ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
- Location
- Seattle, WA
Oh Moraine, you have no idea what it takes to survive and advance in academia.
A New Player in the Game (Wheel of Time)
- Thread starter Teebs
- Start date
-
- Tags
- wheel of time
Well indeed.
Regardless, Taija isn't soft at all, she just grew up in a world that put a much higher value on consensus building and openness. Which doesn't fit so well with the Third Age.
- Location
- Earth: Universe Meta - 1
Right, it's hard to believe that people don't get that about her.
I mean, anyone who spent any time with her would see that. She's not exactly subtle, but that's also her strength.
Rand knows she's not trying to manipulate him. She's teaching him what little she knows, and recognized that the most important thing he needs is someone to talk to and help him deal with the stress.
Realy a more stable Rand is probably one of the largest impacts Taija will have made. Not through the power or anything, just through letting him relax.
Probably the largest thing is she's a wild card. Not just in what she does, but in how everyone has plans for The Dragon Reborn and here she is saying "Be your own person."
Oh, and the whole Matt being able to speak a dead language thing is something not everyone is going to forget.
The problem for her is that she's conditioned to a very different world. She's pretty open, she's dislikes awkwardness and conflict and tries to be reasonable. In the world of the aes sedai where everything is political and mysterious and haughty composure is the only acceptable demeanour this gives off signals of weak/victim.
Interlude X - Tel Makes a Speech
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Interlude X - Tel Makes a Speech
Approximately 3,000 years ago
Tel stood up from his seat in the Grand Council Chamber. Columns of white marble surrounded the room, tiered balconies looking down on it. The Sun bathed the chamber in naturally coloured light through the gigantic stained glass dome that rose above it. The three hundred seats of the Grand Council were filled with other aes sedai in their official white. Aides and watching aes sedai milled around the columns at the edge of the chamber.
He took a second to straighten his formal, high-collared coat. Like the others, it was the white of a member of the Grand Council, the symbol of the aes sedai prominent on his left breast, sinuously divided circle on a red background. On each collar he wore a golden circle representing the globe, to show he had earnt his third name, something even many of members of the Grand Council couldn't boast. The interlocking blue-red weave of a general wound its way round his cuffs and he wore the crimson sash of a Defender of the Light across his chest.
He took a deep breath, scanning the viewing galleries on the lowest balcony. There she was. Taija was sitting in the front row, surrounded by other viewers, fidgeting uncomfortably. Her own formal coat black and unadorned other than the badge of the aes sedai and golden circles on her collar.
As soon as she realised he was looking she stopped fidgeting and gave him an encouraging smile along with a thumbs up. He knew she hated being here, hated the stiff formal clothes, the politics, brown nosing and manipulation. But he'd also known she'd come to support him. She was very aware of how important this was, to him and to the Light. He hadn't asked her, she hadn't said anything, but of course she was there, shifting around trying to make her little-used coat more comfortable when she thought he wasn't looking.
It was just what he needed, that little boost as he made his way to the podium, knowing she was there cheering him on.
The podium felt like a thin shield against the eyes of the audience when he stood behind it, but he'd prepared, practised and rehearsed this speech endlessly. Taija had already told him if she had to hear him recite it again he was sleeping alone for a week.
Taking a deep breath, he began. "Friends, companions, comrades, aes sedai. We are losing this War. The Shadow seeks to destroy everything we hold dear. Every day thousands of innocents die at the hands of the Forsaken, the Dark One's minions, the disgusting shadowspawn."
"However, we are stronger than the Shadow. The Light holds with it the ideals dear to us. Peace, democracy, freedom, unity. Together we outnumber the servants of the Shadow, we have industrial might, we have population, we have the strength and skill in the Power. And yet we are losing this War. Every day the Shadows pushes our lines back further. Good people die spitting defiance in the face of the shadowspawn, but nevertheless they die. City after city is lost. Their inhabitants enslaved, or worse fed to the trollocs to fuel the Shadow's nightmarish war machine. I ask you, why? Why are we losing?"
"The servants of the Shadow can barely work together. They will as soon fight each other for scraps of power as work together to defeat us. Those of you that have fought on the front lines," he resisted the urge to scowl at the thought of those who hadn't fought, wouldn't fight, "will have seen the way they fail to cooperate."
"Unity, cooperation, friendship, these are core values of the Light, they should be core strengths. Working together we can shatter the Shadow. Logistics, strategy, coordination, these should be our foundation. And yet…" He paused and scanned across the room, trying to judge people's reactions.
"And yet… Our forces are uncoordinated, regional fiefdoms answering to individual generals, at the whim of local political leaders. Those unlucky enough to be at the front lines fight and die, throwing themselves into the night just to slow the Shadow with bravery beyond anything that could be asked of them."
"And yet the safer regions, those far from the front, hoard resources. Dole out reinforcements like the stingiest of misers. They play political games, demanding concessions to do their duty to the world while we fight and die to protect them. Every step we are pushed back makes the Shadow stronger and brings more regions into danger."
"And yet they continue to vacillate. Empty promises are made, but never fulfilled and all the time we fight and die, watching the Shadow extinguish more and more of our cities, our homes, our treasured friends. We spit defiantly into the Dark One's eye, but it feels like we can do little more." Angry rumblings were rising from some parts of the chamber, but Tel continued unperturbed, the webs around the podium letting his voice ring out over any interruptions.
"People tell me things are changing, they're getting better. Maybe they are. We have appointed a supreme leader of the Light's forces. The honourable Lews Therin, the Dragon as he is now known. Our military coordination has improved." He made a sweeping gesture with his hand towards where Lews Therin sat and gave a small, polite bow in his direction.
It should have been him. He knew he'd have done a better job than Lews Therin, but he could accept it. Lews Therin had the political power, just as many victories, just a few more accomplishments to his name. He didn't like it, in fact he'd been furious when it had been announced, but Taija had talked him down. Someone had to be appointed and there were many who would have been worse than Lews Therin, he couldn't help but glance towards Latra Posae sitting in the front row with a scowl of disapproval on her face. If he was fair, and he always tried to be a fair man, Lews Therin was a good appointment, not as good as he would have been, but a solid choice nonetheless.
"We have the Dragon in control of our forces and we are able to work together better. Crushing defeats have been inflicted on the Shadow through his strategic acumen." He paused.
"And yet we are still losing. Lews Therin asks for more resources, asks for what we need to defeat the Shadow. But instead of working together to give him what we need, every region tries to hoard what it can for itself. Undermining the war effort, consigning their fellow citizens to horrific death."
"I believe in democracy. I treasure the values of our system. Whatever my opponents say, I am not calling for dictatorial powers to be granted to Lews Therin or anyone else. However, we are fighting a desperate war for the very survival of our civilisation. If we do not win there will be no system left to protect. That is why I am urging you to vote to grant overriding powers to the Inner Council. Regional authorities must not be allowed to impede the war effort any longer. Our central government is democratically elected, the Inner Council is supervised by the Grand Council, we can allow it to take control for the length of the War. We need it to take control if we want to have anything left by the end of this War."
"For the good of the Light and for the good of the men, women and children dying every day at the hands of the Shadow."
He took a breath, "thank you honoured Councillors." He bowed low to the room and returned to his seat to the sound of both applause and angry shouting.
It took a while for the Chair to bring the chamber back into a semblance of respectful silence, but once he did Lews Therin stood to take his own place at the podium. His face expressionless.
Tel couldn't help but watch with baited breath as Lews Therin began to speak, his smooth charisma instantly captivating the room. "Honoured members of the Grand Council," he began. "I thank Tel Janin for his passionate words. He made many valid points in his speech and we should all consider them. He is right that unity, cooperation and friendship are true values of the Light, and among our greatest strengths."
Something was wrong, his words were positive, but the tone… "And yet," he dropped the words like a tombstone, "Tel Janin forgets that democracy and freedom lie at the very core of what we stand for. His proposals for reducing regional autonomy come from the his heart and he is correct that the war requires more from us. I respect his passion. However, his proposals are a recipe for dictatorship. I do not suggest that this is in any way his intention. But, we have seen how the Shadow will corrupt any system. We need checks and balances to protect the very values we believe in. Otherwise we walk blindly towards dictatorship and oppression, every small step forward seeming reasonable until one day we look in the mirror and no longer recognise ourselves for all we see is the Shadow itself."
Tel sat there, trying to keep his face neutral as Lews Therin continued. He'd thought the man understood! Thought he would be one of his strongest supporters, but there was no chance of his proposal passing now, not with Lews Therin speaking against it.
Interlude X - Tel Makes a Speech
Approximately 3,000 years ago
Tel stood up from his seat in the Grand Council Chamber. Columns of white marble surrounded the room, tiered balconies looking down on it. The Sun bathed the chamber in naturally coloured light through the gigantic stained glass dome that rose above it. The three hundred seats of the Grand Council were filled with other aes sedai in their official white. Aides and watching aes sedai milled around the columns at the edge of the chamber.
He took a second to straighten his formal, high-collared coat. Like the others, it was the white of a member of the Grand Council, the symbol of the aes sedai prominent on his left breast, sinuously divided circle on a red background. On each collar he wore a golden circle representing the globe, to show he had earnt his third name, something even many of members of the Grand Council couldn't boast. The interlocking blue-red weave of a general wound its way round his cuffs and he wore the crimson sash of a Defender of the Light across his chest.
He took a deep breath, scanning the viewing galleries on the lowest balcony. There she was. Taija was sitting in the front row, surrounded by other viewers, fidgeting uncomfortably. Her own formal coat black and unadorned other than the badge of the aes sedai and golden circles on her collar.
