Time Loops, Wheel of Time Part 7

"How are you doing?" Elayne asked as she knocked on Egwene's door.

"I've been worse," Egwene replied as she gestured for Mist to open the door.

Mist pulled his attention off the cute naked redhead that was currently sitting on Egwene's bed trying to figure out how to replicate his extra spatial ring and opened the door. He stepped out of the way so Elayne could come in, a touch surprised that Rand wasn't with her.

Elayne glanced at the bottles scattered around the room as she stepped into her friend's bedroom then focused on the attractive and naked red haired teenager who was using a weave to examine a ring. "Is there anything I can help with?"

"Not unless you have a way to move everything at once," Egwene replied as she took the chance to take a break.

"Hey Mom…" the girl trailed off as she looked up and realized that the girl that sounded like her mother wasn't in fact her mother as she didn't appear to recognize her. "You're the local version of my mother, aren't you?"

"I'm Elayne Trakand, if that's what you mean?" Elayne asked as the young man shut the door behind her.

"Yeah," Kariana agreed. "On the bright side, this just means that you don't have any embarrassing stories from when I was little."

"That's fine," Elayne replied with amusement. "I have plenty of stories from when Moria was a baby."

"Daughter?" Kariana asked.

Elayne nodded. "With Rand, you?"

"Same," Kariana replied. "I've got three half sisters and seven sort-of-half sisters."

"Sort-of-half sisters?" Elayne asked.

"Dad jumped bodies and they have black hair," Kariana explained as she went back to poking at the ring with a thread of spirit.

Elayne glanced at Mist who was looking at her alternate's daughter. "Is there a reason she's sitting here naked?"

"We don't have enough clothes," Egwene admitted, slightly annoyed that Mist hadn't grabbed a bunch of extra clothes when he had the chance.

Kariana scowled at the ring that wasn't giving up its secrets. "I was sleeping when Mist saved me from a group of assassins."

"And you always sleep naked?" Elayne asked, wondering if all of her children were crazy and tempted to tell the young man to stop looking.

"It was the middle of summer," Kariana argued as she let go of the source and tossed the ring to Mist, not seeing a point in admitting that she usually slept naked unless it was exceptionally cold. "Thanks for letting me try to duplicate it."

"It was worth a try," Mist replied as he went back to scanning the bottles on the floor, increasing his growing list of channelers in a bottle that he could duplicate if he set up a magical glass shop.

"What does the ring do?" Elayne asked.

"It's a spatial ring, it lets you store things in a bunch of pocket dimensions connected to the ring," Mist replied as he handed the ring to Elayne without taking his eyes off the bottles.

"That sounds useful," Elayne mused as she examined the plain silver ring. "Do you mind if I try to figure out how it works?"

"Knock yourself out. I doubt you'll be able to break it without trying and I can make more once I get my workshop built," Myst replied as he finished scanning Elanna Cauthon's bottle, adding her to his growing list of people that he could duplicate.

"How long will that take?" Elayne asked as she embraced the source and started poking the ring with a thread of spirit, figuring she might as well start there before she moved to some of the other tricks she'd discovered over the last twenty years.

"Anywhere from ten minutes if I get some help setting up the structure to a couple of hours if I have to do everything myself," Mist replied as he picked up Elanna's bottle and handed it to Egwene. "I remember this one, she was in Shadar Logoth."

"What was she doing there?" Elayne asked.

"She was with the group trying to make sure a gang of insane channelers couldn't unleash the creature that merged with Fain in your world," Mist replied as he started scanning another bottle.

"Men?" Elayne asked, figuring you'd have to be completely insane to want that shit unleashed.

"Red ajah," Mist complained. "They wanted to use it to take out Logain's tower because they couldn't admit that the source being clean wasn't the only reason the Amyrlin abolished the red ajah."

"Lovely," Elayne muttered, making a mental note to thank Cadsuane for dealing with the worst of the stupidity after the war.

Egwene uncorked the bottle, causing a swirl of purple mist to erupt out of the bottle and turn into a brown haired teenage girl wearing a grey wool dress. "You're back in Emond's Field."

