Dawn and Reincarnation Part 26 (Patreon)

Darla grinned as she watched her cousin kiss a naked brown haired girl before the girl headed off toward the training area. “Having fun?”

Willow pulled her attention off Eldrin Cauthon’s behind and looked at Darla who was still dressed in her traveling clothes. “She was just saying thank you for the sunblock ter’angreal. Who am I to refuse a kiss from an attractive lady?”

“Fair enough,” Darla agreed with a smirk. “How many of those have you made?”

“I lost count somewhere around two hundred,” Willow replied with amusement as her gaze jumped to two cute as buttons naked twin girls a couple of years younger than her running past on some mission or another. “The more rings I give away the more naked girls we’ll have running around.”

“I can’t fault your logic,” Darla agreed as she saw Joiya al’Thor headed their way carrying a plain wooden box.

“You weren’t supposed to be back for a couple of days, did something go wrong with the mission?” Willow asked as she pulled her attention back to Darla.

“You mean beyond the fact that I want to beat the stupid out of the Amayar? Not really, Drusilla showed up and offered to collect the rest of the channelers,” Darla replied as she took Dawn’s bracer off and handed it to Willow. “She also mentioned you needed this, something about storming The Town in the Blight.”

“Dawn wanted to see if there was anyone worth saving and I wasn’t going up there without the ability to channel,” Willow said as she put her mother’s crystal bracer on her left wrist.

“Do you think you’ll find anyone worth saving?” Darla asked, fairly sure the trip was a waste of time and a horrible idea but knowing that her cousin had to at least try.

“Probably not but there might be some children worth saving.” Willow wasn’t willing to write the children off without at least trying to save them.

Darla smiled at Joiya as the attractive yet weary looking young woman walked over carrying a plain looking wooden box with a hinged lid. “Need something?”

“We’re running short of bandages and the other Egwene said you might be able to create something that can make cloth,” Joiya explained as she held out the plain box.

Willow yawned as she accepted the box. “No promises but I can certainly give it a try. Does the box have any sentimental value?”

Joiya shook her head. “It’s just a box.”

“Good, the process is still a bit hit and miss,” Darla said as Willow moved the box to the table they were using as a workbench.

“That’s one way to put it,” Willow muttered as she started weaving threads into the box, trying to turn it into a ter’angreal that would create cloth that absorbed water rather than repelled it like the box her cousin had created.

“How’s your training going?” Darla asked as she watched the threads sink into the box.

“Better and worse than I was expecting,” Joiya replied. “I have plenty of power but I don’t have my mother’s talents.”

“I’m sure you’ll find something you’re good at,” Willow assured her as she finished tying off the weaves to create the box. “Let’s see if this works.” She opened the box and frowned at the unimpressive rough roll of dull white cotton like cloth that was about as wide as her hand. “Weird.”

Darla reached into the box and pulled the roll of fabric out of the box. “It’s softer than I was expecting.” She unrolled the roll of cloth half a foot. “The edges are smooth, we could almost sew a bunch of these together to make skirts. “Do you have a knife?”

“Of course,” Joiya grabbed her belt knife and carefully cut the fabric when Darla held the strip of cloth out. “It cuts easily enough but seems durable enough to work as bandages or clothes.”

“In that case, best of luck,” Willow said with a yawn as she closed and opened the box, creating another roll of cloth. ‘That worked better than I was expecting. I’ll have to see what else I can make when I’m not dead on my feet from making rings.’

“Thanks!” Joiya pulled Willow into a hug.

“You’re welcome,” Willow replied as she returned the hug.

Darla shook her head. “Get some sleep Willow, I’ll let Dawn know that you’ll be heading up north once you’ve gotten some sleep.”

“Thanks,” Willow replied as she headed toward her tent to get some sleep.

“Is there a limit to how much the box can create?” Joiya asked as she picked up the box.

“No, you’re good,” Darla assured her as she turned to look at a woman with an ageless face wearing a silk dress and a green shawl that was walking toward them. “Can I help you?”

“Who do I talk to about creating ter’angreal?” the Aes Sedai asked politely.

“That depends on what you want and what you’re offering,” Darla replied as she turned back to look at Joiya. “Best of luck.”

