The Grey Tower

Since Makenna was a child, she had always had vivid dreams. She had learned to listen to her instinct when she dreamed about something. She had dreamed about the night Rolph had asked her to marry him. She had dreamed about her children before they were born; before she even knew that she was pregnant. She had dreamed of Rolph’s death but had not listened. She didn’t want to believe that one. She dreamed about her grandchildren. Twin girls would be born to her son and his wife in the next month. They would be healthy and happy but she would never know them. She had dreamed of Meleia’s capture and kidnapping as well. Again, she had not wanted to believe it and she had no way to anticipate or prepare for the reality. She kept telling herself that but it never seemed to help. She felt the guilt anyway.

Since coming to the Grey Tower, Makenna had dreamed more often and more vividly than even she had ever done. She dreamed about the Drin that had come back from a training exercise with an arm so broken and infected that it was almost beyond the power of the Yellows to Heal it. She had only ever seen that boy from across the training yard once but she knew the moment she woke up. She dreamed about the new Mistress of Training getting her heart broken by some Soldier. She decided to keep that one to herself.

Since coming to the Grey Tower, she had dreamed more but she had also learned that there was a Talent that described what she had always done. It was known as Dreaming, aptly enough. Deciding after the incident with the Drin to find out more about the Talent and what it might mean for her, she sought out a member of the Indigo Ajah to help her determine if what she had was a Talent or simply an observant mind putting scenarios together as dreams. She had been writing down her dreams in a notebook for several years and she brought her most recent notebook with her.

When she arrived at the Indigo Quarters, she took a seat in the main visitor lounge. Propping her notebook on her knees and opening it to her most recent entries, she reviewed what she had written there.

The bundle squirmed and split in two. The two then grew hair and dresses and became twin girls. They grew and grew and one married and one did not. both had children of their own.
My son's daughters will be born soon. I will never know them but they will grow healthy and strong. That is enough.

A giant of a woman,tall enough to step over buildings, regal and elegant and enormously pregnant. She spoke and a storm blew. She glared and an entire forest was consumed in flame.She flashed in a brilliant light and gave birth to an army. All the men in it, all the horses and all the weapons.
An queen who can channel the One Power is going to rally a powerful force that will have the devotion of a child to a mother and conquer in her name.

A woman made of steel and covered with silk held a great war axe and a shield and fended off the advances of many suitors who attacked her with roses and jewels. One man with a blacksmith's hammer advanced and all the others fell away. The woman lowered her shield and axe and smiled at the blacksmith. He waved his hand and her robes fell away leaving only her steel skin. He raised his hammer and tapped gently at her chest exposing her heart in the small crack that opened there. She reached in and handed it to him. He took it gently in his hand and smiled. Stepping back, he held it to his own heart for a while and then bent forward to set it down before him on an anvil. As he stood upright, he swung his hammer in a single motion and crushed that fragile heart to sand.
The Mistress of Training in the Warder Yard is going to have her heart broken to dust by a channeler.

Makenna did not want to think about that dream. She knew what she knew. She knew not a whit more. She sometimes tried to avoid the things that she saw happening. The best she had ever managed to accomplish was to prepare for them. She did not think that the Mistress of Training would appreciate the warning in this instance.

Looking around, Makenna noted the other people in the room. There were Novices and Soldiers doing chores and attending tutoring lessons. There were Accepted and Dedicated teaching or attending lessons of their own. There were Aes Sedai and Asha'man going about their own tasks. Makenna watched them surreptitiously and tried to think about what it would be like to be a member of the Indigo Ajah.

The thought was fleeting as she reminded herself that she intended to be long gone from the Tower before she would ever qualify for choosing an ajah. The small stab of regret in her abdomen surprised her. It would be nice to be able to join an Ajah. But only if Meleia is safely away from the Seanchan. There would be no point as long as she is in their hands.

Setting her jaw and shoulders in determination, she settled in to wait for her appointment with a member of the Indigo Ajah.