"In a different mirror world, right?" Elanna asked, not sure how to feel about getting snatched from her world. 'Could be worse, you could be dead or walking around like a puppet in Shadar Logoth.'

"Yes," Egwene replied as she put the bottle in her spatial ring.

Elanna glanced at the naked redhead sitting on the bed. "Who is the cute redhead?"

"Kariana al'Thor," Kariana offered with a smile. "I'm Rand and Elayne's daughter or at least the daughter of a version of them."

"Nice to know we're not related, it would be weird," Elanna replied with a smile. "I'm Egwene al'Vere and Mat Cauthon's daughter, from another world."

Elayne glanced between Egwene and Kariana. "How did Egwene and Mat end up together?"

"A lot of alcohol," Elanna replied with a grin.

"I can see it," Elayne replied with a smirk.

"I'm not the one that got drunk and danced on tables in a tavern," Egwene offered as she grabbed another bottle that Mist had already scanned and uncorked it, causing purple mist to pour out and turn into a handsome tall dark haired young man wearing a black outfit.

"Nice…" the young man trailed off as he realized Kariana had red hair and familiar features. "She's related to Rand, isn't she?"

"I'm related to a version of him, yes," Kariana replied with amusement. "You?"

"Rand and Moiraine," he admitted as he pulled his attention off his sort of half sister and focused on Elanna. "You?"

"Egwene and Mat," Elanna replied with a grin.

"Excellent, I'm Dalresin al'Thor but everyone calls me Dal," he replied with a grin as he held his hand out.

Elanna shook his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"So, now what?" Dal asked as he shook Kariana's hand.

Egwene gestured toward the model of a castle that was sitting on the table. "We've been explaining things and sending people into the school to get training, one minute out here is a day inside so you should be able to get some basic training and be out by dinner."

Dal glanced at the model of a tower then focused on Egwene. "I've been channeling for a couple of years, but I wouldn't mind brushing up on my skills."

"Sounds…" Egwene trailed off when several cracks of thunder rattled the windows in rapid sequence. "I don't recall having thunder today."

"Rand and Aviendha went hunting shadowspawn," Elayne explained.

"He shouldn't be channeling," Egwene complained, annoyed that Rand was putting himself at risk.

"He survived years and Nynaeve can fix the little bit of taint he's going to pick up before he cleanses it," Mist pointed out.

"It just seems reckless," Egwene argued.

"They have a set of armor bracelets and they know what they're doing," Elayne assured her.

"Why is he going up to the Blight?" Elanna asked.

"Long story, let's grab some more people," Egwene said as she stuck Dal's bottle in her spatial ring and grabbed another bottle.

0o0o0

"Interesting, you have better control than I was expecting," Ishamael mused as he studied Rand, wondering how many weaves the man knew and how long it would take to break him.

"What are you?!" Rand blurted out when he spotted the man with flames for eyes walking toward him, doing his best to act like a scared teenager and not the battle hardened combat veteran that he was.

"I'm known by many names-" whatever else Ishamael would have said was cut off by the stream of balefire hitting him in the back, causing his image to invert as he was burned out of the pattern.

"That was easier than I was expecting," Aviendha admitted as she walked out of the forest wearing Lan's warder cloak.

"That's because he wasn't taking me seriously," Rand admitted, fairly sure that Ishamael would have been more careful if he'd known that he had all of Lews Therin's memories and skill.

"His loss," Aviendha replied as she turned her attention to the dead trollocs that were scattered around the clearing. "Do you want to burn the corpses here or haul them back to town and burn them so people believe us about the trollocs?"

Rand glanced at the fade that was on the ground twitching. "Leave them, we can come back with a group of villagers and do the job right once we've told Egwene and Mist that we killed Ishamael."

Aviendha opened a gateway back to Emond's Field, placing the exit gateway against the Winespring Inn so that she wouldn't hit anyone. "How long do you think it will take the Dark One to bury us in trollocs since we killed Ishamael with balefire?"