As soon as she realised he was looking she stopped fidgeting and gave him an encouraging smile along with a thumbs up. He knew she hated being here, hated the stiff formal clothes, the politics, brown nosing and manipulation. But he'd also known she'd come to support him. She was very aware of how important this was, to him and to the Light. He hadn't asked her, she hadn't said anything, but of course she was there, shifting around trying to make her little-used coat more comfortable when she thought he wasn't looking.
It was just what he needed, that little boost as he made his way to the podium, knowing she was there cheering him on.
The podium felt like a thin shield against the eyes of the audience when he stood behind it, but he'd prepared, practised and rehearsed this speech endlessly. Taija had already told him if she had to hear him recite it again he was sleeping alone for a week.
Taking a deep breath, he began. "Friends, companions, comrades, aes sedai. We are losing this War. The Shadow seeks to destroy everything we hold dear. Every day thousands of innocents die at the hands of the Forsaken, the Dark One's minions, the disgusting shadowspawn."
"However, we are stronger than the Shadow. The Light holds with it the ideals dear to us. Peace, democracy, freedom, unity. Together we outnumber the servants of the Shadow, we have industrial might, we have population, we have the strength and skill in the Power. And yet we are losing this War. Every day the Shadows pushes our lines back further. Good people die spitting defiance in the face of the shadowspawn, but nevertheless they die. City after city is lost. Their inhabitants enslaved, or worse fed to the trollocs to fuel the Shadow's nightmarish war machine. I ask you, why? Why are we losing?"
"The servants of the Shadow can barely work together. They will as soon fight each other for scraps of power as work together to defeat us. Those of you that have fought on the front lines," he resisted the urge to scowl at the thought of those who hadn't fought, wouldn't fight, "will have seen the way they fail to cooperate."
"Unity, cooperation, friendship, these are core values of the Light, they should be core strengths. Working together we can shatter the Shadow. Logistics, strategy, coordination, these should be our foundation. And yet…" He paused and scanned across the room, trying to judge people's reactions.
"And yet… Our forces are uncoordinated, regional fiefdoms answering to individual generals, at the whim of local political leaders. Those unlucky enough to be at the front lines fight and die, throwing themselves into the night just to slow the Shadow with bravery beyond anything that could be asked of them."
"And yet the safer regions, those far from the front, hoard resources. Dole out reinforcements like the stingiest of misers. They play political games, demanding concessions to do their duty to the world while we fight and die to protect them. Every step we are pushed back makes the Shadow stronger and brings more regions into danger."
"And yet they continue to vacillate. Empty promises are made, but never fulfilled and all the time we fight and die, watching the Shadow extinguish more and more of our cities, our homes, our treasured friends. We spit defiantly into the Dark One's eye, but it feels like we can do little more." Angry rumblings were rising from some parts of the chamber, but Tel continued unperturbed, the webs around the podium letting his voice ring out over any interruptions.
"People tell me things are changing, they're getting better. Maybe they are. We have appointed a supreme leader of the Light's forces. The honourable Lews Therin, the Dragon as he is now known. Our military coordination has improved." He made a sweeping gesture with his hand towards where Lews Therin sat and gave a small, polite bow in his direction.
It should have been him. He knew he'd have done a better job than Lews Therin, but he could accept it. Lews Therin had the political power, just as many victories, just a few more accomplishments to his name. He didn't like it, in fact he'd been furious when it had been announced, but Taija had talked him down. Someone had to be appointed and there were many who would have been worse than Lews Therin, he couldn't help but glance towards Latra Posae sitting in the front row with a scowl of disapproval on her face. If he was fair, and he always tried to be a fair man, Lews Therin was a good appointment, not as good as he would have been, but a solid choice nonetheless.
"We have the Dragon in control of our forces and we are able to work together better. Crushing defeats have been inflicted on the Shadow through his strategic acumen." He paused.
"And yet we are still losing. Lews Therin asks for more resources, asks for what we need to defeat the Shadow. But instead of working together to give him what we need, every region tries to hoard what it can for itself. Undermining the war effort, consigning their fellow citizens to horrific death."
"I believe in democracy. I treasure the values of our system. Whatever my opponents say, I am not calling for dictatorial powers to be granted to Lews Therin or anyone else. However, we are fighting a desperate war for the very survival of our civilisation. If we do not win there will be no system left to protect. That is why I am urging you to vote to grant overriding powers to the Inner Council. Regional authorities must not be allowed to impede the war effort any longer. Our central government is democratically elected, the Inner Council is supervised by the Grand Council, we can allow it to take control for the length of the War. We need it to take control if we want to have anything left by the end of this War."
"For the good of the Light and for the good of the men, women and children dying every day at the hands of the Shadow."
He took a breath, "thank you honoured Councillors." He bowed low to the room and returned to his seat to the sound of both applause and angry shouting.
It took a while for the Chair to bring the chamber back into a semblance of respectful silence, but once he did Lews Therin stood to take his own place at the podium. His face expressionless.
Tel couldn't help but watch with baited breath as Lews Therin began to speak, his smooth charisma instantly captivating the room. "Honoured members of the Grand Council," he began. "I thank Tel Janin for his passionate words. He made many valid points in his speech and we should all consider them. He is right that unity, cooperation and friendship are true values of the Light, and among our greatest strengths."
Something was wrong, his words were positive, but the tone… "And yet," he dropped the words like a tombstone, "Tel Janin forgets that democracy and freedom lie at the very core of what we stand for. His proposals for reducing regional autonomy come from the his heart and he is correct that the war requires more from us. I respect his passion. However, his proposals are a recipe for dictatorship. I do not suggest that this is in any way his intention. But, we have seen how the Shadow will corrupt any system. We need checks and balances to protect the very values we believe in. Otherwise we walk blindly towards dictatorship and oppression, every small step forward seeming reasonable until one day we look in the mirror and no longer recognise ourselves for all we see is the Shadow itself."
Tel sat there, trying to keep his face neutral as Lews Therin continued. He'd thought the man understood! Thought he would be one of his strongest supporters, but there was no chance of his proposal passing now, not with Lews Therin speaking against it.
Taija's Abilities with the Power
I've been asked a couple of times how strong Taija is in the Power, so for those who are interested in the numbers and a bit more detail, here you go. If you want to just find out based on the narrative then ignore this post.
Strength in the power: 4 (roughly equivalent to Moghedien in raw strength).
Elemental affinities:
Strong in: spirit, fire, earth, air
Weak in: water
(Strength in elements is of course a bit relative given her overall strength)
Talents/Skills:
In terms of her strengths and Talents, Taija was never particularly known in the Age of Legends for her channeling. This has been seen already in at least one flashback where she was severely underestimated. Partly that was issues of attitude (she didn't really give off the "vibe" that most high tier channelers did), partly that her professional uses of the Power were highly esoteric and more about subtle control than raw power (things like working out better weaves to measure sub-atomic particles) and partly because she didn't really take part in aes sedai politics or networking. She was also a little bit of an oddball.
That being said, her strength in the Power was pretty significant, even in the Age of Legends when strong channelers were more common. If she was in a room, unless it was in the Hall of Servants, she was probably the strongest one there.
Another reason why pre-War she wasn't well known even among channeler fan-clubs (because those would absolutely have existed ) was a relative lack of flashy Talents (capitalised). Because of the obscurity of what she did and her not being all that public a figure outside academic circles, for most people there wasn't anything they would see that they could mark out as being exceptional about her, other than raw strength, which wasn't on the level of the true power-houses like Lews Therin, Barid Bel or Mierin Eronaile.
However, like most channelers with her level of strength she is able to do most things very well, even if she doesn't have a Talent allowing her to do more than you would expect with her strength. That doesn't apply to everything though. For example, an exception to this is healing where she doesn't have much skill at all (maybe healing a small fracture or cuts/bruises at best).
She does excel at a few things (arguably unequalled even in her time). In particular, she found it very useful for her career that she had a level of fine-scale control over saidar that virtually no one could match.
She's also exceptionally fast, something that didn't really get noticed until the War because unless you were a professional Power-athlete speed of weaving wasn't all that important. This is probably the other side of the coin for the fine control over her channeling. Her ability to invert multiple, complex weaves at combat speeds is very unusual.
Accompanying that is a very strong instinctual understanding of saidar, combined with a classical AoL education. If she sees a weave she can probably replicate it and explain it and there's a decent chance she can tell you exactly how she would improve on it.
While she has the general AoL channeler education, she has a very deep knowledge of anything and everything in her professional field (theoretical physics). This can lead to some pretty esoteric weaves, but most of them aren't super useful in a renaissance society (the need to measure sub-atomic particles just isn't there). She has made one or two more… "applied" uses of her knowledge so far though.
In general, the most useful thing for this is probably a deep knowledge of metaphysical and physical weirdness. She thought she could work out how the Ways were made after a conversation with Loial, she could absolutely recreate the bore if given the resources (not that she would).
She also has the kind of level of general knowledge that you'd expect of an intelligent, highly educated person in a high tech society.
Elemental affinities:
Strong in: spirit, fire, earth, air
Weak in: water
(Strength in elements is of course a bit relative given her overall strength)
Talents/Skills:
In terms of her strengths and Talents, Taija was never particularly known in the Age of Legends for her channeling. This has been seen already in at least one flashback where she was severely underestimated. Partly that was issues of attitude (she didn't really give off the "vibe" that most high tier channelers did), partly that her professional uses of the Power were highly esoteric and more about subtle control than raw power (things like working out better weaves to measure sub-atomic particles) and partly because she didn't really take part in aes sedai politics or networking. She was also a little bit of an oddball.
