i need sony to take the wheel of time to a different streamer because
a. i need tuon intro s4 and
b. i need to see a different ending for tuon's arc, i want!!! tuon channeler reveal personal damane crisis. i need them to complicate that element in a way that brandon sanderson refused to and just brushed past it. rj never gotta to write the post canon seanchan stuff he was planning, can we please get an actual resolution on that in the show instead???
it's okay if she and mat are still fated to like doomed romance general v general battle to the death/political drama, cause honestly...
WoT Meta: Prophecies, Fated Lovers, and Robert Jordan's knack for finding the nuance underneath the myth
One complaint I've never understood about the way Jordan writes romances is the persistent claim that he over uses the 'prophesied love' trope.
In part for me, I think it's a little bit folks not seeing the forest for the trees. WoT is fundamentally about the relationship between myth and reality: the place where the fallen angel meets the disgruntled academic, the bitter accountant, and the man who never got over being too short. It's a story where the messiah is real and dealing with chronic pain and PTSD from his stigmata. Where a legendary High Queen has to deal with both marching armies to the apocalypse, and the irritating banal realities of being pregnant at the same time. Of course Jordan digs into the idea of prophesied love- it's a huge theme in folklore and mythologies the world over. Jordan wants to dig into what it really means for there to be a person out there that you are destined to be with: that is a match for you, decreed so by the universe itself....and that you get absolutely no agency and choice in choosing. If anything Tumblr, which adores the 'red string of fate'/'soulmark'/'soulmates share pain'/'world is black until you look into your soulmates eyes' (to name a few of the more prevalent ones- some of which Tumblr practically invented), should be super on board for the parade of fated lovers to be found in WoT. It's nothing short of baffling to me that their not more fondly viewed.
And I think that is tied to the follow up complaint: the criticism that Jordan 'uses prophecy love as a replacement for a romance arc'. But that is something that is just. Patently untrue.
Cause the thing is that is how soulmates are often used...in the majority of soulmate au fanfics you find here and on AO3- an excuse to get the really hard part (two characters realizing they are right for each other and love each other, then having the communication skills to articulate that so they can start a relationship) out of the way, so the author can focus on the fluff or angst or other part they and the audience want to get to. And that's fine! But that's not at all what Jordan does. Just like he does with the Prophecies of the Dragon, or Elaida's fortellings, or even just most of Min's viewings- Jordan takes the idea of the prophecy soulmate, this person decreed by some higher power to be Perfect For You and being right about it, and digs deeper, shining it in different lights and attacking it from different angles. Jordan gives the concept of the soulmate teeth, explores the spines and the sharp points of it: is it real love if it's fated and not your choice? Can you trust your own feelings, or are they fate's design working against you as surely as Aphrodite worked against Helen or Eros against Apollo? What is it like, to see someone one day, and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that you would love this stranger? This question mark? This wildcard?
Rand's relationships with Min and Aviendha, as well as Mat and Tuon's courtship are great examples of this conundrum. Min and Aviendha have completely opposite reactions to the same information that demonstrates their unique strengths and weaknesses as characters and people, while Tuon and Mat's courtship is all about two people who know they will marry trying to figure out what that means, without ever confronting the reality of those prophecies directly.
Min, as befits a Seer who has learned time and time again that her viewings can not be changed, has resigned herself in an almost fatalistic fashion to all of them, and to loving Rand no less. Min knows that she, and two others, will love him, and she accepts its inevitability the same way she accepts Colavere's death, or Logain's glory, or the shattering of the White Tower. What is, is, and there is no sense or point in struggling against it. What concerns her a great deal more is what she doesn't know- she doesn't know if Rand will love her in return, she doesn't know the identity of the other two women who will love him, and she doesn't know if he will fall in love with one or both of the others but not her. Add to that Min's own insecurities about how she stands out and doesn't fit what her society deems 'proper', between her crossdressing, and her offputting manners, and it makes perfect sense that she's worried about making Rand love her. She doesn't mind sharing him- she hates the idea of being in love with a man who doesn't love her in return, of being stuck like 'Elmindreda' of the stories, sighing and pining endlessly for a man instead of being able to act, to take control of her own fate.
