Fic: She Leaves With The Morning
May. 10th, 2006 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merrilySomeone evil wanted Tonks, River and Dawn to meet. (Ah ha! I thought, three weeks ago. No problem at all. Commence daily yelling at inanimate objects.) Surprisingly, I had to use Robert Jordan's work to make it happen. I never thought I'd see the day when having read those ten thousand bloody pages would be useful.
You really don't have to have read the Wheel of Time books to understand this, though, I promise. The series just happens to have this very useful dream world that seemed like a good way to get the plot bunny to leave my freaking brain.
Title: She Leaves With The Morning
Who to Blame (author): Merrilily. Also, caffeine.
Fandom: Buffy/Wheel of Time/Firefly/HP crossover (it boggles my mind, too)
Characters: Primarily Dawn, River and Tonks.
Ratings: G so far. You think I could cross four fandoms and work in sex, too?
Type: Extended play! WiP! This is Chapter One of Three (I think)
Size: 2000 words
Read, cuddle, send feedback.
The ring was in the corner of the basement storeroom. Dawn was down there, because God, she wasn’t going to wait for Buffy upstairs in The Magic Box, where Anya said things like “No, little girl, you don’t get to touch the money" when Dawn tried to help out.
Anya flipped when Dawn brushed close to the cabinets, too, which wasn’t fair at all. That one time with the potion melting through the linoleum had been an accident — jeez, anyone could’ve done it, what with the flimsy wobbly crystal bottles Willow insisted on storing things in. And she’d done all her stupid homework, and she’d suggested that she could just walk home, since she was, you know, 15 not 5, and nothing would jump her on the way back in broad freaking daylight.
But Anya said no. Actually, she said “Try it and I’ll transform the door into a giant bunny,” which sounded cool, but Dawn knew it was the scariest thing Anya could think of, which meant she was serious, and besides, if Anya tried to transform the door into a giant bunny the spell would so go horribly wrong and instead make a giant flesh-eating were-rabbit that liked to feast on the (unfairly scrawny) sisters of poopy-headed Slayers who couldn’t be bothered to show up when they were supposed to.
So Dawn was in the storeroom, and Anya had yelled after her “Don’t touch anything!” which she totally didn’t need to say — after all, that story about the mummy hand making Buffy all Groundhog Day was enough to make anyone superglue their hands in their pockets. Seriously.
But that ring.
It was just sitting there… with a gazillion other pieces of jewelry and crystals, in a box labeled “Artifacts of unknown power; don’t touch, please” in Giles’ handwriting, but the lid was dusty, and it was at the back of the shelf, and Giles had been gone for months, so clearly Anya didn’t care about it.
And somebody should, Dawn thought. It was beautiful, pale red stone, heavier than it looked, twisting in a way that she didn’t know stone could twist, and it was warm to the touch, almost seemed to be pulsing. And when Dawn put it on her finger, just to try it, the ring shrank just a little until it fit, perfectly.
So the unknown power was self-adjustment, Dawn figured, and that wasn’t terrible. After all, it wasn’t permanent—she had panicked for a moment at the show of shrinking magic and immediately pulled at it, but there wasn’t any crazy Chinese-fingertrap scariness—the ring just slid off easily and sat in her palm, still warm.
So she put it on again, on another finger, to test it, and it fit that one too, and then she thought about trying it on her toes, because this was so weird, and she had just sat down on the cement floor and taken off her Keds and her socks to see if it would work when she heard the bell above the front door upstairs chime, and Buffy’s voice talking to Anya. This made Dawn panic and pull on her socks and shoes and start up the stairs, so it wasn’t until night fell and she was pulling on her pajamas that Dawn realized the ring was still on the second toe of her right foot.
It felt perfectly natural, and made her foot look elegant, for that matter. Dawn kicked high up into the air like a dancer to watch the trail of light the ring left in the dim of her bedroom and decided that she could keep it.
--
“Ring number four,” said Elayne, dropping it on the ground in front of Nynaeve. It was beautiful, pale red cuendillar — heartstone — twisted like the others had been, without seam or any other indication of crafting. Nynaeve didn’t pick it up.
“It’s safe.” Elayne knelt down gracefully beside Nynaeve, still looking at the ring. “I tested it myself. No dizziness.”
“It’s glowing.”
“I know,” and Elayne almost sounded proud. “Not sure why.”
