while i'm fine with wit and jasnah's relationship in row i'm kinda worried, knowing hoid's shadyness and his role in the cosmere as a whole, that he doesn't end up betraying her or using her or he turns out to be the actual big bad of the cosmere or something
HELLO FRIEND. I realise u sent this message Many Moons Ago, but what u have to understand is my memory is non-functinal. It's as broken as my impulse control. So u know. This is why this answer is Very Late. BUT. It exists. So. Yay for that I guess??
ANYWAY.
I don't agree that Wit (I'm going to go with Wit since that's the name he's using on Roshar/what Jasnah knows him as, and for the sake of ease on this post, I'm just using that one name) will be the eventual BBEG of the Cosmere. I believe that, fundamentally, his intentions and motivations are generally good.
Regardless of that, I understand the Concern there for Jasnah with him betraying her/using her/sacrificing her for his greater good etc etc. She's suffered enough fucking betrayals in this series already, man alive.
I hope/believe that Wit is someone she can trust/lean on for support and confide in as a mutual and a partner, as she's been doing in RoW, and I really hope he won't stab her in the back/betray her in the standard, trust-eroding way she's used to.
HOWEVER. I do recognise your worries and I've considered them as well and what it boils down to for me is that: he's been honest with her about who and what he is.
Jasnah is not going into this blind. She's not going into this thinking he's just a strange little man who likes to insult people and make good puns in her direction. She knows that he's ancient. She knows that he's a worldhopper. She knows that he's trying to protect the Cosmere as a whole.
He seems to have been more open and forthright with Jasnah about his goals than he has with pretty much anyone else as we've seen him in his various small roles across the Cosmere.
She doesn't know the specifics of what he does. For example, he hasn't yet (that we know of) confided in her about where exactly he goes and what exactly he does when he vanishes from Roshar. But I feel like she knows enough.
“Perfect for you. If this is agreed to, you win no matter what. Odium remains contained in the Rosharan system either way.”
While they're discussing the contract with Odium, which Wit had a not small hand in writing, Jasnah makes this comment to Wit. She knows who he is, and she knows what he's willing to sacrifice, and what his ultimate goals are.
He's been honest enough with her to explain the wider Cosmere to her, his role in it, his fears regarding Odium, and his desire to trap the Shard on Roshar, at the very least, to stop it causing any more harm than it already has.
The short version of this answer is that I think, if a time should come when Wit has to choose between Jasnah and the Cosmere, he'll choose the Cosmere. But. Jasnah knows this. Jasnah knows that he'll choose the Cosmere over her. And, what's more, I think that Jasnah would agree with that. And that she would choose the Cosmere over him, too.
So, if Wit betrays her, it wouldn't be a standard betrayal of the kind she's used to. It would be one he has her blessing in, almost. Which is a bit sad, for both of them, because I think they both accept/have this condition in place. But it lets them function openly and honestly. And it lets them trust each other, in a weird way, knowing that's always an option, and that they'll do what they both believe is the right thing if they're forced to choose.
I believe that they've communicated with one another about this. He's told her what he wants and what his goals are - at least in terms of Roshar and Odium and things that concern her. And she's shared with him the same. And I think they understand each other enough, and are actually similar enough, that even if it comes down to it and one of them has to make that choice - they'll both understand and agree with it?
It's actually kind of a fascinating dynamic. There are a lot of complex layers at play with this relationship. But they're two intensely complex characters, with complex motivations, and drives. And I think they've been as honest with each other as they can, as they try to balance building a deep, meaningful connection and relationship with another person; while also trying to save their planet/universe at the same time.
It's never going to be perfect, but they're doing the best they can with it to make this as healthy, committed, and positive relationship as they can. Not just for each other, but for what's most important to each other as well.
So I guess the tl;dr is: yes, Wit may be a shady fuck. But Jasnah is also, technically, a shady fuck. They're two shady fucks together. Who know they're with another shady fuck. And they've discussed exactly what they're trying to achieve, and the lengths they're willing to go to to get it. So if one of them becomes the alpha shady fuck, the other one will be aware of that/supporting them in all their shady fuckery.
Wow. I'm so immensely eloquent tonight. ur welcome.
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Part 1 of the great saga of Witsnah “WELL ACTUALLY” metas I plan on doing bc y’all have just pushed me That Far.
Well hello there. I’m GRUMPY. And what I do when I’m grumpy is I channel it into a little thing called spite meta. That’s what this is. It’s me angrily yelling for several thousand words about why this thing is a GOOD thing, actually.
Today’s subject, the much controversial post Rhythm of War canon pairing that is: Wit/Jasnah.
So let’s (angrily) explore why this is actually a positive thing for both characters, on a nuanced, meta, character analysis level. Because that’s the only level that I have.
I admit, I was sceptical and uncertain. But when I actually sat and thought about this for a hot second...It started making a lot of sense to me. And then I thought about it for, like, a hot minute, and it made a LOT of sense to me. And now I’ve thought about it for a hot month, so come. Step into my thoughts, and I will explain my perspective on this all…
Firstly we’re going to talk about clothes. Yes, clothes. Clothes and what they symbolise for this pair, together and individually.
He was immaculate, as always, with his perfectly styled hair and sharp black suit. For all his talk of frivolity, he knew exactly how to present himself. It was something they’d bonded over. - RoW, 64
Wit and Jasnah have bonded over the idea of presentation and the effects it can create. Both of them have used this idea to great effect multiple times in the series. Wit displays himself as a more appropriate form of an Alethi highprince at war - a crisp, tailored, military suit in a colour that makes him instantly and easily identifiable in a crowd. It’s part of his subtle mockery of those around him - that the King’s Wit is a better presented highprince than the REAL highprinces. It also makes him recognisable, and it makes him seem professional and able to move easily in high society.
Equally, we’ve seen him take the guise of a poor beggar so as to sneak into Kholinar and go unnoticed and dismissed when he sneaks into the palace to recover Design in Oathbringer.
Jasnah, meanwhile, gives a memorable and impactful speech to Shallan at the beginning of Words of Radiance about the illusion of perception. About how by presenting herself as a princess, looking the way others expect, she is able to effectively use her authority. And would be able to similarly do so if she simply convinced people she was a princess, by manipulating their perception of her.
Both Jasnah and Wit understand this idea - of presenting yourself, not necessarily in the way you want to look, but in the way you want others to look at you. Creating for them the thing you want them to see, which enables you to better be that thing.
It also runs deeper than that. They’re not just people who like to dress well. They understand that this has a power to it. They understand the effect it will have over others. And it’s this deeper thing that I believe they’ve bonded over.
Because they don’t simply appear put together in their clothes; they appear put together in their everything. Wit and Jasnah are people who are consistently calm and composed regardless of the situation. They do it in very different ways. Jasnah with calculating stoicism and intellectual calm. Wit with indifferent frivolity and nonchalant acceptance of what’s happening around him.
The core effect is the same. When the walls are crumbling down, the armies are sweeping in, and everything’s on fucking fire, Wit and Jasnah are two people you expect to be able to look to for direction and a bit of sanity amidst the chaos.
They’ve both cultivated personalities and personas that revolve around appearing and seeming in control and unperturbed whatever is happening. It’s like their whole Thing.
So the presentation is not only about clothes and make up, it’s about who they are deep down as people. The fact that they’re always the strong ones. Always the ones in control. Always the ones who aren’t panicking despite the fact that everything’s on fucking fire.
They’re people that others EXPECT to behave a certain way. There’s a predictability to them. A dependability. In Wit’s case, it’s that you can rely on him to be esoteric, confusing, and unpredictable, but still.
There’s a pressure in that. There’s a pressure in always being THAT put together. In always being THAT on top of things. In always being THAT person who can never break down screaming when things go wrong because that’s not who they are and not what people expect. They have to be more than that. They have to be BETTER than that.
They’re also people that other characters tend to other/deify. Shallan remarks several times about Jasnah being inhuman/beyond ordinary people, and even goes so far as to compare her to the divine, despite her being a heretic.
Wit, meanwhile, gets asked if he’s a Herald, has that odd air of always knowing things that he shouldn’t, and being in places he shouldn’t at the right times.
They’re both ‘positively’ outcast. And I don’t mean that in an overly posh English way and being positively outcast, darling. What I mean is that, instead of being shunted outside of the circle of normality, they’re both placed on pedestals above it. Which is a different sort of outcast, but comes with its own package of problems.
And this brings us to: vulnerability. Because they’ve bonded over this presentation thing, but they’ve ALSO bonded over the fact that they’ve found someone they don’t have to do that around all the time. Someone they can let their guard down with and just be themselves. Someone they don’t have to present and perform for. Someone they can just be HUMAN with.
So we’re going to look more closely at the clothing aspect of this. Because there’s symbolism here, and it deeply interests me. With a focus on Jasnah, because Wit’s a mystery by design, and Jasnah’s got some more intentional stuff going on here I feel, re narrative symbolism.
So from the moment we’re introduced to her, Jasnah always looks immaculate. She always looks perfectly put together. Shallan remarks multiple times on her havah, on her make up, on the intricate and perfectly done braids of her hair. Which is a little bit gay on Shallan’s part (which is valid) but it’s also significant, symbolically.