So she takes control: she learns to flirt from Leane, works hard at making herself desirable, and also indispensable: with her visions, her advice, even just her emotional support to Rand when he otherwise has no one else. The irony is that whenever Rand thinks of Min prior to her return to his side in LoC, it's about how much he liked her earthy honesty and lack of wiles: how she was earnest and made him feel at ease, and didn't 'spin his head like a top'- and that's still what he loves about her after they get together: the fact that she isn't fooled by his front, that she sees him clearly and refuses to be driven away the way so many others are so easily. The point is that Min never had to change, and in the ways that matter she didn't- she only thought she did because of her own fatalism.
Contrast that with Aviendha, who, after learning about being destined to fall in love with Rand, does everything in her power to prevent that outcome- because she is a warrior, a soldier, who has never yet met a problem that could not be killed, endured, or retreated from. Aviendha values nothing so much as her honor and her word- she has promised to keep Rand safe for Elayne and what greater act of dishonor could there be in that situation then not just failing in that promise, but despoiling (and she does view it that way) said man herself? So she is awful to him in the hopes of poisoning the well of affection or at least keeping him far enough away that she is never tempted. Aviendha hurls contempt and anger at him, berates him, does everything short of trying to stab him in an effort to make him hate her, and it doesn't work. Despite all her efforts to keep her thorny wall up, they are literally made for each other and can not help but be drawn together time and again. Despite all her efforts to insist, to him and herself, that she hates him, she can not hide entirely that the opposite is true: that she likes him, sees his strength and courage and resilience, and is a little in awe of his generous kindness.
This is why she vacillates wildly between wanting desperately to get away from him in The Fires of Heaven, to not wanting to leave his side: they are two planets caught in each other's gravity, with about as much chance of escaping each other. When she resorts to the last recourse of a soldier- retreat- and runs headlong into a blizzard that would surely kill her, Rand follows to try and save her life and she can deny the truth that she loves him no longer, nor can she resist taking him, even knowing that to redress that balance, she will one day have to offer her life to Elayne (as she attempts to do in LoC)- though fate still has other plans in store.
But in many ways the apex of this, the relationship that really shows Jordan's deconstruction of this trope, is Mat and Tuon. Before they ever lay eyes on each other, each is given a prophecy that they will marry the other: not that they'll love each other, not that they will be able to trust each other, not even that that will like each other: just that they will marry. And their strange courtship is a result of this knowledge, as each attempts to suss out the other, to try and understand them without ever overplaying their own hand. Each believes that the moment they admit their prophecy they will destroy any chance of real connection or understanding.
To Tuon, if Mat learns he is destined to wed her he gains something she can not abide: power over her, leverage that could be used to subvert her own plans and visions- because nothing matters more to Tuon than control, especially over herself. So she keeps her 'fortune' secret and tries to figure out: What will it mean to be married to Mat? Will he be a pretty trophy? A liability? A threat to her Empire? Will she have to kill him once she gets her heirs?
To Mat, if Tuon learns of his prophecy, she gains the power to take away his freedom, to snare and collar him and bind him to her, because that's how Mat deep down views marriage: as a binding cord, a loss of freedom, and nothing matters to Mat more than freedom. So he keeps his *Finn gained knowledge secret and tries to figure out: What will it mean to be collared by Tuon? Will she she treat him as a pretty and plaything the way Tylin did? Will she try to use him against Rand and the Westlands? Will she make him a slave and sent him to be beaten anytime he disobeys her? Will he have no choice but to fight her one day, this woman he is going to swear to spend his life with? Will he have to kill her the way he did Melindhra, and carry that guilt of mariticide on top of all else?
So the two stay in their strange limbo, because as long as they don't admit it out loud to the other, they can pretend they are still two people forced together by happenstance, and (each thinks) they can continue to try and understand and figure out the other, to find out where this inevitability of their marriage will really leave them, and if there can be even the faintest possibility of love in such circumstances. And that limbo- that protracted refusal to act as if they are under fate's direction- is what allows them to build a genuine bond of trust and respect for each other, and to start seeing the other person with the clarity that love requires. All this, so that when Tuon finally does play her hand, and reveal the truth....it's obvious they've long since fallen in love with each other (even though Tuon won't admit that to herself), and come to trust each other (even though Mat won't admit that to himself).