“It’s foolish to take risks with ter’angreal. We’ll have to get rid of it.”
Elayne snorted. “I can’t unmake it. You know that. And it’s perfectly safe! Besides, you’ll have to use it. I’m too tired to try again today,” Elayne stood, dismissive, all regal poise. “See you after nightfall.”
Nynaeve tested it herself after Elayne had swept away, channeling a thin thread of power out to touch the ring, which vibrated happily in response, and gave back that sense of otherness they’d come to realize meant a gateway to the dream-world. It felt like the last one: pure dream-power, clear like rain. But there was else on the edge, something warm, something like a pulse.
Something that couldn’t be controlled, Nynaeve thought, uneasily.
--
When Inara decided to go, a trunk of her clothes was left behind in the second shuttle, the one no one used except for emergencies and manly foolishness. That’s why Mal ended up there, late at night, sleep nowhere to be found on Serenity, but Inara’s scent free for the taking to anyone who wandered into the stale dim of the shuttle and opened the (accidentally-on-purpose) forgotten cedar chest.
He didn’t touch anything, ever. Nope. It was ‘Nara’s, and she’d be royally pissed when she came back if it looked like Mal’d been pawing through her stuff. Or anyone. But she’d look at him, Mal knew it, and she’d shake her head, and maybe get a little smug smile that he was absolutely not going to allow.
So he bent over the mass of silk and linen instead, hands far away and safe from snagging threads, and breathed. Just breathed. The scent of cedar and sandalwood and incense and perfume rose sweet and full from the box, and it was froufera, and not for him, no, never was that smell for him, but Mal inhaled anyway.
River, on the other hand, touched. Plunged her hands in, lifted cheongsam and shawls and gloves aside until there was a nest of cloth around her on the floor, a wild disarray of expensive finery. She had meant to climb in – needed a place to hide and think and the chest was just the right size, if she curled her knees, but when she had emptied out all the fabric there was a jewellery case at the bottom and River was curious.
Wasn’t logical. Scent left behind to hold a marker in Mal’s mind, of course, texture there to remind him of Inara’s skin, but this thing, hidden? Below the waterline? “Sunken treasure,” River whispered, and lifted the lacquered case into her lap to open the lid.
A pale-red ring glowed suddenly in the darkness, pulsing inside the velvet lining.
--
“That one’s different,” Egwene said, frowning. They were in Tel’aran’rhiod, on the Two Rivers green, and as usual the dream-world had the peculiar quality of a held breath. Always twilit, always empty, the grass under their feet as dull-brown as it probably was in the waking world, it made Nynaeve anxious and careful, turning frequently to scan her surroundings. She twisted now, and Egwene tugged her hand sharply.
“I can’t look at this if you don’t stay still,” she scolded, and Nynaeve scowled.
“We’re wasting time, “she declared, her other hand creeping up to tug distractedly at her braid. “Elayne and I didn’t come to talk about ter’angreal.”
“You couldn’t get here without that ter’angreal,” Elayne pointed out, hands on hips.
Egwene released Nynaeve’s hand. “It’s tugging at me,” she said, slowly. “I think that ring is going to cause ripples.”
“In the Pattern?” Egwene nodded. “Well,” said Nynaeve briskly, “It’s not like that’s new.“
--
“You know,” said Tonks calmly, interrupting Mr. Borgin as he paused for breath in the middle of a tirade about Ministry busybodies putting their noses in other people’s business, “If you want to be above suspicion, you should move your shop out of Knockturn Alley.” She turned to the group of trainee Aurors, all holding boxes confiscated from Borgin’s back rooms and looking scandalized at the creative turns of phrase that were purpling the air.
“Those are mine,” Borgin hissed. “Bought and paid for. I have records!” and he brandished a handful of papers in her face.
“The Ministry needs to examine all former property of the Malfoy estate,“ Tonks explained, again, looking at her watch. They’d managed the raid in under twenty minutes, which meant they might get through the other three scheduled pick-ups of Lucius Malfoy’s former property on time. “We’ll inventory everything and return all non-Dark objects in due course. Here’s my card,” and she handed the spluttering Borgin a slip of paper which was shifting rapidly through the colour spectrum. “Don’t complain, Borgin,” she said, severely, gathering up her robes and turning to go. “I didn’t arrest you this time,” and her façade was slipping a little, the tips of her spiked locks shifting to red. They were a waste of time, these oily bastards, and she had better things to do than supervise delivery operations.
