Note this story follows Cold Camp Hand Job and takes place in the Wheele of Time universe. The Eye of the World, Chapter 43: Decisions and Apparitions (Adar 23 N.E. 998) This story takes place at the end of the chapter.
Caemlyn at the Queens Blessing Inn
Perrin was the odd man out, which made him lucky in that he had his own small room on the top floor of the Inn.
He was freshly bathed and ate heartily in the common room; a sampling of meats, bread, and potatoes washed down with a good ale. Moiraines' gold coin providing a bounty of food for the weary travelers even in tough times. The girls providing the hot bathing water had done their best on his clothes but in the end, he got a new cotton shirt, socks, and pair of underdrawers. His coat and pants mended best they could and cleaned.
Rand and Matt had looked upon his battered body in the baths. He did not explain beyond that being captured by White Cloaks was something to be avoided.
His possessions were still meager with him down to just his big half-moon axe and the clothes on his back. His belt purse still held his piece of silver and a few coppers.
He lay in his room on top of his bed in his pants on and his boots off, contemplating sleep. His new shirt and mended coat hung on pegs with his cloak. His ax and belt on the floor next to his bed. A small oil lamp gave the room a flickering light.
He was thinking about her when he heard the soft knock on the door.
Perrin opened the latch, and she was through into the room and in his arms. Egwene. They had not had a moment alone since being rescued from the White Cloaks. No time to talk, to cuddle, to give each other pleasure.
She was dressed in the same plain traveling dress he knew so well. As he held her his chin resting on her dark curls she was crying quietly. He held her tighter. He wondered if Lan did this for Moiraine.
As her waterworks subsided, he pulled her to his bed against the wall where they sat together holding hands.
Was it two weeks or three since they fled from the cursed city of Shadar Logoth? He didn't know. Since that first night, there had been few where they did not share her blanket roll, laying under her cloak, touching, kissing, and fondling each other before sleep.
The few nights with the Tinkers they slept in wagon beds, but at the end she came to him for comfort, shedding tears. After their ordeal with the White Cloaks, there had been no time to be close to talk about all they had been through. On the way here they rode together and slept near each other but never under her cloak again. Nynaeve had looked at them more than once but did not speak her suspicions, just treating their physical injuries.
Perrin pulled Egwene down on the bed with him. A hand went to her breast as he did so, pushing her onto her back. Before he could kiss her, one of her small hands pressed against his naked chest to hold him back from rolling onto her. He lay on his side watching her while resting a hand on her chest.
"I want to talk for a moment," she said. "Then take me." Egwene held his hand on her breast.
In the light shed by the single lamp on the table next to the bed he could see in her big dark brown eyes and knew she was serious.
He was not all that good at talking with women. They had not talked much about feelings and what was happening between them. It just was the wheel wove what the wheel wove or something like that, Moiraine would say.
"Go ahead, I'm listening." He said rolling onto his back next to her.
She looked at him for a long moment the light from the lamp behind him casting shadows on her beautiful face.
"I have set my course for the White Tower and training to become an Aes Sedai. According to Moiraine it is also a place few men are allowed to enter." As she spoke her hand moved from his chest to the waist of his paints. "We are bound Perrin, I want to seal our shared path even if it may part sooner than we would like." She let those words hang in the air as she unbuttoned the top of his pants.
Perrin did not know what to say. Had she had a dream? He wanted Egwene more than anything at this moment.
"Egwene. If you were to become an Aes Sedai I would wish to be your Warder. To be bound to you." He was working his left hand under her blouse, pulling it from her skirt. She did not stop him.
"Then we are agreed, tonight we bind ourselves in our own way. Before we start the next journey," she said a little dramatically as she watched his hand snake under her top. Then she stopped him and sat up.
Perrin dropped his hand as Egwene undressed. First, he helped pull her blouse over her head. She had on a tight white undershirt, tightly holding her large breasts. Perrin lifted that over her head allowing her heavy round breasts to bounce free.
"Help me with my skirt and get those pants off! We don't have all night, Lan told me that we need to be up and gone before the first light," she said.
Perrin was off the small bed in a flash. While she untied the cord, and he pulled the new pair of low-cut boots from her feet and then turned his attention to the heavy skirt. He left the new white calf-high stockings alone.
He dropped his pants then pushed his new cotton drawers to the floor while admiring her body in the glow of the lamplight. She was a short, slender figure, with strong legs, a narrow waist, round mounds of flesh on her chest that were pale white in the light. She smiled back at him, her dark curls covering the pillow and her hands down at her sides. At the junction of her legs, the now familiar patch of dark hair beckoned him. More trimmed and neater looking than the last time he saw her pubes, he noticed.
