Nynaeve tells Elayne everything, then reaches into her Bag of Horrible Ideas, and decides that they should all go try to heal Mat.
Elayne has come to Nynaeve’s room, but Gawyn and Galad followed her. They’re pressing the matter of bringing Elayne back to Caemlyn. Nynaeve has zero patience for it. In a scene that finally adds some grit and dimensionality to her character, she asserts dominance by ordering them out of the room, and then she starts counting. By the time she gets to three, the men are practically running away like they were being chastised by their own mother.
Conversation then turns to how Galad makes the women feel all mushy and funny in the tummy. Oh, he’s sooooo handsome. And yet, his character flaw is that he is duty-bound to a fault. An anal-retentive asshole who insists on always following the rules, no matter whom he hurts. He sounds like the white knight in shining armor who would balk at saving a damsel in distress if it means getting his boots muddy. And always, every scene he is in, I cannot stop my mind from going directly to Arnold J. Rimmer from Red Dwarf. Under his handsome shell, Galad has a Rimmer inside of him, sitting at the controls. This snide, under-achieving, loser is up there in Galad’s head, in miniature, pulling the levers and calling the shots.
Anyway, Nynaeve gets down to business and blurts out that they’re investigating the Black Ajah, and have already survived an attempt on their lives. Egwene is incredulous, but Nynaeve rationalizes it with a bunch of logic so flimsy that it shatters if you look at it wrong. Nynaeve proceeds to fully debrief Elayne on the situation. Then the topic turns toward Mat, and the fact that the Aes Sedai won’t Heal him unless it benefits them in some way. Nynaeve argues that if they’re as powerful as everyone says, they should go into Mat’s room and just… try to Heal him. She punctuates this with a tug on her braid, and it feels like a slap in the face. Sure, Nynaeve, go ahead and wing it. What’s the worst that could happen? I’ll tell you what: you could fucking kill him. It’s like a medical school intern deciding to give heart surgery a try, because, you know, they’ve read the textbook. Never done it before? So what, we’re ta’veren!
Mercifully, an Aes Sedai barges into the room to end the insanity.