Terongrial Making (anyone)

[Celene]

esrae walked through the gardens and sat down, her long white dress billowing in the slight breeze which ruffled the damanae's hair. As she sat down on a bench, she pulled out a piece of wire and a metallic disc and began to twirl them around in her sender fingers, staring out over the gardens like this was the most normal thing in the world to do.
The woman was a damanae, through and through, and even though she had become an Aes sedai years ago, she still had a hard time getting to know anyone. She rarely ever spoke, and when she did, it was to utter simple phraises, such as what she wanted for breakfast or to ask for a piece of thread.
She tried not to speak at all most times, though and the yellows were in constant guard over her usually knew what she wanted when she looked at something. They had been in guard of her ever since she had come to the tower, and she was used to them dressing her, feeding her, making her life easy by doing her hair, and generally being her caregivers. She did get sick of it sometimes, though, when she wasn't working and they were fussing over her because she got crumbs on her dress. Today, though, she had managed to slip out of one of the younger Aes Sedai's clutches who had been watching her make a Ter'ongreal, and ran to the gardens for some solace and as much relaxation as she was going to get. Her dress was white today, long and flowy, with a low-cut neckline and it had flowers on th sleeves. She briefly wondered why they all insisted she was dressed like a doll, with her hair piled on top of her hed like a princess, but she let them do what they want with her. At least when Celene did it, she dressed her conservatively, with her hair in a braid. esrae liked Celene. she was calm and sweet, and she liked the way her black hair flowed down her back in waves.

sighing, esrae began to construct the ter'ongreal she was making earlier, hands moving in a complex pattern of weaves as her golden blonde hair blew in the cool breeze from the gardens. Her violet gaze was on wht was in her hands, and when she heard the footsteps, she froze in sudden surprise. It was that aes sedai wasn't it, come to take her toy away.

[Marc]

Ladin saw a familiar complement of Yellow Aes Sedai walking into the gardens after another, smaller figure, and knew immediately that he had found Esrae at last.

He had been so busy lately that he hadn't had time to find her and talk to her at length, but he had had an idea that he needed to share with her. It was a thought that had come from not being allowed to channel- he needed a way to write down his instinctive ideas about ter'angreal. He needed a way to describe the weaves that he planned and executed instantaneously in his mind in writing for his own sake- he had found that with more complex ter'angreal he could not produce the same weave twice. He always felt a need to tweak it, which was fine for him- but he was beginning to realize that he needed other people, too. His bonding lessons had taught him that- what if he needed to convey to someone exactly how he needed a ter'angreal made? What if he developed only the beginning of a design for an enormously complex ter'angreal, as he had only weeks before in an exam? He had been left with a seemingly useless chunk of metal with no apparent uses, and he had no idea how he had done it. The weave hadn't really been completed- so while it had embedded itself in the material he had been working with, it had caused no changes, and had been nearly impossible even for Ladin to study.

In truth, Ladin had realized that he needed to be able to take notes on his work. He needed to have a way to take half formed ideas, write them down, and come back to them later to complete them. And he needed to find a way to do so in a coded language that only he could read. He had been spending hours in the library, reading up on codes and code-breaking, and had come up short. He had about a dozen drafts already, but he was beginning to realize that a written language couldn't accurately convey the One Power- it was simply too complex.

He needed Esrae. She would have an idea. She would make the whole thing work. He knew it.

So he followed the group until the stopped in a secluded spot in the gardens. He waited several minutes, then quietly sneaked around the glade until he could see Esrae but the Yellows couldn't see him. He then walked into the glade and watched her.

She was working on a ter'angreal, but she stopped almost immediately when he entered the glade. She looked up, he startling purple eyes meeting Ladin's, and smiled slightly when she recognized him. He knelt next to her and gave her a gentle, loving kiss on the lips, and when he pulled away he said, "I need your help with something."

She gave him that blank, intelligent stare, waiting. Ladin had watched people mistake that stare for idiocy or incompetence- he knew better. It was a blank stare, but vastly intelligent. It was powerful. He loved it.