That being said, her strength in the Power was pretty significant, even in the Age of Legends when strong channelers were more common. If she was in a room, unless it was in the Hall of Servants, she was probably the strongest one there.
Another reason why pre-War she wasn't well known even among channeler fan-clubs (because those would absolutely have existed ) was a relative lack of flashy Talents (capitalised). Because of the obscurity of what she did and her not being all that public a figure outside academic circles, for most people there wasn't anything they would see that they could mark out as being exceptional about her, other than raw strength, which wasn't on the level of the true power-houses like Lews Therin, Barid Bel or Mierin Eronaile.
However, like most channelers with her level of strength she is able to do most things very well, even if she doesn't have a Talent allowing her to do more than you would expect with her strength. That doesn't apply to everything though. For example, an exception to this is healing where she doesn't have much skill at all (maybe healing a small fracture or cuts/bruises at best).
She does excel at a few things (arguably unequalled even in her time). In particular, she found it very useful for her career that she had a level of fine-scale control over saidar that virtually no one could match.
She's also exceptionally fast, something that didn't really get noticed until the War because unless you were a professional Power-athlete speed of weaving wasn't all that important. This is probably the other side of the coin for the fine control over her channeling. Her ability to invert multiple, complex weaves at combat speeds is very unusual.
Accompanying that is a very strong instinctual understanding of saidar, combined with a classical AoL education. If she sees a weave she can probably replicate it and explain it and there's a decent chance she can tell you exactly how she would improve on it.
While she has the general AoL channeler education, she has a very deep knowledge of anything and everything in her professional field (theoretical physics). This can lead to some pretty esoteric weaves, but most of them aren't super useful in a renaissance society (the need to measure sub-atomic particles just isn't there). She has made one or two more… "applied" uses of her knowledge so far though.
In general, the most useful thing for this is probably a deep knowledge of metaphysical and physical weirdness. She thought she could work out how the Ways were made after a conversation with Loial, she could absolutely recreate the bore if given the resources (not that she would).
She also has the kind of level of general knowledge that you'd expect of an intelligent, highly educated person in a high tech society.
Marsyas
Surprisingly Jellicle
- Location
- Undimensioned and Unseen
I can't help but wonder if in the Age of Legends they might have had therapists specifically trained to deal with Channeler issues. Issues like seeing friendships and relationships in general with non-channelers are temporary. And also problems inherent to channeling the One Power.
Like, in order to use Saidar, you have to embrace it. You can't force it. You have to guide. It's very much Light Side of the force, and I can only imagine that using it over the course of a very long life will reinforce those habits of thought and behavior.
Conversely, in order to use Saidin, you have to seize hold of it and dominate it. You force it to do what you want, and it's a seething and angry thing that will destroy you in an instant if you don't. So male channelers are basically Sith. And use of Saidin will probably also reinforce those habits of thought and behavior.
Do you think Taija ever spoke to a professional who understood that she spent every day with a literal cosmic power encouraging passivity and submission, guidance and manipulation? Did Lews Therin ever talk to someone about the effect that being in a constant life or death battle for dominance with a literal cosmic power might be having on his brain-meats? Did Age of Legends psychologists ever perform comparative studies on channeler psychology vs non-channeler psychology to quantify the difference this sort of thing might make? ... Did a lot of male channelers end up with some form of PTSD? Human brains really aren't well adapted to experiencing that kind of stress on a continual basis.
All that is quite apart and distinct from whatever qualities may or may not be inherent to men and women biologically, and then there's another layer of cultural attitudes and expectations on top... it would have to have been a fascinating field of study, even if it is one that would be difficult to perform ethical experiments for, and I bet there were SO MANY bad and cringe takes about it on their version of social media.
Also. I'm really enjoying this story. I feel bad for Taija, and she is very well realized as a character. My compliments to the author.
Like, in order to use Saidar, you have to embrace it. You can't force it. You have to guide. It's very much Light Side of the force, and I can only imagine that using it over the course of a very long life will reinforce those habits of thought and behavior.
Conversely, in order to use Saidin, you have to seize hold of it and dominate it. You force it to do what you want, and it's a seething and angry thing that will destroy you in an instant if you don't. So male channelers are basically Sith. And use of Saidin will probably also reinforce those habits of thought and behavior.
Do you think Taija ever spoke to a professional who understood that she spent every day with a literal cosmic power encouraging passivity and submission, guidance and manipulation? Did Lews Therin ever talk to someone about the effect that being in a constant life or death battle for dominance with a literal cosmic power might be having on his brain-meats? Did Age of Legends psychologists ever perform comparative studies on channeler psychology vs non-channeler psychology to quantify the difference this sort of thing might make? ... Did a lot of male channelers end up with some form of PTSD? Human brains really aren't well adapted to experiencing that kind of stress on a continual basis.
All that is quite apart and distinct from whatever qualities may or may not be inherent to men and women biologically, and then there's another layer of cultural attitudes and expectations on top... it would have to have been a fascinating field of study, even if it is one that would be difficult to perform ethical experiments for, and I bet there were SO MANY bad and cringe takes about it on their version of social media.
Also. I'm really enjoying this story. I feel bad for Taija, and she is very well realized as a character. My compliments to the author.
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That's actually a really interesting idea and one I'd never really thought about. There doesn't seem to be much evidence of it in the books. Women like Siuan, Lanfear and Semirhage don't seem particularly inclined towards submission. They might be manipulative, but their preferred approach seems to be more towards demanding obedience. The same goes for a lot of aes sedai.
Equally, there are a number of not particualrly seizing and dominating men. Asmodean springs to mind. Some of the asha'man are very submissive to their bonded aes sedai. If I remember correctly, one of them makes a comment that Narishma's aes sedai has him balancing cookies on the end of his nose.
For the purposes of this story, channeling does not affect your personality that way. Skilled channelers just do their thing instinctively and it's separate from their main thought processes. That's not to say that I think your thoughts there are unrealistic though. I don't think they're in line with the evidence from canon, but in reality I think you're right that it would have an impact.
As for Taija hereself, she's fairly unassuming, but that's very much intended to be a fundamental personality trait, not due to channeling saidar. While she's unassuming, she's really not submissive or manipulative and when presented with a problem that she can't just avoid dealing with will tend to go straight through it in a very unyielding way rather than trying to work around it.
- Location
- Earth: Universe Meta - 1
Ahh, and there's the start. He was willing to accept not being in charge, but wasn't asking for the unreasonable. He was asking for a united front against an enemy. Which means needless deaths. Including his fiance.
It's one thing to be loosing a war. It's another to be loosing it because leadership sees you as disposable to save themselves.
Joining the side that rapes and murders civilians is still way too far, but at least we can see what started the process.
It's one thing to be loosing a war. It's another to be loosing it because leadership sees you as disposable to save themselves.
Joining the side that rapes and murders civilians is still way too far, but at least we can see what started the process.
Chapter XXIX - Rand and Taija's Excellent Adventure
As usual all speech in italics is in the Old Tongue.
Chapter XXIX - Rand and Taija's Excellent Adventure
Over the next couple of days Taija could see Rand getting grumpier and more withdrawn. It was easy to work out why, Moiraine was cornering him at every opportunity and pushing her preferred course of action.
She was left wondering whether she should intervene, although she wasn't sure what she could actually do to get Moiraine to stop trying to lead him around by the nose short of severing her, putting her in a box and delivering her back to Siuan to be her problem. Even that probably wouldn't work since Taija had no idea where Siuan's rebel aes sedai actually were.
Perhaps if she could sneak a tracking web onto the woman next time she visited Falme? It was something to think about.
Regardless, Taija's pondering was cut short one night when Rand knocked on her door. It was late and she was fast asleep until her wards woke her, so she wasn't in the best mood when she poked her head out of the door. She'd been expecting some kind of emergency, but instead she was met with Rand's worried face.
"Taija, can we talk?"
She sighed internally, "of course Rand, come in." Taija opened the door wider and gestured to a chair. He immediately flushed bright red looking everywhere except at her.
It took Taija a second to realise he was embarrassed at her 'immodest' shift. With a very much audible sigh she grabbed a blanket to drape herself in. It was ridiculous though, it was a knee length nightgown not a bikini.
Once her modesty was suitably protected and Rand had calmed down he started to talk. "I need your help and you said you'd support me whatever I chose. I want to go to Tear, but Moiraine simply won't leave me alone, I know you can get me there." He took a breath. "I want you to make a gateway for me to the city tomorrow, so that I can get away from all of this and settle things once and for all."
Taija's heart broke a little for the poor boy. "Oh Rand, I'm so sorry. However, I'm not going to help you go and get yourself killed," anger flashed across his face, but she kept talking, "so I'll be going with you. You're absolutely not going alone to a strange city to break into an impenetrable fortress. Nope." She sat back with a conclusive smile.
Thinking about it, this worked well for Taija too, she was sick of Falme and really needed a distraction.
"No Taija! You can't come, it's too dangerous!" Rand's protest was vehement.
Taija tried to stifle an incredulous laugh, not entirely successfully. "You're trying to protect me?!"
"You've been having such a hard time recently. I can tell how hard you find it here sometimes and the whole thing with you know…" He shrugged a bit embarrassed.
"Oh Rand, you really are such a nice boy, I hope you never change." He really was. Taija's voice hardened. "That being said, you're not going without me. I don't think anyone else will take you and I am not letting a nineteen year old", he started to protest, "whatever, twenty year old friend go off and get himself killed over some stupid prophecy."
