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When Moiraine was a Novice, late at night when all the torches in the White Tower were snuffed out, she and her not-yet-sisters would lie in their dormitory and giggle in the dark.
The One Power was the only topic of conversation that never wore threadbare. Alone in their separate beds or curled up like a litter of kittens in one bed, they would compare what it felt like to touch the Source. It felt different for each one.
“Pressure,” said Alanna, “like in a kettle. It grows and grows until I feel I might explode with it.”
“Electricity,” said Amalisa. “Like being on top of a mountain during a lightning storm, every hair standing on end.”
“Water,” said Siuan, combing her fingers idly through Moiraine’s hair. “It flows through me and buoys me like a river.”
To Moiraine, the One Power had always felt like air. It surrounded her, flooding her senses until she could smell it, fresh and cold, and taste it, a slight metallic tang in her mouth.
When she bonded with Lan, everything changed. There was a new presence in her mind that hadn’t been there before, coloring all her perceptions. The One Power was no different. It took on a tinge of Lan: a clean scent of leather and sweat that balanced out the cold metal of the Source.
Did the One Power change for every Aes Sedai after the bonding? Moiraine couldn’t ask. By that point she was in no position to share such confidences with her sisters.
But at the Eye of the World, when the One Power was no longer there, Lan was.
She buried her face in his shoulder. His scent was the same: leather and sweat. She breathed him in, and she didn’t feel as empty as she did before.