Moiraine

The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again.

In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the mountains north of Arafel. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.

But it was a beginning.


* * * * * * *

The wind blows steadily onward, sweeping down from the highest peaks and over the barren, stony surface of the lower mountainside. As it passes, a brightly-colored wisp of thread tumbles ahead of it, driven haphazardly over the ground by each uneven gust.

For all of its brightness, it is a ragged piece of thread, barely more than a loosely-gathered tangle of fibers; and yet, strangely, nothing seems to impede its passage. Once, as it fetches up against a boulder for a few seconds, the strands shimmer and seem to form into the near-translucent figure of a woman-- a shape lost to sight in the next instant as the wind gusts harder and tears the thread free.

Moiraine's chambers in the House of Arch are well appointed and tasteful.

Still, to a discerning eye, it is apparent from the lack of personal touches that they are a guest residence and not a place where she stays enough to have become truly comfortable.