A/N- You have my best friend to thank for this chapter. She has chained me to my computer desk and told me...(Mira cannot talk due to wincing)And I'm too say I am HUGELY sorry for the songfic chapter...And now on to the most eagerly anticipated thing in six months...an update. Update, I have no idea what I may include, so some spoilers may be here...some may not. And this chapter may be a tad bit short because it's been so long since I last touched this story.

Disclaimer- Mira Hopesbane went to Randland and all she got was a set of crumby books. The books were made of bread and shed crumbs, therefore they were crumby. She DOES NOT own Wheel of Time or anything relating to the series. Robert Jordan owns that and RAFO.


The calm early morning was jarred by a certain Brown screaming, "Why not, Elwiony! Why?"

Cool green eyes met angry ones. "I want my Warder to be my choice. I do not want some Whitecloak," she twisted the word to add sarcasm and skepticism, "handed to me by achild barely out of her cradle."

Sopika's anger flared, "So you seek to unleash this madman unto the world?"

"Did you," proposed the green-eyed, red-haired girl, "even consider his willingness to be bonded?"

"No."

"Then that is my answer."

Sopika swore under her breath as brown-clad Elwiony walked away. Voran, stoiclly sitting in a nearby chair turned, concered slightly about the deep wells of frustation the bond showed.Verin was next on the list, and it would be even more difficult. Verin already had a Warder. Sopika buried her face in her hands, hoping that Elwiony would reconsider. Mino himself was working with...oh, who was he working with? It was a craftsman, but the knowledge avioded her.

"Sopika," Voran's soft rumble seemed to be a salve for her ears when contrasted with the screeches that went before, "do try to help. Cannot you bond him?"

The Aes Sedai blushed, mumbling, "Yes. Yes, I could."

"Then why won't you?"

Silence stretched over the ground, wrapping it in fear of what the answer would be when it came. A bird cheeped in playfulness. "I do not know. You would not...approve. And it is against custom."

"That has never held you back before. Why now?"

"It won't!" Her renewed, strong and fertile in its response. "It won't!"

"Then do not mind the idle chatter that the world will give, my love."

Blush was again the color of Sopika's face and she set out, for several things to be resolved before thisman could be bonded. Pedron Niall would not know what had happened.