Sinead glanced down the corridor that led to a small study she had found. As she expected, no one was in sight. She looked over her shoulder to ascertain no one followed her, then dashed for the door. The tall woman opened it and slipped in, closing it quietly behind her and leaning against it with a long sigh. Then she looked around her, and her anxiety vanished, replaced with joy and contentment.
No one ever used the room she now stood in. She had found it months before, and after a few days of watching, had laid a few innocuous traps to ascertain whether someone entered without need of the door. When two weeks had passed with no disruptions, the Aiel novice had begun the necessary work to make the small chamber her own. As a novice she had no business building her own space within the Tower, but her need for such a place had outgrown her caution. I seem to do many things that I should not, Sinead thought, amused. What is one more?
Pale globes floated idly in the air around her, a sea of spheres of varying sizes that stretched wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Faint lines of light in different colors connected them to one another; some of them had many lines, while others only one. A number floated over the surface of each ball of light, faint and shimmering, but still there. The web, created with saidar, was the physical representation of the notes she had been taking and the theory she had been building for nearly four years. She had tried to keep it in order on paper, but the linear nature of books did not lend itself well to the complex twisting of the Pattern. This, however.... She smiled, reaching out to touch the nearest orb. It shimmered, and her finger passed right through. This delicate contraption of Spirit and Air worked quite well indeed to show how events related to one another.
The red-haired woman sat cross legged on the floor, and pulled the strap of her study kit over her shoulder. She pulled two books from the leather case, along with several blank sheets of paper, her inkwell, and a pen. She opened the first book – a treatise on the "Aiel War" that she found both informative and offensive- to a place marked by a white ribbon, and began to read. She played with her hair as she studied, her natural energy expending itself even while at rest. A few minutes later she paused, frowning, and reread a paragraph. Aha. There.
She reached for the other book, and flipped it open. This one had been a blank journal; a Brown had given it to her after she expressed interest in a more orderly way to store her studies. It worked well for her interests- and the creator had burned an image of the Wheel of Time into the cover, which she thought imminently appropriate for her research. She had covered many of its pages with neat script, each entry clearly numbered. It took moments for her to find the entry she needed- number forty two. Below it, she neatly inscribed the details of what she had just read and labeled it 'forty three'.
She stood then, walking through her lace of light until she found the one with forty two floating on its surface. It had a number of lines leading away from it already; she would need to explore how they all affected one another soon. For now, she simply needed to add another.
Closing her eyes, the Aielwoman envisioned a rose, the exercise taking only a moment after eight years of practice. Saidar flowed through her, and for a moment she reveled in that glorious light. Only a moment, however; if an Aes Sedai caught her channeling without supervision, she might lose all of her research…and Light, what a disaster that would be.
She channeled thin flows of Spirit and Air, adding a gossamer thread of Fire shortly after. She rolled them into a ball then added a few more loops of Air. With a quick flick of her fingers, she tied the flows off. A new ball of light roughly the size of her fist floated before her, the number forty-three imprinted on its surface. She channeled again, this time spanning the space between 'forty-two' and 'forty-three' with flows of Fire and Spirit with a touch of Earth. Again the flick of fingers, and a pale green line stretched between the two.
With a satisfied noise, the novice stepped back to where she had left her study materials, her mind already drifting to the next connection she might find.
No one ever used the room she now stood in. She had found it months before, and after a few days of watching, had laid a few innocuous traps to ascertain whether someone entered without need of the door. When two weeks had passed with no disruptions, the Aiel novice had begun the necessary work to make the small chamber her own. As a novice she had no business building her own space within the Tower, but her need for such a place had outgrown her caution. I seem to do many things that I should not, Sinead thought, amused. What is one more?
Pale globes floated idly in the air around her, a sea of spheres of varying sizes that stretched wall to wall and floor to ceiling. Faint lines of light in different colors connected them to one another; some of them had many lines, while others only one. A number floated over the surface of each ball of light, faint and shimmering, but still there. The web, created with saidar, was the physical representation of the notes she had been taking and the theory she had been building for nearly four years. She had tried to keep it in order on paper, but the linear nature of books did not lend itself well to the complex twisting of the Pattern. This, however.... She smiled, reaching out to touch the nearest orb. It shimmered, and her finger passed right through. This delicate contraption of Spirit and Air worked quite well indeed to show how events related to one another.
The red-haired woman sat cross legged on the floor, and pulled the strap of her study kit over her shoulder. She pulled two books from the leather case, along with several blank sheets of paper, her inkwell, and a pen. She opened the first book – a treatise on the "Aiel War" that she found both informative and offensive- to a place marked by a white ribbon, and began to read. She played with her hair as she studied, her natural energy expending itself even while at rest. A few minutes later she paused, frowning, and reread a paragraph. Aha. There.
She reached for the other book, and flipped it open. This one had been a blank journal; a Brown had given it to her after she expressed interest in a more orderly way to store her studies. It worked well for her interests- and the creator had burned an image of the Wheel of Time into the cover, which she thought imminently appropriate for her research. She had covered many of its pages with neat script, each entry clearly numbered. It took moments for her to find the entry she needed- number forty two. Below it, she neatly inscribed the details of what she had just read and labeled it 'forty three'.
She stood then, walking through her lace of light until she found the one with forty two floating on its surface. It had a number of lines leading away from it already; she would need to explore how they all affected one another soon. For now, she simply needed to add another.
Closing her eyes, the Aielwoman envisioned a rose, the exercise taking only a moment after eight years of practice. Saidar flowed through her, and for a moment she reveled in that glorious light. Only a moment, however; if an Aes Sedai caught her channeling without supervision, she might lose all of her research…and Light, what a disaster that would be.
She channeled thin flows of Spirit and Air, adding a gossamer thread of Fire shortly after. She rolled them into a ball then added a few more loops of Air. With a quick flick of her fingers, she tied the flows off. A new ball of light roughly the size of her fist floated before her, the number forty-three imprinted on its surface. She channeled again, this time spanning the space between 'forty-two' and 'forty-three' with flows of Fire and Spirit with a touch of Earth. Again the flick of fingers, and a pale green line stretched between the two.
With a satisfied noise, the novice stepped back to where she had left her study materials, her mind already drifting to the next connection she might find.
