WHO: Lan Mandragoran & Nynaeve al’Meara WHAT: After Lan is injured he goes to Nynaeve for some healing. WHEN: After this. WARNINGS: Some injuries and a good amount of UST. STATUS: Complete!
It had been a morning already, and the sun was barely yet peeking through the trees. These new eyeless monsters had come at Lan and Moiraine, to attack, and the pair had fended them off but not without injuries sustained. It was an adjustment, the pair of them learning to deal with a masked bond, and Moiraine being without her channeling.
He’d been spoiled a lot over these twenty years, being healed by her as soon as he sustained any sort of damage. Now he was left with linen tied over a claw wound on his arm, one he’d been ignoring for the better part of an hour while they tracked more of the beasts in the woods. He’d reassured Moiraine he would go see their Wisdom, and finally made good on that promise when the soreness crept down his arm.
Lan found her easily and gave himself a moment to appreciate the view, to take her in. They hadn’t found comfort in each other’s arms since that one night, and he knew it was for the best, but his fingers ached to reach out and touch her.
He made do with just approaching quietly, as to not spook her.
“If the Wisdom is able to spare a few moments for a wayward Warder, he would appreciate a quick look at a wound.” Lan’s lips twitched with the desire to smirk at her, but he kept things serious for now.
Nynaeve had been busy in the common room at the Crossed Quills, studying a book on local herbalism. At home, in her proper place, she knew the name and use for every root, leaf, and moss she might come across. Here in Vallo there were some she knew, some she didn’t, and others that looked like plants she knew but weren’t. If she was going to be a decent healer here without relying on channeling (which would be stupid for several reasons, not the least of which being that she couldn’t reliably do it), she needed to catch up quickly.
And now she looked up from her book by the sunny window to find the very reason she needed to be a decent healer walking right up to her.
“Lan!” Nynaeve stood up promptly upon seeing the shoddy bandage wrapped around his arm. “What in the Light happened to you?” She didn’t wait for an answer before pulling a chair out from the table and beginning to give orders. “Well, don’t just stand there! Sit and let me look at that, you idiot.”
Lan sat with a quiet chuckle. He’d expected similar treatment, so it was good to know he at least ranked above an eyeroll these days. The common room of their current residence felt much like every other tavern he was used to, though it was quieter now in the daylight hours, with many of it’s normal patrons either still asleep or already off for the day.
He would have liked for his words to be drowned out to not cause any undue panic, but Lan kept his voice low. “Creatures in the forest. Moiraine and I ran into them, the description of them sounded similar to the Fade.” He looked at Nynaeve and continued, to reassure her. “They weren’t. Similar, however, eyeless, with fingers that are more like claws.”
Lan held his arm out to her. “I don’t think the wound is too serious.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Nynaeve primly replied, deftly unwrapping the bandage and focusing on being annoyed about this man trying to tell her her business rather than the idea of creatures in the woods. Being miffed at Lan also served as an excellent opportunity to do something other than show her relief at the fact that these things weren’t actually Fades. The Fade had been the most terrifying single thing she’d ever laid eyes on, and the idea of several of them made her blood run cold.
Not that she was going to let Lan or anybody else see that. A leader and protector of her people didn’t show fear. She didn’t have time for fear. She grabbed up something more productive, like anger or annoyance, and went with that.
“You’re lucky I’ve been studying the local herbs and such, you know. A week ago you’d have come in here saying ‘Wisdom, I let a creature that doesn’t even have eyes to see land a hit on me’ and I would’ve had to shrug and wish you luck.”
Lesser soldiers would have bristled under her clear annoyance and lecture, but Lan only let a small smile through. It was a comfort in most things, for the two of them to play their typical part. If she had been quiet, or concerned, it would have raised his worry considerably.
“A lack of eyes does not take away the rest of their senses,” he reminded quietly, but wasn’t bothered by it. He glanced over at what she had been working on, curious gaze trying to get a sight of what she’d been learning.
“I am thankful, though,” His eyes flicked up to her to gauge her reaction. “There are a number of healers in Vallo that I likely could have visited.” Not that he would have, unless the situation was dire. Nynaeve was his first choice in a healer, with Moiraine’s connection out of commission and having already felt the effects of what the Wisdom could do. But he couldn’t resist attempting to get a reaction out of her.
