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WHO: Ernesto and Rand
WHAT: Murder pact
WHERE: Godsblood
WHEN: Shortly after Ernesto comes back to Godsblood early in the month
WARNINGS: Murder pact...

[ Ernesto's time in Venera hadn't been particularly enlightening, but it did leave him with a sense of assurance that the city was getting back on its feet. No city can completely close up shop the way they did without taking a pretty heavy economic hit, but at the very least the citizens seemed to have fully regained their health, with no signs of the Innocence infection creeping back in.

Eventually it seemed nearly pointless for Ernesto to keep lurking about the city, and he returned home to Godsblood.

Home...

Kind of strange to already be thinking of the city this way, but it was the closest thing that Ernesto had to one in this world. He'd settled into Godsblood quickly, and despite frequent trips to Greentruth, Godsblood really does feel like his stomping grounds at this point. He's gotten to know a number of the locals, and done a decent enough job ingratiated himself to most of them. Certainly he's ingratiated enough that the ones that know him decently well have begun to very pointedly turning a blind eye to some of his more suspicious behavior, even as Ernesto starts to wiggle his fingers in a few different business pies.

It's not entirely safe here, but there is a feeling of comfort that comes with being in this city, and as he sits at an outdoor bench, taking in a nice quiet moment, he doesn't realize that the tall redhead that's approaching him is about to disrupt that feeling of comfort today.

When Ernesto spots Rand, he lifts up a hand in greeting, a smile stretching across his face. ]

Been a little bit.

[ Is all his say in lieu of a proper greeting. ]

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It isn't so simple. If I could stop being a channeler by wishing, believe me, I'd've done it already. But Nynaeve said that in the Tower —

[ then he pauses, shakes his head. speaking of the white tower, the shining walls of tar valon, and the wisdom of emond's field are meaningless to ernesto. in a bizarre twist of fate, rand is the authority on the One Power here. whatever meager scraps of information he knows about channeling are all the knowledge that survived from his world to horos. ]

People who are born with the spark, [ he tries again, slower, ] who don't learn how to use the One Power...they get sick, and they die. [ they. he swallows. ] I've heard it's horrible. [ then, and a little deliberately to avoid saying they again, ] I can't help but use the Power. I did it on accident before I ever knew what I was. I've even used it on accident here.

[ it was how he knew he could use saidin even in horos. he could say that the discovery had been a disappointment, but that'd be a lie. thom had been right; after a taste of the Power, life without doesn't feel like living.

and, of course, there's the part he's leaving out. he is no ordinary channeler. the choices before him in fal dara had been to embrace his doom as the dragon reborn, or watch almost everyone he loves die for it. carry out a nearly hopeless plan likely to kill him, or watch the world be overrun by darkness. the wheel didn't spin the soul of the dragon reborn back into the world to not channel.

and hasn't horos been the same? channeling had kept him from the kenoma in his first moments on this earth. moiraine might not have been able to instruct him, but she'd never suggested he keep from using the Power. this war is so like their war. the kenoma's objectives sound so much like the dark one's. he doesn't think that's coincidence. he isn't sure he believes in coincidences anymore. he's active in keeping his archery skills sharp, developing his sword-fighting, but the truth is that he has no desire to walk into any confrontations with the kenoma unprepared to use saidin. ]

That's likely what would've happened to me if I'd never left Two Rivers.

[ egwene too. and little does he know, there are a thousand alternate, failed timelines where exactly that happens. ]

[ There's a moment to inhale deeply, before letting out a slow, pained exhale. This is pretty much the worst possible situation, isn't it? Ernesto's gaze softens as he looks at Rand, before he turns his head to stare blankly into the space ahead of them. ]

So you either go mad from your power and eventually die because of it, or you do nothing with it and are killed by it even faster?

[ Nothing about Rand's behavior or actions up until this point would have clued Ernesto in at all that he was carrying such a heavy burden. It's another painful reminder that as heavy as Ernesto's own problems can feel sometimes, it's pretty paltry compared to what other people happen to be carrying on their shoulders.

But then, that's always been the case even in his own world, hasn't it?

His jaw clenches, mind turning his over and over. He's always been the ideas man for the people around him, and he's always been expected to think on his feet. That his mind is churning out nothing at the moment is frustrating. ]

There's no real way to stop it from happening?

