The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the First Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long passed, a wind rose in the Himalayas. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
she walks up to the football lawn fully outfitted in matching athletic wear. the type that she would wear for her morning jog, and not necessarily saving the world from the apocalypse.
if she lives as if she will have a world to return to ten years from now, sophia thinks that she will have no regrets.
the rising sun unveils the field slowly like a stage curtain is being pulled back. hopefully the only spectators today will be the performers. she sets down her bag, which contains two towels, several bottles of water, and blueberry muffins that she picked up at the convenience store.
what's more obvious is the broom that she had brought along. sophia had been extremely reluctant to purchase an actual sword, which seldom passes security checkpoints or 90 percent of the places she frequents. experience had demonstrated that it was often far more economical to steal from the janitorial closet in times of crisis.
(it has nothing to do with her reluctance to kill again and everything to do with practicality.)
sophia is the first one here, but she takes the time to stretch her legs. the shadow wouldn't be giving her enough time to do that in a real world scenario, but she doesn't plan to pull something during practice.
Thalia used to be embarrassed about the patchwork of scars she called a torso—the car accident had certainly ended her pool party days in high school—and maybe, if she was honest with herself, the idea of people seeing them was still uncomfortable, a red hot prickling under her skin. But this was Sophia, her brother's something-or-other. More importantly, she's someone Thalia thinks is her friend.
So she wears one of those sports bras thick enough to be shirts, and gym shorts, and tries to ignore the knotted twists of pale scar tissue that loop across her stomach and down her back. At least the field is empty of anyone but them. She'd hoped it would be so, but there was no guarantee. England hasn't born even the shadow (hah!) of an assault, not like the nations further south, but modern technology and the loose lips of a few other ta'vern mean that more people know what she looks like than she would prefer.
More people know what she is than she would prefer. No one else remembers the full Karaethon Cycle, she's quite sure, but sometimes that's even worse, the half-knowledge and the misshapen facts. ...the nations of the earth are rent like rotting cloth. Neither shall anything stand nor abide.. That's no one the prime minister wants visiting London. That's no one anyone wants visiting anything. She starts running through the rest of the verses in her head, humming under her breath as she jogs the length of the field, but she's only gotten as far as Let tears flow, O ye people of the world. Weep for your salvation. when she realizes she's in front of Sophia.
”Nice broom,” she says. ”I'm kind of serious, by the way. I'd rather get stabbed than splintered to death.”
sophia takes notice, but she's determined to keep her eyes above thalia's torso out of courtesy. she stifles the urge to ask thalia if the scars are from a run-in with a darkfriend.
it then occurs to her that she's probably not going to come out of the next several years the same as when she started. training takes on a new gravitas. sophia would rather she survived to come out of the war at all.
she scratches her head sheepishly. "i didn't want to attract the wrong sort of attention." she's thinking of the more mundane. security staff. police officers. an elderly man with a heart problem. "besides, i don't think that will be a problem."
she flicks her index finger and a small blade of wind lops the head of the broom clean off. what she has now is a rather crude polearm. "there's not much point in being a swordsman against a channeller." it seemed like a losing strategy in a lethal game of rock-paper-scissors. she picks up the pole, marvelling at how natural the makeshift weapon feels in her hands. despite her reluctance to fight, sophia knows that she could. it's a confidence that comes without the memory of experience, and that disturbs her. "some of the darkfriends are just normal people, right? this should be enough." she pauses. if she sets those sorts of parameters for normality, then it would be admitting that she herself wasn't normal. "people who can't channel, i mean."
"Normal people," Thalia echoes wryly. "That's kind, compared to what Fox News is calling us. I think they had a pastor on the other day who had definitive proof from Revelations that channeling is proof of the end times and we're all demons sent from Hell."
She doesn't offer up that he is at least half-right. That's not a pleasant topic for idle small talk between friends. Between friends. The word still tastes incredulous, even in the safety of her own head. The Dragon isn't allowed to have friends: only people she can use and people she can't.
