Chapter Text
‘She [Moiraine] had come close to completing all one hundred numerous occasions, but she had actually done it only twice, once by the skin of her teeth.’ — Chapter 8 ‘Shreds of Serenity’, New Spring
Siuan knelt to Moiraine's level, slowly leaning in until it was too close for Moiraine to look into her eyes.
‘Is this supposed to be another distraction as well?’ Slightly frowning in concentration, Moiraine’s hands and fingers were still generating flows of weaves, but her eyes darted down.
‘Yes,’ Siuan’s tone was one of conspiracy like she knew some secrets that Moiraine couldn’t put her finger on.
Then she felt Siuan’s breath on her face. Her eyes fluttered close on their own accord. They held the space for a moment that stretched on for eternity, only their soft breathing was exchanged in between. Then the tranquillity was broken by Siuan moving even closer, tentatively nuzzling the tip of Moiraine’s nose with her own.
Moiraine was still weaving. She could feel Siuan’s sturdy arms supporting herself from the ground without looking. She anchored herself to the marble floor she was sitting on, the way her buttocks and legs supported her body and the proximity of Siuan’s welcomed invasion of her personal space. They grounded her instead of shaking her.
With a certitude nursed from countless encounters before this moment, plump and soft lips nestled upon Moiraine’s, which were already parted expectantly, the fact somehow escaped her awareness until they met. Warmth spread from where they jointed, radiating downward, passing the back of her neck, her spine, all the way to her folded legs and the tips of her toes.
The gentle and frantic waves danced around them all the same, netting a cocoon shielding them from the world. Moiraine had reached the ninetieth weave. This was the farthest into the weaves Moiraine had ever mastered as if Siuan could never affect her, as if their intimacy could not wager her anymore, as if the significance of this talented, charismatic woman before her had lost her touch on her. Moiraine was not sure if she liked that. Some things should stay constant. Always. For instance, those tingling sensations they caught whenever the other channelled in their presence. All thoughts fled from her mind, and she stopped the weaving and let go of saidar altogether.
Siuan gasped immediately and argued in wild gestures, 'Why did you stop?' Huffing angrily, she complained, ‘It was going so well, and you’ve never succeeded so far. Why under the Light would you throw— Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Like what?’ Moiraine feigned soberness in her voice, but Light, how frail her grip on sobriety was.
‘Like you want to do that again?’
‘Which part?’ Moraine tilted her head, ‘The weaves? Or the kiss?’
They were more apart than they had been. Siuan had backed away and sat on her haunches, but Moiraine could tell from Siuan’s swaying torso that she itched to smother the void between them, which had been her own doing.
‘Don’t you dare start pulling that Aes Sedai face on me now.’ Exasperation painted her face red. A rare colour on her indeed. ‘Fish guts.’
‘Now, who’s the pufferfish?’
‘That’s you and your synonym only.’
Moiraine gazed at her friend in fascination. She seemed to have created a wave in the usually calm body of water that is Siuan Sanche, and such discovery brought a grin she was unable to deny, a grin that induced a giggle bubbling up from her throat.
Before Siuan could demand an explanation of her reaction from her, Moiraine beckoned, ’Come here, Siuan,’ and engulfed her with open arms. They stayed still in the embrace for a while, their heartbeats the only movements among them until Siuan littered small pecks at the slope of Moiraine’s neck and shoulder, causing her to squirm ever so slightly.
‘You need to polish that Aes Sedai face of yours if you want to pass the test.’ Siuan mumbled at Moiraine’s collarbone.
‘You’re one to talk.’
‘It was not fair.’
This time Moiraine pulled back and raised an eyebrow at her fellow Accepted who had performed all sorts of distractions on her to help her prepare for the test with at least a tinge of, if not overarching, self-indulgent motifs, not that they were unwelcome for Moiraine.
Siuan huffed once more. ‘I don’t suppose you’re in the mood of practicing tonight anymore.’
‘What gave me away?’
Siuan simply stared at her. Moiraine could hear the accusation of her audacity and decided that was enough teasing and talking for tonight.
‘How would you like for us to pick up where we left off?’ Moiraine smoothed her face and tried out that pacific voice once more.
Maybe there could never be enough tease.