Thanks everyone. I saw the Lanfear thread after I had posted this - the title had made me think it was someone announcing that they were taking over the character, rather than that she was being offered.

I don't think I could do her justice, so I'll just watch for others. ^^ Merci!

Sorry but I was not sure where to find this information out. If someone prefers to just give me a link rather than re-explain I am happy to have it. =)

At any rate, where does one find out if there are any Chosen who need players? A billion years ago Semirhage and Graendal were both close to coming up for grabs but, like I said, that was a billion years ago. ^^

Merci!

OOC: I actually had this finished a while ago but then DM went down. >< Not my best effort, but at least I've finally given you a post:

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She noticed the wide eyes and the sudden diversion to stirring tea and smiled inwardly. Surprise was only one small method of manipulation, one of many, but sometimes the most effective. The accompanying reactions often told a fine tale.

Isra wondered briefly if Carise had taken the Daes Dae'mar class during her training. If she had, either the lessons had not sat well or the woman hadn’t yet encountered the need to truly learn the Great Game. Even that small reaction gave away much to one well-versed in politics. Bloody Josefina would have divined her darkest secrets from that small thing, Isra thought with some amusement, knowing the older White – and many others like her – could read people like the Browns read their books.

She was young yet though, and perhaps this was her first secret worth keeping, worth learning the Game for. The girl was smart, articulate, and calm even in her surprise. It would be no shock to Isra to find that she was a deadly player once she mastered Daes Dae’mar.

“Have you heard the tale of the maiden and the mouse?” Isra did not wait for an answer. “Some long time ago, in the time before the time before the Breaking, there lived a maiden who found a mouse at the mercy of a cat. Frightening the cat away, she was surprised when the mouse addressed her in human tongue and bid her to call on him whenever she had the need.

“It was not too long afterwards that the maiden was kidnapped by an evil man hoping to ransom her. He bound her with rope and stowed her in his cellar, wherefrom she cried and cried for help although none could hear her. Except – as I am sure you have guessed – the mouse. His tiny knives of teeth sawed through the ropes quickly, and the maiden was able to escape.

“I have no care whether I am the maiden or the mouse, but you will surely see the wisdom in helping one another. A White gets bored within the Tower, and if you will indulge me my one small whim of familiarizing myself with the goings-on of Tar Valon, I believe I may in return be of some assistance to you.”

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The horse’s hooves rang clear on the cobbles, down the ribboning path through the city to the stables. Isra paid little attention to the merchants and cityfolk who moved hurriedly out of her way, intent as she was on gaining the White Tower. She had an appointment, was late for it already, and dared not slow the great grey steed beneath her. Black skirts rustled with the movements of her horse, and her grey cloak streamed behind her.

Someone hailed her – Katlin she thought – but she continued. She would apologize later. Profusely if necessary, but for now the appointment was uppermost in her mind. This particular informant was elusive at best, and that he had agreed to a face-to-face meeting was a rare event. Aris clattered into the stableyards of the Tower, a young groom running to meet him as Isra threw the reins over his head and slid from the saddle. “Thank you, no,” she said to the man who had come to assist her with the small package she carried.

Why she had decided to answer the jeweler’s summons she still did not know. Her sister’s ring had been in his care for the better part of a fortnight; another day would have little mattered. But she had gone down into the city to retrieve the carnelian-set jewelry from him and lost the time. The work had been masterful; at least she could feel pleased about something. The band, a rose-tinted gold, was etched with tiny vining flowers and set with two olive-streaked jaspers alongside the center stone. She’d been more than satisfied with the artisan’s work, had paid him double what it was worth.

Focused on achieving her room, she little noticed the novices and Accepted who greeted her and pretended she did not see Josefina coming towards her in the hall of the White Ajah. No time. Laying the package on her dresser, she hurried again from her rooms and made for the library, nearly running. She knew how she must look to the girls along the hallways: frantic. Although her face was schooled to its usual hauteur, her quick pace gave lie to the calmness.

The library loomed. Slowing to a walk and entering in the grave manner of an Aes Sedai, Isra scanned the room quickly for her quarry.

And did not see him.

Taking care not to curse aloud, she sought the main desk by which all visitors had to pass to gain entrance to the great hall of books. “Osline, have you a message for me?” she asked the Brown sister who was standing guard that hour. The petite woman gazed on her for a moment, eyes unfocused as though she were thinking over the morning past, before nodding. “Ah yes, Isra,” she murmured, sorting through a stack of papers before finding the one she sought. “For you.”

“My thanks, sister,” the White returned, taking the paper in hand and retreating to a far corner of the library. There were few patrons this morning, for which Isra was glad. Unfolding the slip of parchment, she read it over quickly. And did curse aloud, although whisper-quiet. “Blood and bloody ashes!” The man had waited for half a candlemark before growing agitated and leaving. Apparently she was lucky to have even received a note. The missive indicated it would take a good deal of work on her part to persuade him to her cause again, if indeed it could be done.

