Moiraine

[pfsb] on the edge of the abyss

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 00:29:53 GMT

There is only so much that can be done to prepare in advance of a visit to Glastonbury Grove, but Moiraine is determined to accomplish every single possible nuance of it.

A cup of tea sits cooling on the table beside her, almost forgotten, as she pores over a map and a few sketched diagrams arranged in front of her. Occasionally, she taps her pen to the page or scribbles a note on a bit of scrap paper.

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[pfsb] the mirrors of the wheel

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 23:23:14 GMT

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.

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[pfsb] preparations and expectations

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 15:30:35 GMT

When Moiraine arrives in the bar, her outward composure is flawless. She will do what must be done, and will accept the consequences of her actions... or her inaction, as the case may be.

When the price is high, that is how you know it is worth paying.

She settles at her preferred table and accepts tea, fruit, and a little bit of bread and cheese from the attentive waitrats.

Her glance is thoughtful, almost considering, as she observes the room.

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[pfsb] the tipping point

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 09:30:59 GMT

Hawk is waiting for her in Upper Twin Park when she arrives in response to his phone call, standing beside the lakeshore bench and looking out at the water, two styrofoam cups of coffee in hand. He hands one to her with a nod as she reaches him, and turns his attention back to the lake while she opens the small plastic flap and takes a polite sip.

"It's stirring," he says.

He sounds calm; her hands tighten around the coffee cup all the same.

"Is it so?"

"Yeah." He slants a look at her. "Don't blame yourself. Would have happened sometime. It always does. We all knew that. Talked it over, before I agreed to help."

She draws a slow, careful breath, and nods. The Wheel weaves, and what is done likely cannot now be undone. What remains is to deal with the matter at hand.

(It has been some time since she thought of Vandene, and the sense of foreboding she had confessed in a letter, never sent.)

"I can set wards," she offers, quietly. "Subtle ones, to discourage wanderers from stumbling on the grove; hikers and the like. I would be glad to do so, if you and the others who guard would find it useful."

Hawk nods. "Appreciate it. I'll take you around the observation points."

Later that evening, the Aes Sedai is settled at her usual table in the bar. Tea is at hand, as is also usual, although the service appears to be entirely untouched, which is not.

The artist's sketch pad that she has been using recently lies to the side, closed. A few sheets have been ripped out of it, with some force, and are arranged on the table immediately in front of her, evidently serving as scratch paper for cryptic notes and for the work she is focused on, which appears to be practicing to duplicate something from the pages of her journal. The journal in question lies open flat on the table as well, displaying two talismans that have been carefully attached inside, one to each otherwise-empty page.

To maintain composure even under extreme duress, despite whatever one may be feeling, is an essential part of training in the White Tower.

Moiraine is very carefully composed right now... and very intently focused.

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[pfsb] investigations and explorations

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 21:12:28 GMT

Two days after Moiraine brought Wei Wuxian's talismans back to Twin Peaks, after she has taken the time necessary to review all of her notes as well as the histories she has been collecting, she calls Dale Cooper, who is still in Olympia, now, rather than Seattle.

All things considered, the conversation could have gone much, much worse.

She is well aware that they are going to have a much longer discussion after he returns in a few weeks, but he had agreed not to ask her to wait. She, in turn, had agreed, as before, not to go to Glastonbury Grove alone, or at night. She also agrees not to approach the pool closer than necessary to place the talismans, or to test it with her own weaving - not at present, anyway.

Hawk had been her next call.

A few days later, after he has had time to consider and to consult with the Bookhouse Boys, Hawk knocks on her apartment door and agrees to her request.

* * * * * * *
When Moiraine returns to Milliways, she leaves a sealed note with Bar, addressed to Wei Wuxian.

Master Wei--

I made the trial of your talismans according to your instructions. When I activated the one at the northernmost point, glowing red energy swept inward from the circle in a wave focused on the pool at its center.

The pool absorbed it all. It vanished into the depths without a ripple, and without a trace.

Nothing else has happened. Yet.

--Moiraine Sedai

That task completed, she settles at her preferred table with tea and begins sketching something in a notebook.

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[panfandomsandbox] change is in the wind

Mon, 24 Aug 2020 16:28:19 GMT

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.