"At least a couple of weeks," Rand replied as he walked through the gateway. "Shadowspawn can't survive moving through a gateway and Bodewhin and Eldrin should have the waygate at Manetheren secured which means they'd need to use a different waygate and try to cross the river, something they're not going to enjoy."

"Or they bury us in Draghkar," Aviendha replied as she followed Rand through the gateway.

"Did you kill the fade?" Lan asked as he walked over with Moiraine.

"I hit it with lightning," Rand admitted as he stepped out of the way so they could see the one sided battle. "I was trying to lure Ishamael out of hiding, it worked better than I was expecting."

"What happened?" Moiraine asked as she walked over to the gateway so that she could check on the battle.

"Aviendha hit Ishamael in the back with balefire while he was focused on me which means he won't be coming back and he won't be around to give people their marching orders," Rand replied, relieved that the Dark One wouldn't be able to bring him back.

"It was easier than I was expecting," Aviendha admitted as she let her gateway close. "I just hid my ability to channel and the weave and struck him as fast as I could."

"That should make it easier to deal with the black ajah, excellent work," Moiraine offered, hoping Siuan and Verin could deal with the black ajah before the rest of the forsaken woke up.

Aviendha turned and watched as another gateway appeared next to the wall of the inn. "We're going to have to make an area for gateways."

"It's on the list," Rand assured her as the gateway finished opening, revealing Bodewhin and Eldrin standing in front of the waygate. "Did you run into trouble?"

"Just a bunch of dead trollocs," Bodewhin replied as she walked out of the gateway with her sister. "I moved the key on the inside to the outside so it doesn't wither and die in case we need to use the waygate."

Eldrin checked to make sure the gateway was clear and let it close. "I also warded the area around the gate with a ward so only channelers can cross it."

Bodewhin grinned as she thought about the 'trap' she'd left for anyone messing with her sister's ward. "And I placed an inverted weave around her ward so I'll be warned if any channelers cross the ward or try to destroy her ward. It's not perfect but it should keep random darkfriends from fixing the gate until we can come up with a permanent solution."

"That should help," Moiraine mused. "We're going to have to start warding every waygate we can find and warn the ogier that the Ways can be used by shadowspawn."

"It's on the list," Rand assured her as he started walking around the building. "Can you let Egwene and Mist know that Ishamael is dead? I'm going to grab my father and prove that the trollocs are a problem, he's on the village council and he'll have a good idea on how to convince the rest of the town that they need to build a wall and set up some basic defenses."

"Of course," Moiraine agreed. "I need to talk to them anyway."

"Thank you," Rand replied and hustled toward the corner of the inn, wanting to have enough time to find the trollocs and get back before it got dark.

"How much trouble do you think the Hall is going to cause over the fact that most of us aren't going to be signing the novice book?" Bodewhin asked Moiraine as they followed Rand at a slower pace.

"I don't know," Moiraine admitted. "Legally, they'd have to prove that you're responsible for everything that happened in your memories and that you weren't just given memories of a potential version of you like the arches in the Tower. I imagine that they'd have a difficult time proving that since you're not bound to the Three Oaths. Of course, even if they prove that you signed the book, I don't think they'd want several hundred new aes sedai that have no loyalty to any of the ajahs or the people in charge of the ajahs so they'd try to make you novices or accepted and drag things out."

"Not to mention the problem of enforcing their decision," Aviendha offered smugly. "We've got your back."

"That's the other problem," Moiraine agreed. "You have almost a thousand channelers that are loyal to Egwene and or the region over the Tower and most of them are probably stronger than the average aes sedai."

Aviendha nodded. "My children are stronger than I am, same with Elayne's children and everyone in the village was in the top five percent of aes sedai for strength and that's before they came back. I doubt Mist grabbed anyone that wasn't at least as strong as you are."

"Which means the Tower would have trouble forcing the issue, though they might try to apply pressure diplomatically," Moiraine offered. "I'm hoping that Siuan can stop the Hall from doing something stupid enough to cause Egwene or Nynaeve to rip the Tower apart."