I’ve no time for this. she thought with some irritation, knowing she had little choice. He was an important informant, one she could not afford to lose.

Enlisting help from a sister of her Ajah was not an option; she did not know the new Aes Sedai well enough to trust them, and knew the elder sisters too well. Novices were an untrustworthy bunch, most still wide-eyed and awestruck even by their seventh year in whites.

But an Accepted, one whom was intelligent enough not to muss up an already tangled problem and who could keep her head and her secrets – such a girl would be ideal. Isra lifted her eyes from the note, glanced around the library. Gislaine was too morose, would surely scare the man out of the city altogether. Lashmi she did not trust, and the girl with her she did not even recognize despite the dearth of Accepted in the Tower. Her gaze moved across several more women in banded hems before pausing on Lillian.

She had heard a very little about the girl: not enough to know whether she could be trusted or not, but enough that she could spare the time for a conversation to determine more. Folding the missive and tucking it into her skirts, the White moved from her corner of the library until she came beside Lillian.

“Accepted Lillian. Will you speak with me for a moment?”

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OOC: I am sorry this took so long. I didn't realize until the other day that you had responded for some reason. Oi!

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Isra smiled at the admission, that the library was better-known than the gardens. Indeed, Tar Valon boasted the largest library in the world, with books and tomes and scrolls older surely than time itself. New novices nearly always chose to visit the library first, never thinking that many of their waking hours would be spent in its dark and looming halls, under the watchful eyes of Brown sisters.

Acquiescing to the request, Isra turned the girl in the direction of the great library, a separate building from the Tower that was nonetheless attached to the great ivory spire. The pair filed through the Tower, winding their way through curtsying novices and respectful Accepted. Isra gave greetings to Nidori when she passed, the woman a fellow sister of the Whites who possessed both fiery and wintry personalities in full measure. Isra had since learnt that it had been a difficult choice for Nidori, between White and Green, and if any Ajahs were further apart Isra couldn’t name them.

She wondered musingly about the novice at her side. It would be many years before Beth would gain the shawl – or even the banded dress and serpent ring, for that matter – but at some point in the future there would be Ajahs vying for her. Her personality did not point to any one in particular yet, but the young girls rarely showed signs until they had at least reached Acceptance. Many giggled over joining the Greens and bonding thousands of Warders, but in the end they did not all choose to bind themselves to the sisters of swords.

The arching doorway of the library was before them suddenly, and Isra nodded to the Brown stationed there. “That is Lidyan Sedai. She has eyes sharper than a falcon’s; don’t dare be caught stealing books under her watch.” She smiled slightly, her words a jest. Not that Lidyan would not punish harshly a thief of books, but Isra doubted Beth would willingly steal. But then, what did she know of her?

“Here it is…the library of Tar Valon. Look your fill, touch if you wish, but do not take. You will enter by that door over there,” she gestured to the novices’ entrance, along one of the side walls, “if you are entering by your own will. If an Aes Sedai has sent you, you may come in as we did. And the librarians will know the difference.” She nudged the girl forward, willing her to explore.

Isra allowed her gaze to roam across the vaulted ceilings, scanning the rows and rows of books, settling lightly on two sisters in deep conversation in a far corner. Gia and Simran, one a White, the other a Grey. Interesting. She allowed Beth to wander as she willed, finally deciding to strike up a conversation with Lidyan while her charge explored the grand room.

She was agreeing that new novices were scarce as of late, and that recruiting expeditions ought to be sent out more regularly when Beth returned to her side. With murmured thanks for Lidyan, she set her regard on the novice. “Well, have you enjoyed the library? I can show you the gardens if you wish, or we can repair to your room that you may enjoy some peace on your last afternoon of freedom.”

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OOC: Hopefully this is all right. ><

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A pity the girl wasn’t a White. She had a logician’s brain, although her tongue was looser than Isra would have allowed had she been Carise’s Ajah Head. From her own perspective though, as one who wanted information, she appreciated it.

She’d once thought along similar lines as the Red sister. The pooling of resources, strength in unity, binding the Ajahs together before Tarmon Gaidon, which was certainly looming. But that had been in her naïve days, when she had thought the other Ajahs were trustworthy. Before the Greens had taken hold of the Amyrlin Seat and not let go, going even so far as to replace the Hall-approved Blue Keeper with one of their own Ajah. That had done much to destroy her respect for the warrior Ajah. And she was not involved enough in Tower politics yet to know if they had rebuilt what they had torn down, if the relations between the Yellows, Browns, Whites and Blues with the largest Ajah had been yet repaired.

But it was a pleasant thought, peace in the White Tower.