I talked already about Jasnah’s idea of ‘power is an illusion of perception’, but I feel it’s worth coming back to. Both because of how much it shapes Shallan, but also how much it shapes Jasnah, and informs what we know about her.
Jasnah is ALWAYS put together. She is ALWAYS perfectly made up, the absolute ideal of the perfect Alethi princess. Even in scenes of distress or ‘downtime’ scenes - such as waiting for Shallan in the hospital, or visiting her after her betrayal, or the relatively more relaxed setting being on board the Wind’s Pleasure. The text makes a point to note that Jasnah is perfectly done up and presenting exactly as she wishes.
The times we see slips in that are DEEPLY interesting to me.
The first one I want to look at, briefly, is That Controversial Scene in the way of kings, where Jasnah uses Soulcasting to kill the men who attacked her and Shallan in the alley.
Just prior to this we see her bathing, where Shallan still remarks on how composed Jasnah is. This is also part of her presentation. She’s entirely naked, but that illusion is still up. She’s still more in control than other people are fully clothed.
What I find interesting is the specific note that Jasnah does not take the time to have her hair braided before she sets out with Shallan. It’s mentioned as being unbound a few times.
Symbolically, I like this, because I feel like it speaks to a slight loosening of her usual control. There’s something about that scenario that sets Jasnah on edge. There’s something about it that makes her feel.
Besides, men like those…” There was something in her voice, an edge Shallan had never heard before.
What was done to you? Shallan wondered with horror. And who did it?
Shallan is unnerved because Jasnah seems calm. But I get the sense, from this line, and from the intense repetition of how unnaturally composed Jasnah appears, that her composure is a front. And that if we had her perspective on this scene, it would look very different from how Shallan imagines it.
There’s something driving her here. Something beyond the logic she explains to Shallan, about making the city safer, about the guards not doing anything, about how innocent women will not be able to protect themselves from this, and how she wanted those men gone. All of which I believe is true, but that line from Shallan, and the way in which Jasnah goes about this...It feels personal. There’s something else going on behind the scenes that we don’t know or understand.
Regardless. This is the first time we see Jasnah step out of the cultured, reserved, stoic scholar. She’s something other than an ideal Alethi princess and studious mentor in this scene. And the detail of her hair being unbound, contained, wild, for the first time since we’ve met her feels..Significant. It’s an important detail to linger on, I think.
Which brings us to the next exception to Jasnah’s exceptional presentation rule: her murder!
Even in the scene before where we see Jasnah, arguably, the most vulnerable that we’ve seen her, in the cabin when Shallan confronts her about her fear of the upcoming apocalypse. It’s only a moment. Only a moment of genuine emotion that Shallan manages to glimpse before the mask comes back.
This was not the Jasnah that Shallan was accustomed to seeing. The confidence had been overwhelmed by exhaustion, the poise replaced by worry. Jasnah started to write something, but stopped after just a few words. She set down the pen, closing her eyes and massaging her temples. A few dizzy-looking spren, like jets of dust rising into the air, appeared around Jasnah’s head. Exhaustionspren.
Shallan pulled back, suddenly feeling as if she’d intruded upon an intimate moment. Jasnah with her defenses down. Shallan began to creep away, but a voice from the floor suddenly said, “Truth!”
Jasnah turned her eyes down toward Pattern on the floor, then reset her mask, sitting up with proper posture. “Yes, child?”
The text notes in this segment that Jasnah’s poise and presentation is a mask, but it also describes it as her ‘defenses’. This is her armour. It stops people looking too close. It stops them reading her emotion, her weaknesses. This is also one of very few times we see Jasnah attracting spren in the series.
However, even in this scene, clearly exhausted, overworked, and overwhelmed, Jasnah remains perfectly put together. All of her armour, her immaculate havah, her make-up, her braids, are all in place. Even in this moment.
Which makes a stark contrast to the next scene we find her in where she’s dressed only in a “thin nightgown”, and is lying on the floor with a sword in her chest. The vulnerability of unexpected assassination.
When next we see Jasnah, in the epilogue, is when she’s freshly spat out of Shadesmar after an apparently harrowing ordeal.
Her clothing was ragged, her hair formed into a single utilitarian braid, her face lashed with burns. She’d once worn a fine dress, but that was tattered. She’d hemmed it at the knees and had sewn herself a glove out of something improvised. Curiously, she wore a kind of leather bandolier and a backpack. He doubted she’d had either one when her journey had begun.
Even in another plane, apparently being hounded and in fear of her life, she’s managed to acquire some appropriate clothing, a glove, and a damn bandolier. Because of course she has. Perception. Iconic.
After that we don’t see her out of anything beyond her famous havah-braids-make up combo. Even when she’s with her family, and Navani remarks in her setting down the mask of the queen, she remains masked. There are still defences up. She never fully lets her family in on her plans, or her thoughts and fears.
No, the next time we see her symbolically, and emotionally, vulnerable: is with Wit. Perhaps for the first time, fully, without ANY of her usual masks and pretences, and under her own steam and of her own volition.
Locked away in a central room on the second level—sharing no walls with the outside, alone save for Wit’s company—she could finally let herself relax.
She DELIBERATELY picks a house with a second floor, and an interior room with no outside walls, with multiple fabrial traps to warn of assassins or intruders. But she manages to relax in Wit’s company. There’s a trust there. An understanding. A much needed vulnerability.
Clothing wise, in this scene Jasnah is dressed only in a nightgown and a dressing gown, and is carefully noted to have her safehand uncovered. Jasnah isn’t Vorin, strictly speaking, but she’s still been raised her entire life in a society that views safehands as something inherently sexual/to be hidden. So much so that she takes the time and care to sew herself a safehand glove while in Shadesmar. So all of this is a fairly Big Deal. It’s a Big Deal for anyone. For Jasnah? More miraculous than Kaladin giggling.
Jasnah Kholin is not vulnerable. Jasnah Kholin is never unguarded. Jasnah Kholin never willingly lets her guard down. Jasnah Kholin is absolutely as paranoid as Elhokar, if not more so.
She’s made herself a BUNKER at this point. She’s in an interior room, surrounded by traps, there’s spheres sewn into her dressing gown, and she has a wholeass BOAT waiting for her in Shadesmar JUST IN CASE someone manages to get through: guards, an entire BUILDING, multiple rigged traps, then her, with her plate, her blade, her Soulcasting ability, and all of her wit and skill, to somehow manage to wound her badly enough that she has to retreat to Shadesmar.
This woman does not do trust. She does not do vulnerability. To the point that it is absolutely 1000000% a fault. This IS Jasnah’s greatest flaw. Her isolation. Her mistrust. Her paranoia.
Anyone that comes into her life she’s suspicious of. She blithely warns Shallan about Kabsal stating he’s only using her to get close to Jasnah to steal from her/kill her.
We dismiss this, and look at it as brilliance/Jasnah knowing all, because she’s right. But it’s flawed brilliance. Because it’s the ‘broken clock’ fallacy, you know? If you suspect EVERYONE around you of being an assassin...Well, some of them will be.
Jasnah’s paranoia is another meta, however. But the point here is that: Jasnah doesn’t do anything by halves. She has an ideal for how she wants to live her life and she COMMITS to it. And part of that is her presentation, and the perception she projects, to an unhealthy degree, even around trusted family.
So the fact she has found someone she can relax all of her INCREDIBLY strict and overzealous masking and enforced personal presentation? Is both very significant in terms of her relationship with Wit, but also herSELF?
Because Jasnah NEEDS this. She needs it like Kaladin needs therapy yesterday.
Jasnah is a “strong independent woman” but if you double down on that idea, and follow it up with “Jasnah is a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man/anyone” then you are absolutely 1000% missing the whole entire point of her character.
All the Stormlight characters are deconstructions of classical fantasy tropes, to varying extents.
Jasnah is the ‘strong independent woman’ trope except asking what if you ACTUALLY apply that to an actual human person? What would that do to them? How would that hurt them? And what it does is everything Jasnah is.
Which has been done so MASTERFULLY because we look at all of these flaws, and these objectively negative things that she does to cope with having this label slapped onto her, and we golf clap quietly in a corner and go ‘wow that’s so badass, that’s so cool, let’s totally romantacise all of these actually deeply worrying coping mechanisms and not look at them at all until Brandon smashes us in the face with them like a baseball bat with the nails of Jasnah’s trauma pounded into it’.
Okay maybe that was SLIGHTLY dramatic. But my point is: Jasnah’s apparent omniscience can also be looked at as extreme paranoia and mistrust.
Her independence and ability to ‘get shit done’ on her own, to the point she doesn’t tell another living soul about the LITERAL APOCALYPSE for more than HALF A DECADE is actually self-inflicted dangerous isolation.
Her constantly being poised, and on her game, and never displaying any emotion is actually extreme repression, to the point her own MOTHER describes her as ‘having the empathy of a corpse’.
Her consistent othering by all of the other characters, from her ward to her mother, deifying her, and othering her, and considering her immortal is actually putting her on a pedestal and cramming an INCREDIBLE amount of pressure to reach an impossible, unattainable, and inhuman level of perfection that becomes so normalised and commonplace that her return from the dead is just like ‘well yeah that’s just Jasnah’.