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyers,” Borgin yelled, still infuriated, as Tonks motioned her quaking assistants out of the shop. The door closed behind them with a bang, and it was at the same moment that the youngest trainee, Samuel, who was slightly clumsy at the best of times, managed to drop the box he was carrying. It hit the ground with an audible crunch, the sides falling apart and several objects rolling down the uneven pavement. Tonks looked over her shoulder quickly to make sure that Borgin hadn’t witnessed it, but his door remained closed.
“Tripped — sidewalk —” Sam gasped, and Tonks just nodded, spelling his box to hold together and bending in the gloominess of Knockturn Alley to pick up the thing that had rolled over to hit her foot. Her hand tingled as she touched it.
“There’s an aura on that one,” said Byrd, the oldest trainee, a calm American there on exchange with the English Ministry. She had put down her box to walk over to Tonks, and peer into her palm. “It’s glassy and green. Like rain.”
Tonks looked at the red stone ring, pulsing cleanly, completely without the fever-strength that they’d learned to associate with Dark objects.
“Where,” wondered Byrd quietly, saying what Tonks was thinking, “did Lucius Malfoy get that?”
--
Egwene frowned at Nynaeve. “Just because we’ve seen ripples before doesn’t mean that we can handle them every time.”
“No, but we know how to duck.” Nynaeve was bored now. If that was all this ter’angrealwas going to do — make more rents in the cloth of reality, a cloth that was pretty bunched already, thank you very much, due to recent events that all three women had taken a significant part in — then she was pretty sure she knew how to avoid trouble. You put up shields, tucked money into your belt, kept a couple of strong men who liked to yell and chop at things nearby, and you kept moving. Simple as pie. And you ran far far away from the scary monsters.
“I think it’s going to travel far.” Egwene was frowning, looking at the hand that Nynaeve had reclaimed and was using to tug her braid firmly. “I think it’s going to bring about change.”
“There isn’t any taint on it,” Elayne interjected. “The power is clean.”
“Change doesn’t hold to Light or Dark,” and they all knew this, but Egwene said it anyway. “Change is its own worry.
To Be Continued… tomorrow.
---
Notes:
1. Title from the lyrics of qR5’s No Sleep Tonight
2. I’m setting the segments during (Buffy) Season 6, (HP) post-HBP, (Firefly) post-Serenity-the-movie, and I have fuck-all idea where I’m trying to put the Wheel of Time sections, because it turns out that I only have books 1 & 6 on my bookshelves (no more lending, ever!) and the thought of paging through 5000 or so pages of Jordan’s writing in order to be specific makes me tired. I have no Jordan-verse betas. I welcome attempts to keep my work in line with canon. Please, please tell me if this seems really ill-fitting.
3. Don’t we love sticky-fingered Dawn? I write with the assumption that this is close to the beginning of her career as a shoplifter, if not her very first time.
4. The Two Rivers (Wheel of Time sections) is where Egwene & Nynaeve grew up, and one of the few (kind of) safe places once the world starts going to hell in the Jordan-verse.
5. I tried to keep the fantasy-speak to a minimum, but in case you’re lost, here are Jordan’s definitions, verbatim but snipped (book & page references follow):
cuendillar (CWAIN-deh-yar): An indestructible substance created during the Age of Legends. Any known force used in an attempt to break it is absorbed, making heartstone stronger. (Jordan, Robert.The Eye Of The World. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., 1990. This quote, pg. 792, under “heartstone”.)
ter’angreal (TEER-ahn-GREE-ahl): Remnants of the Age of Legends that use the One Power … made to do a particular thing. …. Some require channeling [being able to use magic-m], while others may be used by anyone. Some will kill or destroy the ability of any woman who uses them. [In the Wheel of Time books, the ability to make ter’angreal had been lost near the beginning of recorded history, but Elayne rediscovers it-m] (Jordan, Robert. Lord of Chaos. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., 1994. This quote, pg. 1008)
Tel’aran’rhiod (tel-AYE-rahn-rhee-ODD): “The Unseen World,” or “The World of Dreams”… believed by the ancients to permeate and surround all other possible worlds. Many can touch Tel’aran’rhiod for a few moments in their dreams, but few have ever had the ability to enter it at will, though some ter’angreal confer that ability. Unlike other dreams, what happens to living things in the World of Dreams is real. Otherwise, though, nothing done there affects the waking world in any way. (Jordan, Robert. Lord of Chaos. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., 1994. This quote, pg 1008.)