And the thing is- all of Jordan’s prophecy romances are written like this: from Egwene seeing that loving Gawyn might be both their downfalls in LoC and seeking him out anyways, to Perrin misinterpreting the 'falcon and hawk' viewing and thinking Faile is a danger to him when she's the love of his life, to Galad and Berelain not even being AWARE they’re fated to fall in love and just....do, at wild first sight (Another classic folklore/mythology trope). They also never find out: always remaining unaware that the Pattern had long since decreed that they would be together and being incredibly funny/annoying about it. The prophesied love is an example of classic Jordan: taking a common, maybe even ubiquitous premise, and asking those complicating questions that allow him to write it as something much more nuanced and interesting and fascinating. And he gets no credit for it, send tumble.
“Yes, you have to Knotai,” Fortuona says, glaring at her husband. “I don’t care that you dislike it, you have to.”
“But!”
“Knotai.”
“Fine.” He scowls and slams on his black hat, ignoring as he usually does the absurdity of it with the high fashion of Seandar, though lately others have been mimicking him. The First Prince of Ravens after all was a man to follow.
“Your father is ridiculous,” she informs her still sleeping daughter, tiny Bridget resting in her crib. “Taking petitions isn’t that bad.”
(She regrets her words less than an hour and a fire in the throne room later)
For his thirty fourth birthday Mat received two gifts from his wife.
The first he woke up to find on his sitting room table, in an ornately carved and gilded box of black oak. There was no note or message attached to it, and Mat knew that if he questioned the servants none would admit to any knowledge of how it had gotten into his room.
They might even be telling the truth. He thought most of the da’covale in his entourage were more in his camp then Tuon’s these days, and she had plenty of other means of circumventing his security without raising an alarm. But it was hard to say for sure. Mat had a remarkable ability to win people over, but the Empress was the Empress, and with the Seanchan-born that could matter more than all the good feeling and personal loyalty in the world.
Still the how didn’t really matter that much. Neither did the lack of anything to identify the sender. Mat knew it was Tuon. No one else in the Empire would be sending him gifts on his birthday. In Seanchan, namedays were celebrated on the date you had been given your current name, not the date you had been born, and it was months yet until the anniversary of the day Tuon had officially recognized him as Emperor Consort and bequeathed him the name of Inarian.
There would be a grand feast on that day, both to celebrate him making it through another year with his head still attached to his shoulders, and to commemorate the Battle of Malheian, which had brought the entire peninsula of Dohmar, and more importantly the capital, back under the Empress’s control. That was when Tuon had finally raised him from Prince of the Ravens to Emperor Consort, and he had shed the name Knotai for Inarian. It would be a grand spectacle, that feast, full of parades and presentations and balls. He would have to endure an endless stream of nobles vying for his favor by presenting him lavish and exotic gifts from across the Empire, and give several speeches written out ahead of time by his so'jhin. It was something Mat dreaded every year, and that despite his best efforts, he never quite managed to escape. Tuon played the game too well for that.
Case in point: the box.
Mat considered retrieving his ashandarei, but in the end settled for simply using one of the gilded fireplace pokers to remove the lid from the box. He had to shove it into the crevice and jimmy a bit to get the lid to pop off, but when he did, his caution proved completely justified.
There was a flash of black, something streaking through the air faster than Mat would have been able to escape had he been standing closer. But with Mat standing a good distance back, the serpent could only snap at the air in confusion, its fangs failing to sink into anything as it fell, half its body slapping onto the table, the other half still curled inside the box.
Mat didn’t hesitate- he struck with the blunt hook of the poker slamming it against the serpent’s triangle shaped head and crushing it against the tabletop with a single sickening crunch. Blood sprayed over the silken table cloth, staining the dark green with crimson. Then just to be sure it was dead, Mat gave it three more wacks. He didn’t think Tuon could find a special unkillable snake, but better safe than sorry.
When it became clear the snake would not be moving absent of its brain Mat hooked its body onto the edge of his poker and lifted it to the light to examine it better. He gave a start when he realized the snake was covered in shiny black scales with a lean, somewhat short body.