“Thanks,” Joiya said then quickly left, wanting to get back to help with the wounded.

The Aes Sedai said, “I want a bracelet that gives me armor, what do you want for one?”

Darla considered the question as she grabbed a small handful of silver coins from her coin purse and wove threads of air into a bracelet mold. “I’ll trade an armor bracelet for a drink and several stories about your version of the Tower.”

“That’s it?” the green sister asked.

“I thought about asking for your first born daughter’s hand in marriage but that seemed a bit steep,” Darla said dryly.

“There are probably sisters that would make that trade in a heartbeat,” she replied. “I’d be happy to share stories about the Tower.”

“Excellent,” Darla said as she dropped the coins into the top of the mold then channeled fire into them to melt them.

0o0o0

Xander pulled his attention off Fred’s latest grinding wheel setup that worked by sitting in a bicycle seat and pushing two pedals to spin the wheel and turned to look at the locket that Dawn was poking at. “You’re giving me goosebumps, what are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out how to,” Dawn blinked in surprise as an attractive naked red haired girl a couple of years younger than her appeared out of thin air, “activate my locket.”

“Faith?” Xander asked in disbelief as he looked at the girl that was the spitting image of Faith from when he’d first seen her if you ignored her hair color and the fact that she was taller than he remembered which wasn’t all that strange considering Dawn was half a foot taller than him and Willow was as tall as he was.

The girl turned to look at Xander, showing no sign of recognition then looked at Fred who was adjusting the seat on the grinder. She walked over and grabbed one of the bars so that Fred didn’t have to try to hold it as she tightened the makeshift bolt.

“Thanks,” Fred said absently as she finished tightening the bolt, not realizing that anything strange was going on as she’d been concentrating on making sure she didn’t make a mistake with the grinder.

Xander turned to look at Dawn’s locket. “Why was Faith trapped in your locket?”

Dawn shook her head. “No idea, give me a second to check something.” She quickly grabbed the source and wove the threads she remembered using on patients to figure out what was wrong with them. She touched the weave to the girl then blinked when she realized that there was something strange about her brain and voice box. “I don’t think she has any long term memory and talking might be a problem.”

“What do you mean?” Xander asked warily.

“There’s damage to her brain and voice box,” Dawn explained as she tried to get a better idea of how to fix the damage.

“Can you fix it?” Xander asked hopefully.

Dawn let her weave vanish then let the source go as she ran her finger over the locket, trying to get a better sense of how it worked. “I’m not sure it would help unless I fixed the damage in the World of Dreams, otherwise it would just reset each time.”

“You’re telling me someone lobotomized my friend,” Xander demanded, fists clenching as he did his best to keep from screaming.

Dawn shook her head. “I’m fairly sure she’s just a copy of your friend.”

“What do you mean?” Xander asked.

“The locket has a connection to the World of Dreams, I’m fairly sure part of the creation process is imagining the person or creature that you want then creating the ter’angreal that stabilizes and summons them.”

“So she’s like the Buffy bot, gotcha,” Xander muttered, not sure if he should be relieved or offended that someone had created a broken copy of Faith. “Why would they want a mute and braindead…” he trailed off as his mind jumped back to the Buffy bot and Spike, “yeah, not going down that rabbit hole.”

“Yeah, I don’t…” Dawn trailed off as the Faith copy handed Fred a makeshift wrench without being asked. “How is she doing that?”

Fred turned look at Dawn. “You’re the expert, I was just thinking about needing a tool and she grabbed it for me.”

“Clap your hands,” Dawn suggested.

The conjured girl clapped her hands.

“She seems to be able to follow directions and might be a touch psychic.” Fred thought about the girl jumping then smiled when she jumped into the air. “Make that definitely psychic. I wonder how high she can jump...” she trailed off as Faith’s doppelganger leapt into the air a rather impressive ten feet then just sort of floated there. “Are you messing with me Xander?”

“That’s not me,” Xander replied as he stared at the floating, physics defying girl. “Do you have any other tricks?” He stared in disbelief as the girl blurred and changed into a nightmare complete with a long mane of purple flame that matched her tail. “Yeah, I think we found our mount for our army if you can duplicate her without making every copy look like Faith and if you can avoid lobotomizing them.”

