Under a starry sky.... (attn Silhouette)

[Lannie]

Vivien managed to stay inside her room for the better part of two hours after curfew. While her roommate was asleep quickly, Vivien was unable to catch a wink. She was jittery. It was her third week in the White Tower, her third week of her new life, and she was already losing her mind. The walls were closing in on her and however tired she was, she couldn’t find any rest. She felt suffocated in the hot stuffy air of the small room, she needed to breathe. She needed the open sky, the earth beneath her feet – perhaps even more than she so desperately needed her family. While the loss of her old life made her weep for hours on end sometimes, the feeling of being cooped up with nowhere to run was much worse. In those light-blasted hours after curfew it always seemed as if she was jailed, as if there was nowhere to go.

 

Her parents and her family had already traveled on and there was no way of finding out where they’d gone. They’d gotten the tear-splotched letter that Pia Sedai had made her write, and they had written back that they’d miss her, that she would for ever be in their hearts and that they’d write her often… that they were proud of her that she would now walk her own Path… and that was all that she’d heard of them since the day that she wandered into Tar Valon unsupervised. Three weeks had passed, and she was close to losing her mind.

 

Vivien buried her face in her pillow so her roommate wouldn’t hear her choked sobbing. She was locked up in a Tower where she didn’t want to be, she was made to do stupid chores all day long, there were only harsh-faced women around, and few girls of her age. But most of all… she couldn’t leave. That was the worst thing of all… she couldn’t leave if she wanted to. If she would, they’d drag her back by the hair, or so the Mistress of Novices warned her. If she was to go outside without permission, she would have to do penance for it.

 

She had contemplated leaving anyway. Leaving, hiding, and never coming back. Yet that was not how her family had taught her. The Path of the Leaf taught acceptance, going along with the river of life, floating where the Light wanted you to float. Vivien, however, felt as if she were sinking to the bottom of the river… for she couldn’t breathe here. She felt like she was choking.

It was too warm, too stuffy, too <i>confined</i> in here.

 

She had to go outside! Out, out, out!

 

Without a moment to waste Vivien was on her feet and out of her room, bare feet under a white dress slapping onto the cold marble-inlaid tile floors. It was a spiraling mazework of hallways, the quarters of the novices. Vivien didn’t think, she just followed the ways that were going down and down and down, until she found herself in a deserted hallway that led to one of the Gardens. She didn’t care which one it was. Perhaps if she’d be outside, she could finally breathe again…

 

She threw the doors open, looking up at an indigo sky with twinkling lights, and she nearly cried while she breathed the evening air. The feeling of relief nearly made her fall over. She walked down the pathway, sitting herself down under one of the tall trees. It was quiet in the garden. On this evening in early autumn there were only a few birds calling before they too would go to sleep. All the other sounds were the sound of the gentle breeze through the foliage and the sounds of human life far away.

 

Vivien trailed her hand trough the grass as she leaned against the bark of the tree, closing her eyes. Here, outside, she could finally feel a little bit like herself again. Here was where she was supposed to be, here was where she was supposed to go. Not as one of those Aes Sedai or novices in their monochrome dresses and their unfriendly or expressionless faces.

 

She was not one of them! She didn’t belong here! What did it matter if she could learn how to channel? She wasn’t born with it, there was just a possibility that she could learn if they taught her. And Vivien wasn’t particularly interested in slaving away doing stupid chores while being taught something about Power for years and years on end – something you could hurt people with. It wasn’t worth it, in her opinion. She didn’t want to be dressed in the colour of mourning and death every single day of her life, until she passed some sort of test. She’d wept when they’d taken her clothes, her self-made jewellery and the colourful beads from her hair.  As some form of protest, she’d then taken to putting colourless glass beads in small braids amongst the thick shock of her goldbrown hair. It had been three days, and nobody had said anything about it yet. She’d seen Pia Sedai look at it when they met in some nameless hallway on the ninth floor, but the Aes Sedai had just shaken her head and moved on whatever she’d been on her way to.

 

Still, it was only one small victory after everything had been taken from her already. Her family, her loved ones, her clothes and her identity. Everything. What were glass beads in the grander scheme of things? Nothing.

 

"What am I still doing here?" she whispered against the starry evening, breathing the air deeply to try and soothe her thundering heartbeat. "Why did I have to come here?"

 

[silhouette]

Though the night was still young, Faerzyne could already feel the silence that accompanied it descend upon the White Tower. Many Aes Sedai did their work at night, but they chose to do it behind closed doors. Secret meeting rooms, studies in locked private quarters, meeting places in the dark splendour of Tar Valon. She had seen them all and been in most. When she was still Mistress of Novices she had taken her time walking through the dark halls of the White Tower, the bells in her hair softly tingling to announce her presence to Novices and Accepted that were out after curfew. She had been a gentle Mistress, according to some, always giving her charges the chance to at least appear to do the right thing.