“A Blacklance.” He whispered and was unable to stop himself from smiling. One of the most poisonous snakes he knew of, with venom that could kill in heartbeats.
What a thoughtful wife he had.
Letting the poker drop Mat moved to strike the brass gong on his bedside table, which summoned the servants back from where he had sent them into the hall to wait. They spilled into the room in a flurry of confusion and noise that only grew as they saw the body of the serpent sprawled on the table.
They, of course, were horrified and shocked at the presence of the snake, though none of them recognized it for what it was as near as Mat could tell. Much was made over his wellbeing and Mat had to quash several attempts to call for the palace physician, the Seekers for Truth, and even Selucia.
Names where floated in the panic of who might be responsible. By his secretary, by the cupbearer, even by his da'covale: their suspects ranged from High Lords that Mat had recently offended or snubbed, to enemy warlords in the still fractured north and south who wanted to prevent the Empire’s reconsolidation, to the Amyrlin Seat, whose title was spoken with the horror Mat was more used to hearing in the voice of those talking of the Dark One.
Adric, Mat’s so’jihin, said nothing on the matter, instead simply directing the work of having the snake removed, along with the tablecloth and the box, then set about ordering da'covale back to their various tasks, including seeing Mat dressed and combed. He knew the score, and knew there was no sense in dwelling on what could not be changed.
The four Deathwatch Guards who had been given to him by Tuon were equally silent. Mat had no doubts where their loyalties ultimately lay, and they knew Tuon too well to take this for anything else but what it was.
Then there was Laier. The slender fifteen year old boy who was supposedly Mat’s sulshima also had no expression. Officially Laier’s duty was tending to Mat’s weapons, armor, and other needful things while on campaign, when a horde of servants were not convenient to keep around, and staying close to see to any odd jobs Mat might have while at court. But Laier had been born and trained in secret as a Shadow, the same as Selucia, raised to be the second to last line of defense for Mat’s life. Mat had seen him kill without remorse or hesitation at only twelve years old, the same age he had been given to Mat, crushing the throat of the assassin who had been sent specifically to test his skills as a bodyguard. Laier’s loyalty was exclusively to Mat, no matter how little Mat wanted it, and Laier also knew very well where the box had come from.
Most of the scars Laier bore were not the work of Tuon’s various attempts to kill him. But some were. One was too many in Mat’s book, but he had given up that fight for a bad job. He had yelled and bargained and begged, but it had not made a dent, on the boy or on Tuon. Both had been bewildered by his objections, had seen nothing wrong in the arrangement. Mat was a member of the Imperial Family. He needed a Shadow. That was that. If anything, Tuon had seemed worried he would be upset over not having been given one sooner.
One should have been part of your wedding gift by rights. She had told him when he had been presented the twelve year old on their anniversary. But most of the unassigned Shadows were killed during the start of the Anarchy, so one had to be trained from scratch. Shadows, Mat had learned, where born into it, but began their training at three years old. They were usually assigned between the ages of twelve and fifteen. Mat hadn’t dared ask what happened to ones who weren't assigned by that time. Their was nothing else in the boy's life but protecting Mat, the same as it had been with Selucia and Tuon. In the end, Mat hadn't been able to deny him his only purpose. Instead he had promised himself that he would do what he could for the boy, and learn to live the rest. That was why Mat had sent him out of the room with the others even though he wasn't supposed to. The bloody child would have probably insisted on opening the box with his own two hands, and then where would they be?
For the moment, Laeir stood to the side, waiting patiently while the servants worked. Mat for his part kept his own silence, letting the da'covale chatter while they dressed him, not revealing any of his own thoughts on the matter. Let the palace think what it wished. No one would dare name Tuon as the culprit of the latest assassination attempt, though most would at least entertain the possibility. It made no difference in the end.
By the time his coat was fixed in place and his hat was finally handed to him, Mat was more than ready for breakfast. Adric went ahead to see to directing the rest of Mat’s entourage, and the Deathwatch Guards spread out in a fan, while Laier raced on to open doors and bow Mat into each new room. On the off chance they encountered commoners on route to the dining garden, Laier could serve as Mat’s Voice and would need to be close at hand to read the finger gestures Mat had been forced to learn.