[ or you use it, because you must, because the alternative is letting the forces of shadow burn everything to the ground. the weave he'd used at the eye of the world with the sa'angreal moiraine gave him had been enormous. he hasn't thought about how much of his time using all that power burned. it wasn't supposed to matter. he doesn't know if it ended up being worth anything; if his world is gone even after all that...

the second question catches him a little off-guard.

mostly because, for half a second, he wonders if he hasn't been clear. and then he thinks — no, that's not it. ernesto is clever; he must understand. if there were a real way to stop any of this from happening...

you cannot escape your fate.

it's the same kind of denial rand would feel if their positions were reversed right now. if it had been mat or perrin instead of him. egwene's insistance that moiraine was wrong about them dying at the eye. the question he would've faced, if he'd only talked to his friends before leaving fal dara. if he'd gone back after facing the dark one, if he hadn't been thrown here. the desire to look out for him that they would have — (he wavers) — might have.

he straightens his spine against the thought. and instead of answering either of those questions, says, ]

I didn't tell you this so you'd feel sorry for me.

[ his tone isn't as harsh as it could be, saying that. more insistent. he wouldn't have told ernesto this at all, if he could've avoided it. ]

There's no one else here who knows anymore. [ unless moiraine emerges from light knows where and surprises him...which isn't honestly impossible, knowing her. but these days he tends to assume the worst. ] If it gets bad enough, I'm prepared to leave. I am. But if I'm not in my right mind, and I'm channeling...

[ and it's more than that, isn't it? leaving isn't actually enough. that just makes him vulnerable to the kenoma. and the truth is, he understands on some level that they can't be allowed to take him alive. amos had accused him, the first time they met, of not knowing moiraine's motives in taking him back to the pleroma. he knows with perfect clarity, though. she hadn't dedicated twenty years to finding him only to let the darkness take his power. ]

I will be a danger. I will have to be killed before I hurt any of our people, or innocent people, or worse.

[ ernesto can better imagine than he what or worse means. they are a secret resistance in this war, and if an insane channeler causes too much of a commotion...he reaches up to tap at his hidden shard. they both know now what damage to that means. ]

Done properly. It's no good if I come back, just as mad.

[ Being clever and even realistic doesn't mean he enjoys hearing painful realities any more than the next guy. That Rand came to tell him this without looking for sympathy doesn't surprise him, but that Ernesto is the only person to know this information does.

There's a sense in being open about the limited timeline that you're on. Allies need to be braced for what's to come, and need to know that there are some things you shouldn't be relied on for. Signs can be watched for if you know what to watch for too.

But Rand isn't warning Ernesto just so that he can make sure too much burden is put on Rand's shoulders now that the revelation that he can do magic is out there. This is still precautionary, but it's a much weightier one than Ernesto was expecting.

His eyes close and his ears pin back while he lets his entire body sink back against the wall with a heavy sigh.

There are some real downsides to being seen as reliable sometimes. ]

That's a hell of a request to make of a guy.

[ Rand hasn't technically made one yet, but like Rand himself thought, Ernesto is clever enough to understand something so glaringly obvious. ]

[ it is a hell of a request to make of anyone.

but it's also a rational contingency plan to make. the most rational contingency, in his mind. the truth is, the idea of having someone make sure he doesn't burn out too hard, too fast, while channeling doesn't occur to him. oh, it's a danger for more ways than the madness: there's always the possibility that rand might draw on too much of the Source than even the dragon reborn can safely handle, and burn himself to a crisp. but it's just not his immediate association with how to handle someone who channels saidin.

every child grew up on tales of the breaking of the world. rand, perrin, and mat had used to play on a hill that once faced the sea instead of a landlocked mountain range. the red ajah of the aes sedai is dedicated to finding channelers like rand and cutting them off from the One Power before another breaking can happen. and are they wrong to? even false dragons, men like logain, brought nothing but war and destruction in their wake. no one wants the dragon to be reborn: simply by existing, he's a harbinger of the last battle, the end of the world.

(sometimes he thinks, bleakly, and the world did end.)

there's no way to distill three thousand years of history and culture to explain to ernesto what an awful thing rand's existence, his very birth, is. but he can at least start to convey how much of a danger he poses to everyone around him. maybe at least one person in horos can see, at last, what he really is. ]

It doesn't have to be you, [ he says at last. how could he possibly ask that? ] But there will have to be someone.

[ If Rand thinks for a second that this short conversation is going to make Ernesto fully digest, understand, and appreciate what a horrible threat to all existence Rand is, then well...

Rand is just going to have to be disappointed, because all Ernesto is getting out of this is that Rand was played a very, very bad hand in life. Terminal illnesses are a thing that exist in Ernesto's world, and Rand's magic sounds more like a really tragic genetic disease to him than it does anything particularly apocalyptic. With enough time, and advances in medicine, sometimes those illnesses don't end up being so life threatening either.

