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"If I wanted to consume such a thing" Kai replied swiftly without turning around. "I could take it from your hand before you knew you had it there." Kai's challanging look fixed Doberler with a smug smile. He had his back to Liana. A twinkle came into his eye knowing that the warder could hide his fustration and emotion...but could not stop himself from feeling it.
"I shall go get us some food." Kai announced suddenly. "Would you like some Liana?" Kai asked in mock sweetness as he turned around. He walked to the door and smiled as he past Liana.
"Oh...your warder has something he wants to....tell you." And with that Kai left. He made his way down stairs. Sitting at the bar he ordered himself a good cup of cider. He'd go up when he was good and ready.

As the door swung open, Liana spun round, spots of color appearing in her cheeks as she tugged at her dress, straightening it with a pleasant smile.

"Oh...Kai! Hello dear. How was lunch?"

Seeming far more at peace than she had been previously, the Aes Sedai combed her fingers through her disheveled hair, twisting it up into a knot in one casual motion, pinning it at the back of her head. Turning to look back at the two men in the doorway, she offered Kai a gentle smile.

"I'm sorry to have besieged your room this way. I'll be leaving now."

Crossing the floor in her graceful, swaying movements, Liana touched a hand to her Warder's arm, looking up at him with warmth.

"Care to walk with me, Fakali my love?"

*Liana arched an eyebrow, surprised at this sudden change in Kai's attitude towards her. Well, she corrected herself, not really. But an admission of bad conduct was at least a start. Nodding graciously, Liana extended her hand, touching Kai's shoulder*

"I also wish to repent for my reaction earlier. It was completely out of line. I hope you can forgive my bad behavior. At least know that it was considerably influenced by other factors..."

*Slidding an amused glance at her Warder before looking back to Kai once again, her eyes serious*

"It takes a strong person to admit when they've made a mistake. I think, Kai Karasurei, that you are a very strong young man. I ask, however, that you be wary of how you use that strength. You seem to spend a great deal of energy hating...Aes Sedai in particular. I'm sure you'll agree that that...dedication...could be put to far better goals."

Kai flinched a bit when she touched him, but he forced himself to withstand it. He had been in the wrong, yes. That much was obvious. He didn't have to like it though.



"We shall see Liana Sedai. There are other places I must tend to before that time comes." His answer was vauge, but he was thinking of a very particular instance...a particular person.
"Perhaps once that is done, I will be ready."

Not wishing to offend, but seeing an opening, Kai tentivly surged forward with a joke.
"I shall ensure that we stay on the topic of battle..." He said. He winked awquardly as he had seen other people do it, the whole expresison largely devoid of emotion unlike its preferred execution. However, the meaning was there to ease up the mood despite the complete shift of personality conflict that the action had with Kai's usual tendency.
"I was going to survey the town anyway before your warder came along. Now if I am not mistaken you both have rooms of your own, yes? I rather prefer to lock mine."

The town was all but an empty shell, like the last remains of a rotted log covered in insects feeding off its death. Soldiers who were not manning the walls, huddled around pitiful campfires. Villiagers still used their houses, but were haggard and lacked the energy of everyday life. The snow was matted down and in the places the the ground showed, there was nothing to see but mud. The wall itself could barely be called a wall. It was breeched in so many places that it comprised now almost as much of furniture and personal belongings rather than the reinforced wood that had once held the gates erect. Kai shook his head disapprovingly at the silouette of the gate on the backdrop of the sky, the right tower still erect, the left crumbling. I do not understand. Kai thought to himself. There is nothing in this town worth saving. It is better to fall back and take the town with a superior force.
Kai had left shortly after feeling akward around the pair of channellers, He had passed by Kurai with nothing but a nod and continued outside. But the more he saw of the town, the more miserable an impression of it he gained. He got to the gate, beyond which lay the previous day's battle field, still littered with corpses. A handful of villiagers had the sore duty of gathering the dead, burning the trollocs and burying the valiant defenders that had given their lives for this hell-hole frontier town. The more he thought about it, the less he understood. HE was deep in this thought when an old voice broke in.
"Aye! Aye! Wah ye doin jus sittin aboot there? I kin ye be o' better use puttin ye young back ta work, laddie. Ye shou fallah ol' Perkins. Ol' Perkins be the one ta listen ta!" The voice came from a tettering old man dressed in rags. He was blad, save for a long trailing white beard. His wiry body seemed to shake as he walked, propt up as it was by a rickety cane as gnarled and twisted as he was.
"And why should I listen to you?" Kai asked condicendingly. The man turned to him, one eye opened wide and pinning him with an odd sort of stare used only be people of questionable sanity.
"Cause I kin I know what be that jewel on ye head, boi!" The man stated and continued walking down a trampled path to a hovel by the side of the gate. Kai, sufficiently irked, followed the man.

It was a few hours later, and with a sketchy understanding of the history of his crescent jewel that Kai exited the hut, disliking the man as much as when he entered. But he had been useful, and that was all that was important. Continuing his wandering about the village, Kai came to the piece of wall upon which he battled the trollocs. Grasping a rung on the ladder he hauled himself up to survey the battlefield. However, when he got there he noted more the horizon, a long line filled with stretching tundra and clumps of trees full of green needles or bare branches. The horizon had never caught his eye this way, it was odd. But it also appealed to him. He enjoyed watching what was really nothing at all. His rational told him this...yet it did not matter. There he stood, a silouette on the jutting wall, taking in the view...

"My master once said that 'Every battle a warrior sees is always that many too much.' I have followed Cha Faile. I have seen battle before. I have killed before. This was indeed too much. I don't know if I deserved to live through this one. I..." Kai stopped, looking at the stars that were shining now in the sky, their light piercing the viel of night like the laterns of heavanly spirits. "I have never noticed the pleasure of 'scenery' before. I have today, though. I am not accostumed to wasting my time. Today, however, I watched the blue sky of afternoon fall away to the hues of dusk that preceed the crawling night. I find this appealing, but I do not understand why. I have accomplished nothing here."