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Re: What Do I Do with It? [Attn: Paks Laird]
Posted: October 15th, 2017, 7:37 pm
by Bella
Once the topic started moving away from that element of her past, Isla was able to warm up a little again. She smiled slightly at what Paks said about channelers being able to kick her arse. Maybe, if she were lucky, that would be her one day. If she must become an...Aes Sedai then she'd like to be good at some things at least.
"I worked primarily with the sword," she said. "I wasn't a master of it or anything, still being young in the ranks, but I had been playing at fighting since I was young. I was much different than other girls my age, I imagine..." She trailed off and grew distant for a moment, thinking of her father, before she shook her head.
One of the little ones had found the bottom of the crib and was trying to pull herself to her feet. Isla moved to kneel beside the little one, in case she fell. "Unarmed I could manage well enough. Well enough being I could hold someone off enough to get away, or get a sword."
Re: What Do I Do with It? [Attn: Paks Laird]
Posted: October 22nd, 2017, 4:04 pm
by Roan
Paks
The Ji’Val noticed the subtle change in Isla when she spoke of her childhood. She suspected there was much the Novice wasn’t saying about her past, but it wasn’t any of Paks’ business if the young woman didn’t wish to share. She wasn’t going to push it unless it seemed the woman might actually want to talk it out.
Given she continued to talk about training, Paks rolled with the conversation, “I’ve been told our Warder Yards put out some of the best fighters around. What little I’ve seen, I’d believe it.” She hadn’t really seen that much combat, but there’d been more than one skirmish she’d found herself in since coming to the Tower.
Remembering how hard Alrim, Riahana, and Natlya fought when their group was ambushed by the Whitecloaks? The Grey Tower party had been badly outnumbered, but they somehow managed to hold off the bigger Whitecloak party to get all the Learning Ranks to safety. Not all survived that day, but they did more damage to the Whitecloaks than the Whitecloaks had done to them.
“If you’ve got fighting skills and the ability to channel,” Paks whistled and shook her head, smirk ever present, “You will be a force to be reckoned with. I bet the Greens would love to have you in their ranks.”
Re: What Do I Do with It? [Attn: Paks Laird]
Posted: October 23rd, 2017, 11:30 pm
by Bella
That actually made Isla laugh, if a quiet slightly uncertain sound. "I suppose that's true," she said. "To be honest, I'm...a little scared of the Greens." She grimaced a little. It wasn't something she liked to admit out loud, even if fear had been something she'd felt a lot since arriving in the Tower... She still didn't like to speak of it.
She stopped to kneel and pull a toy out from where it had been pushed under a cradle, much to the consternation of the little boy who had done the pushing. He stopped crying immediately when the toy was within reach, grabbing it with a squeal and wobbling off in the other direction.
Isla looked up at Paks with a rueful smile. "They are just...a bit much. It's not, like, a requirement, right? That if you can fight with your hands and the One Power that you become a Green?"
Re: What Do I Do with It? [Attn: Paks Laird]
Posted: October 23rd, 2017, 11:53 pm
by Roan
Paks
Paks laughed softly and shook her head, “I don’t think it is a requirement, no. I don’t know exactly how things work for channelers, but I think you get to declare what Ajah you join once you’re fully raised.” She pushed herself up from the floor and one of the little ones came up to her legs, holding her arms up. Without hesitating, Paks leaned down and picked the little one up and rested her on her hip.
“I’m kind of glad it’s not something we have to worry about so much with our training. We learn how to fight so we can provide backup and protection to a channeler. It doesn’t matter what that channeler does for us to do what we do, I guess,” the Ji’Val added. The familiar knot at the back of her mind reminding her that she didn’t care what Jesi decided to do. . .Paks would be there for her always.
Moving to a bench, she sat down and set the child on her knee before she started bouncing it, giving the little girl a ‘ride.’ She looked back to Isla with a warm smile instead of her smirk, “So if not Green, then what Ajah? Have you given it much thought?”
Re: What Do I Do with It? [Attn: Paks Laird]
Posted: October 26th, 2017, 9:55 pm
by Bella
Isla shook her head and looked away. None of the children seemed to need her assistance, but she kept looking anyway because she didn't really think that she wanted to meet Paks's eyes. Isla had great doubt that she even would make it to Aes Sedai, if she was being entirely honest, but that wasn't a thought proper to be voiced aloud.
"No, not really," she said. "I suppose once--" If. "--I reached Accepted, I will have to think about it more. For now, I'm just trying to survive all these lessons and chores." She laughed again, a little, but this time was a little more forced.
Re: What Do I Do with It? [Attn: Paks Laird]
Posted: October 29th, 2017, 7:45 am
by Roan
Paks
Paks gave a soft, breathy laugh as she nodded, “They really do know how to keep a person busy so that there is very little of anything resembling free time. I promise you, it gets better.” A familiar bundle at the back of her mind caused her to pause, and she made a bit of a face, “Heh, I really shouldn’t make such a promise. I can’t speak for what it’s like to be a channeler, but I do know you get more freedom as an Accepted.”
Though. . .the test to get there could well ruin a woman and very nearly ruined Jesi, she thought to herself. She put the child down she’d been holding and looked to Isla. Her time with her group of misfit friends taught her how to study a person without appearing to study them. She tended to be pretty good at reading people, but the Novice was hard to figure out. She didn’t seem comfortable, but was it because of the children, Paks or the subject matter? She wasn’t one to press, and figured if Isla wanted to talk about it (whatever ‘it’ might be), then she’d bring it up.
The smirk came back, and she gave a slight shrug, “You have time to figure it all out, though, so no need to worry about it much now, right? I tend not to worry about the future too much, and do my best to focus on the here and now. Not everyone is quite like me in that regard, but why worry about something that hasn’t happened yet, right? It’s about as useless as worrying over spilt milk.”
Paks wasn’t one to give a lesson in philosophy, but living in the present was pretty much her motto. Being able to roll with the things life threw her way was one very big reason she’d made it as far as she had in her anything but simple life. “Speaking of lessons and chores, what have you got after this? I think they decided I needed to take history and tactics...or some such,” she asked.
Re: What Do I Do with It? [Attn: Paks Laird]
Posted: November 6th, 2017, 9:00 pm
by Bella
"Arithmetic," Isla replied with a small amount of disgust. "I never imagined that becoming an Aes Sedai would require so much learning about numbers. You'd think I was studying to be a bookkeeper..." At that moment, a toddler walked into a wall and fell back on their arse, crying, and Isla hurried over...and so went the day.