Make sure to read part 9 here first!
Chapter 19 – Pond Water
Ah yes. I keep forgetting she is near the Blight and that there are monsters and stuff and so for her to be riding out alone in the night is quite dangerous I’d imagine.
Ohh! I am pretty sure she has spotted Lan and his companions leaving the city too, and she is following behind them. Not that she knows any of the significance, although she does suspect they are Malkieri due to the hadori. Is this where they merge or do they go different ways eventually?
Will Lan end up being Moiraine’s Warder? You’d think not and I highly doubt Lan would accept that – but then again maybe something eventually changes his mind? I think if it did happen it would be a long while from now.
So she seems to be tailing them at the moment as apparently the Arafellin, which I believe is Lan’s friend but I have forgot his name for now, had spoken to a sister and Moiraine I think wants to try and get more information about Cadsuane from them if possible. But this is Lan and Bukama too we speak of here… I am pretty sure they know she is tailing them.
Eventually Lan – pretty sure it is Lan – splits off from his companions and goes to set up a camp. He easily deals with Moiraine’s attempt at sneaking up on him by… tossing her into a pond after she attempted to sneakily take his sword away. Can’t say I didn’t see that one coming.
Moiraine should be careful not to be so overconfident of herself. Lan clearly made no attempt to cover his tracks, I reckon he could easily have done so if he had wanted to. Pretty sure he was baiting her into a false sense of security.
But after that he helps her out the pond and gives her towels and that to dry off and a fire, being quite courteous to her – although we know he distrusts Aes Sedai I guess he is just playing smart, or maybe he does not know she is one although I suspect he might.
His other companions soon return. There is not much talking really, Moiraine is just trying to learn as much as possible by observing them – and then eventually asks for their protection to Chachin while putting a silver coin to each. Interesting!
It seems Lan didn’t know she was Aes Sedai but he soon found out after making an off-hand comment that offended Moiraine, which led to her using her power to drench him in water and reveal herself to be an Aes Sedai. Lan seems to be a lot more respectful from that point. Also Moiraine seems to like Ryne (the book allowed me to recall his name), as in possibly fancy him. They are all being quite indirect with each other though, not a lot of talking between Moiraine and the others.
Chapter 20: Breakfast at Manala
Nice, we are getting Lan’s perspective now. It seems Moiraine has not revealed her true name – still disguising herself as the Lady Alys. But they do know she is Aes Sedai now of course. Lan also seemed to notice that she was awake each time he was, merely from listening to breathing – or at least he believes she was awake each time anyway – well, he was right.
I didn’t mention in the last one but that ability to wake up when anyone else does is actually quite neat.
Lan also clearly doubts Lady Alys is her real name but he also doubts she is Aes Sedai (oh okay) – of course she had the Power but that does not mean she is one. Of course, she is though, just a very recent one so she does not yet have the ‘ageless’ look. And also Lan thinks she is childish, which seems to be his main reason to not believe she is Aes Sedai.
It is good Lan is being cautious. He certainly does not underestimate her because she is a woman. He thinks possibly that perhaps Edeyn had sent ‘Alys’ maybe to keep an eye on them and possibly even kill them – this was suggested by Bukama in a way that didn’t outright say Edeyn, but Lan got the gist. Of course, we know they are wrong on this point.
Of course when Moiraine had asked for protection from them by giving coin Bukama had accepted – cause tradition and all – but Lan had not but due to Bakama accepting to protect her he was stuck with her anyway. Bukama is actually quite disapointed in Lan for not pledging his protection, but that’s no surprise. He is very tradition-oriented as we know.
Now of course Lan is being careful just in case she is actually Aes Sedai – he distrusts them a lot and so does not want any kind of attachment to them – and he is also quite fearful that if she is Aes Sedai she may seek a Warder, possibly him. But I do wonder myself now with this little relationship possibly growing between Moiraine and Ryne, I feel like maybe Ryne might end up becoming Moiraine’s Warder? Just maybe.