You really don't have to have read the Wheel of Time books to understand this, though, I promise. The series just happens to have this very useful dream world that seemed like a good way to get the plot bunny to leave my freaking brain.
Title: She Leaves With The Morning
Who to Blame (author): Merrilily. Also, caffeine.
Fandom: Buffy/Wheel of Time/Firefly/HP crossover (it boggles my mind, too)
Characters: Primarily Dawn, River and Tonks.
Ratings: G so far. You think I could cross four fandoms and work in sex, too?
Type: Extended play! WiP! This is Chapter One of Three (I think)
Size: 2000 words
Read, cuddle, send feedback.
The ring was in the corner of the basement storeroom. Dawn was down there, because God, she wasn’t going to wait for Buffy upstairs in The Magic Box, where Anya said things like “No, little girl, you don’t get to touch the money" when Dawn tried to help out.
Anya flipped when Dawn brushed close to the cabinets, too, which wasn’t fair at all. That one time with the potion melting through the linoleum had been an accident — jeez, anyone could’ve done it, what with the flimsy wobbly crystal bottles Willow insisted on storing things in. And she’d done all her stupid homework, and she’d suggested that she could just walk home, since she was, you know, 15 not 5, and nothing would jump her on the way back in broad freaking daylight.
But Anya said no. Actually, she said “Try it and I’ll transform the door into a giant bunny,” which sounded cool, but Dawn knew it was the scariest thing Anya could think of, which meant she was serious, and besides, if Anya tried to transform the door into a giant bunny the spell would so go horribly wrong and instead make a giant flesh-eating were-rabbit that liked to feast on the (unfairly scrawny) sisters of poopy-headed Slayers who couldn’t be bothered to show up when they were supposed to.
So Dawn was in the storeroom, and Anya had yelled after her “Don’t touch anything!” which she totally didn’t need to say — after all, that story about the mummy hand making Buffy all Groundhog Day was enough to make anyone superglue their hands in their pockets. Seriously.
But that ring.
It was just sitting there… with a gazillion other pieces of jewelry and crystals, in a box labeled “Artifacts of unknown power; don’t touch, please” in Giles’ handwriting, but the lid was dusty, and it was at the back of the shelf, and Giles had been gone for months, so clearly Anya didn’t care about it.
And somebody should, Dawn thought. It was beautiful, pale red stone, heavier than it looked, twisting in a way that she didn’t know stone could twist, and it was warm to the touch, almost seemed to be pulsing. And when Dawn put it on her finger, just to try it, the ring shrank just a little until it fit, perfectly.
So the unknown power was self-adjustment, Dawn figured, and that wasn’t terrible. After all, it wasn’t permanent—she had panicked for a moment at the show of shrinking magic and immediately pulled at it, but there wasn’t any crazy Chinese-fingertrap scariness—the ring just slid off easily and sat in her palm, still warm.
So she put it on again, on another finger, to test it, and it fit that one too, and then she thought about trying it on her toes, because this was so weird, and she had just sat down on the cement floor and taken off her Keds and her socks to see if it would work when she heard the bell above the front door upstairs chime, and Buffy’s voice talking to Anya. This made Dawn panic and pull on her socks and shoes and start up the stairs, so it wasn’t until night fell and she was pulling on her pajamas that Dawn realized the ring was still on the second toe of her right foot.
It felt perfectly natural, and made her foot look elegant, for that matter. Dawn kicked high up into the air like a dancer to watch the trail of light the ring left in the dim of her bedroom and decided that she could keep it.
--
“Ring number four,” said Elayne, dropping it on the ground in front of Nynaeve. It was beautiful, pale red cuendillar — heartstone — twisted like the others had been, without seam or any other indication of crafting. Nynaeve didn’t pick it up.
“It’s safe.” Elayne knelt down gracefully beside Nynaeve, still looking at the ring. “I tested it myself. No dizziness.”
“It’s glowing.”
“I know,” and Elayne almost sounded proud. “Not sure why.”
“It’s foolish to take risks with ter’angreal. We’ll have to get rid of it.”
Elayne snorted. “I can’t unmake it. You know that. And it’s perfectly safe! Besides, you’ll have to use it. I’m too tired to try again today,” Elayne stood, dismissive, all regal poise. “See you after nightfall.”
