{"id":2388,"date":"2025-09-25T23:51:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T03:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/?p=2388"},"modified":"2025-09-25T23:52:32","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T03:52:32","slug":"chapter-42-easing-the-badger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/?p=2388","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 42: Easing the Badger"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"tldr\"><p>Perrin&#8217;s group makes its way to an inn called Easing the Badger. Perrin survives an assassination attempt from six Gray Men. Moiraine departs on a private mission.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Easing-the-Badger.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2390\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Easing-the-Badger.png?resize=300%2C292&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"A signboard hangs above the door of an inn located in Illian within the Wheel of Time universe. On it, a white-striped badger dances on its hind legs with a man carrying what seems to be a silver shovel. It reads, &quot;Easing the Badger.&quot;\" width=\"300\" height=\"292\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Easing-the-Badger.png?resize=300%2C292&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Easing-the-Badger.png?resize=768%2C748&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Easing-the-Badger.png?w=952&amp;ssl=1 952w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>An uneasy feeling descends on the group as they ride through Illian. Moiraine leads them to an inn called Easing the Badger. The proprietress is well acquainted with Moiraine: or at least, with one of her aliases.<\/p>\n<p>The group sits down for dinner in the common room. They listen to a woman sing bawdy songs that make Perrin&#8217;s cheeks turn red. Then, not for the first time in their journey, Perrin senses a feeling of &#8220;wrongness.&#8221; He&#8217;s puzzled at first, but suddenly realizes that six Gray Men are crossing the room, knives out and intent on killing him. The fight lasts heartbeats, leaving the would-be assassins dead.<\/p>\n<p>Gosh, after a close call like that, we should all stick together and watch each other&#8217;s backs, right?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>MOIRAINE: I&#8217;m headed out. I&#8217;ll see y&#8217;all later. Unless I don&#8217;t, in which case have fun with Myrelle, Lan!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With that, Moiraine is out the door and away on some private mission. Will she tell anyone about it? Fuck no! &#8220;Your puny mind would not even understand it&#8221; is probably what she would say if you dared to ask. So what is it, Moiraine? I hope you&#8217;re going to see your psychotherapist, because for the last two books, you&#8217;ve been showing all the classic signs of being a narcissist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perrin&#8217;s group makes its way to an inn called Easing the Badger. Perrin survives an assassination attempt from six Gray Men. Moiraine departs on a private mission. An uneasy feeling descends on the group as they ride through Illian. Moiraine leads them to an inn called Easing the Badger. The proprietress is well acquainted with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-dragon-reborn","book-the-dragon-reborn"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2388"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2400,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions\/2400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wot.jesse-carroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}