“And yet, here you are,” Nynaeve grumbled back. She was absolutely bristling, because unlike Lan, she was very easy to goad into it. She was the human equivalent of a hedgehog, prickly all over to protect the soft heart underneath–a heart that was still aching quietly at the fact that this man seemed to think it was always so simple to just find someone else, as if who it was didn’t matter.
But she wasn’t thinking about that, absolutely not. She was thinking about the messy-looking wound under the makeshift bandage and the possibilities of infection, because this was obviously no time for feelings. “Did you clean this wound at all or just slap a cloth on it?” she asked, and once again did not wait for an answer, because obviously if he had cleaned it, he hadn’t done a very good job, or at least not one up to her standards. “Come on, upstairs, let’s make use of all that hot running water.”
Lan huffed out a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh, and he followed without complaint. “Here I am.” It was said with meaning, and a look that she would not catch if she walked ahead of him, but he hoped at least his meaning would be clear - there was no other option as long as Nynaeve was here.
“I did not clean it.” It was easier to confess than it was to lie, she would likely see right through him anyway. When the door closed behind him, Lan began removing his wrapped top, to take delicate care with the wound on his arm. “I thought I would leave that to the trained healer.” She’d seen all of him, so it was ridiculous for Lan to feel shy as he draped his shirt over a nearby chair, and yet he had a faint flush to his skin as he sat down for her. “What will ease your mind, Wisdom?”
“Rand, Egwene, Mat, and Perrin all turning up alive and well and safe,” Nynaeve replied, because that would ease her mind. For all her smart remarks about getting hit by a creature with no eyes, Nynaeve knew that Lan was more or less the most capable warrior living, and that he was quite capable of taking care of himself. And what he couldn’t take care of, she could, so he’d be fine. She couldn’t say the same for those mad, wonderful children who were constantly getting themselves into trouble.
She meant to say something of the kind as she turned around with a cloth wet from the basin in the bathing area, but instead she was momentarily struck speechless.
She shouldn’t be, of course. She was a healer. She’d seen countless people with their shirts off, and everything else, too. She’d seen this man without anything on, even, and seeing it again should absolutely not be affecting her in the least. What was it to her if he happened to look particularly fine like this? She had a job to do, and by the Light she would do it.
She just had to clear her throat first before putting her doing my job face back on and approaching with the washcloth.
Lan was quiet and pensive, they both knew full well he couldn’t give her what she asked, but that wasn’t the point. He would have requested the same of Moiraine had she not been here, their kinships were similar in many ways. Couple that with how tight-lipped Moiraine was in terms of everything that had happened with the Dark One. Lan had been giving her time, though he knew how she talked around words when she was trying to get out of lying.
When he had first met Nynaeve, he would have hesitated in putting a hand on her, out of respect. But now, with a little more time and comfort between them, he reached up to lightly wrap his fingers around her wrist as she brought in the cloth. He didn’t mean to stop her long, and the hold was light enough that she could pull free, but he desired to touch her in that moment as he looked up at her face.
“If I could give them to you, safe and sound, here, away from all of that. I would. They say we are in both places at once, though I know that is of no comfort without proof.” He loosened his hold, “But the people of this place-” I should have replaced the people in that moment. “Are lucky to have you here with them.”
It was unfair of him, Nynaeve thought, to say things like that to her, to touch her so gently, when he had already refused any notion of them continuing on together. She had offered a possibility, that last morning before the battle for Fal Dara, and he’d quite clearly shut that possibility down. Not because he didn’t love her, she didn’t think, but that didn’t make her feel the rejection less keenly.
“As you pointed out, there are a number of healers in Vallo,” she flatly replied, and finally had the sense to get on about cleaning the wound rather than standing there with his hand on her. “I expect you were with Moiraine when this happened—why didn’t she take care of it?”
Lan let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a sigh, but let his hand drop away without complaint and settled in to be as still of a patient as he could. Years of wounds and combat and training had ingrained a very high pain tolerance. The rest of it could be taken away with meditation, should it come to it, but that was still a ways off.