Not that anyone really expected Mat to use a voice. Even most of the Blood had given up being shocked and appalled that Mat spoke to simple commoners without an intermediary. It was like his refusal to grow out his fingernails or paint them. Another oddity of the foreign born Emperor Consort. Something to gossip about in parlors and salons, but as long as he kept winning battles for the Empire, not something worth holding against him day to day.
Tuon was waiting for Mat in the dining garden, already seated at the small table beneath the open air pavilion. As always the first sight of her caught Mat’s breath in a way he could never explain. Maybe in a way he would never be able to explain. Her dark skin glowed in the morning light, and something about the green and white of her pleated dress- simple as a gown sown with opals and firedrops could be- set off that beauty perfectly.
Selucia stood at her shoulder of course, Deathwatch Guards ringing the pavilion in stoney silence. But Mat ignored them like he always did as he sauntered over to the table and dropped lazily into the chair opposite Tuon.
“Good morning wife!” He said cheerily. “How did you sleep?”
Her full lips twitched, the barest hint of a scowl trying to form before she suppressed it. Mat could have chuckled, but that would have given him away. It irked her that he didn’t bluster and snarl and shake the body of the snake at her. The same way it had once irked Mat when Daise Conger had refused to acknowledge that her chickens had been covered in flour. The worst thing that could happen with a prank was not getting caught and punished, it was the joke not landing.
“I slept well, husband.” She said in that drawling honey voice of hers. “I feel much refreshed from my most recent progression. And you?”
The moment Mat was settled, the da’covale began to lay out their breakfast. Mat barely paid any mind to the the combination of uncooked fish and sweet breads that were spread before them, his eyes were locked to Tuon’s, trying to read the mysteries hidden there.
Mat had not wanted a life milking his father’s cows, a life of boring simplicity in the Two Rivers. He had wished for more. He had wished for excitement and adventure and daring gambles. And Light of Heaven, he had gotten his wish.
“I slept well.” Mat replied, raising his cup. His cupbearer was there in a heartbeat to pour kaf for him. “I dreamed of a forest actually.”
Tuon blinked, raising an eyebrow. “A forest?”
Mat nodded. “A forest in Altara actually. Northern Altara, not far from the Damona Mountains. I think we may have visited it once during our courtship.”
This time, Tuon didn’t catch her smile soon enough to prevent him from seeing it. Even if she had, Mat didn’t doubt she would have caught his hidden meaning.
It was in a forest near the Damona Mountains, where a blacklance had nearly taken the life of one of their party. Mat had let it go, and Tuon had gifted a kiss to ‘the man who allowed a deadly snake to live.’ Their first kiss.
I see you beneath it all Tuon. He thought as he gazed at her. I see the woman you are beneath the duty, and the machinations, and the iron cold mask. I know your sentimental heart. To say that to her would be to court his own death- not a half hearted assaination attempt meant to fail and to keep him sharp. But a real, true death, probably screaming in the Tower of Ravens. But he found ways to tell her without words anyways. He had to. There was too much love in him for him to keep it all sealed up- like water, it demanded some path to rush along.
“We might have.” Tuon said noncommittally as her plate was layered high with fish. “I can’t recall.”
Mat shrugged and was about to start in on the food when Tuon spoke again.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I have a gift for you, husband.” Mat turned back to her, raising his eyebrow. She simply gestured and Selucia glided forward, producing something from her sleeve.
He was suddenly on guard, and his tension was obvious because he saw Laier tense also, out of the corner of his eye. In a one on one fight, Mat would bet on Laier against Selucia- he was younger, faster, and Selucia was on the older end for a Shadow already. But if Tuon was going to try and kill him here and now there was no way the Deathwatch Guard wouldn’t get involved, and in that melee all Laier could do was die. But surely not- this wasn't Tuon’s way. She wouldn’t try again at his life so soon after the snake. Unless-
His thoughts cut off as Selucia laid something down beside him on the table. It was a small leather cup, tooled with roses. Mat’s jaw dropped when he realized what it was and he glanced at Tuon again to find her smirking openly, thrilling in having thrown him off guard.