And all of these things are INCREDIBLY unhealthy!!! They’re not something any real person should have to do just to exist. Especially not in the middle of an apocalypse. When her father was killed in front of her. And then her brother was murdered. And the apocalypse she tried to warn everyone about is happening. And she’s the most experienced Radiant. And she’s also suddenly a queen of her kingdom. Which has been taken over by the enemy btw. And they’re in the middle of a war. And people are dying. And she’s responsible for those people dying. But also some of her highprinces are treacherous bastards. And oh look here’s a couple of slightly mad Heralds she’s taken charge of and- OH MY GOD PLEASE LET HER NAP!?
Again. Slight hyperbole on my end but I feel like I’m #Justified. The point is, her suddenly, after FOUR books, having a single person that she can confide in, and be vulnerable with, and admit she’s afraid, and uncertain, and doesn’t know what she’s doing, and isn’t sure she can actually do this, is not ~anti-feminist~ and it’s not “out of character” and it’s not damaging her ideal it’s actually deeply positive, and healthy, and a symptom of Character Growth.
Jasnah’s is choosing Wit. With her eyes wide open. And she has some reservations about things, because she’s JASNAH, of course she does. But she listens to him. She confides in him. She lets him see HER. She lets him help HER. She admits that she needs that help. She actually says to him, out loud, with full human words, to his face, right in front of him, that she’s frightened. SHE ADMITS THIS!!! Jasnah’s having all this stealth background character development that y’all are sleeping on but I am personally deeply hype about.
And it’s because Wit UNDERSTANDS her. And she understands him. And this is really the crux and core of this whole relationship for me, you know? This whole idea around them always being The Strong One. and finally FINALLY (for him, too) having someone that they don’t have to be strong for. Or regal. Or composed. Or poised. Or in control. Or even knowing what the fuck they’re doing.
She can just...Be. She can ask questions. And show uncertainty. And admit to fear. And to doubt, of herself, of the other Radiants, of humanity in general. And have someone to look to, when everyone is ALWAYS looking at her.
It’s the beginning of an actual support system. Because she needs this SO badly. Because she has her family but she also...Doesn’t have her family? She looks after them. She protects them. From assassins, and then from what was happening in the world/her role in it. Because there’s that line in Oathbringer that she has, about people loving her but still hurting her.
Navani mentions that after she hit adolescence (and after her parents locked her in a dark room and let her scream herself hoarse because they called her mad, lol) she withdrew. And she no longer asked questions. And she no longer wanted a mother, or a support figure, or someone to take care of her. She rejected all notions of that. Because there was something broken there. That trust was gone. And Jasnah will set aside the crown, and the mask of the queen around her family, but she is only fully vulnerable, and fully HERSELF with Wit.
And I cannot understate (i feel like I’m doing a Good Job of not understating this here people) how absolutely fucking ESSENTIAL that is.
Jasnah is NOT a machine. She is not a divine being beyond trauma and pain. She is a human being who has suffered, and who has responses to this.
Jasnah accepting Wit’s support and companionship is as big a step in processing and healing from her trauma as Kaladin accepting he can’t protect everyone and does not deserve to always carry that guilt.
I don’t care if you don’t like the ship. I don’t care if you think it was rushed (there was...a year long time skip. Things did not remain in stasis. Things changed. This is an interesting narrative device bringing us into them and letting us extrapolate backwards). I don’t care if you hate the bones of Hoid and never want to see him on screen: I DON’T CARE.
If you have any respect and regard for Jasnah as a character I need you to acknowledge that this relationship is a positive and healthy thing for her. I need you to see that it’s a step forwards. I need you to see that, from a purely narrative standpoint: this is a thing that should be celebrated for her.
In terms of Wit, too, this is a good thing. I am not about one-sided relationships where only one person is getting something out of it. Even when that one person is the light of my life Jasnah Kholin who deserves all the things ever.
For all his talk of frivolity, he knew exactly how to present himself. It was something they’d bonded over.
Coming back to this RoW quote let me make things as abundantly clear as possible re why I’ve bonded over this ship: They’re kindred spirits. They understand each other. In a way that no-one else has understood them for Jasnah possibly ever, for Wit in a very very very very very very very very very long time.
They’re both brilliant. They’re both intellectually at the pinnacle of humanity. They both know that. They’re also both damaged. They both cover up that damage with a carefully crafted presentation. Jasnah’s is regal composure and Wit’s flamboyant nonchalance, but it’s a mask in both cases.
They understand each other. And they understand the need to have what they’ve found in one another: someone they don’t have to be that way around. Someone they can just be with. Someone who understands why they have to be that way with everyone else; but can give them the freedom to be themselves.
Such parallel. Much power. Very choice.
I was gonna talk about Other Stuff in this meta but lol. 4k words of clothes screaming later and I feel like maybe this should be part 1 of an ongoing saga. Ahem.
The take away from this is: I totally understand why Brandon put these two characters together. For the amount of characters he has, he actually has relatively few romantic relationships. None of them are done on a whim, and they’re always healthy, mutual, and positive for both characters. They make sense, in short.
And these two as a pairing makes sense. On more than a “”””business transaction””””” level of them wanting and getting information out of one another. It makes sense even if there was no Desolation, and no threat to the world, and they were two randomers who met in a tavern and connected.
There’s a personal connection there. There’s an intimacy, and an understanding, and a sense of looking into another person’s eyes and saying ‘yes. You know. You feel it too’. They go through life in much the same way - standing out, never quite fitting, never finding anyone on their level that can relate to them or compete with them or challenge them.
They have someone who can fulfil them. Someone who can actually meet and exceed their abilities for once. But equally someone who can ground them, and meet them at their lowest point, and allow and even encourage that vulnerability.
TL;DR: this relationship is positive for both characters, and healthy, and important for both and this is a hill I WILL fucking die upon. Just watch me.
More metas to follow. Bc I have more to say. Not as long as this one, in all likelihood, bc I feel like this is the Lynchpin argument for this pair. But still. More to say.
Guess who’s back...Back again. IT’S ME. Y’all didn’t think you had escaped my Witsnah content forever did you? Because you DIDN’T. I’m back with some Highly Indulgent Content. Pls enjoy.
Title: Do No Harm
Rating: M (for violence and cursing) Content warnings: blood and stabbing
Summary: Jasnah is dying and Wit goes a little bit feral as a treat. AKA: Wit realises he's in love with Jasnah via the power of terror. AKA: Wit discovers he can pine while in a relationship because he’s just That Dramatic.
Someone makes another attempt on Jasnah's life within her chamber of Urithiru. Wit realises he's willing to do whatever it takes to save her. Even if that means risking his own life.
Teaser:
Wit liked to think himself largely shock proof.
Not electrical shocks, of course, he was still working on that. But startling shocks, the jump scares of life, unexpected occurrences around every corner. Those he felt he was damn near immune to.
Jasnah Kholin stumbling from their shared chambers at sixteen minutes past three in the morning wearing nothing but her nightgown and a considerable amount of blood, gasping his name and seeming near unconsciousness? That did it.
Link: AO3
On a list of things Jasnah hated, assassins were definitely in the top five.
She felt that was reasonable. They had killed her father. They had killed her brother. They had attempted to kill her multiple times. They had threatened everyone she loved, at one time or another.
And they were also responsible for the large bolt currently protruding from her chest.
Jasnah had been asleep in her bed within Urithiru when the fabrial device cleverly hidden in the canopy had fired the projectile directly down into her body.
Ivory's split second warning had woken her and allowed her to shift aside. Not avoiding it, but it had meant that it hadn't plunged directly into her heart. He'd likely saved her life.
"Something is not, Jasnah." Ivory said, his voice more curt and clipped than usual. His way of expressing concern.
Dimly, using one of the corner posts of her bed to haul her to her feet, Jasnah recognised the same thing.
She had experience with having things stabbed into her. Which had only increased during recent years. Though the bolt embedded in her chest would prevent the Stormlight healing the direct wound, it should still have sealed the skin and muscle around it by this point. She shouldn't be losing this much blood.
The silk nightgown she wore was soaked in scarlet. Blood was still gushing from the wound in rather alarming torrents. The wheeze to her increasingly laboured breathing told her blood was slowly filling her lungs as well, so there was no internal healing either. Wonderful.
She had to get it out to give her body a chance to fix this.
Forming that rational thought was more difficult than it should have been.
Panic was starting to gather in the blackening edges of her vision, like a Highstorm threatened in the sudden gathering of clouds, and it was becoming harder and harder to push it back.
Trembling, legs bowing with fatigue, she grasped the bolt in her left hand and willed it to change, to become air, free, and fluid, and no longer fatal.
Nothing.
It didn't refuse her, as objects first had during the initial fumbling attempts to Soulcast them. No. It simply didn't exist to those senses that had become so attuned to the world around her.
That confirmed the fear that had been building within her, and did nothing to still her rising panic.