Rhiale A Bump in the Night Rhiale frowned. This much color in one place was distasteful; the tiles were violet, the walls were a paler shade of the same color, and the furniture was all carefully upholstered and embroidered to match. She ran her forefinger along the thick silver embroidery of the cushion that she sat upon. True, she was at the Grey Tower to honor Lorraine - she wore their dresses, used their honorifics that left a sour taste on her tongue, and did not touch the Source without supervision, which was a struggle all of its own - she even sat in their chairs, when it was required. But when it was not required, she sat in the floor. Habits don't find their deaths easily.

She did not particularly want to be here. Her stomach churned with uneasiness. But the tiny redhead had told her to report to her should anything be amiss - and she supposed that Illyria Malkom Sedai was not unlike a Wise One training her apprentices. Though, how she kept track of so many at once was beyond her. But Rhiale was not here to argue with their traditions - she was here to mold herself to them. She had once told Lorraine that the Tower coddled their pupils. The woman had laughed, earnestly, and begrudgingly admitted that her first-sister was correct, in most ways. She hated the lack of freedom, trust, and responsibility. Even girls with their hair in braids were given more room for breathing.

But she did not have much of a choice. At first, she had thought it was mere nervousness. And then, over the past week, nervousness had grown into the familiar knot in her stomach - the same one that had reliably foretold violence nearly all of her life. She could not quite chalk it up to her training, any more. Though the Warder Trainees were definitely coddled, the sensation had become so heavy that even a blind man could have seen it - and they all behaved as if nothing was the matter. It kept her awake at night; the sensation was louder in her mind than the thunder that rolled over the land, and burned hotter than the lightening that appeared in cracks in the heavens. She didn't think she'd ever grow used to water falling from the sky in such quantities.

It was a maddening distraction, like a noose that pulled tighter with each passing day. Nothing seemed amiss, and despite the fact that the Grey Tower was heavily fortified, it was past time that the Mistress of Novices was informed that she knew, beyond shadow of a doubt, that there would be bloodshed soon, if it was not already upon them. Given the way she felt, there ought to have been nightly murders.

She sighed heavily.

Illyria Sedai was busy, for now, she'd been told. She'd been seen when the Mistress of Novices had the time. Rhiale could have sworn that the dark-eyed accepted had a segade shoved up an unnamed orifice, but she had learned to keep silent. The Grey Tower was not fond of questions or anything they considered to be insubordination. They were all obsessed with title and position, and nothing happened without permission from someone of the rank above them. It was a shock that the system had not yet collapsed under its own weight.

She leaned back into a lavender colored wall, and drummed her fingers upon the tile. Many people raised their brows at her bare ankles - apparently skin was something that most people were ashamed of - but she could not help that none of the dresses were long enough to suit their standards. If she could have, she would have: Lorraine had been a whole head shorter, and likely had kept her ankles covered her entire life. She'd always been shy. Rhiale thought of her first-sister with a fond, distant smile.

It was sometimes difficult to remember that death was not eternal.

She waited alone for a while, before she was joined by another girl in white. Rhiale, so wrapped up in her own thoughts, took a long while to notice that she knew this girl: she shared a history course with her. The history of the Borderlands. It was a course that she liked; she soaked up the written word like a sponge. She had only owned two books in the Three-Fold Land. The Grey Tower had more books than she could ever hope to read in her lifetime.

"I see you, Makenna." Her form greeting did not cause any sort of infraction on Tower custom, and so it was kept intact. She dipped her head in acknowledgement as the older woman met her eyes. There was something comforting about finding someone that was closer to her own age amidst a sea of girls. "What brings you here?" She grinned as she posed her question from the floor, gesturing grandly to the the Halls around them. In all likelihood, she was waiting for the Mistress of Novices as well.

Makenna was startled by the greeting from somewhere around her feet. Looking down, she smiled with genuine fondness at seeing the face of a classmate. The other woman was not as young as the other silly little chits in white running here and there. Which meant, she was not as silly either. The Aiel woman was old enough to be Makenna's sister and for that alone, Makenna had decided to like her. She was pleased to discover that the woman was full of likeable qualities other than maturity.

