blue_ajah: (Default)
Moiraine ([personal profile] blue_ajah) wrote in [community profile] milliways_bar2005-06-15 06:54 pm

(no subject)

As the air parts, she simply appears near her preferred table. Moiraine is carrying an anthology of poetry again this evening, and has a small notebook as well.

The Aes Sedai settles at her table and opens her books, with an idle glance around the bar.

[Summary: Elaine brings tea at Dream's request and is convinced to take a short break, in which she and Moiraine discuss Elaine's family and background, with great canon similarity identified, and then move into feminism and finally discussion of their worlds. Morpheus appears, and Moiraine thanks him for his consideration, and then they are simply cute together for a while. Later, she and Roland discuss Cort's arrival and whether or not Roland should tell him things about the future; at some point later, Peter Pevensie asks her to Heal Caspian (although the healing is rejected in Caspian's thread). Afterwards, she returns to her table and is joined by Bran, who discusses poetry with her-- and is stunned by a plotty revelation. Meg drops by and tells Moiraine that she'll be joining the ranks-of-pseudo-immortal-mortals after her own death, and this is still under discussion, as the thread is slowtimed. Finally, Nita Callahan introduces herself and asks for help with a problem that concerns Asmodean, which immediately gets Moiraine's full attention... (Say it with me, folks: slowtimed.)]
theravenboy: (thoughtful)

[personal profile] theravenboy 2005-06-16 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
"All is well, diolch byth." Bran takes the Norton and begins flipping the pages idly. "A lovely gift, this." He glances fondly over the selections for Wordsworth, Shelley and Byron before his breath catches. The heading on the page where he stops is "TENNYSON: The Passing of Arthur."

Softly and clearly, Bran reads,

"But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seëst--if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)--
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."


Bran blinks rapidly, eyelashes glistening.
theravenboy: (lost land)

[personal profile] theravenboy 2005-06-16 04:07 am (UTC)(link)
"Yes." Bran is still looking at the page and through it to some memory or dream of another land.

"Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint
As from beyond the limit of the world,
Like the last echo born of a great cry,
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice
Around a king returning from his wars.


It's true, that much. I heard it."
theravenboy: (lost land)

[personal profile] theravenboy 2005-06-16 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
Bran's expression, turned backwards into memory rather than forwards towards Moiraine, almost resembles Owen's.

"Pridwen -- my lord Arthur's ship -- sailed out into the sky. We all stood waiting, Jane and her brothers and Will and I, and Merlion told us to look at the hill, and remember what we could -- and there was a singing. A strange crying out or an echo or some residue of a spell, I do not know what it was. And then Pridwen was gone, and not long after it was all gone, everything but a piece of a dream in Jenny's hand."
theravenboy: (Default)

[personal profile] theravenboy 2005-06-16 05:07 am (UTC)(link)
"Yes. Until I came here."

Bran pulls his free hand through his hair, thinking furiously.

"There has to have been a reason we came here, you know, something my lord Merlion didn't remember or didn't realize. I met Mordred, and then later my mother. I learned what was in me. I helped Will. I fought for him and for you. That's ... not it, though. Not all of it."

Bran looks back again to the book, reading the last stanza softly to himself.

"Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb
Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw,
Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
Down that long water opening on the deep
Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
From less to less and vanish into light.
And the new sun rose bringing the new year.


The new sun," Bran grips the harp tightly, eyes wide. "That is it. It must be. Le roi est mort, vive le roi. I don't understand what I am to do. I am not the Pendragon, now. And yet-- and yet--"

Bran stands still, head tilted slightly, tracing the thought to its ending.
theravenboy: (thoughtful)

[personal profile] theravenboy 2005-06-16 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
"A different sun, and a different year -- but with the same goals as the old year, and a destiny linked with the old one. I wish... You know, I do not know what my lord Arthur's goals were, besides holding back the Dark. I never had the chance to ask."
theravenboy: (thoughtful)

[personal profile] theravenboy 2005-06-16 05:41 am (UTC)(link)
Bran is still. "Yes."
theravenboy: (Default)

[personal profile] theravenboy 2005-06-16 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
"I have to, of course." Bran is silent for a moment. "We discussed what was between us. I am ready to speak with my lord Merlion again."
theravenboy: (thoughtful)

[personal profile] theravenboy 2005-06-16 06:00 am (UTC)(link)
"I only see him here."