Stormlight thundered in her veins, a fill, raging Highstorm's worth. She was a Fourth Ideal Radiant, with more experience and knowledge of her powers than almost any other. She had survived shipwrecks, and battles. She was faster, and stronger than any human had a right to be, and had the power to warp the world to suit her whims.
Yet Jasnah felt utterly, gut-wrenchingly helpless in this moment.
She couldn't Soulcast. She couldn't heal. Her strength was fading with every pounding beat of her heart, trying to help, but only forcing more blood from her body.
Escaping to her safe point in Shadesmar was out of the question. She had lost the ability to so much as peer into that realm, she-
She was dying.
"Jasnah," Ivory barked, both out loud, and in her mind through their bond.
No. No. She was not going to go like this. Taken out by a single aluminium arrow. Alone in a blood drenched nightgown, cowering on the floor of her bedchamber. Helpless and terrified like that child locked in darkness.
She was not that child any more.
She was a Storming Knight Radiant. She would die defiant and fighting to her last breath. Or not at all. She would accept no other outcome
Parting, she wrapped a blood slick hand around the bolt and tried to wrench it free. Her body screamed in protest, but she ignored it. Pain and she were old allies in this fight called life.
"Jasnah you have not." Ivory said, standing beside her at his full height, something like anguish chiseled into his sharp features.
The fear in his voice nearly reduced her to That frightened animal of panic and raw, foolish instinct. She'd never heard such a tone from him before in all their time together. Where she was logical, Ivory was logic. Any emotion that slipped into his voice told of an extreme reaction.
What was worse was that he was right.
Her trembling muscles couldn't have pried a splinter from her finger, much less a thick bolt that had pierced her chest, the sharp point of which erupting between her shoulder blades.
She needed help. She needed- Wit. Wit was in the sitting area of their chambers, deep in his books when she'd left him to rest.
The cry of pain that would have issued from her bloodied lips was strangled by her flooding lungs as she lurched towards the door, pausing only to grab at a bundle of cloth on the floor and press it to her chest, in a futile attempt to stem the flow of blood.
It took several attempts to force the handle to turn. She would have cursed, if she'd had the breath for it. Black spots were starting to dance across her vision, though, so she had far bigger problems than an inability to unleash profanities at a door.
Agonisingly, inch- by- inch, spattering blood in a grisly breadcrumb trail behind her, Jasnah clawed her way down the passage that would take her to Wit. Her last hope.
The logical thing to do would have been to send Ivory to bring him to her. But she couldn't stand the thought of ordering him away and leaving her utterly alone. Not now. Not with the darkness crooning to her on all sides.
It was irrational, she knew. But was also deeply human. And she hadn't felt so terrifyingly, nakedly, human in a long time.
Wheezing, she dragged herself to the break in the wall that opened out into the study.
Her heart lurched painfully as her eyes fastened on the desk she'd left Wit at and found it empty.
If the storming man had gone wandering now and wasn't here when she needed him, and so she died, she'd spit into the Beyond until she could personally kill him and drag him there with her.
With the last bit of breath and strength she could summon she rasped his name into that awful, waiting silence.
Her body was failing her. She could feel it. Every muscle shaking as though she'd been exposed to a Winter Highstorm. Her legs were buckling. Her vision was fading.
Then movement.
A rippling shadow in the corner of her vision.
Wit, or an assassin, or the personification of death fabricated by her fragmented, dying mind, she didn't know.
Then she did.
Warm , strong arms wrapped around her and gently lowered her to the ground.
Wit. Without doubt. He was saying... Something? His voice seemed horribly distant, but she thought that he was seeking permission. She nodded to him, tried to tell him to do it, whoever it was, but ended up only tasting blood. Still, for the first time since the bolt had pierced her chest, she felt her heart calm, and steady.
Maybe that meant that she was dying. But if she did, she would die feeling strangely safe. And she would not die alone. That was strangely comforting. Wit was speaking to her again, but she was slipping away from him, like smoke drifting free of a Soulcast object.
The last thing she was aware of was Ivory's terrified scream shattering through her mind.
Then she was darkness once again.
***
Wit liked to think himself largely shock proof.
Not electrical shocks, of course, he was still working on that. But startling shocks, the jump scares of life, unexpected occurrences around every corner. Those he felt he was damn near immune to.
After all, he'd been alive for a very long time. In the same way fans of horror plays began to sense the tell-tale warning signs that something strange and frightening was looming.
The smart playwrites began avoiding the tried and tested tropes and clues in a bid to shock the frequent theatre-goer.
Unfortunately, the truly savvy horror aficionados were able to still identify the deliberate absence of tells as tells themselves. And so, the drama reward was, one way or the other, ruined before it was ever reached.
Wit had been attending the theatre of life for a very, very long time. The writers were trying their best to catch him out, but with so much experience under his belt, it was just really very difficult to do.
Jasnah Kholin stumbling from their shared chambers at sixteen minutes past three in the morning wearing nothing but her nightgown and a considerable amount of blood, gasping his name and seeming near unconsciousness? That did it.
In the flicker between heartbeats he had to assess the situation, his assessment wasn't good.
Jasnah's normally deep tan skin had turned a worrying gray. Her eyes, usually so sharp and focussed, were glassy and glazed with pain and fear.
Most of the blood that should have been in her body seemed to be staining her nightgown instead.
And there was a thick, wicked bolt protruding from her chest. A quick pulse of burned Steel told him it was aluminium based, which was less than ideal.
He met Jasnah's gaze and recognised her legs were about to give way under her. Flaring his pewter, he launched himself towards her and pulled her to him.
Then he eased them both to the ground, giving her fascinating new things to bleed all over, such as his shirt, and the fluffy rug Navani had decorated the sitting area with.
She was growing cold already.
It took everything in him to ease her away from his warmth and lower her to the ground so he could take a look at the damage.
Flipping a simple hunting knife from his boot he split her dress down the front to expose the wound. She'd forgive him if she lived. And if she didn't, he'd see to it that he was appropriately punished on her behalf.
"That is not a good pattern." Design observed, pulsing with concern over his shoulder.
"No," Wit agreed tightly, feeling his hand tremble even as he streaked forward to probe the bolt.
The pain he knew doing so would cause burned warningly in his chest. The Dawnshard’s lingering influence had forged a connection between himself and all living things.
If he physically harmed them, the same damage would be reflected back to him on a far grander scale, naturally. It had become so ingrained within him now it was physically impossible for him to do it in most cases. Instincts reinforced over millennia took care of even the strongest pulses of anger and desires to inflict pain personally.
“Design, can you please find Lift, bring her here? Now." he said, with such grim finality in his tone that she didn't pause for one of her usual facetious comments before she left.
If he could get the bolt out himself the Stormlight he could sense pounding futile within her, like a trapped whitespine, should take care of the wound. If he couldn't... That was why Lift was coming.
"Jasnah, love," he whispered softly, hoping her permission, such as she was capable of giving in this state, might make this easier for him. "I need to remove this thing that's made its unfortunate home in your chest. I'm afraid that it's going to hurt."
She nodded, and he was sure her lips formed the words 'do it' before she choked on her own blood.
Fuck. He didn't have time to waste wondering whether he could do this. Or worrying about what would happen to him if he did. She was dying, and he couldn't let that happen.
Her body shuddered, and Ivory let at out an anguished cry as she lost consciousness in his arms.
Time stopped.
Reality blurred.
Something deep inside him became suddenly very dark and impossibly cold. It took him a moment to realise it was his heart.
That fickle, feeble thing, more scar than soul at this point. It had withered, like a once beautiful blossom that since lived devoid of light and warmth and air. Both lost to dust and decay.
Yet he felt it, now.
He felt it on this quiet, unremarkable day, as he held Jasnah Kholin in his arms and contemplated the weight of her death.
And he knew.
Whatever the cost to fix this, he would pay it. If he had to endure untold agonies, or shred another piece of his shattered soul, or rewrite the ending of worlds, or break an unbreakable contract, or pray to gods he'd renounced millennia ago...
He would do it. He would do it all.
Because, ah, sweet fool, he loved her. He loved this woman. He loved the breath and bones of her. The blood and soul. The logic and dreams. The wit and wonder. And the spit and bile of her, he loved that, too.
Without conscious thought, he wrapped a hand around the bolt in her chest, and pulled.
Once before he'd come close to death. True death. Not of the sort he'd described to Jannah as 'inconveniences’. That had been a permanent threat, a permanent end.
A Shard had managed to capture his essence, in his earlier years, when he’d been less careful, and more easily fooled. Then they had begun to methodically shred it, with no small amount of gloating glee.
Emotion by emotion, bit by bit, bloody chunk by bloody chunk, he'd been ruined.
In those horrifying moments, he'd felt sure he'd finally reached the last of his luck. He'd thought he was facing his end. And an end it would have been. One that would have been more final than even the Beyond. For if it had been completed, there would barely have been a memory left of him to echo through the Cosmere.
This was worse.
This was so much worse.
He had not known agony such as this in a long time.
None of the Investiture he held helped in the slightest. It was but a flickering candle flame before the hurricane of consequence that currently ravaged him.
Some time ago, he’d learned that the line between help and harm could be incredibly thin. And that blurring it would not always work in his favour.
