The Grey Tower

Elia pressed her hands down onto the desk, splaying her fingers as wide as she could along the pine surface. She was nervous; this was the first one-to-one class she was going to teach. Admittedly, little should go wrong. The weaves she was going to teach shouldn't cause any odd side effects. I hope. She pulled her hands back and rechecked her braid. Ravak had taken some time this morning to sort it for her, but she was forever fussing and pulling at the ends. Sometimes she wondered how she had any hair left.

This classroom was like countless others in the Grey Tower. Rows of neatly aligned seats and desks all faced towards a larger table at the front. The red-haired Shienaran was standing behind that latter one, an odd shape placed on it. The manikin wasn't quite life-sized, although it was larger than a child. It lacked any details on the face, and the novice's dress it was draped in hung down below the knees. A very odd manikin, but it would do for her purposes.

Elia embraced saidar briefly, to familiarise herself with the weaves she was about to teach. She had got adept at making them without much conscious thought as to the individual threads, but she forced herself to slow down to a pace that could be interpreted by an onlooker. In truth, she mostly wanted to channel because it meant touching saidar, and saidar enriched reality. She knew, in her mind, that she was flirting along a dangerous line. Novices were instilled with the dangers of embracing too much of the One Power and burning out. Stilling. It should have been a galling thought, should have encouraged her to cease with this carelessness. And yet. Yet she couldn't quite make herself fear enough for the potential outcome her actions could lead her along.

The glow around the Accepted had long faded when there was a knock at the door. The classroom once more looked and felt drab, lifeless. Like this manikin, she thought without much mirth. She pulled her braid over her shoulder, then turned towards the door. "Come in child," she beckoned.

The Shienaran arched an eyebrow at the novice's entrance. Was there anything unclear about the eight bands of colour around the cuffs of her dress? Elia's response was remarkably curt. "Hello, Accepted. And I am well, child." Elia made sure to emphasise the difference in rank quite clearly. If this girl thought they were peers on an even footing, she was mistaken. "Avyra Moeryr, is it? My name is Elia Darrow. I believe you have already met my brother, Ravak Gaidin?" The smile that spread across her face was both friendly and warm, a complete contrast to her expression a moment before. "I'm not sure he's ever had a woman quite literally fall into his arms before. Just be sure not to make a habit of it, mm?"

The beautiful Accepted beckoned the short novice closer, towards the opposite side of the large table. "Now, you are here to learn about Healing, but as a precursor, I shall also teach you about Delving. Do you know of Delving, child?" Elia paused to let Avyra answer.

"There is a reason why we Delve a patient before we Heal them. It's a bit like filling a bucket with water. If you don't inspect the bucket first, you may overfill or underfill the bucket. Or maybe it has a hole in it, which you don't realise until your slippers are sodden. Healing drains a lot of strength out of the one being Healed, and once you have used saidar to repair an injury, you cannot come back later for a second attempt. Use too little Power, and your patient may have to heal naturally. Too much, and you may fatigue them so fiercely, they are bedridden for days. I hope this is making sense to you?"

The Accepted could hear the snarkiness in Avyra's voice, but if that was all of the resistance she was going to receive from the novice, she could handle it. And a short visit to the Mistress of Novice's study afterwards, if this keeps up. It hadn't been all that long ago when she was robed in plain white dresses, but the Shienaran had never been this rude to an Accepted. In addition, Elia had earned Acceptance. The golden ring on the middle finger of her left hand had not been some mere gift, but hard fought for. Her eyes lost focus on the girl before her as she swam in the experiences shown to her through the silver Arches. She had felt the death of her brother. She had betrayed the trust of her closest friend. She had lost-

The red braid bobbed furiously as Elia shook free the memories of that time. She made a slight clicking noise of frustration, both at herself and towards the haughty novice. There was nothing ingratiating about a lack of manners. Bitterly, but with no real malice, she wondered if Ravak would have been better letting her fall. Oh Light, Elia Darrow. Reign in that self-righteousness at once.

"I shall show you the weave now, using this manikin as a proxy." She patted at the stiff wooden torso fondly. "Only once you are familiar with how Delving and Healing works shall we move onto using the One Power on actual patients. Now, you may embrace saidar ch- um, Avyra." The golden rose opening to the Source barely formed in her mind as the warmth of saidar filled her. When she saw the familiar glow surround the novice, Elia shared a smile with her. "A wonderful thing," she said a little breathily.

Most channellers made contact with their patients when performing Delving. Elia was an exception, although she was not exceptional in the use of Delving. However, for the novice's benefit, she laid a hand on either side of the manikin's head. "Contact with the patient can make it easier," she offered by way of explanation. With intentional slowness, Elia began to form the weave. "As you can see, the weave for Delving primarily uses Spirit. With it, we form a mesh or netting to drape over the patient's head, like a cloth." Silver flows made a small net as she described, with blue and thin strands of yellow interspersed. "Water and Air fills in the spaces in our weaving. Air we use sparingly, but both are vital." With the weave complete, Elia settled the net over the manikin's head. As it made contact, the net sunk into and expanded over the body, and silvery filigrees of Spirit returned into Elia. "If this was a living person, the ills and hurts would be conveyed to me through those strands of Spirit you just saw. As this was a dummy..." She shrugged slightly.

Elia stepped away from the dummy, taking up her former position by the side of the desk opposite Avyra. "Now, you may try. Take your time. Remember not to force saidar to your will, we aren't Asha'man. Guide saidar."

Elia furrowed her brow when the novice formed... well, it vaguely resembled the net of Spirit she had woven, but without Air or Water. In addition, she was trying to form the weave on the manikin. She-

"Oh," Elia remarked as the realisation of the situation popped into her mind. "You are new to this, aren't you Avyra, using saidar? You couldn't see my weaves." The Shienaran felt a little foolish, forgetting such an important detail as that. The red-headed Accepted had encountered the same difficulties with channelling herself when she was first taken to the White Tower.

"Let me try to explain, with words, what you are aiming for. You want to make a weave like a small patch of stitchwork, with threads of Spirit as both the warp and weft." Elia moved so she could put her hands over the dummy's head to indicate the size and placement of the weave Avyra wanted. "The flows needn't be large, no thicker than your finger. And you want to space them a thumb's width apart. In the gaps, you want similarly thick strands of Water along the warp. In the weft, you want only three threads of Air, half the width of your finger." This all sounded too technical, yet not nearly sufficient enough. Why had she been assigned a novice to teach Healing, if she couldn't even see the weaves she had to make? No matter, I'll make do with what I've got.

Elia let none of her inner anger show, as she smiled towards the shorter woman. "Try again, and I'll see if I can direct you."

The weave of saidar was... irregular may have been the word. Elia could hardly fault the novice, if she wasn't even able to see what she was doing. Hard enough with sight. And this was only to do Delving. Light...

Avyra seemed to have little difficulty with the main body of Spirit that the weave required, although there were oddly spaced gaps between the weave and weft that... well, Elia wasn't sure what the result of that would be. Nothing too dangerous, however. The interspersed Air and Water were also close, but not quite right. The real proof would be in the execution. "Try lowering your weave down onto the manikin's head. You should feel the weave disperse, and then... well tell me what you feel." In theory, Avyra shouldn't feel anything, as Delving would reveal nothing from an inanimate object. However, due to the weave, maybe something would go awry, and she had to know if it did.