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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]

And this is the Shadow she senses in Wei Wuxian? That seems impossible. If anyone--

She puts this aside for now.

"I see. How does one wage war on an entity of such magnitude?"

[blue_ajah]

"With great difficulty."

Very, very dryly.

"But as it happens, there was a prophecy."

[we_bring_hell]

"And you found a role for yourself within it?" she guesses.

She has never known a prophecy with any robust predictive power, but she is willing to meet anything in Milliways as it presents itself.

[blue_ajah]

"I was present when it was spoken."

She is not certain she has ever told anyone at Milliways about this. Moiraine remembers staring at Siuan in shock as Gitara Sedai jerked bolt upright, words spilling from her lips with the unparalleled power of her Foretelling, the shock of which had killed her.

"Gitara Sedai had the gift of Foretelling, and saw when the Dragon was Reborn. He was born to lead in Tarmon Gaidon, the Last Battle. I spent the next twenty years searching for him."

[we_bring_hell]

"Reborn?" she says. "As opposed to Resurrected. You used that word when we were experimenting with weaves."

[blue_ajah]

"Reborn," she confirms. "Reincarnated. The same soul, born into a new body, in a new Age."

"During the Age of Legends, Lews Therin Telamon, the most powerful of the Aes Sedai, was known as the Dragon. He led the armies of the Light during the War of Power, after the Bore was drilled into the Dark One's prison and he first put forth his hand to touch the world."

"He died in the Breaking of the World that ended the Age of Legends, and returned to the world as Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn."

[we_bring_hell]

"I see."

Reincarnation is a heretical deviation in the Empire, as they believe in a more physical reaction. But of course they would.

"I had somehow gathered the idea that the Aes Sedai were a sisterhood."

[blue_ajah]

She inclines her head in assent.

"We have been, for a very long time, but it was not always so."

Moiraine draws another circle, then divides it in half with a single curving line. She begins to color in one half of the circle, darkening it to near-black, stark against the white of the other side.

"The One Power is divided," the Aes Sedai explains. "Saidar is channeled by women, and saidin is the male half."

"During the War of Power, Lews Therin proposed to patch the Bore and seal the Dark One's prison. He was opposed by Latra Posae Decume, who proposed a different approach. The hall split along gendered lines, and in the end, Lews Therin led a hundred of the most powerful male Aes Sedai to make the attempt."

She sighs.

"The seal was made, but it was imperfect. The Dark One's counterstrike tainted saidin, and the poison of the Shadow instantly drove Lews Therin and the Hundred Companions mad, as well as dooming all men who could channel to insanity and certain death. The damage they wrought in their madness is known as the Breaking of the World. It is only very recently that saidin has been cleansed once more, but between the Breaking and now, only women were raised Aes Sedai."

[we_bring_hell]

She frowns. "A terrible thing to be sure."

"Does the male half use the same elements? And--oh, but I have a thousand questions that raises, all to no useful purpose I suppose."

[blue_ajah]

"Indeed it was."

She finishes drawing the ancient seal of the Aes Sedai and sets the pencil down.

"It does; the five powers are the same between both halves of the One Power."

Moiraine smiles, very slightly.

"You may ask them, if you like."

[we_bring_hell]

"In a magical system divided by gender, what becomes of those who reject the gender assumptions of their birth?" she asks. "And--if for so long only women were capable of magic, did your society become a matriarchy?"

"You have spoken of Warders--were these always men?" It's a guess, but not an outrageous one, given the binarism of the system.

[blue_ajah]

"Excellent questions, all," she replies. "I would not say that matriarchy is the order of rule, although at the same time it is true that women lead and hold significant roles in both social and political structures across the kingdoms, lands, and cultures with which I am familiar. Men do, as well. And although it is more common for Warders to be men, that is not always the case."

"To the best of my knowledge, the aspect of the One Power that one channels is aligned with who one is, such that one who began by channeling saidar might find themselves reaching for saidin, for example. Sometimes one's understanding of self alters between what is believed at birth and what one later knows to be true. I would have to ask those of the Brown Ajah to see if it is known how frequently this has been the case among those who have been raised Aes Sedai, but it is not unknown."

[we_bring_hell]

"Fascinating," she says. "If not altogether apposite to your narrative. I apologize."

"Still... fascinating. I am a bone magician because of where I was born; I know that to be the case. Yet I must admit that the concept of having my relationship with magic defined by..." meat "...the accident of my birth, is a curious one."