Eventually Rand grumpily acquiesced and left Taija to what was left of the night. Instead of falling back to sleep and having to deal with yet more bad dreams she started planning. Money shouldn't be too big a problem. She still had some left over from Siuan and had already engaged in a bit of discrete looting of what the Seanchan left behind in Falme as had plenty of others she suspected.
The big question was whether she was going to take anyone else. Specifically the girls. Egwene and Elayne in particular. Nynaeve was old enough to make her own choices.
Really she should be leaving them with Moiraine and Siuan, they were in training to become 'aes sedai' after all. The question was threefold though.
Firstly, did she want to? Taija wasn't totally sure. They might well end up being liabilities and she'd always preferred research to teaching. On the other hand she'd grown rather fond of Egwene and Elayne. Even Nynaeve wasn't that bad, most of the time.
Secondly, did she think they'd actually be safer with the rebel aes sedai? Taija wasn't sure. They'd be targets there or targets with her, but her confidence in Siuan's ability to protect them when she had so many other problems wasn't particularly high.
Thirdly, was it fair to take them away from their dream of becoming aes sedai with the White Tower? Taija might not have much respect for the modern aes sedai, but she'd got little to offer the girls herself.
She thought on it for a while and in the end she decided, unsurprisingly, that the only moral approach for her to take was to let the girls decide.
She'd offer Aleksi the choice too, but she already knew what he'd say.
======
The next day Taija grabbed the three girls early in the morning.
"I have something that I need to discuss with you." She spun a web against eavesdropping around the room, not inverting it for once so that they could see the web, almost anything could be a teaching moment. "I'm going to be going to Tear with Rand later today. It's short notice, but he needs to move and he's decided that that's the best way forward for him. I'm willing to support him in that."
Inevitable there were protests, "you can't just let him run off and get himself killed because he feels obliged to fulfill a prophecy. He needs support!"
"That may be true Elayne, but he needs to decide for himself. We can give him advice, but we can't make his decisions for him. I'm not going to try to manipulate him into doing what other people want. Equally I'm not going to let him run off and get himself killed, which is why I'll be going with him."
"Then we're coming too," declared Nynaeve. "We're not going to let you get yourself killed either. The two of you need someone less wool-headed to keep you from doing something foolish." Taija raised her eyebrows at her and she quickly muttered, "sorry, Taija sedai."
"You do realise that you should be staying with Moiraine or going to Siuan, that if you come with me the White Tower will likely see you as runaways and you might never become aes sedai?"
This time Egwene spoke up, "we know, we've discussed it. If the worst comes to the worst, well you said that three aes sedai could award the title. We figure that if you're the last aes sedai from the Age of Legends," Light Taija hated it when they called it that, "then you can make new ones until there are three."
"I'm not going to award you the title of aes sedai if that's what you think," Taija's voice was flat.
"Oh no of course not, but we want to be with you anyway and you have so much to teach us." Egwene sounded suspiciously innocent.
Taija chose not to engage with that. "So, you all want to come?" They nodded, "fine, we meet at the stables at midnight, try to get some sleep before then and please don't tell anyone else, especially not Moiraine."
======
Elayne hurried to find Mat. She didn't have much time, but if she was leaving for Tear then she needed to do something first. Frak she was running late. She should not have helped him hide from Taija after that night, he had become much too good at avoiding any of them when he wanted to.
Fortunately, she eventually remembered one of the inns that he liked, not a horrible place like the one they had found Taija in, but certainly not a respectable establishment either. Spending more time with the bloody man had meant that she was becoming more familiar with Falme's inns and they had quickly lost their appeal. As Lini always said, see gold too many times and it starts looking like brass.
Luckily, but predictably, when she walked into the inn he was there, sitting with a couple of men who looked like merchants, gambling of course. Still, at least he looked like he was winning. A few men in the common room shot her the kind of looks she did not appreciate, but there was nothing more. This was not that kind of inn and anyway, from what she had heard, men in Falme were being a lot more careful about strange women walking into inns these days.
Mat did not notice her, continuing with his dicing until she pulled up a chair at his table and sat down next to him. When he saw her he jumped so badly that he threw the dice out of the cup. His eyes were on hers, but she saw them tumble and land, a single pip standing up on each of them.
"Elayne, what are you doing here?" He did not seem pleased to see her and she felt a flash of irritation that quickly turned into guilt. Especially as his gambling partners were already pushing back their chairs, making excuses to be elsewhere.
"Can I not just want to see you?" She asked, even as she embraced saidar and spun a weave against eavesdropping around the table.
Mat flinched as the sound around them suddenly vanished, "blood and bloody ashes! You could warn a man before doing that!"
"Sorry Mat," she smiled, not sounding at all sorry. "I would not come and bother you, but it is important. I need to ask you a favour."
Mat huffed briefly giving her that mulish look that she had come to associate with him trying to find reasons to say no before he suddenly smiled roguishly leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Alright, what is it that you want from me? Let me guess, it's something to do with Taija?" And there was the sarcasm she had been expecting.
"Yes it is Taija, and Rand." She sighed at his smugly raised eyebrow. "They are going to go to Tear, to try for the Stone. They are leaving tonight and I will be going with them."
That made Mat sit up and pay attention, "are they mad? Are you mad? You're going to get yourself killed with a madwoman from the Age of Legends and a bloody man who can…" He cut his own words off. "I suppose you want me to come with you? Blood and bloody ashes Elayne, you're asking a lot of a man, I don't want to go…"
This time Elayne interrupted him, "no Mat, I do not want you to come with us. No I mean I would like you to," she blushed, where was her self-control?! "But that is the favour I need to ask of you. My mother will be worried about me. The White Tower has split, she will know I am not there. She will be worried and furious and I do not want to fuel a breaking between Andor and Tar Valon. I would like you to go to Caemlyn and deliver this letter to her." Elayne handed him a sealed envelope. "Would you be able to do that Mat? For me?" She made her best pleading eyes at him, eyes that had obtained her illicit sweets many times through her childhood.
Mat leaned back again, considering, apparently unaffected by her eyes. "Burn me! You want me to go to Caemlyn. Not Tear? Just to deliver a message to your mother? The bloody queen of Andor… Sometimes I forget you're a princess." He did not seem delighted by the thought.
Elayne chose to ignore that comment. "Yes, just to Caemlyn. Deliver the letter and you will be free of Rand, Taija and aes sedai interference." She was not sure she liked the idea of that, she would be aes sedai one day after all, but Light he moaned a lot about them. "If you can be ready to leave today, Nynaeve and I can make you a gateway to just outside the city so you will not have far to travel."
After a moment more of consideration, Mat rose to his feet. "Fine, I'll do it, but only because I like you, even if you are a bloody princess." He gave her that roguish grin again and it was all she could do not to roll her eyes at him. "Give me one hour and I'll be at your rooms, ready to go."
As he turned to go she heard him mutter something about barely remembering last time he was in Caemlyn anyway. How odd.
======
It was a strange feeling stepping out of a gateway from the middle of the night into the first light of dawn. Particularly when Taija was going from a cool winter night through to almost tropical heat. It had been a relatively long journey, skimming through the space between worlds and she was glad to be back into the real world.
It wasn't long before the six of them saw the dark walls of Tear looming above the run down outer city. Dominating them all was the Stone of Tear, towering into the sky, a huge edifice that overshadowed the city. Frankly it looked more like a mountain than a fortress. The One Power must have been involved in its construction. There was no way those people could build something like that without it.
Taija felt a certain sense of relief that Rand chose not to pursue amassing an army. She was no general, but looking at that monstrosity she was quite sure that no army from this era could take it. Perhaps with artillery, firearms and channelers it would be possible, but she wouldn't have wanted to try.
Tear seemed like a miserable city once Taija was in it. Many of the streets were wet with deep mud, the people scurried around with downcast eyes and it had a generally oppressive atmosphere. In the end it didn't matter, she was there on a mission not to be a tourist.
It wasn't long before the six of them had purchased rooms at a respectable looking inn inside the city walls. Of course none of them looked like they normally did. Instead of Taija's strange little group, anyone looking at them would see nothing more than a family of wealthy merchants, looking for opportunities in the city.
======
They established themselves over the next few days. Going out, apparently to 'meet potential traders', but in reality getting the lie of the land. Rand and the girls were under strict instructions not to draw attention to themselves and just to find out what they could about Tear.
Taija took Aleksi to have a closer look at the Stone. Walking around the wide street at its base she talked with Aleksi about nothing that could arouse suspicion while she gently probed at the Stone with tiny inverted webs. It was difficult to do, especially while looking casual. For this kind of sensitive work she'd much rather be able to sit somewhere out of sight and give it her full attention, but she still learnt a lot.
The first thing that became clear was that she was right about its construction. The Stone was built using the Power and it had certain protections built into its very foundations. Taija doubted she could make much of a dent bombarding it with the Power using anything short of balefire. Perhaps if she could actually touch it though…
The other thing was that someone had warded it heavily. Possibly with inverted webs of saidar, but based on the unfamiliar curves and intricacies of the wards that she'd tentatively felt out, Taija was fairly it was with saidin. That meantt Traveling straight into the Stone was therefore not an option. The wards also made it clear that one of the Forsaken had chosen to make Tear their base. That complicated things.
======
That night in the private dining room they'd taken over in the inn, Taija updated the rest of the group with her discoveries to horrified gasps from the girls and a look of despair in Rand's eyes.
"So you're saying that we can't get into the Stone?" He asked, slumping in his chair.
