Age is irrelevant. That is something I’ve learned in the eleven years since my birth. If I had to give a number to the years that I’ve been alive they would be approximately thirty. But I wasn’t born thirty years ago. Some people say that they were born when they took their first breath as they entered the world. Others say it is the day that they are apprenticed; they found their purpose in life and were born to fulfill it. Blademasters tell it that it is the day they earn a heron. They are only as old as the engraving on their blade. The Seanchan have the strangest and most complicated view. They believe in rebirth through rank. Every time a Seanchan is promoted through the social class they are given a new name. It is something all Seanchan look towards. Rebirth.

I see it as the day your life begins. After all, the Wheel weaves the Lace of Ages. We are all subject to the Wheel, and are spun in and out of the Pattern as the Creator sees fit. We are brought to live again and again, a different name for a different face, and a fresh opportunity to make something of ourselves. But we aren’t born until we start something. For me, my life began the day I walked into the White Tower and donned Novice White.

The previous nineteen years or so were a pre-life. That was the time that formed me for what I was going to make out of my life. Much like a babe forms in the mother’s belly, that was the time for me to form.

My mother was an innkeeper in Tanchico, the capital of Tarabon, when she met my father. She probably is still an innkeeper, if she hasn’t retired yet. My father was, or is, I don’t know anymore, a Saldaean merchant. I don’t know the details, but obviously they married, because they brought four children into the world. My older sister was first, and then me four years later. Two years after me came one of my brothers, and then the other, four years after him.

A Tarabon childhood was simple, at least where we grew up. Your childhood is what sets you on your path to becoming someone. Every morning all the children go to school, by the Panarch’s decree. In the afternoons my brothers, sister and myself would help our mother at the inn. I wanted to join my father on the trading runs, though, not be cooped up in an inn all the time, and being the selfish pigheaded fool that I am, I caused trouble until he promised me that when I was sixteen I could join him, just as he promised my brothers. He always joked that I got all the Saldaean hotheadedness, and he was right.

It didn’t help that Charlyn, my sister, was the perfect lady. She was beautiful, with honey blonde braids, slightly tilted brown eyes for a hint of the exotic and an oval shaped face with a cute button nose. I, on the other hand, am far from beautiful. I have bone straight ash-blonde hair that I also wore in a multitude of braids, but they were thin and never looked as shiny and healthy as Charlyn’s thick, glossy braids. I have very tilted eyes, the image of a Saldaean farmer, and the high cheekbones and dominating nose to match. I supposed I would have looked alright if it weren’t for my pouting rosebud mouth. That, and the fact that I have a heart shaped face just make me look out of proportion.

Charlyn was perfectly ladylike and I was perfectly bookish. I know I disappointed my mother, but if I had lived any other way, then I would never have found the White Tower. For three years I was my father’s pride and joy on the trading runs. He taught me what I never learned in school; the bow, and enough knife work to defend myself against raiders. I learned how to train horses and how to strike up a good bargain. He told me stories of being a young man in Saldaea and fighting Trollocs. Trollocs frighten me the way nothing ever should frighten someone. I thought I wanted to run my own caravan and see the world. Then we went to Tar Valon.

I knew nothing of Aes Sedai before we went to Tar Valon. We went to trade, and I foolishly went to gawk at the White Tower like the tourist that I was. A sister with a brown fringed shawl found me and told me that I could learn to channel. Every choice I had made in my life so far led me up to that moment, when I learned I could touch saidar. And that was the day I was born.

The life of a Novice is never easy. Lessons and chores filled my days. I was just one of many, hoping that one day I too would wear a shawl around my shoulders. Those years in Novice whites were relatively uneventful. I made friends and lost friends. Women and girls came to the Tower and left again. My first roommate, a Cairhienin named Cata’rina was raised to Accepted in three years. Another one, Galadria, an Aiel girl, left after only a year. I don’t know where she went; probably back to the Waste to be a Wise One.