 

Why she truly did what she did was a mystery though, often even to herself. Did she walk the hall to stop her charges from doing the wrong things, or did she do so merely to observe just what these wrong things were? Did a novice caught stealing have a worse character than one merely caught wandering the hallways? It took a trained eye to judge a character from such little things. It was her trained eye that had made her a worthy asset to both the White Tower and the Great Lord of the Dark for all the many years she had aided both. In all these years she had learned one thing above all others.

 

You always had to keep an eye out for the quiet ones.

 

Those who always spoke first were easily dismissed. Those who thought before they spoke showed the potential of having a bright mind. Those who were silent in general were often hiding something. Sometimes it was a strong devotion to the light that no one could break. Sometimes there were dark secrets, hidden over the years and only whispered about in the deep of night. Sometimes it was pain. Simple, unadorned pain that kept a Novice quiet during her classes and quiet during her meals and chores. Secrets and pain she could work with.

 

It was pain that led the young novice she had been observing. It led her down and down, far away from her room and into a garden when the night’s sky was clear above her. A tinker, if Faerzyne remembered correctly. A quiet girl, filled with silent despair over being well and truly lost within the White Tower. Faerzyne smiled to herself as she stepped out of the shadows and onto the path. The girl was filled to the brim with emotions that she could use, twist and shape until the girl was so solidly on a certain path that she would never find her way back again. She would have to be patient though, and that happened to be her forte. You didn’t become as successful in the recruitment of dark souls if you weren’t patient.

 

The bells in her hair tingled softly as she moved to the novice. The girl didn’t seem to notice her, preferring to stay lost in her own contemplations at least. As Faerzyne closed in on her, she could hear the quiet, desperate whispers the girl uttered. She stopped right in front of the girl. “You came here because that is what the wheel wove for you.” She said, her voice gentle and soft. “And you are still here, because the Creator has a purpose for you, and you can’t wait to figure out what it is.” Only the creator had no purpose for anyone, and the girl would only get silence in return when she called to him. That was what Faerzyne had learned in her long years in the White Tower. “Now tell me, why is it that a young girl like yourself finds her in this starlit garden at night?” She took a seat next to the girl, waiting patiently for a response.

 

~Faerzyne Grigory

Gray Sister

 

[Lannie]

Vivien had not noticed that anyone was there, when she had whispered her questions to the night. She had not expected anyone to answer that rhetorical question, not in a million years. It was a question that only the Creator would be able to answer, she had thought when she uttered it – and it had been asked to the Light indeed.

 

And suddenly there was an answer. An Aes Sedai with a smooth face and eyes that had seen the ages, little bells in her hair. “You came here because that is what the wheel wove for you,” she said gently, stepping into Vivien's view. Vivien would have ran if she could have, if not for the tone of voice that the unknown Aes Sedai was using as she continued: “And you are still here, because the Creator has a purpose for you, and you can’t wait to figure out what it is.”

 

She wanted to protest, but she found that she couldn't. Her heart was beating in her throat as she looked up at the regal, dignified and wise woman that sat down next to her. <i>Light, what have I gotten myself into? Philosophical conversations under the stars with an Aes Sedai?</i> Still, to have someone finally taking time to really <i>see</i> her, to talk to her.... that had not happened here before. The Mistress of Novices had written her off to a mentor, and her mentor was dismissive, curt, and not open to any reason or pleas whatsoever. Yet this Aes Sedai... she was the first one to treat Vivien with a mind of her own, someone who could maybe, perhaps, give her a bit of comfort.

 

So Vivien made herself smile a watery smile and started to talk softly into the night air: “I can't really wait to figure it out. I just don't really have a choice, I guess. My family is long gone, I have no ways of contacting them... and nobody just asks me what I think of this, what I want with my life. Everybody just assumes that I am to be an Aes Sedai. I hardly knows what it means, and my parents wrote to me that it's an honour, that they're so proud of me... but I could read between the words that they've written me off, that they have lost their daughter to a noble good... but I don't know what's so noble about it, it's just <i>assumed</i> and I spend my days toiling around with bath water and chamber pots and they say I'm going to learn how to channel but isn't that something dangerous, and I'm afraid and I'm homesick and I just feel like I'm <i>choking</i> in there...” The words tumbled over her lips, frantically finding their way outside, until she couldn't speak anymore because she was weeping. Thick sobs racked her throat and she covered her face in her hands. “I'm sorry, I really am, but I just don't know what I am <i>doing</i> here... I can't see the purpose of it all, it all seems like it's not worth it...”

