Growing Pains

creeeak

"Prue!" came a hiss from the darkness. "Would you please watch where you're stepping?"

Pruedilia Iranista turned at her companion and glared. Her agate brown eyes could covey a surprising amount of noise. "You watch where I'm stepping!" she hissed back. "I didn't even want to come on this idiotic ... idiotic ... idiotic..."

"Idiocy?" Liranan replied calmly, pushing a strand of chestnut hair out of her hazel eyes. Her fellow Accepted glared at her even harder. "Oh calm down, Prue. This is going to be a breeze, and a whole ton of fun, too, you'll see."

"Yeah, sure, if you consider washing pots for the rest of your life fun." Pruedilia's tone dripped sarcasm.

"We're only going to get in trouble if we get caught, and we're only going to get caught if we keep arguing over this!" Liranan's tone, though soft, was reasonable.

"All right, fine, let's get this over with." Prue sounded miserable. Liranan frowned at her friend's back, covered in her dark blond hair, as the girl lead the way. Prue hadn't been the same since her Arches. Well, admittedly, neither had Liranan ... but this was ridiculous!

The outgoing and headstrong Novice Liranan had befriended had turned into this cautious, hidebound, boring Accepted. It had taken Liranan hours to talk the once adventuresome girl into this little project.

If she goes on at this rate, she'll be a White! Liranan thought with a trace of horror. She wasn't as wild about Green as she once had been, but she would still rather be caught dead then White. They're so ... boring.

Liranan firmly pushed the concern over her friend's possibly impending doom out of her mind, and focused on the task at hand. She shifted the bucket in her hands. A small portion of water splashed out.

"Now look what you're doing," Pruedilia hissed back at her. The other Accepted was leading the way, keeping a lookout for anyone who might wonder why Liranan Alarina was sneaking through the halls of the Novice wing in the wee hours of the morning with a bucket of something that sloshed faintly. It was a little bit too early to get away with the "Going to wash some floors" excuse. Not that it would have worked anyway - what was in the bucket was most definitely not washing water.

Liranan gritted her teeth. "I'm doing the best I can, after all, I'm stuck carrying this bloody large bucket."

"The bucket's size was your-"

creeeak

With a wordless glance, Liranan and Pruedilia opened the nearest door - thankfully to an empty Novice room - and darted inside. Liranan carefully put down the bucket, and the two girls cracked open the door, peering out just in time to see a white clad form slipping in the direction of the Warder in Training quarters.

"That.. That.." Pruedilia sputtered. "Did you see who that was?"

"Of course I did, Prue. Melli Weathers. I always did think that if she made Aes Sedai she'd go Green." Liranan giggled. "Of course, if the Mistress of Novices finds out she's been practicing, she'll be going Red - as in red bottom." Liranan giggled again.

Pruedilia shot her a disgusted look. "I don't see why it's amusing. A Novice, gallivanting around at all hours! We should put tonight's plan aside and go tell Sherril Sedai on the morrow."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Liranan hissed. "For one thing, it's as good as admitting we were going to do something - after all, how would we know she was out at all hours if we weren't? For another, now that we know, we can hold it over her head. I don't know about you, but I like the idea of having a Novice do my washing for the next year or so."

Pruedilia turned on her friend with eyes flashing. "You'd blackmail her? Light, Lira, you're becoming a Blue!"

"I am not!" Liranan yelped indignantly.

"You are too! Next thing you know you'll be playing Daes Dae'mar!"

"Well... Well... You're becoming a White."

"A White?!"

"Whoever you two are," came a sudden hiss from next door, "I'd appreciate it if you kept it down. Some of us have Dawn shift in the kitchens."

Liranan and Pruedilia both silenced instantly. They looked at each other in the shadows. Then, fighting it as best they could, they began to giggle.

After a spell of muffled giggling, Pruedilia spoke up. "I think we better get a move on. Light knows what time Sherril Sedai gets to her office."

"True," Liranan whispered. Pruedilia held open the door and they crept out, heading for the Mistress of Novice's office. The silence of the normally busy Tower was eerie, and the faint moonlight coming from the occasional window gave the voyage the feeling of a dream. So silent and preoccupied by the quiet was Liranan that when Pruedilia came to a stop, Liranan nearly walked into her. More water sloshed over the bucket's rim.

