WoT Ficlet: Vernal

[kat_lair]

***

Title: Vernal
Author:kat_lair
Fandom: Wheel of Time (both book and tv-show applicable I think)
Characters: Aviendha, Moiraine Damodred, Egwene al'Vere, Bair, Melaine
Tags: Canon Compliant, Rain, Ficlet, Rhuidean 
Rating: G
Word count: 737

Summary: The rain lasts until sunset.

Author notes: Picked some spring themed prompts to get me out of a writing slump. This was for the prompt 'vernal'. Unbetaed so if you spot a typo or mistake you should tell me.

Vernal on AO3


The rain lasts until sunset. The ground, cracked and thirsty, soaks up some of it but the centuries of drought have made it too hard baked to do it so very efficiently. By hour three, puddles are starting to form. They are not clear, reflecting the sky like Aviendha had seen beyond the Spine, but instead large sticky patches of mire that will suck the boots off your feet if you step into them. It only takes a couple of accidents until everyone is carefully walking around or jumping across, even though the distance to do either keeps increasing.

She overhears Egwene and Bair talking in worried tones, about what to do if the rain carries on much longer, about the danger of flash floods and mud slides, with so little vegetation to hold the soil together.

“Are the weaves gone?” Bair asks. Her eyes find Aviendha over Egwene’s shoulder, but she makes no gesture to neither shoo her away, nor beckon her to join the conversation.

“He says they are,” Egwene answers. None of them can see the pattern of saidin Rand had flung to the sky, so until the rain stops all they have is his word. Egwene sounds like she believes him, despite everything.

Aviendha has not made up her mind yet.

But the rain does stop. The deluge slows down gradually, until the clouds finally evaporate just in time to reveal the stars starting to show against the darkening sky. And by morning, the mud puddles have shrunk considerably, and they too are gone within another day.

But the changes don’t stop there.

“Plants do not grow this quickly,” Melaine observes, wrapping her shawl tightly around her. She and the other Wise Ones, including Aviendha now, whether she likes it or not, are greeting the new day from top of an outcrop. Egwene is there too, and Moiraine. Their body language is the same as everyone else’s, arms crossed, chins up, backs straight. Aviendha thinks maybe it is a true universal for women of power. Which is to say, all women, when it comes right down to it.

“It’s the One Power,” Moiraine says. “A Brown sister could probably explain it better, or a Yellow one even, they take an interest in growing things, but… It wasn’t just water that befell on this land, not just water that seeped into the soil and found seeds long dormant, that fed them strength and yearning to feel the sun.”

For once, none of the Wise Ones argue with the explanation just because it comes from an Aes Sedai, all of them simply gazing at the transformation taking place in front of their eyes. The view is nothing like Aviendha has ever seen in the Threefold Land. The rising sun casts everything in a golden shimmer, air going hazy with not just the heat but also with the moisture still clinging to the ground, dew drops on each delicate leaf. And everywhere, as far as the eye could see, and further still according to their scouts, there were green shoots, covering the once barren ground. Here and there, colourful flowers in hues of yellow and blue and pink, were starting to blossom. Plants Aviendha had only ever seen growing in the holdings, carefully nurtured and watered, were now sprouting toward the sky under her feet.

It’s nothing less than a miracle. Aviendha just isn’t sure yet if it’s one she should freely rejoice about.

“He may have inadvertently kickstarted the water cycle,” Egwene mutters, mostly to herself. “To change climate like that…” She doesn’t finish the sentence, but she doesn’t have to. The power needed to do that should have been unimaginable, except none of them had to imagine it. They’d seen it.

“We won’t know the full consequences for a generation,” Bair comments.

None of them point out that it might not matter, that there may not be another generation of Aiel to adapt to the changing environment.

And maybe Aviendha should care more about the possibility of it, to worry more about the future, the Last Battle looming over all of them like a storm cloud. But she can’t help think that this alone is enough, to have dreamed long enough to see the Threefold Land bloom before waking up… It’s enough. Everything else will be like the unexpected rain, tearing down the old, making something new grow.

She feels ready for it now.

***