 

Vivien Senette

Poor lost novice :(

[silhouette]

“You are Tuatha’an, are you not?” Faerzyne asked. She received a slight nod from the girl, who also seemed to flinch a little. No doubt she expected further harassment about her past. Not all novices and accepted understood that once you donned the White, you became each others equals under the light. It was only the Shadow that understood that one’s heritage could never be truly forgotten, and it was only the Shadow that would respect it. “Does the way of the leaf not tell you that you should accept all that comes on your path without struggle?”

 

It was a rhetorical question, serving merely to guide Faerzyne over to the point she was trying to make. “You will find that the White Tower works by the way of the leaf far more than any of your fellow novices expect. They expect to learn how to make nobles dance on their strings, and how to make the world bend to their wishes when in truth all the Tower really wants from you is compliance and acceptance. In time you will be given more freedoms, and you will learn to wield the power that you have been graced with. In time you will learn to heal mortal wounds and to make nobles do your bidding, but it is a long road, and in the end, only you can judge if all the hardships you go through now are worth the effort.”

 

This of course was the same as saying ‘life is harsh, kid. Deal with it.’. To soften the meaning of her words, she wrapped an arm around Vivien’s shoulders, which shivered slightly from her despair. “I know this isn’t much of a comfort, especially not since it won’t give you back the things you’ve lost, but trust me when I say that there will be times when everything you’ve gone through suddenly gets a meaning. Everything that ails you now will be forgotten in time. You have a great life ahead of you, Vivien. It may not be a life you would choose for yourself, but it is a great life indeed.”

 

“And in the end, the choice is still yours. That is what many Aes Sedai here forget. The wheel weaves as the wheel wills, but there will be moments in your life during which you are free to determine your own path. While you have been raised to do so, you will find that you do not have to accept your fate as meekly as your mentor or the Mistress of Novices seem to suggest now. Why, look at yourself now. You’re sitting in a garden under the starry sky, well after curfew. Had you simply accepted your fate, you would be in bed by now, but instead you chose to find something else. A moment of freedom, if you will.” Faerzyne winked at the novice. “And look, fortune smiles upon you, for you find yourself in the company of someone who will not betray your secret.”

 

~Faerzyne Grigory

 

[Lannie]

The Aes Sedai’s words sounded gentle and well-meaning, but what it came down to in Vivien’s mind is that she still had no choice, she would still be confined to a life she had not chosen. There was still no change. Still, the Aes Sedai suddenly touched her. She lay an arm around Vivien’s shoulders and held her, sharing a bit of warmth and comfort. It was the first time anyone had touched her like that since she came here. The thought alone made her want to cry.

 

“I know this isn’t much of a comfort, especially not since it won’t give you back the things you’ve lost, but trust me when I say that there will be times when everything you’ve gone through suddenly gets a meaning. Everything that ails you now will be forgotten in time. You have a great life ahead of you, Vivien. It may not be a life you would choose for yourself, but it is a great life indeed.” The Aes Sedai smiled. Starlight caught the little bells in her hair briefly as she sketched an image of Vivien’s future. Still horrifying, but there was finally a bit of explanation. This was what it was going to be like, this was what lay in store for her. 

 

“And in the end, the choice is still yours,” The Aes Sedai then said. Vivien sat up a little, listening intently. “That is what many Aes Sedai here forget. The wheel weaves as the wheel wills, but there will be moments in your life during which you are free to determine your own path. While you have been raised to do so, you will find that you do not have to accept your fate as meekly as your mentor or the Mistress of Novices seem to suggest now. Why, look at yourself now. You’re sitting in a garden under the starry sky, well after curfew. Had you simply accepted your fate, you would be in bed by now, but instead you chose to find something else. A moment of freedom, if you will.” The Aes Sedai winked. “And look, fortune smiles upon you, for you find yourself in the company of someone who will not betray your secret.”

 

“I... I…” There was too much in her head. She couldn’t talk anymore. There was a bit of relief, for there were possibilities of choosing her own path in the future, as well as complete shock that she’d been discovered indeed – she had been breaking rules. “Thank you, Aes Sedai,” she whispered, wringing her hands. “I didn’t break the rules on purpose, I just needed some air. Thank you for your support, it means a lot to me.” She looked up at the Aes Sedai again, smiling faintly. “It’s a small comfort that you’ve given me, and I thank you for that. Maybe now I can last three weeks before cabin fever gets to me again.” When had she made the decision not to flee, but to tough it out here? Was it this Aes Sedai’s words alone? The possibility of choice? She wondered faintly what paths the Aes Sedai had been talking about, but supposed she would see in the future. 

 

“And thank you for keeping my … rulebreaking a secret, Aes Sedai.” She smiled, as she pushed caramel-coloured hair out of her face to look up at the Aes Sedai. “I now realize I don’t even know your name… my name is Vivien.”