A part of him was sure that he was dying. And a larger part was begging for that to simply make all of this stop. But another, sharper, harsher part was convinced that if this had been going to end him, it would already have done so.
The first time he had nearly been rent into oblivion, all that had saved him had been the Shard's determination to not only end him, but to do it with as much unnecessary pain and drama as possible.
Wit enjoyed overzealous theatrics, especially when they gave him an opportunity to escape with the final shred of himself intact. Barely.
From there, over long centuries, he had painfully rebuilt what had nearly been taken from him.
He'd been careful never to go near the flame that had nearly consumed him again. Until now. Until he'd throw himself into it for her.
She returned that favor beautifully.
For this time, all that saved him was her.
Her permission, in her final moments of lucidity, the trust she had given to him, in a way she had perhaps never given to anyone since she'd been a child. The faith she yielded to no God, she'd granted him in her deepest moment of vulnerability.
It had saved him.
It had given him an anchor of certainty to cling to in his agony. Her conviction that, no matter the pain, he meant her no harm. And never would.
That act of love from a woman who saw harm and assassination in every flickering shadow, but had managed to find safety and salvation in him. It had been enough to save him, and now he only had to hope, in the slightest, most distant corners of his soul that were still capable of doing that, that it had been enough to save her, too.
On his knees, muscles violently shaking in spite of his Stormlight and his Pewter, Wit forced his eyes open to find Jasnah on the floor in front of him, still as a corpse.
Blood still seeped from the wound, which was smaller than before, but still deadly. Her Stormlight had run out keeping her alive as long as it had and now...Now she was not breathing.
"No," he breathed, dragging his pain ravaged body closer to her. "No. We're not yet done here, Jasnah Kholin. Not by any stretch of even my imagination."
He breathed out, expelling all of his own remaining Stormlight in a shimmering cloud above her. Doubling over as the wave of nausea rolled over him, he clenched his fist and forced himself to lift his head so he could see her.
Breathe he willed her. I know you're too stubborn to die like this. Breathe damn you.
She did.
First a 'breath' to draw in his Stormlight, then a wheezing rasp as she forced air into her rapidly healing lungs.
Wit slumped down onto the furry carpet, dizzy with relief and with the consequences of his foolish decisions.
He listened to the rhythmic sounds of Jasnah's chest rising and falling. And strained his Tin until he could hear the pleasing accompaniment of her heart beating, strong and defiant, like her.
She really did make such sweet music.
He closed his eyes, and listened to the ragged sounds of her breathing. The life he had bought with his gamble, and his pain. Worth it. So absolutely, completely, undoubtedly worth it.
Her logic would have condemned that thinking. He’d bought her a few more decades of life with the potential sacrifice of millennia on his end? He could almost hear her voice telling him he was a Storms damned fool.
It just made him smile. Because she was breathing beside him. And her heart was still beating. And she was still here, and still his, and that was all that mattered to him in the whole fucking Cosmere at the moment.
This symphonious serenade was interrupted by a chaotic donor at the door. Hauling himself to his feet he answered it and found Lift.
"I have obtained the strange Edgedancer!" Design informed him helpfully, sounding very pleased with herself.
"I ain't strange," Lift insisted, barging into the room and heading for Jasnah, gliding across the floor, bagel in her left hand.
"It was a compliment," Wit told her tiredly, closing the door and turning to face the chaos of the room with a wince.
"It was a factual observation," Design corrected, sliding across the wall alongside him, “I took a survey to back it up."
"Design, please," Wit groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.
He was neither drunk nor Invested enough to deal with that conversation right now.
Lift was crouched over Jasnah, examining the still healing wound. Aluminium injuries sometimes took longer to fully heal, even after the offending object had been removed. Lingering traces of the metal still caused problems with the Investiture healing. It was horrible stuff, truly.
"Damnation jester man," Lift said, whistling between her teeth, "What kind of freaky starvin' stuff have you two been doing in the bedroom? "she demanded, incredulous. "Pretty sure you're meant to stick it in her downstairs bits, not her chest. Figured you'd know that."
Regret. Yes, that was that feeling knocking against the inside of his skull like an insect trapped in a glass.
"I didn't stick it anywhere" he replied, with far less levity than he would ordinarily have mustered. It had not been a very levitous night.
"Yeah, I've heard that can happen." she said, tone half- knowledgeable, half -sympathetic.
In hindsight, he should have just let Jasnah bleed. The rug wasn't getting any less ruined. Unlike his sanity.
"If, could you please-"he began wearily, gesturing impatiently to Jasnah.
"Alright, alright," she said, sounding exasperated, as though he were being unreasonable in redirecting her attention to the woman slowly bleeding all over the floor.
Her power flared, and a moment later she said, proudly, "There, see, she's waking up already."
Wit stopped his pacing and knelt down by his queen once more, placing her head gently into his lap and stroking her hair back away from her face. Lift, for once wise, made no comment.
Jarrah stirred and groaned as he trailed his fingers gently through her hair and Ivory stood on her chest and minutely examined Lift's progress.
As her eyes opened and her vision clarified on him, those words were on his tongue.
Those foolish, damning words that had nearly gotten him killed tonight.
The sudden powerful rush of emotion that hit him as she looked at him nearly knocked them from his lips, like a High storm wall dislodging a boulder.
But he smothered them with a smile, and held them inside. He wasn’t totally sure why. It just didn’t feel quite right. Not now. Not like this.
She stiffly raised herself enough to survey the damage.
Then she pursed her lips and said, "Rather unnecessary treatment of my best nightgown, wouldn't you say?"
Wit choked on a laugh and pulled her close, resting his forehead against hers, keeping himself from covering her mouth with has only through millennia of cultivated restraint.
"Hello! You're welcome!" Lift’s loud, irritable voice burst in on the intimate moment, like a chull lumbering into a banquet and demanding to know where the sweets were.
Her arms spread indignantly wide to remind them she was still there and was responsible for Jasnah's current consciousness, she glared pointedly at both of them.
"Thank you, Lift." Jasnah said graciously, even as she gripped Wit's arm painfully to pull herself upright. “You may go to the kitchens if you wish. Tell them I approve the making of any dish you request."
A gleam of near feral glee flickered into her eyes at this and she squinted at Jasnah before clarifying, “The royal kitchens, right?”
Jasnah nodded, and Lift’s grin became absolutely and undoubtedly feral a moment before she saluted Jasnah, then shot off as fast as she could go.
"You may regret that," Wit said lightly, knowing only too well what kind of dish Lift was likely to order.
Jasnah, who probably had a shrewd idea too, allowed, “Perhaps. But it's a regret I'll deal with tomorrow. For now-" she began to rise with difficulty," My chambers must be investigated. The fabrial trap must be sent to my mother for examination. Then we must have the guards on duty interviewed, as well as any servants or maids who have had access to my quarters, and-"
" Jasnah," Wit interrupted quietly, one hand resting gently on her arm, drawing her back to him for a moment before she rose and drew away.
Some deep, instinctual part of him that he usually kept such an excellent hold on after all these centuries of civilised existence, it needed her. It needed her here with him for just a moment longer. He was not yet ready to let her go. Not when he’d come so close to never being able to hold her again so recently.
She obliged and turned back to face him, seeming to understand, though she too leashed those parts of herself as well.
Ever grateful, he dipped forwards and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, tender and intimate, then rested his forehead against hers.
Again, his traitorous tongue almost told her, but instead he murmured sleepily, “I'm very glad you're not dead."
Her lips quirked into a faint smile at that, “You say the sweetest things," she deadpanned in that way of hers that he loved so well.
"I know," he sighed, with an appropriate and expected level of drama, "I spoil you so much."
She pulled back a little and studied him with a keen eye, “I feel I should be expressing to you, too, that I'm pleased you aren't dead,” she said with a slight frown.
"Only if you really mean it," he said, with mock seriousness.
She ignored that, except for a slight frown. Then she asked, blunt and direct as ever, "What happened?"
"You ate all of my Stormlight." he returned smoothly. Technically it was true. But it was so far from the full truth of what had passed between them that it felt more like a lie, somehow.
"How rude of me," Jasnah said quietly, pressing another soft kiss to his lips.
He could tell that she was not fully satisfied with that, however, and would likely return to it before long to tease further information from him. Damnable woman knew him too well.
"We have work to do," Jasnah said, getting to her feet with a poorly canceled wince and a wobble.
"Yes, we do," Wit agreed grimly, also rising and readying himself for a fight as he added, “We need to rest and recuperate and follow the advice of a healer on how best to recover."
Janak, as anticipated, didn't much like this suggestion.
She frowned slightly and said, “There will be time for rest and recovery later, Wit. There was an assassin in my personal chambers who made a very good attempt at killing me. I-"
"They did." Wit said very softly.
"What?"
"They did kill you," he murmured, meeting and holding her intense violet eyes as he spoke, seeing something shift within them a moment before she blinked and turned away, unable to hold his gaze and whatever she saw within it.
Unable to stop himself, he reached out and took her hand, gently twining his fingers with hers, as the Cosmere had tangled their fates.
"You died, Jasnah." he told her softly. " I watched you die."