“You are unique then, among the Reds, as one who can see beyond the cause of your Ajah,” Isra murmured, and she meant it truly as a compliment. Whether Carise would take it that way or no was up to the girl herself. “And I must assume Halvie and Serena share a similar willingness to put aside the divisions of Ajah to do what must be done.”

She remembered Halvie only vaguely, but Serena came a bit more clearly. She seemed to recall amiable conversations with the Blue, many years past.

“I also assume what you were doing was on orders of the Amyrlin, for unless you were friends as novices – and that cannot be, as you are not all of the same age – there is no other reason such disparate individuals would come together to complete a task. I would find it even more laughable if the Ajah Heads of Blue, Green and Red set you to it.

“No. It must have been Mother.” She set her teacup down, pinning Carise with her hazel gaze. “Would you care to share with me the nature of the task? No ordinary thief would have required three sisters.

“You should not feel any obligation, of course. I will find out some other way if necessary. I’d just hoped to hear it from you.” Isra lifted slim shoulders in a shrug, her ghosting smile again present. “I am a collector of information, is all. You need not worry that I will spread your tale among my sisters.”

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OOC: Red for mine, green for Lillian's. =) I used all ten, for fun.

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The flock of Aes Sedai chattered, hen-like: an unusual amount of twittering from an Ajah so reserved in public. Josefina held the reins of the discussion, and indeed today fitted the role of mother hen more appropriately than normal. Her white gown was sewn with thousands of feathers, dripping from skirts and sleeves and sweeping upwards into a grand collar. White peacock eyes stared from behind Josefina’s own eyes, where they were pinned into her hair.

Isra only mused privately that her skirts were doing the job of servants, and sweeping the dust away.

The other women in the room were equally stately, but none dared challenge Josefina. Nidori – a veritable firebrand in the eyes of the Whites – was the only one who might have tried, but today was prim and proper for some reason Isra could not fathom. She was still trying to grasp the personalities who comprised the White Ajah, little changed as it was from when she’d left an era ago. But the changes were momentous in so small an Ajah: two sisters were no longer in this small circle of powerful Whites which Isra had bound to herself during her tenure as Ajah Head, and three more in their place. Their politics differed, and their loyalty lay more at Josefina’s feet than Isra’s.

Which was well and good for the moment, as it was necessary for Isra to reacquaint herself with the goings-on of the White Tower before she began pulling strings again.

“Tell us again of Kandor, Isra,” Avenlan asked suddenly – or perhaps not suddenly. Isra might only have not heard the question the first time, for Josefina was frowning at her peculiarly. Isra knew she had taken to wandering off more often of late and struggled to regain the present. The last thing she desired was suspicion on the part of the elder White, for that might lead down dark and haunted paths. The smallest bubble of horror choked her suddenly, filling her throat with terror that was better left for nightmares, and she swallowed with much effort. Her mask of composure cracked an inch.

“There is little to tell,” she repeated herself quietly, for the seventieth time. “I returned with what I wished to show you – the charters, treatises, notes, translations. Documents from a lord’s library, and thousands upon thousands of years old. I wish not to speak of the Blight or what occurred there.” They had all been suitably sympathetic and horrified when she'd told the story of their battle with Shadowspawn. The loss of sisters was a blow the Tower could not suffer many more of.

She had not yet told them of the book. Somehow she had managed to speak around it every time they asked. Her many years of Tower training had been exercised to the fullest, her politicking and scheming and double-speaking had been of great assistance. She’d nearly turned to Taya for guidance when she thought she might break from the strain of not-lying, still might if it came to it, for she trusted the Green nearly as much as she did any of the women in the room at that moment. Perhaps moreso, although that thought was unsettling.

A few more questions, a handful of vague answers and the gathering was dismissed. Josefina stood, her plumage fluttering, the peacock’s eyes staring unblinking at the women who filed from the room. She drew near Isra and fixed her with a quiet look, one Isra thought she meant to convey sympathy. It failed miserably, so miserably that Isra nearly laughed aloud. “Something happened in Kandor,” said the woman, and it was all Isra could do to keep her face expressionless. “You are affected by it yet. I will help you if you but let me. Not today, nor tomorrow. When you are ready.”

Josefina swept from the room, pausing at the threshold to leave the final words at Isra’s door: “You know where my room is. Let me listen to what burdens your heart.”

It was so uncharacteristic an offer from the frigid White that it made Isra uneasy. She had trusted Josefina for so long, but her overture felt like manipulation. Taking a moment to set everything to rights – her room, her gown, her hair – she went the way of her fellow sisters and was soon out of the Tower entirely.