"Watch it!" Pruedilia hissed. "You slop some of that on my dress and Sherril will find us before breakfast."

Liranan giggled slightly. "She does have the nose of a bloodhound! Thank the Light she's not Wolfkin, or we really would be in trouble."

Pruedilia gave a sort of superior sniff. "Would we? I know you were just called in here today, and I delivered a message."

Liranan considered making a face at Pruedilia in the darkness, but settled for doing it to the other Accepted's back as the girl picked the lock. Odd to think of those wonderful thievery skills Pruedilia picked up as an Orphaned Street Rat in Caemlyn might go to waste if she chose White. Whites picked problems apart, they did not pick locks.

After a long, tense second, there was a click, and the door slid smoothly open. Liranan knew that Sherril didn't Ward her office anymore, just the desk's individual drawers. A few nights when an early morning crisis demanded she get in the office without undoing a Ward had made the Mistress of Novices reconsider and simply invest in a good lock. It kept away most pranks - few had Pruedilia's skill with locks.

Strong in Earth and good with Locks, Liranan thought. A White! It really would be a waste.

Pruedilia was already working at the Wardrobe's lock when Liranan slipped inside as well, leaving the door just enough open so as to catch the bright moonlight. As Liranan crossed the floor, lugging the cursedly heavy bucket, the second lock clicked open. Pruedilia smiled in satisfaction.

"And there they are," Liranan said. "The sack cloth and ashes." She made a face. "My last time with them was just last week. How long have you escaped, Prue?"

There was a long hesitation. "Just two days ago."

Liranan gave a soft "Aha!" or comprehension. "I had wondered why you suddenly agreed to my plan.... They are beastly things, aren't they? I suspect that she got the idea from the Aiel - there you'd likely be naked, though."

"Naked?" Pruedilia squeaked.

"Why do you think I ran away? I didn't much care for digging holes in the nude. If I'd have known I was going to end up doing it anyway, but in those," Liranan gestured to the closet with it's garments, identical to Novice and Accepted dresses, save being of a coarse, scratchy material and pitch black to retain heat, "I probably would have stayed. The Wise Ones weren't exactly motherly, but I think they were a sight fairer then the Aes Sedai - and a lot less tricky."

Pruedilia shook her head as though she thought Liranan was insane. "Well, put the bucket down, we might as well get started." Pruedilia abruptly grinned. "The look on her face should be priceless."

Liranan was also smiling like a loon as she put down the bucket, reached inside it, and drew out an eel. A slippery, just killed that day, entirely disgusting eel. Liranan had never liked eels, and judging from her expression, neither did Pruedilia. Still, Liranan thought as she took the eel and stuffed it down the first dress on the right, they do have some redeeming points. And they fill out a bosom nicely.

By the time only eel smelling water remained in the bucket, all the dresses in the wardrobe had been stuffed from Tightly belted waist to collar. Little rivulets of water trailed down the skirts to puddle in the bottom. Liranan and Pruedilia shared a grin of triumph.

As Prue was relocking the Wardrobe - part of Liranan's plan was to make it appear no one had broken in, and the eels had simply miraculously appeared - the Accepted had a brilliant notion.

"Hey, Prue."

"What?" said Prue, glaring at Liranan out of the corner of one eye.

"Why so cranky? I thought you were good at picking locks."

Pruedilia's voice was slightly muffled by a fall of hair as she leaned forward a bit more. "Picking locks, yes, but relocking them? It's not really that profitable a talent to learn."

"Oh," Liranan said. Then, "I have a great idea."

"As great an idea as this?" Pruedilia inquired. The sarcasm was back in her voice. Liranan ignored it.

"Since Melli isn't in her room, she won't notice if we put the bucket there. And since she wasn't in her room when eels were installed, she'll be stuck either admitting to the eeling or admitting where she has been spending her nights."

Pruedilia looked up with a grin. "Oh, I like that. I take back every bad thought I had of you becoming a Blue - plotting suits you."

"Hey!" Liranan began indignantly.