"No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that we can't take the easiest approach which is just to Travel straight in, grab Callandor and then either leave or fight off anyone who tries to stop us." She tried not to sound exasperated, but Taija felt like she'd had to repeat herself a few times already. "This just means we need to spend more time on preparation."
Rand scowled, but didn't answer back. Unfortunately Egwene chose that moment to mutter, perfectly audibly to the rest of them, "woolheaded men always thinking with their chest hair."
Rand's scowl deepened and with a scraping noise he pushed back his chair and stalked out of the room. Taija took a moment to get her temper under control. What had she been thinking, taking herself on a mission with a bunch of teenagers? Tel would have been able to smooth things over with a few words and a joke, but well...
"Aleksi, please could you go and make sure Rand's ok."
"Of course Taija." He nodded and headed out after the boy.
Then she rounded on the girls. "Right, all three of you. I've had enough. The last month seems to have been full of snipey comments about men and frankly I expected more of you. Rand is a bright boy who has just had a mountain dropped on his shoulders, not a 'sheep headed fool', and the last thing he needs is comments from you. Aleksi is just too nice to complain, but that doesn't make it acceptable to make them about him either. Especially you Egwene, you grew up with him."
"But Taija sedai…"
Taija didn't let her speak. "Yes, you get annoyed at men being stupid. I get it. I do too. I also get annoyed at women being stupid," her expression left them under no illusion about which women she was annoyed about at that moment. "From what I've been told, my entire civilisation came to an end because men and women couldn't work together. It sounds insane to me. What I do know though is that all of the greatest achievements of my time were done by men and women working together. I suggest you remember that. If you can't then at least restrain yourselves from saying anything unless it's helpful."
At that she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room after Rand and Aleksi.
======
Taija avoided spending too much time with the girls for a few days after that and she was fairly sure Rand was venturing out for longer and longer each day to avoid talking to anyone too. Instead, she found herself spending most of her days walking around Tear with Aleksi.
During those walks she found a shop owner who was willing to let her and her 'retainer' onto the roof of his building to sketch the Stone after she told him that she'd always dreamed of seeing it and her father back home had asked for a drawing.
Up there, while she was making diagrams of the Stone, looking for weak points and possible places she could enter it, Aleksi spoke up.
"Taija, I know you're stressed, but I think you need to be easier on Egwene and the others." His voice was gentle.
"They need to grow up," she groused. "They seem to spend more time bickering with each other than actually doing anything productive. I'm just fed up with it."
"Of course they do, but they're only young. Basically children," he paused, "well except Nynaeve."
Taija gave him an amused look, "how old are you again?"
He ignored her comment, probably wisely. "If you're not happy with how they're behaving then maybe you need to give them something else to think about. It's no good just lecturing them about how things should be you need to show them."
Taija's first instinct was to deny it, but then she sighed, "you're right Aleksi. It's just sometimes it's so hard, there are so many things to think about and all I want to do is find a hut somewhere in the mountains and forget everything."
"I know Taija, but you're strong, you'll manage." He put a comforting arm round her and she leant into him, the view ahead of them dominated by the looming Stone.
======
That night at dinner Taija told the other five of them that the next day they were all going to start training to attack the Stone. She still needed to decide on how they were going to get in, but she could make sure that when they were in there they'd at least all able to work together. Hopefully it could also start to close some of the distance that was growing up between the girls and Rand and give everyone something to do other than brood and squabble.
That actually seemed to perk them up and not for the first time Taija was grateful she'd ever met Aleksi.
However, when everyone headed off to bed Egwene stayed behind, looking nervous. "Taija sedai, can I ask you about something?"
"Of course, what's wrong?" She was clearly a bit upset.
"I've been having dreams," she spoke slowly like she was having to pick her words carefully. Taija didn't interrupt. "Not like normal dreams, but instead I keep seeing things that seem more real. Anaiya thought I might be a dreamer, but we could never work out whether I was or not."
It would have been useful if she'd told her that some time ago, but Taija suppressed he groan and instead gently said, "go on Egwene."
"I've been dreaming of a man waiting in the Stone, watching Callandor, but that's not what I want to talk about. Everyone seems to be having that dream." That was news to Taija. Worrying news.
"What I wanted to ask about is," she took a breath, "I've been dreaming that I'm inside the Stone of Tear walking around it and sometimes I see people. I've always hidden myself, I don't think they saw me until last night, but last night I was there and I saw Falion Bhoda in there, looking at Callandor. Before I could hide she turned round and saw me too. I know she did because she smiled straight at me."
It took Taija a second to remember where she'd heard that name and then it came to her. One of the Black Ajah that Siuan said had fled the Tower, with the dream ter'angreal. "Oh for fuck's sake", the words come out before she could stop them and she quickly moderated her tone. "Thank you for telling me Egwene, sorry I was just shocked."
Taija looked the girl over, "well you're almost certainly are a dreamer. It very much sounds to me like you've been accidentally entering the Unseen World and you saw Falion there. The bad news is that Falion is a member of the Black Ajah and she probably knows you're here now. We can only hope she only thinks it's you. There are thirteen of them, so if they're all in Tear we may have a big problem on our hands."
Egwene's face paled at that, "the Black Ajah? Here?"
Taija nodded, "so we're going to have to be extra careful. We'll speak more of your dreams in a minute, but first, tell me about the man everyone is dreaming of."
As Egwene started to perfectly describe Be'lal Taija's expression darkened. Had the idiot forgotten to shield his dreams? He must have been supremely confident in himself if that was the case. That or it was a trap. He wasn't someone she knew at all well, but she did remember that he had a reputation for elaborate schemes.
Taija briefly considered entering the Unseen World in person to attack his dreams, but then dismissed the idea as madness. She didn't have the skills or the knowledge to be confident she'd be successful, really didn't want to go into the Unseen World anyway and regardless there was no was he wouldn't be ready for something like that.
Still, one plus to all of this was that she now knew who'd warded the Stone.
======
The next day it was time to start training the others. Before Taija could do much with them though, she'd need to test them, find out what their capabilities really were.
They couldn't train properly inside a potentially hostile city, so the six of them Traveled out of Tear to a tree studded hill somewhere in the Andoran countryside.
After a careful and thorough lecture on safety Taija explained what the first exercise would be. Halfway up the hill she spun a web of earth and shaped the ground into an oversized, high-backed armchair before climbing onto it, sitting cross legged.
"So, I want to see how you can work together. I'm going to make you a gateway to a point where you're just out of my sight. You then have five minutes to work out a strategy between yourselves. Your objective is to touch me, either with the One Power or physically. If you succeed, then you win, if I touch all of you with the Power or you take long enough that I get bored and have to come find you, then you lose. Is that clear?"
They all nodded and Taija spun a gateway for them to step through before she settled back to wait.
Their first attempt was sadly all too predictable. The three girls came marching through the trees together. At least they weren't silly enough to come out in the open, but they were barely making any effort to hide and the feeling of them holding saidar was enough to tell Taija roughly where they were. The men she didn't see at first, but she was sure they'd turn up.
Taija let the girls get a bit closer and then spun three inverted webs, one for each of them, reaching out to touch them. As soon as the webs came into contact, each of them heard her voice whisper "dead."
A few seconds later, Taija saw movement in the long grass to her right. It only took a moment for her to wrap Aleksi and Rand in air and lift them out of the grass. She was about to release them when she felt the jolt of her flows snapping back into her and the two men fell back to the ground with thumps.
Taija smiled, it seemed Rand had taken the opportunity she gave him, although she wasn't sure where he'd learnt how to slice flows. She spun and a web touched Aleksi to whisper "dead" in his ear. However, the one aimed at Rand was cut again. He was staring at her with a look of slightly confused concentration and Taija sliced through a couple of webs he sent in her direction.
Then without warning several trees around her erupt into roaring flame and his look of concentration was replaced by panic. Shit. Without hesitation Taija spun a shield and slammed it between him and the Power. She felt the resistance as she drove it in, he was already shockingly strong for someone so inexperienced with the Power. It wouldn't be long before this wouldn't be an option for her even with her angreal. A moment later he heard her voice whisper "dead" in his ear.
When the annoyed looking group had gathered in front of Taija again she looked them over. "Well that wasn't very impressive, none of you even got close. What do you think you did wrong?"
Nynaeve's expression was sour, but she was the first to speak up, "you were able to find us before we could do anything," she thought for a second, "because you could feel we were holding saidar?"
"Exactly, well done Nynaeve. Anything else?"
Elayne spoke up, "we tried to come at you straight on, even if we succeeded it would just have ended up in a contest of strength?"
"Very good Elayne." It was refreshing how well they were engaging with the exercise.
"Rand and I shouldn't have split off from the women, we should have worked together more?" This time it was Aleksi.
Taija could have hugged him, of course he would know what to say. "Yes, exactly. Rand can channel of course, but I'm not sure it's reliable enough for you to want to assume it'll be available." His loss of control was actually quite worrying. "So you're separating your channelers from the non-channelers and leaving both groups weakened and vulnerable. Now, let's do this again. I don't expect you to win, but if you can force me to move from my chair we can buy cakes from the bakery near our inn to celebrate." Hopefully they'd do well enough, those cakes really did look delicious.
There was a definite improvement as they kept trying, but by the end the sweat drenched group had had no success. It was a pity, Taija really did want a cake, but she had her integrity. Maybe she could sneak out with Aleksi to get some while the others were busy.
