#there IS a reason Egwene doesn't realize it's a dream but spoilers for the books

[halcyon-autumn]

More concept writing for Dragon!Egwene au, where Rand and Egwene are twins and not romantically involved. This bit mirrors the scene in the show where Ishamael screws with Rand on the way to the blight. It goes a bit differently with Egwene as the Dragon.

Egwene awoke sharply, blinking to reorient herself. She had been dreaming - had she been dreaming? Something felt odd.

“What did you see?” Moiraine asked, all her Aes Sedai intensity once again solely focused on Egwene. “Dreams have great meaning, especially so close to the Dark One’s prison.” Moraine stepped forward, then arched backwards suddenly, a breathless scream fighting to leave her mouth. Something long and silver protruded from her jaw. A sword.

“No!” Egwene screamed, leaping to her feet. The silver blade retreated, but Moiraine was already dead, her bright eyes dull and pale skin already the color of the Blight’s blasted gray trees. She collapsed in a heap on the ground to reveal the Dark One, eyes aflame, mouth open in that eternal fiery scream.

He wanted her afraid, and she was, but being afraid did not stop her from also being furious. She grabbed Tam's knife and flung herself at the Father of Lies, blade out, and plunged it into his chest as hard as she could.

The Dark One didn’t react. She scrambled backwards, only now remembering that she could channel, that she was the Dragon Reborn and the Creator probably hadn’t put her on the earth to try to stab the Dark One in the face. She grabbed for the Source the way that she remembered Lews Therin grabbing for it in her dreams, but nothing came to her. Drift, she ordered herself as Ba’alzamon reached up and pressed the knife into his body. Drift!

The knife vanished. It was a man looking down at her now - a tall man, attractive, with a well-trimmed beard and a clothing style that she didn’t recognize but tugged on her memory nonetheless. She should recognize it, she almost did, but -

“Much easier to talk this way,” he said, and tilted his head. “You don’t look like him much - perhaps something in the eyes. Strange, how time changes us all.” And then the Dark One, the Father of Lies, reached out and tenderly ran his thumb along her jawbone to the soft skin under her chin.

She slapped his hand away as hard as she could. He didn’t seem bothered; she had a sense that he’d let her hit him. “Oh, sit down,” he said, as if she were a rambunctious child. “We’re finally having a conversation again. This is the best you could muster?” he glanced down at the corpse between the two of them. “One Aes Seda? You came with 99 companions last time, all of them more powerful than her. This - this is sad. You should have least brought the other channelers with you.”

“Shut up,” Egwene said. Drift. “I know that you’re trying to make me doubt myself.” DRIFT! 

“I’m doing you a favor, Lews. Old instincts run deep, I suppose. You’d have gotten so much further with a shred of humility - oh look at that, you’ve managed to embrace the Source. ”

It felt so good to hold the One Power again. Egwene turned on the Dark One, hands raised “I’m going to kill you,” she said, starting the painfully slow process of weaving the same fire she’d used against Eamon Valda. She had to be faster. She couldn't image that her fire would be enough, but the prophecies wouldn't exist if she didn't have a chance of winning. And besides, she had to do something.

“She’s barely taught you anything, has she?” The Dark One said. “Those women are going to use you; they’re not capable of anything else. Aes Sedai betrayed you before, and they’ll betray you again. Don’t you remember?”

Egwene unleashed her weave. She swore it was aimed right at the Dark One’s heart, but it seemed to twist in midair to land on the gnarled husk of a tree behind him. A tree which, when set alight, burst into flame like dried grass.

The Dark One’s eyebrows rose, and Egwene had the singular experience of seeing what the Father of Lies looked like when he was amused. “Stubborn as always Lews, now without the firepower to back it up. You tried, I supposed. That’s nice.”

The fire spread, tree to tree. Egwene tried to channel water, but couldn’t make more than a thimbleful. The Dark One watched, head still tilted. “You don’t have to go through this, you know.” The fire had ringed around the two of them and was pressing in, closer and closer. “Would that farmer want this? Tam al”Thor? Or your brother?”