"I think I have had an idea that could help both of us, Esrae," he said quietly. He pulled a small leather-bound journal out of his pocket and opened it to his most recent draft. It was sloppy and incomplete, but it at least conveyed a little meaning. "We need a way to write down what we make, how we make it, and how to reproduce it. We need a way to make notes for ourselves, a way to take the ideas we have and put them on paper so we can come back to them later." He offered the journal he had made and she took it, slowly and carefully flipping through the pages as he spoke. Many people in the tower thought Esrae couldn't read. Ladin didn't know if that was true or not, and he thought that he was quite close to her. Odd, that he didn't know that.

She seemed to be taking in what was on the pages, although she seemed unable to respond. Ladin could be patient, though. He could wait all day for her. "I have been reading for ages on codes and code breaking, but the code isn't the problem. Language is the problem. I cant figure out a fast, efficient and readable way to express weaves- which of the five powers to use, how thick to make the threads, how to put them together, what shape the weaves must form. Writing the whole process normally takes pages and pages, and by then I lose the idea. You know how when you start to make a ter'angreal and it just sort of... happens? the idea comes into your mind, and when you make the weave it all seems right? I need a way to put that on paper. That instinctive knowledge of the weaves we need. I need something fast- a shorthand, that is useful and easy, and which is complex enough to show everything we need. Do you have any ideas?"

[Celene]

Esrae flipped through the journal and read the small notes scribbled into the sides with a passing eye. even though it was perfectly clear the woman could read, no one had figured that out yet, not even Ladin, apparently. He talked of ideas and ways to write them down, and Esrae still flipped through the pages, passing her eyes over the crude seemingly incomprehensivle drawings.

Finally, she looked up when he had stopped talking, and passed a hand over her face. this was usually a sign she was getting a little irritated, even though it did not show on her face. She took a charcoal pencil from her dress pocket and dropped the piece of wire and metal beside her, turning the journal to a blank page and beginning to draw in quick movements, putting his idea on paper like it was nothing more than a simple piece of art. she duplicated the idea exactly as he had had it on the first page, then turned to the next page and recreated the next drawing in quick succession, adding her touches here and there, though it was basically still the same idea. She looked up at him, and dropped the joural on the bench, wanting him to inspect her work. the drawings were of the weaves he had put in the previous drawings, with small lines representing what had changed throughout the artistry. She had also added her own special touches to the language and had put in her own weaves to strengthen the ter'ongreal.

"No code," she said through hand-speak, moving her fingers in a lightning quick flash of blurry movements, "no code. You don't need a code. Just the weaves."

Most could not understand her hand-talk, so she had had to resort to her voice, and it seemed most thought her too stupid to understand them either, as much as they talked down to her.

"No code." she said again, her right hand moving in a fast, irritated blur of movements. It was clear she was upset, either at him for not being there for her, or the yellows tracking her, so her hand movements were not slow like they usually would have been.

She looked over at him as he picked up the journal, and studied his face, her eyes blank and intelligent. She lifted her hand to pass it over her face, but did a complex hand-sign in his direction. "Make them go," it said, "make them leave me alone now. I want them gone. They watch me always. Them and their pretty faces."

[Marc]

So she could read. Light, Ladin felt stupid. He shouldn't have underestimated her. He had watched so many people make that mistake, that he had fallen into the trap. He felt stupid. How he loved her.

She was drawing before he had even finished speaking. It seemed that she had had the same idea before, and had clearly tried to perfect her own system. She quickly translated one of his pages of writing into a series of quick, precise drawings, each one more hurried, until she had finished transcribing the basics of her code.

She was weaving simultaneously, showing Ladin what each symbol meant in a weave. It was brilliant, he thought. But there was something missing. He had spent weeks on this- he knew that it needed to be encoded. There needed to be a way, built into the system, of keeping other people from reading the notes without knowing exactly what they meant. This code was simple, yes, but it would be cracked and his secret weaves spilled relatively easily. There was one small, easy detail missing...

"No code," she said, waving her hand in front of her face. She did this all of the time, Ladin had never figured out... "You don't need a code. Just the weaves." A code...

Light, he was an idiot.

