trans_9 | Bendy-timed to before Nightmare plot. [Open]

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Bendy-timed to before Nightmare plot. [Open]

Things hadn't changed back yet. He didn't consider himself an expert on all things Tarmon Gai'dan, no matter what the memories of the men in his head seemed to think about it, but he would have been willing to lay coin down on the fact that the ripples it caused didn't last this long. This couldn't have been an Aes Sedai trick--not directly, at least. He wouldn't put it past them to try something else--he might have woken up here without his medallion at first, but he clearly remembered the feel of it on his skin when he was approaching the purple wagon.

But if this wasn't a direct trick, and it wasn't some sort of portent of Tarmon Gai'dan, Mat didn't know what it was. For once, his memories gave him no information at all about what this could be.

They certainly didn't give him any bloody idea why it had to be him, Matrim bloody Cauthon, who woke up in another alternate world in another life. Was this another flaming gift of being ta'veren?

Burn me, but nothing good's ever come of being this bloody ta'veren. Someone could've asked me if I wanted any of it before deciding they ought to start...weaving the flaming threads of the world around me. They might've found someone more interested in the 'adventure' of it.

Of course, no one had made one mention of ta'veren or the pattern or...very much of anything familiar since he'd found himself here. There'd been the Aiel woman who spoke like a Seanchan, and he could have sworn he'd watched Aes Sedai glide by down distant corridors, but nothing was quite right. It was like a living fever dream.

Perhaps this was a sign of Tarmon Gai'dan after all? Yet, even when his thoughts had turned to Rand or even to Perrin, there had been no swirl of colors in his mind.

None of it made any sense!

Mat scowled in frustration, and slumped against a wall, watching the milling crowd of almost-familiar faces. Where under the Light was he?

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Ghanima didn't much care for the ship, though she did enjoy sitting in the obs deck. She enjoyed sitting and staring out the window at the vast emptiness of space that they seemed to be traveling through. It was comforting knowing that despite that so much of her life that had changed, been uprooted - that space itself didn't change.

She drew in a deep breath, her eyebrows furrowing as she stared out the window. Absently, she twirled a lock of her blond hair between her fingers, and wondered just how much longer this.... thing the crew had been apparently brought to face would last.

Catching a movement out of the corner of her eye, Ghanima turned her head slightly and watched the man who was slumped against the wall. Her head tilted just a fraction to the side, as her blue-within-blue gaze lingered on him.

It was obvious the man was frustrated, but it seemed to her that he was also uncertain. "You are not the only one who finds this a difficult place to be in," she spoke, addressing him finally.

He'd noted the woman's eyes when he'd first seen her. She wasn't the only one with the eery blue, but it would take more than oddly colored eyes to put Mat off. Light, his own friend had managed to get himself different eyes. Eyes were the least of the strange things Mat'd seen since leaving the Two Rivers, and around here it seemed few people even looked twice about them.

Not that he could blame any of them for being unimpressed, in this place, the people were the closest shades of home he could find, and even they were like images in mist--quicky dispelled as soon as one looked closer.

But the cant of her voice was familiar enough. He'd heard enough of it for a lifetime, but it seemed that was one thing he wasn't getting away from no matter how far he ran. Mat frowned, when he glanced over at the woman. She held herself with all the diginity of a woman wearing tailored silk robes, rather than indecent green film. "Who bloody wouldn't?"

Her eyebrows perked up at his response, though she didn't say anything for the moment. She just stared at him, taking in his appearance, his expression - the small tics, the downward pull of his lips, the crease of his forehead. It seemed as though the man's frustration was now directed toward her. Wasn't the first time, and she was sure it wouldn't be the last time.

"Do I offend you in some way?" she suddenly asked, breaking the silence.

Offend? No, he didn't particularly find the existence of Aes Sedai offensive. Now, their complete lack of gratitude or any semblance of respect for anyone, that offended him. He doubted his luck was so good that it might be that part that was changed here.

That said, it was never a good idea to rile up a woman without reason. If you were going to have to deal with her ire, always get something out of it. "No." He glanced toward the strange windows. He'd heard it called something, but he couldn't recall what. It was a strange, dizzying sort of sensation to see the night sky twisting and whipping by as it was. The stars were never meant to move like that.

By way of further explanation, he added, "This place can't be normal for anyone."

He wasn't telling the whole truth, she could tell. But she decided that she wouldn't say anything about that. If he wasn't offended by her, he was offended by something that she obviously reminded him of.

She followed his gaze and once again found herself looking back out the large window. "This place as in the ship? Or the fact that the ship is soaring through space?" she asked, keeping her attention on the space outside the window.

"The ship is indeed a discommodious place to live, but space... Space is quite soothing, it is the one thing that cannot change."

Soothing? Mat could have thought of a few handfuls of words for what the flaming stars soaring by him was like, but soothing was not among those. But when had any woman made sense? It seemed the more he met, the less they did.