Keeping herself from embracing the Source when Sophia channels, keeping herself from drawing as much of the Power as she can until the other woman backs down is a struggle, a fight against inherited paranoia. It isn't her fear, but it still screams.
Instead she picks up her own handle and follows Sophia's lead, trimming the wood to a point, and then she makes herself let go of the Power. It scares her that it's hard for more than one reason.
Thalia hefts the broom in her hands, makes an approving noise. "This feels right," she says. "I don't have any idea what to do with it, but it feels right. Is it like that for you?"
warmth isn't faith. warmth isn't safety. sometimes warmth burns. it had been a difficult lesson to learn.
she is the last person who can be kind to herself. sophia looks at thalia, puzzled. isn't it the same for her?
"i would be offended if you believed that." she deflects, as if this is merely an inside joke shared between the two of them instead of a horror unleashed upon the entire world. sophia tends her own garden instead of looking to beyond the overgrowth.
she examines the wood, but has a harder time imagining it to be a defensive weapon. a sword exists to maim, to avenge what cannot be defended.
sophia blinks. where are these thoughts coming from? it doesn't matter. she has something to do, a task that is many ways hers alone.
a stream of ice forms along the wood, crystalizing into a jagged edge with a hardness that would serrate flesh. she is so surprised that she drops the stick. as soon as the weapon leaves her hand, the ice shatters from the surface. did she do that?
sophia looks back up at her partner.
"i...don't suppose you could put the block back in?"
Thalia watches the wood frost with grim intensity and startles when Sophia addresses her.
"I don't think that's the kind of thing I can do," she says. "I don't think anyone can do that." Not very comforting, but that's the truth and it's all she has to offer.
"We could do it like that, though," Thalia continues, and drops her broom. In the next moment she channels and there's a sword of flame in her hands. She frowns at it. She'd meant to make it ice, to match Sophia, but the fire had come instead.
It'll do, she supposes, and pushes the discomfort at her own lapse down with everything else.
the power is bleeding out of her, and sophia just wants to be able to close her eyes to it again. except she can’t, so she picks up the stick and smothers the blips in the energy, like fixing a leaky pipe. some patches are ice and some patches are frost. it’s easier to dissipate the magic entirely. it’s too late; cracks have already formed in the wood from where the ice had crystallized. it’s not very useful for anything at this point, not unless someone reinforces it.
her heart trembles at the sight of burning wood. there’s a cost to fighting, she thinks. hesitating now would be a disservice to thalia’s resolve.
(may war never lose its catastrophic consequence)
sophia realizes that this is also a trust exercise between them. not only trust that thalia won’t run her a fatal wound, but also that she would have the skill to prevent it. does she trust thalia?
it would be easier if she could close her eyes, but she does trust strength. she just doesn’t know if she’s the one who possesses it.
a single edge of ice forms along what remains of the wood, which gives the weapon its shape and not its substance. the substance is the one power itself. sophia points the tip at the ground. there will be no spring here.
“thank you. i appreciate this.” she’s learned from years at the office, it’s harder for people to inflict harm in response to courtesy. “are you ready?” sophia doesn’t have to ask herself that question. the king has been waiting for nearly twenty-seven years.
She doesn't know what to do with Sophia's thanks, but she doesn't know what to do with a lot of what other people offer her, these days. Gratitude seems like it should be easy in comparison, but she doesn't trust anything that's easy. Easiness is a steel trap waiting to bite off her hand.
Thalia shifts on her feet instead, trying to stop thinking and let the muscle memory take over. You've never been shy before, she shouts down the halls of her mind. There's no answer. Dimly, she's aware of her mouth moving in reality: "You're the one teaching me. I should be thanking you."
Something, or someone, clicks into place inside of her. Her sword cuts unsteadily into motion. Parting the Silk. Her form is terrible though, the memory of a memory.
