"Hey," a young male voice called distantly. "What are you doing here?" "Huh?" Sari stirred among the dry leaves on the ground, clearing her reddish-brown hair from her face to peer sleepily at the youn man standing uncertainly over her. "What do you mean, what am I doing here?" she would have snapped at him if she were not still half-asleep. "What are you doing here, and who do you think you are, to barge in on a sleeping girl like this?" Sari rolled ungraciously onto knees and palms that didn't seem to fit the rest of her anymore and pushed herself up, brushing off her baggy trousers and coat irritably.

Her temper subsided as the young man flushed sheepishly and started fiddling with his bow. Looming over his small stature helped a bit, too. "I-I didn't know you were actually sleeping here," he stammered, keeping his gaze on his fingernails. "I had just needed to relieve myself really badly, and behind this bush seemed as good a place as any, and I-I didn't know you-you'd be here, I mean, who would, but-but- under the Light, I..." he trailed off, flushing all over again, perhaps realizing he had been about to start babbling. Sari sniffed and bent to pick up the lumpy sack that she had used as a pillow. The sack that held every worldly possession that she had left besides the ones she wore. "I should box you ears for that, but seeing you relly do need to go, I would not want to spoil a pair of good pants for your own wool-headedness." The fool male just stood there, ruubing his bow. Sari straightened, feeling her irritation building again. "Look at me, you, and stop rocking like that. My stomach has a tendency to follow such motions. I said you could go now. I'll turn around -- Look at me! You can go! I'll turn around and you can do whatever, but stop that blasted rocking at look at me first, or I'll sick up all over you!"

The young man looked up reluctantly and started, backing up as far as the bush would let him push against it. For a moment, Sari thought he wouldn't need his privacy, after all. With a sigh, she relaxed again. To the young man, she must have shrunk about a finger's length, though she was still considerably taller than him. The young man started to breathe again. "You're the Paklins' daughter, aren't you?" he asked certainly. But he kept his back against the branches of the bush, nervous hands crushing the dead, dired leaves within his grasp. "The ones who moved to the Two Rivers from the Waste? An Aiel family?"

"Yes," Sari said slowly. He was close enough to being right. "Do I know you?" "Flaming ashes!" he blurted. "I thought you were dead! Your parents, they were butchered up really badly by those flaming Trollocs before those blasted wolves arrived, everyone thought--" he hiccupped, eyes widening as he realized what he had just said. His flush grew, impossibly, another shade darker. He looked as if he would sprint. But Sari held his gaze hard, keeping the rest of him still, as well.

"So my parents were killed," she said simply, taking him in up and down. Of a scrawny medium build for an Andorman of his age, he had a look about his bones that suggested a frame for bulkiness. His pants still showed no sign of loos of bladder control. "Do I know you?" She repeated her question calmly. "I-I didn't mean to, under the Light,--"

Sari cut him off with an exasperated grunt and rolled her eyes. To the Pit of Doom with his apologies and oaths! She'd mourned her parents' death amply since she'd watched from her hidey-hole as they were slain by the invading Trollocs. (She'd managed to fade those images into merciful blurs of color.) The wolves had come a breath or two too late to save them, but they had kept her alive. But what life must end, must end. Something her mother had said --"All of life is a dream. As all dreams, all life must end. It is just a matter of when."'When' is determined by something like the Pattern," her father had added in his foreign accent from beyond the Waste...now, did she know this loose-tongued lad, or not? "Your name first, maybe?" she shook her head, resting her hands on her hips to await a response. He didn't move. "Come on, now, I won't bite your head off if you let the poor dying bush have a little space." The young man blinked, brows rising, and pushed off the bush noisily. "Y-you wouldn't know me. I've only been in the middle of Edmond's Field. I don't think I've ever been to the edge near the mountains, where you and your family live." He paused for a breath, and seemed to resolve himself to blurt, "But everyone know of the family that moved there from the Waste. The Women's Council met about every week, trying to figure out how to go out there and ask you people if you were looking to be proper Edmund's Fielders or not, being as you ewere so close to its border but were never seen to venture into market, or celebrate any festivals, or call on the village Wisdom(ooc: is that what she's called in Edmond's Field? or a Healer?), or anything. And you can call me Vitor." Sari nodded. She had suspected as much of the female visitors they had received regularly --they had never been allowed to stay long. And it seemed he didn't trust her with his name. 'Vitor' was not a proper Andor name. "All right. You know my name. I'll leave you to your business now." She started towards the road.

