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Currently browsing thread: To Become a Wise One [[Jip, Oenone & Garren]] Sulinn Ailyana Apr 20, 2010 18:59:30
Promises to Keep
Oenone (PSC)
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Apr 30, 2010 14:14:22 		There was sand in her mouth. She worked it out, tentatively touching her neck, where a few small pains remained of the ligament damage she'd been dealt as she dangled in...had that honestly been Garren? She couldn't recall, and she didn't think she'd ever be able to. For all that she had little reason to fear the Wolfkin, or for that matter the Accepted at his side, looking like a cross between having a bee sting her and contrition, she edged away from them, searching for...searching for what? The Wise One caught her attention and her head jerked up quickly. The only prophecy Oenone knew was the one that she herself fulfilled, and it was still debated as to whether she was the literal solution. There were so many ways to interpret the history of the Jenn Aiel that had come back with her in fragments and flashes, and some argued that it was all a lie.

But more prophecy, here in the Waste? She gave the Wise One her attention, but her mouth opened as the woman revealed what she had Dreamed. Hot protest spilled out of her mouth - how could that be? She did not even like the Accepted! She would not be her sister! But even here, Alian clung to her Dream, and Oenone grudgingly realized that it must be true. Questions such as what would become of Jip - "Obviously he will be fine, for I have seen him in the future!" were answered with the irritation of one who has many places to be and many more things that must be done. Her other questions were brushed aside with similarly curt answers half-asked, as if this were a scene the Wise One had seen many times. And likely, in the insistent manner of true prophecy, it was.

"Fine if we must," Oenone snapped, that nagging sense that she was missing something stronger now than her concern over the prophecy. It seemed the woman would not continue until she had agreed, and while she wanted nothing more than to have something to eat and to lie down, that sixth sense was shrieking at her. Something was too wrong for things to be moving along as they usually should, and bothered by that realization, she backed closer to Jip. She'd be little good protecting him, but for his sake and Amil's, she'd have to try. Her mind groped in the slickness of exhaustion and clumsy Healing for a moment, trying to seize the important thought she'd just had, but as it was, she could only stare at the Wise One a moment as her lips moved and the words washed over her.

Adrenaline slapped her awake, and she lumbered to her feet, the last from the tent but the only one with a way of locating the child. After his kidnapping, she had begun weaving small findings onto him: the finding lasted best on metal, and so she had settled on fastening the weave to the metal grommets of his shoes each morning. She concentrated on that weave now, her legs pumping under her as she oriented, then sprinted through the dusty city street, not caring that Aiel eyes followed her as she fled. What a sight she must be, she supposed: tangled clothing, embroidered slippers, short and mangled dark hair standing frightfully around her face, the residual puffy bruising of her throttling standing out in stark contrast to her milky, freckled skin. When she ran out of cobbled street, she increased her speed badly and fell.

Rhuidean Lake lay before her, blue and bottomless, and her dry and dust-caked mouth opened wide in a howl of horror. She remembered how to run on sand, although most of the Three-Fold Land was sunbaked hardpan, like hot stone under unprotected feet. The lakeshore was different, made of a thousand tiny dark rocks, and she might as well be flying for how much she noticed her feet. How could she have not seen this? Of course, she had not Dreamed in months, had not wanted the horror of seeing an empty and dead future stretching before her until her inevitable death. She would, she swore, she'd Dream.

If only Amil survived.

She found his boots together on the shore, set aside with the socks in them. Had he gone wading? How would she know? Desperately, she scoured the rocks for the impressions of feet, but the stiff wind clattered and clicked, mocking laughter in her ears. So she did what any sensible woman would do: she kicked off her clothing and her slippers and dove into the water, her eyes open even though the Lake was gritty and cold under the surface. She saw nothing, but the deeper water was murky with sediment, and the Lake was enormous. He could be anywhere in its depths.

Light, could he even swim?

She was still dredging the lake when the Wise One returned, hailing her from the shore beside her clothes, her arms crossed over her breasts and that damnable ivory jewelry clicking together like skeletal teeth. "Aes Sedai, he is found. He is fine."

She dragged herself from the water, suddenly too boneless, too tired, too hungry to leave it on her feet. The Wise One passed her her clothing, gave her Amil's boots, and guided her stumbling steps back through the city, where the setting sun told her just how long she had been in the water. "Who?" she asked, tiredly, wanting to know who had found him.

"Sulinn found the boy," Alian returned, those damn skeletal teeth chattering up her arms like laughing birds. "He found an apprentice who took him from the lakeshore to the roof of the Wise Ones and fed him a pan of bread and most of a pot of honey besides. He was very upset by the fighting."

"S'linn's fault," Oenone muttered, her teeth chattering together and the words slurring. The desert night fell quickly and took all the heat with it, and she was cold. So cold, and so empty. She wanted Amil, and she wanted him now, and she was too tired to take them all home. They would have to stay the night in Rhuidean. Shelter was not a problem - the thirteenth Roof was hers - but she wanted to be gone before the Wise One could remember the promise she'd extracted from Oenone's unwilling and resentful mouth. The girl had attacked her, and caused her child to run, and he might have been drowned, and it was all over hers, which didn't even exist! Oenone tried to tell the Wise One that, in her own garbled way, but the other woman merely waved Jip away and led her into a dark and warm tent.

She parted her chattering teeth to tell Alian that Jip did not care if she were naked and standing upon her head, it did not bother him, but the Wise One only snorted and murmured something about unobservant women. She half considered telling the older woman that she was wrong, she'd even worn an Illianer gown that showed knees and most of her chest, and he'd never so much as glanced at her, but the warmth was good and Alian said something she wanted to hear. "He will bring the child back with him, the boy wanted to see that you were fine. So pull yourself together now, your son needs you."

Methodically, Oenone straightened her drying hair, twitched her clothing straight, and as the hot air worked its magic on the chill of her skin, Amil worked his on the icy grip her heart had been locked in. Alian left them be a while, but she returned too soon. As she declared that it was time, the icy dread seized Oenone again.  

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