"Hello, Rhiale," Makenna folded her legs and chose a space in the floor near the Aiel woman to sit. "I have an appointment to speak to an Indigo Sister. I do not know who it will be but I was told to come here and wait. I am hoping that I will be able to gain some understanding of some dreams I have been having." Makenna breathed heavily and waggled her eyebrows. "It might be silly but I would rather know for certain than to ignore them and then find out they were important."

Shrugging lightly in a way that she had picked up from her roommate since coming to the Tower, Makenna dismissed her dreams and asked, "What brings you here today? Are you in trouble?" Makenna grinned to show she was only teasing.

Rhiale Gossip: The Best Conversation Starter
"It never does good to ignore one's dreams." Many Wise Ones had skill with the World of Dreams and with Dreamwalking. She never had - but she knew enough of it to know that it while it was a useful skill, it was a dangerous one to master. It was for the best that Makenna was seeing an Indigo - just that it is for the best that I see one, as well.

"What brings you here today? Are you in trouble?" The weltlander grinned, her dark eyes filled with mirth and affection. Rhiale smirked up at her, green eyes sparkling with amusement.

"No," she said warmly. "Surprisingly, trouble has managed to overlook me." It had been many years since she'd been headstrong and violate; since the Wise Ones had beaten out of her and she had become one of them, the Maiden that picked fights and washed more of her own blood than her enemies out of her cadin'sor had quietly retreated to a far corner. Her adolescent character was known to rear its ugly head, on occasion, but for the most part, it was under control.

"I hear that trouble does not overlook your roommate, though." Her tone was light. It was disgraceful to discuss someone else's toh - but that was a courtesy reserved for adults. Kiera, blonde, buxom, and pretty as far as teenagers went, had managed to start a brawl between two drin'far'ji. Reportedly, the girl had wept bitterly after an intimate encounter with Illyria Sedai's switch, but had not yet learned her lesson. It would likely take a very thorough scare for the lesson to sink through Kiera's skull, and as tempted as Rhiale was to give it... She was paying homage to Lorraine, now. If a novice hung another novice and four drin by their ankles over the battlements, Illyria Sedai would not be likely to forgive either party. Even if Kiera and every single drin'far'ji needs it. The whole lot of them ought to know better... But it was no longer her place to impart pertinent knowledge.

Rhiale shrugged. "The lengths some will go to for men is amusing. Tell me, Makenna, did you have a man before this life?" She could not picture Makenna behaving like Kiera now, but youth was often a great deceiver - it often convinced you that you were smarter than you were.

For the first several years after her dear Rolph had died, if anyone mentioned him or asked about him, Makenna was as likely as not to fall into a weeping depression that would last minutes or hours. Only the presence and needs of her children had kept her sane and able to focus. Eventually the pain of that loss had dulled and she had begun to smile at sudden reminders of the man she had loved so deeply. Like this reminder. The things she had done in her youth to win and keep that man made her smile with nostalgia.

"I did. I had a husband and children in the life before this one. In that life, I was a seamstress and had never a thought of learning to channel. Before he was my husband though, I did many ill advised things to get his attention." Reaching up to gently run her finger down the faded old scar on her face, she smiled with rueful admission. "I found my share of trouble in the process.

"What about you? Did you have a man dear to your heart?" Makenna leaned her head to one side a bit and tried to imagine what this meek Aiel woman would have been like before she came to the Tower. Makenna thought about all the things she had learned about what ferocious warriors Aiel were supposed to be and could not imagine this white clad novice beside her as anything but what she saw now.

Rhiale Pieces of the Past “I did,” Makenna said fondly, “I had a husband and children in the life before this one. In that life, I was a seamstress and never had a thought of learning to channel. Before he was my husband, though,” she grinned, mischief sparkling in dark eyes that had known a good life, “I did many ill advised things to get his attention.” She tapped the pale scar that ran down the side of her olive face. “I found my share of trouble in the process.” Rhiale laughed beneath her breath. Makenna would have made a better Aiel than anyone else she’d met so far. Girls here made moon-eyes at boys, but then expected the boys to do all the flirting - the scandal of it! Makenna had gone and neatly sliced her cheek vying for the attention of her husband. There was a strange sense of honor in that. At least she did not leave everything to him!

“What about you? Did you have a man dear to your heart?” Rhiale snorted.