Apparently Ryne has some bad luck and close calls with Carhienin people though, in his relationships in the past. So this is also playing into Lan’s head that Ryne and ‘Alys’ is probably a bad combination, especially if she is Aes Sedai.
Manala seems an interesting settlement. Also close enough to the Blight to face Trolloc raids and other stuff. They have a festival going on which is cool and they have some Trolloc heads up on sticks – damn! ‘Alys’ sees them and it comes out she had thought them herself – to the confusion of Lan and the others since she is from the South where there are no Trollocs, of course though she had a method of getting there in a way.
I think Lan is slowly starting to believe more and more she is Aes Sedai.
‘Alys’ also seems to be commanding them about to Lan’s annoyance – but not much he can do as Bukama and Ryne seem to give over to her currently – I guess Bukama does it due to his honor in agreeing to protect her and Ryne does because well he is in love clearly. So Lan is kind of just getting overruled here. Lan wants to keep riding rather than stopping, but ‘Alys’ wants to stop! I like the part where the Innkeeper refers to her companions as ‘retainers’, I’m not sure how much more of this offense Lan can take, Bukama also did not like it but kept silent.
Ryne is at the same time afraid of Moiraine if she does turn out to be Aes Sedai – same for Bukama really, or all of them. But Lan is convinced now it seems she is a wilder put on them by Edeyn, although again he does not actually say her name I guess out of respect. Moiraine in the mean time while they are secretly speaking about her managed to sneak off without any of them noticing, which as we know is not easy since Lan and Bukama in particular usually notice many things.
So ‘Alys’ is still doing the ‘boychild’ hunt amoungst all this and Lan overhears one of the names when he found where she was and listened in, though now it was ‘Alys” turn to surprise Lan – well again actually – by letting him know she knew he was there eavesdropping – this I think made Lan believe for a moment she was Aes Sedai and he entertained the notion she may take Ryne as a Warder – so maybe I am on to something! – but then he backed down on her being Aes Sedai again as he did not feel intimidated enough by her presence – but again I think he simply just does not realise how recent of an Aes Sedai she is.
Chapter 21: Some Tricks of the Power
So, they are heading on their way to Chachin now and at some point they come across a large group of bandits on horses. They are clearly outnumbered but I reckon of course that Moiraine’s powers here are going to give them the upper hand if it does end up coming to fighting. But maybe there will be some skillful words instead.
Alright, so Moiraine did use her powers to even things out but then Lan used this to his advantage to scare the bandits away which Moiraine was annoyed about. I am finding Moiraine to be a bit annoying at the moment myself… not going to lie. She is not being reasonable. They were vastly outnumbered and this was the best outcome. Again, Moiraine needs to be careful to not let her overconfidence get the better of her. Also she needs to stop abusing Lan, what is actually wrong with her? Like, grow up?
We are switching over to Moiraine’s POV now and like, she is really still mad about getting dunked in water by Lan. But what did she expect? She snuck up on him and tried to surprise him which was extremely stupid, she is lucky he didn’t do worse in his self-defense. Just come off it already, there are more important things at hand.
Just the way she keeps thinking how to break Lan is just so ridiculous. And she is also mad that Lan does not believe she is Aes Sedai – which she can tell he believes that without him even having to say. But pulling these antics are not doing her any favours, she is just making Lan think she is childish and that is it.
Alright, a lot just happened then. Lan was almost killed by an arrow and it seems to have been an assassin sent by someone. The person in question was called Caniedrin – Lan and his men seem to know him but I do not recall his name or who he was unfortunately. Anyway, looks like Moiraine is going to save Caniedrin from his wounds to try and get information out of him – it appeared he had been told to kill Moiraine first but had went for Lan instead. Interesting.
I also do not recall who this Gorthanes person is. But it seems it is possible that those trying to kill Moiraine were doing so to make sure she does not end up getting the crown of her homeland, not that she wants it anyway, but obviously they still see her as a threat.
At least Moiraine healed Lan. But it is still very annoying that she is finding Lan’s resilience so annoying. Like, come on. There really are bigger fish to fry. Crazy she is still thinking of ways to try and break him just because she got offended.
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