She did not like Tar Valon. Admiring its architecture from her room high in the Tower was one thing, but to take in an eyeful from the streets of the city quite another. The uneven cobbles beneath her feet, the noise of the crowd, the smells all set her off-balance. Despite her time away from the Tower, she still preferred the peace of her room to the thrum of the streets. But she’d been meaning to come into the city for days to visit the jeweler, wherefore to have a ring reset. Her carnelian deserved a better setting, particularly when it was a gift from her long-ago deceased sister. The simple band fitted it well, but was bruised and beaten with age.

Pausing a moment when Phaedra Sedai stopped to give her greeting, she was glad the Aes Sedai did not linger. Standing for conversation in the middle of the street made her feel like a fishwife out to market, haggling over pricing. Her glance took in the name of the inn from which Phaedra had descended, and found it interesting that it was a well-known haunt of the Red Ajah. Something to be filed away and examined later.

Finding her jeweler, she entered and conveyed her business quickly, hoping to return to the Tower before the onset of dusk. The tavern-folk swarmed the streets then, and their ilk was worse than the merchants. He accepted the carnelian ring in his grave manner, promising the new band would outshine the old, mentioning filigree and diamond chips and perhaps jasper to complement. Isra only nodded, glad to leave it to his expertise, and left him as soon as she was able.

Her return to the Tower brought with it the knowledge that a conversation with Josefina was inescapable – a frank conversation, one in which she must admit that Gavrin’s death was still a nightmarish blot on her mind, lest the elder White suspect she was hiding something else and uncover knowledge of the book.

Turning in the direction of her quarters, desperate for the peace of privacy and late afternoon, she nodded shortly to an Accepted who crossed her path, one Lillian of whom she had heard some few tidbits but to whom she had not yet spoken.

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OOC: Hopefully you can do something with this. If not, let me know =)

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The book lay sleeping, in the same place Isra had found it every other time she’d looked in on it. The weaves, carefully tested, were all of them still there, each more intricate than the last. Isra had never been particularly strong in any single element, but she was a delicate weaver. Between her threads and Taya’s it would take a singular amount of concentration to unravel the work they had done.

Shutting it back up in its place, the White returned a final time to the mirror, turning a vase so that its painted side faced the room. She’d worn black again, as she had every day since Gavrin’s death, the only color in the small unicorn pin at her breast. It glittered menacingly in the mirror. Taya had seemingly befriended or, at least, come to terms with the lion. But the unicorn was a cold thing, its sharp horn made for tearing.

Ribbons wrapped her waist and wrists, their ends fluttering when she moved. Her hair was loose, laying straight over her shoulders. It had been a long time since she’d felt anything but unkempt, as though her outward appearance reflected her inner one. But the Tower had a soothing effect on her. Her nerves would never be what they once had been, but she was calmer now. She could play the White again without worry of cracking.

A knock sounded on her door and Isra turned to answer, wondering if she would find the woman she sought behind it or a novice with an excuse. Turning the knob, she pulled the door inwards and peered into the hall, her honey-colored gaze settling on the quarry she’d hoped for. Carise Doraile, young sister of the Red Ajah.

Carise Doraile, who also possessed an enormous network of connections within Altara. The girl was a goldmine of information, if only Isra could extract it from her.

“Come in sister,” Isra said, motioning for the woman to enter and take a chair of her choosing. “Sit if you please. Tea?” Throwing the door back into place, the White retrieved the porcelain teapot from its place on the silver tray, pouring two cups. “Honey and sugar, or cream if you prefer,” she continued, indicating the items.

Isra meanwhile admired the woman’s patience, for many sisters would have asked the purpose of the invitation before even entering. Before even entering the hallways of another Ajah, even. Preferring to let the girl sit for a while, the White moved to the windows of her room, throwing open the shutters. The wind danced in.

“A pretty morning, is it not? There was some rain yesterday afternoon, enough to wash the world and cool the air.” All meaningless banter, designed to throw one off-balance. Isra turned and found a seat near Carise, offering the echo of a smile. Taking up her teacup, she stirred and sipped from it. “I was out riding in the coolness, yesterday evening. But then, so were you. Tell me, what do you think of a Red who has a Blue and Green sister for companions?”

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OOC: Same to you =)

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The Far Madding girl pushed herself from the infirmary cot slowly, smoothing a strand of her dark hair from her face. Isra noticed that she had not worked herself into a snit over the wrinkled silk or the mussed hair, and counted it a point in the girl’s favor. She was not presentable according to the standards of the White Tower – far from it, and should she show up in such a state in any of her classes Isra was sure her teacher would give her a scolding – but there was something like courage in the fact that the child could face an Aes Sedai and, though not at her best, act as though she were.

“Yes, Aes Sedai,” said the girl, going on the beg forgiveness for poor manners and excusing her nerves. Isra raised her brows at the last line, wondering if it was a throwback to the Far Madding opinions of channeling, but let it lie for the moment.