They both let that statement echo, done and unchallenged in the silence that followed.
Then he squeezed her hand and said, "Please."
She studied him hard, considering his words, hisintent, then she sighed faintly and nodded, yielding to his good sense.
“Vey well." she agreed, “But I am not comfortable remaining here," She looked around at their quarters with a slight shiver.
Once her sanctuary, now it would forever be the place where she had died. She did not get overly attached to places, or things, in general. She was the least materialistic aristocrat he’d ever met. Yet this had been a place of safety, and refuge, and the violation of that would probably haunt her more than the injuries themselves, already swiftly on the road to being fully healed. Smooth skin spread over another scar that she would never forget, regardless of the lack of physical reminder.
As if to illustrate this point, she said, with a grim expression, "But in the morning, we find the bastards that did this."
"I've no objection to that whatsoever," he said smoothly, even though that was a lie.
Right now he never wanted her to go to work again. He wanted her to remain in his arms, safe, and whole, and unharmed.
He couldn't have that. He knew he couldn't have that. He shouldn’t want that. That was the point of this relationship. That they each had goals larger than one another, that they had always known and accepted that from the very beginning. It was what they had both wanted. A relationship beyond simple wants. A relationship of deep, nuanced understanding of two of the Cosmere’s most complex creatures.
And now...Well now he’d gone and fucked that right up, hadn’t he? He’d gone and fallen in love with her. Because of course he had. How could he not?
It had been centuries since someone had challenged him as surely as she challenged him. On every fundamental level of his existence, she met, and even exceeded him.
It was thrilling, and intoxicating.
And more than that. More than the challenge. More than her ability to go toe-to-toe with him and even come out on top. It was her understanding of him, her acceptance of who and what he was. Even as he understood and accepted her, and-
What an idiot. What an absolute, Adonalsium damned idiot he was.
He could not contain this woman. He could barely even keep up with her most days. He would never be allowed to hold her gently in his arms and keep her safe from the world. No. She would not permit that.
So he settled in the short term for pulling her into his arms now, one hand held about her waist while his other tangled in her long, black hair.
I love you. His heartbeat said, where it pounded against his ribs, pressed so close to her an irrational part of him thought she must feel it. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
It was not some impulse foolishness from a boy panicked with his first crush. No. He was old. Old and stupid. So much so that he'd walked this path before.
The woman in his arms was not a fleeting fantasy conjured up by a frantic, terrified mind. She was solid, and real, and warm. And every inch of him was in love with her.
Truly in love with her.
Not in love with that desperate moment. Not in love with the unattainable idea of her that she could never be. No. His idiotic, foolish, witless little heart loved her in all the way it was possible for one person to love another.
Fucked. That's what he was. Well and truly fucking fucked.
But he didn't tell her. Because he was not yet that stupid.
He just held her.
Held her and kissed her and cared for her, for the few hours in which she would allow him to do so.
He helped her out of her ruined gown. Wiped the blood and gore from her skin as she bathed. Braided her still damp hair. Helped her into a clean nightgown and a different bed.
Then he held her again as she finally managed to drift off in his arms. And as he did, he thanked whichever Shard, or God, or raw force in this world had let him save the woman he loved.
The woman he loved.
Oh fuck him, this was unlikely to end well at all.
Not to be salty on main, but I REALLY need y’all to stop shitting on Jasnah/Wit. Especially if your only reason for doing so is ‘it means she can’t be lesbian :(’
I’m an ace lesbian, okay. This was my Dream. but y’all are sitting here acting like her being ace “isn’t enough”. Like she needs to be a lesbian to be worthy of your appreciation as a queer character. Like her “just” being asexual instead of gay is some kind of lowly second place in terms of queer representation.
It’s not. It’s toxic and it’s acephobic (and biphobic - she never genders her previous partners, and there’s absolutely nothing to say she can’t also like women) as fuck and I want y’all to fucking stop it.
Also, her having a relationship where she can let her guard down a little, and be vulnerable, and actually accept support and help from a partner does not make her any less of a person? It’s not out of character? It’s actually extremely healthy? And positive??
And also also: I don’t believe Wit is dismissing her asexuality. I don’t think he knows about it. They’re relatively early in their romantic relationship, given how Jasnah thinks about it. She’s had previous bad experience with her asexuality with past partners. It’s not at all a stretch to think that maybe...they just haven’t had that conversation yet? because Wit is an asshole, but he’s not that kind of asshole who thinks he can change someone’s sexuality by the power of his innate sexual magnetism. fuck’s sake.
right that’s it. them’s my grievances. come at me.
Summary: Pre Rhythm of War: Jasnah and Wit's first kiss. Canon compliant. It's soft and it's fluffy and a little dramatic in places (bc Wit) but it's what they deserved!!!
Teaser: 'Counter to the vicious rumours and harsh jibes, Jasnah was still human. She did not experience lust the same as others that she knew. But she was also not a frozen husk of a woman, devoid of need, or want for companionship and comfort.
A part of her longed for this connection with another person, this intimacy, this want that she increasingly found only with him.
He was dangerous, yes, but he made her feel safe. He made mock of everyone around him, but for her he made sense, and certainty, of things she’d never thought to understand. He was a roamer, a drifter, a wanderer, untethered and bound. But he was hers.'
Link: ao3
Commission Link: Have me write other cosmere characters
“So Investiture will be found on planets with one Shard or more?” Jasnah said, speaking the words aloud as she wrote them shorthand in her notebook.
Conversing with Wit was always a stimulating process. He seemed to view each conversation as something of a duel. The chance to spar, to test his opponent, feel them out, offer them new challenges, new quips that required responses, new information that needed to be processed, new barbs to return in kind. It was invigorating.
Lately, they had been spending more and more time together. He was the Queen’s Wit, and as such he accompanied her to most public gatherings she attended, as was proper.
Something that was decidedly less proper, by Alethi standards, was the amount of time they were now spending together alone behind closed doors.
Nothing untoward had happened between them. Not yet. At times she wondered if she had fabricated the impression that it could. Then she would catch a glint in his eye, the edge of a smile curving across his clever mouth, the way his eyes sometimes darted to her lips as they spoke.
There was flirtation, too. Gentle, for the most part. He was not from this world, but he knew the Alethi well enough never to push too hard or too far. Even if she was not, strictly speaking, Vorin, the society they played within was, and there were rules that had to be abided to.
Outside of that, she had never been one for flowery compliments, or overt, blunt attempts at seduction. They felt hollow and insincere to her, not to mention distastefully brusque. It reminded her of Amaram’s entitled insistence in his pursuit of her. She did not like being made to feel she was a hog bound at the end of a rope to lure the waiting chasmfiend.
She preferred something altogether more subtle and cerebral than the usual Alethi courting methods. Someone who would dare to draw close to her, to tease at implications of what might, to pique her mental curiosity, stimulate her mind, who worked to connect with her, truly, on the most important levels.
Wit...Wit was dangerously skilled at that. And he seemed to know it was what she wanted, seemed to read the eagerness, and the intent, in her responses.
Indeed, she had considered courting him. Truly courting him, and allowing him to court her.
So much so that she had discussed it with Ivory. He was the only person whose view on the matter she considered worth taking. Had he protested, she would have heeded him, and regardless of how invigorating she found Wit, it would have gone no further.
However, Ivory, like her, was intrigued. He felt it would be a ‘good new avenue to explore for her personal growth’. She didn’t view it quite as logically as that. There was some feeling behind her own interest. More than some, if she was honest.
It was late, now. They were tucked away together, deep in her chambers of Urithiru. If anyone heard of it there would be a great scandal. She was, as far as Vorin society was concerned, a single woman. She would be expected to be chaperoned, to ensure Wit didn’t try anything inappropriate with her.
Wit seemed to consider the very definition of what each people he visited ‘inappropriate’ to be his own personal playground. He liked to establish himself within the boundaries of propriety, then slowly test, and push, and pry at them. And occasionally set them on fire and watch them burn with barely restrained glee.
He had revealed much to her in the time he’d spent as her Wit. She’d met him before, of course, and guessed at his nature and origins, but she had coaxed more concrete answers from him now.
He was an ancient creature, unlike anything she, or anyone else upon Roshar, had met before. He had visited other worlds, had witnessed their destruction, as well as the birth of the Shards that now held sway in the Cosmere at large.
The knowledge he held within his mind was incredible, incomparable.
The Heralds had been a revelation to her, as a dedicated historian. They were history come alive, walking, talking, sharing their truth with her.
Wit was the same. Yet so much more. For he was the living history of not only her planet, but many more besides.
Jasnah relished this time they spent alone together. Speaking with him, learning the secrets he carried, the keys to understanding her powers, and the powers of Roshar and beyond.
He seemed to thrive upon her questions, as much as she thrived upon asking them. He was a showman, she knew, a performer. He liked to have an audience to play to. He had stories in his soul, and his purpose was to give them to others, as he felt was appropriate.
“Quite correct,” he replied, absently, not looking at her but making some note on the papers he had propped on his legs.
He was lounging back in his chair, boots up on her desk, which she permitted when they were alone together. If that was his comfort, she would not complain. She was not Dalinar, with military discipline drilled into her. She would not chide a man for sitting as he would in a moment of private companionship.
