tibetanmethod | (no subject)

(no subject)

Heidi is working the night shift tonight, as she has been for the last several weeks. Norma Jennings is in Brazil, and that means that Shelly -- Norma's second in command at the Double R Diner -- needs to be around during the day.

She looks up as the bell on the door jingles; Cooper is holding it open for Moiraine. He gestures to a booth on the lefthand side, and they take a seat.

When Heidi makes her way over, Cooper and Moiraine find out that today is a special on cherry pie, since cherries are in season. Also, there is peanut butter.

Cooper leans forward and says to Moiraine, very confidentially, "I recommend the cherry."

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He has said something of the sort to her before, and a faint smile touches her lips, there and gone in an instant.

"It is a truly distinctive scent," she agrees quietly.

A figure steps into the road.

Cooper puts on the brakes.

It's the Log Lady, up where the road widens, leading to a clearing with a small cabin.

A silhouette is visible through a window. Curtains flutter briefly. The person inside isn't visible.

The Log Lady stands there, looking at them.

"Moiraine," Cooper says, and he doesn't raise his voice, "do you know what's wrong with this picture?"

"We have met before, as it happens," she murmurs, looking through the windshield at the woman in the road.

"Although then she favored the companionship of a piece of wood, as I recall."

"The Log Lady," Cooper says, as the woman in question turns and marches up the road, "is without her log. That's a riddle."

The car begins to move slowly.

"Is she still the Log Lady if she doesn't have it? Or is she someone else?"

Moiraine slants a sideways glance at him.

"Does she not have a name, as well?"

It is almost a rhetorical question. Almost.

"Margaret Lanterman, of the Colville Lantermans. She married into them. She and her husband met in Pullman, at Washington State University. They were both studying forestry."

Cooper puts the car in park and turns off the engine. The Log Lady has gone into the house.

The door is open, and light spills out onto the porch.

"If her husband has a name, I've never heard it. Or read it."

"I do not believe that I have met her husband," she says. "Unless he was one of those at the hotel, that day."

Introductions had been rather lacking at the time, for a variety of reasons.

"He died the day after they got married."

Distant.

"In a fire, in the woods. He met the devil. Fire is the devil hiding like a coward in the smoke. That's what she said."

There is a moment's silence before she observes,

"I have heard others speak in less clear descriptive terms, for good reason."

"If you don't name it you can't summon it. That's the rationale, isn't it."

She inclines her head slightly.

"That is a reason, to be certain. The Dark One's true name, for example, is not spoken save by those foolish enough to wish to draw his attention."

"What are some other reasons?"

His eyes are on the rectangle of light, spilling out of the open door.

"Prophecy is not always clear," she tells him simply, and moves to open the car door.

Somebody stands in the door of the cabin.

She's not holding her log.

"You're late," the Log Lady says.

"Sorry, Margaret," Cooper says, and closes the car door. "There's something you wanted to talk to us about?"

"The tea is going to get cold," she says, and turns on her heel.

Moiraine arches an eyebrow at Cooper, and glides after the Log Lady into the cabin.

"As it happens, I am pleased to see you again, Margaret."

"And when it's not happening?" The Log Lady sits, demurely, at the table, reaching for the teapot. "What about then?"

Cooper is in the process of pulling out a chair for Moiraine.

His head lifts, and his eyes go to the closed door leading to another room.

There are footsteps coming from that room.

"Then it might well depend upon the circumstances in place at the time, would you not agree?" she counters, with serene poise.

Moiraine seats herself gracefully in the chair that Cooper holds for her, but her dark-eyed gaze follows his to the door for a brief moment.

No glow appears around her, but she holds herself ready.

The Log Lady's eyes go to the door.

They narrow.

They narrow, and go to Cooper, and back to Moiraine. "I don't think it matters. How do you take your tea?"

"Plain, or with perhaps a small touch of honey if the blend is particularly strong," the Aes Sedai says, meeting her gaze easily.

The Log Lady pours, eyes on Cooper as he sits.

And as she puts down the teapot (apparently the blend isn't strong), Cooper says, quietly, "Margaret, where's your log?"

"Do you ever feel the need to rest, Agent Cooper?"