“Let us walk a bit then and remind your legs of their use. The Tower is a large place, so pay attention. You will want to commit as much of what I show you today to memory, for even the new girls are punished for tardiness and not everyone can be bothered to give directions even when asked.” Waiting for the girl to find her feet and reassure herself that she could walk without falling, Isra led the way from the Infirmary and on towards the seamstress.

“You will be in white from now on, until you gain the shawl of an Aes Sedai. Novices wear dresses of unrelieved white, Accepteds have gowns with banded hems. Here now, let the seamstress measure you for your clothing.” Isra paused, giving the girl over into the care of the sewing woman, who took her measurements quickly and handed over three gowns to be worn in the meantime. Shoes and shifts accompanied the gowns.

“She’ll send for you when she has finished the dresses that are sewn to your exact measurements, but in the meantime do not let yourself be seen unless you are dressed in one of those.” Isra paused, allowing her instructions to sink in. The girl seemed clever despite her nerves, and the White somehow doubted she would have to tell her many things twice.

“Onwards then, to the kitchens. Mind the way, so you can retrace the path.” The way was winding, and at regular intervals other hallways spun off, or spiraling staircases or niches with carven things. The heat and clanging noises of pots and pans and cutlery gave away the kitchens, and soon enough the Aes Sedai and her charge were party to the chaos. “You’ll scrub pots here, or the great cauldrons, or the ovens. Sometimes you will be called on to serve food, or even cook it, or gut fish or peel potatoes – there are a number of things that will require your presence in the kitchens. And at mealtimes here is where you will find your food, and through that door is the great hall of tables where you can sit to eat.

“Explore if you will, or we may continue the tour. If you are hungry, any of the fruits in that bin are yours for the taking.”

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OOC: Going to stop here in case you want to go through and have Beth react to the seamstress and the kitchens, etc. =) When you’re ready, feel free to have Isra ask whether Beth’d rather see the garden or the library next and we shall move on!

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Taya did not look in her direction, and silence settled with the wind. The warrior sister stared straight ahead, although Isra knew her gaze was focused inwards rather than on the city sprawled before them. The White, for her part, kept her hazel eyes on the fierce woman before her. All the while her hands knotted themselves in her horse’s reins, her knuckles sharply white.

“She must know,” Taya answered finally, and Isra nearly cried her shrieking thoughts aloud. She had never been one to deny emotions, always finding it as logical to give them their due consideration along with everything else. She could be cold as winter when necessary, as absent of feelings as a corpse, but did not deem it necessary to live her life so hollowly. And in this instance her emotions rose and rose and threatened to spill over every edge, leak out of her mouth and eyes, curl her fingers into claws.

But Taya, turning, continued. “About our losses. And about these.” She gestured to her saddlebags, filled with all else they had wrested from the lord of the Kandor manor, repossessing in the name of knowledge and the White Tower. It had taken a good deal to persuade him, and promises made that only the Amyrlin herself could keep, but the sisters had been certain that taking such action was worth it.

Isra had never felt such relief, had never been so drained that she nearly slumped over the dappled neck of her horse. Her bones were suddenly gone to water. “About our losses,” she repeated. “And about the other documents. Of course. She will be told of them.” A nod of agreement and Isra flicked the reins, urging her horse forward again. She did not press for more concrete agreement from Taya; the woman had given the best that Isra could expect, and she had come to know the Green as a woman little given to political games. If Taya wanted to inform her Ajah of the book and its contents, there would be important reasons behind her decision.

Isra only hoped, if it came to that, the decision would be discussed with her first. So that I may throw myself from the highest tower within the hour, she thought grimly.

Forcing her attention away from what they carried and instead onto what lay before them – literally and figuratively – Isra gazed long on the city of Shining Walls. Within lay the White Tower, where she had trained and schemed, politicked and taught. Too many years had passed since her last visit, and she felt off-balance, unsure. She had no inkling who her Ajah Head was, or who the Sitters were who commanded the Hall.

Nothing to be done for that now, she thought, wishing she’d kept up her spider-like web of informants and gossips when she’d abandoned the Tower. But it had not seemed important at the time.

The gates of the city loomed, all spun-glass-glitter in the dull sunlight. A guard held up his hand and the pair of sisters reined to a halt before him. Only a moment passed before the flicker of recognition, acknowledged by a bow. “May it please you to enter, Aes Sedai,” he murmured, all respect. They did so.

Thousands of years passed between that first gate and the skybound spire of the White Tower, thousands of years in only minutes. Isra felt the weight of the decades past on her shoulders. Whether acceptance or scorn awaited her within, there was nothing she could do to delay the inevitable further. She wondered if Taya was having similar thoughts, expected that she was.