The only things that broke up the monotony of my life were meeting three important people. Daia, a young Wilder from Kandor, whom I taught to read and write. We were close friends once. Polaine was another one. She was one of the Domani nobles. Having grown up in Tarabon, I was conditioned to dislike Domani already, and I had formed my own dislike of nobles through the trading runs. Polaine was your typical rich noble type that nobody likes, yet manages to have many friends and pick on those not good enough for the likes of her. She was a snob, plain and simple, and I now realize that I was a snob too. I didn’t like her, or any nobles, because of how they treat people. But nobles, like any other person, can learn, and there are some decent people out there.

Through a complicated series of events involving a history class, insults about Daia behind her back and a fist fight, I was forced to work with Polaine. We grew to be friends, and of course, as soon as you become friends with your enemy, something happens. She stole a ter’angreal, knowing my interest in them, and wanted to study it. But something went terribly wrong and she died. I still blame myself for it. If I hadn’t introduced her to ter’angreal and shown such an interest maybe she wouldn’t have stolen it and experimented with it. But that is in the past and nothing can be done about it. I still feel guilty, and always will. That is why my goal for when I reached Aes Sedai was to become a Brown Sister and travel the world, cataloguing all ter’angreal in existence, and confiscating the dangerous ones. I learned several valuable lessons from Polaine, even after her death, and that is one event in my life that changed me.

I met Rubin al’Rebin, a Dedicated in the Black Tower, at a festival. There was a connection, or so we both thought. We wrote letters to each other, exchanged gifts, and expressed our love for each other. Neither of us had ever been in love before, so how would we know if it was genuine? He was there for me after Polaine, him and Daia, and he supported me through any decision, just as I supported him.

I took my test for Acceptance. Something happened in the third arch, and for nearly two years I had no recollection of what happened. I know now that I channeled, and channeling in the Arches can bring strange results. Now I have to remember what happened then, and worse, what I did in reaction when the memories started coming back.

I study ter’angreal in my free time. One particular ter’angreal caused me a lot of trouble. I was, and still am, a pigheaded fool ruled by her emotions. I slept with the ter’angreal on, and somehow thought that it showed me things that happened in the past, or present. I saw my best friend, Daia and who I thought was the love of my life having an affair. I reacted as any young woman in love would. I ended it with Rubin, thinking he had been cheating on me the entire time I had known him, and humiliated Daia. I wanted my revenge. She hurt me, so why shouldn’t I hurt her? I reacted in anger, and learned a second, very valuable and very painful lesson. Get your facts straight before you do anything. My reaction cost me a very close friendship, one which I regret. I managed to patch things up with Rubin, but it was never the same. We broke up again not long after we got back together, when I realised that I really didn’t love him the way I thought I did. It wasn’t fair to either of us to pretend it was working. And Rubin scared me. He tried to kill himself after I broke up with him. I couldn’t handle having someone that attached to me. I ended it for good, and feel a lot better about myself.

There were a few brief flings, one with a Sei’Tar right after the first break up with Rubin, and another one a year after the second breakup with the M’Hael of the Black Tower. I did a bad thing, using Poettre like that, but I had to find out if men were right for me. He doesn’t know that I used him, at least, not for that. I found out what I had to, and I’m relieved that I did. If I never learned, I don’t know where I would be today.

I spent six years as a Novice, and five as an Accepted. I grew up a lot in those last five years. I discovered a love for teaching, which the Mistresses of Novices took full advantage of. I traveled to an Ogier stedding and studied the reclusive race. I made another close friend, who taught me self-defense and other valuable life lessons. Friendship knows no boundaries. When she was promoted to Mistress of Arms, she remained a loyal friend, still training with me, just another Accepted trying to reach the shawl.

There is a Brown fringed shawl hanging on a peg near the door to my room. I’m sitting at the desk, writing in the hours of the early morning, while my love is sprawled across the bed, fast asleep. She had a hard day yesterday, and today will be worse. I can only be here for her like she was here for me, supporting me through all the years.

I was born eleven years ago, when I entered the White Tower. My purpose is to be Aes Sedai, studying ter’angreal and protecting the millions that need it. That purpose, though not realized the day I became a Novice, formed over the years. But from the moment my foot touched the white marble in the entrance to the Tower, I knew that I would be Aes Sedai. And then I was born.