“They both would want me to kill you,” Egwene said, and tackled him. If she was going to burn, so was he. She could have sworn that she felt her arms connect, but then the Dark One was two feet to the left of where he’d been and she was flying past him, crashing into the fiery roots and branches of the now burning Blight. Smoke burned her eyes and fire raced greedily up her clothing. She clamped her jaw shut to keep from screaming as the Power vanished.

The last thing she saw before the flames took her was the Dark One sitting down on a tree stump with an exasperated sigh to watch her burn.

--

Egwene gasped awake, eyes burning, skin still too hot. She smacked at fire that was no longer there and tried to cough smoke that didn’t exist from her lungs.

“What? Moirained asked “What did you dream? Dreams have great meaning -”

“The Dark One knows we’re coming,” Egwene said. “Of course it was a dream - I’m so stupid. I should have realized.”

“What did he say?” Moiraine asked, closing the distance. “What happened?”

The muscles in Egwene’s jaw tensed. “Nothing he said is important. All that matters is that I found out that trying to set him on fire won’t work.” She stalked forward, deeper into the Blight. “Let’s go.”

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 42: Remembrance of Dreams

Rest easy, child. Moiraine is keeping you safe from the spoilers. This post is filled with spoilers for the whole of The Wheel of Time series and I am trying to get them stabbed into you, but you can avoid your fate! Just block the tags! Leave this post! Read the damn books or whatever! And don't blame me if you see spoilers from here on out.

This chapter's icon is the ravens, a way of representing the Shadow that the gang is desperately trying to find a way to escape. Luckily, there's nothing really going on to threaten them in this chapter.

He took five steps into the library before he realized that everyone else had stopped, crowded together in the doorway, openmouthed and goggling. A brisk blaze crackled in the fireplace, and Loial was sprawled on the long couch, reading, a small black cat with white feet curled and half asleep on his stomach. When they entered he closed the book with a huge finger marking his place and gently set the cat on the floor, then stood to bow formally.

Aww, Loial snuggles with kitties too. This book doesn't have enough kitty snuggles, there should have been one in literally every chapter.

(Also it's cute that Rand forgets how unusual Ogiers are from everyone else's perspective because he's just that buddy-buddy with Loial already. Rand's a good friend.)

Loial liked to talk, and talk at length when he had the slightest chance, though he usually seemed to think a story needed two or three hundred years of background to make it understood. His sense of time was very strange; to him three hundred years seemed a reasonable length of time for a story or explanation to cover.

To an Ogier, this is only providing a decade or so of context, which isn't anywhere near as much.

“You always were crazy,” Perrin said, and for a moment he, too, sounded as of old. “No,” Nynaeve said. Tears made her eyes bright, but she was smiling. “None of us blames you.”

Dammit people, more hugs! Hug Mat! Hug Moiraine! Hug Loial especially and then tell me how fluffy it was.

“Yes,” Moiraine said quietly, “he still has the dagger.” The laughter and talk was still going on among the rest of the Emond’s Field folk, but she had noticed his sudden intake of breath and had seen what had caused it. She moved closer to his chair, where she did not have to raise her voice for him to hear clearly.

Rand again shows he's the overall cleverest of the group in that he notices what's up right away, and Moiraine briefly flirts with being the kind of assistant to Rand that she should be by telling him the facts straight out. See how well you two get along in this conversation, Moiraine? All of your conversations could have been like that!

Rand made a sound, and Moiraine raised an eyebrow at him. “I thought they were looking for Mat and me,” he said.

Rand's reacting to Moiraine's infodumping, which again shows just how great a team they are when Moiraine is providing all the facts instead of trying to manipulate them! This sequence is really good in the trust she offers to everyone and it's a shame she reverts to her old habits again by the second book. I blame Siuan showing up, it made her feel young again.

“That’s what I always say,” Mat said blandly, though he was suddenly grinning hard, and Egwene asked in a decidedly neutral voice, “Who’s Elayne?”

