Chapter Text
White Tower Orphanage loomed overhead in a manner fittingly intimidating, but far too regal for the ignoble inhabitants of its ivory walls. Once an esteemed academy for the ‘finishing’ of wealthy women, the tower now housed a rag-tag bunch of orphaned or ‘unwanted’ children, as the grumbling locals of Tar Valon deemed them. The architectural glory of the White Tower was wasted on these hooligans- or so they whispered.
Moiraine Damodred was neither impressed nor afeared by the shadow cast over her; to have an opinion about the tower at all would require her to look up from her feet. But the girl had not so much as lifted her head throughout the long journey from Cairhien, and her travelling companion was beginning to wonder if he would glimpse the young girl’s face at all before he handed her off to the questionable care of the orphanage.
“Is this the Damodred girl?”
A commanding voice rang out across the drive, and Jhonas looked away from his young ward to face the stern woman that addressed him. “Yes,” he answered haltingly, surprised by the protective feeling that was rising unbidden in his chest. He was by no means close to the girl, and in truth found her curt and largely unagreeable. Yet she was a product of her environment, and he was loathe to take her from one prison to another; the White Tower was far from well-reputed. “I apologise for the late notice, but we received an EPO and travelled straight from the extraction”.
Their words were faint to Moiraine, who followed dutifully inside and stood resolutely staring at her feet, remotely aware of hushed words and paperwork being exchanged. Distinctly Moiraine heard a scuffling in the staircase next to her and, for the first time since leaving home (if it could be called that still), she looked up, to find a face peering through the peeling bannisters. A ‘face’ is all it could be rightly described as, for it disappeared just as soon as it was noticed. But the curve of its sly smile hovered like an imprint in Moiraine’s mind, and she inexplicably felt a slight shock in her chest, as if falling suddenly from a great height.
“Girl? Are you listening?”
The social worker had left now, apparently; the woman was leaning over Moiraine, snapping her gnarled fingers in her face. Moiraine deigned to make eye contact, but kept her lips even more tightly shut. Merean Redhill sighed; uncommunicative children were not rare here, but even so they never failed to test her patience.
“I am Merean, the head care worker here at the White Tower. I understand you’ve had a long journey, so I will try and be brief with my introductions and then you can get settled in. Is that alright with you?”
An answer was not expected, and certainly not received. The disconcertingly blue eyes of Moiraine Damodred glared unfailingly at the old woman; it seemed that she did not blink nor breathe.
“This kind of surly attitude is not looked on kindly in this tower, Damodred. It’s your first day, so I’ll let you off, but manners are important here and you would do well to take note of that. Now, that is my office, across the hall. You go there now- I’ll just collect the papers”.
Narrowing her eyes, Moiraine turned and walked stiffly across the corridor. As she reached for the handle, a small gasp seemed to come from the staircase. The door opened; a bucket tipped; and at once the uptight newcomer was unceremoniously drenched from head to toe. Peals of laughter accompanied the rush of water, quickly stifled and followed with a stampede of footsteps as the pranksters rushed up the stairs and out of view.
“Siuan Sanche!” Merean hollered, the culprit evidently infamous and in no need of investigation. “That girl will be death of me,” she muttered, shaking her fist as if cursing some great archnemesis. Moiraine might have found it amusing... in other circumstances.
Once the extent of her wrath was sufficiently displayed, Merean seemed to remember the young girl who stood sopping in her doorway, dripping indignantly onto her coveted Tarabon rug. “Well, don’t just stand there my dear, let’s get you dried up! I’ll show you your room now, and the admin can wait for later. Not the usual way I do the introductions of course, but… desperate times, I suppose.”
With that, the woman marched off; and Moiraine was left to pick up her suitcase and her pride, trailing water behind her as she begrudgingly made her way into her new home.