Casting off her cloak, folding it into one of the saddle bags, she approached the Tower unconcealed by hood or wings of fabric. Alabaster skin and dark hazel eyes stood in stark contrast to the raven-gown and raven-hair. The black of her hair had been precaution against discovery by any associates of the Shadowspan they’d fought in the Blight, as had the hiding of the snake ring. For a while her eyes had been bluer than ice, but they had not suited her and she’d dropped that illusion once she was secure in her distance from Kandor.

Reaching the court of the Tower with her companion, she dismounted slowly, her eyes traveling over the familiar site. A groom waited nervously, his hand on the reins of her steed. Isra summoned another man to carry the saddlebags from Taya’s horse, wanting them taken with them to the Amyrlin’s chamber rather than the Green sister’s room. She gave up one of her own as well, but clutched the other to her side, not trusting it to anyone’s hands but her own.

She glanced once at Taya. Nodded. Straight-backed, the warrior sister at her side, she entered the Tower as though it had been only days since her departure and not years. Novices, still as young as they had always been, as unsure and polite and shy and darting, hurried on errands or to chores. Accepted followed more slowly, their status a comfort.

A short journey to the White quarters, the careful hiding of the book, the laying of more weaves over it, and the two sisters were on the way to the White Tower’s seat of power. Remembering Lanfir Leah Maristhen, expecting Lyanna al’Ellisande as her Keeper to answer the door, Isra rapped smartly on it.

Taya looked like the battle sister that she was, and Isra schooled her face into the wintry hauteur of a White. The groom carrying the saddlebags, unaware of the omission, fidgeted behind the sisters as the trio awaited an answer to their summons.

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“I can see lights in the distance,

Trembling in the dark cloak of night…”

Loreena McKennitt

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Something woke her. It was not, as it had been many times during the past fortnight, a nightmare clawing relentlessly to her sleeping self. Perhaps the herbs given to her by Alivan of the Yellow and steeped in her tea had driven them away. Perhaps.

Grateful that her heart was calm and her nightrail was not twisted and damp with sweat, Isra swung pale legs over the edge of her bed and stood. Darkness was closing in, cool and silent. And where normally she would have remained awake, staving off sleep with study and contemplation, this evening she’d succumbed.

Her ribs ached. Gavrin has earned himself a bruise in the practice yards, she thought silently, knowing how he’d often put off visiting the infirmary until she complained of an echoing hurt. And then…”No,” she spoke aloud, disbelievingly. “No. Gavrin is long ago dead.” She was upset with herself then, for her inability to remember. The circumstances of his death had been traumatic, and the journey afterwards had kept her distracted. But now that she was returned to the quiet scheming of the Tower, his death had settled all the more forcefully in her mind. She was finding acceptance of it very difficult.

Moving to the window, she threw open the latticework shutters and let the cool wind kiss her face and arms. She had never liked nature before, found it too wild and illogical. And while she still preferred the halls and rooms of the Tower to the wild gardens, she now had a grudging respect for the elements. She and Gavrin had spent a good many days on open roads in wide green countries on their way to Kandor, and she and Taya had spent as many more on their return journey.

In the nightshadows the white stone of the city glowed. The delicate bridges looked like woven glass and the rising spires like arms of stars. Giving in to a sudden temptation, she dressed quickly in her raven-black silk riding dress, the one sewn with tiny pinprick chrysoprases. With determined strides she made the way from her rooms to the stables, ordering the saddling of her dappled steed. Aris nickered softly in greeting and she smoothed his gray neck before mounting. Reins in hand, she urged him from the gold-lit stables into the evening-fallen city.

It was still quiet, the hush of the markets and squares not yet replaced by the raucous laughter and music from the taverns. Isra let Aris go where he would, enjoying the cool evening air. One of the bridges loomed, the stone like moonglow. And on it, two Aes Sedai, with a litter between them. Isra recognized Halvie and Serena both from her former time in the Tower. A Green and a Blue, not unusual in itself, but considering the time of night and the pale occupant of the bed strung between them, it was very interesting.

And Isra had always been observant when it came to the interesting. She slowed Aris, moving him into the shadows of a building near the arching bridge, watching the pair make their slow way towards the Tower. No Warders accompanied them. She had not yet encountered either of them, not since her return, and did not know their status among their Ajahs or among the Hall. Halvie, if she recalled, had once been friend or at least ally of Sirayn. Perhaps this was the work of the Amyrlin?

She followed them with her eyes until they had been swallowed in darkness, and returned her gaze to the bridge in contemplation. And found a sight that added a second degree of interest to the entire incident: Carise, a sister of the Red, was picking her way along the bridge on her horse. It was far too coincidental to be an accident, and despite the caution she had taken in not being seen in the company of Serena and Halvie, Isra nonetheless suspected a connection. It was only logical.