The key thing was that now they were working together. They even managed to get close when Egwene and Elayne distracted her with a flashy display and Nynaeve opened an inverted gateway for Aleksi right behind her chair. Taija was more than pleased with their progress and now had some idea of the sort of things they needed to work on.
Chapter XXIX - Rand and Taija's Excellent Adventure
Over the next couple of days Taija could see Rand getting grumpier and more withdrawn. It was easy to work out why, Moiraine was cornering him at every opportunity and pushing her preferred course of action.
She was left wondering whether she should intervene, although she wasn't sure what she could actually do to get Moiraine to stop trying to lead him around by the nose short of severing her, putting her in a box and delivering her back to Siuan to be her problem. Even that probably wouldn't work since Taija had no idea where Siuan's rebel aes sedai actually were.
Perhaps if she could sneak a tracking web onto the woman next time she visited Falme? It was something to think about.
Regardless, Taija's pondering was cut short one night when Rand knocked on her door. It was late and she was fast asleep until her wards woke her, so she wasn't in the best mood when she poked her head out of the door. She'd been expecting some kind of emergency, but instead she was met with Rand's worried face.
"Taija, can we talk?"
She sighed internally, "of course Rand, come in." Taija opened the door wider and gestured to a chair. He immediately flushed bright red looking everywhere except at her.
It took Taija a second to realise he was embarrassed at her 'immodest' shift. With a very much audible sigh she grabbed a blanket to drape herself in. It was ridiculous though, it was a knee length nightgown not a bikini.
Once her modesty was suitably protected and Rand had calmed down he started to talk. "I need your help and you said you'd support me whatever I chose. I want to go to Tear, but Moiraine simply won't leave me alone, I know you can get me there." He took a breath. "I want you to make a gateway for me to the city tomorrow, so that I can get away from all of this and settle things once and for all."
Taija's heart broke a little for the poor boy. "Oh Rand, I'm so sorry. However, I'm not going to help you go and get yourself killed," anger flashed across his face, but she kept talking, "so I'll be going with you. You're absolutely not going alone to a strange city to break into an impenetrable fortress. Nope." She sat back with a conclusive smile.
Thinking about it, this worked well for Taija too, she was sick of Falme and really needed a distraction.
"No Taija! You can't come, it's too dangerous!" Rand's protest was vehement.
Taija tried to stifle an incredulous laugh, not entirely successfully. "You're trying to protect me?!"
"You've been having such a hard time recently. I can tell how hard you find it here sometimes and the whole thing with you know…" He shrugged a bit embarrassed.
"Oh Rand, you really are such a nice boy, I hope you never change." He really was. Taija's voice hardened. "That being said, you're not going without me. I don't think anyone else will take you and I am not letting a nineteen year old", he started to protest, "whatever, twenty year old friend go off and get himself killed over some stupid prophecy."
Eventually Rand grumpily acquiesced and left Taija to what was left of the night. Instead of falling back to sleep and having to deal with yet more bad dreams she started planning. Money shouldn't be too big a problem. She still had some left over from Siuan and had already engaged in a bit of discrete looting of what the Seanchan left behind in Falme as had plenty of others she suspected.
The big question was whether she was going to take anyone else. Specifically the girls. Egwene and Elayne in particular. Nynaeve was old enough to make her own choices.
Really she should be leaving them with Moiraine and Siuan, they were in training to become 'aes sedai' after all. The question was threefold though.
Firstly, did she want to? Taija wasn't totally sure. They might well end up being liabilities and she'd always preferred research to teaching. On the other hand she'd grown rather fond of Egwene and Elayne. Even Nynaeve wasn't that bad, most of the time.
Secondly, did she think they'd actually be safer with the rebel aes sedai? Taija wasn't sure. They'd be targets there or targets with her, but her confidence in Siuan's ability to protect them when she had so many other problems wasn't particularly high.
Thirdly, was it fair to take them away from their dream of becoming aes sedai with the White Tower? Taija might not have much respect for the modern aes sedai, but she'd got little to offer the girls herself.
She thought on it for a while and in the end she decided, unsurprisingly, that the only moral approach for her to take was to let the girls decide.
She'd offer Aleksi the choice too, but she already knew what he'd say.
======
The next day Taija grabbed the three girls early in the morning.
"I have something that I need to discuss with you." She spun a web against eavesdropping around the room, not inverting it for once so that they could see the web, almost anything could be a teaching moment. "I'm going to be going to Tear with Rand later today. It's short notice, but he needs to move and he's decided that that's the best way forward for him. I'm willing to support him in that."
Inevitable there were protests, "you can't just let him run off and get himself killed because he feels obliged to fulfill a prophecy. He needs support!"
"That may be true Elayne, but he needs to decide for himself. We can give him advice, but we can't make his decisions for him. I'm not going to try to manipulate him into doing what other people want. Equally I'm not going to let him run off and get himself killed, which is why I'll be going with him."
"Then we're coming too," declared Nynaeve. "We're not going to let you get yourself killed either. The two of you need someone less wool-headed to keep you from doing something foolish." Taija raised her eyebrows at her and she quickly muttered, "sorry, Taija sedai."
"You do realise that you should be staying with Moiraine or going to Siuan, that if you come with me the White Tower will likely see you as runaways and you might never become aes sedai?"
This time Egwene spoke up, "we know, we've discussed it. If the worst comes to the worst, well you said that three aes sedai could award the title. We figure that if you're the last aes sedai from the Age of Legends," Light Taija hated it when they called it that, "then you can make new ones until there are three."
"I'm not going to award you the title of aes sedai if that's what you think," Taija's voice was flat.
"Oh no of course not, but we want to be with you anyway and you have so much to teach us." Egwene sounded suspiciously innocent.
Taija chose not to engage with that. "So, you all want to come?" They nodded, "fine, we meet at the stables at midnight, try to get some sleep before then and please don't tell anyone else, especially not Moiraine."
======
Elayne hurried to find Mat. She didn't have much time, but if she was leaving for Tear then she needed to do something first. Frak she was running late. She should not have helped him hide from Taija after that night, he had become much too good at avoiding any of them when he wanted to.
Fortunately, she eventually remembered one of the inns that he liked, not a horrible place like the one they had found Taija in, but certainly not a respectable establishment either. Spending more time with the bloody man had meant that she was becoming more familiar with Falme's inns and they had quickly lost their appeal. As Lini always said, see gold too many times and it starts looking like brass.
Luckily, but predictably, when she walked into the inn he was there, sitting with a couple of men who looked like merchants, gambling of course. Still, at least he looked like he was winning. A few men in the common room shot her the kind of looks she did not appreciate, but there was nothing more. This was not that kind of inn and anyway, from what she had heard, men in Falme were being a lot more careful about strange women walking into inns these days.
Mat did not notice her, continuing with his dicing until she pulled up a chair at his table and sat down next to him. When he saw her he jumped so badly that he threw the dice out of the cup. His eyes were on hers, but she saw them tumble and land, a single pip standing up on each of them.
"Elayne, what are you doing here?" He did not seem pleased to see her and she felt a flash of irritation that quickly turned into guilt. Especially as his gambling partners were already pushing back their chairs, making excuses to be elsewhere.
"Can I not just want to see you?" She asked, even as she embraced saidar and spun a weave against eavesdropping around the table.
Mat flinched as the sound around them suddenly vanished, "blood and bloody ashes! You could warn a man before doing that!"
"Sorry Mat," she smiled, not sounding at all sorry. "I would not come and bother you, but it is important. I need to ask you a favour."
Mat huffed briefly giving her that mulish look that she had come to associate with him trying to find reasons to say no before he suddenly smiled roguishly leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Alright, what is it that you want from me? Let me guess, it's something to do with Taija?" And there was the sarcasm she had been expecting.
"Yes it is Taija, and Rand." She sighed at his smugly raised eyebrow. "They are going to go to Tear, to try for the Stone. They are leaving tonight and I will be going with them."
That made Mat sit up and pay attention, "are they mad? Are you mad? You're going to get yourself killed with a madwoman from the Age of Legends and a bloody man who can…" He cut his own words off. "I suppose you want me to come with you? Blood and bloody ashes Elayne, you're asking a lot of a man, I don't want to go…"
This time Elayne interrupted him, "no Mat, I do not want you to come with us. No I mean I would like you to," she blushed, where was her self-control?! "But that is the favour I need to ask of you. My mother will be worried about me. The White Tower has split, she will know I am not there. She will be worried and furious and I do not want to fuel a breaking between Andor and Tar Valon. I would like you to go to Caemlyn and deliver this letter to her." Elayne handed him a sealed envelope. "Would you be able to do that Mat? For me?" She made her best pleading eyes at him, eyes that had obtained her illicit sweets many times through her childhood.
Mat leaned back again, considering, apparently unaffected by her eyes. "Burn me! You want me to go to Caemlyn. Not Tear? Just to deliver a message to your mother? The bloody queen of Andor… Sometimes I forget you're a princess." He did not seem delighted by the thought.
Elayne chose to ignore that comment. "Yes, just to Caemlyn. Deliver the letter and you will be free of Rand, Taija and aes sedai interference." She was not sure she liked the idea of that, she would be aes sedai one day after all, but Light he moaned a lot about them. "If you can be ready to leave today, Nynaeve and I can make you a gateway to just outside the city so you will not have far to travel."
After a moment more of consideration, Mat rose to his feet. "Fine, I'll do it, but only because I like you, even if you are a bloody princess." He gave her that roguish grin again and it was all she could do not to roll her eyes at him. "Give me one hour and I'll be at your rooms, ready to go."
As he turned to go she heard him mutter something about barely remembering last time he was in Caemlyn anyway. How odd.