Even if he wanted to close his eyes and disassociate as soon as her question hit him. He could lie, nothing was preventing him from it, and he knew he risked Moiraine’s annoyance if he was open about anything potentially considered a weakness, but he gave in. “She can’t. The encounter with the Dark One blocked her from touching the Source.”
That successfully drew Nynaeve right out of thinking about her own bruised heart. The idea of it, that the Dark One could just cut a woman off from her power, was nothing short of horrifying. Nynaeve might not like the Aes Sedai as a group or this one in particular, but she had always been a creature of empathy, and she knew too well how it felt to have that which she thought stable and reliable yanked out from under her.
“He can do that? That’s—is there any fixing it?” Nynaeve asked. “Has she spoken to any of the magic folk here about it?”
Lan was quiet for a while longer, not wanting to simply shrug and move something he shouldn’t while she was working. It was also a thought that had been on his own mind, fixing it, but nothing had come to pass as of yet. “I don’t know. I think she is biding her time, or waiting for the right moment. It’s been an adjustment, coupled with this place.”
“It’s hard to know who and what to trust,” Nynaeve quietly agreed. Say what one would about Moiraine Sedai, the woman was no fool. She wouldn’t reveal an obvious vulnerability unless she was sure she could compensate for it.
She examined the now-cleaned wound, choosing to set her attention there rather than in just what an adjustment this place was. “I think you can get away without stitches, but I’m going to put a poultice and a proper bandage on it, and you’re not to take it off for a full day, you understand?”
“Mmhm.” He quietly agreed, and knew she wasn’t wrong. Moiraine would wait until she had answers, and there was no force in any world that could push her to do something faster. Moiraine would do it on her own time and that was something Lan had gotten used to over the years.
It didn’t make him any less concerned, but at least Nynaeve gave him something else to think about. “I understand.” He’d follow her rule for the simple reason that he disliked having his skin stitched together with thread. “I can swing my sword with only my left arm for now.” Because not taking it off was a different beast than not fighting.
Nynaeve rolled her eyes, because of course the stupid man would insist on running back out there like he was the only person in the world with a sword. “Or you could sit still, and the powerless Aes Sedai and her wounded Warder could play Crowns or read a book or something and let the other dozens of capable warriors here finish the job on the fiends, but what do I know about it?”
She didn’t expect Lan to listen to her, of course. No one ever listened when she had very good ideas like ‘don’t do that.’ The fact that no one listened had never stopped Nynaeve from saying exactly what she thought, though.
She turned back to rifle through a box sitting on what had apparently become her work table. Nynaeve had her flaws, but being unprepared was not one of them. Of course she had poultices already made and bandages rolled and ready for situations just like this.
Lan suspected that might be her response, and smirked in return. Part of it depended on Moiraine - if she wanted to do more tracking, he would be at her side. “I’ve never been very good at Crowns.” Or sitting still when it was required of him, but that hardly needed to be said when it was just known.
He could be patient at times, and was for Nynaeve as he waited her out. How easy it would have been to reach out and touch her again, but he had no right, and kept his hands to himself, having learned his lesson from just minutes before. Instead he closed his eyes and stilled himself to the desire. Finally, eventually, with what felt like eight years even though only moments had passed, he smiled in her direction. “Thank you, Wisdom. I’ll take good care of your work.”
Nynaeve stepped back to give him room to stand and go as he wished. There were other things she’d rather do, of course–take his hand and squeeze it hard and tell him he’d better not get himself killed out there, or brush her fingertips over his cheek and kiss him and tell him she couldn’t stand losing anyone else. But she had a poultice on his wound to ease the pain and speed the healing, a properly wrapped and tied bandage holding it in place and keeping the wound clean, and a foolish certainty that whatever Lan wanted from her, it wasn’t her genuine affection. It was time to let him go.
“See that you do,” she replied with a pointed lift of her chin. “And if you don’t, I expect you back here to get it redressed, not hiding in corners to avoid a scolding.”
Lan snagged his shirt and tipped his head to her in a short, respectful bow. “As you wish, Nynaeve al’Meara.” He slipped on the shirt before he went to the door, mindful of his bandage as if to prove to her he could follow her directions.
He glanced back at her one last time, a quiet parting on his lips instead of the feelings he wanted to voice, “Be careful out there.”