[pfsb] the mirrors of the wheel

[blue_ajah]

The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and all things are part of the Pattern. There is little that she can do now but wait, guard against events worsening as best she can, and watch.

As a result, Moiraine is in the bar this evening, musing over her thoughts with a cup of tea at hand and a slender, leather-bound journal open to a blank page before her.

Comments

[bialy_wilk]

Sorceresses. Always getting caught in the details. Pedants, every one of them. He listens, logging it all away and trying not to think about how Yen would latch right onto all of this. Magic and weaving. Sources of power.

Except Moiraine had said the true Source. His eyes narrow, thoughtful. "This Source," he says. "It ever take human form?"

[blue_ajah]

Absolute, stunned shock flashes in the depth of her eyes before she lowers her gaze to the wineglass, thinking as quickly as she can. It will be too much to hope that he will have missed her surprise. So be it.

“Why do you ask?”

[bialy_wilk]

Seems he's struck a nerve. "Just sounds familiar."

Familiar enough, anyway. Wearyingly so. For a second, he spares some pity for whatever poor sap the people in her world might be chasing. "I take it there's something to the question, for you."

[blue_ajah]

“It is complicated to answer, you see,” she murmurs. “And I may speak no word that is not true. What do you mean, familiar?”

[bialy_wilk]

Sorceresses. He leans forward, elbow on his knee, and stares at her, unblinking.

"I'll tell you if you tell me," he says, blunt. "'It's complicated' is an excuse. Simplify it."

[blue_ajah]

She neither flinches nor quails under that intent stare. Dark eyes meet gold ones, and hold.

Rand deserves peace. He had paid the highest price of all for it, for all their sakes. She will not be the one to see it undone.

“Tell me why it matters, first,” she says, letting the flat directness of her words match his.

[bialy_wilk]

He stares at her for a long moment, his breath coming slow and even. She doesn't back down, not that he fully expects her too.

But it would have been nice. "Because it would be nice to know if there's another world out there full of people trying to suck power out of someone whose only crime was to be born full of it," he says, finally. "So. Simplify it."

[blue_ajah]

“I see,” she murmurs, and is quiet for a moment as she considers, weighing risks and possibilities.

Finally—-

“Yes. It is possible for a person to be imbued with such power.”

[bialy_wilk]

He sighs, lifts a hand to rub at a head suddenly spiking with pain. "Wonderful."

Even if Ciri somehow escapes the Hunt, could they find this world, another Source there? What if she runs there, only to be hunted all over again?

[blue_ajah]

Considering him, she shifts her next remark. “Although it is not a thing that is commonly known,” she says, instead.

[bialy_wilk]

"What does that matter, if the people who do know it are the ones who can do something with that knowledge?"

And she can, clearly. Whether she would or not he has no idea, but it doesn't matter.

[blue_ajah]

“That assumes that they are,” she counters, crisply.

[bialy_wilk]

"It's always the case, in my experience. Because only the people who can do something with it are even looking for it."

He meets her glance levelly. "Am I wrong?"

[blue_ajah]

“Perhaps this is a difference between our worlds,” she murmurs, holding his gaze. “Although I grant that what you have said is true for most forms of power and those that seek to acquire it.”

[bialy_wilk]

"Didn't say I was wrong."

Which is all that really matters to him. He hopes Ciri never finds her way to this world of Aes Sedai and magic weaves. Of human Sources. He leans back in his chair. "Plenty of those wielding power who'd like a handy battery they can bring around with them."

[blue_ajah]

The only sign of her surprise is in the way she blinks at that. “That is something else entirely, and does not require a person.”

Dark eyes narrow as she studies him. “I do not know of any person who could be used as an angreal as you describe.”

[bialy_wilk]

"No? Not even your human Source?"

So maybe it is different. But if it is, it isn't by much. "Lucky you."

[blue_ajah]

“I suspect we are not thinking of the same thing,” the Aes Sedai says, certainty painting her words now. “To be imbued by the True Source is not to be made a - a battery, as you said. And to channel is different still. That is using a gift inborn to - think of it as using a cup to dip water from a river, where the channeler’s ability is the cup itself. And that - “

Memory and understanding strike her in the same moment. Moiraine goes pale as snow, as the fingers of her right hand wrap around her left wrist and squeeze tight, an unconscious motion.

“ - can be … absorbed. Under certain circumstances. But those who would do so are not human, and do not walk the same world.”

[bialy_wilk]

His eyes narrow as he watches her, as she goes pale and grips her own wrist.

"What?"

[blue_ajah]

She shakes her head. “I have said enough for the moment. It is your turn to keep your end of the bargain.”

The word leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, a memory of ash and blood and fear hemmed in by desperate determination.

[bialy_wilk]

Seems sorceresses are all the same, across the many worlds. He's never known one who didn't want to be in control of a conversation. He considers her for a long moment, then signals the waitrat for more wine.

"'Battery' was the wrong word," he says, finally. "Though I guess they could be used like that. Where I'm from, a Source is someone born already imbued with that power – creation, destruction – in their blood. Immense power. Uncontrollable, usually. The kind of power that can destroy a building, or a city, or maybe even the whole world. Has a tendency to leave the person themselves catatonic."

[blue_ajah]

"A heavy burden to bear, for one so born," she murmurs, watching him as carefully as he watches her. "And not the same as what is known in the world that I am from."

Each word is carefully chosen, although there is no sign of it in the rhythm of her conversation. She has had long, long years to become expert at doing so.

[bialy_wilk]

"No?" He thanks the rat who brings a carafe of the rich red wine, then lifts his brows at her. "So how's it known there?"

[blue_ajah]

"You speak of 'a Source' as a person, and the way you speak of them hints that such a person is necessary to use this power - whether they are willing or not. Am I correct?"

She does not wait for him to answer before offering an answer of her own to his question, in return. "In the world where I was born, anyone who has the ability to channel and is able to use it may draw power from the True Source. The amount that can be drawn and used is limited by the channeler's own ability, not by the True Source itself."

[bialy_wilk]

He shakes his white-maned head at her. "No, we have that, too. Plenty of sorceresses, mages, pellars, village witches, all of them able to tap into power. A Source is different. It's what they are, not what they can do."