

His smile is small and slightly crooked.

"But she is you."

He tilts his head a little farther.

"That is possibly harder to remember."

Silence, for several long seconds, and then Moiraine says carefully,

"I was her, rather. For a time."

Raven tugs her hair, fingers light and careful.

"Mostly that was only seeming, I think."

Mostly.

"Precisely so."

Raven just studies her, careful and oddly calm.

"You are, I think, missing the point. So."

"Then what," she says, with careful deliberateness in each word, "is the point that you wish to make?"

Raven does not sigh.

Really.

"Dignity is boring, yes?"

He tilts his head, still watching her.

"And you are not so good at letting go."

She considers him for several moments.

"I am not certain why it matters so."

Raven does not blink.

At all.

"You are human."

Beat.

"And it is not so bad a thing to be happy."

"... I would not disagree," Moiraine says, tilting her head to one side as she watches him.

Raven tweaks her nose.

Because he can.

"And are you?"

It is, perhaps, not so easy to tell.

Perhaps.

She is still for a moment, and then--

"I am as well as I may be, at present, Raven. It may not be as well as you would wish, but it will do for now, will it not?"

"No."

It is a simple word, that.

"Some things, perhaps, there will never be time for. So."

Dark eyes widen in visible surprise, and Moiraine opens her mouth as if to say something--

--and does not speak.

Silence remains, for several long seconds.

Raven does not blink.

It is possible that, for a moment, he looks a little sad.

Just a little.

She stays still for some moments longer, and then takes a single step forward, looking up at him.

Her dark-eyed gaze meets Raven's black one.

"There are some things that must yet be, if it may be so," she says, finally. "I cannot say for certain what lies beyond that point, or how long..."

A pause.

"... may be allowed, before."

His smile is small and very crooked.

"Certainty is not a thing I am much familiar with. So."

He hugs her then, because he can.

"And endings are not, perhaps, always so terrible."

But his voice is very quiet.

Possibly it is good that, while hugging, she cannot see his face.