“Well,” she murmured quietly, and Aris flicked an ear her direction. Giving the trio enough time to return to the Tower and relinquish their horses to the stablehands, she followed. Turning over Aris to the care of the stableboys, she entered the Tower and sought her rooms once more. Much as she would have liked to send a missive immediately, it was too late into the night. The arrival of a sister of any Ajah at her quarters would provoke suspicion at this hour, a Red even moreso. She could imagine Josefina finding an excuse to visit, were she to find out.

And while normally she would have chosen Halvie or Serena as the one most appropriate to have over for tea and politics, in this case she knew Carise was the youngest. She could only hope that that translated into most easily manipulated as well.

Settling into the chair before her desk, she began to write, glad for the distraction from the book of horror that was laid in the chest on her vanity.

The morning found her in the same place, with a note carefully prepared. A novice, her morning chores interrupted, was bidden to deliver it to Carise Sedai of the Red Ajah. It read simply I would speak with you, if you have time this morning. Isra of the White.

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OOC: Can you describe Beth's physical appearance for me? =) I couldn't find it in the RP, but might be blind. Your response will probably necessarily be short, but if you just have Beth wake up and tell Isra she is ready to go, we'll begin the tour!

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The note lay unfinished before her, a sentence dead on the word “Blight”, and Isra staring unseeing at the painting above her desk. She’d been distracted more often than not since her return, an affliction that hadn’t affected her before. It was the book, she knew. Nothing had caused fear in her like the contents of that book.

Giving up the note as lost, she stood and laid the pen on her desk. She’d tried not a few times to write missives to her various contacts within the Tower, those she’d maintained before she left and who had a right to know of her return, without success. She stalled always when her narrative arrived at her time in the Blight, and even though she kept secret most of what had occurred there, memories overwhelmed.

The door to her study rattled suddenly as someone rapped sharply on it. Thankful to leave her thoughts and writing behind, she turned to answer it. A novice stood on the other side, humbly proffering a note. She did not recognize the handwriting.

Thanking the child, she took the slip of paper and turned it carefully. It was not from Taya, nor Josefina, nor Adelade. Closing her eyes for a long moment, she unfolded the thing carefully, as though it might have teeth. She was waiting, always waiting for the day a note would read “I want to see the book”.

But this one was harmless, from a woman who was now Mistress of Novices, a sister Isra recalled only very vaguely from the time before. She bid the White come and welcome the new novice she was to mentor, although she had the location down, peculiarly, as the infirmary.

Just arrived and already ill? Isra thought, with some sense of disappointment. She hoped the child would not have to be hand-held through homesickness or a weak disposition. If that were the case she would request the girl’s transfer into the care of a Yellow mentor, and have done with her.

Burning the note – habit now, to burn everything - Isra straightened her skirts and made for the infirmary. She found Faerzyne Sedai standing over the girl she was to mentor, her eyes warm enough to be called sympathetic. The child herself was dressed in yellow silk, although the garment was wrinkled, and her hair slightly mussed. Isra could not place her.

“What happened?” She inquired, laying slim fingers on the girl’s wrist. She’d had some skill in Healing, had spent many hours in the infirmary, but all that skill had come to naught when Gavrin had been felled by a Trolloc. Besides, the Yellow attendant had already mended this one.

“She fainted. After I told her she could channel.” A slight twist in the Mistress of Novices’ lips.

“Hm. She comes from…?”

“Far Madding.”

Isra did not react to this piece of information, although she found it to be the most important thing in regards to the girl. “And she’s been here how long?”

"She came to me only an hour ago, Isra Sedai. She wishes to train and has traveled far to have that chance. I think maybe she would do well under your guidance, Isra. She has heart."

"I see." The White sighed quietly. "Very well then. I shall be here when she wakes."

"The Light see that you are. Accepted Liza said she should come around shortly. Between the heightened stress and the long road here, she was due for a good fainting." The girl stirred slightly, and Faerzyne turned. "Ah, yes. She's coming around already. That's my cue to leave. Farewell, Isra."

The Mistress of Novices moved away through the infirmary, skirts trailing her. The Accepted in question hovered nearby, in case Isra should summon her, but the White was studying the child before her.

“Up with you, girl,” she said, her voice cool. Time to determine how much of the girl was nonsense, and how much true trauma and stress. “We’ve rooms for you in the Tower, and novice gowns, and I will conduct you on a small tour of the Gardens, kitchen and library if you’ll but wake.”

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“Death is merciful, for there is no return therefrom, but with him who has come back out of the nethermost chambers of night, haggard and knowing, peace rests nevermore.”

~HP Lovecraft

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A solitary figure sat upon her horse with the grace and ease of someone many years in the saddle. Her cloak, dark grey wool, covered the unrelieved black of her gown; the hood was pulled up o’er her face. Long locks of hair, escaped from the hood of the cape, lay on her breast; decades ago they had been honey-colored. Now they were dark as shadows.