"Shhhh," Pruedilia suddenly hissed, straightening. "Did you hear that?" She whispered.

"Hear what?" Liranan whispered back.

"That cre-" Pruedilia began, cutting off abruptly as the door swung open. Faintly silloetted in the moonlight was Sherril Sedai.

"Oh, Blood and Bloody Flaming Ashes," Liranan muttered under her breath. Behind her Liranan glimpsed another girl, a Novice. Probably the one who had told on them, the one who had kitchen duty at dawn. Oooh, if I ever get my hands on her... What was her name? Kailua? Lanna?

"You may go, child," Sherril Sedai said to the Novice, who skittered off. Kaiulani, Liranan remembered. Her name is Kaiulani, and as soon as the bruises I'm probably about to get heal, she will be visited by mice. Lots and lots of mice.

Sherril Sedai channeled the candled alight and swept inside, shutting the door. Liranan and Pruedilia remained silent, where they were. There was no point in trying to hide evidence.

"The question is," The Mistress of Novices said, "were you breaking in, or locking up behind you?" She removed a key from her belt pouch, and bushing Pruedilia aside, opened the wardrobe. An eel promptly fell at her feet. Liranan winced. "Well, that answers that," Sherril said, turning back around. Her thick black hair was perfectly braided, despite the hour. Her eyes were the color of a stormy sky - a color Liranan associated with punishments best left unthought of.

She crossed to the desk, purple trimmed blue skirts rustling. I wonder how Aes Sedai always look ready for a ball, even before the sun is up, Liranan thought, completely irrationally. Pruedilia glared at her fellow Accepted.

"Now," Sherril began in a rich alto. "When we're done here, since you girls seem to enjoy working at night, you can report to the laundry. You will report there two hours before dawn every day for the next week. The week after this one, you will report there an hour before dawn, the week after that, at dawn, and the week after that, immediately following breakfast. After that, we shall see." Sherril reached beside the desk and brought up a willow switch; Liranan sighed. She had been afraid of that. "Which of you will be first?" The Mistress of Novices inquired pleasantly. She might have been asking if they wanted one sugar or two in their tea.

With another sigh, Liranan stepped forward. It had been her idea, after all.

Two hours or so later, Liranan finished pulling the last eel out of the last dress. She handed the fish redolent clothing to Pruedilia, who added it to the giant pot of boiling and soapy water the other dresses soaked in. Gingerly, and mindful of her flaming backside, Liranan got to her feet.

"You might want to turn that flame off now that the water is good and hot." Liranan suggested. "If we shrink the bloody things Sherril Sedai will likely make us sew up new ones." There was little Liranan hated more then sewing, although the Mistress of Novices somehow seemed to know exactly what those things were and when to use them.

Pruedilia did as she suggested, although the other Accepted glared at Liranan every time she moved. Imagining the bruises, Liranan couldn't really blame her.

"Listen, Prue," she began, "I'm really sorry-"

"Sorry?" the other girl broke in. "Sorry? I'm going to have to get up every day before dawn, and miss all that sleep, and probably do worse in my classes, that's when I can even sit in my chair for those classes, and you're sorry?"

"Well, how was I to know that one brat would be running to the Warder Trainee quarters then, and that we'd have to hide where we'd be heard? If we hadn't, it would have gone perfectly, Prue, it would ha-"

"Perfectly?? Nothing of yours has gone perfectly your whole life. You ran away from home, you ran away from the Waste, you even tried to run away from here once, too!"

"How dare you bring that u-"

"How dare I?" Pruedilia hissed. "If we'd done what I wanted to, and put the plan aside, and told on that Melli brat, we'd be in Sherril's favor now, like that other girl, instead of bruised like a horse bucked us off. But no, you had to go with your stupid plans. You really are becoming like a meddlesome little Blue, aren't yo-"

"You little cowardly Goat Kissing Trolloc," Liranan began, trembling in rage. However, before she could continue, the glow of Saidar appeared around Pruedilia, and large strands of Air whipped out, instantly seizing the pot of clothes - and upending it over Liranan.

Standing there, covered in sudsy, fish reeking hot water and soaking black dresses, Liranan could only think of one thing to say.

"I hate Aes Sedai."