Intro to Saidar Class 4 - An Element of Saidar

[Arani Lepenque Aes Sedai]

(OOC:  I'll be posting this next class up as well.  Please post in both Class 3 and Class 4 within both months.)

 

Today, Nenen was in visible sight of the class, golden hair falling down her back, back straight in her chair, and surveying the gathering class with a slightly stern eye.  The last few lessons of Control had been difficult for many of them.  However, they had worked hard over the past few lessons, and Nenen was inwardly proud at the progress they had made.  It had already been a month since they started on control lessons, and Nenen had been deliberating over the past week whether to start progressing on to studying the basic weaves of the Power.  The last lesson had convinced her that they were ready.  She had made them practice gradually filling themselves up, and pushing Saidar slowly away for two hours, before she had been satisfied that they had mastered control.  She did not want any mishaps to happen in her class.

 

She still remembered what had happened in Wilemi's class with Esther Tremaine.  Esther was now an Aes Sedai, distant, but with a hint of expectation in her voice whenever she talked to Wilemi.  Wilemi modeled herself after Esther, although she was aspiring to be of the Brown Ajah.  But when Wilemi had been taught by Esther when Esther was an Accepted, Nenen recalled Wilemi saying that she had accidentally set fire to Esther's clothes.  Shuddering inwardly even now, she realized that Esther had been lenient.  Eqwina, Nenen's teacher, would probably have sent her to the Mistress of Novices for a spanking.

 

So now, when the class had all gathered, she stood up a solemn expression.  "You have all been practising control for the past few weeks.  I know that it must have been tough and boring for you, to resist the alluring power of Saidar, that beckons you to draw more.  I must say that you have done very well.  And today,"  her face broke into a slight smile, "I have decided that you have attained sufficient control to progress on to the next stage.  You will be learning about the actual elements of Saidar now, and today you will be identifying them."

 

"As you have been taught, there are five elements of Saidar.  Air, also known as Wind, as well as the other elements of Earth, Fire, Spirit and Water.  With the right combination of each of these powers, you will find that many things are possible that you have never done before, neither will you had you not had this ability born in you.  Can you imagine what it would be like to start an Earthquake right in the middle of an Army?  Or bring rain to a village suffering from drought?  Have you ever Healed anyone with a single touch?  Or even called down lightning to fight the forces of the Shadow?  Can you imagine doing that?  Is it possible without the touch of Saidar gracing you?"

 

"The first step is to identify the elements.  Some elements will be harder to identify than others."

 

She embraced the Power, and channeled flows of Air, Water and Fire.  "Gather in front, and try to identify this.  The first person who identifies all the elements used here correctly will be given a cookie."  She brought out the hidden jar from under the table."  Weaving different combinations each time, she smiled as they managed to identify it faster and faster.  When she had exhausted all possible combinations, she waved them back to their seats.  "You realize that you will be able to identify the elements, not just by their colour, but also by their taste.  Who can describe the sense, or feel, of each of the flows?"

 

(OOC:  Some IC information.  Air/Wind is blue, Water is green, Spirit is white, Earth is brown, and Fire is red.  We are not using the colours given by the books, but Dragonmount has adapted a different set of colours.  For the feel of the flows, think about what describes each particular element.  (Eg.  Fire feels like something burning, or heat.  Something of that sort.)  And please do note that the speed at which you identify the element has nothing whatsoever to do with you elemental scores as of now.)

[perine]

The past few weeks all they had been practicing was control. Kalinde was bored of those lessons though she knew that they had been very important to her. For the past three days she had not made a mistake. Saidar had remained under a leash and her head was very grateful for that. The constant headache of drawing too much power had been very tormenting. She hoped that today they would do something else.

 

"I have decided that you have attained sufficient control to progress on to the next stage.  You will be learning about the actual elements of Saidar now, and today you will be identifying them." The words made Kalidne grin with glee, but a stern look from Nenen quickly wiped the grin away.

 

The class gathered at the front when the lessons in identifying begun. This was the first time Kalinde had seen the weaves. Earlier she had only seen a glow surround the person channeling, but nothing more. And even now some of the weaves were not easy to spot. She waited her turn and tried to learn from the others mistakes. “I see Air,” she said pointing at the blue weave. “Earth, and Fire.” She said but the Accepted shook her head. “Try again.” Kalinde looked at the weaves. She was sure of the Air and Earth weaves, but the last one was more difficult. She could not really make out the color of the weave. She took a breath and looked at it with a concentrated frown on her face. “Spirit. The last is spirit.” She said when the weave came more clearly to her. The accepted nodded. And she let the next novice have a turn.

 

For some reason the white weave of the Spirit seemed to get mixed up with the red of Fire. She tried to look for ways to identify them with other than the color. It was strange, she could see that the colors were different but in her mind she had to eliminate all possibilities before landing on one of the two elements. She tried to smell them, but could not make out anything. Earth tasted of salty rocks, like someone pointed out. The she felt it. “Spirit is cold. The weave, it feels cold to me.” She said surprised at being able to pinpoint something from that difficult element. And when she did realize the feeling it was much more simple to realize which of the weaves was which.

 

Her performance did not get her the cookie, but Kalinde did not mind. She kept on smelling and tasting the weaves but could not come up with anything else to identify them, but when the other novices spoke aloud of what they felt, Kalinde nodded at their realizations. For when they said something of the identifying scents, Kalinde could feel the same herself. It was truly fascinating to know how others sensed the elements.

