Zarin kept silent as she rode her horse out of Tar Valon. The guards let her by, knowing she was Aes Sedai. In her mind, she kept running through a list of the people that could be Black Ajah in the Tower.
"Tovra." Zarin could feel the other woman through the bond, and knew that she had stayed close. Zarin slowed her horse down so that her Warder was parallel with herself.
"I did not want to speak of my plans where any could hear. The note I received..." Taking a deep breath, she continued. "I have been tracking the Black Ajah. They will have studied the Prophecies of the Dragon, trying to turn the Dragon Reborn."
Looking at her Warder, Zarin firmed herself. "Tovra, they know my plans. I have had to change everything that I was planning, because they know. I am certain. They do not send messages to every sister leaving saying, 'We know.' I do not know where to begin now. What do you suggest?"
xxxx
Tovra stilled her face, barely keeping her jaw closed as her thoughts raced. The Black Ajah... and they know her- our plans? She whistled aloud then. So they could not continue on where they had planned on going...
"What do you suggest?"
Tovra started, the request unexpected. She hadn't been asked her opinion on anything that was not her decision alone. Her mind raced, trying to think of something useful to say.
"Where would we have gone?" she asked her Aes Sedai tentatively. Perhaps they had told her they knew her plans purely so she would change them... that might mean they were on the right track!
xxxx
"I was planning on heading to Caemlyn." Another choice had been Cairhein. The Dragon Reborn seemed to have set up his forces at both places, but Caemlyn had won.
Zarin heeled her horse to a faster trot. It would be wonderful if the Talent of Traveling was rediscovered, so then she could be where ever before the Black Ajah knew of it. But, the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.
The library in Tar Valon was massive, but they had barely anything on the lost Talents. Zarin began thinking to herself about Tovra. Why had she left her people? She was powerful; certainly they valued her. Maybe she had run away?
'Why' was the question of the Age. So many questions. Zarin wasn't aware that she had murmured the last part out loud.
xxxx
Tovra tapped her chin, thinking. Caemlyn or Cairhein. The Dragon Reborn did seem to have forces at both locations... Tovra kicked her horse lightly as Zarin sped up their pace.
Zarin began murmuring to herself, and Tovra couldn't help but listen... the last words were spoken louder, and Tovra blinked at Zarin. Maybe she had run... had Zarin been speaking of her? A slight smile crept onto her face as she thought of what to tell her Aes Sedai.
"No, I didn't run away," she told Zarin sadly. "I was... how do you put it? Cast out." She settled back into her seat, her bright eyes taking on a glazed look as they remembered the past. "I was the Windfinder of the Leaping Gull," she said, fingering a medallion of the bird, surrounded by currents of air. "And I... stepped beyond my place." She looked down, staring at the pommel of the saddle.
"No! Please!" Tovra's screams echoed across the harbor, the people from the Shore looking quickly, then looking away just as fast. Sea Folk were not their business. Tovra looked helplessly at her friends, who encircled her, one by one, pleading silently for them to help her. One by one, they looked away, showing their palms to her and hiding their eyes with their other hand. The gesture of disownment.
"No!" cried Tovra, lying on the deck at the feet of her Wavemistress, and the Mistress of Ships. They looked down at her with pitiless eyes, cold and hard. They would grant her no mercy. The Mistress of Ships began to speak.
"Tovra din Akarn Black Sails, former Windfinder of the Leaping Gull," she began, causing Tovra to wince. "You have assaulted a Wavemistress," she stated, the indicated woman raising her chin in acknowledgement. "For this, you are cast from our clans." Tovra began to sob. I only slapped her with the Power, Tovra thought, hopelessly trying to make excuses to herself. The Wavemistress of the Leaping Gull, for all her dignity, sported a dark black eye, and a bright red bruise on her cheek. The woman called me an urchin! she thought fervently.
"You are to never come back," she continued, the iron hand of justice. Placing a strong hand under Tovra's chin, she hauled her to her feet. Holding Tovra's chin with one hand, she unhooked Tovra's face chain at both ends, dropping it into one hand. She clasped that hand at her side, looking into Tovra's eyes.