He shifted his wide brimmed hat, and turned back from the streaking lights. Space. That was the word. This space was much different from the night sky he knew. "Nothing about this is normal."

Disbelief might as well be written in text across the man's face. A knowing smile fluttered across Ghani's lips as she turned her head a bit to the side to study him once again.

"Perhaps. Has your world not achieved technology needed for space travel?" she asked, curious as to what exactly was so abnormal for this man. "Or perhaps your world has already, though you've never been a living ship before?"

The smile gave him no pause. Every bloody woman thought she knew the world and a half. More often than not, they were wrong, but not one of them would have anything of that possibility.

He didn't quite understand everything the woman asked him, but exact understanding was never the important part. As far as he could see, women just wanted you to agree and leap to whatever they wanted. Failing that, the gist would do.

He shook his head, and eyed the streaking stars again. "Don't see the need for your feet leaving the ground unless they have to."

This was getting old, this man had never met her before - yet he clearly distrusted her. She could see it in the way his eyes crinkled slightly, the small set of his mouth, the small hesistation of his movements.

Rising to her feet in a graceful movement, she motioned toward the window. "Well then, I suggest you start looking for 'the need', because I don't see this ship caring much what you think - because here you are in a ship which happens to be soaring through space."

Well, he didn't need the memories of the generals in his head to know the woman was annoyed at something he'd said. Which part, however, was as mysterious as always. He could have a thousand lifetimes in his head and still never understand the way a woman's head worked.

Light, what he wouldn't give to have Rand's insight on them just now. Especially if that voice that guested in his head when he arrived was somehow connected to his being stuck here.

He shook his head, and offered a wry smile--even his most winning smiles rarely had effect on Aes Sedai, so wry it would be. Wry as running into a hopeless battle. "I don't suspect this cares much what anyone thinks."

"And I believe you'd be right on that account," Ghani ascented before taking a step closer to the man. "Though might I offer a piece of friendly advice?" She didn't even wait for him to answer, because she was going to offer it to him whether he wanted her to or not.

"It might behove you to remember that no one asked to be brought to this place, and that we all wish to be elsewhere. You wish to be angry? That is within your rights, but do not take it out on those you've only just met. You distrust me, that is more than clear - but what have I done to deserve such distrust?"

On second thought, it probably wouldn't have hurt to try to be winning. He maintained it wouldn't have done any good, but it might not have further incited the woman's ire. Mind, he had no concern for her One Power, if she were Aes Sedai, but if they needed that to be unpleasant, a man would only ever have concern over running into an Aes Sedai.

He grabbed up his Ashandarei. It may be time to be moving, so long as the woman didn't determine it a victory if he did so. Once you gave them one, they never bloody stopped driving for another.

"What have you done to earn my trust?" If there was one thing his memories taught him, it was that Aes Sedai were never to be trusted. Oh, yes, they might work alongside you and even to your benefit, if it served them, but they were always out for their own bloody plans and Aes Sedai White Tower agendas. Oaths or no, Mat would trust any thief before an Aes Sedai.

Light, he might even trust a Darkfriend first. At least he'd know what they were after.

Her gaze moved to the spear he picked up, and her stance shifted ever-so-slightly. He wasn't going to be dumb enough to try and attack her, was he? No, he didn't appear to be, which was a good thing. She relaxed her shoulders and continued to stare at him in a detached manner.

"And perhaps you'd be so kind as to tell me what I've done to earn your distrust?" Her gaze moved slowly over him and a small almost amused smile appeared. "Perhaps it is merely because I'm a woman. Do you have issues with women, sir?"

Mat may have been many things--many he would agree with--but he was not the sort of man to attack a woman--much less an Aes Sedai--without cause. Two women in his life were enough to kill.

"I've no issues with women. I like women just fine." He liked them a lot, even, when it came to a dance and sometimes more. "I don't like people who decide what's good for me without my consult. No matter what bloody robe or shawl they wear."

"Ah," Ghani nodded with understanding. Well she'd just have to see what she could do to perhaps change his preconcieved notions of her.

She looked down at herself, an eyebrow raising slightly as she took in the clingy material of her plantsuit. "I wasn't aware that I was wearing a robe or a shawl," she informed him with a coy smile. "Should I be?"

Yes, well, she needn't hold her breath. He had more than one lifetime's experience of lessons telling him not to trust Aes Sedai women. Even when they weren't really Aes Sedai.

He made a face at her comment, though. As if he didn't know about the clingy outfits so many wandered around in--worse than the worst of Ebou Darian fashion!--but that wasn't what he'd meant. "You don't need to have them with you to be wearing them, do you?"

Or she could end up deciding to antaganize him. That could be rather fun now that she thought about it.

"Is there a reason why you would think I should be?" She tilted her head a little to the side, wondering who or what this man thought she was.

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Bendy-timed to before Nightmare plot. [Open]

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