Nynaeve tested it herself after Elayne had swept away, channeling a thin thread of power out to touch the ring, which vibrated happily in response, and gave back that sense of otherness they’d come to realize meant a gateway to the dream-world. It felt like the last one: pure dream-power, clear like rain. But there was else on the edge, something warm, something like a pulse.
Something that couldn’t be controlled, Nynaeve thought, uneasily.
--
When Inara decided to go, a trunk of her clothes was left behind in the second shuttle, the one no one used except for emergencies and manly foolishness. That’s why Mal ended up there, late at night, sleep nowhere to be found on Serenity, but Inara’s scent free for the taking to anyone who wandered into the stale dim of the shuttle and opened the (accidentally-on-purpose) forgotten cedar chest.
He didn’t touch anything, ever. Nope. It was ‘Nara’s, and she’d be royally pissed when she came back if it looked like Mal’d been pawing through her stuff. Or anyone. But she’d look at him, Mal knew it, and she’d shake her head, and maybe get a little smug smile that he was absolutely not going to allow.
So he bent over the mass of silk and linen instead, hands far away and safe from snagging threads, and breathed. Just breathed. The scent of cedar and sandalwood and incense and perfume rose sweet and full from the box, and it was froufera, and not for him, no, never was that smell for him, but Mal inhaled anyway.
River, on the other hand, touched. Plunged her hands in, lifted cheongsam and shawls and gloves aside until there was a nest of cloth around her on the floor, a wild disarray of expensive finery. She had meant to climb in – needed a place to hide and think and the chest was just the right size, if she curled her knees, but when she had emptied out all the fabric there was a jewellery case at the bottom and River was curious.
Wasn’t logical. Scent left behind to hold a marker in Mal’s mind, of course, texture there to remind him of Inara’s skin, but this thing, hidden? Below the waterline? “Sunken treasure,” River whispered, and lifted the lacquered case into her lap to open the lid.
A pale-red ring glowed suddenly in the darkness, pulsing inside the velvet lining.
--
“That one’s different,” Egwene said, frowning. They were in Tel’aran’rhiod, on the Two Rivers green, and as usual the dream-world had the peculiar quality of a held breath. Always twilit, always empty, the grass under their feet as dull-brown as it probably was in the waking world, it made Nynaeve anxious and careful, turning frequently to scan her surroundings. She twisted now, and Egwene tugged her hand sharply.
“I can’t look at this if you don’t stay still,” she scolded, and Nynaeve scowled.
“We’re wasting time, “she declared, her other hand creeping up to tug distractedly at her braid. “Elayne and I didn’t come to talk about ter’angreal.”
“You couldn’t get here without that ter’angreal,” Elayne pointed out, hands on hips.
Egwene released Nynaeve’s hand. “It’s tugging at me,” she said, slowly. “I think that ring is going to cause ripples.”
“In the Pattern?” Egwene nodded. “Well,” said Nynaeve briskly, “It’s not like that’s new.“
--
“You know,” said Tonks calmly, interrupting Mr. Borgin as he paused for breath in the middle of a tirade about Ministry busybodies putting their noses in other people’s business, “If you want to be above suspicion, you should move your shop out of Knockturn Alley.” She turned to the group of trainee Aurors, all holding boxes confiscated from Borgin’s back rooms and looking scandalized at the creative turns of phrase that were purpling the air.
“Those are mine,” Borgin hissed. “Bought and paid for. I have records!” and he brandished a handful of papers in her face.
“The Ministry needs to examine all former property of the Malfoy estate,“ Tonks explained, again, looking at her watch. They’d managed the raid in under twenty minutes, which meant they might get through the other three scheduled pick-ups of Lucius Malfoy’s former property on time. “We’ll inventory everything and return all non-Dark objects in due course. Here’s my card,” and she handed the spluttering Borgin a slip of paper which was shifting rapidly through the colour spectrum. “Don’t complain, Borgin,” she said, severely, gathering up her robes and turning to go. “I didn’t arrest you this time,” and her façade was slipping a little, the tips of her spiked locks shifting to red. They were a waste of time, these oily bastards, and she had better things to do than supervise delivery operations.