Hesitantly, Mat reached out and picked up the leather cup, popping off the lid. Sure enough, as he tipped it over, six glittering black dice, shining like glass but clinking like metal, rolled onto the table. Each pip was a moon in a different phase, carefully and stylistically set into the metal surface.
By purest chance each of the die had landed to show a single new moon. Only one pip. The Dark One’s eyes. The best toss, or the worst, depending on the game.
“Happy birthday, husband.” Tuon said, and for just a moment, he heard genuine warmth slip into her voice. He would never know if it was a mistake in a moment of weakness, or an intentional attempt to manipulate him, or just her letting herself be vulnerable for a special occasion. That, Mat reflected, was half the fun. “Do you like it?”
Mat laid his hand over the dice and grinned at her. “I love it, wife. Shall we play a round after breakfast?”
She raised a single eyebrow at him. Her imperious mask was firmly back in place now, no hint of humanity or weakness to be shown. “And what shall be the stakes, husband? What could we wager of meaning between us? Coin? Jewels? Kingdoms?”
“The highest stakes of all.” Mat said, picking up the dice and shaking them in his palm. “A single kiss to the winner of each round.”
She didn’t react except to sniff at him, but Mat didn’t mind. He knew this game. He had chosen it. And there truly was nothing else like it in all the world. That was more than enough for him.
[Send me a character or pairing, and a one word prompt, and I'll write you a drabble!]
Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag stood at the edge of her chambers, luxuriating in the feel of silk curtains brushing against her bare skin. The faint salt twanged breeze that came up off the River Eldar had mostly dried her of the left over water from her bath, and she could at any time, retreat back into her chambers to be dressed and begin hearing the day’s reports. But for the moment she was content to simply stand, hidden by the fluttering of the curtains and observe the garden below.
Inarian laid sprawled out beside one of the ponds there, where she had left him the night before, a sheer silken blanket covering his naked form. His hat, coat, scarf and other effects she had ordered returned to his sleeping chambers, but his ashandarei and his medallion she had ordered to remain untouched. If he wanted to depart, he would do so inconvenienced but not seriously hindered. A fine line to walk, but a necessary one, now more then ever.
She had acknowledged him officially as Emperor Consort, which made him Lord of the Tower and, in theory, her most important councilor and ally, as it was supposed to be with every Empress and her consort, though it had rarely been so in truth. Even Lothair Paendrag had kept a Favorite to shower with his affection and love, while marrying for the good of his budding Empire, as was practical and necessary for a ruler.
Yet the common folk required some illusions and romantic notions to take away the sting of harsh truths. A nation existed as much because people believed in it, as for anything done with a soldier’s blade or an official's pen, and to believe required the sorts of stories that made children starry eyed. That the Seekers never erred in their quest for the truth. That the army was truly always victorious in the end. That the Empress loved the Emperor.
She had never expected to find truth in the illusion, anymore then she had expected to be stolen away by a dashing hero.
And yet…
A silvery slash of light appeared in the garden and lengthened till it was tall an archway. From where she was standing that slash seemed to widen and part, becoming a silvery haze in the shape of a solid rectangle, before snapping back into a slash again and winking out.
The man who had stepped out of the gateway walked with all the confidence of a member of the Deathwatch Guard, as if he where not an intruder in the heart of Seanchan power and violating so many laws by his mere presence that he could, at the least, expect to be condemned to the Tower of Ravens for the rest of his life.
If he where anyone else that was.
Fortuona watched the man cross the garden, the blades of grass seeming to visibly grow greener, the trees more full in branch and flower, by his mere presence alone, and stoop down to where Inarian was laying beneath his blanket. She knew he was pressing his mouth close to Inarian’s ear to whisper to him. Fortuona watched her husband stir, coaxed by his lover’s voice to wakefulness, and she did not need to be near enough to hear to know that there would be soft laughter in both their words, anymore then she needed to see them to know that smiles would be painting both their faces.
The name Inarian would not be muttered, nor would whatever name that man was using these days. To each other, like this, they would simply be Rand and Mat, nothing more or less, no titles or burdens or barriers between them.
Inarian insisted that Fortuona call him Mat as well- in private at least- and she no longer minded doing so, no matter how much her skin itched from the bad luck of it. (In her friskier moods she even went so far as to call him Toy again, which he seemed to not mind at all.) She saw it now as a symbol of their trust, their connection.