“Something to look into,” Dawn agreed as she studied the beautiful looking black horse with the flaming mane and tail. “Can you come down here?” She smiled as the nightmare ‘flew’ down like she was walking on an invisible set of stairs then walked over and nuzzled her hand with her muzzle.

“She’s adorable,” Fred said as she walked over and gently patted the horse on her shoulder.

“Sure, let’s go with that,” Xander muttered, still a bit uneasy about the fact that the horse looked like a nightmare even if he was planning on mass producing them if they could get away with it. “Do we have any ter’angreal that will keep people from splattering on the ground if they fall off?”

Dawn shook her head. “Not that I know of but the Seanchan have flying mounts and saddles with straps that we can probably repurpose or at least use as inspiration.”

Xander was fairly sure he’d feel slightly better about being on the back of a flying mount if he was strapped in, probably. “It’s worth looking into.”

Fred took a step back as the horse changed back to her human form. “On that note, I should get back to work on duplicating the forge.”

“Do you need me to stick around?” Dawn asked as she glanced at the collection of possibly tainted ter’angreal they were using as examples for their prototypes that she’d collected before dropping the rest of the tainted shit into a skimming portal.

Fred shook her head. “Xander and I should be able to figure it out, he has the ability to read ter’angreal and an affinity with fire, we’ll be fine.”

Xander smiled at Dawn. “Don’t worry, we should have everything up and running by tonight.”

Dawn glanced between Fred, Xander and the copy of Faith. “In that case, I’m going to work on sorting ter’angreal. With any luck, I’ll find something useful.”

“Best of luck,” Xander said as he walked over to the possibly tainted forge to examine it.

“Thanks,” Dawn replied as she headed back toward the collection of tents they were keeping the ter’angreal in.

0o0o0

Dawn looked up from the floating black metal spear like spire that she was studying as Egwene walked into the tent, looking a little flushed. “How was training?”

“More productive than I was expecting if a touch embarrassing,” Egwene said as she glanced at the various ter’angreal that were scattered around the tent.

“Embarrassing?” Dawn asked as she studied her friend’s face.

Egwene sighed as she realized that Dawn wasn’t going to drop it. “Loise showed up and gave us some pointers and shared stories of my alternate growing up. Apparently, she really didn’t like clothes.”

“I can see where that would be a bit embarrassing,” Dawn agreed. “Were the suggestions at least helpful?”

“They were extremely helpful though I could have done without her telling Elayne, Apple and Rand about finding the other me having sex with Mat’s sisters last Winternight.”

Dawn snickered as she pictured Egwene naked and kissing Bodewhin and Eldrin. “Which ones?”

“All of them,” Egwene admitted, knowing that Apple wouldn’t hesitate to share.

“Can I just say the other you had excellent taste?” Dawn teased her blushing friend.

“The worst part is, she’s going to want to talk to my parents,” Egwene grumbled as she sat down in a wooden chair across from Dawn.

“Other than some friendly teasing, no one is going to blame you for your alternate’s behavior. It could be worse, your alternate could have been lusting after her family,” Dawn pointed out helpfully.

Egwene shook her head. “I didn’t need to hear that.”

“I know but the look on your face was amusing,” Dawn teased.

“On a safer, less embarrassing note, have you had any luck with the ter’angreal?”

Dawn snickered as she pointed at the black spire that was hovering over the ground. “I should be able to duplicate the part that makes the spire float which should let us make floating platforms that are easy to move no matter how much stuff we load on them which would probably be useful for mine carts or wagons.”

“What was it supposed to do?” Egwene asked.

“No clue,” Dawn admitted. “I’m pretty sure it was part of something else or went with something else or maybe it was just decoration. I’m starting to think the item crafters in the Age of Legends had mental issues or maybe we’re just missing a bunch of pieces. On the upside, I found a box with a key that I can probably reverse engineer to make a bridge of air that can be turned off.”

“Which would let us avoid having to run a ferry service and keep The Two Rivers more secure than a permanent bridge, especially if we put a bell at the far side of the river that they can ring when they need to come across the river. What else?”