======
It was a strange feeling stepping out of a gateway from the middle of the night into the first light of dawn. Particularly when Taija was going from a cool winter night through to almost tropical heat. It had been a relatively long journey, skimming through the space between worlds and she was glad to be back into the real world.
It wasn't long before the six of them saw the dark walls of Tear looming above the run down outer city. Dominating them all was the Stone of Tear, towering into the sky, a huge edifice that overshadowed the city. Frankly it looked more like a mountain than a fortress. The One Power must have been involved in its construction. There was no way those people could build something like that without it.
Taija felt a certain sense of relief that Rand chose not to pursue amassing an army. She was no general, but looking at that monstrosity she was quite sure that no army from this era could take it. Perhaps with artillery, firearms and channelers it would be possible, but she wouldn't have wanted to try.
Tear seemed like a miserable city once Taija was in it. Many of the streets were wet with deep mud, the people scurried around with downcast eyes and it had a generally oppressive atmosphere. In the end it didn't matter, she was there on a mission not to be a tourist.
It wasn't long before the six of them had purchased rooms at a respectable looking inn inside the city walls. Of course none of them looked like they normally did. Instead of Taija's strange little group, anyone looking at them would see nothing more than a family of wealthy merchants, looking for opportunities in the city.
======
They established themselves over the next few days. Going out, apparently to 'meet potential traders', but in reality getting the lie of the land. Rand and the girls were under strict instructions not to draw attention to themselves and just to find out what they could about Tear.
Taija took Aleksi to have a closer look at the Stone. Walking around the wide street at its base she talked with Aleksi about nothing that could arouse suspicion while she gently probed at the Stone with tiny inverted webs. It was difficult to do, especially while looking casual. For this kind of sensitive work she'd much rather be able to sit somewhere out of sight and give it her full attention, but she still learnt a lot.
The first thing that became clear was that she was right about its construction. The Stone was built using the Power and it had certain protections built into its very foundations. Taija doubted she could make much of a dent bombarding it with the Power using anything short of balefire. Perhaps if she could actually touch it though…
The other thing was that someone had warded it heavily. Possibly with inverted webs of saidar, but based on the unfamiliar curves and intricacies of the wards that she'd tentatively felt out, Taija was fairly it was with saidin. That meantt Traveling straight into the Stone was therefore not an option. The wards also made it clear that one of the Forsaken had chosen to make Tear their base. That complicated things.
======
That night in the private dining room they'd taken over in the inn, Taija updated the rest of the group with her discoveries to horrified gasps from the girls and a look of despair in Rand's eyes.
"So you're saying that we can't get into the Stone?" He asked, slumping in his chair.
"No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that we can't take the easiest approach which is just to Travel straight in, grab Callandor and then either leave or fight off anyone who tries to stop us." She tried not to sound exasperated, but Taija felt like she'd had to repeat herself a few times already. "This just means we need to spend more time on preparation."
Rand scowled, but didn't answer back. Unfortunately Egwene chose that moment to mutter, perfectly audibly to the rest of them, "woolheaded men always thinking with their chest hair."
Rand's scowl deepened and with a scraping noise he pushed back his chair and stalked out of the room. Taija took a moment to get her temper under control. What had she been thinking, taking herself on a mission with a bunch of teenagers? Tel would have been able to smooth things over with a few words and a joke, but well...
"Aleksi, please could you go and make sure Rand's ok."
"Of course Taija." He nodded and headed out after the boy.
Then she rounded on the girls. "Right, all three of you. I've had enough. The last month seems to have been full of snipey comments about men and frankly I expected more of you. Rand is a bright boy who has just had a mountain dropped on his shoulders, not a 'sheep headed fool', and the last thing he needs is comments from you. Aleksi is just too nice to complain, but that doesn't make it acceptable to make them about him either. Especially you Egwene, you grew up with him."
"But Taija sedai…"
Taija didn't let her speak. "Yes, you get annoyed at men being stupid. I get it. I do too. I also get annoyed at women being stupid," her expression left them under no illusion about which women she was annoyed about at that moment. "From what I've been told, my entire civilisation came to an end because men and women couldn't work together. It sounds insane to me. What I do know though is that all of the greatest achievements of my time were done by men and women working together. I suggest you remember that. If you can't then at least restrain yourselves from saying anything unless it's helpful."
At that she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room after Rand and Aleksi.
======
Taija avoided spending too much time with the girls for a few days after that and she was fairly sure Rand was venturing out for longer and longer each day to avoid talking to anyone too. Instead, she found herself spending most of her days walking around Tear with Aleksi.
During those walks she found a shop owner who was willing to let her and her 'retainer' onto the roof of his building to sketch the Stone after she told him that she'd always dreamed of seeing it and her father back home had asked for a drawing.
Up there, while she was making diagrams of the Stone, looking for weak points and possible places she could enter it, Aleksi spoke up.
"Taija, I know you're stressed, but I think you need to be easier on Egwene and the others." His voice was gentle.
"They need to grow up," she groused. "They seem to spend more time bickering with each other than actually doing anything productive. I'm just fed up with it."
"Of course they do, but they're only young. Basically children," he paused, "well except Nynaeve."
Taija gave him an amused look, "how old are you again?"
He ignored her comment, probably wisely. "If you're not happy with how they're behaving then maybe you need to give them something else to think about. It's no good just lecturing them about how things should be you need to show them."
Taija's first instinct was to deny it, but then she sighed, "you're right Aleksi. It's just sometimes it's so hard, there are so many things to think about and all I want to do is find a hut somewhere in the mountains and forget everything."
"I know Taija, but you're strong, you'll manage." He put a comforting arm round her and she leant into him, the view ahead of them dominated by the looming Stone.
======
That night at dinner Taija told the other five of them that the next day they were all going to start training to attack the Stone. She still needed to decide on how they were going to get in, but she could make sure that when they were in there they'd at least all able to work together. Hopefully it could also start to close some of the distance that was growing up between the girls and Rand and give everyone something to do other than brood and squabble.
That actually seemed to perk them up and not for the first time Taija was grateful she'd ever met Aleksi.
However, when everyone headed off to bed Egwene stayed behind, looking nervous. "Taija sedai, can I ask you about something?"
"Of course, what's wrong?" She was clearly a bit upset.
"I've been having dreams," she spoke slowly like she was having to pick her words carefully. Taija didn't interrupt. "Not like normal dreams, but instead I keep seeing things that seem more real. Anaiya thought I might be a dreamer, but we could never work out whether I was or not."
It would have been useful if she'd told her that some time ago, but Taija suppressed he groan and instead gently said, "go on Egwene."
"I've been dreaming of a man waiting in the Stone, watching Callandor, but that's not what I want to talk about. Everyone seems to be having that dream." That was news to Taija. Worrying news.
"What I wanted to ask about is," she took a breath, "I've been dreaming that I'm inside the Stone of Tear walking around it and sometimes I see people. I've always hidden myself, I don't think they saw me until last night, but last night I was there and I saw Falion Bhoda in there, looking at Callandor. Before I could hide she turned round and saw me too. I know she did because she smiled straight at me."
It took Taija a second to remember where she'd heard that name and then it came to her. One of the Black Ajah that Siuan said had fled the Tower, with the dream ter'angreal. "Oh for fuck's sake", the words come out before she could stop them and she quickly moderated her tone. "Thank you for telling me Egwene, sorry I was just shocked."
Taija looked the girl over, "well you're almost certainly are a dreamer. It very much sounds to me like you've been accidentally entering the Unseen World and you saw Falion there. The bad news is that Falion is a member of the Black Ajah and she probably knows you're here now. We can only hope she only thinks it's you. There are thirteen of them, so if they're all in Tear we may have a big problem on our hands."
Egwene's face paled at that, "the Black Ajah? Here?"
Taija nodded, "so we're going to have to be extra careful. We'll speak more of your dreams in a minute, but first, tell me about the man everyone is dreaming of."
As Egwene started to perfectly describe Be'lal Taija's expression darkened. Had the idiot forgotten to shield his dreams? He must have been supremely confident in himself if that was the case. That or it was a trap. He wasn't someone she knew at all well, but she did remember that he had a reputation for elaborate schemes.
Taija briefly considered entering the Unseen World in person to attack his dreams, but then dismissed the idea as madness. She didn't have the skills or the knowledge to be confident she'd be successful, really didn't want to go into the Unseen World anyway and regardless there was no was he wouldn't be ready for something like that.
Still, one plus to all of this was that she now knew who'd warded the Stone.
======
The next day it was time to start training the others. Before Taija could do much with them though, she'd need to test them, find out what their capabilities really were.
They couldn't train properly inside a potentially hostile city, so the six of them Traveled out of Tear to a tree studded hill somewhere in the Andoran countryside.
After a careful and thorough lecture on safety Taija explained what the first exercise would be. Halfway up the hill she spun a web of earth and shaped the ground into an oversized, high-backed armchair before climbing onto it, sitting cross legged.
"So, I want to see how you can work together. I'm going to make you a gateway to a point where you're just out of my sight. You then have five minutes to work out a strategy between yourselves. Your objective is to touch me, either with the One Power or physically. If you succeed, then you win, if I touch all of you with the Power or you take long enough that I get bored and have to come find you, then you lose. Is that clear?"
They all nodded and Taija spun a gateway for them to step through before she settled back to wait.
Their first attempt was sadly all too predictable. The three girls came marching through the trees together. At least they weren't silly enough to come out in the open, but they were barely making any effort to hide and the feeling of them holding saidar was enough to tell Taija roughly where they were. The men she didn't see at first, but she was sure they'd turn up.
