YEAR 982 NE(New Era)

"On the slopes of Dragonmount shall he be born,
born of a maiden wedded to no man.
He will be of the ancient blood, and raised by the old blood. ", Moiraine reread this prophecy for perhaps the thousandth time.

It has been three years since the end of Aiel War, since the Dragon has been reborn, and since Moiraine has started her search for him. Three years of search with nothing to show for it, the names of new mothers on her list keeps dwindling yet there is no sign of the one she is looking for. While the search didn't bear any fruit, at least her studies did. A little.

Being born on slopes of Dragonmount is straight forward enough, then being born of a maiden may seen contradictory, but the next line shed some light on the conundrum ' He will be of Ancient Blood, and raised by Old Blood', meaning of ' Old Blood ' is easy enough to understand, there are some broken, forgotten and remnant communities who can trace their ancestry to the Ten Nations, isolated from the larger world and fading from peoples memories, Moiraine has come into contact with such communities in her search, villages world forgot in the back end of nowhere, in such places she encountered more women who were born with spark to channel than anywhere else and encouraged them on their way to Tar Valon as she was leaving. But the phrase ' Ancient Blood ', that implies something else, something older than Old Blood, and finally Moiraine has final piece of that puzzle.

There are only two peoples in the known World that kept same identity since Breaking of the World till now, the Atha'an Miere and the Aiel, yet Moiraine found from surviving scrap of a book reputedly from the Age of Legends mentioning Aiel, it has little context and yet it implied Aiel is a distinct enthic group. While Seafolk are a distinct ethnic group in the present day, sharing distinctive common features and a culture, Moiraines research into Seafolk categorically implied that modern day Seafolk are descendants of many different peoples who fled to seas while Breaking of the World occurred. That leaves Aiel as the only ethnic group to have survived the Breaking from Age of Legends intact. So Aiel are the Ancient Blood, and The Dragon Reborn is of the Ancient Blood, born of a 'Maiden wedded to no man'.

While conversing with him a while ago, Lan gave a tidbit of information that Moiraine dismissed at the time, women warriors of Aiel are called Far Dareis Mai, meaning Maidens of the Spear and they are apparently married to their Spears. Moiraines Warder is a surprising font of information about Aiel, she will have to pump him for more information later. But what he provided is enough for now.

So deciphering the prophecy, The Dragon will be reborn on the slopes of Dragonmount, born from womb of a Maiden of the Spear,be of the blood of Aiel whose blood is Ancient and raised by the Old Blood, who are direct descendants of the Ten Nations that were destroyed during Trolloc Wars.

That leaves entire Westlands for Moiraine to search, and that would not do. Moiraine needs a better direction for her search, the names on her list are slowly dwindling, yet there is no guarantee that the one name she needs is even on the list, Moiraines search may go on until Tarmon Gai'don is at her doorstep. She needs to find the Dragon Reborn before that, much much before that. Moiraine needs to take a chance and hope that Pattern guides her, there is one place, one nation among Ten Nations of Second Covenant, that tugged at Moiraine. Manetheren, which became known as a thorn to Dark One's foot and a bramble to his hand before it was destroyed. Moiraine decided, she will look for Dragon Reborn in the forgotten remnants of Manetheren.