 

[Visar Falmaien]

Rytali, already weary of the gauntlet of chores and lessons, as well as long, sleepless nights having to put up with Dyrum's issues, stumbled into the classroom with barely a minute to spare.  She was not particularly looking forward to it.  How many more weeks must go by of simple embracing the Source, holding it, and controlling it must she endure before she actually learned how to do something with it?  She considered herself a patient girl, but even this tested her resolve to become an Aes Sedai.

 

At least Nenen had apparently given up her surprise appearance act, Rytali thought with some relief as the class began.  Her ears perked up at the words next stage.  Could it be?  Could they really be moving on?  Rytali smiled for the first time in what seemed like a long time, and reached for her pen, only to find that she had left her notebook in her room!  She had thought she wouldn't need it!

 

Still wanting to hit herself about that, Rytali reluctantly joined the others gathering at the front of the room.  Smoothing the sides of her white dress, which could use another bleaching soon with the frequency she was getting stains on it, Rytali listened to Nenen talk about elements.  She remembered them being discussed, but she often wondered why it had taken so long for them to actually understand them.

 

As they lined up to examine the 'weaves' put in front of them, Rytali squinted as she embraced the Source.  Some seemed to radiate a certain color, but which was which?  Blue, she supposed, could be Wind or Water, Green could be earth, but then what was brown?  White was surely Wind, yes? And that meant Red had to be Fire, surely!  But she could hardly say she was sure.  And when she muttered her guess, she was dismayed to find that in her tired state she had mixed a few of them up, and had failed to mention Spirit!  Of course, one of them was Spirit, too!

 

She thought about what Nenen had said about sensing the elements.  That it was more than just seeing them.  Rytali, an extremely visual person, was having a hard time identifying by sight alone, so she forced herself to look between two of them, focusing on a spot on the wall beyond.  While not closing her eyes, she tried her other senses, one by one.  Smell... she couldn't really smell anything of note.  But she never had had a good sense of smell.  What about feeling?  Well that might be difficult to do without actually touching the weaves but...but wait she did sense something there.  Some sort of pulsing that was somewhere between hearing and feeling, yet including the other senses in minute amounts too.

 

She focused on this sensation, examining each weave in turn.  The Red shifted about constantly, its matter giving off a slight hint of heat and in an excited state.  That had to be fire; she had gotten that correct before.  The brown, while she could barely feel it, seemed infinitely more stable and sure, giving a slow, steady pulse as if from a distant drum.  And it felt almost like the soil she toiled in when she weeded the gardens.  So that must be earth.

 

Momentarily unsure that White was air anymore, she switched her focus between the Green and Blue colors, feeling as if her eyes were deceiving her other senses.  While both felt cool and refreshing and flexible to her faint thought of touching them, one of them was measurably slower in its pulse and more constant.  Like the gentle waves that lapped against the canal columns of the city of her birth.  She could almost smell the slight odor of brine, too.  Water.  And the Blue seemed to not have the same constant pulse, having a much more light and erratic beat that went all over the place.  Surely the cool breeze that came off the River Erinen had a similar feel to it?  Air.

 

She paused at what looked like a sort of grayish white to her eyes, as if it was not sure it even had a color.  And yet this one intrigued her above the rest.  Its mysterious yet calm pulse felt almost as if it could understand her.  Almost as if it were alive somehow.  A tingling sensation went down Rytali's spine as she realized that this must be Spirit.

 

She briefly tried imagining 'tasting' the elements in her mind, but having only had mild success with Water so far, she gave up the venture as 'tasting' Spirit gave her an odd, unsettling feeling.  As if the entity did not want to be defined by such a base sense.

 

Having tried her estimate again, Rytali felt satisfied with herself, even though she was not happily holding a cookie in her hand.  She could after a fashion sense the elements from each other, both by what their weaves looked like, and by how they pulsed and felt to her in her mind.  As the lesson concluded with everyone catching up, she left, eager to put something from the kitchen hall into her stomach.  Did I no eat breakfast today?  Shame on me!

[Kelitor]

Ykoria glided into the lecture hall, feeling a bit bored. She hoped that it wouldn't be another day of control drills. While she realized the necessity for absolute discipline in one's channeling of the Power, she was growing impatient with certain members of the class who were apparently too weak for it, and consequently were slowing the class down.

 

As she came in, she paused in surprise to see Accepted Nenen waiting at the front of the room in full sight. Well, this is a first... She noted to herself. Her eyes narrowed as she sat, wondering what was different about this class to cause deviation from her usual routine of coming in after the class.

 

Nenen began the lesson by commiserating with them over the tedium of the Control drills, and she followed the words with half a mind until something she said caught her interest, "...the actual elements of Saidar now, and today you will be identifying them."

 

Oho! she thought with a small smile, straightening up, Now this sounds promising.

 

Explaining the concept, Nenan called them forward, out of their seats to examine her various weaves. And she tried to motivate them. With cookies. To which one rather chubby girl actually let out a sound eerily similar to a pig's squeal, which actually made the entire class pause to stare.

 

Aside from that, it went rather well. To her chagrin, she was far from the best at identifying the elements, that honor went to a previously very quiet Amadician girl, one of the few in the Tower, sent away by her parents with a merchant's caravan in desperation when they could no longer hide their daughter's power.

 

But she herself began to get the hang of it, Earth was most difficult, seeming almost invisible as a dull amber line. Fire seemed equally strange. Spirit was better, it reminded her of starlight. And when Nenen wove out a twist of shimmering blue and throbbing green lines, she snapped automatically "Air and Water," winning her a cookie. Having grown up in the City of Mayene, the sea had always been nearby, and identifying the tidal pulsation of Water and the gusting power in Air seemed imminently natural.

 

 

She was smiling in sleek satisfaction as the lesson concluded.

[Amadine]

*bump*