Yet it still rankled something in her, that he rejected the honors and accolades she so freely bestowed on him. He was not ungrateful, not really, and he had understood the import, once she explained it. Yet he still did not regard the name she had gifted him with anywhere near the reverence as the one he had as a mud footed farm boy. And a part of her, the part that was still the petulant angry girl who had needed more switchings then any Imperial Princess in memory, couldn’t help but wonder if it was because that was the name Rand al’Thor had known him by.
For a moment Fortuona considered retrieving one of the hidden crossbows she kept secreted about her room- the one inside the tea table would be closest, loaded already with a single short bolt and tipped in powdered peach core already for a fatal blow even if it missed any essential organ- and firing down at the man who presumed to make her husband laugh. With the curtains fluttering around her still she was the next thing to invisible, and it would be easy enough to explain away: Inarian and his lover had not been as discreet as they should. A Deathwatch guard had assumed the Emperor Consort was being threatened, and acted in zealous protectiveness. She could even offer the life of one of her Guards to Inarian’s satisfaction, knowing full well her soft hearted husband would never claim such, would be horrified the very idea. It would be clean, brutal, and final.
Fortuona let the thought roll about in her mind for a bit, as she always did, and then as she always did, she set it aside firmly. It would be a misstep in the long run she knew, cracking something between her and Inarian that would not be easily mended. Cracking him maybe, in his heart. And for what? Silly childish notions like affection and love? She was a woman grown, and arguably the most powerful woman on the planet at that. She could not afford the silly indulgences of children. Her world was bitter reality. It always would be.
She would do her part in the dance instead. Inarian would listen to the sweet whispers to the man who had once been the Dragon and vanish for a few days, and she would hold back his hat and his coat, his scarf and his bag of oddities and keepsakes, to keep a tie to him that he would neither feel nor be able to break. She might burn something, perhaps the coat, to punish him in the meantime (she liked the hat and the scarf on him to much to destroy them) but when he returned she would act as if he never been away. She would not acknowledge his dalliance with his lover in any way, and instead let his guilt and anxiety prick him for her.
Inarian was suspended she knew, between her and the man who had once been the Dragon, each of them holding him by equal force, and with equal gentleness. He was like a fox between two dens. He would run this way, then that, as he willed, answering her call and then his lover’s, divided always between two masters, each playing the game to keep him enticed and entranced, each tempting the attention of dark glittering eyes. Fortuona knew not how the game would end, only that the surest way to loose would be to try and trap him, bind him in some way where he could feel the cord. He would bolt against which ever hand, hers or anyone else’s that tried to do that, and be lost forever.
The only thing worse would be letting him know how much of a claim on her heart he had. He would never take advantage of such- that was not her Inarian, in character or nature. Yet it would frighten him she was sure, if he guessed even half of the depths of her affection for him. The love that burned in her breast for her clever trickster of a husband.
An Empress was not supposed to love anything but her people. Love for an individual was a dangerous madness, a sickness of hot passion that had broken a thousand kingdoms. It made people value one life above the lives of the masses, one person’s opinion over the well being of an Empire. She had not believed it to be real for most of her life. What could one person’s opinions matter more then the fate of nations? The blood of thousands? It was a thing for stories, not bitter realities. Not her reality.
And then she had been stolen away by a fox that made the ravens fly.
So now she walked her fine line, of gentle push and pull and twist and turn. Never showing her hand, never letting the mask break. Never letting her fingers quite leave Inarian’s neck, while never pressing down so hard as to make him bolt.
She kept the secrets of Rand al’Thor, once the Dragon, and she said nothing when Inarian vanished from her life for days or weeks or months, smothered the ache in her rib cage as surely as she smothered the pain from knife wounds and cross bow bolts. The alternative was to loose him forever, or else reveal her weakness, her childishness, the defect within her that should disqualify her from sitting on the Crystal Throne. Neither outcome could ever born.
Better, more prudent, more judicious, to keep her cards to chest, and to play the game for as long as she could manage.
The Empress of Seanchan loved her husband, and their was maybe no greater danger to the Empire in all the world then that.