"I no longer know you," she spoke woodenly, and threw the chain overboard, releasing Tovra. Tovra ran to the side of the ship, diving overboard without hesitation. She mustn't loose that chain. She dove after it, seeing it glint as it sunk to the bottom of the deep harbor. Far below the surface, she caught it, then rocketed to the air. Swimming strongly to shore, she climbed, gazing longingly back at her ship. Attaching her chain again, she channeled to dry her clothes, and began walking, determined to begin her life anew.
Tovra shook her head, clearing the dusty cobwebs of the past from her head as quickly as they had been re-spun.
"After I... left... I began again," she said emotionlessly, almost as if she wasn't speaking of herself. "I worked as a Healer, a hired hand... a thief..."
She looked into Zarin's eyes. "Then I came here."
xxxx
Zarin blinked and looked at Tovra. She was ready to say that she hadn't spoken when Tovra did. "I was... how do you put it? Cast out." Zarin felt sadness sweep through the bond, then it was gone.
Zarin listened to Tovra's quiet explanation. Overstepped her place? Zarin thought of how that would be possible. Zarin looked down at her horse's neck. It hadn't been her place to ask if it brought bad memories.
"After I... left... I began again. I worked as a Healer, a hired hand... a thief..." Zarin looked up and found herself meeting Tovra's eyes. "Then I came here."
Zarin nodded, before asking, "How did you find yourself in the Library?" The Library of Tar Valon was well known, but hardly anyone came down there except for a few Browns. If she had been directed down there for a certain reason, that was a different matter. She might have been doing research.
But there was always the chance that a Black sister had asked her to retrieve a bundle of papers, of something like that. Zarin refused to believe her Warder was a Darkfriend, but the Black Ajah could still have tried to use her...
xxxx
"How did you find yourself in the Library?"
Tovra blinked at the question, confused again. What did that have to do with anything? Aes Sedai truly are strange, she thought with a mental shrug. She laced her fingers together, the reins hanging lightly from her crossed hands. Patting her steed's neck absently, she replied.
"The library?" she said aloud. She shrugged again, rolling her shoulders. "I don't really know. Since I started wandering, I've just been searching for something to do. I heard in Tarabon that the White Tower had the largest libraries anywhere..." A lopsided grin appeared on her face. "And I wanted to know some of my people's..." she cleared her throat, cheeks burning. "...the Atha'an Miere's history."
"I never really listened to all the old legends," she said, tilting her head, then shaking it slightly. "It didn't really matter anyway," she said apologetically. "It was just something to pass the time." She relaxed into her seat again, relieved that they had drifted away from the question asked of her.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Zarin let her horse walk into the city of Cairhien. She looked around, mainly at the people. One thing caught her eye, though. The Dragon banner on the Sun Palace. She had grown up here, and it was odd seeing a banner other than the rising sun above the Palace.
The journey had been long, but she had never expected it to be differently. The people looked at them when they rode through and associated the ageless face with Aes Sedai, but they probably would never connect Zarin Sedai with Zarin Amarith, the innkeeper's daughter that left so long ago. Most likely, the only ones that would even know her name either were dead, or had a headful of white hair, while she wasn't even starting to gray yet.
"I was thinking, Tovra, that we would stay at an inn. I hear that the Dragon started a university of sorts. Would you like to see that?" Zarin herself would. The rumors of what was there had made her wish she was there since the first time she heard it.
xxxx
Tovra looked warily around, her colour-shifting cloak swirling around her in the cool breeze. The Dragon's Banner flapped above the Sun Palace, enough to make any Warder- anyone at all, for that matter- wary. People looked at Zarin's face and scurried away, or did not recognize it- the ones that did not were few. Under her cloak, a hand rested on her sword- she didn't dare advertise she was a Channeling Gaidar, not here, but neither should they be unprotected. Was it not here that duel were often fought?