She was visibly upset now, but Ladin couldn't figure out what the focus of her irritation was. She was moving her hands rapidly before her face, her eyes fixed on his, obviously trying to convey some sort of message to him. She was speaking, too, "... They, and their pretty faces." It made Ladin want to laugh- Esrae was beautiful in every respect, and yet she didn't want to see it.

But he needed to ask her first. He needed to know if he was right. "Esrae," he asked, "when you move your hands like this" he reproduced one of the movements she had made, "What does it mean?" The startled, shocked flash that flew through her eyes told him everything he needed to know- it was a language. It was like the language the female Warrior Societies used in the Aiel Waste. Ladin had heard tell of those... he had, many times in another life, another time, seen it in action. The motions Esrae used were different altogether, but he should have recognized... "Wait," he said before she could say anything else. And idea had dawned on him.

He pulled the journal close, inspecting Esrae's work. He then copied exactly what she had done on the adjacent page, but to each one he added small lines and said, "We can eliminate the language altogether. What if we incribe your hand language instead of normal, written language? Is it unique? Does anyone else use it?" As he spoke he continued to copy what she had done. she didn't respond.

To a drawing of circular weave of air and fire he added several lines spiraling out from the ends of the weaves. The lines he added were the notation- these lines indicated that the weave should be twisted a certain way, these indicated the relative amounts of fire and air. Then he added a complex symbol to indicate a space, and copied the next one. This would be even faster- one would hardly even need to life the pen from the page. It was perfect.

And it was encoded. The only people who knew it would be the people who read this cipher. He and Esrae. He would memorize this page later and incinerate it. He looked up when he finished to find her gaze still leveled on his eyes. Her emotions flashed through her eyes, and Ladin, oddly, couldn't read them. She was deep in thought. "I don't know how your hand language works," he said, "But it gave me an idea. Instead of using normal written language for the notation, use lines which could be confused for parts of the weave. It would stop anyone else from using the notes. And I wrote it the way a hand would move- it flows from one part of the weave to the next, showing exactly what details are needed." He pointed at one drawing and said, "These marking here, they show which powers are needed. It flows into the drawing of the weave- these lines here" he pointed to the next set "are notes on how the weave should be set in this particular spot. You could add an unlimited amount of information to the drawing of the weave. And all of it can be strung together in any formation- it doesn't have to be linear, just like a weave. The whole things looks hopelessly complex, when it is really quite simple."

He smiled at her. Her irritation hadn't abated. He wasn't sure what he had done. "Esrae?" he asked, reaching out and gently touching her cheek, "are you ok?"

[Celene]

esrae watched him as he drew, aware of the people around her; she could see the yellow aes sedai watching her, always watching, and it made her upset.
when he began to explain what the weaves represented, and began to touch her face, asking if she was all right, she jerked her face back and said, "Make them go! She wants them gone. she says go away!"
She hated speaking, and this just proved that she wasn't quite herself, though was she ever?
"Ladin stay, Yellow go. Ideas. Give me."
She snatched the journal from his hand and looked at it, her eyes scanning the page as she grabbed the pencil from his hand to draw more of the weaves.
"Language is mine," said Esrae, half way to herself as she drew, correcting the lines and flipping to another page as she continued drawing.
The Yellow in question, who had come up behind esrae as she drew looked over her shoulder.
"excuse me," she said to Ladin, her voice radiating calm and serene command, "but she is tired and perhaps does not need to be troubled today. celene sedai said we must watch her."
The Yellow made the mistake of reaching for the wire and metal disc, and esrae dropped the journal and struck the woman across the face hard. the Yellow actually lost her composure and clapped a hand to her face, looking like she were about to cry.
"Mine!" said the ex-damanae in a possessive tone, "mine. My toys. Mine! You touch nothing!"
esrae grabbed the journal again and began to draw, so fast that the charcoal pencil she was using broke. she stared at it, then growled and snapped the thing in two, tossing the journal aside and standing up quickly. she grabbed her wire and disc and ran out into the garden, her white dress looking like a white shroud on her hourglass figure as she ran to another part of the gardens.
She heard a conversation going on between Ladin and the Yellow, who by this time actually sounded like she was crying. serves her right, serves her right, she touched my toys, mine. My toys. The Aes sedai who had been an ex-damanae was not crazy. In fact, she was the most intelligent the tower had seen in many years, but she had boundaries, like all Aes sedai. If her actions were misconstrued as crazy, so be it. She had been thought a lot worse before. She continued running, feet making barely any sound as she ran through the expansive gardens, and jumped up onto a high wall, sitting there and holding her wire and disc protectively in her hands. she stared out into the gardens, and saw the Yellow running toward the tower proper, but Ladin coming nearer and nearer to her. He didn't seem afraid, but his face was angry.