"Wait," Vitor said. Sari paused, amused. He seemed to have regained his proper wool-headedness. "Where are you headed? "Why do you want to know? Where are you going?" Sari leaned on the tree she was next to, wondering if he still needed to go so badly, what with his sudden curiosity.

He shrugged, averting his gaze to Sari's feet. "Hoped I'd have some company. Some Asha'man found me and told me that I had to go to some Black Tower because I had some latent abilities in saidin, or something. I told him that I had to go to Ghealdan to tell my grandparents that my aunt and uncle are dead. He offered to send me through some 'gateway' thing, claiming it would be the shortest way there. But I told him I needed some time to think, and that I would rather travel to Jehamah by foot. So he agreed and told me to get a haircut whenever I'm ready, but to do so within the year or he would come after me." He scratched his scalp through his brown hair and grimaced. "He told me that either I join, or I die."

Reluctantly, Sari admitted to herself that she actually felt a pang of loss and sorrow for Vitor. She hardly understood a fraction of what he had said, but she knew enough from what she had heard from the Aes Sedai. A fine choice it was, between madness and death. Even if Vitor didn't know it yet. At least she had better choices ahead of her.

But Sari wouldn't let on her sympathy yet. Boys always became too egotistical if she revealed agreement too soon. Then they were just purely muleheads afterwards. The Light knew how many Andorboys she had met that fit into that category. Her parents would have thrown fits if they had known how many times their daughter had sneaked into the heart of Andor and into the Two Rivers festivals.

Sari stuck her chin out once to catch Vitor's attention again and to bring him out of his own reverie. "So what are you doing all the way out here, heading towards Whitebridge? And What about your parents?" "I told him I needed some time to think. So I'm taking the long way to Ghealdan, to gain a few more days of freedom to think. And I never exactly had any parents."

Seeing he wasn't about to elaborate, Sari nodded again, chewing on a length of weed and digesting his story. Suddenly, she smiled. "I'm heading for Tar Valon, to the White Tower. The Aes Sedai who found me would have travelled with me herself, but she seems to have disappeared, or else she had just left without me.. I have nothing with me that is worth selling for money, and money. I have no special talents to speak of that would pay for a proper room or any shelter anywhere, and I am not given to begging or taking work from the maids and servants. So I will forage and hunt for what food there may be around here and sleep behind or under bushes, with the earth as my bed and the branches as my blanket and the sky as my shelter. If you wish to travel with me, these are the details." Sari arched an ayebrow at him expectantly.

"I see," Vitor replied thoughtfully, ignoring her look. He'd begun rocking again. Sari avoided following the rocking, suppressing another smile that might have led to laughter, or even worse, giggles. She just turned fifteen. She was approaching womanhood. So giggling wouldn't do.

"So if you're up to it," Sari prompted, going back to the memory of the map that she had often stared at during long nights, "We can travel together as far as Four Kings where the first turn-off is. Or Caemlyn, hwere I'm turning the opposite way." She waited for a breath before continuing, "And I'll wait on the road now, if you want to engage in your business soon."

At that, Vitor nodded vigorously. Maybe he'll start prancing if I stay a bit longer. Sari thought. She got out of his sight in a hurry to hide her smile, hoping the rustle of the leaves under her feet along the way covered the giggle that left her throat involuntarily.