Just to let everyone know, the part in the last chapter, at the beginning, was a meeting with a friend who also RPs. Just take it as it is. Skye is training to be an Ashaman. 'She' (in real life he's a girl) is currently a soldier.

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Lain looked nervously around, trying to spot a partner. Everybody seemed to be in pairs already... Then he saw a young man walking over from the other side. With a glance, they agreed, and walked towards each other. Finding a free spot, they squared off.

"You want to start?" Lain asked. The man nodded, and moved in to attack. "Tell me if it hurts a lot," he added as an afterthought. Lain winced internally. A lot. Blood and bloody ashes. Watching carefully, Lain decided not to try to block the other too much. After all that WAS the purpose of the lesson...

The man drove his fingers into Lain's breastbone, and he gasped, unable to breathe. While he was gasping, the other grabbed his hand, pinching a finger in and up. Lain sucked in air, mentally twisting in pain. "I think you could say that hurts," Lain said when he could speak again. Smiling slightly, the other released the pressure and backed off again. He beckoned with a hand, and Lain attacked.

He quickly side-stepped so that his partner was facing his back. Seizing one fist, he drove his elbow behind him, and into the other's stomach. They doubled over, and Lain whipped around, striking the other's temple with a hard slap. Dazed, he backed away cautiously, then came at him again. Soon, their section of the courtyard was a flurry of flying fists and various limbs. Both were bleeding small trickles of blood from various scrapes they received falling to the stones of the yard.

"You're pretty good at inflicting pain," grinned Lain, taking a short respite from the melee. The other shrugged, then suddenly lunged forward. In a quick series of attacks, Lain's opponent practically decapacitated him, using almost all of the various moves they had learned in the lesson. With a finally blow, the heel of his palm drove upwards, straight into Lain's nose.

Blood spilled, and Lain stumbled back, thickly gazing at the red liquid on his hands. He stared, slightly frightened and quite angry, at his 'friend'. He staggered to the same Aes Sedai who treated him before, and she quickly took his face in her hands again, wasting no time. The shock of healing came, and the flow of blood abruptly stopped, his nose no longer broken.

"You were lucky," she said cooly. "You can die from a strike to the nose like that."

"Thank you, Aes Sedai," he said with a bow. "I know."

With another bow, Lain went back to the courtyard to be dismissed at the end of the lesson. Had he just made his first enemy in the tower?

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Lain whirled around the courtyard, alone for the first time in awhile. His non-stop training hadn't had a break for a couple of weeks, but the Tower was quiet lately. Throwing patterns of alternating kicks and punches, Lain reflected on what had happened since he had arrived in Tar Valon.

He had participated in two hand-to-hand lessons- both of which he considered a success. He had caught up his friend, Skye, at a long-overdue meeting in the city. He had also made what he considered an enemy. And yet he considered the Tower quiet. He chuckled to himself, content in the late afternoon sun.

He had been practicing for an hour now- a month ago that would have him panting and gasping on a floor, unable to move. Now, he was only in a heavy sweat, his muscles complaining from the strain.

Finishing the last combination, he completed with a back flip, practiced long hours and now almost perfected. Landing, he came up facing the same way.

Tar Valon was changing him, alright.

xxxx

He had been in the training of the Gaidin for nearly seven years and he could well remember when he had first arrived to the grounds. Back then he had been a scrawny lad of seventeen summers with his dark brown hair clumped with mud and his clothes stained with street grime. One of his brown eyes had been blacked on the outside even while the inner of the eye was streaked with blood. He hadn't survived a trolloc raid nor had his house been burned down around him and his family. In fact, there was no reason for Gyle Pastrian to have left his home. His family loved him deeply. They wanted him to achieve his dreams, and they knew these dreams were to be the best warrior that Illian had yet produced. They knew he wanted to go to Tar Valon and make a name for himself with the elite of the elite. They had given him their blessing and the silver that it would take for him to get there. They had given him a horse and well cut clothes that he would be able to wear with pride when he walked in the gates. They had done everything that good parents could do in order to see their son succeed. They hadn't counted on the bandits that had waylaid him while going across the Hills of Kintara. They had stolen his horse and his clothes, but he managed to keep a hold on his sword and money. When he arrived in Caemlyn he was shocked at how much it cost for a room in an inn, so he continued to sleep in the outdoors. His sense of hygiene wouldn't allow him to continue on in the clothes that he was wearing, so he purchased another set and again started towards Tar Valon.

He could see the gleaming white spire of the Tower when his last melee occurred. Several thugs just before the south bridge of Tar Valon set upon him, took his money, busted his lip and kicked him several times before they left with his purse. He could see the destination before him and pushed on across the bridge and into the Gaidin training grounds. The man he had spoken to, Arak Tromein, told him that he apparently did need to train.

Seven years and he could still see when a new trainee began to reach a certain level of change. It had happened for him and it was happening again in front of him with this lad that was practicing his hand to hand combat.

Gyle watched as the Gaidin in Training performed a flip as if he was on a stage performing in the three rings he had once seen from a traveling menagerie. The trainee's hair was the color of sand and long, flopping down into his face. His clothes were baggy as if they were meant to hide something. Gyle wondered if the trainee could actually fight as well as he practiced alone.

Gyle waited for the trainee to finish his exercise then approached. "This do be a fine day, no? By the Creator I do be enjoying the training in something less than freezing air. Before I came to Tar Valon I no thought that snow existed, I now know that I do be wrong on that aspect. I beg pardon, I do be Gyle Pastrain, former of Illian, now Cadre of the White Tower. How do you be called?"

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Lain surveyed the newcomer with interest. From what he had seen around the grounds, and what he had just been told, this was a Cadre, what he was currently striving to be. An Illianer, from his accent, but background made no difference to him, or how good someone was.

Lain wondered how long Gyle had been there. Had he seen the flip? Was he impressed? That makes no difference either, he thought to himself. I'm doing the best I can do. Taking in the intense, dark brown eyes, Lain replied.

"Hello, Cadre Gyle," he said with a nod he had seen other Trainees give a few Cadre around the yards. "Around here, I'm called Lain. Pleased to meet you," he said politely. He looked up into the cloudless sky, weather that he usually always felt in late spring. A warm day it was. "It is nice weather out today, isn't it." He looked back towards his new acquaintance.

"I'm of..." he paused. It seemed the natural thing to say, but he couldn't remember. Almost all memories of what he now thought of as his 'old life' had faded away. Almost all. "Of Camelyn." It sounded right, to Lain. So he was an Andoran, now.

"Would you care to join my training in this pleasant weather?" Lain asked, for he was now calm and cooled off. "I could use a sparring partner, if you'll promise not to kill me," he said with a mischievous and daring gleam in his eyes that were uncovered from their usual veil of wisps of hair.

Hand behind his back, he stood with a slight smile, wondering what he had gotten himself into.

Lain stared at the spot where a cloud of thick purple smoke drifted, where seconds ago the Cadre had stood.

"Bloody Aes Sedai..." he breathed, and continued his exercises.