[Marc]

Ladin waited behind while Esrae stormed off- he wanted to go after Esrae, but he thought she would appreciate a moment to cool off. Really, though, he wanted to see how this Aes Sedai would react to being literally hit in the face.

She wasn't taking it well. Oh, she would have a black eye, if someone didn't heal it. He hoped no one did. She deserved the bruise. "You know," he said quietly, deciding to take a risk, "when you treat her like a child then eventually, like a child, she will lash out. And you'll deserve it." The woman let out a sob- light, she was crying! He has never seen an Aes Sedai lose control like this. It would almost be funny, if it weren;t so sad. "Pull yourself together," he said sharply. The Aes Sedai let out a small gasp, but he continued, "She hardly hit you hard enough to warrant all of this. Now, I believe she made a pretty direct request- she wants you to leave her alone. So leave her alone. Get Celene if you must, but tell her to let me deal with her." Celene, at least, knew (or, Ladin thought she knew) that Esrae responded to Ladin. Most of the time. If anyone could calm her down, Ladin could.

And he needed her.

"Go on," he said, making a shooing motion. The Aes Sedai was clearly so shocked at being dismissed by a man in novice's clothes that she went without question, practically running toward the tower. He had likely just earned himself some interesting punishment, but he didn't care. She deserved it.

He turned then and followed Esrae, having to jog slightly to close the distance efficiently. He found her several hundred meters away, and when he approached she fixed him with a scathing look, which turned slightly into fear. Ladin realized that he was still scowling in anger at the Aes Sedai, and he smoothed his features out into a more caring position and said nothing. He slowly walked toward her. She was standing right in front of him, her eyes refusing to leave his, clearly unsure of what to do.

He pulled her into a gentile, loving hug. She clearly hadn't expected that, but she didn't struggle like he had expected her to. She responded after a moment and held him tenderly, and after several long moments she shook slightly. He just held her.

For several long minutes they stood like that, until she pulled away. When she did he carefully caught her hand and said, "Now, do you want to tell me what all of that was about? What's the matter?"

[Celene]

esrae looked at Ladin after the embrace, her face set in a mask of blank expression.
"What was that all about?" he asked, taking her hand and holding it gently.
esrae didn't speak for a moment, then simply said, "Need pencil." before pulling her hand out of Ladin's grip and turning back to her wire and disc, jumping up onto the wall to fiddle with the pieces of material. She murmured softly as she worked, her voice barely audible as she wove fire, air, and spirit into the two pieces, then used another weave of fire to weld the two pieces together, making a disc wrapped in wire. as she worked, she forgot all about Ladin, that was, until she felt him staring over her shoulder. She dropped the flows of fire and air she was about to put into the piece and said sharply, "You need studies, don't you? You need do studies."
She turned away from him and began to work on the disc again, but the man wouldn't leave her alone. she felt him sit on the wall next to her, and growled sharply. She saw a black-haired woman walking slowly into the gardens and knew it was Celene Sedai. she held the wire contraption close to her chest and scowled, her beautiful face morphing into something totally different than it had been previously.
"No more aes sedai. esrae wants no more aes sedai. esrae wants alone with Ladin. except Ladin leave her alone while she works and do his studies."
Celene stopped a few feet from the pair, watching with her vibrant green eyes while Esrae worked on her ter'ongreal and Ladin sat beside her, staring at her as if she were the most beautiful piece of art he'd ever seen. she observed that esrae was moving her hands as she wove, much like Celene did when she was concentrating on something, but the woman's eyes were violet and almost shining with anger. Celene knew exactly how to calm esrae down in these instances, so she did the next best thing. she began to sing.