Dawn gestured toward a box where she’d put the communication ter’angreal she’d found. “At least twenty sets of communication ter’angreal which we already have enough of but one of them was linked to three figurines which gives me an idea how to create a network so it’s not completely useless. I also found a ring that keeps the wearer a comfortable temperature which should help with winter campaigns.”

“Or surviving a tropical island while wearing decent clothes?” Egwene asked hopefully.

“On second thought, that’s a terrible idea, I should bury the ring,” Dawn teased. She ignored her friend’s dirty look as she continued, “I also found a monocle that shows Saidin weaves.”

Egwene shook her head. “Why wasn’t that put to use?”

“No idea,” Dawn grumbled. “I’m guessing they either didn’t know what it did or it got tossed in the pile after they started building the city and they didn’t need it anymore. Other than the chora tree which you can’t transport via gateways, I’m not sure why they wouldn’t have just moved everything through a gate.”

“Does it require channeling?” Egwene asked, fairly sure the Reds would gleefully murder people for something that would let them see Saidin being used.

Dawn shook her head. “No, you just look through it.”

“Could you scale that up to a wall of glass? Having windows that showed Saidin and Saidar would speed up our attempts to get everyone cross trained.”

“I don’t see why you couldn’t scale it up, of course I’d have to figure out a way to replicate the process with Saidar,” Dawn mused.

“More communication items?” Egwene asked as she looked at the various small intricately carved objects lined up on the table, several of which seemed to call to her.

Dawn followed Dawn’s gaze to the table. “Twenty three male angreal, one sa’angreal and seven female angreal powerful enough that the Tower would go crazy if they knew I had them.”

Egwene blinked in surprise. “Thirty angreal and a sa’angreal? Moiraine said angreal were incredibly rare, was she wrong?”

Dawn shrugged. “Probably not but the Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends had hundreds or maybe thousands of years to make angreal and sa’angreal, even if they only made one or two a year, they could have made hundreds or maybe thousands though I doubt they were that rare in the Age of Legends.”

“Can you duplicate them?” Egwene asked hopefully.

“Not yet but I found something that should let channelers temporarily drain their ability to channel and create angreal but I’m not sure on the exact process and I don’t want anyone testing it until I ask Willow some questions.”

“The Tower is going to go insane when they find out you’re collecting ter’angreal and angreal, aren’t they?”

“Without a doubt,” Dawn agreed, not sure how to feel about the conflict her island was going to generate. “Of course, that’s nothing compared to what they’ll do when they realize we’re hiding hundreds of men that can channel. Hopefully we can convince enough of them that Saidin is cleansed so they can convince the world that Saidin isn’t tainted.”

“Speaking of the Tower, are you going to rescue the sisters that the Seanchan captured?” Egwene asked.

Dawn sighed. “I was trying to avoid worrying about it until Ethan finished sorting out the capital but you’re right, I should at least make me presence known.”

“I’d offer to help but I don’t have enough training or your bullshit gift with threads,” Egwene complained.

Dawn snickered. "Yep, I’m awesome.”

Egwene rolled her eyes. “On that note, I’m going to head back and put in some more practice.”

“Sounds good, the more work you put in with the bracelets the better you’ll be.”

“I’d rather do something more useful than playing with colored lights,” Egwene complained.

“If you want to do something productive, talk to Xander and Fred. We’re going to need miles of sewer pipes forged and you have an exceptional affinity with Earth and Fire.”

“That sounds more useful than playing with colored lights,” Egwene agreed as they left the tent.

Dawn nodded toward Sally who was standing guard. “Don’t let anyone in there that isn’t part of the family. If in doubt, ask Willow or Mat.”

Sally wove a ward against channelers over the entrance to the tent then inverted it and tied it off. “No worries.”

“I need to learn that,” Egwene muttered.

Sally gestured toward the other wooden chair next to her. “Take a seat, I’ll give you a couple pointers.”

“Thanks,” Egwene said as she sat down.

“Best of luck,” Dawn said as she headed toward the stairs, knowing that she’d procrastinated enough and that she needed to hit the Seanchan before they learned of the attack on the capital.