She’d had one, once. Attempting to put it in layman’s terms for a wetlander, though, would be interesting. She glanced sidelong at Makenna. It might be worthwhile attempting to explain it to her. “I did have man,” she said with a grin, “And I’ll tell you how I found him, too.”

“There was a battle over a puddle no bigger than a floor-tile,” she mused. “And one Stone Dog was captured in the heat of it. He laid his weapons down for a year and a day, as is the… Custom?” She shook her head. That was not quite the word for it. Custom could be ignored. Honor could not. “On his honor,” she attempted to correct, “He was made to wear white for a year and a day, and was gifted to the Wise Ones; the warrior that had captured him already had a Gai’shain. I did love him,” she said, her words lined with regret, “But once his year and day had finished, he returned to his own clan. If I had accepted his bridal wreath, it would have been...Too complex.” She shrugged.

“He was very good in a bedroll.” She wiggled her brows, hoping to produce a violent shade of scarlet. She had yet to meet anyone that could discuss sex without devolving into a stammering puddle of embarrassment.

Makenna snorted with laughter that she immediately felt guilty for allowing to emerge from her throat. She had birthed babies and raised a son and a daughter and had to explain sex and the creation of children to both of them. It was not a topic that she found appropriate for casual chatter but she found Rhiale's allusion oddly amusing. The girl was wicked.

"Please, now! If you insist on regaling me with stories of your bedroll antics, I will be forced to exchange an equally personal story of my own and I much prefer to keep memories of my Rolph to myself." Makenna lifted her chin in mock arrogance before grinning and offering, "But I can tell you about his gestures of courtship. There was never a kinder or more romantic man."

Makenna shared the story of Rolph getting covered in itch oak rashes when he tried to harvest and braid a flowering trumpet vine for her on her eighteenth name day. She told of the time he had brought her mother and father a pregnant nanny goat and then got caught there before he could leave helping to deliver the twin kids. He was so enamored with the babies that her father had needed to physically take them from him to let them nurse. She told her of the rings and trinkets he would give her twice each year at Bel Tine and on her Name Day.

She found herself dreamy eyed and nostalgic sitting in that hall. Looking into Rhiale's face she asked, "What kinds of things do the Aiel find romantic? What is a man likely to do to get a woman's attention?"

She glanced over her shoulder at the door to the office and wondered to herself, Are we ever going to get to see a bloody Indigo?

Rhiale Rhiale laughed quietly. Although wetlanders engaged in scandalous displays of affection, she liked that Makenna had found a man that could express his affection through different ways, as well. A goat wasn’t particularly romantic, but it was practical, and he had given it with his heart in the right place. And the little trinkets were relatable, as well; the Mistress of Novices had taken the coppery bracelet that she had received from her love, and she was very eager to have it returned.

“What kinds of things do the Aiel find romantic? What is a man likely to do to get a woman’s attention?”

“A man does not overtly attempt to get a woman’s attention,” she said with a grin, “He might give small gifts, but it’s… Impolite for him to obvious unless a woman has vocalized that she returns his interest. Men pretend they can’t tell that you’re flirting unless you’ve said that you’re interested in him.”

Rhiale entertained Makenna’s commentary with amusement, but kept her tongue guarded; she heard footsteps approaching from behind. Despite that they could have been mothers to most of the novices here, she doubted it would be pleasant if they were overheard at an inopportune time. It seemed that Makenna noticed that they would soon be interrupted as well, as conversation died off not long after.

“Makenna Grenaldi?” Rhiale turned to face the source of the voice, and saw a blonde Accepted staring down her hawkish nose from them. “The Mistress of Novices will see you now, child. And what are you doing here,” she asked sharply, turning to Rhiale, “Hopefully not wasting study-time?”

Rhiale swallowed a sour grimace. The Accepted would do well to have an intimate meeting with a leather belt; she was so puffed up with artificial pride that it took an effort to keep from laughing at her. Why would she have been wasting her time? Novices had their days so full of mediocrity that it would have been very counter-productive for her to be here if it were not necessary.