She focused on her Aes Sedai as she spoke. "I was thinking, Tovra, that we would stay at an inn. I hear that the Dragon started a university of sorts. Would you like to see that?" She turned her head, looking at Zarin, a slight smile quirking up the corner of her mouth. Well, she was a Brown, even if she usually did not act like one...
"Of course, Zarin Sedai," she said calmly, adding the title for the public's sake. Aes Sedai were always to be shown respect where others could watch. "That would be... interesting..." She shared a small look with Zarin, then turned her horse to the street she had heard the 'university' was on, one hand still on her sword, head swiveling to watch the crowd.
xxxx
Zarin's horse automatically followed Tovra's down the street to where the academy was. Blinking, Zarin looked around as she lost her train of thought. Once she recognized where they were, Zarin heeled her horse into a trot.
Up ahead, Zarin could see the academy rizing above the other buildings. A woman met them at the door with a curtsy. "Aes Sedai, I welcome you to the academy of the Lord Dragon." Zarin nodded to the woman as she swung off her horse. "Tovra and myself would like to look around, if that is alright by you." The woman's eyes flickered to Tovra, then back. "Of course, Aes Sedai."
Zarin walked into the academy and looked at several of the things on display. Fingering some of the items, she moved on. Absentmindedly, she thought to herself, I wonder if they have any interesting books. "Fascinating, isn't it, Tovra?"
xxxx
Tovra inclined her head politely to the woman who came out the ornate building, dismounting calmly. There's no reason to be nervous, she told herself sternly. It's not like the Dragon Reborn himself will come swooping down on us... She strode briskly towards Zarin as her Aes Sedai told the woman they wanted to look around, stopping just behind her right shoulder. The woman smoothly nodded her assent, and they moved inside.
Zarin was immediately drawn to the mysterious things on display, her streak of Brown showing. Tovra could not even begin to guess the purpose of the items, or indeed if they had one.
"Fascinating, isn't it, Tovra?" Zarin asked, startling Tovra from her close examination of a miniature sword, perfect in every detail. I'd wager that even the balance is perfect, she thought, turning to face her.
"Yes, very," she said, still eyeing the sword. "I wonder where they got it all?"
xxxx
Zarin walked through the academy of Cairhein, looking at all the different items that they had on display. Only part of her mind was on what she was studying. Cairhein was most definately under this Lord Dragon's rule.
She had heard that he was very cautious about Aes Sedai. Zarin didn't want to be anywhere near here when he found out there was another Aes Sedai in the city. But how to leave quick enough not to draw attention? That was the real problem.
If these Asha'man had found the lost art of Traveling, would they let an Aes Sedai learn them? Zarin smiled to herself. It was highly unlikely that her Warder would allow her to walk right into a pit of Asha'man that could kill the both of them without batting an eye.
But, since they were here in Cairhein, why not enjoy the stay? At least, until the Dragon Reborn came back. Finding a nice inn would be easy, but Zarin would feel uncomfortable staying in her parent's old inn. "Tovra, do you know of a nice inn here in the city?" Zarin asked, turning to look at her Warder.
xxxx
Tovra stuck close to Zarin as she wandered through the academy, considering the items with half a mind. Her shifting cloak still lay draped over her form, though she didn't have to wear it here. It was good to remind people though, that a Warder lay in their mist. And all that entailed. I'm lucky I haven't had to live up to that reputation yet, she thought wryly.
She realized she was glaring, however, when a serving girl squeaked, jumping away mumbling excuses when Tovra's gaze fell upon her. Stop it, fool girl, she growled at herself, lightening her face so thunderheads didn't dance upon it.
"...do you know of a nice inn here in the city?" Zarin asked suddenly, turning to face her. Tovra bit her lip for a second, thinking. She had been in this city before, working as a wealthy merchant's guard. They had stayed at a nice, respectable inn, known for it's reputable customers. A few Aes Sedai stayed there, but not many; enough that they wouldn't be remarkable.
"Yes," she replied slowly. "The Smoking Grotto, I believe, is quite a nice one. On Ogier lane, I believe."