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Sun, 14 Jul 2013 03:19:21 GMT

She has kept her silence for quite some while, knowing that the pace of time that passes between Twin Peaks and Milliways, and between Milliways and the world of her birth, is slowed and slowed again by factors she cannot explain. Still, it is no small gift, in that it grants her space in which to think and plan.

The Aes Sedai has used that time to study her options and the prophecies of the Karatheon Cycle, to dwell on the sound of the wind at night and her restless unease with every dawn. She has mulled over what Nynaeve had told her, and all the possibilities that the apocalypse at the bar at the end of all worlds may now have brought upon them.

("I cannot go back without undoing what was done. Can I?"

"That, I think, is mostly a question of how far back, yes? Or possibly it is a different kind of forward.")

There are other considerations to be taken into account, as it happens.

Dinner has become a habit for them, now, at least once or twice every week. It is her turn to host tonight, in the little house that she had begun to call her own. Moiraine has come to believe that she will always prefer tea, but she has developed something of a fondness for coffee all the same, and has been trying her hand at new ways of brewing it for these occasions.

The French press stands before her now on the countertop, and she slants a sideways look at him as she reaches for the canister that holds the coffee.

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Mon, 13 Aug 2012 03:28:41 GMT

The journal lies open on the desk that stands in front of her window, one of several that contain her notes and the stories she has been slowly collecting over the past weeks and months. Her pen rests in the crease between the facing pages, ink still wet on its tip.

Vandene--

It is unlikely that you shall ever read this, as if what I have heard is true you now shelter in Light with Adeleas in the palm of the Creator's hand. Still, I more than most have reason to know that death is sometimes almost as fragile a thing as life itself, and so I write all the same, since in any case I do not think there is any harm in putting these words to paper. Perhaps, Light willing, there may even be some good to come of it.

It seems so very long ago that I came to your cottage in Tifan's Well searching for answers among the books and scrolls that you had gathered there. Now you are gone, and it is I who dwells in a little house, slowly crafting a small library of my own in the hope that somehow in so doing I will once again find the answers I seek.

(It is not the only collection of such things in this town, as it happens, but those secrets belong to others and I will not write of them here.)

I have often described myself as a student of history and a collector of stories, and there has always been enough of truth in that to serve, now more than ever. But I am not used to this, Vandene; almost all my past seeking for the Dragon Reborn and on his behalf was done while traveling the length and breadth of the lands and even beyond them, not while peacefully settled in a town such as this - that is, if there is another place quite like this, of which I am not in the least certain.

Nor do I know for certain if I am meant to find this answer, or in truth if there is anything to be found. There is no Gitara here, no Foretelling spoken, nothing but an occasional fleeting unease and the rare touch of disquiet that sometimes comes when the night breeze rustles through the branches of the Douglas firs and I find myself trying to understand its whispers, as if I were once again a girl listening to the wind.

Perhaps it is nothing more than the restlessness that can be expected from being at peace after so long, with the great work done. Although some would call it exile, I am not unhappy here, Vandene, far from it; I have found much here to cherish. It was you who once told me that to be Blue was to lose one's self in saving the world. You were more right than you knew, but I do not wish to risk such loss again now, not unless it cannot be avoided.

Still, there may be no cause to worry; my foreboding may merely be due to the ghosts of distant memory.

Light send it may be so.

--Moiraine

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Sun, 22 Jul 2012 02:53:48 GMT

[After this.]

When Dale leaves, Moiraine sees him to the door and locks it after him, then returns to the sofa, where she curls up as she had been wont to do as a novice and sits quietly for a while, lost in her own thoughts.

Eventually, something occurs to her, and she glides down the hallway to her bedroom once more. This time, she retrieves Raven's feather from the pinewood box and holds it lightly in her hand, stroking it with the tips of her fingers.

How I wish I could speak with you.

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Fri, 20 Jul 2012 04:31:12 GMT

She wakes early enough that it is still full dark outside, although the first stirrings of birds hint at the dawn to come.

Some few minutes later, Moiraine is seated at the small table in her kitchen, a cup of tea steaming untouched near to hand as she looks out the window, watching the trees and waiting for enough time to pass that she can make a phone call without waking the person she wishes to reach... and without disturbing his morning meditation session.

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