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[panfandomsandbox] change is in the wind
She sits at the table near the fireplace, sipping tea and reflecting on what she has learned in recent days.
In the world where she was born, the Dark One is also known as the Lord of the Grave, and is the one who holds power and sway over the dead -- and to an extent, death itself. Fortunately, Moiraine is experienced enough with Milliways to not draw instantaneous conclusions.
(The lessons learned from Anthy Himemiya will remain with her for the rest of her life.)
It had helped that she had seen nothing of intentional evil or the mark of the Shadow as she knows it when she had studied Harrowhark while channeling. It is nonetheless something that requires consideration, in case action of some sort becomes necessary.
The Aes Sedai has much to think about.
In the world where she was born, the Dark One is also known as the Lord of the Grave, and is the one who holds power and sway over the dead -- and to an extent, death itself. Fortunately, Moiraine is experienced enough with Milliways to not draw instantaneous conclusions.
(The lessons learned from Anthy Himemiya will remain with her for the rest of her life.)
It had helped that she had seen nothing of intentional evil or the mark of the Shadow as she knows it when she had studied Harrowhark while channeling. It is nonetheless something that requires consideration, in case action of some sort becomes necessary.
The Aes Sedai has much to think about.
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"I have one other mystery. It may not be anything important, but it... vexes me." She flips through her journal. "After the second experiment, I had to wear Gideon's overcloak back to our room. I found something in her pocket, a scrap of paper she had removed from the first study without showing me."
She finds what she is looking for, copied painstakingly in clear rather than coded.
"The reason why seems obvious. The initials of the Second House pair who shared that study ten thousand years ago were G and P."
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"Is Gideon a common name among the Houses, then?"
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"I have never heard of another." She swallows.
"Gideon Nav was a foundling to the Ninth," she says. "Nav is a Niner arithmonym, but Gideon came from her mother. A year before I was born, I am told, a shuttle crashed, and a woman in a hazmat suit jumped out with an incubator strapped to her chest. She screamed the name three times before she died."
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"That seems an event of some portent," she remarks, finally. "Certainly an unusual one, at the least."
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What else is there to say?
She stares at the table. "Moiraine Sedai, I would not lie to you. But there are secrets of my House I... cannot tell. Not... not right now."
She raises her head and meets Moiraine's eyes with her starless black ones. "Will you accept an omission?"
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After all, Harrow is not obligated to tell Moiraine anything... but she would also not be the first to come to repose significant trust in Moiraine, in the fullness of time.
(Such things are almost never a coincidence, when it comes to the Aes Sedai and her interests.)
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"By the end of her first year she was the only one still alive."
"It was not her fault," she adds quickly. "But her survival was. Unexpected. Soon after, I was born. We grew up the last and only children of the Ninth."
"Her survival then was as unexpected as her recovery today," she says slowly. "As unexpected as finding her name in a letter ten thousand years old. It may all be coincidences. But if so, coincidences seem to congregate around my cavalier."
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"All things are part of the Pattern," she says, finally.
"In the world where I was born, there are those who are ta'veren. The Pattern itself bends around them."
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"I believe there is destiny," she whispers. "I have felt its hand on me all my life."
And Gideon was always there. Always Gideon. Always, always. The guilt of two hundred corpses, never far away, lands on her with both feet, and it brings with it the guilt for the one who wouldn't die. Her myriad cruelties and vindictive punishments to Gideon Nav for having the temerity to be alive and at her mercy.
It's crushing, and each breath is like rolling away the Rock that must not be moved. "I need, need to study," she stutters. "I..."
Can't be here, she thinks, and she's so pulverized by the weight of her crimes that she almost says it. "Have so little time," she grates out, and gathers her skirts and flees.
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"Light illumine and protect you, Harrowhark Nonagesimus," Moiraine murmurs.
"I suspect that you may need it."