Maybe it's the same with magic? They're on a new world completely, and there's a chance someone out there with a lot more magical know-how than Ernesto has might have an idea how to stop Rand's magic from literally burning him out the way it sounds like it will.

It's certainly worth asking about, but until they can find some other solution...

Maybe the nicest thing he can do is at least provide the boy with some reassurance. ]

I'm not saying I won't if push comes to shove.

[ He might not. If he can keep Rand a shard, then he can keep him contained while he tries to figure out another solution. ]

But I don't have much magic myself. I physically might not be able to.

[ He opens his eyes, cutting a sideways glance to Rand. ]

Have you told anyone else about this?

[ slowly, he shakes his head. ]

Akua knows I can channel.

[ and she knows that he's dragon reborn, ta'veren, born to fulfill a fate. which is already more than he'd want her to know, and more than he's admitted to ernesto. and abel knows — what, exactly? that someone had been willing to destroy a village to get at him? that someone had gone into his mind and twisted his dreams, to get at him? that's...

revealing, but not in this way. and that really is it, isn't it? he's kept from channeling when he can help it, particularly in front of people. he's been as reticent, in his own ways, about where he comes from as ernesto. ]

[ That he can channel, but being able to channel isn't going to mean much to people whose worlds don't work by the same magical rules that Rand does, and the fact that this is all Rand is saying makes Ernesto suspicious. ]

That you can channel, huh? Does Akua know what the implications of that are for you?

[ No, right?

Damn, Rand... way to lay something heavy at a guy's feet this way.

And the best Ernesto can do to help him right now is promise to kill him if the time for that comes? Shit... It would be nice if he knew more about the way magic worked in Rand's world. He could at least help guide him in using it in just the right amount that he wasn't taking an accelerated sprint towards madness, but without the full stop lack of use that would lead to a slow and painful death.

He'd already watched his own mom waste away from illness for a long and miserable year, and he's not eager for a repeat of that, no matter how new an acquaintance is in his life.

It just sucks that Rand's alternative to that isn't much better. ]

[ there isn't blame in how ernesto says that, really. the perro isn't picking a fight. but rand's temper sparks to that question anyway. there is so much that he's been angry about, with nowhere to go.

awful as it sounds, moiraine had been an easy target for his anger in those days on the road. she wasn't forthright with them. she'd dragged them from home. she was manipulating them. and it'd felt like she was pulling egwene away from them hardest of all, filling her head with dreams of becoming an aes sedai and forgetting all about two rivers. it had felt like she was pulling the strings on their lives, before he'd begun to glimpse the much bigger workings at play.

and that'd robbed him of a place to put his anger. besides himself, and that's been burrowing deep. if he hates any part of being in horos, well, he's here because he failed his world. every bad thing that's happened to him or his loved ones in recent months can be traced back to the fact of his birth. if he fails here, who can he blame? if he's unhappy, doesn't he deserve that?

so he snaps, ]

I didn't ask for this. Do you think I would've come to you like this if there was anything else I could do?

[ he can't claim some heroic courage in the face of death. he's bone-shakingly afraid of dying; it's just that there's something worse out there. the reason he'd channeled instead of just calling himself what he is comes from fear. if he were braver, he'd tell ernesto about the dragon reborn too instead of letting different people know bits and pieces about him and praying they never put two and two together. ]

Everyone on our side and theirs will probably know before the end, but it doesn't have to start that way.

[ If anyone can understand Rand's choice to only tell people scattered pieces of his story while never letting anyone see the fully completely puzzle, it's Ernesto. Though he doesn't have some powerful and all consuming destiny, and the fate of his world cannot in any way be traced to his own actions, he's still guarded about himself and what he's been through as well.

The looming axe of fate is not looming over Ernesto's neck the way it is for Rand though, and while his safety and continued existence is definitely not guaranteed in a world like this one, in a war he's been thrust into against his will, it's not the same as knowing death is a certainty for you.

But he knows others who do know that's their coming fate, and even if he hasn't experienced it personally, he has a pretty good understanding of how that can fuck a person up.

So he doesn't react strongly to the outburst, even if his ears pin back at Rand suddenly lashing out at him. His brow furrows slightly, and the corners of his lips turn down in a small frown, but he doesn't move. Even when he talks his voice stays calm, even attempting something soothing and placating to keep Rand from getting angry enough to storm off in the middle of what is frankly turning out to be a pretty damn important conversation these two started up. ]

If you don't want me to mention this to anyone else, I won't. And if you don't wanna tell anyone else, I'm not gonna pressure you to do it.