There was a stack of parchment balanced on his raised thighs. She suspected he was taking his own notes on their conversation. He had done so before, after she had made some observation he’d actually found original and interesting enough to write down.
She hadn’t thought, after all his years of life, that she would be able to provide him with anything he had not already experienced from someone else. It seemed that she had been wrong, and that he found her as intoxicating and stimulating as she found him.
She didn’t object to him writing, either. She found the tradition of forbidding a person from their potential passions or interests based upon some arbitrary concept like gender a foolish prohibition.
Although, not having to deal with men in the hallowed spaces of her research had been refreshing, at times. Excluding a rough half of a population's minds from any topic was ridiculous, she felt.
Besides, Wit had learned to read and write long before Rosharans had even thought it unseemly. He was beyond such things. Indeed, some days he’d confessed to her he was beyond such things as gender.
“And it can exist in multiple states?” she continued, pushing her thoughts back to the topic of Investiture, stopping them wandering down avenues far darker, and more mysterious, in regards to her and her Wit, “As a gas, such as the mists you described upon Scadriel,” she had to glance at another notebook to check the name of the planet. Wit nodded vaguely, “As a metal,” she said, “Like our Shardblades,” another nod, “Or as a liquid, like that gathered at the Well of Ascension.”
“Indeed,” he said, making another few marks with his pen, still not looking at her.
She didn’t mind that, either, but she did lean over to peer at his paper to see just what he was so engrossed in.
She was surprised to see that he wasn’t writing at all. Instead, he was sketching, with delicate movements of a charcoal pencil he must have filched from her desk drawers while she’d been occupied. It was a rather impressive, and rather detailed, rendition of her.
Jasnah as he saw her. Her eyes alive, focused on her work, hair unbound, cascading around her shoulders and down her back. Fingers deftly making some notation. Her face beautifully sculpted by sweeping lines of black against the tan parchment.
It was a very different style from Shallan’s, reminiscent of the drawings he had given her to help identify the Heralds. It was less focused on realism, imprinting every aspect of a moment captured in time, and more stylistic. Obviously his work.
There was...A care to his movements, and such an intimacy to his creation that, absurdly, she found herself having to fight down a blush.
“That’s beautiful,” he murmured, glancing up at her, making swifter, surer strokes with his pencil, “If you’d just hold that pose for a moment more, my dear,” he said, as if this was the purpose of their meetings together.
“I’m not supposed to be posing, Wit,” she said, composing herself, forcing herself to sound queenly and proper. And perhaps overcompensating, by the flicker of the smirk that he gave her. “I’m supposed to be learning. From you, I might add.”
“We’re both old enough and ugly enough to do more than one thing at once, I think,” he replied blandly.
Then he stopped and looked up at her, a faint glint in his eyes.
“I do apologise,” he said, putting a hand to his chest and giving her a slight bow, without removing his feet from her desk, “I forgot to whom I was speaking for a moment.”
He reached out and deftly slid a knuckle under her chin, angling her face more towards the pool of light that shone from the goblet of spheres on her desk.
“You’re not quite what I should define ‘old’ just yet,” he said, the smile pulling apparently irresistibly at his lips.
“Wit,” she said, rolling her eyes, using the motion of turning back to her notes to cover the slight shiver that had pulsed through her at the intensity of his attention upon her a moment before.
“No, please,” he said, cupping her chin gently between his fingers and turning her back to face him once more. “I’m almost finished,” he said, almost breathless, intent, “You can spare me a moment, surely? For the sake of art, Jasnah.”
“You know I don’t care over much for art, Wit,” she said, though she did not pull away from him this time, drawn in to the faint glimmer in his eyes, the plea in his tone.
His touch was strangely electrifying. As if there was Stormlight in his fingertips, sparking between them where his body met hers. The smallest of connections, yet the broadest of implications contained within such a simple gesture.
“I know,” he said, with a dramatic sigh, “One of your very few failings, Brightness. We all must have at least one, I’m told. Except me of course.”
“Of course,” she returned, rolling her eyes again, even as she found herself suddenly, dangerously, drawn in to those bright, sharp blue eyes of his.
“There’s just...Something wrong,” he said, cocking his head to one side, studying every line of her face.
“Oh?” she said, feeling a spike of alertness breaking through the fog of her intoxication.
“Yes,” he said, frowning, “Something not quite right. I think it’s your mouth.”
“My mouth?” she repeated, confused, until she followed his gaze down to his sketch of her.
“Mm,” he agreed vaguely, nodding, “Your lips have such a precise, sculpted quality to them,” he murmured, his thumb rising from her chin and tracing ever so tenderly over them.
She had to restrain herself from closing her eyes and leaning in to him. It had been a long time since she had allowed anyone to touch her as intimately as this. It had been a long time since she had wanted anyone to touch her as intimately as this.
“I don’t think I’ve managed to capture it correctly,” he said, mirroring the motions he was making against her skin on the parchment, shaping her mouth more precisely.
Lines of flesh and lines of charcoal, and breathless daring held together in the stillness between his words, neither of them moving, neither so much as breathing through them. Held. Captivated. Connected.
“That is a shame,” she said, finally, forcing herself to get some words out.
She should draw away. She should put a stop to this. Should direct them back to their studies. This was more than he had ever dared with her before, further than he had ever pushed his teasing flirtation and gentle courting. She should not allow it. He was dangerous. The pull she felt to him was dangerous. The smart, the logical, thing to do was to walk away. To halt this before it began.
She didn’t.
She didn’t want to, Storm it. Her world had ended, and she now struggled in the muck, and blood, and ash that remained to see what she could salvage. It was cold, hard, lonely work. As it had been for all those years she’d worked alone, in shadows, unseen, unwanted, untouched.
Counter to the vicious rumours and harsh jibes, Jasnah was still human. She did not experience lust the same as others that she knew. But she was also not a frozen husk of a woman, devoid of need, or want for companionship and comfort.
A part of her longed for this connection with another person, this intimacy, this want that she increasingly found only with him.
He was dangerous, yes, but he made her feel safe. He made mock of everyone around him, but for her he made sense, and certainty, of things she’d never thought to understand. He was a roamer, a drifter, a wanderer, untethered and bound. But he was hers.
“Perhaps,” he said, then paused, licking his lips, almost as though he was nervous. Do it a part of her willed him, say it. Please. “Perhaps a closer look?” he murmured.
She nodded, expectant. But when he slid from his chair and cradled her face in his hands, kneeling in front of her, he only traced the shape of her mouth with a tip of his finger, leaving her disappointed.
Yet she could see the want in his deep eyes, the gentle intrigue, the spark of daring that had led him to reach out and put his hands on her as he had tonight. With far more intimacy and familiarity than he’d ever risked before.
“Wit,” she said quietly, dislodging one of his fingers.
His eyes flicked to hers, and she felt her heart fluttering in her chest, as if she were an awkward teenager, fumbling into her first exploration of romance.
She forced herself under control, and made sure her voice was level when she said, “Do you want to kiss me?”
He blinked once, startled, then a smile spread across his lips, tentative, still, as if a part of him wondered she might be asking so she could put an end to those thoughts.
But he nodded, “I do, Your Majesty. Most improper thoughts for a Wit to harbour for his queen, I admit.”
“More improper still if they are reciprocated,” she said very quietly, watching his smile flare in his eyes at that.
“Indeed,” he said, now sounding almost breathless, as if he could not quite believe what was happening.
This feeling was likewise mutual.
“If you want to kiss me, Wit,” she said, “Perhaps you should stop dancing around it, and just do it.”
He held himself, suspended by shock, for a single heartbeat. Then he moved, surging towards her like a highstorm’s flood. One hand cupping her cheek, guiding her, the other sliding deft fingers deep into her thick hair.
Then his mouth was on hers, finally, and she was closing her eyes and sinking into him, and he was moving gently against her. Drawing away for a beat, heavy lidded eyes meeting hers, seeking approval, which she gave. Then again, his lips against hers, heat pulsing between them like a freshly infused gemstone.
“Ah. Yes. That helped,” he said, smiling softly at her, making to turn back to his sketch, as if that had been the only purpose of their embrace.
“Yes,” she agreed quietly, “I think that it did.”
Her tone held him in place and he bit his lip, giving her a small half-smile, no longer keeping up the joke of his sketch. Indeed, he let it slip from his lap, the pencil dropped from uncaring fingers, his attention focused entirely on her now.
“I’ve been wondering if you were ever going to allow me to do that,” he said, still sounding a little breathless, though Stormlight should have dealt with any purely physical exertion.
“I’ve been wondering if you were ever going to try,” she admitted, her fingers stroking absently at an out of place curl of black hair at his forehead.
Wit smiled more broadly at that, taking her hand and gently brushing the knuckles against his lips, “I did promise you that I would never leave your questions answered.”
He leaned in for a second kiss but she pulled back, frowning, “You leave my questions unanswered all the time, Wit.”
“I do not!” he said, affronted, placing a hand over his chest.
She gave him a flat look, “You disappeared for three weeks last month. Upon your return I asked you where you had been and you told me that you had ‘gone fishin’,” she said, badly mimicking the accent he’d used.