Taija let the girls get a bit closer and then spun three inverted webs, one for each of them, reaching out to touch them. As soon as the webs came into contact, each of them heard her voice whisper "dead."
A few seconds later, Taija saw movement in the long grass to her right. It only took a moment for her to wrap Aleksi and Rand in air and lift them out of the grass. She was about to release them when she felt the jolt of her flows snapping back into her and the two men fell back to the ground with thumps.
Taija smiled, it seemed Rand had taken the opportunity she gave him, although she wasn't sure where he'd learnt how to slice flows. She spun and a web touched Aleksi to whisper "dead" in his ear. However, the one aimed at Rand was cut again. He was staring at her with a look of slightly confused concentration and Taija sliced through a couple of webs he sent in her direction.
Then without warning several trees around her erupt into roaring flame and his look of concentration was replaced by panic. Shit. Without hesitation Taija spun a shield and slammed it between him and the Power. She felt the resistance as she drove it in, he was already shockingly strong for someone so inexperienced with the Power. It wouldn't be long before this wouldn't be an option for her even with her angreal. A moment later he heard her voice whisper "dead" in his ear.
When the annoyed looking group had gathered in front of Taija again she looked them over. "Well that wasn't very impressive, none of you even got close. What do you think you did wrong?"
Nynaeve's expression was sour, but she was the first to speak up, "you were able to find us before we could do anything," she thought for a second, "because you could feel we were holding saidar?"
"Exactly, well done Nynaeve. Anything else?"
Elayne spoke up, "we tried to come at you straight on, even if we succeeded it would just have ended up in a contest of strength?"
"Very good Elayne." It was refreshing how well they were engaging with the exercise.
"Rand and I shouldn't have split off from the women, we should have worked together more?" This time it was Aleksi.
Taija could have hugged him, of course he would know what to say. "Yes, exactly. Rand can channel of course, but I'm not sure it's reliable enough for you to want to assume it'll be available." His loss of control was actually quite worrying. "So you're separating your channelers from the non-channelers and leaving both groups weakened and vulnerable. Now, let's do this again. I don't expect you to win, but if you can force me to move from my chair we can buy cakes from the bakery near our inn to celebrate." Hopefully they'd do well enough, those cakes really did look delicious.
There was a definite improvement as they kept trying, but by the end the sweat drenched group had had no success. It was a pity, Taija really did want a cake, but she had her integrity. Maybe she could sneak out with Aleksi to get some while the others were busy.
The key thing was that now they were working together. They even managed to get close when Egwene and Elayne distracted her with a flashy display and Nynaeve opened an inverted gateway for Aleksi right behind her chair. Taija was more than pleased with their progress and now had some idea of the sort of things they needed to work on.
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Oh wow, some serious changes from cannon. I don't even mean in the doing things differently manner or skills.
Teamwork, trust building, and actually acting like a supportive peer are things that didn't really happen from what I can remember of the books.
The problem is sort of inherent in the original story. Where almost everyone sees Rand as a major figure. Either to lead or to be crushed. The few that don't, as we see in this chapter, have a nasty habit of not realizing the stress he's under.
From what I remember, plenty of bad things happened because of that. Especially since only the fallen were actually supportive of him at times.
Teamwork, trust building, and actually acting like a supportive peer are things that didn't really happen from what I can remember of the books.
The problem is sort of inherent in the original story. Where almost everyone sees Rand as a major figure. Either to lead or to be crushed. The few that don't, as we see in this chapter, have a nasty habit of not realizing the stress he's under.
From what I remember, plenty of bad things happened because of that. Especially since only the fallen were actually supportive of him at times.
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Ah man I was almost hoping they'd come up with the strategy of linking with Rand. Sure, he barely can control his weaving right now, but he's an insane power battery (poor chosen one), and a circle of those 3 + Rand could likely match Taija.
Tbh that feels like an incredibly valid way of fighting Belal and the 13 Black Ajah in the city - Rand + 4 female channelers is an insanely strong circle and he might actually trust these 4.
Tbh that feels like an incredibly valid way of fighting Belal and the 13 Black Ajah in the city - Rand + 4 female channelers is an insanely strong circle and he might actually trust these 4.
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Yeah, but the problem isn't just trust. It's who's in charge, and skill. Maybe one of the three has the knowledge to link, but they certainly don't know how to handle the male power. Meanwhile, Rand almost certainly wouldn't like the helpless feeling of not being in control of a link.
Rand doesn't have the skills, and would more likely kill them all.
Now I could see Taija leading it, but if Rand lets her it shows a stupid amount of trust. On the other hand she's demonstrated her ability to shield him in this chapter and clearly has been in plenty of situations where if she wanted to hurt him she could have. Plus, the fact she's deeply uncomfortable with someone else being in control would let Taija empathize with Rand.
Most importantly, if I remember how linking works. It could could allow Taija to teach Rand, or at least show him what things are supposed to work. Since she's linked with male channelers before, and is seriously concerned about him loosing control.
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That's fair and why I see it being more a thing for the assault on Tear.
Speaking of Tear, I wonder if Taija will be able to figure out the "flaws" in Callandor earlier than comes up in canon, which might be useful.
The way I see One Power combat between highly skilled channelers, which will become clearer over the course of the story, linking is not a winning move. Its usefulness in the Third Age is exaggerated because a) most of them aren't very good at Power-based comabt and b) it's often the only way to shield a strong channeler and they're very often trying to shield rather than just kill their opponents.
The way I see linking is that channeling the opposite half of the Power is different to when you're doing it on your own and is almost instinctive, based on your skill with your own half. Otherwise it's difficult to explain the ease with which various people did it at the cleansing. It also means it's not much use for teaching someone to channel alone. I'm choosing this interpretation partly for plot reasons because otherwise it's all just far too easy for Rand if Taija can just teach him, but I think it's entirely compatible with what we see in the books.
In terms of linking social dynamics, Taija *hates* linking, even with her in control. She does not like having people in her head. Rand trusts her as much as he trusts anyone, she would be the bigger problem.
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That's fair. I don't entirely agree - we see in Book 14 that a full circle of 72 is a powerful strategic asset. From memory the power of that circle was comparable to Tain (or whatever his name was) with one of the most powerful sa'angrael's ever. But I also see your point.
Sorry I agree entirely that big circles are powerful strategic assets. Before everyone started sticking anti-traveling wards anywhere my own view of the War is that the Light probably had some strategic successes by just having a massive circle with a sa'angreal paste a target through a gateway.
But in the same way as a nuclear weapon isn't a great battlefield weapon, their usefulness for strategic strikes isn't matched at the tactical level. They no doubt have a role, if you're a bunch of modern aes sedai wanting to take on one of the Forsaken you're going to want to be in a circle. If you're a properly trained combat channeler, not so much.
ClawClawBite
Mad Engineering!
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The other issues with linking males is taint exposure. The risks per session may be small, but it is is used to ramp up power, that will get big quite quickly.
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Taija has just started coming around to the idea that Rand really is the Dragon Reborn. The idea that the taint is real is something I don't think she's wrapped her mind around yet. I mean, it's like if Cell Phone EM radiation all of a sudden gave you cancer.
I'll agree with narratively her not being able to teach Rand anything but half remembered basic info. This probably actually puts him on the back foot compared to the original timeline in that regard.
On the other hand, he's getting tactics instruction from a heavy hitting veteran. If I remember correctly, he did get that for sword training, but this is different. I'm excited to see him improve from a positive female role model.
That's a great description. I've had occasional scepticism on that point on some of the sites this story is posted on, but I very much see her reaction as being along those lines.
These modern day idiots have no idea what they're talking about on so many things and now they're telling me that all men go homicidally mad from a "taint" on one of the fundamental forces of the universe? Nah.
Clearly something happened to cause the Breaking, leading to this modern day bigotry. However channelers aren't that rare and yet I don't see madmen popping up everywhere. In fact the only male channeler I know in this time is a scared, but decidedly not mad young man. Frankly all the people telling him he has to defeat the Dark One seem madder.
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Now we get into how much has been planned ahead. We've been teased about her being a physicist, yet the only thing you've really shown is a bit of particle physics and knowledge of dimensions. If the powers are treated as a fundamental force, then how exactly they interact with matter at least is something probably studied at great detail.
Of course, that's going to make the BSOD all the more powerful. Then knowing that something "impossible" is true doesn't necessarily change anything. I mean there have been plenty of "impossible" things throughout history, and it wasn't always solved in even a single lifetime.
Personally I kind of figured it was based on the skill on the person you're linked with, and you get it as a side effect of the shared emotions stuff.
That could also work but not sure how it goes with links involving multiple people.
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Unfortunate nature of this type of magic system. It's deliberately kept mystical for us as readers to not know these things. One of the large advantages Robert Jordan had was the main viewpoint characters didn't have the education or time to explore the more metaphysical aspects.
Even if it was in the Age Of Legends, most of the time we're following young adults. We aren't going to see them half-remember an interesting academic paper written by a college that they personally saw murdered.
In the current time they don't even have basic tool making with the power. Which has some funny implications. A tea kettle would be treated as a priceless, but useless artifact. Since anyone who could use it could already use the power themselves, but it can't be reproduced.
Power research must be weird though. In electricity, we have measurement standards and must do everything using tools. Meanwhile, the power can be influenced by the wielder. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an entire focus on making "filters" to ensure the weaves produced behave identically regardless of mental state. Which is different from what Rand is dealing with, but is probably why you're having to be very careful responding.