[ rand is capable of escalating arguments, of course. he is capable, if he's stressed and miserable and angry enough, of making ugly accusations. light knows, any of his friends could attest to that. his temper can get away from him. but it usually doesn't. his control is better than that, a lot of the time. and he isn't — he isn't an angry person. he never had reason to be. he doesn't see himself that way.

so there's that, and there's the fact that ernesto doesn't rise to his outburst. and there's...the way his ears move, the placating tone he takes. swelling shame is enough to douse rand's anger.

he breathes out a long, shuddering sigh. leans forward as he scrubs both hands down his face, leaves it covered for a long moment with his elbows balanced on his thighs. what does he want? the truth is, they're having this conversation because he's started to realize he can't keep running.

you cannot

escape

your fate.

he'd really, really wanted to get through this conversation with some measure of moiraine's serenity. egwene's conviction. perrin's quiet strength. the world doesn't need a dragon like me, he'd heard once, and he wonders if that's true of him now and here. ]

We'll have to, [ he says finally, without looking up. ] What I want doesn't matter.

[ Anger usually begets more anger, and the best way to deal with someone whose emotions are starting to swell is to refuse to let them drag you into their spiral. It's not a hard one for Ernesto, who is naturally even keel in demeanor, but it wouldn't be hard for most people to get riled up by someone exploding over their frustrations at life.

So it's probably better it was directed towards Ernesto, because it's also not hard for him to understand why Rand's situation would lead to an outburst either.

Ernesto watches Rand for a moment, quiet as he lets Rand get his barrings. There's not a lot he can over the other guy, other than the promise to take him out when things take a turn for the worse, and a promise based on cold rationality like that isn't a particularly comforting offer.

A hand falls on Rand's shoulder, warm, steady, and hopefully grounding enough that Rand doesn't lose himself too much in the what's to comes of the future. ]

It does a little bit.

[ His tone is just shy of cheerful now, not quite making it into upbeat territory, but relaxed enough that it's like they're having a regular conversation, instead of one about the magic Rand posses that will one day kill him. ]

You seem lucid enough to me at the moment, so there's no need to rush to make this all common knowledge.

[ when was the last time someone extended a hand in comfort? when was the last time he let himself accept it?

the answer comes slow, but it comes: nynaeve. in tar valon. you've done well, to bring him here. to take care of him. we don't need the aes sedai; we're two rivers folk. there had been a very brief time, between the chaos of their escape from home, their long separation, and all the revelations that would unfurl on the path to the eye of the world, when things seemed a little stable. nynaeve was there to take care of things: two rivers's wisdom, miraculously alive, who had never, ever let them down. and mat was healed not long after that. egwene and perrin found their way to safety, to them. a small glimmer of time when it seemed like things would be alright.

his relationship with moiraine had sometimes been difficult, but he'd never been sorry she was here. moiraine is knowledgeable, is reliable, cares about things that matter. she'd protected him in his very first moments in horos. and now she's gone.

it's a thought that seems to pound inside his skull: he is alone. he is alone. in a strange world, a strange war. with a power that will inevitably erode at the foundations of who he is.

but no, there isn't any need to hurry. he won't go mad tomorrow. so he listens, and he considers that, and he nods slowly. he hasn't looked back up yet, but he's gathering himself. he will. he can't fall apart now.

he is alone, but for a minute ernesto makes him feel like he isn't. and that's more than he could've ever asked for. ]

[ Ernesto doesn't have much magic, and what limited amount he possesses doesn't allow him to understand the thoughts and feelings of the people around him. What he does have is a natural gift for reading facial expressions and body language, and enough empathy to not want to abuse this particular skill.

Not that it takes any great skill to be able to tell what a mess of emotions Rand is right now, or that it takes much caring to not want to pick at something that has been clearly festering for awhile inside of this boy.

If the only true "remedy" he can offer for Rand is to one day kill him, then he can at least treat the symptoms for now by not letting Rand dwell on things. It's easy to get too deep in your own head; Ernesto would know that better than anyone, but it doesn't mean that another person can't pull you out.

He squeezes Rand's shoulder now, getting to his feet, but not letting go while Rand sits there. After a few short seconds he offers an exaggerated sigh, before finishing it off with a light-hearted chuckle. ]

Alright, if you're going to make a big ask of me, at least let me get a meal out of it. Come on, let's find something good. Your treat.

[ No, no wallowing in that sadness if Ernesto can gently prod him out of it and push him in to focusing on the immediate present instead of the overwhelming future. ]

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