The dappled steed shifted, huffing. The woman laid a white hand on its neck, calming, reassuring. On that hand was a ring with a syrupy stone, bloodred. It had long since of necessity replaced the sinuous, biting serpent. The snake ring was hidden beneath her gown, twined ‘round her throat on a golden chain. But those in the city before her would recognize her without need of the snake for identification. The guards of the city, the merchants in the streets, the children running with hoops or lathes – all knew an Aes Sedai when they saw her face.

Her companion gained her side and Isra turned towards her, lowering the hood of her cloak to better study the woman’s face. If ever there were an Aes Sedai more inscrutable than Taya of the Green Ajah, Isra had not yet met her. Hazel eyes flickered to the small, golden-maned lion that glinted dully from the breast of Taya’s gown; lips thinned and memories chittered maddeningly, but Isra pushed them resolutely away. They were for later, in the dark watches of the night, when she could string them like beads before her and examine them one by one. Her companion piece to Taya’s lion, an ivory, horned horse, reared fiercely against the raven-black silk of her own gown.

The pair had set out from Tar Valon separately, with years between their departures. But together they would ride into the city again. And though for a while their party comprised five Aes Sedai and two Gaidin, only the Green and the White were left. Only. Gelinna. Silamandra. Futisa. Orin and Gavrin were all of them were gone, lost to the decay and madness and monsters of the Blight. Silamandra had been a strong weaver of Fire, as though the loss of three sisters and two Warders was not horrendous enough.

Gavrin had been Isra’s sword companion, her Gaidin, and his death left a festering, gangrenous wound that she did not know how to heal. There was no skill in the entire Yellow quarter that could put aside such pain as what she felt. But the Creator did as he pleased, and it was not for her to beg Gavrin’s life back. He had, besides, died serving her, and death was nothing without honor.

“Tar Valon,” she murmured expansively to the woman sitting next to her, as though Taya’s long absence would cause her to forget what the white city looked like. As though she hadn’t been gone nearly as long. The bridges spanned the ribbon river ahead of the two sisters, and the white city crouched beyond them. The sun sat in a dull sky behind, a jewel tarnished by clouds and dust. It seemed the appropriate welcome.

“The book,” Isra continued abruptly, with no small amount of caution. “I worry, Taya. Will the weavings we’ve laid over it be enough? Will the Amyrlin be wise and allow it to remain a secret?” The tattered tome, more homely than most books, with a hand-stitched spine and pages in wild disarray, was hidden in the depths of Isra’s saddlebags. It was to their good fortune that its outward appearance provoked no particular interest, for only those who delved deep into history and philosophy came to learn of its existence. And many of those never learnt its name. Isra drew in a deep breath and broached a topic she hadn’t thought would cause her so much hesitation, but she was still learning where Taya’s politics lay. “Must the Amyrlin know, Taya?”

She kept her tone light, although her hand gripped the reins of her steed fiercely. They had agreed never to speak of what they had found, but did that agreement extend as far as their Ajahs, or only to the wide world itself? And Lanfir Leah Marithsen had sat the Amyrlin Seat when last the White was in the Tower. If she did still, would Taya choose loyalty over discretion?

A small wind chased orange and gold leaves over the road, eddying around the horses’ hooves. Isra’s cloak took flight and settled, and the unicorn rampant was hidden in a fold of the grey material. If only secrets were so easily hidden, Isra reflected silently, moving the cloak so that the beast was evident again. If the ivory insignia did not now catch Taya’s eye and remind her of what they knew, of what despair the book held, of how dangerous the knowledge was and how desperate the quest to keep it hidden, she would cast it into the deepest ravine she could find and give up the world for lost.

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OOC: I figured most of the flashbacks would occur when we reach Sirayn and tell her our story, but you do as you please of course =)

Am seeing this error again. :roll:

Just a note. =)

I voted for Continuation, and skimmed the comments. Agree with what Taea and Sirayn said, and I am really fond of Narg's idea to let the main characters be ... NPCs (?). Not sure what to call them - but make them more background characters so that those of us who want to interract with them, can, with the Incarns monitoring the situation to make sure people don't do things out of context.

A caveat to my continuation vote: I don't want to continue so far that we turn into the next Age of Legends, so that this turns into some sci-fi world rather than a fantasy one (which is my perception of RJ's AoL). That is why I play here, rather than at the AoL PW.

Hell, I'd be happy if we just stagnated the entire main plotline, turned the main characters into complete background entities and played in the world without being so much bound by the books.

My usual disclaimer: I make sense in my head. Questions welcome if I've boggled you. =)

Edit: just read what Ata said. Also an interesting idea...continuation until we hit a world we'd be creating on our own, at which point we spin that off into another PSW and reset or stagnate this one for those who want to remain.