And an uncomfortable one. Harrow, while being a master of biology in the abstract and in the practical application is not altogether comfortable with biology happening to her.

[blue_ajah]

"I see no reason that you need apologize," Moiraine tells her.

"And I suppose it is, although in a sense one could argue that one's relationship with magic is also defined by the circumstances of where and how one receives training, as well. But in the sense that we are discussing, the One Power is drawn from the True Source, which is the very force of Creation itself. Why then should it not be able to encompass all the various aspects of that creation, in all ways?"

[we_bring_hell]

"Including the ending that awaits all creation, as we have seen," Harrow observes. "Or destructive aspects of creation, as in the balefire you have described."

"What is it that defines the Shadow then, that differentiates it from the simple termination or destruction of created things?"

[blue_ajah]

"Evil," the Aes Sedai replies.

"Evil and corruption that is antithetical to life and growth is what distinguishes the Shadow from a more appropriate end. Death alone is not evil, but merely part of a cycle in the turning of the Wheel of Time."

[we_bring_hell]

"But that only replaces one riddle with another," Harrow says ruefully. "Because I do not know how to detect or define evil, either."

"I know what is illegal, what is heretical, what is dishonorable, what is distasteful... ordinarily, I would say oh, but this is philosophical sophistry, and move on, but it is not, is it? These things, these... intellectual phantasms, have weight. Have substance, in the world you know."

"Once scientists believed a man's weight changed in the moment of death, as his soul left his body. This was eventually disproven. But it seems if they had your scales they might have found it... or at least measured the weight in sin their own souls accrued for their methodologies."

[blue_ajah]

"I wish you could have met Verin," she murmurs. "She would have loved speaking with you."

"The sisters of the White Ajah tend to engage more in such philosophical debates, and I suppose might be inclined toward such measures. For myself, I would say that there is some level of malign intent, which is itself a corruption of sorts, and leaves a mark."

[we_bring_hell]

"Yet not sufficient," she says, with a sort of brittle lightness "because I know in my life my intent has not been beyond reproach in all matters. Unless you sense the mark of Shadow upon me and are too polite to mention it?"

She doubts it. Whatever the Dark One wishes, I oppose, is a pretty stark statement. But as one in love with a force God himself Bound in the moment of his triumph, she feels like she has to ask.

[blue_ajah]

Dark eyes narrow at Harrow's tone.

"There is a difference," she says, slowly, "between the imperfections of human behavior and malicious intent to maximize all the worst aspects of human nature in order to cause as much harm as possible."

A beat of silence.

"I have not. Why do you ask?"

[we_bring_hell]

"There have been others," she says quietly, "who have seen such marks on me. Perhaps if you do not, then I can be glad to hear the stain has not set so very deep."

But what can poor Wei Wuxian have done that is worse than what she can put beside her own name?

[blue_ajah]

The Aes Sedai studies her very closely.

"I should be interested to hear more of this."

[we_bring_hell]

She looks thoughtfully at the table. "What can I say? There are those with sight that goes beyond the ordinary, who saw on me the marks of a secret of the Ninth I would have taken to my own grave." She fidgets with her gloves, a telltale sign of her stress.

"It troubled them, as indeed the facts trouble me. It has perhaps made me fear that I am a transparent piece of flimsy to the people of this bar. As one who has made a lifelong habit of privacy, not to say paranoia, it has been disquieting."

[blue_ajah]

Silence hangs in the air between them for several seconds, and then,

"I told you once that I would accept an omission until such time as you might see fit to explain further."

She tilts her head very slightly to one side as she considers.

"I shall presume this secret of the Ninth is related to the explanation you may not yet be ready to give."

Another beat.

"I have not seen the taint of the Shadow upon you, Lady Ninth. Only the touch of the thanergy that you use, and that in part because of the trials that we have made."

She could be mistaken, of course, Moiraine thinks. She is not infallible, and there are ways to hide such things, as those of the Black Ajah used all too well. Time will tell.

"You will find all manner of unusual things here, I am afraid. It can be extremely disquieting, but adaptation can be learned."

[we_bring_hell]

"I fear I must hold myself to one tearful saltwater confession per week," she says, with cool irony at her own expense in every word. "But I regret that I..."

"I would not claim your company under false colors," she says finally. "There are those in Canaan House who will not share a table or a room with me, and I welcome their scorn. While I doubt you would care about the heresy that troubles them, the principle stands--I do not wish an esteem I have earned falsely, whatever the advantages."