A reminder of the past (attn: Shalon)

[Moseley]

It had been too long since Salandrian had last seen Ebou Dar. She had not felt the golden sun, smelled the salty sea breeze, heard the polite speech used by the Ebou Dari and she missed it. All of it. She remembered when she felt so comfortable with the city she could give directions to practically anywhere in the city proper going ten different routes. And to think that she had left that familiarity of home to explore the world. Some world, Salandrian thought bitterly. Now Salandrian was here, in this unfamiliar fortress with haughty Aes Sedai looking down their noses at her and giddy novices laughing like little girls. Though there were those few gentle Aes Sedai, and warm Accepted who treated her with respect and almost kinship.

 

Shaking her head of these thoughts, she sat on her bed and pulled out her mother's diary from underneath it. She skimmed through the letters her mother had written her but she felt to emotional to read them fully. Tears were welling up in her eyes when a knock on the door stopped them. Salandrian put the diary back under her bed, wiped her eyes with her hands and opened the door.

[Shalon Casbin]

Shalon followed the Aes Sedai who carried the title Mistress of Novices through the hallway of the novice quarters. She watched as the woman seemed to glide in front of her, listing the things expected of a Novice and the expectations of clean garments and a neat room.  Some of it was common sense, others were odd rules but strictly enforced. She knew living in the Tower wasn't easy or much fun, but she had no idea how right she was.

 

The Aes Sedai came to a stop before one door. It was the same as all the others with its gleaming white surface, but Shalon knew it wasn't like the others. This was her room. This was it, she was here. There was no turning back now, she was the Tower's. There was a strange feeling of comfort in that. A Tower full of women who wanted nothing more than to see her succeed. She hoped that was all they wanted.

 

Opening the door Shalon entered with three white dresses in her left hand and her comb and a small needle working kit in her right. She stopped short as the door closed behind her. Sitting on one of the beds was a girl who looked oddly familiar, an Ebou Dari.

 

Shalon sat her things down on the other bed, the one not in use, and turned, smoothing her white skirts. She smiled warmly and spoke with the heavy accent of her home.

 

"Hello, my name is Shalon Casbin." pausing, Shalon looked around the small cramped room. Her beaded braids clicked together gently as her head turned. "It seems we are to be room mates, although there doesn't look to be much room to spare." She giggled at that and turned to flounce down on the bed. It wasn't nearly as comfortable as it looked and she felt the hardness of the bed frame beneath her. How did they expect to move someone out of there home, into a different land, and then give them the worst rooms they could find? The White Tower did what it wanted, that was how.

[Moseley]

The young woman who entered surprised Salandrian- she looked Ebou Dari. The prospect that she would become less homesick suddenly seemed closer than it had five seconds ago. It would be good to talk of home with someone.

 

"Hello, my name is Shalon Casbin," her new roommate said in a heavy Ebou Dari accent. Salandrian wondered if it was put on to show she was Ebou Dari, or if that was how she really spoke. "It seems we are to be room mates, although there doesn't look to be much room to spare." Giggling, she looked around, then tried to bounce on the bed, but learned the hard way that it was far to hard to be comfortable.

 

"So it would," Salandrian replyed with a smirk. "I take it you're from Ebou Dar, correct?"

[Shalon Casbin]

Shalon began to place her dresses in a neat stack on her bed as she looked around the room. She really had thought things would be better here, somehow grander, more exciting. So far she had walked until her feet hurt through endless hallways guided by women she had to always bow to, and now she was placed in a closet to share with another inmate until they learned enough to be made Accepted. She was beginning to see the logic behind what the Tower did. With poor conditions and harsh treatment as a Novice, not only did they weed out the weak, but they gave you a reason to want to succeed, a reason to try to do better and do it quickly. The candy with the rod, she was familiar with the method used to break and retrain with horses, never had she thought it could be used in this way.

 

"I am, from the Ra'had. Are you from the city?" She paused then spoke again "Where do we put our things? This is such a small room, you would think with a place this big we could at least have decent beds." Conversation. She was making conversation, that was why she discussed something she had already reasoned out. Something nagged her about that, it made her feel as if she were playing dumb. She knew the thought was a wisp in the winds of her mind, soon the thought would pass along with the words as the conversation flowed onward toward whatever destination the mind sought.

 

She idly pondered how strong in the Power the girl was. Perhaps she could help teach her something of the way it was done, some way to clear her mind of all the scattered thoughts and make it clean to accept the brilliance and powerful perceptions of saidar. She wanted so much to feel it, to be able to do what these others could.