Egwene, you spent several weeks dancing with the hottest boy you could find. You don't get to be pissy about Rand interacting with another girl. It's just annoyingly hypocritical and we are leaving the part of the book where romantic misunderstandings are fun.

I met some Tuatha’an a few years back, and they wanted to learn the songs we sing to trees. Actually, the trees won’t listen to very many anymore, and so not many Ogier learn the songs. I have a scrap of that Talent, so Elder Arent insisted I learn. I taught the Tuatha’an what they could learn, but the trees never listen to humans. For the Traveling People they were only songs, and just as well received for that, since none was the song they seek.

Please internalize this, WoT fandom. The Tuatha'an aren't stupid, they're well aware of the Ogier songs, and the Ogier songs aren't what they're looking for. No song is actually what they're looking for, but the Ogier songs can't even be sung properly by people so there's no match here at all.

“That’s what the Tinkers told us,” Perrin said. “Yes,” Egwene said, “the Aiel story.” Moiraine turned her head slowly. No other part of her moved. “What story?”

See what it feels like when people won't communicate useful information, Moiraine?

(Also I am 90% certain that it was only the Three Oaths that kept Perrin and Egwene alive through this exchange, and also Mat and Rand once the dream info comes out.)

Had I known after the first such, I might have been able to. . . . There has not been a Dreamwalker in Tar Valon for nearly a thousand years, but I could have tried.

I'm pretty sure that the real reason the boys don't tell Moiraien, Pattern-wise, is that she would have worn herself out trying to help. She sadly cannot.

He can still send Halfmen against you, and Trollocs, and Draghkar, and other things, but he cannot make you his unless you let him.

I'm mostly quoting this bit to show that Moiraine and Lan are in definite philosophical disagreement here. She's way more hopeful about the task at hand than he is, though these Two Rivers folk are probably making her less optimistic by the millisecond.

Out of the mass of humanity, the Dark One can touch an individual only by chance, unless that person seeks it. But for a time, at least, you three are central to the Pattern.

Also of course, the boys aren't being touched by the Dark One. They're instead being influenced by Ishamael, who is now free enough to do whatever he pleases.

“The Father of Lies is a good name for the Dark One,” Moiraine replied. “It was always his way to seed the worm of doubt wherever he could. It eats at men’s minds like a canker. When you believe the Father of Lies, it is the first step toward surrender. Remember, if you surrender to the Dark One, he will make you his.”

And this is the part where Moiraine loses the trust again. She could have told Rand the truth, but she sidesteps so blatantly instead that he has no choice but to distrust her.

“The Pattern presents a crisis, and at the same time a way to surmount it. If I did not know it was impossible, I could almost believe the Creator is taking a hand. There is a way.”

I wonder if Robert Jordan read much of Asimov's Foundation. In those stories, a man had deduced a way to predict the future in broad strokes and had established the titular Foundation to avert the 30,000 years of barbarism he foresaw. As the project would still take a thousand years, he left behind recordings identifying various turning points and leaving hints for the Foundation's members to use to swing events the proper way - they were referred to in-universe as "Seldon crises".

Much like Wheel of Time, Asimov died with this story unfinished and had later authors revisit the series, though sadly they only did a prequel trilogy instead of resolving the cliffhanger of the final chronological novel. It also is getting adapted these days and attracting a lot of alt-right rage for having women and people of color in the cast instead of the series of interchangeable white dudes - and hopefully Amazon's Wheel adaptation will continue the parallels by having a much stronger second season after a shakier first one.

Anyway I dunno why this notion struck me here, it's just something about the way Moiraine said it. Fun fact: the Creator can intervene and we'll be seeing that before the book ends, though he won't be doing much useful.

“No!” Loial said, an emphatic rumble like thunder. Everyone turned to look at him and he blinked under the attention, but there was nothing hesitant about his words. “If we enter the Ways, we will all die—or be swallowed by the Shadow.”

Oh yeah, this is probably another thing that the chapter icon was referencing. But we'll see more about that soon. Next chapter: more bad dreams!