“I need to speak with an Indigo as well, Accepted,” she said, tempering her tone. The Accepted raised her brows. Rhiale disliked having to justify herself, and was wary to expose her fears to anyone who did not need to know of them. “It’s urgent.” The Accepted scoffed.

“Urgent or not, you have not made an appointment. You cannot charge into Illyria Sedai’s office and expect to be heard, no matter how they do things among the Aiel. Wait here, and I will see if she has time to meet with you after she sees those who have scheduled time with her. If you will follow me, Novice Makenna?” Rhiale kept her features placid, but exaggeratedly rolled her eyes at the Accepted’s back before offering Makenna a small wave goodbye. They’d see each other again at one point or another, and she’d be pleased to be in her company again.
Illyria Malkom

“Send her in, Lyanna,” Illyria stood from her writing desk and retreated farther into her parlor. It would be easier to speak with Makenna from somewhere less constricting than the corner. The Accepted tried to emulate cool grace, but did not quite manage to disguise her grimace, shut the door, and went to gather the child. The Aes Sedai smirked, amusement pulling at her features. They were all like goslings playing at swans.

She poured hot tea at a delicate coffee-table, and left it ready and waiting for tea and cream if Makenna preferred it, and folded her hands in her crowded lap. It would not be long now before she gave birth - Light help her, it couldn’t be much longer - and waited for the child to arrive.

Makenna said her parting farewells to her friend and followed the little twit into the Mistress of Novices office. She had tried for a few weeks to school her thoughts into the submissive pattern of acknowledging that these arrogant little trollops were more skilled in the One Power than she and that meant they had earned their rank and privilege. Strictly speaking that was of course absolutely true. However, rank and privilege and skill in a single area did not cease the effects of being a trollop on the rest of a woman's character. Some of these Accepted needed a switching and a minder tied to her for everything except One Power work.

Makenna had the single most important lesson of her years going for her. You don't have to believe everyone you encounter deserves the respect that you choose to give them in a moment's encounter. You only have to have the grace to give it to them regardless. And so she was perfectly respectful and calm and responded exactly as she, a novice, was expected to respond and finally found herself before the heavily gravid Mistress of Novices once more.

Briefly, Makenna swallowed and cleared her throat trying for all she was worth to remember what had spawned the trip. It seemed like she had spent a month of Sundays waiting that morning and the dreams that had plagued her so harshly no longer clamored in her mind. Finally, after being directed to a seat and a cup of steaming tea, a luxury for which she was genuinely grateful, she remembered the pages of written dreams. Handing them over for the Aes Sedai to look through, she said, "So I have been aware of thinking things through more thoughtfully or seeing possibilities more clearly than most while dreaming for most of my life. I just realized since coming here that the dreams seem to be disturbingly more than that. It is often the case that the dreams will reveal to me things that I have no reason to know about people I didn't even know existed. I was hoping you could tell me if this is some One Power trick that is seeping into my sleep or is there some ter'angreal that is known to effect some people this way." Makenna paused and swallowed again, scarcely believing she was this brash.
"Or perhaps I am a Dreamer? Is it possible that I have this Talent?"

Illyria Malkom Illyria glanced over Makenna's notes, not bothering to decipher her tiny print. That could be done later, and after she'd skimmed over them, they would be returned. If Makenna was correct and she was a Dreamer, she would need these, and several notebooks more: it was never wise to ignore the impending future.

"Is it possible that I have this Talent?" The Mistress of Novice looked up from the neat stack of paper to look Makenna in the eyes - dark and solemn, she supposed that she would not have expected any different from Mistress Grenaldi.

"Anything is possible, child," she said lightly, stirring a fat dollop of honey into her tea, "But not everything is likely. Since you have been researching -" Makenna could not have generated the assumption that she was a Dreamer out of thin air - "You will know that Dreaming is incredibly rare. You also know that I would have taken anything from you that could have been a ter'angreal upon your arrival - and unless your roommate is storing some sort of unlisted and undiscovered contraband... Your dreams would not come from a Power-crafted object."

"Some people dream vividly when they're stressed; coming to the Tower and being a novice is plenty enough stress to make vivid dreams more common. What makes you sure that it is precognition?"