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyers,” Borgin yelled, still infuriated, as Tonks motioned her quaking assistants out of the shop. The door closed behind them with a bang, and it was at the same moment that the youngest trainee, Samuel, who was slightly clumsy at the best of times, managed to drop the box he was carrying. It hit the ground with an audible crunch, the sides falling apart and several objects rolling down the uneven pavement. Tonks looked over her shoulder quickly to make sure that Borgin hadn’t witnessed it, but his door remained closed.
“Tripped — sidewalk —” Sam gasped, and Tonks just nodded, spelling his box to hold together and bending in the gloominess of Knockturn Alley to pick up the thing that had rolled over to hit her foot. Her hand tingled as she touched it.
“There’s an aura on that one,” said Byrd, the oldest trainee, a calm American there on exchange with the English Ministry. She had put down her box to walk over to Tonks, and peer into her palm. “It’s glassy and green. Like rain.”
Tonks looked at the red stone ring, pulsing cleanly, completely without the fever-strength that they’d learned to associate with Dark objects.
“Where,” wondered Byrd quietly, saying what Tonks was thinking, “did Lucius Malfoy get that?”
--
Egwene frowned at Nynaeve. “Just because we’ve seen ripples before doesn’t mean that we can handle them every time.”
“No, but we know how to duck.” Nynaeve was bored now. If that was all this ter’angrealwas going to do — make more rents in the cloth of reality, a cloth that was pretty bunched already, thank you very much, due to recent events that all three women had taken a significant part in — then she was pretty sure she knew how to avoid trouble. You put up shields, tucked money into your belt, kept a couple of strong men who liked to yell and chop at things nearby, and you kept moving. Simple as pie. And you ran far far away from the scary monsters.
“I think it’s going to travel far.” Egwene was frowning, looking at the hand that Nynaeve had reclaimed and was using to tug her braid firmly. “I think it’s going to bring about change.”
“There isn’t any taint on it,” Elayne interjected. “The power is clean.”
“Change doesn’t hold to Light or Dark,” and they all knew this, but Egwene said it anyway. “Change is its own worry.
To Be Continued… tomorrow.
---
Notes:
1. Title from the lyrics of qR5’s No Sleep Tonight
2. I’m setting the segments during (Buffy) Season 6, (HP) post-HBP, (Firefly) post-Serenity-the-movie, and I have fuck-all idea where I’m trying to put the Wheel of Time sections, because it turns out that I only have books 1 & 6 on my bookshelves (no more lending, ever!) and the thought of paging through 5000 or so pages of Jordan’s writing in order to be specific makes me tired. I have no Jordan-verse betas. I welcome attempts to keep my work in line with canon. Please, please tell me if this seems really ill-fitting.
3. Don’t we love sticky-fingered Dawn? I write with the assumption that this is close to the beginning of her career as a shoplifter, if not her very first time.
4. The Two Rivers (Wheel of Time sections) is where Egwene & Nynaeve grew up, and one of the few (kind of) safe places once the world starts going to hell in the Jordan-verse.
5. I tried to keep the fantasy-speak to a minimum, but in case you’re lost, here are Jordan’s definitions, verbatim but snipped (book & page references follow):
cuendillar (CWAIN-deh-yar): An indestructible substance created during the Age of Legends. Any known force used in an attempt to break it is absorbed, making heartstone stronger. (Jordan, Robert.The Eye Of The World. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., 1990. This quote, pg. 792, under “heartstone”.)
ter’angreal (TEER-ahn-GREE-ahl): Remnants of the Age of Legends that use the One Power … made to do a particular thing. …. Some require channeling [being able to use magic-m], while others may be used by anyone. Some will kill or destroy the ability of any woman who uses them. [In the Wheel of Time books, the ability to make ter’angreal had been lost near the beginning of recorded history, but Elayne rediscovers it-m] (Jordan, Robert. Lord of Chaos. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., 1994. This quote, pg. 1008)
Tel’aran’rhiod (tel-AYE-rahn-rhee-ODD): “The Unseen World,” or “The World of Dreams”… believed by the ancients to permeate and surround all other possible worlds. Many can touch Tel’aran’rhiod for a few moments in their dreams, but few have ever had the ability to enter it at will, though some ter’angreal confer that ability. Unlike other dreams, what happens to living things in the World of Dreams is real. Otherwise, though, nothing done there affects the waking world in any way. (Jordan, Robert. Lord of Chaos. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., 1994. This quote, pg 1008.)