He smiled and rubbed noses with her, which was the last thing she’d expected, and startled her so much she almost missed his reply.
“Technically, my dear, that was an answer," he said, smiling innocently up at her.
She just stared at him, unimpressed.
Wit raised a finger, “I promised you I would give you answers. I said absolutely nothing about those answers being of any use to you.”
Jasnah sighed, then kissed him again. That seemed to take him by surprise, which was pleasing. She found herself smiling against his mouth, and he against hers, and they broke apart, both laughing softly, unable to maintain the kiss.
“So” Wit said quietly, his eyes flickering up from her lips to meet her gaze, “This is something we do now, is it?”
“I assumed when you said that you wanted to kiss me, that implied more than once,” she replied with a small sniff.
Wit smirked at her, “Rather presumptuous of you, isn’t that, Your Majesty?” he said, waggling his eyebrows at her in a way only he could get away with doing.
“Not if I’m right,” she said evenly, “And I am, aren’t I?”
Wit grinned at her, “This is one of things about you I’m so inordinately fond of, Jasnah.”
“My ‘unfettered, unyielding, and quite boundless arrogance’?” she asked, smirking slightly at the memory.
Wit paused, then cocked his head and said, “Ruthar?”
She inclined her head, confirming that suspicion. His grin broadened.
“If you’re right, I don’t think that’s arrogance. I think it’s justified confidence in oneself in that circumstance,” he said, musing.
“So I am right, then?” she said, feeling a ridiculous flutter of nervousness as she asked the question, as if he might now turn around and reject her, after everything.
Wit stroked her cheek with his knuckles and said quietly, “Given that I’ve been thinking about nothing but kissing you again since last we stopped I’d say that yes, your hypothesis has some merit.”
“I thought I already told you what you should do if you want to kiss me,” she replied, “I am not fond of repeating myself, Wit, you know this.”
“I do apologise, my Queen,” Wit breathed, already leaning in, the words pressed against her lips a moment before his mouth met hers again.
When he drew back again, Wit cupped her face between both hands, gazing up at her, intent, and said quietly, “This is what you want? I am what you want?”
“Yes, I believe so,” she replied composedly, “I have already come to the conclusion that this is a mostly appropriate course of action to pursue.”
Wit raised an eyebrow at her and she actually blushed, turning away from him, feeling ridiculous. She had taken charge earlier, had all but commanded him to kiss her, but now she was stumbling around him like a teenager who had never so much as had another person hold her safehand?
“I am not accustomed to this kind of conversation,” she admitted, trying to reassert herself, though feeling horribly awkward at the same time, “It has never been my forte.”
He just shuffled in a little closer, and she realised that he was still kneeling on the floor in front of her while she sat primly at her desk. Storms. What a ridiculous man.
She stood up then said, “Come, let’s sit somewhere more comfortable, if we’re to have this talk now.”
Wit stood up as well, but put a gentle hand on her arm, “We don’t have to talk about anything right now,” he said, “It was a kiss. Which may turn into more kisses. Or it may not. We don’t have to define anything just yet, if you aren’t ready for that.”
She stared at him incredulously.
“Did you hit your head on something as you were standing?” she demanded.
He blinked, confused.
“Have you forgotten entirely who I am?" She went on, "I can’t think why else you would say something so ridiculous to me.”
He snorted with laughter at that.
“Of course, of course,” he said, waving a hand, “How foolish of me, to attempt to put a woman at ease and remind her she’s under no obligation to me because of a single kiss we shared in the heat of a moment.”
Jasnah sighed again and rubbed her forehead, wincing.
It had been some time since she’d had to navigate a romantic relationship and she...Well she hadn’t been exactly good at this to begin with.
She opened her mouth, but Wit just put a finger to her lips and spared her the trouble of making an even larger storming fool of herself.
“It’s quite alright, my dear,” he said, eyes twinkling in a way that she found, frustratingly, both irritating and enticing all at once, “In fact it’s rather refreshing. It’s the apocalypse, after all, we haven’t time to waste with pointless pleasantries and empty reassurances. Lead on, your Majesty.”
Still grinning, he slid his hand into hers and allowed her to draw him over to the reclining couch she had set up on the opposite side of the room to her study desk. A place for more relaxed reading or meditation.
They both settled themselves, Wit still smirking at her, and she withdrew her hand from his and clasped it in her lap, not looking at him.
“So,” Wit said, leaning in, and raising his eyebrows suggestively, “You’ve, let me make sure I get this correct,” he cleared his throat, and his already deep voice lowered even further as he said in a breathy, exaggerated, voice, “‘Come to the conclusion that I am a mostly appropriate course of action to pursue’ have you?”
She stared at him flatly, and in direct counter to his hyperbolic seduction, which had intensified to the point that he was now fluttering his eyelashes at her, replied as matter-of-factly as she could, “Indeed. Ivory and I have already discussed it together at some length.”
That made him sit up, suddenly dropping the act, which surprised her, as she’d expected him to drag at least a few more minutes of torment out of it.
“You spoke to Ivory about us?” he said, in normal tones again.
“Of course,” she said, frowning slightly, unsure why he thought this so worthy of remarking upon, “Any relationship I am involved in will directly impact upon him. It was only right that he be allowed a say in it.”
“You wish to embark upon a relationship with me?” Wit repeated, a little dazed, as though she’d just swung a heavy weight into the side of his head.
“Yes, Wit,” she said, then narrowed her eyes and drew away from him, “Unless you are only interested in a physical distraction with me,” she added, feeling suddenly cold at the prospect, “In which case this ends here, with no further conversation required on the matter.”
“No,” Wit said, quickly, his voice gentle and reassuring.
He reached out and took her hand to stop her retreating from him. When she hesitantly allowed this, he squeezed it and scooted closer, bumping his shoulder against hers in a manner that he apparently saw as affectionate.
"Not at all, Jasnah,” he said, shaking his head. Then he paused and added, “The kissing was very pleasant, I must admit. But there is more here, Jasnah, much more.”
He met her eyes, and there was a depth to him he had rarely allowed her to see there. Knowledge, and history, and life and all of it focusing entirely upon her and this moment. It was almost overwhelming.
She nodded slowly, running her thumb absently back and forth on the top of his hand, “It has been some time since I have connected with someone the way I have with you these past months,” she confessed quietly.
Despite the fact that she had kissed him mere minutes before, despite admitting she had spoken with Ivory about him, despite the fact she’d all but told him that she wished to embark on a relationship with him...That revelation made her feel suddenly vulnerable. Almost to the point that she instinctively withdrew, before he saw, before he could use it as a weak point to hurt her.
But something in him held her there. Like a Windrunner balanced on a surge, suspended above a chasm, unable to fall, to retreat to the ground where it was safe, and familiar, while the thrill of the flight kept them airborne, free, unwillingly to remember what life had felt like before this intensity, this rush of feeling and joy.
Wit nodded to her, squeezing her hand again, stopping her from falling, as she had so many times before, “I feel the same way,” he admitted, “You are a truly extraordinary woman, Jasnah Kholin,” he breathed, huffing a soft laugh and shaking his head. “And I would be lying if I tried to claim that I had seen this coming. I doubt even Cultivation-” he broke off, shaking his head.
Taking a breath he composed himself, and met her eyes once more, tenderly cupping her cheek in his hand. She allowed him, once again feeling as though something in his touch was electrified, as though something sparked between them at the merest brush of his skin against hers.
“You took me utterly by surprise, Jasnah,” he said, his voice now soft and sincere, “I knew you were a woman of uncommon beauty, of unsurpassing intelligence, and wit, even before I joined your court,” he added, seemingly unable to stop himself. Then he sobered, his voice gentler, more serious, “But I could never have predicted the effect that you would have on me. How stimulating your companionship could be, how addictive spending time with you could become.”
She nodded, barely conscious of the gesture, then she cleared her throat and said, “Is this your long winded, Wit way of telling me that you want to be in a relationship with me as well?”
Wit laughed at that, but it was a fond laugh, not meant to mock or hurt. He stroked his fingers through her hair and said, “Would it be more direct and obvious if I just kissed you again?” he asked.
“I certainly don’t think it could hurt,” she replied flatly, even as something in her chest fluttered in excitement at the prospect.
He did just that, but broke away before she was ready for it to end and said, “Jasnah Kholin.” She didn’t have a chance to reply before he was kissing her again. “I am telling you now,” Another kiss. “In no uncertain terms whatsoever,” He kissed her once more. “That I absolutely,” Another kiss. “Without a doubt,” She was smiling now. “Or a shred of hesitation,” he kissed her once more. “That I, your Wit,” he leaned in for another kiss but met only her finger, pressed against his lips and blocking him.
He raised his eyes to meet hers without drawing back from and said, the words mangled by the press of her finger against him, “Am asking you if you would-”
“Wit,” she groaned, shaking her head, even if she was still smiling at his antics.
He straightened up, also grinning, and said, “I want to be in a relationship with you, Jasnah. A romantic relationship. With you as my partner. If that is something you think would please you?”
In answer, to be quite sure he understood her completely, she kissed him again.
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