A/N: Sorry it's been so long since my last update – I am still here. More love to the Grammarian for keeping me writing and beta-ing my story for me! Here it is: chapter 6.

I found myself going out of my way to watch the strangers that evening and the next morning. I didn't exactly hunt them everywhere, but I watched Mat eating in the common room, and Swordsman talking

to Blacksmith out in the inn-yard. I was curious about all of them. They were fascinating to me. Why were they traveling with an Aes Sedai? Why were there so many viewings about them? I had so many questions that I had hoped might be answered simply by watching the strangers, but to no avail. I was left wondering about the mysteries surrounding them: the viewings, and the Aes Sedai.

The morning after the newcomers arrived, I finally grew tired of simply spying on them. I decided that they would eventually go into Baerlon. After all, being from the country, they had probably never seen a "city" as "big" as Baerlon before. By waiting casually in the courtyard, I hoped to catch one of them on their way out of the inn, into the city.

Fortunately enough – or perhaps unfortunately – soon I saw the Swordsman slipping out the door of the inn. I felt a small thrill as he walked into the yard, toying with his belt. The viewings were still there, flickering around him so quickly that they made me dizzy. He noticed me and started slightly, as tense as the Aes Sedai's Warder.

It was my turn to start as a viewing stood out clearly from the customary jumble of images that usually hung over his shoulders. I saw three women's faces, looking over his shoulder. He would love them, and they him, the viewing was telling me. I was shocked not so much by the fact that these women would all love him, but by the fact that one of those faces behind his shoulder was terribly familiar: my own face.

I felt my heart skip a few beats as I recognized my hair, my nose, my face staring right back at me. I hardly even noticed the two other faces, except to notice that one of them had long, red-gold hair and another had a temper. Then I felt my heart skip a few more beats as I realized that, even as little as I knew him, I would not really mind falling in love with this tall, red-headed shepherd from the Two Rivers.

I tried to keep my face still, but I twitched with a sudden desire to run. Light! I would not become one of those women that threw their brains at men's feet for 'true love.' Burn me; I would not love a wool-headed shepherd from some obscure farming village! Would not! The inevitability of my viewings closed in on me. I had no choice. I could not run away from him. I would fall in love with this man, whether I wanted to or not.

I felt suddenly cold with dread. This was worse than an arranged marriage. I didn't even know him! What was his name? Could he use that sword he wore? I shook my head to clear it, shivering suddenly.

But he was approaching now, his pale gray eyes watching me warily. I had never seen eyes like that on any Two Rivers man – the few that ventured up to Baerlon, at any rate. I was fighting my conflicting urges to speak to him, or run away from him.Light, but I was a fool. Or acting like one, at any rate. Now, at last, I understood the plight of the people whose viewings I saw . I fully understood the agony of knowing and being able to do nothing. Knowing did nothing if you could not change the future once it was set.

"Good morning," I said mildly, as a beginning to a conversation. I might as well begin to get to know this man, even if just looking at him made me feel dizzy.

He gave my boy's clothes a quick glance, quicker than some, but still slower than most. Women from his country village probably still wore dresses up to their necks and skirts to their feet. Light-forsaken prudes. I raised an eyebrow, daring him to comment. He said nothing, and went up a couple points in my estimation of him. But still said nothing, and went right back down again. Burn him, was he one of those men that never talked, or found women as interesting as a block of wood? I hadn't gotten myself mixed up with one of those, had I? Not that it would make a difference in my future. I still had to marry him. I very nearly swore and only barely managed to stop myself. I had to appear a lady in front of the man I was engaged to, even if he didn't know of this yet. Faugh! I very nearly spat. Burn this man for making me do this!

I attempted not to twist my mouth in distaste and decided to get right to the point. "My name is Min Farshaw. You?"

"Rand al'Thor," he said simply. This wool-headed fellow was certainly a man of few words.

I tried to remain casual as I came to the actual point of our conversation. "So what's a country boy doing in Baerlon? With an Aes Sedai, no less." He looked around wildly, like a cornered cat searching for an escape route. and "Don't say that," he hissed.

"Why? Nobody's close enough to listen," I said, plucking a piece of grass from between the flagstones and twirling it between my fingers. "And you're avoiding the question."

"Does everybody know?" he said, in a despairing moan. "How do you know?"

I scrambled for an answer and was able to come up with an excuse. "I've seen…others like her…before." It was not entirely untrue. "And, no, nobody has any idea except me. They're all to busy worshipping the ground that "Mistress Alys" walks on." He started at the dry tone in my voice. Maybe he had never seen someone criticize an Aes Sedai. No doubt when she had walked into his village, all those wool-headed, flea-bitten country boys and girls fell flat on their faces.

I realized that he was speaking, and to my embarrassment had not heard what he had said. "Excuse me," I said, feeling my cheeks heat with mortification. "I didn't catch that."

"Why does she want to talk to you, anyway?" he said, sounding a bit petulant. A city girl, working at an inn, was likely beneath those Aes Sedai "goddesses" he worshipped. I realized how nasty I was being. I had never been this…sharp tongued. The man was tangling my brains already.

"I can see things, sometimes," I heard myself saying, distantly. It was almost as though they weren't even my own words. "Pieces of the Pattern. The Aes Sedai calls it Seeing the Pattern, but I think that's too fancy for it, myself. They're just…viewings." I felt shocked at what I had just said. Since Aunt Rana warned me to keep my abnormality a secret, I had only told two people of the viewings: the Aes Sedai and now this young man, Rand al'Thor. I avoided meeting his eyes. The viewings had suddenly increased, making me dizzy, until I thought I would sick up if I looked at them too long.

"What do you see around me?" he said.

"Oh…things. Around you, and your companions. All sorts of viewings. In fact, you have the most images of any group I've ever seen. Around you, I see…a hand pouring water on sand. I see lightning about you. You on a black bier with three women standing around it. More. Around the others…" Dully, I repeated the viewings I could remember. Now that I had begun, I saw no reason not to spill all. After all, 'it never rains but it pours,' as Master Fitch always said when there was trouble in town. I remembered one last as I recounted them and added it at the end. "You're all connected, too. You, the Aes Sedai, the girl, Mat, and…" I was tempted to just call him Blacksmith, but settled on the more informal version of the name I had given him. "…the blacksmith." He looked at me, seeming uncomfortable. I smiled slightly, and he shifted.

"I had better go," he said after a short pause. "I'm going to go look around Baerlon."

I quirked a small smile, but he was already walking away, his step quick and slightly nervous. Why on earth was he so frightened? Had my glances been a bit too intense, perhaps? I shrugged it off. I was not going to change for a man. A small bit of mischief tickled my brain, and I could not resist. I called after him, "You can run as far as you want, but it won't make a difference. You won't get away from me."

He almost broke into a run before he disappeared, and then I was able to release a burst of laughter. But I wondered, idly, what he was fleeing that made a country lout so terrified of just a girl. A few years older, perhaps, but not a Darkfriend, or something to make people scream and run. Light, was he running from Darkfriends? My laughter faded. What kind of man had I gotten myself mixed up with? Burn me, what in the Light had I gotten myself into?