"As much as I enjoyed having friends in the green ajah, I'm not willing to swear the oaths when they're a direct result of Ishamael and the black ajah. No one with a lick of sense believes an aes sedai they don't already trust and we have multiple groups running around that are extremely hostile to channelers and smart enough to take advantage of the oaths. Power wrought weapons aren't any better than other weapons for killing people with the exception that they don't break but they're absolutely better for killing shadowspawn."

"She's not wrong," Lan said as they walked around the corner of the inn.

"I'm aware," Moiraine admitted. "Have you figured out what you're going to do with yourself since you're not joining the Tower?" she asked, curious about Mat's sisters since she'd barely talked to them before being sent back.

"I'll probably sell a couple dozen heartstone plates to a bunch of filthy rich nobles so I don't have to worry about money for a while then I'll probably work on making power wrought weapons and help Mist build the city," Bodewhin replied with a grin, looking forward to living somewhere that she didn't have to put up with the Tower's bullshit.

"I'll probably find a spot in the mountains with gold and use the power to extract the metal," Eldrin admitted. "That should give me enough gold to travel though I'll probably stick around and help my sister with weapons or the city until we win the last battle."

"What about you? Do you have any plans if we manage to survive and kill the Dark One?" Bodewhin asked.

"I wouldn't mind settling down for a bit," Moiraine admitted as they reached the door to the inn.

"You'd be bored within a month," Lan warned her as he opened the door.

"Quite possibly," Moiraine admitted as she walked inside. She glanced around the room at the large number of young women sitting at the various tables that were impossibly strong with the power. "This is going to take some getting used to."

"Yeah," Bodewhin agreed as she followed the rest of the group inside and noticed her parents sitting at a table talking with Rand and Tam. 'At least they're still older than I am,' she mused, thinking about Mandy who had gone from being a newly raised aes sedai back to being a nine year old child.

Lan glanced around the room then focused on Moiraine. "Cider or tea?"

"Cider," Moiraine replied as she headed for the stairs, in the mood for something different.

Lan smiled as he headed toward the bar, trusting the defensive bracelets that Moria had handed out like party favors and the locals.

Aviendha glanced at Rand then followed Moiraine, trusting Rand to ask if he needed help.

"I'm getting a cider," Eldrin said as she headed toward the bar, looking forward to when she managed to sell a piece of heartstone so she didn't have to burn through her allowance.

"Get two, I'll pay you back," Bode told her then followed Aviendha, interested in seeing how Egwene was doing.

0o0o0

Aviendha smiled when the door opened and she saw Egwene standing by a strange model of a castle. "Roofmistress, I ask leave to come beneath your roof."

Egwene smiled at Aviendha, Moiraine and Bodewhin. "You have my leave, Aviendha. Beneath my roof there is water and shade for you. It's good to see you."

Aviendha smiled as she walked over and pulled Egwene into a hug. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm dealing," Egwene admitted as she gestured for Moiraine and Bode to come in. "You're welcome to come in as well."

Moiraine glanced at the young man sitting on a chair and writing in a journal with a fountain pen then walked into the room, relieved that Egwene looked in good spirits considering recent events. "Rand wanted to let you know that Aviendha killed Ishamael with balefire."

"Was anyone hurt?" Mist asked, hoping that they didn't lose anyone important so he could update the time loop.

"No, Rand killed the fade and the trollocs in the area died," Aviendha replied as she let go of Egwene.

"Sweet," Mist replied as he pulled his lighter out of his inventory and flicked it, updating the time loop since he didn't want to risk Ishamael escaping and the world hadn't fallen apart. He put his lighter back in his inventory.

"What was that about?" Bode asked.

"I was updating the time loop so Ishamael should stay dead and we won't have to continually reopen all of the bottles if we have to reset everything," Mist replied with a grin, relieved that he'd never have to worry about Ishamael appearing out of nowhere and blasting the city with the Dark One's power. He pulled a small metal keg of root beer out of his inventory and several shot glasses.

"Are we going to forget everything if you have to reset things?" Bode asked warily.

