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Ariel Windsinger Ariel sat with her knees drawn up to her chest. One arm encircled her legs and the hand of the other fingered her anklet. She was remembering, remembering memories so awful that any mother would flinch at them. Memories of people drowning, a ship splintering on rocks and people's screams for help. A lone girl in these memories held tightly to a floating board of wood and slept as she was carried away from the wreckage. The girl was now lying on the sandy shore of a beach just below the hook of Arad Doman. In the memory, the girl stirred, her body and hair salty and her face sandy, imprinted with the shape of sand and shells. Shells and grains of sand also littered her hair and she raised a hand to smooth the black mane, knocking pieces out. Ariel blinked, noise outside her room in the Accepted's quarters filtered through her door but did not register. The girl stood, a bright slash of red banded her waist and baggy breeches. There were small circles of red on her blouse and left leg. Blood, warm and steadily flowing. These wounds, though small, would kill her if they were not staunched. The girl, thinking of this, tore a sleeve of her blouse and tied a strip of it around her leg and wound the rest around her belly. This slowed the flow of blood. It would hold until she reached a village or city and could be healed. Ariel breathed. The girl was limping through fields of wild grass now and stopped to shade her eyes. She looked north towards the city of Bandar Eban. It was not far and the walls of the city stood dark grey against the burning blue of the sky. Before the city was a river. There, the girl could wash and clean herself before she entered the city gates to earn some food. Ariel breathed. The girl was climbing the Mountains of Mist. She slipped and stumbled, her foot caught on a root and she tumbled down a short slope onto a flat of grass and leaves, down into a gully. The girl lay there for a moment, catching her breath, before she stood and hobbled up the other side of the gully. Footsteps thudded past her closed door but this did not break the flood of memory. Ariel breathed. Topping a rise, the girl's eyes swept over a plateau where a city tore the horizon and at its centre, a tower flying a lone pennant pierced the sky. The girl stepped out again, to reach the city. Ariel breathed. The girl was standing at a gate, drumming her hands on the wood and shouting something. Ariel knew the words. "Let me in, let me in. O-open these gates and let me in." Ariel breathed. The girl was running through the streets of the city. The girl had stopped at a crossroad and was looking skyward. The tower flying the flag of the ancient symbol of the Aes Sedai marked her direction and she ran. Ariel breathed. The girl stood at the tower and spoke with a guard. The girl was inside the tower now and a woman stood next to her holding with ink smeared fingers a pen and book filled with names. Names of girls and young men. Names of those who could channel. The girl's name was the latest to be entered. The girl's name was Ariel.
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