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[we_bring_hell]

Harrowhark is in the bar, wearing the style of facepaint known as the Vanitas, with no lower teeth and sharp angular edges. It's good to be back in her makeup, even if the consecration was a greater undertaking than anticipated.

Although she is formally painted from the neck up, she is wearing some of the more informal clothes her room had supplied; soft trousers and a hoodie all in black. She is not wearing gloves today, because her palms are wrapped in bandages, but it is the kind of wound she is used to dealing with and it is healing quickly. The pinpricks of pain around her lips are worse, if only because it's been a very long time since she underwent the ritual of the Sewn Tongue.

She is diagramming spirals on paper, working in ink rather than blood right now. She can't spare any blood currently. She has refreshments to share, if you like faintly cucumber-flavored water and very bland, crumbly biscuits.

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

"Yes--" She scribbles again, not writing this time but simply drawing. "It goes both over and under--and it expands in two dimension. So two unique crossings, repeated indefinitely, in two dimensions."

"Is that kind of weaving common, however? A basic lattice?" It might be common enough to be shorthanded.

[blue_ajah]

"Common enough," she says. "Lattices and braids form a great deal of the woven structure, with varying numbers of strands. Knots, too, are very frequently used."

[we_bring_hell]

"Different types of intersections, then," she says. "Yes. Hm."

She sketches a circle with her pen, drawing ganglia at one-fifth intervals. "Is there a preferred sequence of elements?"

[blue_ajah]

She has to consider that for several seconds.

"Not especially, I think," Moiraine decides, finally. "Often we build upon how the weaves were demonstrated, more than anything else. I would say that the sequence might be more determined by the construction itself, rather than which elements would be preferred."

Wryly, she adds, "But after a while, one can generate them so quickly that it might seem almost instantaneous."

[we_bring_hell]

"I see." She studies her diagram. "Would you like to begin coloring in, then? As you think is appropriate."

"I wanted to retrieve something from my room."

[blue_ajah]

"Certainly. Take your time."

She releases the weave and her hold on saidar both, then picks up the sky blue pencil.

After a moment's hesitation, she takes a blank sheet of paper first and begins attempting to draw the lattice there, rather than in the spiral.

[we_bring_hell]

She returns fairly quickly. "A gift for you I had thought to craft. As I said, such things are traditional."

It is a pair of bone compasses, with a scapular joint carefully etched with degrees.

"They have not been inside of anyone," she promises, with studied seriousness. "I grew them from bone I carry with me. Sadly the pair I received as a girl are back on Drearburh. They were my great-grandmother's."

She does not mean that her great-grandmother owned them.

[blue_ajah]

Moiraine looks at first surprised, then delighted.

"That is very kind of you. Thank you, Lady Ninth."

[we_bring_hell]

Her ears redden briefly again. "It is a tradition, and the Ninth is nothing without its traditions," she says awkwardly.

She clears her throat and studies the diagram. "So--the weaves of Air overlap in a lattice at right angles, over then under, and expanding indefinitely."

"If we draw in the inner turns of the spiral and draw the spoke for Air--" She does so-- "Then at each intersection we should indicate the weaving." She marks these intersections with a quick line. "But that is only one row. I am not sure how to indicate the expansion in the second dimension. What do you think?"

[blue_ajah]

She taps the tip of the pencil against the paper, considering.

"Something with arrows, perhaps? And a number, to indicate repetition or size?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Yes--or perhaps the ganglia at the top could use arrows to indicate that the weave will expand at right angles? And it would be assumed to expand in width as it expands in length with each rotation? But no, that would require the field to be square..."

[blue_ajah]

"We should not assume a square, I think," she says. "This weave is one that can be curved and bent around shapes."

[we_bring_hell]

"I agree--but there are so many variables in that case. The diagram will have to represent a generic example that can be adapted, I think."

"What if... what if the ganglia indicates a perpendicular expansion, but we mark the loop when the rows stop increasing and the columns continue? So if there are 12 loops, and we mark the fifth intersection, that indicates a 12 by 5 grid?"

[blue_ajah]

She studies the paper absently, a slight crease between her brows, below her kesiera, as she considers.

"I think... I think that will work."

[we_bring_hell]

"So..." She sketches that in loosely; perhaps they will not commit to these signifiers, but the idea is in place. "So this should convey the Air wall? Is that legible to you, as the adept?"

"If so, we can consider the Fire axis, I think?"

[blue_ajah]

"It is, although it will be interesting to see how this works with a weave or spell that is new to me, in the future," she observes. "But that is for another time, I think."

She resumes channeling and renews the weave, demonstrating slowly and carefully how the threads of Fire snake through the woven lattice at key points.

[we_bring_hell]

Now that they have the diagram, she finds it already effective in making marks to indicate where it weaves through.

"Hm... we need to go back and indicate how loose or tight the weave is, too, don't we?" She runs a hand over the stubble of her scalp. "And the two dimensional aspect of this part is much harder than the lattice. But did I mark the points of intersection correctly?"

[blue_ajah]

"I believe so," she murmurs. "Let me just..."

Moiraine shifts her hands, manipulating the weave in three dimensions, and carefully extends it to float sideways above the diagram.

Glints of Fire shine in their pattern and reflect against the intersection points marked below.

[we_bring_hell]

"Ahh--no, I think I got it wrong."


"Perhaps I can try to hold it? So you can work on the notation?"

[blue_ajah]

"Very well," Moiraine says.

"Place your hands against mine, like to like, and thread your fingers through the weave while I hold it."

[we_bring_hell]

She inhales, then carefully extends her hands to touch Moiraine's fingertips. She forces her mind away from the fleeting human contact and focuses on receiving the thalergenic magic.

She can see the fizzing corrosive edge where her own necromantic magic slowly converts the weave, and focuses, trying to pull it back or slow it. It feels like artificial respiration on a tiny living creature.

[blue_ajah]

She shifts her hands, slowly pulling back and allowing the threads to slide onto Harrow's fingers in place of her own.

Rather than tie it off completely, she laces a maintenance thread of braided light from the edge of the weave to her left hand, keeping the flow of saidar steady as she studies the diagram.

Moiraine picks up the orange pencil and begins to alter the notation for the points of Fire - overwriting the ones that match where Harrow had written, and adding others where they do not.

[we_bring_hell]

She watches this thoughtfully; the steady flow of life into the dying weave.

And isn't this how life works? she thinks. How an organism lives? Always dying, always being renewed. Life isn't just growth. Growth alone is cancer.

She begins to feel it again--the warmth of the Light of Creation on her skin, through paint and black gloves. She can feel the nosebleed starting--and then healing, drying uncomfortably. Her jaw trembles; she knows if she says anything she'll lose it.

[blue_ajah]

"There," she says, after several moments. "I think that is it."

The Aes Sedai glances up from the paper, at Harrow.

"Do you wish to pass the weave back, and check my markings?"

[we_bring_hell]

She nods, extending her hands.

The weave transfers without incident, and to her surprise the feeling of Light does not pass; not until Moiraine's finger tips draw away.

She clears her throat again, and bends her head to study the markings. "Yes--I think this is very definitely a starting point. I believe I can read this. Let me try something."

She grabs another sheet of paper and rapidly sketches a copy of the diagram, but this time inverts the Fire weave relative to the lattice. She imagines, based on nothing more than the intuition that suggested the mechanism of the invisibility weave, that this should return the light rather than bending it around the object; a perfect mirror.

She might be wrong; but the more interesting point is if Moiraine can even see what she was trying to suggest.