"Everyone we brought back is part of the loop so you won't forget anything, everyone else, they'll forget if we have to reset things," Mist replied as he poured himself a glass of root beer.

"That's going to get annoying," Bode admitted.

"If we're lucky, we'll never have to reset things." Mist took a drink of his soda, draining the glass. "If we're not, we'll get used to it."

"What are you drinking?" Moiraine asked.

"It's a drink from my world. It has a bit of a bite but barely any actual alcohol," Mist replied as he refilled his glass. "Do you want to try it?"

"How much would you need to get tipsy?" Bode asked.

"You'd probably need to drink a couple of kegs," Mist replied with amusement as he filled one of the other glasses.

"I'll try it," Bode replied.

"Same," Aviendha said, curious about the drink.

Mist handed Bode the glass. "Since we're doing a toast to Ishamael's death, just wait until everyone has a glass."

"Sure," Bode agreed as she sniffed the liquid, not sure what to make of it.

"I'll try it," Egwene offered, figuring it couldn't be worse than some of the aiel alcohol she'd tried.

Mist quickly filled up the glasses for everyone and passed them out. "Usually it's a toast to the life someone lived but in this case, his death makes the world a better place." He tapped his glass against the other glasses then took a drink, rather amused by everyone's reaction to the beverage and happy that he'd gone with a root beer that had a bit more bite than the generic version.

"That wasn't as bad as I was expecting," Aviendha admitted.

"Can I have more?" Bode asked hopefully after finishing her soda.

"Absolutely," Mist replied with amusement as he took her glass and started refilling it. "It's enchanted so that it never runs out."

"That's useful," Moiraine replied, not sure what to think of the sugary liquid. "Have you figured out how you're going to feed everyone?"

"Enchanted greenhouses that are larger on the inside," Mist replied with a smile. "They should cut down on weeds and I can enchant them so that the farmers can adjust the temperature and how much light everything gets. That should let us grow crops all year round and if we use Keeping weaves, we should be able to keep everything from spoiling, at least until the Dark One's presence reaches the point where the weaves fail. Of course, some of that might have been the black ajah."

"Not all of it but it still slowed the rot down," Egwene pointed out. "Rand was able to grow apples with songs. Some of his children can probably do the same."

"They can," Aviendha agreed, having seen her children cause various trees to produce fruit over the years. "How many of our children did you save?"

"All of them," Mist assured her. "They all have magic or the potential which counts. We also saved a bunch of Rand's children from various mirror worlds that should be able to help with growing food."

"How many of my children are dreamers?" Egwene asked thoughtfully.

"At least a couple," Mist replied, wishing he'd kept notes. "It's probably worth testing everyone you're related to since talents run in families."

"Did you recruit any of my children from mirror worlds where I didn't end up with Rand?" Aviendha asked, sort of curious who she would have ended up with without Rand.

Mist shook his head. "No. They either died of old age, didn't have enough magic or the world wasn't solid enough to grab them."

"What about Min?" Aviendha asked.

"Same sort of problem, only worse because she can't channel and her ability doesn't pass down to her children or grandchildren," Mist admitted. "Most of her children didn't have magic or she didn't live long enough to have children. A version of her had a set of twins with a version of Mat that I recruited because they're as strong as Bode used to be but that's probably more his fault than hers. Mat had children with a lot of people in various mirror worlds that ended up able to channel."

"Did any versions of me ever have children with Mat?" Aviendha asked.

"Yeah and just about every single one became a legend, writing themselves into their world in a way that meant I couldn't steal them. It was a bit annoying if I'm being honest because they were amazing from what I recall."

"I would have loved to see that," Aviendha admitted.

"Everyone I brought back is exceptionally capable outside of one day where their luck failed or maybe they had one day where their luck said, 'rescue them' because there are countless versions where they survived and the world where they died felt unlikely. I did the best I could and I'm glad the memories are already fading, I don't need to agonize over the countless people I couldn't save."

"I can relate," Moiraine said, thinking about her experience with ter'angreal in Rhuidean.

"I'll drink to that," Mist replied as he refilled his shot glass.

0o0o0